Once A Wolf (39 page)

her to obey.

That Randall had touched her mind and turned her against him… the idea filled him with

revulsion. That he might have touched her body as well…

He would know when he recovered her. The truth would be easy enough to ascertain. Then

he'd have no more doubts about her reasons for helping Randall. No nagging question of her

going with the outlaw because she chose it freely.

Should such a thing be possible, it could not be forgiven. But it was impossible. Rowena had

everything she'd ever wanted in him, and loathed what was bestial, coarse, and uncivilized. Like

Randall.

To become like Randall was a worse punishment for her than anything Cole could devise.

When this was over, Rowena's shame and horror would make her more humble and

cooperative than ever before, eager to make up to him for her faithlessness. He would enjoy

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seeing her humiliation as he pointed out her disgraceful weakness. And reminding her who was

master.

Placing his heel precisely over the discarded glove, he ground it into the dirt.

Unnoticed and all but invisible, Felícita watched the deadly scene play out in the streets of Las

Vegas.

She had come upon a strange silence when she rode into town. The reason had not been far to

seek. Every face was turned toward the golden-haired woman with the gun and the men she

confronted.

Lady Rowena. Felícita would have recognized her anywhere, even in the plain dress she now

wore. And Tomás was with her, oddly disguised but unmistakable. The men ranged against him

and Rowena were many and filled with violence, but Felícita did not know them. They were

afraid.

They had reason to fear. Once Felícita had compared Rowena to a cactus that stood alone,

prickly with self-protection. Now she glowed as brightly as Tomás himself-— more so, for

Tomás was shrouded in a pall that dimmed the brilliance of his mind like a cloud over the sun.

Felícita clutched her horse's reins and whispered a prayer. Tomás and Rowena had come to

help her, as Sim predicted— but she could not help them. There were too many people here,

too many voices, too much anger. She was but one girl, and a coward.

She drew her breath to shout out a warning just as she saw the man with the rifle aim toward

the lady from behind the corner of the building.

No warning was required. The man missed, and then Sim Kavanagh appeared out of nowhere

to place himself in the lady's path. His intervention allowed them to escape before he, too, rode

away.

Felícita did not go after him, though her heart was warm with thanks. She could have followed

Tomás and the lady by the beacon of their souls, but a sharp premonition stopped her just as

she prepared to mount.

Sim had said that he was going to find Cole MacLean. He had called MacLean his enemy.

Tomás's enemy. She had heard Tomás and Rowena speak of him in the same breath as

marriage—Cole MacLean's marriage to Rowena. The pistolero facing Rowena had shouted that

same name.

He was here, the man Sim had called worse than himself. In a moment she would see him. She

waited while the pistoleros roiled about in confusion at the flight of their quarry, waited until

another man strode out among them and claimed their attention without a single word or

gesture.

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He was their master. They bent to him like corn tassels before the wind. His very essence

pulsed with a hideous cruelty and power that devoured the empty spirits of the others with

ease.

Cole MacLean.

She had been afraid more times than she could count since the day her uncle died and left her

to face the world alone. She had been afraid of Sim. She was far more desperately afraid of Cole

MacLean. But she led her horse as close as she dared, listening to his voice as he scolded and

threatened his followers for their failure. She heard him speak of the lady with possession in his

voice, and knew he would not harm her with anything so obvious as a gun.

But he had claimed her. He would kill Tomás to get her. And when he had killed Tomás, he

would destroy her as well.

This, then, was evil. And she knew, with a certainty she had felt but once before, that this man

was at the very heart of the sorrow and hatred and pain that hung above Tomás and Rowena,

that stood in the way of their true destinies.

She leaned her forehead against her horses warm neck and shuddered. She could not know the

future. But as she'd once felt that her own fate was tied to that of the lady and the wolf, so she

now understood that Sim and Cole MacLean were a part of the same tangled web. And she was

the only one who could observe MacLean without being noticed.

No. She was not strong like Lady Rowena. She was nobody, nothing. She could ride away, find

the others and warn them, be safe from the horror of twisted souls like Cole MacLean's.

But she would still be haunted by the memory of how she had betrayed Rowena at Sim's

command. He and Cole MacLean were almost like brothers. If there was a way to stop

MacLean, she might be the one to find it.

Swallowing the thickness in her throat, she tried not to feel what came from MacLean's mind

until he was finished speaking and the men had scattered. She watched him drop his glove and

crush it into the dirt as if it were his enemy. His victim.

And then she followed him.

Tomás didn't let the horses stop completely until the hour before sunset. By then they had

covered many miles, and Las Vegas lay far behind them to the west. There was no visible

pursuit, but Tomás did not expect it; the place to which they'd fled was the last hideout

MacLean would ever suspect.

How could El Lobo dare to take refuge on the MacLean's own land?

He dared because this land had once been his. It was home, the home he had lost so long ago.

The home he would not have again.

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He dismounted and lifted his arms to Rowena. She sat her horse without any sign of weariness,

but her gaze rested on the country around them as if she didn't really see it. She let him ease

her out of the saddle without once looking at his face.

She didn't see him, just as she hadn't listened to him in Las Vegas. His doing, all of it: the risks

she'd taken, the danger she'd faced so recklessly, the fact that all the town had seen her

wielding a gun in open defiance of Cole's men. A gun he had not given her.

