Wolf (14 page)

“The cart track we followed connects with another about six or seven miles from here that gets a fair amount of local traffic. It leads to a village … another five miles at a guess. It’s small. We didn’t see any sign of tourists or tourist-type trade goods, and the people look poor, so I’m thinking it’s a good bet that it’s pretty isolated. We didn’t go in since it’s also obvious we’d stick out and be remembered.”

Mac nodded. “We’ll need to check it out more thoroughly, but I think this will be a good place to settle—for now, anyway. Not many comforts, but there’s a few and Sylvie’s pretty worn out.”

“I wouldn’t mind a few days rest myself,” Beau said wryly. “We’ve been humping it pretty hard.”

“I heard that!” Cavanaugh agreed.

Mac looked at Hawk. Hawk studied him a few moments and finally shrugged.

“Whatever you say.”

Mac frowned, studied the ground at his feet for several moments and finally met Hawk’s gaze again. “I think we have something to settle before we move on anyway, don’t we Hawk?”

Hawk’s expression hardened. “Maybe we do,” he said tightly.

“That’s what I figured. There can only be one top dog. We’ll meet here—

tonight—and settle it. Meanwhile, we need to see what we can do to help Sylvie clean up the place until she’s satisfied it’s as comfortable as we can make it. There’s a crude shower and latrine just out back. We need to see if we can get them in shape for use and see whatever we can scrounge up that the former resident might have abandoned.

Doesn’t look like he had much, but it won’t hurt to look.”

“I saw an old garden patch,” Cavanaugh volunteered. “All grown up, but if there was anything left that ran to seed, there might be something to eat.”

“Check it out. Beau, how are you with plumbing?”

Beau snorted. “That ain’t plumbing,
mon ami
!”

* * * *

Sylvie was more worn out from trying to clean the cabin, she thought, than she would’ve been from a full day’s march. She still had the creepy-crawlies from all the varmints she’s chased out or slain outright, but she was convinced enough that they would have the cabin to themselves that she thought she might be able to close her eyes. There’d either been way more wildlife inside the cabin than in the woods, or she’d just been able to see them better. She wasn’t sure which, but she knew she’d never get a wink of sleep if she could see them crawling around or worse, hear them skittering across the walls or floor.

The mattress looked and smelled better after it had been left outside most of the day to air, but it still didn’t look particularly appealing. She’d found a laundry area outside, though, a cracked tub and water supply from a huge barrel that had been set up to catch rain water. She’d also found a sliver of soap. It was a hard choice—save it for
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personal bathing or use it to clean the quilt—but she finally decided to use it for the laundry. It was pretty harsh stuff, and unscented. The quilt, even though it wasn’t very big, soaked up enough water it weighed a ton and that was the source of most of her weariness—trying to clean the damned thing, but she was reasonably satisfied after a while. She wrung it out the best she could and spread it over some of the brush to dry in the sun.

Mac and Beau, she saw, were working on the crude bathroom that had been built a short distance behind the cabin. It was almost sad even to her how excited she was at that discovery, but there was no denying that her heart leapt with joy. It buoyed her spirits enough that she could hardly sit still when they finally broke for lunch.

As soon as they’d finished eating, she was up and on the hunt for something to use to clean the cabin. It was just as well she’d been gung ho about it. She didn’t think she would’ve had time to de-varmint the cabin before dark if she hadn’t started right away.

Cavanaugh came in about halfway through the afternoon and built a fire on the hearth. Sylvie watched him curiously. It got pretty cool at night—especially now that they’d gotten into the foothills—but it was still a long time till dusk and she wondered why he would start a fire so early.

Hawk came in a little later with a broken pottery pot and set it very carefully on the coals of the fire Cavanaugh had started. He sent her a speculative glance when he saw she was watching him. There was heat in the gaze he raked over her, and possessiveness and she more than half feared he might say something that would make them both uncomfortable. “We’ll be a staying here a few days. Why don’t you take a break? You can always pick up again tomorrow.”

A little surprised at the information but relieved that he hadn’t said anything personal, Sylvie smiled tiredly. “In a little bit. I don’t think I could sleep in this place tonight until I’m sure there isn’t anything in here to crawl on me while I’m trying to sleep.”

Mac came in just then, divided a glance between them and then headed to the hearth, dropping in several unidentifiable, bloody chunks of meat.

Mystery solved, Sylvie thought wryly when both men had left, wondering how they were going to eat the stew, or soup, the guys had apparently decided on for supper and if they had anything to put in it besides the meat and water.

