Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (28 page)

“Like this?” she asked softly of his reflection. The look in his eyes sent a wave of heat through her body.
She ran the brush through her hair again.

“Yeah, Red, just like that.”
His voice was low and husky.

Silence settled between them as she brushed and he watched. He settled more comfortably on the bed, the look in his gaze showing the pleasure he took in her simple bedtime task.

“It’s a vision of you I want to remember,” he told her, quietly breaking the stillness. “When I was young and full of myself, I used to dream of a woman like you; soft and rounded and beautiful. The curve of your back and hips and breasts, the color of your hair, I’ve never seen anything prettier.”

“No red heads at home, then?” she asked softly, and noted that her voice sounded huskier, too. She could feel her muscles tighten in her belly and lower, where the waves
of heat were centering.

“A few, but none with hair that sweeps across my chest when she rides me.
None where I can grab a fistful when I kiss her.”

“No?” Her voice was so low, she wasn’t sure he heard.

“No.” He crooked his index finger, beckoning to her. “Come here, Red. I’m feeling the need for a fistful of that hair.”

Rachel didn’t think. She didn’t need to. Her wolf was so close to the surface and purring like a cat. So what could Rachel do, but stalk her prey.

She rose from the bench and took the two steps to the end of the bed and crawled on hands and knees up the bed to where he held out his hand for her. She didn’t take it with her hand, but captured a finger with her mouth and sucked it in.

McCall surged forward and suddenly she was on her back, McCall on top, holding her hands above her head.

“Last night was yours. Tonight is mine,” he whispered before his mouth took hers. And then his body, minus the towel, covered hers.

She felt him in his entirety, the strength, the muscle, the weight, the heat of his skin, and she arched into him.

He broke the kiss and then he was the one moving on his knees, straddling her hips. He lowered his mouth to her breast and sucked the nipple in and she felt the pull of it deep in her belly and down to her toes. She shivered as if all the heat in her was drawn to her center. Her hips surged up when he turned his attentions to the other, licking, nibbling and drawing her in, so deep he touched her heart.

McCall buried his face between her breasts and she heard him murmur, “Nothing like you in all my days.
Nothing like you.”

And his kisses rained down, down, over her ribs and down the hot line of her center. He circled her navel with his tongue and then did it again and the heat of its laving left a circle of fire behind. Her body surged again, but his hands had left hers and planted themselves firmly
at her hips, his thumbs massaging her hipbones, fingers digging into her into the soft flesh of her rear.

He didn’t stop there, but continued downward, and heaven help her, she spread her legs and bent her knees and then his mouth was on her, tongue invading as it had invaded her mouth. Her hands left the pillow and found his head, his hair, that glorious, tawny mane. She ran her fingers through the silk of it, grounding her mind, because her body was spiraling up and up and out of control and her wolf was howling inside.

“Challenger,” she breathed, barely above a whisper. His mouth was working at that most sensitive spot and it was joined by his hand, fingers sliding in and out, in and out, in and out.

“Challenger,” she whispered again.

“That’s the word I want to hear, baby. Say my name again.”

She tried, oh how she tried, but the fuse was lit and when she opened her mouth and all that came out was, “Oh, God.”

“Close enough,” he laughed and then he was there, holding her while her body shook and her senses returned. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck.

“Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered into her hair.

“Challenger.”

“No, don’t go.” Rachel hooked her exhausted legs over Challengers calves when he started to lift his body from hers.

He lowered himself to his forearms. “Not going anywhere yet, Red. Taking my weight from you, that’s all.”

His was the one weight she didn’t want lifted. She ran her fingers up and down his back and suddenly giggled. “Now I see what you mean about parts in many places, but I think I agree with you. I don’t want to share.”

After he’d used his mouth on her, after she’d gotten her breath back and her senses were working properly, she’d returned the favor, so to speak. He’d tried to stop her, told her she didn’t have to, said it was something some men would say a lady wouldn’t do.

