Wolf Bride (13 page)

His mouth was set in a grim line but he said nothing.

Anger was a whiplash against my skin. “Fine. I suppose that’s the catch then isn’t it. I get to bed a fine and handsome man and fall under his protection, but I won’t have the whole family.” I fled the water as fast as my dragging legs could go. “What with my past, why did I ever expect to have some perfect ending?”

I needed to escape before I cried. That would be the push that sent me over the edge if he got the satisfaction of seeing me cry over him. I shoved my feet into my shoes and threw my dress and apron over my shoulder before I turned. “I’ll marry you still, Luke Dawson, because damn you, you made me love you before you enlightened me of your rules.” I stomped off in the direction of Rosy with the back of my hand pressed to my eye like it would help keep the tears inside of me.

Why was I so emotional over something I didn’t even know I’d wanted? Never had the thought occurred to me that I’d want a child with any man. Not after seeing the darkest parts of them. But then Luke had come and cared for me, saved me, touched me, and all the sudden, him taking this away felt like a betrayal.

I thought he’d give me anything. The assumption was so stupid because no man I’d ever met had been honorable, but Luke was. The treacherously hopeful corners of my heart thought he would find a way to fix everything. What a fool I’d been. He didn’t want a child with a saloon girl. He didn’t want a child who would bear a whore’s blood running through his veins.

My fury helped to hoist me up onto a grazing Rosy in one motion. I gathered my clothes in my lap and nudged the red-hided animal away from the prying eyes of that insensitive man. The wind whipped through my wet hair and raised gooseflesh on my skin as it caressed the moisture on it. The sound of the lonesome breeze comforted me and dried my eyes.

Maybe he was right.

What chance did the child of a whore have in such a cruel world?

Luke

Maybe if I brought enough catfish home with me, she’d be less angry.
Idiot.
That wouldn’t work at all.
You just told her she couldn’t ever be a mother if she marries you, and you think bringing buckets of fish home that she has to cook will piss her off less?
It was impressive how dense I was with women’s actual needs.

I hefted the string of catfish over my shoulder and pulled my horse’s reins in irritation. Gorging on meadow grass had him taking his sweet time behind me.

Okay, but if I didn’t give fair warning before she married me, what kind of man would that make me? The kind that don’t care about honor or integrity, that’s the kind. I wasn’t tricking her into marrying me. I wanted her to know what she was getting herself into. Well, most of what she was getting herself into anyway. The werewolf stuff we’d have to deal with in time, when I was sure she wasn’t going to scatter.

But still…the devastation in her blue eyes flashed across my mind again. Honestly, I hadn’t expected that reaction. She was a whore and I hadn’t ever met one that was the mothering kind, but Kristina was different and I was a fool to forget it.

The familiar smell that belonged in those woods hit me long before I took the time to realize its meaning. I was too lost in my own churning thoughts to pick up on something that was at home with the scent of the native trees and grasses of our little hideaway. It wasn’t until I was much closer that it drew my conscious attention.

I smelled Jeremiah.

“Come on,” I goaded the horse as I pulled him behind. My sensitive nose led me right to his crumpled body.

If it weren’t for the struggling movement of his chest, I’d have thought him dead. His body was mangled in the in between state that said he wasn’t completely with me yet. At least his fur already retracted and he had smooth, human skin again. He grunted as one of his fingers snapped back to its human shape. It was happening so slowly. I was watching my worst nightmare come to life.

“You stayed wolf too long,” I scolded him, unsure if he could even understand my words or not. The rumble that came from his throat said not.

The smell of predator was pungent against the forest. I couldn’t just leave him there. He’d likely been changing for hours and the smell of his struggle and sound of his pain was bringing in critters that would eat him alive.

“Sorry,” I whispered as I hoisted him over the saddle. He screamed and my horse shied. “Steady there, boy,” I crooned. “It’s just Jeremiah.”

