Once A Wolf (35 page)

expression was very grave. "We met Kavanagh on the way here."

"What?"

"It is true, Don Tomás. And worse. He had the girl Esperanza with him."

Someone gasped. Tomás clenched his hands. "That is not possible."

"The girl had more courage than we knew. She followed on Delfin, after we left the cañon. I do

not know how she did it, nor how Kavanagh passed us on the way here, but he found Esperanza

somewhere on our back trail. He holds her now." He cast a glance at his fellows. "Forgive us,

Don Tomás. He gave us a message to take to you. He says that you may have Esperanza back—

but you must go to Las Vegas to get her. And you must bring the Lady Rowena."

Fifteen

Mateo's words penetrated Rowena's numbness, dissolving it in a wash of pain like sensation

returning to a paralyzed limb.

Sim Kavanagh. The very name revived the vicious impulses that had brought her so close to

violence hours before. She hated it almost as much as she loathed herself.

Sim Kavanagh had not been defeated. Tomás had let him go, and now he had Esperanza.

She grasped at that fact with desperate tenacity; it was something straightforward to focus on

when the rest of her world had lost its moorings. There was salvation, however temporary, in

knowing what she must do.

Pushing aside the screen of juniper branches, she picked up her skirt and ran to join the others.

Tomás was pulling on the clothing his men had brought him. He looked at Rowena searchingly.

"You heard?"

"Yes." Belatedly she noticed the stares of the men and gathered her tangled hair behind her

head. She lacked even a single pin to hold it in place.

What did they see when they looked at her now?

Esperanza. Think only of Esperanza. "We must go to Las Vegas at once," she said.

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Tomás tilted his head, wolflike. She could recall with vivid clarity the way his fur had felt under

her hand—and how close he'd come to severing Sim Kavanagh's. He was beauty and ferocity

inextricably commingled.

As she was.

"You seem to be feeling better," he said. His voice offered concern and discomfiting warmth, as

if they were still alone. "I have been worried."

Well he might be, wondering if he'd lost his hostage. But since coming for her, he hadn't

threatened her with captivity, nor made any move to hold her. He might not have stopped her

if she tried to run.

"I am perfectly well," she said. "It is Esperanza who concerns me now."

He finished buttoning his shirt and shrugged into a worn woolen waistcoat and patched coat.

"Now you undoubtedly wish I'd killed him. I've only traded one hostage for another."

She heard self-condemnation in his words. Was he as torn as she was, by opposing compulsions

to protect both himself and those he… cared for? Did El Lobo, who willfully and recklessly lived

life for the moment, finally face the consequences of his actions—and his own impossible

choices?

She felt a surge of closeness to him, and a deep desire to comfort. "He was your friend," she

said. "You could not have known that Esperanza would do what she did."

His half smile lacked even a hint of its usual cockiness. "You are generous."

No, she thought. Only weary of this endless battle. "Do you think he will… hurt her?"

"He has no reason to." He took a canteen passed down by one of the man and offered it to her.

"It is not Esperanza he wants."

Rowena drank the water, scarcely noticing its warmth and the taste of metal. "He wants me,"

she said. "He simply used Esperanza."

He drank as well and tossed the canteen to Mateo. "So it appears. This is a trap, because he

knows I—we—will come after him."

She'd expected him to exclude her, to demand that she return to the canyon. She'd been ready

for an argument, to offer solemn promises that she would not try to escape as long as they had

a hope of rescuing Esperanza.

How ironic. If Kavanagh had succeeded in taking her back to Cole, Esperanza would be safe. If

Rowena hadn't fought him…

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She forced herself to think back to the moment when the beast had taken control of her will.

Tomás had shown up as she'd known he would—she'd heard him approach well before

Kavanagh did—but that in itself was not enough to make her take action. The turning point

came when Kavanagh set the gun to her temple. It was meant as a threat to Tomás, and she'd

known, in that final flash of sanity, that he'd never risk her life. So had Kavanagh.

The decision to attack had been instantaneous and lacking all reason. She'd told Tomás that she

wouldn't be any man's pawn, but nothing so sane had entered her mind. She had done what

her werewolf blood demanded. Knocking the gun from Kavanagh's hand wasn't enough. She'd

knocked him from his horse as well, and then leaped upon him as if she would tear out his

throat. Inhuman. Hating. Utterly savage.

If she had remained herself, Tomás would have backed off Kavanagh was clever enough to keep

him away until they reached Las Vegas. She was every bit as much to blame for Esperanza's

predicament as Tomás was.

At least she hadn't Changed. The beast was still at bay. It was the only solace she had left.

"Sim must have worked out a very good deal with MacLean to go so far," Tomás said. "He

wouldn't do this just to save me. He knows what he's up against." He bowed to Rowena. "My

lady, you'll get what you desire. I am sending my men back to the cañon. We will ride to Las

Vegas, and you will have your chance to return to MacLean—one way or another."

How baldly he put it, as if he didn't care. After everything that had happened, he'd let her go so

easily?

"How very inefficient of you," she said coldly, "to have gone to all this trouble to kidnap me only

to give up. What of your revenge, El Lobo? And the ransom? What of your reputation? You

should have saved all of us the inconvenience and left me alone that day in Colorado."

"You're probably right, señorita. I apologize for the annoyance I've caused you."

"Apologize to Esperanza," she said. "I suppose it's natural for a man like you to change his mind

at whim, regardless of who else it may hurt." She turned away from him, hugging herself. "In

any case, I will not simply give myself up to Kavanagh like a sack of trade goods, even if he does

intend to turn me over to Cole immediately. I've had quite enough, and no reason in the world

to trust him. There must be a way to outmaneuver him."