She’d laughed at him. “Have you not noticed, Mr. McCall, that when I’m with you, all genteel and respectable behavior goes right out the window? Don’t tell me what I should or should not do.” And then she frowned. “Unless you wouldn’t like it?”

And then it was he who laughed.

She wasn’t sure that she would like it, either. She had no idea how to go about it, but with a little coaching, and the way he tossed her to her back and drove into her to finish what she’d started, she was pretty sure he enjoyed it. And she did, too. She told him so.

“Though I don’t know if I would like it half so much with anyone else,” she confessed.

“Glad to hear it,” he was saying now, “because just thinking about you doing that for any other man is enough to drive me feral.”

She couldn’t picture herself doing
any of the things they’d done with another man, either. Challenger McCall freed something inside her. With him, she didn’t have to think about what to say or how to say it, what conduct was proper and what was not. All she need be was Rachel Kincaid.

He fingered her hair, bringing it up to his nose and sniffing the scent of her shampoo. “Second thing I noticed. When you stood up and I saw that red hair, something inside me snapped. You were so flustered, which was pretty cute, but mostly all I thought about was taking those pins from that beautiful hair.”

“Wait a minute. You said second. What was the first?” she asked and prayed God it wouldn’t be the way she swung a broom.

“Your ass,” he laughed. “You have a mighty fine ass, Miss Kincaid.”

He rolled with her until she was on top so he could run his hands over the round globes of her rear. Her hair fell around his face and one hand left off kneading to stroke the long waves.

“You shouldn’t tie this up in a bun,” he said, holding out a thick strand. “You should let it hang free.”

“Because the customers would love finding long red strands of it in their mashed potatoes,” she laughed. “It would get in the way of my work.”

“Then tie it up, but don’t ever cut it.”

“What about the girls in your pack, the one you grew up in. What did they do with long hair?”

“Cut it.” H
e smiled at her raised brows. “Short hair for females over ten. Wouldn’t want it to get tangled in a firing pin or give your opponent something to grab in hand-to-hand combat.”

Rachel
watched his eyes, not trusting the serious look on his face.

“I told you,” he answered the questioning look. “The
ir goal is to survive the Big One. Everything they do is centered on that. Male and female, winning the nonexistent war is everything.”

“I guess I wouldn’t make it in that pack,” she said weakly.

He smiled. “You wouldn’t even make it past the gate. Not just your body, your heart. Soft doesn’t survive in that pack. Wolvers like Eustace wouldn’t survive, either.” He nodded at her look of shock. “The omega of that pack could take down almost any alpha in Gold Gulch. We’re bred that way.”

“Raised, you mean raised that way.”
It wasn’t so much a correction as a hope.

“No, I mean bred. Mates are assigned by their breeding qualities;
size, strength, agility, that sort of thing.”

“Assigned?”

“Yep.” His laugh was bitter. “In the end, that’s why I left. I wasn’t going to be studded out like a fucking racehorse. I wasn’t going to let them choose my future for me. Pack comes first shouldn’t mean sacrificing your life to create perfect pups.” He shrugged and this time his laugh was genuine. “I also didn’t want to spend my life waiting for the Big One. My mother took it hard when I left. I think my father was relieved.”

“He wanted you to live your own life,” Rachel concluded.

“No. He wanted me to stop being the family embarrassment,” he told her.

He said it quite soberly, but there was a glint in his eye that Rachel was coming to recognize. She
pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and waited.

“We started explosives training at twelve. It was just small stuff, pretty much the equivalent of M-80s and Cherry Bombs. It was fun and I thought it would be really fun if we actually got to blow something up, so I tossed one in the latrine.” He waited a beat. “How was I supposed to know the Alpha was inside?”

Rachel’s hand went to her mouth when she choked on her laugh. “What happened?”

“Punishme
nt, lots and lots of punishment,” he laughed. “I cleaned those damned latrines for weeks.”

“You were twelve. You learned your lesson.”

