“You can hear it?”
Hear it? I couldn’t take my eyes from the swell of her belly. How many times had I seen Ma swell with child?
“Show me what to do.”
“See there? The laudanum has put her to sleep. Best wrap her fast before she wakes up.”
We watched her in the dark—the rise and fall of her chest, the nonsensical mutterings on her lips, the bandages that hid her injuries. Time and time again my gaze drifted to the letter I’d left her with, folded neatly on the table next to her bed. She’d carried my abandonment in her pocket. How many times had she read those words?
“Kristina told me about you not wanting children,” Trudy breathed. “I know it ain’t easy for your kind to breed, but you’d do best not to take the option away from her.”
“That was part of the reason I left. I don’t want her suffering like my ma did.”
“Suffering? You’re mother raised three boys to adulthood. Heartache is the burden of every mother, but give her the choice.” Trudy grabbed my hand and pressed it against her undulating belly.
Her growing baby kicked and pushed against my palm and the strangest feeling came over me at touching a life so small and fragile.
“Tell her the risks and give her the choice. Don’t take growing your baby in her belly away from her, Luke.”
The walls of the room were coming to crush me. I couldn’t bear the thought of watching Kristina cry like Ma had while burying all of her daughters in their tiny graves. I couldn’t bear the thought of her never holding our sons.
I grabbed my hat and left without another word.
No choice kept us from losing.
****
Kristina
My mouth felt like a cotton ball on a cactus. I’d been riddled with fever dreams I couldn’t quite escape and in the dark before morning, the burning in my body brought me back.
Trudy lay beside me but I couldn’t bring myself to wake her. Luke sat in an old rocking chair in the corner, slumped over with his face resting on his hand. He looked like death warmed over. I didn’t remember him being so skinny, and even in the relaxation of sleep, he still somehow managed to look exhausted. Whatever he’d been doing all these months hadn’t been good for his health. The moonlit window showed enough jaw to tell me he hadn’t shaved it in days. His nose and cheeks were red, windblown, touchable. His neck was raw and open where the rope hung him and his eyes…I gasped. Green pools of color stared back at me.
“I thought you were asleep.” Why was I slurring? This hadn’t been the reunion I’d dreamt about. That one included less clothing and more sobriety.
His voice was gruff and full of sleep. “I heard you wake up. Are you hurting?”
I tried to be quiet and nod but I sucked air in through my teeth at the pain in my neck. “Does it look bad?” His answer mattered.
“You look beautiful.”
“It feels like it looks bad.”
A deep rumbling chuckle came from his corner. “Do you want some more laudanum?”
“Is that what gave me all those terrible dreams?”
“Probably.”
“Then no, but thank you kindly. I’m thirsty.”
The sound of his boots faded into the kitchen and I tried to make sure I was dressed decently. The skin at my neck screamed as I tried to turn my head, so I gave up. Surely Trudy would’ve covered me up well enough.
Try as I might, I couldn’t help the pitiful whimper that burst from my throat when he helped me sit up. I drank more than I needed in an effort not to have to do it again for a long time.
“Can I lie on my good side, so I can see you?”
His eyes traveled the length of my dressing gown. “Your side was burned. The gown will hurt it.”
Like I couldn’t tell my side hurt. It was screeching. “Please?”
He lay me on my side and pulled the rocking chair close, and then gently, slowly, he slid his hand up the thin cotton of the gown leaving a trail of soothing coolness where his touch met mine. His fingertips brushed across my skin as he travelled from knee to hip to waist and stopped just shy of the burn. His hand rested there, creating a barrier of space between my nightgown and blistered skin.
My voice trembled. “Why’d you leave me?” His face dropped but I wanted to see his answer as well as hear it in the rich tone of the voice my ears had missed so much. I rested my hand on his cheek and pulled him back to me. “Why?
“I was scared. I’d never been scared before and I panicked.”
“Scared of what?”
“Letting myself love you. If I lost you, I’d be broken, just like Jeremiah. I thought if you moved on you could be happy, have children, live in the city where you’re safer, find a nice human man to keep you out of the danger you’ll always be in with me. I thought I’d go find you, years from now when you had a babe on your hip and a man, and I’d be able to see how happy you were and maybe I’d be able to live with leaving you then. If I saw I done right by you.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “I saw how you looked at me.” His voice caught. “At it. When you saw me change, I couldn’t get the horror on your face out of my head. You were disgusted with what I was. I didn’t want to trap you in a marriage that scared you.”
Tears ran little rivers from the corner of my eyes and I bit my lip to stop it from trembling. Quietly, so only he could hear, I said, “I can’t read.”
He frowned. “So? It don’t make no difference to me if you have words or not, Kristina.”
“Now we both know the other’s biggest shame.”
“But…I turn into a monster.”
“So?” I tried to laugh but it came out a sob. “Your wolf isn’t half as scary as Jeremiah’s.”
He leaned closer and held my hand in his. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, his wolf tries to eat me every few days. I have to sleep with silver shot in my Derringer.”
Luke looked horrified. “Why would he do that?”
“Because his wolf is crazy.”
