To Catch a Wolf (29 page)

conclude that you have had some influence upon him, Caitlin.”

"Me? What a suspicious mind you have, Uly. Naturally Harry wants to keep her

informed of—”

"The gravity of your condition? His deep concern about your state of mind and indefinite

prospects for recovery?”

"Can I help it if Harry exaggerates?”

"He knows as well as I that your injury is almost healed.”

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"But Athena heard the doctor say it was serious. She had no reason to believe I would

recover so quickly.”

Morgan folded his arms and leaned against the wall just outside the room. Ulysses

coughed discreetly.

"Miss Munroe is of a naturally altruistic and accommodating nature and is apt to

consider the welfare of others before her own. She made certain promises to her

brother as a condition of our remaining here for the winter. Have you weighed the

practical consequence of fomenting domestic rebellion?”

"If you mean that Niall Munroe might not get his own way for once—”

"You may grant, Firefly, that my preference for reason over passion has given me

reliable powers of observation. It is my judgement that Mr. Munroe may only be pushed

so far before he pushes back.”

"And it is mine that Niall is not nearly as heartless as he thinks he is.”

"Your heart tells you this because you believe that you are in love with him.”

Caitlin burst-out laughing. "Your almighty powers of observation, Uly? When were you

ever in love?”

Ulysses was silent just a beat too long. "A man of my nature—and stature—is wisest to

avoid the tender emotions and the complications that result therefrom. But I am human.

I can recognize infatuation when I see it.”

Morgan waited for Caitlin to deny it. When she did not, he let his hands fall to his sides

and took an involuntary step toward the open door.

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"I don't know," Caitlin whispered. "He and I—we have nothing in common. I'm no

innocent, Uly. I am much older than I look. I know that Niall Munroe is a man—only a

man—and I will not let him destroy the lives of the people I care about.”

"Athena and Morgan.”

"And you, and Harry, and the others. All we need do is get through this winter, and our

luck will change for good. I know it.”

Ulysses sighed, and his feet rapped on the floor as he hopped from his seat. "I have no

right to tell you what you should or should not do," he said. "It is even possible that your

faith and loyalty will prove more formidable than the untrammeled wealth and power of a

man like Munroe. But be careful. Devotion exacts a heavy price.”

Morgan stepped aside as Ulysses walked through the door. The dwarf paused, looked

up at Morgan, and gently closed the door behind him.

"I will not ask if you overheard our discussion," he said.

"What is this about letters to Athena?" Morgan demanded.

"That you must ask Caitlin. I see that you have decided to remain with us another day.”

"What makes you think I was planning to leave?”

"It has never been a question of if you would go, but when. It is not loyalty to the troupe

that keeps you here.”

"You shouldn't listen to Caitlin's wild fancies.”

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"Are they so improbable?" Ulysses glanced toward the closed door. "Miss Munroe did

not seem, at first glance, to match Caitlin's strength of will. It has been brought to my

attention that first impressions are deceiving." He turned toward the room he shared

with Harry. "Do not be too severe upon the girl. If you find yourself with a desire for

rational conversation, you know where to find me.”

Unmollified, Morgan strode into Caitlin's room. She looked unsurprised to see him. Her

lids fell halfway over her eyes.

"Hello, Morgan," she said weakly. "How was your run?”

"Are you in love with Munroe?”

"We've had this conversation before. I could ask the same—”

"I do not love Athena Munroe!”

His roar bounced about the room. The corners of Caitlin's lips curled up in satisfaction.

"Then why don't you leave?" she asked. "Athena may arrive any time.”

"She is not coming here.”

"Are you so sure?”

"What have you and Harry been doing?”

Caitlin examined her nails. "Oh, nothing. Athena has been worried about me, so we've

been—”

"Lying. Telling her you're worse than you are. Caitlin—”

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"You had better not growl at Athena the way you do at me. She's likely to growl back.”

Morgan froze. "What do you mean by that?”

"Women in love can be very fierce creatures.”

"She is not—”

"I know, I know. She is not in love with you." She rolled her eyes. "And you haven't been

stomping about the place like a bilious bull because Athena is out of your reach.”

Morgan stepped back from the bed. "Do you think she binds me here, Firefly? Do you

think I couldn't leave now and never look back?”

"I think you could try. But I hope you will not, my friend.”

As she had done many times before—as only she and Athena, had the power to do—

she left him silent. Caitlin was like the hare that he had neatly caught and released out

of maudlin sentimentality. Like a lesser wolf in the pack whom he had failed to teach its

place. She and Athena could twist him round and round their fingers, spinning him this

way and that until he didn't know east from west or sky from earth.

Athena. When she looked into his eyes with that slight lift of her chin and that warmth in

her hazel eyes, he almost forgot why he wanted to run.

"After all these months," Caitlin said softly, "I still don't know where you come from, or

why you were hiding as a wolf in the wilderness. I know you were hiding—we all are,

one way or another.”

"You are wrong. I was free. The only kind of freedom worth having.”

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"Free from ties to other people. That is it, isn't it? It's what you've always been most

afraid of. Owing us for saving your life. Making friends even when you didn't want to.

Athena increases your dilemma a thousandfold.”

"I choose my own path.”

