Dawson Bride (Wolf Brides Book 3) (13 page)

The old man’s eyes glistened with intelligence. “Well, I was set on keepin’ her for my wife.”

“Buefort,” Luke said tiredly. “You’re wife died fifteen years ago.”

Buefort squinted his eyes testily at my brother and said, “But I can see parting with her for four dollars.”

“Dammit, Buefort,” Luke hollered.

I couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled forth from my throat. He shouldn’t be encouraged but it felt so damned good to be arguing prices with that burly old blacksmith again like nothin’ had changed.

With the horses saddled, we made our way back to the general store, dragging the reins behind. Lucianna limped out of the general store with an armload of goods and Luke hopped the stairs to pay.

“The crops and herd pay well last year?” I asked. Jeremiah didn’t miss it. What I’d really asked was,
where’s all the money coming from
?

“We turned lawmen for a spell to repay the sheriff for helping us with the Hell Hunters.” His eyebrows waggled. “We collected bounties.” He took a wrapped paper package from Lorelei and kissed her on the cheek.

Huh. Bounty hunting was actually the perfect occupation for a werewolf. Few rules, lots of blood. I took the stacks of packages from Lucianna’s filled hands and out emerged such a bewildered look I’d never seen on a woman. “They take good care of you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Is that my horse?” She pointed to the white dappled filly.

“Sure is.”

Her eyes said the horse was terrifying, but her mouth said, “He’s pretty.”

“What are you going to name him?” Kristina asked in a note above what was comfortable to my sensitive ears.

“Barney.”

I frowned at the horse. She did actually resemble the dappled gray ancient horse we’d rode to Liverpool on. I pointed under the filly’s legs. “Well, he’s a
she,
so now what’re you going to name her.”

“Still Barney,” Lucianna murmured as I packed her new wares into the saddle bags.

“Barney’s a fine name,” Lorelei said.

Kristina punched her fists onto her hips and cocked her head. “She looks like a Barney, don’t she?”

I checked the cinch one more time and motioned for Lucianna. “Barney’s a sound name,” I agreed. “Use your good leg to swing you over.”

“You hurt?” Kristina asked.

Lucianna put a foot in the stirrup. “I’m on the mend.”

“We got salve for scars at the house if you have them.”

She hoisted herself over the saddle without so much as a pained grunt. “I’ll take you up on that. I have presents for you two sent all the way from our mother-in-law in Boston.”

The way she claimed Ma as family made me jerk my gaze up. She looked down at me with a serious expression, and I wanted to kiss her lips right here and now. I would’ve done it too if the whole damned town weren’t watching.

When she was settled in the saddle and I’d given her a short lesson on steering her new horse, I mounted my own and the rest of the Dawson’s followed suit. We pointed our ponies toward home and a thrum of excitement trilled through me at the prospect of seeing our house again.

A bigger part of me anticipated showing Lucianna who I was and where I’d come from. After so many years of hurt and fear about the animal I was turning into, I was coming home.

Lucianna

Barney had to be the least frightening horse to ride in all of creation. She did everything I asked and never got irritated with my pitiful riding skills. Gable’s horse on the other hand, was a monster. He sidestepped constantly and chewed at his bit. His legs had gathered a thin, white layer of sweat before we were even a mile out of town and he kicked at Luke’s black horse on several occasions.

If the smile on Gable’s face was anything to go by, he liked his livestock naughty. “I’m going to run him.”

He took off like his tail was on fire. Gable’s shirt billowed behind him and it looked like he and the horse were one being. His elated laugh echoed over the slow-paced clomping the rest of our horses had adopted.

“That horse is made to run. Gable will get him settled down in a hurry though,” Luke explained.

“You won’t ever catch me running like that,” I mumbled. I’d be a smear on the road if I even tried.

“How do you know you won’t like it if you never try?” Luke asked.

“I can guess. I guessed I wouldn’t like whiskey and I was right.”

“You just have to get used to the burn is all.”

Kristina pulled her horse beside mine. “Let her be, Luke. Give her at least a day before you start taintin’ the lady right out of her.” She turned conspiratorially to me. “I bet Lorelei’s glad to have another proper woman around. Luke’s been trying to corrupt her non-stop for months.”

“What about you?” I asked. “He doesn’t pester you?”

“Oh, no, he can’t corrupt me. I’m worse than he is.” She ducked forward. “You know Gable’s secret yet?”

“The one where he grows fangs and fur?”

“That’s the one.”

“I figured it out last night. Are they like him too?”

Jeremiah and Luke turned in their saddles and grinned from much too far in front of to have heard. Well, that answered my question.

Lorelei dropped in on my other side. “How’d you figure it out? It took me forever.”

Memories of what we’d been doing when I figured it out heated my cheeks. “Um, well—”

Kristina puffed air through her lips. “Hells bells, you found out when he was beddin’ you? Well, don’t that beat all?” She frowned to herself. “Whoa, that’s actually kind of sexy.”

