Red Snow Bride (Wolf Brides Book 2) (11 page)

The trees were still bare and the bulk of them so close to the road I could reach out and touch them with my outstretched fingers. The warmer weather had melted much of the snow, but every so often a drift showed up here and there. Fluffed up winter birds called to each other from the branches of giant oaks and a cold weather hare dashed in front of our horses. Gently rolling hills stretched elegantly across the landscape and here, in the quiet of the woods, this wonderland looked like it belonged on some easel under a painters brush. Magical places like this didn’t exist in the bustle of the city. It reminded me so much of my garden in the winter but on a much grander scale. A dangerous allure lived here, like the inviting downy pink of a thistle that would prick your finger the moment you mistook it’s brilliance for weakness.

Despite my awe with the wild land, the ride to the Dawson homestead seemed to drag on and on. So restless was I to finally lay eyes on my new home that my horse skittered under me, perhaps reacting to my nervous energy. Jeremiah had become so quiet and withdrawn, I’d given up conversation with him and instead concentrated on memorizing everything about the road that would lead me back to civilization on the occasions we traveled to town. Was that a daily thing around here? What exactly did small ranches do to take up all of their time? Surely some socialization was to be expected.

He pulled his horse onto a small gravel road that wound at a slope uphill. At the precipice of that mound of earth, stretched as far as I could see, he told me this was our land.
Our land
. I’d never owned anything. Not really, and all of the sudden this rugged forest that I’d make a home on was partially mine. A stirring deep within me that tasted of pride and hope was my companion as we rode through frozen meadows and thick woods. At long last, we came to the edge of a clearing.

I scanned it in expectation of the grandeur that this place deserved and was rewarded with a barn, tremendous piles of lumber, and the charred remains of something substantial. The waiting smile remained plastered on my face. The house must be in the woods somewhere, though why someone would put it in the woods when there was a perfectly decent cleared area was beyond me.

I slid from my horse at the entrance to the barn while Jeremiah held the reins. “Where’s our house?”

He cleared his throat once and then again, though it didn’t seem to help him find his words.

Kristina sauntered out of the barn. “I told you, Jeremiah. You should’ve told her. This ain’t the way she should be finding out.”

“Finding out what?” I asked through clenched jaw.

He gestured to the burned scrap heap. “That’s our house. Welcome home.”

Lorelei

“Welcome home? There is no home! Where do we sleep? Where is our bed?”

Jeremiah removed his hat and ran giant hands through his short, dark hair until it stuck up on all ends. “I sleep in a tent in the woods, and Luke and Kristina sleep in the barn.”

Infuriated, I snapped like a dried winter twig. “So my choices are to live in a tent in the woods or in the barn with the pigs?”

“Well, technically the pigs are outside.”

“Not the point, Jeremiah!”

“Right. Well, the barn ain’t the best option because Luke and Kristina are still newly married, you see.”

I didn’t see.

“Well, things get pretty loud in there at night when they get to breeding—”

“All right! So I’m supposed to camp out in the woods for eternity like a savage animal? I’m not a mountain man. I’m a lady, born and bred.”

“Not for eternity, woman. Just until Luke and I can get our cabins built. We have the lumber, we just haven’t had time to build yet.”

I gasped. “Is that where Kristina’s burns came from? Who burned the house, Jeremiah?”

The sound that escaped his throat said he was trying to decide to lie or not. “Honest is best,” I helped him out.

“A band of men came in the night. Called themselves Hell Hunters. They burned the house with Kristina in it and tried to hang my brother and me from that tree over there.”

I stared at the ancient gnarled oak in terror. “Why would they do that?”

“The sheriff and Trudy and her husband showed up in time to help Kristina get out and cut us down.”

“That’s not what I asked you. Why?”

His throat worked to swallow. “They thought we were evil.”

Silence stretched between us like a taut rope. “Are you?”

“No, we’re just different. People don’t understand us, and they fear what they don’t understand.”

The woman’s comments about the devil breeding in her town struck me. I needn’t have worried about integrating into the town at lunch today because the Dawson’s, despite obvious years in this community, were still feared for reasons I didn’t understand.

And I’d married right into this chaos.

I wanted to run away. I wanted to scream and claw at him for bringing me to this place. Where could I hide in this unfamiliar land that he couldn’t find me? I’d been ruined and desperate in Boston, and now I wasn’t any better off.

As if he could see the running in my eyes, he said, “I’m going to make the camp more comfortable for you. If you need anything, ask Kristina.” He turned on his heel and dragged both horses behind him into the barn.

A pile of lumber clunked hollowly as I sat upon it. What was I going to say in the letters I wrote to Mother?