"I wonder if any of us do." She frowned at the bare toes that protruded from the cast on

her leg. "Something happened to you, Morgan. Something bad enough that you never

wanted to risk it happening again. People you cared about—they got hurt, or they hurt

you. Ulysses's own family drove him out because he couldn't possibly be a true

Wakefield looking the way he does. But he still writes to them, hoping to be reconciled."

She looked up. "I know it's difficult to keep hoping when you don't want to. Love is the

worst of all, because it's like a lantern shining on everything you don't want to see. Or

remember.”

Morgan clenched his fist around the top of the bedpost. "I don't like you as a

philosopher, Firefly.”

"I don't think I do, either." She laughed. "That's what happens when you are stuck in a

bed listening to Ulysses read from musty old books written by dead Greeks and

Romans.”

The room around Morgan changed, its cheerful yellow walls closing in to become a

gray, crumbling cell. "The dead should be forgotten.”

"No one should be forgotten.”

"You live in a dream, Firefly.”

"And you, Morgan? Have you forgotten what it is to dream?”

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Morgan released his aching fingers from the bedpost. "Men dream. Wolves do not. I

know which is better off.”

"We fool ourselves," she said. "I pretend just as much as you do that nothing really

matters. At least I know I'm pretending.”

"Then you know that Niall Munroe cares nothing for you," Morgan said cruelly. "He may

take your body if you offer it, as he would from any whore.”

"Perhaps I'll choose to give it to him. Have you forgotten the pleasures of the body,

Morgan? Oh, no—I do remember you have enjoyed Tamar's company from time to

time. She must be very skilled, and she knows exactly what she wants. Athena is only

half a woman, isn't she?”

Her words slashed at Morgan from heart to belly. "Athena—" he began, choking,

"Athena is

more than a woman. More than you can—" He broke off, breathing hard.

Caitlin stared at him, her freckles as lurid as wagon paint.

A light tap came on the door. Harry stepped in, oblivious, filling the room with his voluble

and sunny presence.

"Ah, Morgan, my boy. Ulysses said I would find you here. Caitlin, how are you on this

very fine afternoon?”

"Isn't it snowing outside?" Caitlin asked, craning her head toward the lace-curtained

window.

"So it is, so it is. But that should not dampen our pleasure in a most unexpected visit.

One of the ranch hands just came to report a wagon coming up the lane. Some hired

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conveyance and driver, no doubt, for these mountain passes." He rubbed his hands. "Is

it not wonderful news, Morgan? Our very own Miss Athena has come at last.”

Morgan stood toe to toe with Harry, looking down a full foot at the older man. "You

brought her here," he accused. "You and Caitlin.”

Harry's brows arched toward the ceiling. "Why, my boy, this is her property, after all!”

Morgan growled and walked around him. His heart sent jolts of lightning up and down

his body with every beat. Had he not been waiting every day for this? Had he not

sensed, deep in his soul, that she could not stay away any more than he could stop

thinking about her?

But Harry and Caitlin had arranged this between them, played with his life and Athena's

as if they were ivory pieces on Harry's chessboard. Morgan wouldn't have been

astonished if Caitlin had planned her own injury, just to push him and Athena together.

But he could refuse to play by the rules they had set.

A cool, supple body blocked his path. If he had not been so preoccupied, he would have

smelled Tamar a mile away, and avoided her.

"My wolf," she said. "What makes you frown so? Have the hunters set one too many

traps for your liking?" She smiled, and he was driven back to the memory of kissing

those lips, holding that willing body against him in the night.

He could have had her a thousand times since, if he had so much as looked at her. But

he had kissed Athena. One kiss, lacking even the most basic intimacies of the flesh,

and he was ruined for the taste of another mouth.

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Tamar could have taken any number of lovers in the troupe, for all her strangeness.

Instead, she chose to pursue him. She had schemed her way into one of the rooms in

the main house, and had become impossible to avoid completely. Morgan had finally

realized that she believed she had some claim on him because of their brief liaison.

Why, he did not understand. He had offered her nothing. Whatever ambition lay behind

her calculating eyes, he could not fulfill it. Her beauty was like a jungle flower he had

heard of, intoxicating to look at but thick with the smell of rotten meat.

"Yes," he said. "Too many traps." He tried to pass, but she held out an arm to stop him.

She had great strength for a woman, coiled and always lying in wait.

"You will never have her," she said. The very calmness of her voice set his hair on end.

"She would spit on you, my wolf, like all gadje.”

"Do not speak of her, Tamar.”

"Ah, the fierce growl." She laughed softly. "Why should I not speak of her? The others

do. They all love her, the little helpless one." She drew her long nail down his cheek.

"Do you love her, too? Do you dream of her useless legs coming to life and wrapping

around you in the night? Do you imagine living in her big house in the city, with a fine

lady's golden collar about your neck, or do you think she will follow you to rut in the

woods like a beast?”

He grasped her wrist and pulled it away. "No.”

"Men are children," she said in that same calm, passionless voice. "They want only what

they cannot have or what will make them sick in the belly. She will make you sick. And

when you have need of the cure, come to me.”

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She left him, gliding away without a single seductive glance. And a strange sensation

washed through him, startling in its truth.

He was sorry for Tamar. He pitied her and her inexplicable obsession with him. He

wondered what had made her what she was, and why she saw in him, of all men, a cure