I opened and shut my mouth, then looked at Lorelei. She shrugged like Kristina was a flavor I was just going to have to learn to enjoy.

“I’d shared a room on a ship with a caged wolf, who eventually became my friend. Here I was, missing Gable terribly, and he was right there with me the entire time.”

Kristina squinted. “I like the way you talk.”

Lorelei rolled her eyes heavenward. “What kind of ship did you come over on?”

“As close to a pirate ship as I’ve ever imagined. Gable had to smuggle me out of the country to escape my fiancé, Ralston. I traded my engagement ring for safe passage to America.”

Lorelei’s expression turned dreamy. “That sounds dreadfully romantic.”

“It wasn’t,” I assured her. “We were boarded by British swordsmen who were hired by Ralston. I would’ve died except I unlocked the wolf’s cage and he escaped in time to save me. Before that, I was seasick for two weeks, which was just long enough not to keep down any of the perishables. I recovered just in time for gruel, hard tack, and salted fish.”

“What an adventure!” Kristina exclaimed.

I tumbled on, fueled by their excitement. “Before we even boarded the ship, I was arrested and locked in a barred cell, and Gable swooped in with the pirate captain and saved me from Ralston’s reach.” All right, when I told the story like this, it did sound terribly romantic and adventurous.

“Where’d you get your limp?” Kristina asked, fingering a horrendous burn scar that covered the side of her neck.

“That part really isn’t romantic.”

“Maybe in time it will be,” she said.

Luke’s saddle creaked as he turned in it. He gave her a narrow-eyed warning glance. “Don’t push her. She’ll talk when she’s ready.”

I sighed heavily. “It’s okay.” She probably wanted to hear of someone else’s story to not feel so alone with hers. I understood that. I was curious about hers too. “I was shot by Ralston’s men. Three bullets went right through me, and the other lodged in my hip. Gable knew a doctor. He even offered me the bone slivers he’d picked out as a souvenir.”

Lorelei gasped and pulled her hand to her mouth. “That’s awful, Lucianna,” she said in a quivering voice. She looked positively green.

Kristina’s eyebrows arched. “Did you keep ’em?”’

“No, I didn’t keep much from my old life. Except for my new limp.”

Luke pulled his horse back. “You should’ve. There’s big magic in that kind of stuff around here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I know an Indian or two who’d trade decently for some bones of the living.”

Lorelei slid from her horse and rushed for the fallen trunk of a tree on the side of the dirt road. I turned to dismount too, but Jeremiah was there faster than humanly possible. One moment he was on his horse in front, and the next he was rubbing Lorelei’s back as she got sick in the brush. His horse trotted away nervously and Luke ran to catch up to the runaway steed.

“She’s with child,” Kristina explained. “Just found out yesterday.”

“How’d she find out?”

“The boys smelled it on her. Gable likely smelled the baby the first time he laid eyes on her today. Their senses are uncanny.”

“And disturbing,” I mumbled. What did I smell like to Gable after a twelve day jaunt by train and carriage?

I dismounted as best I could and pulled my trusty old canteen from Barney’s saddle bag. “Here,” I offered to Lorelei.

She was pale and a light sheen of sweat covered her forehead but she gave me a shaky smile and took the water.

“I’m sorry I told that story. I’ve played it over and over in my head until it just seems like its normal, but it isn’t. I won’t tell you that stuff anymore.”

“No, please. Sit with me.” She nodded to Jeremiah and he loped back to his horse with a graceful gait that rivaled even Gable’s.

“I’ve learned the hard way you shouldn’t keep those things to yourself.” She watched Jeremiah mount his horse fluidly. “Secrets are like a poison, Lucianna. Hold them in and they’ll kill the good in you. Kristina and I have had a hard time, but have found solace in speaking of it until it doesn’t hurt to do so anymore. We’ve been thrown into an unstable life because of the men we love. If we can’t lean on each other, everything falls apart.” Her face paled again and she wretched over the tree.

“Shh,” I cooed as I held her dark tresses away from her face. I’d seen the underbelly of seasickness and didn’t wish it on anyone. Hopefully, her morning sickness would be over soon. I handed her the canteen again when she was finished and we walked carefully back to the horses.

Gable blasted through the trees. “What’s happened?” he asked from his skittering mount.

I hoisted myself into Barney’s saddle. “We’re fine. Lorelei wasn’t feeling well.”

Gable didn’t leave my side after that. Apparently he’d ridden the excitement out of his horse, because the beastly creature was on his best behavior. Gable’s hair was a shade lighter than his brother’s but even with their different colored eyes, it was obvious they were related. Their height was commanding, and their backs all straight like they’d learned to ride from the same person. Likely their Da, if I had to guess.

Luke swatted at his neck for probably the eleventh time. “Dammit, Gable. Control him or ride in front.”

