Dawson Bride (Wolf Brides Book 3) (14 page)

Gable followed us right through the front door and lay down beside my seat at the dining table. The kitchen and living area were open and inviting. A large stone fireplace claimed most of one wall and two comfortable looking chairs sat in front of it. A book lay open on a simple end table like someone was in the middle of reading it at nights. A deep sink sat clean and waiting for a dish, while the wood burning stove shadowed the corner.

Lorelei reached up to a shelf and pulled a cookbook down. She flopped it on the table in front of Kristina and sat beside her. Slowly Kristina read the titles of dishes, stopping only a time or two to ask a sound. I’d taken literacy for granted as I moaned and balked against my tutors. Shame heated my face. Not everyone was afforded such luxuries. “Are you teaching her to read?”

Lorelei nodded. “She makes an excellent student.”

Kristina snorted. “She has to say that. She teaches me to read in exchange for tips in the bedroom.”

I clacked my teeth closed. “Like what kind of tips?”

Kristina leaned back in the creaking wooden chair with a glint to her eye. “What’ll you trade me?”

I undid the drawstrings of my sack and dumped the contents. “Mrs. Dawson sent this with me from Boston. She said I’d know what to do with them when I got here. I was thinking we should split them three ways. Equal. You get first pick.”

The women pursed their lips in an eerily similar fashion and stared at the loot as if it were bricks of Spanish gold.

“Deal,” Kristina breathed.

We spent an inappropriate amount of time sifting through each one and discovering the uses of each wash, oil, soap, perfume, and lotion.

Just past mid-day, Kristina went over carefully how to make a stand alone beef and vegetable stew, and when it was warming over fireplace embers, we shared a loaf of bread under what they called The Hanging Tree.

After our meal was nothing but crumbs, we made our way to the barn. As I proved myself a professional chicken handler from my chores aboard the Anna Gale, that task was given to me. I’d collect the eggs and later, when we had a fancy for chicken and dumplings, Lorelei would teach me how to prepare one for the pot. While I took my first lesson on milking a cow, Gable waited quietly outside the door. Thank the Lord because the last thing I wanted was for the cow to scare and kick the pathetic amount of milk I’d managed to squirt out of a marginally grumpy bovine’s udder.

After we’d mucked out the horse’s stalls, backbreaking work if I do say so myself, Kristina motioned me up a ladder to a loft. I thought there would be more hay there, but instead, part of it was partitioned off to make a small bedroom. It sat over a hearth on the first level and would likely catch an acceptable amount of warmth from the fire.

“We fixed this up after the house burned,” Kristina explained. “This was where Luke and I spent our newly wedded days, and now it’ll be yours and Gable’s until you build a house. I wanted you to sleep in our extra bedroom as that’s what Luke’s intended it for all along, but he said maybe you’d like a little privacy since you’re newly mated and all. So,” she gestured grandly, “the barn is all yours.”

Lorelei’s eyebrows knotted together in sympathy. “I know it doesn’t seem like much for a lady used to higher standards of living, but trust me when I say it’s better than sleeping in a tent in the woods. These houses weren’t here when I showed up and the barn was already occupied. It was most certainly an unpleasant surprise.”

“The barn is fine,” I assured them. “I slept in a ship hammock for six weeks, then a train, then a carriage and all on a bad hip. The bed is a welcome sight, to be sure.”

A small wooden table with a lantern and matches sat beside the inviting bed. A small rug had been thrown down as a homey touch and a rocking chair sat in front of a sizeable, uneven paned window. The sunlight streamed in waves through the lumpy glass. This would be our first home, Gable and I. I frowned at the ladder. I wished he was human to enjoy it with me. I’d have to show it to him later. When he could talk and had fewer teeth.

Lucianna

The day had exhausted me. There was so much to learn to be of any help working the homestead. I didn’t want to just be a pretty ornament the way I’d been in my old life. I wanted to be of value and pull my weight. These people had opened up their lives to me and I didn’t even share their blood or name.

Gable disappeared while I was setting our things up in the loft where we’d sleep. By nightfall, he still hadn’t returned. We’d planned a big welcome home dinner for Gable, but the guest of honor was sadly absent. Luke and Jeremiah built up a bonfire near the ruins of the old house in a fire pit that had obviously been used many times. With plates overflowing with the delicious stew Kristina made, with a pitiful amount of assistance from myself, we sat on old hollowed out tree stumps with seats hacked into them and talked easily in the light of the fire.

Gable finally emerged from the tree line looking disheveled and tired. I set my empty plate aside and stood. “I’ll get you some dinner.”

“I’ll come with you.”

We walked quietly, side by side, until we were at the steps of the big house. “Luc, I’m sorry.”

There was a tiny, gnawing hurt inside of me I couldn’t understand or explain. “For what?”

“For not being able to be here enough for you.” He waved half-heartedly at the foursome laughing by the bonfire. “I failed them. I’m failing you, and now I just don’t know how to fix this.”

“Gable,” I said softly. “Stop apologizing for things you can’t control. You had your reasons for staying away. You can’t keep looking back at what could’ve happened. Listen to them. Listen.”

