Spirit of the Wolf (6 page)

As she replayed the all-too-recent scene in her mind, Bess's pencil hovered above the ledger book. In the blink of an eye, the memory of that Sunday,
of
the Pastor and Mrs. Higgins, vanished
as
she thought of
Chance
Walker
…
for the hundredth time that day.

H
e had all the outward qualities of the right man...
if
she wanted a husband. Bess grinned at her own silly, romantic notions.
Why,
Chance
Walker is probably no more interested in you than he is in that hitching post out front
!
G
iggling
to herself
, she added,
It's not likely there's a 'hitching' in
his
future!

Still,
he
had
blatantly flirted with her, right from the start. And he
had
, after all, sought out her company, time after time. He'd hinted they were friends
. E
ntrusted her with the one
thing that she sensed he hadn't s
hared with
any
one else: his home town, Lubbock, Texas
.
Why
he'd keep such a thing
such a thing a well-guarded secret
paled by comparison to the fact that he'd entrusted her with the information
.

Many a night, she lay awake
,
hoping
Chance
would open up to her more
. T
hat someday he'd tell her
 
why
he'd left Lubbock in the first place.
If he did, would she have the strength
to be the giving, loving friend he'd need
?

Probably not, she thought, picturing the
far-away look
that crossed his face every time
family or love
came up in conversation. It was as though h
e stood at the fringes of enjoyment, no matter how impersonal, afraid
of th
e bonds that might develop if he got involved. Most curious of all, Bess thought, was the anger that strained his fine features as he watched the warm interaction between Micah and the twins.

Bess noticed all this, and said nothing.

She noticed all this, and went ahead and fell in love with him anyway.

Matt, Mark, and
Chance
had left before sunrise to mend fences along
Foggy Bottom's north acres.
It had been a long, hard day, and the boys gladly bedded down when
Chance
suggested it.
T
hey snored contentedly in their bedrolls,
Chance
took a deep, satisfied breath of early June night air as he stirred the coals beneath the coffee pot. After spreading his own blanket on the dusty earth, he la
id
back, fingers entwined behind his head, staring into the star-studded sky. As he peered through the branches of the yellow pine
above him
,
Chance
smiled, because the tree reminded him of the day, just last week, when he'd seen Bess heading for woods behind the manor house.

He'd told himself he wouldn't follow. That she probably only planned to pick wildflowers for the kitchen windowsill
,
gather mulberries
for a batch of sweet jam
, o
r hunt up mushrooms for one of her savory soup stocks.
Besides, h
e couldn't spare the time to traipse behind her as she did girlie things.

So
Chance
didn't for the life of him understand it when he found himself doing exactly that.

A gold eagle
had
screeched overhead,
and
she didn't duck or lurch with fright. A raccoon scampered across her path
before
disappear
ing
into the thick underbrush, yet her steps never faltered. It took a white-tailed doe, grazing beside a scrub pine, to alter her pace.
She moved slow and steady,
and, speaking in low
tones,
held out her hand to
invite the deer to share her sunflower seeds.

During his years as a cowboy, he'd
seen his share of
rough
-
country
beast
s
, but never
had one walked
right up to a body
!
From where he stood behind a locust tree, h
e could see her
smiling fa
ce
and k
new
how disappointed she'd
be
when
the deer
high-tailed it into the woods
.
He also knew that her
d
isappointment would be short-lived
, and that sh
e'd likely shrug and carry on with her walk in the matter-of-fact way that was
so
typically Bess.

But the doe hadn't run into the woods, as he'd predicted. Instead, it stepped
guardedly
—ears
pricked forward and tail flicking
—right
up to her, and after a moment of
wary
scrutiny, nibbled seeds from her upturned palm. She filled and refilled her palm twice
,
and, much to his amazement, stroked the deer's sloping forehead!

Grinning
now
, he shook his head. He shouldn't have been surprised. Only the day before, he'd seen her in her rose garden, crawling around on her hands and knees, playing what appeared to be a game of hide-and-seek with a rabbit no bigger than her hand. A
nd a
few days before that, as
she hung
freshly-laundered sheets on the clothesline, a chickadee perched upon her shoulder
…
and stayed there even as she
added
quilts and embroidered pillowslips
to the low-slung rope
.

As a boy, his mama had read him
Snow White
. The pretty, dark-haired princess in the fable
was so sweet and kind that even the birds and animals
recognized her goodness. Bess, with her creamy skin and chestnut brown hair, reminded him of that fairytale princess. So lost in thought was he that
Chance
never saw the deer meander back into the woods. Never saw Bess turn toward him. Never
noticed h
er head in his direction.

"
Chance
Walker,
just what do you think you’re
doing behind that tree?"

