Dawson Bride (Wolf Brides Book 3) (10 page)

Padding into the room soft murmurs floated from, Gable sat with his back to me, talking quietly at the dining table with his parents. At my entrance he turned, then stood quickly. His crooked smile was slow and mesmerizing. “You look…” He cleared his throat and pulled out a chair for me.

When I was seated comfortably beside him, he draped his arm over the back of my chair and traced lazy circles on the back of my arm. His touch left trails of fire against my skin and conjured a simmering in my stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.

“When was the last time you saw your brothers?” Mr. Dawson asked.

“Since the war. I haven’t gone back yet. We’re headed for the homestead as soon as we can manage it. I figured we’d leave on the train first thing in the morning.”

“But you just got here. We could eat a nice meal and go down to the shopping district,” his mother pleaded.

“Ma, Lucianna’s in danger from the man who shot her up. He’s been right there with us at every turn, and now’s no different. He knows she fled through the harbor at Liverpool. He don’t know exactly where she landed, but he’ll have eyes everywhere. We can’t put you at risk by staying here. I need to get her someplace safe.”

“She’s safest with you and your brothers,” Mr. Dawson drawled. “I think you’ll be surprised at how much they’ve changed since you last saw ’em.”

A significant look passed between his parents and Gable frowned. “Are they all right?”

“Hunters found them, but they survived,” Mrs. Dawson said in a somber tone. “The homestead’s still there but the dynamic has changed.”

“Hunters?” Gable whispered.

I didn’t know who was hunting his brothers, but my heart stretched out for them. I wouldn’t wish what I’d been through on anyone.

“There’s a train that leaves first thing in the morning to Denver,” said Mr. Dawson. “It’ll stop a lot but you can take a carriage from there. You’ll have to travel wary if her man’s got eyes like you say.”

“Ralston wasn’t ever my man.” I don’t know why it felt so important to clarify. “Gable’s my man.”

I was too chicken to look directly at him, but from the corner of my vision, he jerked his head to me and nearly undressed my soul with his cool blue eyes.

We said our goodnights and Gable followed me into the cozy guest room. The walls were covered in floral wallpaper and thin, white curtains adorned a small window. I collapsed onto the soft mattress but frowned when Gable lay on the floor beside it. The space between us was unfairly wide.

“Will you sleep beside me tonight?” I asked.

“What about your rules?”

“I’m not asking for you to bed me, Gable. I’m asking for you to hold me.”

He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it before he blew out the flickering candle on the night stand. The bed sank and groaned under his weight, and I pulled the covers over us.

His skin.
I’d missed it, though I couldn’t recall ever touching it. His chest was strong and warm under my fingertips, like sun-bathed iron, and his arm wrapped around me in the dark as I lay against his shoulder. Jagged pink scars dotted his torso like a mountain range and I touched them each in turn, accepting them as part of the man I’d missed so badly. This must be what it feels like to lose your mind. We’d spent only a fraction of a second together against the span of our lifetimes, yet here I was, greedily absorbing his warmth as my own and wishing desperately for the moment to drag for eternity.

His hand caught my fingerings but he didn’t stop my progress, only held on and stroked my palm as I ran my hand down his ribs. Here in the dark, it was easy to nestle into his safety and not think about consequences or the immodesty of our situation. I was in a new land, far away from home and bound by different rules. Tomorrow, I could be caught and only have tonight to feel sheltered against him. I didn’t know what it was to be Gable’s woman, but I knew what it was for him to be my man. I wanted physical touch from him. It comforted me in a way I craved to soothe my fractured heart. We didn’t need to talk. I just needed to know he was warm and alive against my cheek.

He kissed the top of my head and held me close and it was enough.

For tonight, it was enough.

Gable

Lucianna looked so beautiful as the light of dawn touched her cheek. Her snow colored hair spread out like ocean waves across the pillow and her berry pink lips were slightly puckered. Damn, she was intoxicating. She filled my head until the wolf inside of me howled to claim her. If she knew half the filthy things I wanted to do to her, she’d turn tail and never look back.

For six weeks she’d tossed and turned in that hammock, but last night she hadn’t moved a muscle. I’d checked to make sure she was breathing twice, just in case. She made a tiny sleep sound and curled closer to my ready body. If she kept wiggling around like that, I’d ignore her rules and consequences be damned.