“No, I learned to get better and not get caught. Give me fifteen minutes in your kitchen and I could build one helluva big bang. I did it when I was fifteen only I miscalculated the trajectory distance of the shrapnel. That’s how I got this.” He took her hand and moved it down over his hip to a large and ugly scar. “It was such a regimented life. You always knew what was going to happen next at exactly what time. I made it my mission to alleviate the boredom.” He winked. “Want to know how to make twenty horses all circle left at the same time?”

Chapter 27

Their secret was now shared with John Washington. After hauling him from the mine, there was no point in pretending the relationship didn’t exist. He’d seen them, heard them, and knew where to find his friend if he needed help during the night.

That made four who knew; Bertie, from whom she’d never kept a secret and Victor, because Rachel had no doubt Bertie told him everything; Eustace, for whom there were no Gold Gulch secrets; and now the schoolmaster. By her comments, she also thought Liddy Hornmeyer knew, at least about how Rachel felt for McCall.

“He’s a good man, Rachel, and a good man should have a good woman beside him. He needs to find his place and you’re the one to help him
do it. His place is here. People like him. He doesn’t have to be Sheriff.”

Which also led her to believe that Liddy had heard the same rumors her father had, but was too kind to say so.

Her father knew of her feelings, too, but certainly not of the late night visits. If he did, his opinion would have been loud and clear.

If that many people knew, could it still be called a secret? She had to hope.

Washington had arrived at the hotel a half hour before breakfast and managed to be at the table on time, freshly washed and dressed and ready for the day. He shared the first cup of coffee, chatting amiably as he always did, then grabbed the pail in which Rachel packed both his breakfast and lunch. Their workday began with the tourists. His began much earlier, so the children could get the more modern aspects of their education out of the way before the tourists arrive. The school might be closed to visitors, but there was always someone peeking in the windows.

That morning, Rachel followed him out to the hall.

“John, about last night,” she began, “The sheriff and I...”

He waved it off before she could finish. “No one’s business but your own,” he told her and then he smiled, “But if you’re looking for an opinion, you’re good for him.”

It hurt, a little, that he thought only of McCall and nothing of her. So astute in other areas, John seemed woefully ignorant in this. While she intended to support McCall in his bid to become the Alpha, John seemed to have no inkling of how painful that bid would be for Rachel. Whether McCall won or lost, Rachel would lose, but she kept her thoughts in her heart. It was better to have John’s admiration than his pity.

So when he came home to the hotel, directly after school, to give Rachel the
message that Sheriff McCall may be out too late to come calling that evening, she wasn’t surprised. She was, however, surprised by what she heard next.

“I suppose you’re wondering what we were doing out at that abandoned mine?”

“Not really. You’re both fairly new, so I assumed you were looking for Jake Brannigan’s gold.” In fact, she’d meant to ask McCall about it and tease him for it, but had been delightfully distracted. “Coffee?” She held up the pot she’d been about to take to the kitchen to wash.

“Thanks. I could use some.”

The schoolmaster looked tired after his late night and injury. He walked without a limp, which surprised her, but the strain of the discipline it took to do it was showing in his drawn face.

“It’s all right, you know,” she nodded at his leg. “Folks may chuckle a little, but not too loudly. Most of them have looked for the gold at one time or another. How do you think I knew about that pit? Jeremy and I were treasure hunting.” It was one of the incidents that precipitated the talk of Rachel’s becoming a ‘lady’.
“We used to get a lot of gold hunters around here, though not so much anymore. I guess they gave up, too.”

She thought he’d take his coffee at the table where she placed the cup, but he hefted his leather schoolbag onto his shoulder and picked up the cup. “I need some help,” he told her. “Are Mrs. Mullins and Mr. Lode here?”

She liked the way he added the title to Eustace’s name, as if he didn’t recognize the man’s status as omega. She tried calling him Mister, too, but Eustace himself put a stop to it.

“Don’t want my troubles washing onto you, Miss Rachel. When you call me Eustace, I’ll take it that we’re friends.”

