Wolf’s Princess (2 page)

Taye’s brows dove down over his nose. “Did you have anyone in mind?”

She felt a blush set fire to her cheeks again. “Well, uh, Jasper Packard is nice, and he has a good business breaking and training horses.”

Taye’s voice was very soft, but not because of the baby sleeping in his arm. It was the tone that made ice slide down the backs of men confronted by an enraged alpha. “Has he done anything to—”

“Of course not!”

Little Feather jerked in his father’s arm, letting out a thin wail. He settled again with a fretful whimper under his father’s gentle hand.

“Sorry,” Rose said, lowering her voice. “Sorry. No, Jasper has barely spoken to me. Probably because the Pack won’t let him within ten feet of me. Do you know anything bad about Jasper?”

The alpha didn’t look very happy about it, but he shook his head. “He’s a good man, from what I can tell. Raises some of the best horses around, and treats them well too.”

Rose let out a relieved breath. “All I ask is that you tell the Pack to back off. Let me have a little time with Jasper so we can get to know each other. Maybe we’ll hit it off. Maybe we won’t. I can’t tell if I don’t get to know him, right?”

“What if Packard doesn’t want you?”

Rose gave him the incredulous look that remark deserved. There were so few women nowadays that men fought for them. Any single man would jump at the chance to court a woman. “If we don’t hit it off, there’s Doug Grey or Johnny Sommers.”

Taye shifted the baby to his other arm, looking dissatisfied. “Grey is too old for you.”

“He’s thirty-five, only a few years older than you. He comes from a big family, so I’d have plenty of people to help me with housework. And his cousin is Ellie, so he already has ties to the Pack.” She lifted a gaze that she forced any hint of pleading from. “Will you tell the Pack to back off?”

Still looking sour, Taye nodded. “All right. You can talk to men in public places. But you can’t be alone with them.”

“No, I won’t.” Rose nodded back, long ago having accepted the dangerous position of women in this crazy future world and the lengths the Pack would go to in order to keep their women safe. She couldn’t imagine anyone stupid enough to try to steal her. Everyone in a hundred miles knew she was under the protection of a pack of wolf shifters. Still, women were stolen from time to time, and she didn’t want Taye or any of his men to have to kill someone just because he was an idiot.

“Thank you, Taye.”

He pointed a finger at her. “But I’m writing one more time to Sky. If we don’t hear from him by Halloween you can be formally courted.”

“But I can at least talk to men now? Get to know them?”

A low, unhappy growl rumbled in his throat. “All right.”

She jumped off the stool to hug him, careful of the baby. “Thank you, Taye!”

*

Sky Wolfe sat down to breakfast alone in the dining room of the whorehouse he managed and co-owned. He enjoyed these quiet moments before the rest of the house roused. Katelyn Jones, the new maid, came in with the coffeepot and a folded square of grimy paper in her hand.

“A letter for you,” she said in her soft mumble, setting it down on the table. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.” Sky made it a point to be courteous to all his employees, and something about Miss Jones, with her club foot, perpetually anxious face, and speech difficulties, brought out the pity he never let anyone see. Just two months ago he had arranged for her to leave her former place of employment where she had been beaten and abused, and she still hadn’t learned to believe she was safe here.

While she lifted his cup to pour coffee, he slathered butter over a slice of toast and bit into it before opening the letter to read. The shock of his wolf screaming inside him almost distracted him from the content of the letter, but not quite. He slammed the paper onto the table and choked on the toast.

“Fuck!”

He regretted the outburst the moment he saw the terror that flared in Katelyn’s pale green eyes. The coffee pot hit the table with a thud, sloshing a bit of the hot beverage over the tablecloth. She cringed away from the hand he raised in apology and rushed out of the dining at a limping run. He swore again. He hadn’t lost his temper in years. During those years, the wolf within him had withdrawn into sullen silence. Only this kind of news could drag the stubborn beast back to life after all this time. With his teeth clenched together, Sky took up the letter again.

Cousin, your mate is not willing to wait for you anymore. I have given my permission for her to see other men so she can find a husband to give her children. If you want to keep your mate, come at once. Taye.