I had to get up. The temptation to touch her skin was too much.

She stirred as I pulled my shoes on. “Gable?”

The sound of my name against her lips pulled my head to the side, just enough to see the color of moss in her sleepy gaze. “The train leaves in two hours,” I said.

While she readied for the day, I crept out of the room to find Ma had been up with the sun and was making enough breakfast to feed a small army. I ate my first meal while Lucianna was still in the bedroom, and the second when she joined us. She probably wasn’t prepared to see how much food I really needed to maintain my size and satiate the wolf.

The last six weeks had left me nearly starved, but she’d given me all she could, including food from her own rations. At least part of her thin appearance was my fault. Sea sickness was to blame for the rest.

I couldn’t travel by boat as a human. I’d learned the hard way I never got over sea sickness. I’d just wither until I died. I’d had to change on Kelley’s ship on my way over the ocean years ago, and that’s how he found out werewolves were real and I was one of them. Six human weeks on the Atlantic would’ve killed me. I didn’t know how I was supposed to explain to her that I wouldn’t be able to travel by train with her either. I’d been running as a wolf for too long and needed to change almost daily. Being stuck on a train and trying to stifle my wolf was a recipe for a bloody disaster.

I was helpless to wean myself from the necessary numbness my animal brought. The human part of me ran rampant with the horrible things I’d done in a war I shouldn’t have joined in the first place. Killing all those men for nothing more than a difference of opinion had stunted my wolf. I was the alpha in our three wolf pack, and I’d left my brothers so I could drown my wolf in blood and maim his instincts to protect. I’d butchered the balance and now, even when I wanted to stay human to touch my mate, I couldn’t manage it for long.

Da’s eyes lightened in response to my animal so close to the surface. He knew what I was now—Ripper, Bringer-Of-Death, more wolf than man—he was just too polite to say it in front of Ma.

Rows of lotions, oils, washes, and salves lined the table. Ma showed them to Lucianna one by one and told her what they were used for. “You’ll be going to the wilderness now and you’ll miss these things. I know I did.”

“But, there are so many,” Lucianna said.

“You’ll know what to do with them when you get there. I’ll send along more when you run out.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever run out,” she said as she helped Ma put the scented washes into a sack.

She sent us with a jangling coin purse and a bag of food that would keep, and when we’d said our goodbyes, I waved to Ma and Da from the buggy we’d flagged down.

As the pair of bays clomped off for the train station, I swallowed the yellow belly in me and turned to my mate. “Lucianna, I can’t go on the train with you.”

Her look was so monumentally startled, it panged at even the hardest parts of my heart. “Are you leaving me?”

“No. There’s only enough train fare for you. I’m going to find a horse and ride for Denver. I’ll be there before you, but I’ll wait. We’ll hop a carriage together.”

“I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to travel all across America alone and with somebody chasing me, Gable. I just got you back. Please.”

I rubbed my face at the thought of trapping my wolf inside of human skin, inside of a train but I couldn’t lightly ignore her pleading. Not when she was sitting here with her green eyes all round and her lips puckered out like she was about to cry. Dammit, I was in trouble.

“We have enough for me to make it part of the way. I’ll go with you as far as I can, okay?”

Her shoulders relaxed and her relief caused the ache in my bones to settle. Was it like this for all mated pairs? I hadn’t even bedded her yet, but she was mine the same as if I had. Every single instinct inside me said that much was true.

At the train station, the whistle blasted and set my hairs on end and my ears to screaming. I didn’t like all those people in one space but there wasn’t any help for it. I bought our tickets and escorted Lucianna to a red cushioned bench in a passenger car. Steam billowed outside the window and her heart pattered away.

“You ever been on a train?” I asked.

“Never.” Her excitement was catching and I pulled her into my side.

“I’m sorry about scaring you earlier. I won’t leave you unless I have to, all right?”

Her nod was solemn and serious. “I can’t enjoy any of this adventure without you. I feel safe with you around. When you aren’t, I spend every moment worrying and looking over my shoulder.”