Mac was back in a few minutes with his canvas tote. After digging around in it, he pulled out a box of salt, poured a little in his palm and dropped it in the pot. He also removed a plate, a large coffee mug, and a fork, knife, and spoon. The other men came and went, dropping off similar treasures. As the sun started to set, Cavanaugh came in with a small armload of stunted vegetables, mostly potatoes—a couple of over ripe tomatoes and a few peppers.

“Where in the world did you find all that?” Sylvie asked in pleased surprise.

He threw a wry smile in her direction. “The garden. It hasn’t been tended in a while, but there were a few things that came up from the last year’s seeds.

Unfortunately, this is most of it, but I think there’ll be enough to make another meal.”

Sylvie breathed in the scent appreciatively. “It smells wonderful!”

He stood up. “Guess it’ll be an improvement over just meat.”

“Oh the cookouts we’ve been having were great, too!” Sylvie said hurriedly.

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“But it’ll be nice to have something different, you know.”

“Cookouts?” Cavanaugh chuckled. “Guess that’s one way to look at it.”

He moved from the hearth to the window and began yanking at the shutters, trying to disentangle them from the vines. A few minutes later, Beau and Mac also came in, Beau to work on the other window shutter while Mac checked out the door. They were all half rotted and hanging by their hinges, but the men managed to close them and wedge them into the openings to at least partially seal up the cabin.

Mac lingered after Beau and Cavanaugh left. “We got the shower working—sort of. If you want a bath, you should do it before it’s too dark to see out. The water’s like ice, FYI,” he said wryly.

Sylvie blinked at him. As thrilling as the suggestion of a ‘sort of’ shower was, it seemed clear that the guys were leaving.

“We’ll be gone a little while, but you’ll be safe here.” He grinned. “Don’t let the stew burn. We’ll be hungry enough by the time we get back to eat you if you burn the stew.”

Sylvie chuckled dutifully at his joke, but she was uneasy about being left.

Shrugging it off the best she could, she finished cleaning what she could and headed outside to check out the shower. It wasn’t just outdoors, it was outside. It looked as if there’d been a privacy wall of some kind at one time, but that was gone. It also unnerved her that the water source was a huge barrel above the crude spout that she would have to stand under.

The toilet was an outhouse—not flushable—but it still beat squatting in the woods—not much! Having made use of it, she went outside the little rickety cubicle that provided damned little privacy and studied the ‘shower’. There was a small stone floor beneath it. A piece of rope led upward to a valve of some kind. When she pulled on it, a narrow stream of icy cold water hit her right on the top of the head. Sucking in a sharp breath, she released the pull and sloughed the water out of her face.

She hadn’t thought to undress before she checked the damned thing out! Her clothes were soaked. After glaring at them a few moments, she pulled them off and headed to the ‘laundry’. There wasn’t much soap left. She’d used most of it on the cover, but she sacrificed a little more to clean her shirt and pants, wrung them out and took them inside to hang them near the hearth to dry.

She felt more than a little uneasy strolling around the place buck naked, but the guys were gone, she reminded herself. She had the place to herself.

Back at the shower again, she braced herself and released another avalanche of water then took what was left of the soap and did her best to cover everything. There wasn’t much lather for her hair once she’d scrubbed everything else, but a little was still better than none. It was almost more torture than bathing in the streams had been—it was damn sure colder water!—but it was also cleaner. For the first time since she’d left the boat, she actually felt clean.

There was nothing to dry off with. The cover was mostly dry, though, and she snatched it off the brush, shook it to make sure nothing was crawling on it and wrapped up in it. She’d used the straight back chairs to hang up her shirt and pants so she draped the cover over the table and moved to ‘bake’ herself dry in front of the fireplace.

* * * *

Mac studied his opponent as he unfastened his fatigues and slipped out of them.

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He’d been in enough battles with Hawk to know him fairly well, to know how he fought and what his weaknesses were, but he’d fought beside him before, not against him. His leadership of the pack was riding on this and, just as importantly, his claim on Sylvie.

Hawk wanted her—bad. He was going to be vicious, but his focus was on Sylvie and that meant he wasn’t going to be able to be coolheaded.

If it came to that, he wasn’t exactly coolheaded where Sylvie was concerned himself, but he figured he still had the advantage. He was just going to have to convince Hawk that
he
was running things—still.

Hawk gaped at him for a moment in surprise when he undressed but finally shrugged and skimmed out of his trousers.