Damn it! He crumpled the note in his fist and hurled it at the wall. The limp, lifeless thud of the paper didn’t satisfy him so he did it again with his coffee cup.

“Sky?” Ms. Mary, his business partner, hesitantly poked her head around the door. “What on earth is going on? Katelyn nearly ran me over in the hall. She looked like she was being chased by all the devils of hell.”

“No,” he muttered, glaring at the spray of coffee over the pale wallpaper and the shattered bits of his cup littering the rug by the wall. “Just me. I’ve had bad news.”

“Oh, no.” She came into the room, wrapped in a frilly pink robe better suited to a woman a third her age. “What is it?”

He let her put a motherly arm around him. She had acted like a mother ever since that day nearly eight years ago, when he and Quill had rescued her from a gang of men intent on doing her harm. Neither he nor Quill had understood exactly what was going on. They’d only seen a lady alone on a city street being pushed around by a bunch of men, and had acted according to the standards they’d been raised with. When a man of the Lakota Wolf Clan saw a woman in trouble, they stepped in to keep her safe. She had thanked them by bringing them home with her and giving them jobs. It had been the beginning of a new life for him.

“Do you remember that first day, when you brought me and Quill here?” he asked.

If she thought the topic was odd, she didn’t say so. “Oh, sure. You boys did me a big favor that day. You didn’t know what you put yourselves in the middle of.”

“We didn’t then,” he agreed, moving over to seat her in the mistress of the house’s place at the foot of the table. She sat and let him pour her a cup of coffee. Instead of moving to his usual spot at the head of the table, he sat close to her and sighed. “We were such hicks.”

The woman he and Quill saved that day wasn’t just anyone. She was Ms. Mary, owner of one of Omaha’s whorehouses, and she’d been set on by hirelings of other whorehouse owners to teach her a lesson.

“You hired us to be security when no one else would hire us for anything at all,” he said softly. “We might have starved if you hadn’t been so generous.”

“Generous! I couldn’t even afford to pay you wages, and you refused to allow me to pay you in services. Any of the girls would have been happy to give the two of you as many freebies as you liked, but you never accepted their offers.” She looked at him with shrewd, brown eyes. Someone who didn’t know her well would be misled by her innocent face and silly clothes. With her thin silver hair rising like dandelion fluff around her plump face, she looked like a perpetually surprised and confused elderly angel. Sky knew better.

Ms. Mary took a sip of coffee. “You said you had a girl waiting for you at home. Is this about her?”

Somehow, she always knew what was wrong with him. Townspeople discounted the possibility of magic, but he was Lakota, and his people knew the world was full of more than what could only be seen or touched. “Yes.” He clenched a hand on the arm of his chair. “I have to leave.”

“Now?” Dismay rang in her voice. “But the meeting with the City Council is this afternoon.”

“I know.” He dragged a hand over his jaw. “Joe will have to represent us.”

“Joseph Sullivan is a good man, and a fine lawyer, but he doesn’t command the respect you do in the City. They won’t listen to him.”

“I know,” he said again. “But the train leaves this morning. There isn’t another one to Kearney for a week. I can’t wait that long.”

She leaned over the table to lay a hand spotted with age on his shoulder. “Sky, we’ve worked to change this law for
years
. Without your voice during the hearings, it very well might go against us. Can’t you put this other thing off for just a week?”

How long would it take Rose to find another husband? When had Taye written his letter? The wolf inside him, who was hardly more than a stranger to him these days, howled. Sky tried to cover it with a cough, but by the startled look on Ms. Mary’s face he hadn’t succeeded.

“No, I can’t put this off. I must go or I might find my wife married to another man.” He pushed his chair back and went to the crumpled letter on the floor and picked it up. “Have someone find Joe and send him up to my room.”

“All right,” she called after him and then muttered in a low tone that only his wolf-born hearing allowed him to catch, “I told you she wouldn’t wait forever.”

*

One week after her talk with Taye, Rose walked up the wooden steps to Martin’s Trading Store, followed by her escort. Today was her first trip into Kearney since Taye’s agreement that she could talk with men. Not that she never spoke with men, of course, but those conversations revolved around the weather, their wives and children, or other safe topics that wouldn’t rile an over-protective wolf. This would be her first chance to really talk with a guy. And her private inner radar told her Jasper was near. From the time she was in seventh grade she just sometimes knew where things or people were. No one at home ever believed her, but the Pack accepted her weird ability without question.