“They’re bickering in the kitchen,” Rachel laughed in answer to his question. “That’s why I’m out here.”

They were still at it.

“Oh bosh,” Bertie said as she swung her wet dishrag in Eustace’s direction, “Everybody already knows where you’ve been parking your boots of a night. You may as well make it official. And don’t go sayin’ you’d be draggin’ her down.” The dishrag flew again for emphasis. “Whether she wears the label or not, poor Maudie can’t get much lower on the totem pole. Now you’re labelin’ her as a fallen woman, to boot. You do right by her, Eustace. Ain’t that right?”

She appealed to Rachel, but Rachel raised her hands, making it clear she had no opinion in the matter. If she didn’t want her love life discussed, she had no business commenting on anyone else’s. It didn’t matter anyway. The argument would continue until one convinced the other, which judging by past history, could take weeks.

“It ain’t her and me we’re worried about,” Eustace fired back. “It’s them cubs. I don’t want them painted with the brush that was used on me.”

“Mr. Washington needs your help,” Rachel spoke into the lull.

A temporary truce was called as both combatants smiled at the schoolmaster.

“Sure. Be glad to.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Washington?”

“I have something to show you, but I need your assurance that you won’t speak of it until it’s time.”

“Don’t show me, then,” Bertie said, waving her hands and turning away. “There’s nothing I don’t tell Victor.”

“And Victor is a man I trust,” Washington said with a glance at Rachel.

She took that glance to mean Victor knew about the plan.

He took his handkerchief from his pocket. Though a different color, it was folded into a small package just like the one the night before. This time, Rachel saw the small items he carried inside.

“Do you recognize any of these things?”

Rachel l
ooked at the small assortment lying on the table; five small, pitted bullets, a dirt encrusted ring and a broken watch.

“Sure. Them little bullet things are Minnie balls.
From the War Between the States. Remember, Bertie? Old Harold Rutherford used to carry some in his pocket. Had a whole coffee can filled with them at home. Not sure where he got ‘em from since none of that happened here, but he had them and a couple of bayonets and an old sword he swore was carried by a Southern Colonel. You should remember him, too, Miss Rachel. They used to have him over to the school when they got to that chapter in the history books.”

Rachel remembered him well. “When I was very small, I thought he was Santa Claus’ brother. He was a round man with white hair and white mustachios,” she explained, “And he always had candy in his pockets.”

“What happened to Harold Rutherford, Eustace?”

“He retired and moved on. Said he and his mate were tired of wearing suits and...” he looked over at Rachel and then at Bertie, “and other confinin’ clothes, if you know what I mean. He was looking forward to wearing shorts and golf shirts and she was looking forward to, well, you know. They met a visitor, a wolver, who said they’d be welcome, so Rutherford cashed in his chips and moved on.”

While the others talked, Bertie had taken the ring to the sink and scrubbed it with the vegetable brush. Now she turned and held it up.

“They didn’t move on, Eustace. They’re still here.”

Truce over, Eustace was ready to argue again. “No they ain’t. Where’s your wits, woman? They’ve been gone ten year or more?”

Ignoring Eustace, Bertie held out the ring to John Washington. “Where’d you get this?” she asked angrily.

“Bertie, take it easy,” Rachel cautioned.

“I will not take it easy. Ora Rutherford was a good woman, a good neighbor and this is her ring.” She held it out for all to see.

It was a pretty ring, but fairly ordinary, in an old fashioned setting with a little red stone at its center. Judging by its age, Rachel thought it might be white gold rather than silver.

“How do you know it’s hers?” she asked.

“Because Ora made such a fuss about it. She was always polishing it up with vinegar and years ago when we still ran on Hunter’s Moon, she’d take it to the bank and have them lock it up. She was that afraid of taking it off and losing it. Harold gave it to her when they were courting. He bought her finer pieces later on, but that was the one she favored. Finally, when she plumped up with age, that ring couldn’t come off. She’d laugh and say she always considered it a part of her and now it really was. Anybody who knew Ora would know that ring. Where’d you get it?” she asked again.