I kissed the side of her temple and looked out the window as the train jolted forward. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” I’d murder anything that even thought of harming her and with a smile on my face, but she didn’t need to know the sordid details my inner monster planned.

The train ride wasn’t the nightmare I’d imagined. Sure my wolf howled to escape in the confined space, but Lucianna was a beautiful distraction. Accounting for all the stops and if we were lucky to avoid steam engine trouble or a train robbery, it would take us six days to get to Denver.

I’d never been much for talking as I didn’t have a way with words like my brothers did, but she was an easy speaker with a charitable disposition. She told me of her adventures on the high seas, and though I’d seen most of them, it was like listening to a new story hearing it all from her perspective. She had a different way of looking at the world.

“Can I see your drawings?” I asked.

“They aren’t gallery paintings or anything, Gable. They’re just silly sketches.”

“Please?”

She gave a put-upon sigh and pulled out the journal. It looked a lot different from the unused loose leaf book I’d bought her in Liverpool. The front was tattered and covered in smudged fingerprints and ink blotches, and the smell of sea and salt wafted from its pages. It had character and history now.

The drawings and ink sketches of her brother came first. If she thought she had no talent, she was wrong. She’d managed to capture so many faces, I felt like I’d known him. His personality showed through every smirk, every smile, and every somber expression. I moved a picture of him swinging over a creek on a rope out of the way and my breath caught in my throat as if someone gripped it with bare hands.

There was a picture of me—the me I kept hidden from the human world. The close up of a snarling wolf’s face covered the sea dampened paper. His ears were laid back and his teeth were bared. This is how she’d seen me.

I flipped slowly through the stack. Some had dark backgrounds and made the wolf look lighter in color while some she’d experimented with shadows across his face and body. Flipping through them was like getting a look into the evolution of her feelings for the animal she thought was just that. Ferocious pictures slowly morphed into something different. One was a sketch of me with my head lowered and my tail out to the side as if it were wagging. In one, my tongue lolled out like she’d seen the humor under the mask of fur. Some were of just the wolf’s eyes—my eyes if she ever looked close enough before or after a change.

“Do you like them?” She asked it as if my opinion really mattered.

“I’ve never seen anything like these in all my life, Lucianna.” I lifted my gaze to hers. “Are you trained?”

“A little. I was being taught oil painting before everything happened. I can paint porcelain too, but my instructor said he wanted more from me.”

The woman awed me. I had a talent for building furniture, but the way she saw things—created things—was beyond my comprehension.

The more I got to know of my woman, the more devoted I became.

****

Lucianna

Four days was all I had with Gable, and it didn’t feel like nearly enough. Our money had run so low, eating would be sparse the rest of the trip in order to cover the carriage fare to Colorado Springs. Guilt sometimes tugged at me for begging him to stay, but when I really thought of it, I wouldn’t have done it any differently. I needed to be with him. To talk about our travels and build our connection again. I’d needed his touch and the warm feeling of safety that brute of a man brought me.

As the train pulled away, he stood somberly with the others waving loved ones off. Steam swirled around him, and his eyes, the color of cool water, followed my window with a troubled gaze.

Our separation physically hurt. My chest burned and I found it hard to breath. Paranoia slipped over me like a second skin the moment he disappeared from view. I couldn’t relax or talk happily or enjoy the wild American countryside anymore. Any glance from the other passengers brought a tingle of fear. Were they following me? Had Ralston hired them? I tucked a strand of escaped hair further into my bonnet and faced the window to escape their stares.

Two days. I’d been separated for a month and a half from Gable. I could make it two days.

I missed the wolf for the first time since I’d left the ship. I hadn’t had time to think on him overly much but here, on this lonely train bench with nothing but miles of window wilderness and my roiling thoughts to keep me company, the touch of his fur suddenly seemed very far away. Was he happy with his owner? Was he being treated right and fed enough? Did he remember me?

I nodded off to pirate memories and woke to the chatter of the other passengers. A woman and her three small children crowded the window behind and pointed excitedly.

I squinted at the woods and through the dense trees, a wolf ran alongside the train. I blinked and it was gone. I looked for a long time after that but never saw it again. It was light colored like the wolf I’d cared for.

A dream,
I decided. A dream born of wishful thinking.