Gable’s eyes had lightened considerably to the color of frost. He shook his head a lot but it didn’t seem to help and eventually Luke and then Jeremiah peeled to the back of the group. The women beside me shot questioning glances but all I could do was shrug. I didn’t know anything about the dynamics of werewolves. Bloody hell, I hadn’t even known they existed until last night. That was something the men would have to work out on their own.

The land was beautiful and mysterious. The trees here had to be a hundred years old and sprouts of green grass poked through the winter dried soil. Gable’s expression held such hope and anticipation that my heart panged when we pulled into a clearing and his gaze landed sadly on a charred pile of rubble toward the back. He didn’t pull to a stop until we stood right in front of the ruins.

His voice sounded gravelly and deeper. “What happened to it?”

It was Jeremiah’s voice filled with apparitions that spoke up. “It was the Hell Hunters. They hung us from that tree over there and burned the house with Kristina in it.”

Gable looked down and to the side and his breathing was ragged. He slid a look to Kristina. “How’d you get out?”

I hadn’t seen her face without a smile plastered across it until now.

“Some friends let me out the back and then I came for the boys.”

Luke’s tone shook with emotion. “She didn’t even know she was hurt. We watched her burning alive through that front window and we couldn’t do anything. And then suddenly she was there waving her little derringer like she’d kill them all. I hung but she shot the rope knowing they’d open fire on her. Sheriff was off in the woods lightin’ ’em up and our other friend, Elias, stood right behind her firing on anything besides us that moved. We couldn’t save the house, brother. We could barely save ourselves.”

Gable’s icy eyes rimmed with barely checked emotion. “I should’ve been here.”

Jeremiah nodded slowly. “Wouldn’t have hurt.”

Gable pulled his horse beside Kristina’s and squeezed her knee as if he was sending a silent thank you before he rode for the barn. Moments later he disappeared into the woods, shedding his shirt as he went.

Lorelei wiped silent tears with the back of her hand. “I wasn’t even here for it, but it’s still so hard to hear what you all went through.”

Jeremiah’s eyes were tortured as he watched his wife mourn what could have been.

“Come on, Jer,” Luke said. “Gable won’t be back for a while and that front field still needs to be tilled.”

“What’s wrong with Gable’s wolf?” Kristina asked.

I scanned the woods where my man had disappeared. “It’s not his wolf that’s the problem. It’s his human.”

“Jeremiah used to try and eat me. Do we need to worry?”

I jerked my face to her and grimaced. “Why did he try to eat you?”

“Because his wolf was broken. Do we need to take precautions against Gable’s wolf?”

The great white wolf from the ship sat on the tree line. One second he wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and then he was here, watching me with eyes so light they didn’t have color. The horses pranced and snorted under us but he didn’t move closer.

“Well, that answers my question,” Kristina said low. “Jeremiah would’ve attacked long before now. He changed so fast! I thought Luke changed fast since I came along but damn, your man’s quick as a shot.”

Distractedly, I said, “He has trouble staying human. Maybe the change back is harder.”

“Come on,” Lorelei said. “Let’s put the horses up before he gets any smart ideas about making one into a meal.”

Away we rode, on three splashy looking ponies. The women considerately showed me how to unsaddle and brush Barney out. I was terrified until I figured out my dappled white steed didn’t much like moving if she didn’t have to. It was like brushing a fence post and I’d just never really been able to conjure a fear of stationary wooden objects.

Hoisting my wares from the saddle bag, I nearly screamed when we shut the barn door and turned around to see Gable the wolf sitting patiently behind us. His tail wagged a little and in an instant it hit me how badly I’d missed him. Well, this part of him. I sank into the dirt and he licked my face before he let me wrap my arms around his neck. My ferocious, terrifying wolf followed closely to my side as Lorelei, Kristina, and I walked the clearing to the big house.

“Why is one house so much bigger than the other?” I asked.

Kristina talked around a dry piece of grass that flopped out of her mouth. “Jeremiah wants tons of little babies running around. Luke’s content to be an uncle.”

“You and Luke never want to have babies? But how can you even control that?”

Her blue eyes were animated and open as she said, “I was a whore by trade, Lucianna. I’m trained in the fine arts of keeping babies away.”

I don’t know what they saw on my face but both women burst out laughing.

“So, you’re joking about being a whore?” I asked.

“Well, technically I ain’t a whore no more. Luke’s turned me straight monogamous. I’m all proper-like now.”

“Yes,” Lorelei said. “Proper-
like
. Her manners are still atrocious. Fortunately for her, Luke needs that in a woman.”

Hm. I could actually see that. Lorelei and Kristina’s relationship intrigued and confused me. It was obvious Lorelei was well-bred, well-mannered, and educated to the teeth. Kristina, on the other hand, was crass and bold and unerringly optimistic. Yet, they seemed to get along well and had a sense of humor about the other’s differences. It made me like them more. If two women from completely different worlds could find common ground, maybe they could find room for an English highborn lady with a murderous former fiancé and a gimp leg.