“In a pit, a mineshaft, I suppose...”

“Parson’s claim,” Rachel added. Anyone who’d lived here long enough would know which mine was which.

“Their bones are still there,” Washington said gently, “along with whoever owned this watch. You were right, Mrs. Mullins. They never left Gold Gulch.”

Bertie sat down heavily. She looked as if she might cry and Bertie never cried. Her eyes misted and she blinked back the tears.

“Ora never liked Gold Gulch. She didn’t like the clothes or the way things were done, but she loved Harold and she made the best of it, with him always promising to take her away. When he finally got around to it after all those years, she was happy as a lark. Said she’d miss us, but not this town and the first things she was going to buy were a pair of s
unglasses and flip-flop sandals like the tourists wear, and a big flouncy dress that would cover up whatever her corset let loose. She deserved that. She and Harold, both. Somebody took that away and somebody needs to pay.”

Bertie’s eyes had changed and even though it was the Hunter’s Moon when the shift was easier for a woman, Rachel couldn’t imagine the kind of anger it would take to bring Bertie’s wolf so close to the surface.

“Someone will, Mrs. Mullins, I promise,” John said. He took her hand and when the older woman looked up into his eyes, she visibly calmed. “But I need help. I need a list of everyone you can think of who has left Gold Gulch in the last fifteen to twenty years. Not the young cubs who go off to mate or to school. We’re looking for the ones like the Rutherfords or like Lucius Hornmeyer, who died while in good health.”

“People who had money saved, unmortgaged businesses, businesses that could be sold again if there was no one to inherit...” Rachel started putting it together.

“Should I be feeling lucky?” Eustace asked.

“I think you should,” John Washington answered seriously. “Being left with nothing but your life is a lot more than the Rutherfords got.”

“What about Liddy?” Rachel asked.

“No!” Bert
ie answered sharply before Washington had a chance. “She’ll be upset and likely go to her son and I’m not sure on which side of the line he stands, or if he stands at all, the selfish little bas...”

“Bertie!”

“Well, he is,” Bertie insisted, “And that mate of his is a greedy little bitch if there ever was one. They’re back to speaking because Mr. Washington here left them no choice, but they haven’t taken her in, have they? And they still wouldn’t offer her a dollar if they found it in the gutter. Whatever Lucius Hornmeyer did or didn’t do, Liddy had no say in it.”

As if on cue, Liddy Hornmeyer
called hello from the dining room.

“I thought you might need some help setting out Tea,” she said cheerfully as she entered the kitchen. She immediately took in Bertie’s livid face and the other’s silence. “Is something wrong?”

“You bet there is,” Bertie said angrily and she flung the soggy dishcloth at Eustace. “Tell this layabout he needs to quit
beatin' the devil around the stump and ask the Widow Cove to mate him.”

“Aw, keep it to yourself, you old bat,” Eustace snarled as he peeled the rag from his head. “I don't care a continental what you say, anyway.
Me and Maudie’ll decide what’s best.”

They continued to argue as Liddy looked over at Rachel
and made a sympathetic face. “They’ve been going at it all day?”

“All day.”
Rachel nodded and closed her eyes, hoping Liddy wouldn’t see the tears forming there or would mistake the cause if she did.

This was her family
, socially inferior and yet superior in every way, and they had taken Liddy Hornmeyer into the fold. Rachel was going to miss them terribly when it was time for her to go. She slapped the table with the palms of her hands, mostly as a warning to herself to keep her feelings to herself, but the others thought it was for them.

“Enough! Argue about it tomorrow. We have Tea to get ready and I won’t have the customers listening to your bickering instead of enjoying our food. Liddy, would you mind checking the tables and then see if my father is ready? Bertie, get the water on for tea and then slice the aspic. Eustace, we need sweet pickles from the pantry and has anyone seen the olive fork?” She turned to John. “I’m sorry, Mr. Washington, but we have a business to run. Let me see you out.”

“I can help if you need it.”