Mac glanced at Beau and Cavanaugh. “When we’re done here, you have the option of challenging the victor.”

Beau and Cavanaugh both stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Shit!” Cavanaugh muttered. “I ain’t got no aspirations of leading this motley crew even if I felt like letting you kick my ass. And I don’t.”

“Doan look at me,
mon ami
!” Beau said, grinning. “I’m satisfied to let you do all the worryin’.”

Satisfaction settled in him. Nodding, Mac faced Hawk again and called the change. The moment he felt it begin, he saw Hawk call his own beast to the fore.

Snarling a challenge, he bristled, curling his lips back from his teeth. Hawk issued a counter challenge and they began to circle one another, looking for an opening to attack.

He saw his opening first. Hawk had taken up an offensive stance and was more focused on watching him than paying attention to his surroundings. The moment Hawk stumbled, he leapt at him.

They tangled, twisting around and around, rolling, biting and clawing at one another, but Mac failed to lock his jaws around Hawk’s neck. After a moment, they broke apart and began circling one another again. Hawk was more cautious now, but that worked against him just as his inattention to his surroundings had before. Mac used his senses to ‘feel’ out his surroundings and kept his gaze locked with Hawk’s. The moment Hawk’s gaze flickered to one side for a quick look, he charged again.

That time, he managed to catch Hawk by the throat, but he moved faster than Mac had anticipated. He didn’t get a good grip and Hawk was away again. Hawk recovered faster and nipped at his throat, narrowly missing him.

For nearly ten minutes they charged one another, tangled briefly, doing as much damage as they could and then breaking apart. Hawk began to tire. Mac sensed it in the slowing of his reflexes.

And then Hawk made his biggest mistake. He allowed his anger to get the better of him. It wasn’t a bad maneuver considering he was tiring and knew it, but as vicious as his assault was, he left himself wide open. Ignoring the pain as Hawk caught his shoulder between his jaws, Mac whipped his head around and clamped down on Hawk’s throat, bearing down until Hawk was forced to release his own grip.

Tightening his jaws threateningly, Mac bore him to the ground and held him there until he felt the fight go out of him. The moment he did, he eased his chokehold, allowing him just enough breath to realize he couldn’t free himself without having his throat torn out.

Hawk panted, unwilling to yield, trying to gather enough strength for a last ditch
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attempt to throw Mac off. Mac braced himself, snarling a warning.

For several moments, Hawk struggled with his fury and his pride and finally yielded. Mac held him down a few moments more and finally released him.

Hawk immediately made an abortive attempt to leap to his feet, but when Mac snarled a warning, he subsided and lay panting for breath. He stood over him, rigid with warning for a few moments more and finally backed off, allowing him to rise.

Hawk glared at him balefully when he’d shifted back into his human form.

Ignoring him, Mac stalked across the small clearing and retrieved his trousers.

“I’m ready for some of that stew,” he said casually. “Let’s hope it’s done and Sylvie didn’t forget to watch it.” He looked down at himself and added wryly when he saw he was bloody all over, “guess I should hit the shower first.”

Beau and Cavanaugh, expressing similar sentiments, got up to follow him. Mac turned to look at Hawk. “Don’t let Sylvie see you like that. It would upset her.”

Still furious, Hawk sat back down once he’d put his pants on. It took a while for his anger, and his aches and pains, to dull enough to begin to consider the situation he’d found himself in. Reluctantly, he admitted Mac had a far better disposition to be a leader. He hadn’t actually wanted to lead. Like Beau and Cavanaugh, he knew he was better at taking orders than giving them and he didn’t want the responsibility of deciding everybody’s fate—which was what Mac had to do.

He wanted Sylvie, though, he thought, dropping his head in his hands. It was driving him crazy. It would’ve been bad enough just having to look at her, being around her, without being able to touch, but knowing Mac
was
every chance he got made it worse. He couldn’t even think straight anymore. He supposed challenging Mac was proof positive of it.

He didn’t think he was going to be able to handle staying and watching the two of them together. Unfortunately, he also didn’t think he could bring himself to leave, and what would be the point? It was his imagination that was tormenting him the most, and he’d be taking that with him.

Beyond that, he felt a tie to the others than he couldn’t entirely understand.

They’d been buddies for years, of course, and in and out of some pretty hairy situations together where their very lives depended upon how well they worked together as a team.

He’d always felt a stronger bond with them than anyone else in his life, but this seemed

… different.