Kristina said something crudely inappropriate and the rest of them laughed as their contentment filled the clearing.

“They’re alive and happy. You can’t change the past, Gable. You have to find a way to deal with it and move on. Let your ghosts go home.”

“I’ll try to stay with you all day tomorrow.”

I leaned my head against his chest and sighed into his strong embrace. “I missed you. I love your wolf, but it’s not the same as talking to you.” I pressed the palms of my hands against his and intertwined our fingers. “It’s not the same as touching you like this. What’s the longest you’ve gone wolf?”

His voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear him. “A year.”

His answer shocked me into stillness. “That stops now. We have to work you back up to some kind of balance. You’re using your wolf to escape painful memories you have as a human. Talk to me instead. You have a reason to spend time as both now. You have me.”

His lips brushed my hair and there was a smile in his words. “Will you give me incentives to stay a man?”

I eased back and searched his dancing eyes. The flickering light of the bonfire touched his scarred cheek and, unable to help myself, I touched it. “For every day you spend as a man, you’ll earn the night with me.”

Disappointment swam in the grim set of his mouth.

“Starting tomorrow,” I amended.

That smile. I’d do anything for that slow burning grin that sent trails of warmth through my middle like tendrils of oil against water. A smile like that could open me right up to him.

I stood over the fire in the hearth and filled his plate. Lorelei had informed me how much werewolves actually needed to eat to keep their bodies healthy and I was determined to keep Gable as balanced as possible. And he could definitely stand to gain a few more pounds after I’d nearly starved him on the boat.

He leaned against the dining table with his legs crossed at the ankles of his boots. He pulled the plate out of my hand and set it behind him before he wrapped his hands almost all the way around my waist. I was powerless to deny his wants. They were my wants to. From his almost seated position we were eye level and I found something exciting about that. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed the tanned skin there. A low rumble vibrated in his throat and I flicked my tongue against his pulse just to taste him. Such an exciting noise, that was. I got the man with a touch of the beast. How could being this close to him feel so dangerous and so right all at once?

My kisses trailed up his jawline and I splayed my fingers against the tops of his thighs. His breath quickened and, seemingly out of patience, he cradled my head in his hand and opened my mouth with his own. Before I knew it, I was up against the wall with no recollection of exactly how I’d got here. One of the iron pans that hung from a hook on the wall clanged to the wooden floorboards beneath.

Gable’s body was pressed frantically against mine and his ragged breath brushed against the sensitive lobe of my ear as he tugged the hem of my dress heavenward. I couldn’t get enough of him—not if I lived a hundred years could I get enough of the raw power he unleashed against my flesh. I closed my eyes and was swept under a tide of frenzied sensuality as his hands found purchase under my dress.

And then he froze.

No, no, no, things were going so well, but an irritated sigh burst against my neck. “Lucianna,” he purred seductively.

I opened my eyes. “Hmm?”

“Lorelei says we better not break her kitchen.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It wasn’t meant for your ears.” He set me regretfully down. “We’d better get back.”

I forgot the plate of food as I swayed out the door. His kisses had a tendency to do to my body what the shot of whiskey had done. Gable, thankfully, was in more control of his mental facilities because he remembered the plate and snaked an able arm around my waist as if to steady me.

Kristina was duchess of the eyebrow waggles when we got back and the boys did a terrible job at hiding knowing smirks. Only Lorelei acted as if nothing was amiss. Apparently she didn’t notice Gable’s excited, ivory-colored eyes peeking out of his very human face, or his cowboy hat held inconspicuously across his lap but I was grateful she had manners enough not to comment. Unlike Luke and Kristina who whistled low and ribbed him relentlessly.

Gable took a seat on the ground against a felled log someone had the good sense to drag near the warmth of the fire. Cuddling into my tree trunk seat, I wrapped my new cream colored shawl more tightly around myself. The flames between us all danced and crackled against a cloudy night sky.

“Tell us about London,” Kristina said. “Does your family still live there?”

Luke gave her a warning glance but it was too late and the question hung in the air like a snowflake scared of touching the cold ground.

“My family’s dead.”

“How?” Lorelei asked.

“I didn’t want to marry a man, and he grew angry with me and ordered my family murdered. He told his men to save me for last. My mother and father were first, and my little brother died in my arms the moment I was shot. Gable took me away before the house went up in flames.”

The firelight held everyone’s attention and Gable pulled me back into his lap. It was much warmer there. I’d never in a million years do something so wanton in my old life, but here, touch seemed necessary to these unusual men. And somewhere in my months of heartache, it had become necessary for me as well.

“Tell us about your fiancé,” Kristina suggested. “Should we worry about him?”

“Yes. He seems to have eyes everywhere. He’s American but I don’t know where from and he plans to move some of his businesses here. He’s tall but not Dawson-sized,” I said with a small smile. “He has dark hair and blue eyes. The ladies in society fawned over his unconventional beauty, but I never found him a handsome man. His eyes were cold, like that of a serpent and when he smiled, it never reached the rest of his face. It was as if he didn’t have any feelings at all.”