She paused on the top step so White Horse could enter the store first. She waited for him to come back and nod that it was safe for her to enter. Three of the wolves in man form scattered inside the store to take up watch posts, and White Horse stationed himself near the door. With Stone flanking her on her right and Paint on her left, she walked into the store.

She loved coming to this store. She couldn’t catch scents the way the wolves could, but she could tell someone had made up a new batch of potpourri and the wood floor had recently been polished with lemon. Eight years ago she might have thought a general store quaint. Well, no, she wouldn’t have used a word like quaint. She probably would have said it was boring. But now, with no mall to hang out at and no mega discount stores, the Martins’ place was her favorite place to shop. They had a little bit of everything, and Hannah Martin was half of Lisa & Hannah, the duo who created designer clothes that were in high demand from Denver to Omaha.

Hannah smiled at her from the counter. “Good morning, Rose. Be with you in a minute.”

“No rush. We have a shopping list from the den for you to fill, but I’ll just pick out some yarn for my winter knitting until you’re free.”

A six year old boy barreled out from behind the counter. “Rose,” he shrieked, and flung himself on her. “Guess what? I start school tomorrow! My first time! Jack gets to go too, but he’s already gone for four years, so he doesn’t care. But I do! It’ll be fun, won’t it?”

“I bet it will, Petey,” she agreed, smiling down into his excited face. What would it be like to have a little boy of her own? Her smile grew when she remembered she would soon have a chance to find out. “I’ll be back in town next week. You can tell me all about it then. I can’t wait to hear how you like school.”

His small white teeth showed in a big grin. “I heard there’s gonna be two girls in my class.”

Rose made her expression appropriately impressed. “Two? Imagine that.”

Petey agreed with vigorous nods. “Dad says I have to be especially nice to them or the wolves will eat me up.” He sent a nervous sidelong glance at Paint, who was rather fierce looking with his scarred face and eye patch. She saw Paint’s mouth twitch with a suppressed smile. “Will they really eat me?” the boy whispered.

She leaned down to whisper back. “No. Just be nice and they won’t hurt you.”

He thought it over for a moment. “Okay. Come on. I’ll show you where the yarn is!”

She knew perfectly well where the yarn could be found. The store was one big room crowded with everything from nails to toiletries to bolts of fabric. She stroked a hand through Petey’s hair. “Okay, you show me.”

She followed him past the aromatic sacks of coffee beans, around a display of cups and plates, and past a few other customers. She knew most of them, but one, standing beside Paul Cruz from Odessa, was a stranger. She gave Paul a polite nod but didn’t pause to speak to him because she saw the very man she’d hoped to find in town a little ways past him. Jasper Packard, tall and lean in a work shirt and jeans, with his sandy hair long enough to brush his shirt collar, stood at a barrel, counting out nails.

Rose zeroed in on him with a flutter in her stomach. She walked up to him with a smile she couldn’t control. She hoped she didn’t look like a clown as she struggled to make her smile small and friendly. “Good morning, Jasper.”

He smiled back and his hand lifted as if to touch her, but a glance at Stone made him drop his hand. Too bad. Stone’s face wore its usual cold expression, but he wasn’t growling or showing his teeth, which would have been his reaction a week ago. “Good morning, Miss Rose,” Jasper said, his tone cautiously friendly.

Rose had to use a little force to get past Stone, but she managed it. She didn’t quite have the nerve to lay a hand on Jasper’s arm, but she kept her gaze and her smile fixed on his face. He wasn’t the most handsome man in Kearney, or the richest, but she liked him a lot. He had passed Taye’s exacting standards for what sort of man was allowed to court her. Jasper would make a great husband and father.

“So, any new foals?” she asked, at the exact moment he said, “Nice to have cooler weather.”

They both blushed and stammered for a minute. Jasper mimicked drawing a zipper closed over his mouth and gestured for her to speak.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I love summer, but by September I’m always glad for the cool nights and less heat. Too bad it’s followed by winter, though.”