Her sudden appearance had startled him. He thought he'd hidden himself well, but
there was no denying that
she had him
,
dead to rights. He
'd
pocketed both hands and tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for his presenc
e, but found himself speechless as she
crossed both arms over her chest, wicker basket dangling from one wrist.

"Are you spying on me?"

"'Course not," he'd said
.

"
Then…if you followed
me because you thought I'd get lost, I'll have you know I could maneuver these woods blindfolded."

Fire and ice, his Bess.

Your
Bess? What in tarnation are you
thinking
, man!

Now, as he lay on the cold ground
,
staring up at the inky sky, the picture of her, standing there, chin up and shoulders back in proud defiance, made him smile.
She's some woman,
he told himself.
Some fine woman
. Feminine and delicate, she made every other female he'd known
—and there had been many—seem
like boys by comparison.
Unlike them,
Bess refused to use her feminine wiles to get her way
.
She did not weep or whine or behave in coy and flirty ways. Instead, she faced life head-on in a straightforward manner. He liked that. Liked it a lot.

At the thought, his smile faded.
Where's your good sense, you hang-tailed coyote
? Bess was sweet as molasses, and the years had made him bitter. She was innocent as a newborn, and he'd been convicted of cold-blooded murder.
She believed a little good lived in every being, and life had taught him
that
the opposite was true. She had a doting father and brothers who thought she'd hung the moon, while the only family he'd ever known were cold in the ground...or cold and abusive. Surrounded by the warm arms of family and friends, she'd learned trust and love. Smothered by anger and bitterness,
Chance
had learned
hate and
mistrust.

They were as different as a mountain lion and a kitten.
Even if she had a mind to marry
—and
how many times have you heard her say she
doesn't
—she
deserves a man who's a long sight better than you, Walker Atwood!
Besides, if
he stayed to
o long in one place, the marshals w
ould
catch up with
him,
for sure.

Chance
wanted a home. A wife and children. Wanted those things as much as the next man. But thanks to his Uncle Josh's testimony in court, he'd live out the rest of his days
—however few that might be—alone
. Long ago, he'd resigned himself to his sorry fate.
But it didn't mean he had to like it.

He faced his biggest dilemma to date:
He'd fallen in love with Bess Beckley, and was powerless to do a blessed thing about it. Because
to share a life
with her, he'd have to tell her
everything
, a
nd having Bess know about his black past scared him even more than the prospect of dying at the end of a rope.

Chance
rolled onto his
side
and tugged
the scratchy brown blanket closer to his chin
, trying to
concentrate on other things. Like
chores.
The weather. It had
worked
in the past, and he trusted it to work now.

The height of the moon told him it would soon be midnight. He'd warned the boys
that
they'd rise before sunup and head out to repair the east-boundary fences.
Practice what you preach,
he
thought
;
if you don't get some shut-eye soon, you're gonna have a powerful grouch on all day.

He closed his eyes and tried to snooze.

Chance
's muscles and joints ached from his long, hard day of riding the fences, and despite rawhide gloves, his hands and forearms were scratched and pock-marked from stretching miles of razor-sharp barbed wire and replacing rotting posts.
You're gettin
g
soft
, he scolded, groaning as he
rolled
onto his back again.

Suddenly, he felt as ancient as Bess's father, though Micah was easily sixty and
Chance
hadn't lived thirty years yet.

Yes, he felt old. Old, and tired, and more alone than he'd ever felt in his life.

***

"You gonna sleep all day?" Matt asked, nudging
Chance
's boot with the toe of his own.
Chance
yawned and blinked. "You better have a pot of coffee boilin'," he growled, "or you're gonna pay for that kick."

The boy snickered. "Coffee's been perkin' for half an hour. Thought for sure the smell of bacon fryin
g
would rouse you."

Chance
levered himself up on one elbow. In the months he'd been at Foggy Bottom, he'd grown quite fond of these two young men. Either could have harbored a grudge against him for getting the job their father should rightfully have given to them. Instead, they'd bluntly admitted they
'
d accumulated neither the talent nor the wit to run the farm.
It seemed they sensed
they could learn plenty from
Chance
…
if they'd let him be their teacher.
S
o they followed him, like adoring pups,
waiting
for whatever scraps of knowledge or advice
he tossed
their way.

And he'd taught them plenty since arriving at Foggy Bottom. They'd always been hard-working farm boys, but now they could cut a calf from a herd and hog-tie a heifer with the best of men. When he'd arrived, Matt and Mark could hold their own on horseback, but lately
—partly
because they tried to mimic his style, and partly because they'd developed a heap of self-confidence
—they
sat taller in their saddles.