If not for Sim, she might be dead, hit by a stray bullet meant for him while he stood waiting for

his Fate to be decided. His doing, his error, his responsibility.

And after the great daring she had shown, she was sinking back into the despair he had seen in

her when she'd attacked Sim. He could not bear that as well, knowing he had brought it upon

her. Forced her to become what she was not, for his sake.

He alone was to blame.

He caught her arms and shook her until her eyes lost their blankness, the golden flecks sparking

to life like embers in a banked fire. Her hair, blown loose from its bindings, was a lustrous

flame. Her body tensed to resist him. When he saw the anger wake in her face, he let her go

and waited for the conflagration.

"You addle-brained, rattle-headed buffoon," she snapped. " What ever possessed you to stand

in the middle of the street waiting to be killed?"

Two weeks ago Tomás would have laughed with relief. But he had gone well beyond laughter. It

was anger he felt, a fury so deep that it took him back to the day he'd returned from the East to

find Los Valerosos burning, its great herds of sheep and cattle driven off and its people

scattered.

The day his mother had died.

"You should not have interfered," he said between his teeth.

She put her hands on her hips. "Oh, no. I should simply have watched while you showed off in

your typical reckless manner, speaking to sheriff's deputies and generally behaving as if you

wished to be captured."

Her words cut too close to the truth, and he could think of no retort. " I told you to stay in the

hotel, where you would be safe."

"And I had no intention of passively obeying your commands like—like—"

"Like a proper, docile English lady?"

"If you were in any respect a proper gentleman, none of this would be happening!"

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He looked away, across the plain. "Once I was a gentleman," he said, "the son of an old and

respected family. Once all this land would have been mine, along with ten thousand cattle and

sheep and horses."

She fell silent and followed his gaze. He knew what she saw: yet more desert grassland cut by

arroyos and rocky mesas, carpeted with shrubs, cholla, yucca, scrubby junipers, and

understated patches of yellow, white, and purple wildflowers. He knew it would mean little to

her, a creature from a land of lush greenery and constant rain. She wouldn't understand the

pride and happiness he'd once known at Los Valerosos: herding sheep, swimming in the river

when the water was still cold from winter, riding with the vaqueros to round up the cattle,

sharing jokes with the people of Los Valerosos.

That had all been before he went east for his "formal" education. Before the old feud had

become personal. The traditions of fifty years had been wiped out in a day, traditions and a way

of life that his mother's father's ancestors had made for themselves in New Mexico two

centuries ago.

"It's MacLean land now," he said. "One more part of his vast holdings in northern New Mexico."

"I… don't understand."

"He stole it from my family, after he and his kin killed my father and mother and left me for

dead."

Rowena caught her breath. Of course; he'd never told her so much of his past, merely hinted of

wrongs done and an ancient feud. Why should she believe anything he said if it meant

accepting that her fiancé was a black-hearted villain and murderer?

And yet, in Las Vegas she had turned against MacLean's men and fought for his life. She knew

Cole would kill him without hesitation. If she believed that—if she risked her very future to save

him in spite of his reputation—she'd guessed something very close to the truth. Or someone

else had shared the details.

Only two men might have done so: old Nestor, or Sim.

"The MacLeans burned the old hacienda and drove off the families who worked for my

mother," he said. "Some had been with us for generations. The livestock they claimed for their

own. The law looked the other way." He showed the edges of his teeth. "It took longer for them

to claim the land. Cole had to find the surviving heirs and intimidate them into signing it away

for pennies."

He saw Rowena absorb what he'd said, her face expressionless. "But you're alive."

"Si, I survived. As a desperado. The MacLeans have the law in their pockets, and I am a wanted

man. Of course it will be far more convenient when I'm truly dead. Which, thanks to you, must

wait for another day."

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She ignored his sarcasm. "When Kavanagh captured me," she said, "he translated a song about

you. It told of the feud and what happened between your family and Cole's. It made you into a

hero. But it also said that you killed Cole's father."

"Did you believe it?"

The fierceness returned to her eyes. "The song was written by those who admire you for your

deeds and hate the MacLeans. It was sung in an outlaw camp."

"Then of course the things it said of my enemies must belies."

"I have not seen Cole since you took me from his brother," she said. " I've heard only your side

of this terrible history, but I have seen you break the law out of revenge." She clenched her

fists. "I've… become no better than an outlaw myself. I will make no judgments until I speak to

Cole again."

"Yes. As I said before, doubtless he'll tell you the truth."

"I don't know what he'll tell me."

"If you wanted his opinion, why didn't you run to him when you had the chance? After all, he is

exactly what you want."

She stared at him, her face taking on an arrested look as if he'd said something astonishing. And

then she changed again, as surely as if she'd shifted her shape into the wolf she rejected.

A she-wolf, stalking her prey. She took a step toward him.

"Do you think you know what I want, Tomás Alejandro Randall?" she asked, her voice a husky,

dangerous purr. "Why don't you show me?"

Challenge and desire hung in the space between them like the musky scent of lovemaking. It

caught Tomás like a bullet in the gut. The madness of it worked through his body and filled his