The rest of the journey back to the house lasted hours. Likely it was twenty minutes or so, but every labored breath and groan from behind me brought the memory of pain to my bones. My hopes of Kristina being safely inside when we arrived were dashed the second I pulled through the trees that edged the clearing. Her gaze plowed into mine and her eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

“Is he dead?” she asked breathlessly when she reached us.

“Nope, but not for lack of trying. I need you to get back in the house.”

Jeremiah screamed again amid the sound of cracking bones.

“He needs a doctor!”

“What he needs is you not staring at his naked body. Get on inside, you hear me?”

Stubbornly, she said, “I’m riding to town for a doctor.”

“No! No doctors. He’s fine. The best thing you can do for him is fry up these fish. He’ll need something to eat.” I handed over the string of fat catfish and pushed past her.

“I’ll get his bed ready,” she said quietly.

“He’s sleeping in the barn tonight,” I called behind me.

With a furious screech that rattled my eardrums, Kristina stomped for the house as I threw open the barn door. Jeremiah, for all the trouble he’d caused, could finish his change in my own little private corner of hell in the back. I dumped his body and unsaddled my horse before I headed for the house.

Da had taught me there were things in life that a man didn’t want to do, but if he was man enough, he’d do them anyway. I was headed into a hailstorm, and there was no help for it but to keep on going.

I ducked when I opened the door as the smallest of the catfish I’d pulled from under their nesting rocks sailed through the air at my head. Another one followed.

“Dammit woman, would you stop that?”

“What in hells bells am I supposed to do with whole fish? I know you don’t think I’m going to fry them up this way, do you? Your brother’s dying and you hand me fish and tell me to cook them? You’ve lost your ever-loving mind, Luke Dawson, and you’d better find it again, quick.”

I sloughed my reserve off and grabbed her hand before she could throw another. Her eyes were frightened but my speed did the trick. She wasn’t lobbing things at my face anymore. “I’ll clean the fish. Just let me get a clean pair of clothes for Jeremiah first.”

“I’ll get them!” She ran for the room and as we both got stuck trying to shove ourselves through it, she burst out into a fit of giggles.

Leaned up against the doorframe with her pink cheeks and smiling eyes, she looked right harmless from the screaming banshee that had been throwing fish a second ago. I relaxed against the other side of the door and huffed a surprised laugh at the absurdity of the last five minutes.

Moving a strand of hair out of her face, I waited until she was calm enough to hear the truth in my words. “I’m sorry about earlier. I wasn’t trying to boss you around, I just needed to get him off that horse so he can start feeling better. Jeremiah will be fine, I promise. And what he’s going through right now? That man deserves it and more. He’ll be back to his normal, intrusive, overbearing self again by morning. You just have to trust me, okay?”

The smile faded from her full lips. “No, you have it wrong. It’s you who has to trust me.” And with that, she retreated from the door.

She retreated from me.

****

Kristina

Jeremiah obviously had too much drink in him and hurt himself coming home. Luke thought he was protecting me by keeping his drunken injuries in the barn, and while it was sweet that he was trying to be a gentleman, I’d seen more drunk men than sober in the past year. I was basically a professional at men who’d consumed too much of the rotgut whiskey, but if Luke wanted to squander my abilities to sober up a man, so be it. Their loss.

I strained the bucket of milk through the thin cloth again and frowned when Luke called my name from the yard.

“What?” I yelled testily. If the cream didn’t rise off by dinner, there’d be no milk with our food.

“You need to learn how to do this,” came the muffled reply through the front door.

The empty bucket made a thud as I set it in the sink to rinse. I’d go outside out of curiosity, but I’d take my time about it.

When I hopped off of the bottom stair of the front porch, it was obvious what Luke wanted me to see. He sat at a small wooden table, stained darker in the center, with two filleted fish and one in process. Disgusting.

“I’m all for cooking them. You clean them. That’s the deal.”

“This is a valuable skill to have in case I’m not here someday and you get a hankering for fish. Come on, woman. I’m waiting on you.”

“Fine,” I groaned. With my eyes squeezed tightly shut, it wasn’t so bad.