I’m happily living on some forest floor in Colorado. Don’t worry about me; my husband was smart enough not to build our tent on a snow drift. If you ever want to visit, you’ll have to sleep in a barn, and we’ll probably be eating worms for dinner.

I plopped my head into my arms and allowed a tear to fall to the moist earth below. One tear—that’s all I’d grant for the trick that had been played on me.

“Lorelei?” Kristina said softly by my elbow. “Come over by the fire before you catch your death.”

I followed her like a loyal mule and sank into a rocking chair that was burnt around the edges and smelled of smoke. She’d already conjured a fire like some magician and it billowed and roiled, much like my frayed emotions. She disappeared, but returned with an arm load of onions, potatoes, carrots.

“Where’d you get those?”

“You didn’t think we’d be living on leaves and dried honeysuckle did you? The house burned but we dug through the rubble and our root cellar was still intact. This late in the winter, you have to cut off the rotting bits though.” She wiped a large knife on the side of her dress and cut a chunk of blackened, squishy spud away, revealing the healthy portion of vegetable underneath. “I do miss our stove somethin’ fierce though. Cooking over an open fire takes more time and gets food burned a lot easier. You almost can’t take your eyes from it.”

Luke came tromping across the clearing. “Bear raided the smokehouse. I’m going hunting.”

“Bears?” I asked in a tiny voice.

She waved her knife before running it through an onion. “They only bother the smokehouse. They won’t bother you none unless it’s a momma with cubs or if you’re shooting at it. Something must’ve woken it up for him to be out of hibernation this early. It’s happened a couple of times around here.”

I gulped and scanned the woods. “Fantastic.”

“We’ll get your cabin built first. I’m okay with staying in the barn for now and with Luke and Jeremiah working on one house, it’ll get done a lot faster.”

“How fast is faster?”

“You mean how long will you be sleeping in the woods? I don’t know much about these things, but I do know they are trying to tie up loose ends before they have to plant the crops here in a couple of weeks. They’ll be driving a new herd of young cattle up here soon after and things will be too busy to lend too many daylight hours to building.” She leaned forward and winked. “I do say there are worse things than being snuggled up all close to your man for warmth at night.”

The heat that raced up my neck and into my cheeks was as unavoidable as breathing. “Do you think he’ll expect it tonight?”

She stopped peeling potatoes. “Don’t you expect it? You’ve been on a two week journey, newly wedded and not bedded, and Jeremiah—well, Jeremiah’s a tasty morsel, now ain’t he?”

How did I admit this was the scariest part of being married for me? Just thinking about it made my mouth go dry.

She cocked her head like I was an enigma. “You were married. Didn’t your man ever show you how fun it could be?”

“I don’t think that is anyone’s business but mine.”

“Why?” she asked, looking around the empty clearing. “Ain’t nobody here but us and I won’t utter a word to a soul.”

Defensively, I said, “He bedded me.”

“But did he show you the fun in it? I was a whore remember? I know the difference. Most men are in it for their own pleasure, but sometimes you get a man who likes pleasing a woman. Which was your man?”

Defeated. I was utterly defeated to the point of tears at what I was about to admit. “He bedded me four times and I don’t think we did it right. He liked looking at my back and it hurt so badly I didn’t want to walk the next day. He only found pleasure if I screamed out. It was horrible.”

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Bollocks. No wonder you don’t like to be touched, Lorelei. You married a demon is what you did. It don’t feel like a favor now, but that man did you one the day he divorced you. It won’t be like that with Jeremiah.”

“How do you know?”

“Whore, remember? I can tell how a man beds before he takes his pants off. Jeremiah’s a tender man and I’ve been watching. Every time you touch him he all but melts like butter in a pan. He’ll savor you if you let him.”

Her words were crude and highly inappropriate but despite all of that, they made me feel a little better. I didn’t know if it was just getting that horrible admission off of my chest or if it was the easing of the rampant fear her reassurances brought, but I was grateful either way.

The sun sat low in the sky by the time Luke returned with a limp deer thrown across his shoulders. Jeremiah showed up as he was cleaning it on the other side of the barn. I was learning the intricacies of peeling carrots with a gargantuan knife but I was slow as molasses trying it. I was peppered with visions of chopping my fingers off and I liked my hands just as they were, thank you very much.

“She needs a knife of her own,” Kristina said as Jeremiah warmed his hands by the fire.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snorted. “Where would I even put a knife?”

“In your pocket,” he said seriously. “You never know when it’ll come in handy. We’ll pick you up one when we trade your horse in tomorrow.”

