Once A Wolf (7 page)

and a distant line of stunted trees. Gradually she became aware of small brownish rodents

popping up from holes in the ground, the flash of a rabbit's tail, birds she thought must be larks,

and a sort of hawk skimming across the sky.

She wished she hadn't looked up to watch the hawk in its flight. The sky was enormous. It

arched overhead like an ocean tipped upside-down. She thought that it might fall and drown

her at any moment.

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How could any man tame this country? How could anyone hope to remain civilized so far from

human mastery?

That was the danger. She knew there were Indians here, and natural forces formidable to any

traveler. But those were merely physical perils. The greatest risk was that one might lose one's

self… one's boundaries and inhibitions, the very qualities that raised people above the beasts.

The powerful, almost erotic image of herself remembered from the train filled her mind. That

stranger might belong here. She never would.

She realized that she had been staring blankly across the prairie for several miles when her eyes

caught movement to the south. Figures—mounted men. They were only dark spots now, but

she knew they were drawing nearer.

"Mr. MacLean," she said.

He followed her gaze and his hands twitched on the reins. His nostrils flared.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"Hold on," he said. As soon as she had grasped the side of the seat, he urged the horses into a

faster pace. The buck-board rattled and threatened to shake Rowena's teeth from their roots.

He was trying to escape the riders, and even she could see how futile the effort was. "Who are

they?" she repeated. "Why are you running?"

But he was lifting a rifle from the bench beside him while controlling the horses one-handed.

Rowena twisted to look behind at their pursuers.

Four men, she counted, and one riderless horse. As they came nearer, she could have no doubt

that the buckboard was their intended goal.

"Can you handle horses?" Weylin asked. Before she had a chance to answer, he thrust the reins

into her hands. All her attention turned to guiding the horses, but out of the corner of her eye

she could see Weylin brace himself on the seat and raise his rifle to his shoulder.

Violence. How she hated it. The last time she had been involved in violence, the very world had

been crashing down about her ears. She hated it, and all the raw emotion it exposed.

"No," she whispered. She heard Weylin hold his breath as he prepared to fire. The report of the

rifle left her nearly deaf. When she could hear again, the thunder of many sets of hooves told

her that the mounted men were directly behind them. She thought Weylin had fired several

more times, but she didn't know if he'd hit his mark. She found herself wondering why their

pursuers were not firing in return.

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She was likely to have the answer soon enough. One moment Weylin was taking aim again, and

the next the rifle was torn from his hands.

"Stop the buckboard!" someone shouted.

She glanced at Weylin, whose face was almost pale under his hat. He nodded to her, and she

pulled back on the reins. The lathered horses obeyed readily. She guided them into a trot and

then a walk. By the time the buckboard stopped, the pursuers had surrounded them.

Three riders aimed pistols and a rifle at Weylin MacLean. Two of them she guessed to be of

Spanish descent from their clothing and dark hair and eyes. The third was not unlike Weylin in

appearance, but he stared at her with something very like hatred.

The fourth man held in his hand a long rope, and at the opposite end of that rope, caught in a

noose and lying in the grass, was Weylin's rifle. He grinned brazenly down at her from a fine

gray horse, his face tanned and handsome. His clothing was virtually all black, from scuffed

boots to flat-crowned hat. She knew at once that he was the leader.

"Randall," Weylin said.

The rider let go of the rope and made her a bow from the saddle. "Senorita," he said. "Forgive

this untimely intrusion, but I must ask you and Mr. MacLean to get out of the buckboard."

His voice had a musical lilt to it, and a certain uncanny familiarity. Under his gaze, Rowena's

heart beat faster than it had during the chase itself.

" Who are you, sir?" she demanded. " What do you want?"

"Don't you know, Miss Forster?" Weylin said. He jumped down from the seat and helped

Rowena onto the grass beside the track. He took her elbow in a possessive grip and stared up at

their captor.

"It was you on the train," he said. "I don't know what you're planning, Randall, but you won't

succeed."

His words took several seconds to register in Rowena's mind. "It was you on the train." Her

memory pieced together fragments of conversation and observation: Weylin's reaction to her

mention of Thomas A. Randolph—his grim and obscure pronouncements: "I know he's no

gentleman… you were duped, ma'am, by a scoundrel."

A scoundrel. A counterfeit gentleman with a smooth voice and handsome features and rich

brown hair.

They could not be the same person, this bandit and the obviously cultured Mr. Randolph. She

gazed at him and he looked back with frank calculation, dark gaze measuring her form from hat

to hem. It was the same stare as the one that had left her so flustered on the train.

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Could a man transform so completely? The mustache was gone, and he looked the very

epitome of a dashing dime-novel desperado, ready to sweep swooning maidens off their feet.

He wore a dark coat over a waistcoat of black leather; his collarless shirt of wool topped by a

neckerchief. His trousers were secured at the waist by a black sash and tucked into knee-high

boots, well worn but shining with recent polish. The only expected attribute he lacked was a

gun.

Trembling, she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The scents of horse and dust and grass

and Weylin MacLean were strong, but she still remembered how to isolate one smell from all

the others.

And the bandits was the same. The same as Randolph's, overlaid with the leather and rougher

fabrics he wore.

"Randolph," she whispered. "Randall…"

"A thousand apologies for the deception, my lady," the bandit said, "but it was necessary at the

time." He drew something from his waistcoat: her lost fan, slightly crumpled and incongruous in

his bare brown hand. You.