“Kristina, you weren’t safe. Why didn’t you just leave?”
“Because if I left, I’d never see you again. And because it felt like accepting all of Jeremiah somehow made up for how I reacted to you when you changed. I’m sorry, Luke. I’m so sorry. I was shocked and scared because I’d been having nightmares of the wolf attack that first night, and I panicked. You left before I could think about it or apologize and I thought I was going to burn alive last night without having made it right with you. It gutted me.”
He pressed his lips to my hand as he watched the dark, blue, dawn light creep in through the window. “I went to Chicago.” His brilliant gaze collided with mine. “That’s where I’ve been. I’ve been hunting.”
My heart gave a nervous flutter. “What were you hunting?”
“Evelynn French.”
“And?”
“She’ll never hurt you again. You’re safe.”
Denial was the easiest thing in the world. For too long I’d looked over my shoulder. It couldn’t happen like this. Not so easily. “But what about those men tonight? She didn’t send them?”
“It was the last thing she did before I found her. She told me about the Hell Hunters she’d hired to kill you and Jeremiah and I rode for days until I got here.” His whisper was anguished as it dropped to a ragged breath. “I thought I’d be too late.”
That explained why he looked so tired. “Have you eaten anything? Or changed?”
His eyes widened. “We don’t have to talk about that stuff.”
“We do so. Are you hurting?”
“I’m all right. Let’s just worry about you.”
“Luke,” I scolded. “You’ve been riding for days with little food, little sleep, in one form for way too long, and you’re injured. Go take care of yourself, man.”
His mouth hung slightly open as if he didn’t know what to say. “What, now?”
“Do you really want to wait until tonight or even days from now with that aching in your
bones?”
The corner of his mouth turned up in a wicked grin. He stood and headed for the door but stopped. My blistered skin burned from the absence of his shielding hand but I tried as best I could to hide the regret of his going. He had another part of himself to take care of too. I couldn’t stand the thought of him in pain just to stay beside me.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
“Promise you’ll always come back to me.”
His eyes held the saddest look. “I promise.” And then he was gone.
My man went away to turn into a wolf, and I was left with a disconcerting emptiness that was slowly filling with something I couldn’t quite understand. I listened until his boot prints faded into the early morning, and then I cried tears of pain, of sadness, of longing, but most of all, of joy.
My wolf would return to me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kristina
Alone with my thoughts and the pain—that relentless, all-consuming pain—the silence turned out to be a good thing. I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t hurting and I finally had a moment to process what happened last night.
Luke was in the woods somewhere, Elias and Trudy were working, and I had no guess where Jeremiah was.
I went through last night over and over, owning the fear I’d had when I’d been chased down by that Hell Hunter, when Luke had the noose around his neck, when the horse had loosed him to hang, and the moment I’d been convinced I’d be burned alive.
I groaned as I tried to find a more comfortable position. I wasn’t dead yet, but I’d definitely burned.
Evelynn French was finally out of my life for good. I inhaled deeply. I’d often imagined what freedom would feel like. Maybe it would be better when my skin healed and I didn’t want to scream.
More important than any of it was the fact that Luke was home. At long last, he was back where he belonged. His admission this morning that he’d been hunting the woman who’d ruined my life meant more than he’d ever know. It was the most romantic thing any man had ever done for me.
A soft knock wrapped on the door and Jeremiah poked his head around it. “Can I come in?”
“Pull up a chair,” I said, trying my best to smile. How could the pain actually be getting worse?
An old rocker clunked down closer to me. “You were wrong,” he said as he sank into it.
“About what?”
“You said your little pea shooter was going to save my life someday, but it didn’t. It saved my brother’s.”
“You aren’t dead yet. There’s still time to save you with it.”
“Do you know how difficult it is to shoot a swinging rope? Nearly impossible. Why didn’t you tell anybody how handy you were with that little puff pistol?”
“A lady has to keep some of her secrets.”
“Mmmm,” he said noncommittally. “I think you’ll do just fine out here, Kristina. You made it through a Colorado winter and you saved a couple of werewolves from the likes of Hell Hunters. Not an easy feat, that one.”
I snorted. “All I did was shoot a rope.”
“That’s not all you done and you know it. If you hadn’t come back, we’d be cold and swinging from that tree right now. Sheriff Hawkins and Elias helped, no doubt about that, but you led the attack and you showed no fear in doing it. My brother lives because of you. So, I guess what I’m getting at is thank you.”
If I could bottle up the emotional balm his gratefulness brought and rub it on my burns, I’d be healed instantly. “You’re welcome.”
He cocked his head to the side in a very animal-like gesture and stared up at the window. “Your man is here.”
A drunken warmth washed over me and despite my burning body, I laughed an excited sound. Luke took off his hat as he ducked under the doorway. He’d washed up and looked happy and fed. His eyes were brighter, and though the rope burn on his neck was still angry and raw, it already looked better than it did this morning. He sat on the squeaking bed beside me while Jeremiah rocked absently in the chair.
“Better?” I asked.
Luke ran his hands through his long, dark hair and nodded slightly. “You?”