I’d had venison stew at an inn that served it on one of our many stops. It somehow tasted even better cooked over an open fire. Or maybe it was because Jeremiah sat behind me with his legs alongside of mine that made the dinner seem more magical. I’d tried to stay angry and wiggle away from him as punishment for withholding the truth from me, but he wouldn’t have it. Eventually, I had no choice but to relax against him.

He gifted me with an irresistible set of apologetic puppy dog eyes, and I softened even more. Leaned up against the log behind me, he listened to Kristina and Luke tell stories and laughed in the places I did. It was nice. Daniel never found humor where I had. A short time out of that poisonous marriage, and suddenly all of our differences seemed obvious when I had a man of substance to compare him to.

I’d leaned forward to give Jeremiah room to eat but as soon as he set the empty dishes down, I folded into the warmth of him once again. My skin yearned for the safety of his touch. It was scandalous and I’d never seen a woman so wanton but I couldn’t help myself. There in the firelight with conversation and company who so obviously didn’t care about my affection toward my husband, my wants went unchecked.

He slipped his arms around me as I drifted into him and the warmth that enveloped me made a jacket on this cold night obsolete. How could a healthy man be so warm? I’d only felt heat like that once when Mother had come down with a fever one autumn when I was younger.

Kristina and Luke said their goodnights and excused themselves to the barn. I reached for our empty plates but Jeremiah tugged me back to him. “No. Just stay here a little while. The dishes will hold.”

The scared crevices inside of me wanted to balk against his pull, but the darkness made me braver and I relaxed into him once more.

His voice was a delicious rumble against my neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about all of this earlier. I meant to. I was going to tell you that first night but you were so damned beautiful and I knew I’d lose you if I told you I had no home to give you.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t have come anyway?”

“Anyone with eyes in their heads could see you were well-bred, Lorelei. I already didn’t deserve you.”

“Don’t say that. Neither one of us is beneath the other. I felt like that in my last marriage and I’d never wish it on you. I think after that night you talked to Daniel, I still would’ve followed you here. He scared me.”

“Mmm,” Jeremiah rumbled. “You don’t have to be scared again. I won’t let nothin’ happen to you.”

I turned so I could see his eyes when I asked, “Is there anything else I should know?”

His eyes dropped for a moment but were on me again. “I mail-ordered Kristina first. She was supposed to me mine but I couldn’t settle with marryin’ a whore, so I pushed her off on my brother.”

Pursing my lips, I let that little tidbit settle on me before I lashed out. I had no reason to be jealous. She and Luke were a good and loving match, and even though she seemed to have insight into Jeremiah that was downright unsettling at times, she was happy being Luke’s wife. It was obvious they loved each other deeply.

“That ain’t all,” he said.

I tried not to glare.

“Luke ran scared last year and left her in my care for a season. When I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to come back and give her a name, I proposed to her.”

I scrunched up my face and squeezed my eyes tightly closed. “So, you lived with Kristina for some months, up here all alone, and both of you unmarried?”

“Nothin’ happened. We weren’t ever physically attracted to each other, Lorelei. My word is good and I give you my word on my honor. I care for her as a sister, but I know you two are friends now and I want this coming from me.”

I huffed air and leaned against him none too gently. They were up here all alone with no society to hold them accountable on decorum, and they hadn’t been intimate? “Did you kiss her?”

“Never.”

I suppose I could understand it, but I sure as hades didn’t like it. “I forgive you.”

His chuckle reverberated through my dress and caressed my back. “Good. You ready to see where you’ll be sleeping?”

“Show me to my castle, good sir.” I stood and wiped dirt and dried leaves from the back of my skirts.

He groaned as he tried and failed to stand and a tiny sliver of worry snaked through me. He was hot as fever and sore. He was too strong a man to be this weak while healthy. I offered my hand but he waved me off and used the log for leverage instead.

“Are you all right?”

“Just sore from the carriage ride is all. This way.”

He pulled me by the hand down a well-worn path behind the charred remains of the house. The trail snaked and curved through the trees until the half-moon glinted off the shell of a canvas tent, much like the ones I’d seen in shanty towns. There would be room enough for both of us, and he’d built a wood floor to keep us hovered above the moist, bug-riddled ground, so at least that was something. The floor was covered in furs, though what kind I hadn’t the experience to identify. They were big and warm looking and that was good enough for me.

Seducing a man was a talent I hadn’t mastered, and likely never would, but Kristina’s words had me feeling bolder than I ever had with Daniel. While Jeremiah talked about his plans for a cabin and rearranged the furs, I pulled on the back laces of my dress and it billowed into a pool around my feet like the fabric of some great sail. My shift was next and Jeremiah froze with his profile to me. The wind was a soft caress as it lifted the strands of my hair that had escaped their pins. Maybe if I clenched my hands, it would stop them from shaking. My breath, however, quaked on.