“You won’t learn anything with your eyes closed, now come here.”

I glowered at the back of his head. How did he know?

“You still have your knife on you?”

Out of my pocket my new deadly friend slid, and Luke nodded his approval.

“Good, now watch me this first time, and on the next one you can do it.”

I eyed the still catfish and swallowed a gag. “This don’t seem like women’s work to me.”

Luke sighed and wiped the back of his arm across his forehead. “It ain’t but I thought you said you weren’t like other women. You’re going to learn stuff other women don’t know, because I want you to be prepared out here. If you want me to go back to treating you like you’re helpless, say the word and I’ll coddle you. You didn’t seem too happy when you weren’t contributing though. I respect that, but if doing all the extras is too much, I’ll dial it back.”

Well, that sounded not at all like what I wanted. It was nice that he wasn’t treating me like some woman who stayed in the kitchen baking pies all day. He’d been okay with me going fishing, and bought me a horse so I could learn to ride. He’d even mentioned me learning to shoot a pistol. He was making me his equal, and if cutting up a fish kept him on that path, then so be it.

“Okay, show me.”

Luke did show me, and then after I’d done a hack job of fileting my fish, he showed me how to make the batter to fry them too.

“I thought Jeremiah did all the cooking before I came along,” I said to the sound of popping grease. The smell of cooking cornmeal was enough to set my mouth to watering.

“Nah, we took turns. My Da was the one who cooked when we were growing up. Ma was a self-proclaimed terrible cook so if we wanted to eat, Da or us had to make it.”

“What did your mother do?”

“She did all of the other mothering things, just not that. She helped Da out a lot with his work as well so we didn’t ever mind it. My brothers and I didn’t know any different, so it wasn’t strange. Like this,” he said, leaning over my shoulder and tossing a strip onto the hot grease.

The rasp of his jawline against my cheek was a gentle reminder of the closeness we’d shared in the river and my heart hammered so hard, surely he’d be able to hear it from where he stood.

In search of somewhere to place my focus other than his glorious face against mine, I asked, “What happened to your parents?”

“They’re both still alive, living happily in the city where my mom was born. She doesn’t like the wilds as much as the men in our family do, so Da told her if they got all three of us grown and on our own, he’d buy her a place in Boston. Someday we’ll go and see them. They’ll be mighty surprised to see me settled down.”

If he kept touching my waist like he was, I was likely to burst into flames at any moment. “I guess I wasn’t in your plans, was I?”

“Making a home has always been Jeremiah’s thing.” He paused before he said, “Speak of the devil and he shall appear.”

A moment later, the front door flung open and Jeremiah staggered in. His face was haggard and his hair mussed. Heavily, he sank into one of the dining chairs and groaned as if he’d aged a hundred years in a week.

In a move I found so surprising it caught my breath, Luke kissed my neck before he left me to finish ladling the fish from the oil and onto a cloth covered plate. I glanced at Jeremiah to see if he’d seen the daring affection, but he only had eyes for the corner of the table. He looked haunted.

As I lay the plate of food in the center of the table, Jeremiah put his hand over my wrist. “Can you forgive me for leaving you in such a state?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m fine.”

His dark eyes searched every facet of my face before he nodded. “You do look like you’re healing. I shouldn’t have left until I was sure though.”

I sat beside him as Luke watched us from the front where he poured milk into a pitcher.

“Jeremiah, why did you leave?” I asked. Sometimes it was easier if a man just said the vile thing he was going through—if he spat it out like poison before it turned his soul to rot.

“My wife, Anna…” He swallowed hard. “She was abused before she was killed. I couldn’t watch another woman in pain like that. It was too much.”

I’d figured it was something along those lines so I patted his hand with little surprise. “I’m sorry for your Anna. Thank you for coming with Luke to save me. If you two hadn’t come…” My voice trailed off to a feeble little sound. “If you hadn’t come, I would’ve died too, so thank you.”

His smile was as dry and frail as a barren desert, but it was a smile and a start nonetheless.