His posture relaxed into the familiar, lazily mocking stance, but his eyes glinted with challenge.

"You can always run to MacLean for help. He has business offices and many employees in Las

Vegas, and the men and influence to outnumber Sim a hundred to one."

"An excellent notion."

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"Of course, your Cole will have no reason to save Esperanza once he has you again. Why should

he care about a poor peasant girl? Unless, of course, he considers it worth his while to kill Sim,

in which case Esperanza may get caught in the crossfire."

"He would not—" She faltered, remembering the corrido and the festering doubts it had

planted in her mind. She drove them out again. "He will not pursue Kavanagh if I ask him not

to."

"Then you have a decision to make, dulzura." The casual endearment caught at her heart. "Go

to MacLean—" Mockery vanished, leaving him solemn and earnest as a boy requesting his first

dance. He all but whispered the next words. "Or stay with me, and we'll outsmart Sim Kavanagh

together."

"You will let me go?"

"I will find Sim myself, and… convince him to surrender the girl." He gave "convince" an

ominous edge, exposing the anger he concealed so well. It was not aimed solely at Kavanagh.

Rowena recognized the signs of self-contempt. Tomás was the last man in the world to judge

himself, and yet somewhere, sometime, in the few short weeks she'd known him, he had

learned to do it. She did not know what flaw or mistake or weakness he condemned the most.

But he would punish himself. He gave her the choice to decide, and thought he knew what that

decision would be. He would not only give her up, but put himself at risk, against both

Kavanagh and the MacLeans. Even if—though— she never told Cole of his presence in Las

Vegas, he'd be walking into a potential trap.

And he wouldn't even care.

She'd told Tomás she could persuade Cole not to go after Kavanagh. She couldn't possibly claim

the same influence on Weylin or Cole where Tomás was concerned—not after hearing the

corrido.

Whatever Tomás had done, she didn't want… couldn't bear… the thought of him dangling at the

end of a rope. That was the way they dealt with horse and cattle thieves here, even the

common variety. And Tomás was anything but common, not with the MacLeans his deadly

enemies.

Once, the decision would have been easy. Lawbreakers deserved punishment. They earned

their fates, however severe. But just as Tomás had begun to judge himself, she had begun to

cease judging. When no man was without sin, how could she choose among them? How could

she hope to weigh one wrong against another, or even know which was true and which false?

She could no longer rely even upon the moral scales within her own heart.

If the only way to make sure of his safety was to accompany him until Esperanza was free, so be

it. She could return to Cole when he was gone. Gone and out of her life for all time.

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Her eyes and nose prickled with incipient tears. She didn't know which was worse: such

misplaced sentimentality or the brutish viciousness of the beast.

"Esperanza is as much my responsibility as yours," she said at last. "I will not run away while she

is in danger. I will come with you."

Tomás grinned his old heedless grin. "Muy valiente. That's my brave Rowena." He trapped her

hand in a tight grip, and she didn't even think to pull away. His elation pulsed through her like

some foreign drug. "You and I, querida— you and I together can do anything."

Oddly enough, she believed him.

The jacal to which Sim brought Felícita was run-down and long abandoned, with one small

window and a roof near to collapse. The door was half off its hinges. A crude bed stood in one

corner; Sim pushed her down on the dirty mattress and closed the door, plunging them into

gloom broken by stripes of dust-filtered light.

Felícita was afraid. For a while, in the cañon, she had been brave enough to think she could

catch up to Tomás and help him rescue the lady. Rowena, whom she had betrayed.

But Sim had stopped her, and her courage dissolved like rainwater into parched earth. While

the bravery had lasted, it had made her more than a little crazy. She had hardly been aware of

place or time, riding all night and into the day until her thighs were raw and her legs felt heavy

as adobe bricks. She vaguely remembered hanging on the back of the borrowed horse as he

walked without her guidance and she dreamed of water and sleep and an end to pain.

Then Sim had come out of nowhere, riding up in a fury of dust and rage, radiating hatred and

hopelessness and grief. She was shocked awake by the sheer power of his feelings. He bled

heavily from the right wrist, which he had clumsily bound up in rags. Scratches marked his face.

She knew that Tomás had found him, and that Rowena was free.

And she knew Sim Kavanagh was not done with any of them.

In the close mustiness of the jacal, he drank from his metal bottle and tossed it to her. She wet

her cracked lips. The ride had been long. They had rested through part of the night before, but

by dawn they had set out again. The torment of her raw skin grew blessedly numb along with

all the muscles in her legs. For many hours they rode east through the pass, turning north at

last into the hills west of Las Vegas. Now it was late afternoon, and she thought she might lie

down and sleep forever. If she were not so terribly afraid.

Sim snatched a three-legged stool from the wall and drew it up beside the bed. "What did you

think you were doing?" he demanded harshly. "Going to rescue your precious lady?"

They were the first words he'd spoken to her, beyond brusque commands she didn't dare

disobey. Without thinking she touched her throat, and then her lips; she could speak, now—

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when she thought of words, they came to her mouth, instead of remaining locked in her

heart—but she did not wish to. He still thought she was mute.

"Tomás got her back," he said, kicking the dirt floor with his boot heel, "but that don't mean he

wins a damned thing.

He'll come—and she'll come with him." He felt in his vest pocket with his uninjured hand and