Kristina leaned forward as if I were telling a ghost story and Gable hugged me closer.

“He’s a coward, who hires others to murder for him, so you never know who could be watching—who could be waiting for you to slip up.”

Luke and Jeremiah watched Gable through the flames. I didn’t know what they said with that look, so I asked. “What?”

“Lucianna,” Luke drawled. “You know we’re going to have to kill him, don’t you?”

The coward in me shrank away from the idea. “You can’t. He’ll hurt you. We just need to hide forever.” Oh, I could hear how silly I sounded but my desperation to keep my new family pressed me further. “He’s untouchable. Gable tell them!”

“Luc, I couldn’t do it on my own. He’s untouchable in Britain, but if comes here, we can track him down. We can get close enough. The pack can help me go after him here.”

I searched each of the brother’s faces one by one in desperate hope that they would tell me they were teasing. “He took everything from me. If he finds out where I live, he’ll take you too. Tracking him will put you in danger.”

It was Lorelei who looked solemnly over the fire. “They’re right.” Her eyes raked to Kristina. “The boys have experience with people who like to ruin lives. It has made them proficient hunters.”

I wasn’t above begging. “But you made it out by the skin of your teeth! Who’s to say we’ll be so lucky this time. Lorelei, you have a child to think about.”

“And what kind of mother would I be if I taught my child to run and hide from the dangers of this life? Things are different out here. You don’t understand it now, but you will. Out here, the pistol is law. If you want to survive, you’d better learn how to wield it. Trust in the men. They are stronger as a pack and their alpha has returned. They’re your only hope at getting through this.”

All right, I understood what she was getting at. In fact it made a disturbing amount of sense, but I’d been trained to flee for two frightening months and it was a hard habit to break. The lion in me screamed a battle cry against the man who’d so wronged me, but the mouse in me clung tighter to Gable and wished him to stay quiet and safe here with me.

“We don’t have to worry about it right now,” Gable murmured in my ear. “We’ll take a break from the strain and make a home. There’s no use worrying about things out of our control, remember?”

“What’s your favorite memory of your mother?” Kristina asked, giving the relief of a new subject other than our impending doom.

That one was easy. “The night I was shot, she stood up for me for the first time in as long as I can remember. I thought she didn’t love me, but watching her tell Ralston he wasn’t good enough for her baby was proof that she did. She was brave and fierce and it’s how I’ll always remember her. What about yours?”

“I had this mangy cat named Tiger,” she began.

“Did it look like a tiger?” Lorelei asked.

“Not at all. It barely had any hair, was brown as baby shite, and was older than dirt but he was my cat and he was beautiful to me. My mother hated that cat, or so I thought, and told me I was never to bring the wee devil inside our little home. And every week, Tiger repaid her kindness by dropping all the rats he’d hunted at her doorstep, much to my mother’s dismay. Well, I’d break her rules and let him in any time I knew she’d be out for a while and one day I’d forgotten all about him. So when I came into the kitchen and he was up on the table and my mother was sitting right next to him at the table, I thought for sure she’d have my hide. But then I looked at the reason Tiger was on the table and he was drinking out of a milk bowl that my mother had made him. For all she talked against him, she didn’t hate my mangy ratter after all. She’ll never admit that story as long as she lives though. What about yours, Lorelei?”

And so on it went into the night. My earlier panic was soothed with easy conversation and laughter. It had been a long time since I’d smiled so much, and the stretch on my face felt good.

The stars were all out and twinkling around their mother moon by the time Gable pulled me toward the barn. The smell of hay and the richness of animal fur filled the air. It wasn’t quite cold enough to start a fire in the hearth, what with all the fur blankets that lined the bed. Plus, I’d learned last night he was roughly the temperature of a blacksmith’s fire, so extra heat would only serve to make me sleep uncomfortably. We climbed the ladder and Gable began to unbutton his vest. I sank onto the mattress to watch, and he smiled indulgently, then turned so I could better see the show.

“I like looking at you,” I admitted. “I imagined what you looked like when I was on that boat. You know, under your clothes.”

A deep chuckle sounded from him and he shrugged out of his cotton shirt. “And does my body match your imaginings?”

“No.”

A worried look slashed through the blue of his eyes.

“Your body is much more dashing than anything I could think up.” I lifted up on my knees and reached for him, then traced the smattering of scars across his shoulder. “You’ll tell me about these someday, won’t you?”

His nostrils flared slightly as he inhaled. “Someday.”

I unbuttoned his pants and unsheathed his erection. “I can wait.”

Lifting my dress over my head, Gable knelt down in front of the bed and gripped my waist. His hands were warm and strong against my skin. He looked like he wanted to tell me everything that had ever been, but instead, he cupped my face and stroked my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. He kissed me languidly, lapping at my lips until I melted against him. With a wicked grin, I pushed away from him and gave him my back. Then, lowering myself onto my hands and knees, I spread my legs wide and watched his reaction over my shoulder.