“I feel like someone dipped half of me in boiling tar. Did you go by the cabin?”
“I did but there’s nothing to salvage.”
My eyes drifted slowly to Jeremiah. I’d lost my precious dresses but he’d lost so much more. Anna’s picture burned in that inferno and if I had to guess, I’d say it was his last physical connection to her. His lowered eyelids covered the loss that would be swimming there.
“I’m grateful to Trudy and Elias for putting us up,” I said quietly. “But I want to go home.”
Luke took my hand and ran lazy circles over the top of it with the pad of his thumb. “You’re healing, Kristina, and we have nowhere clean or warm for you to sleep out there.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“In the barn. It’ll have to do until we can get a new cabin up.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Jeremiah said. “With you two getting married, I think it would be best if we built two separate smaller cabins. Gable will make his way home sooner or later and I aim to find a wife. That old house wasn’t meant to hold three grown men and their families.”
I bit my lip against the pain of sitting up. Luke pulled the pillow up behind me and held the side of my gown as if it were instinct to protect me from that small pain.
“We haven’t talked about whether we’re still getting married,” I said.
“You wantin’ to look for someone new?” Luke asked. “I’d understand if you did.”
I shook my head slowly, knowing his next words could hurt me more than any burn.
“If you’ll have me, I’m yours,” he said softly. “All of me.” His eyes lightened from their brilliant moss green to the color of the pale and shining moon.
“You’re already my mate, Luke. Just need the circuit preacher to tell me you’re my husband.”
He kissed the palm of my hand and turned to Jeremiah. “What’re we going to do about a place for her to live? My wolf won’t stand for her staying in town where I can’t easily get to her.”
“I can’t stomach it either. It’d be a mite lonely up there without her poppin’ off at everyone. The problem is, when I change, we don’t have anywhere safe to keep her.”
The expression on Luke’s face looked downright dangerous. “You need to learn to control that part of you better, Jeremiah. Going after a woman? It ain’t right.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I hate myself for goin’ after Kristina and not being strong enough to stop it? I don’t know how to fix it besides putting some silver shot in my mouth and pullin’ the trigger. All I can do is make sure she’s safe before I change.”
Luke rubbed his face violently and cursed. “There’s no help for it, darlin’. We’ve got to make a safe place for you before you come home.”
“What about the barn?” I asked, desperation tingeing my voice.
“It ain’t gonna keep him out if he has a mind to get to you. Not as it stands now and we don’t need your scent drawing him inside with the horses and milk cows. We’ll have to reinforce the walls before you can stay nights out there.”
The prospect of taking up space in Trudy and Elias’s bedroom was daunting. “How long will it take?”
Jeremiah shrugged. “If we pick up supplies and get out there now, we can have it done in six days if the weather holds. Maybe five. It means you won’t be seeing Luke until then though. We’ll need to be working from sun up to sun down.”
The mention of Luke’s absence sent uncomfortable shivers to my stomach. I hadn’t planned on being split from him ever again now that I had him back, and to do it so soon? It was a hard bite to swallow. However, if I wanted to get home, he needed space to prepare one for me.
I swallowed hard. “Okay. Five days.”
“I don’t want to leave you. Not like this.”
I put on my bravest face. “Trudy will have me better in no time. Make a place for us and then come fetch me.”
The ghost of the smile he gave me was as sad as I felt. He kissed my forehead before he left, and the sound of those Dawson boy’s boot prints against the front porch was the loneliest sound in the world.
****
Luke
Nothin’ in me wanted to leave Kristina there in Trudy’s cabin. I could almost smell her sadness and every animal instinct in my body screamed to stay with her. To protect her, reassure her…claim her.
She’d called me her mate, and until those words left her lips, I hadn’t accepted it. Not completely. She was my mate and I was leaving her injured and in pain. The space that widened in between us became a canyon.
“You know you can’t see her anymore, right?” my brother asked with a knowing grin.
I turned back around and sat straighter in the saddle. Town had disappeared a mile back and I hadn’t even noticed I was still looking for her.
“I missed that woman. It don’t feel right leaving her when everything in me is screaming to stay close enough to touch her.”
“Yep,” he said, the saddle creaking under his shifting weight. “Sounds like you got it bad. Maybe you’ll think twice before leaving again. Listen, I have to tell you somethin’.” He cleared his throat and looked me dead in the eye. “About a month or so back, I asked Kristina to marry me.”
My gut wrenched. “You did what?” I snarled.
Jeremiah held his hand up like he was calming a spooked pony, but it only made me want to cut his fingers off with the buck knife secured at my waist.
“Now listen before you fly off the handle,” he barked. “You put us in a bad situation when you left. You put a lady living with an unhitched man all alone in the wilderness and people in town was startin’ to talk. I didn’t want her like you do, but we got on well enough, and we worked all right at keeping the ranch going together.” In a softer tone, he said, “She’s a good woman and I didn’t know if you were ever coming back or if you were just done, like Gable. She wasn’t ever going to stop waiting for you, Luke. She would have stayed on for years and I wanted to give her the option of moving on.”