"El Lobo, at your service," he said. He swept his hat from his head in an elegant salute. His hair

was rough and curling, no longer smoothed in place by expensive pomade. "You need have no

fear of me, my lady. But I must ask you to come with us."

She laughed. The sound unsettled her, so raw and vulgar in the silence. With an effort she

regained her dignity. "You asked me in New York, Mr. Randolph—Randall—but I do not think

that I shall accept your second invitation."

Randall tapped her fan against his chin and glanced at his companions. One of the Hispanos

lifted his rifle and casually pointed it at Weylin.

"Mateo is an exceptionally good shot," he said. "I would hate to have to do an injury to Mr.

MacLean."

"You bastard," Weylin said without inflection, but his eyes were deadly.

She looked at Weylin with surprise, recognizing his reaction. She had seen that look before, and

she knew what it meant. This man Randall was Weylin's enemy. A personal enemy.

"What is happening, Mr. MacLean?" she asked Weylin. "Why did this man lure me away from

New York?"

"All your questions will be answered in time, Lady Rowena," Randall said. He dismounted

smoothly and picked up Weylin's rifle, loosened the rope, and tossed the firearm to one of his

men, who caught it in midair. He coiled the rope, hooked it over his saddlehorn and brought

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forward the riderless horse. The mare was outfitted with a sidesaddle; he had been prepared

for a lady rider. "It is time we were going."

"You are… kidnapping me," Rowena said. "You cannot be serious."

"But I am. It is one thing at which we outlaws are expert. Didn't MacLean warn you?" He smiled,

showing clean white teeth. She remembered that look, though he'd let it slip only once or twice

in his former guise. "We have room for a few of your necessities, if you would select what you

require from your luggage." He gestured toward the rider who stared at her with such hatred.

"Unless, of course, you would prefer Sim do it for you."

He was not joking. The man called Sim rode to the buck-board and threw her smaller traveling

satchel onto the grass. Randall gave her a pair of rough leather saddlebags, large enough for a

few toiletries, undergarments, and perhaps a tightly rolled chemise or nightgown—certainly

not for even a simple dress or riding habit.

"So now you make war with women," Weylin said. "I knew you were a killer and a thief, but not

a coward. Your fight is with me—"

"And with your brother," Randall said, "But I have no wish to kill you. The time when you and I

meet man to man is not yet. If you please, señorita."

Rowena felt her skin go hot with chagrin as she repacked what she could under so many hostile

male eyes. Randall took the bulging saddlebags and passed them to Sim. He held out his hand.

"Come."

As if in a dream, Rowena looked at Randall's outstretched hand. It was long-fingered, brown,

and callused—not the hand of a gentleman, as she would have seen on the train had he not

been wearing gloves. She had the sensation of having opened the lid of Pandora's box.

And she was afraid. Not of the guns, or of a fate generally ascribed to women who fell into the

clutches of outlaws. She was afraid of this man. This "El Lobo." The Wolf.

The fear was not one she could explain. The last time she had been with him, she had felt the

beginnings of it and fled. It might have been a premonition of coming disaster; now it was

redoubled. It was the same feeling she had on this endless prairie, as if the very openness of it

might swallow her identity and replace her with the wanton of her vision.

The wanton who hadn't existed before they met.

Behind those laughing eyes was real purpose. She knew the look of a man bent on revenge.

Revenge against…

Cole. His face loomed in her mind. What lay between this stranger and her fiancé? She had

never heard of El Lobo, nor of a man named Randall. She was caught in the middle of

something of which she had no part or knowledge.

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What would Cole wish of her now? Would he urge her to resist, leaving all her female delicacy

behind? She couldn't imagine it. Surely he'd expect her to swoon, or pretend to do , so. A

continual faint might be the best protection she could hope for.

No. Such an act was repellant to her. Cole was not here; how she behaved was in her hands

alone. At least she could maintain her dignity, and Weylin would report to Cole that she had not

given him cause for shame.

Slowly she set her hand in Randall's.

Even through her glove she felt the heat of his touch, a vivid tingle of awareness as clear and

sharp as the atmosphere. He leaned very close; she held her breath. Good God—he was not

about to…

Her hat flew from her head and came to rest in the grass several feet away. Randall's hands

settled intimately on her , head, feeling for the pins that held her coiffure in place. His fingers

were expert. In one fluid motion her hair tumbled free and flowed down, stray wisps catching

on her lashes and lips.

"Ah," Randall said, capturing a strand between his fingers. "Esplendido. Like golden flame."

It was as if he held her tethered with that light touch. She tried to speak, but her throat had

gone dry as the desert. Some almost inaudible sound alerted her in time to see Weylin surge

forward.

"No, Weylin!" she cried.

He stopped. Triggers eased back into place. Randall released Rowena's hair, grasped her about

the waist, and swung her up into the saddle, holding firm until she was properly positioned.

Only then did he turn back to his enemy.

"Peace, MacLean," he said. "I simply wished to see what Cole finds so alluring. I think I am

beginning to understand."

"Please don't trouble yourself, Mr. MacLean," Rowena said, trying to ignore the sensual feel of

hair loose about her face and shoulders. "There is nothing this man can do that will affect me in

the slightest."

Randall remounted with a flourish and saluted Weylin. "Tell Cole that I'll be sending him a

message very soon." He rode up alongside the buckboard team, examining them critically.