Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (16 page)

“He ain’t sick,” Eustace stated flatly, “She ain’t neither, not that I’ve heard, but we don’t have the number of pups we used to.”

The continuation of the pack was dependent upon the health and strength of the Alpha and Mate. It was one of the reasons Mates were so essential to the pack. Without them both, no mated pair could conceive. If either were weakened by age or disease, the birthrate would be affected, too.

McCall’s question now made sense.

“
You thought the Second might be waiting for the Alpha to die,” she concluded.

“That was one possibility,” McCall said, but he didn’t divulge what the others might be. He arose from the table, collected the glasses and put them in the sink. “I need to take care of a few things. Miss Kincaid,
do you have tablecloths to hang?”

Rachel laughed. “I do, but neither you nor Eustace need stay and help. I mean that. I enj
oy my time alone. It gives me time to think.” And tonight, she had a lot to think about.

He didn’t argue, but called the dog to attention with a look. “You stay until she’s finished.
Guard.” The dog whined a bit and its front paws padded up and down like a petulant child. McCall didn’t think it was funny. “No. Guard.”

“Just in case,” he said to Rachel to forestall the argument that was forming on her tongue. “Leave him in the back. I’ll pick him up
later when I make my rounds. Eustace, keep your ear to the ground.”

“Will do, but you be careful out there,
McCall.”

“I don’t get paid to be careful. I get paid to uphold the Law.”

“You be careful, too, Miss Rachel,” Eustace told her when McCall was gone. “The sheriff’s going to be sticking his nose where it’s bound to get bit. I don’t want you to get bit, too.” He hesitated before speaking again. “I don’t want you to get your heart broken, neither.”

“Thank you for your concern, Eustace, but I’m in no danger on either account, but I thought you liked Challenger McCall.”

“Oh, I do. I think he’s a good man, a good wolver, but he’s different from us.” He lowered his voice to a whisper as if someone might overhear. “I helped haul his gear, see? He’s travelling too light and a couple of those canvas bags ain’t filled with clothes and such. I didn’t carry those. He wouldn’t let me, but I could tell there was some heft to ‘em. I don’t know why he came, but I don’t think he plans to stay.”

Her wolf snarled at the idea of Mr. McCall leaving, but Rachel felt relief. It would be easier to mate Jack Coogan if she didn’t have to see Challenger McCall.

For a life that contained few surprises or revelations, Rachel’s day had contained what seemed to be a lifetime’s worth and for once, her nightly chore would not be filled with thoughts of the hotel, but of all that she’d heard. As she pulled the last sheet from the tub, the dog gave a soft growl and she heard her father call her name.

“I’m in the kitchen, Papa,” she called and whispered, “Hush. It’s only Papa.”

Josephus Kincaid stumbled through the door, glared at the dog and glared at her. “Where is he?”

“Where’s who, Papa?”

“That, that sheriff.”

Rachel felt her wolf begin to stir, angry at her father’s tone.

“I don’t know where he is. He left some time ago.”

“You will tell him that he is not welcome here.
I forbid his presence in this house. His behavior was disgraceful and he has brought shame upon us.” He clutched his chest in a dramatic gesture. “And you, the daughter I’ve raised with the utmost care to behave so unseemly. That man will be the ruin of you. I won’t have it.”

Rachel felt the dog beside her stiffen.
Her wolf did the same with the addition of a curled lip and bared teeth.

“Sheriff McCall has been nothing but a gentleman,” she said, feeling remarkably calm
with the canine support.

“A gentleman would not give cause to have a lady’s name bandied about the saloon.
To drag you into that washerwoman’s mischief, to engage in fisticuffs in the street? I forbid you to see or speak with such a man. A gentleman would not do such things.”

“Nor would a gentleman sell his daughter to pay his debts.
”

When her father hesitated a moment too long, Rachel knew Jack Coogan had spoken the truth.

“How dare you?” her father blustered. “I only wanted to see you settled and cared for. I was only thinking of you.”

“If you were only thinking of me, you wouldn’t have gambled and drank away
what’s dearest to me.” She was surprised at how cold and even her voice sounded when inside, she felt such a fiery anger.

“
Should anything happen to me, the hotel will no longer belong to you unless you have a mate. I couldn’t bear to see my dearest daughter lose her home,” her father tried to reason.

But Rachel had had enough of his reasoning and excuses. She’d had enough of sighing and holding her tongue and
pretending to believe his lies.

“This hasn’t been a home since Mama died. This is a boarding house, P
apa, where we live in two storerooms in the back. I am not your dearest daughter. I am the workhorse that gives you the means to live like a Gentleman. You, on the other hand, could not sacrifice one evening at the gaming tables to give me a few hours of leisure.”

“Rachel, dearest, you’re distraught…” He reached out his hand to her.

“No, Papa, I am far beyond distraught. I am facing a life of misery and servitude which I will accede to because you have left me no choice. I will give Mr. Coogan my answer on New Year’s Day and not a moment before. On my Mating Day, you will sign this hotel over to my mate or there will be no mating. In the meantime, our rooms will become my rooms in preparation for my new life. Starting tonight, you may use Room Four. I’ll have your things moved tomorrow.”

“Now, Rachel, I see no reason…”

“Room Four, Papa, as it is the smallest of the lodgers’ rooms. It will be burden enough for my mate to give you lodging without charge, if he permits you to stay at all.”

Her father stepped forward angrily,
“Rachel, I will not allow you…”

The dog growled and her father stepped back.

“Yes, you will, or I will remain a spinster and this hotel will fall to someone else. Should that happen, I will likely continue my job as manageress or work here as a maid. It makes little difference to me. You, however, will be thrown out and forced to beg for your Pittance from Mr. Slocum.” Rachel picked up her basket and turned her back on her father. With the dog at her heels, she called over her shoulder, “This is the pack you helped create and now we’ll both have to live in it.”

While her voice remained steady and calm, her heart pounded in her chest. It was still pounding and her hands shook as she pegged the first cloth. She’d never spoken to her father in such a way before and wasn’t quite sure what had come over her tonight. But in spite of the physical upset and the strangeness of finally saying what she thought, she wasn’t sorry. It was one small burden lifted from her shoulders.

A
t first, Rachel thought the dog was restless because of her upset over the confrontation with her father. Dogs, she’d heard, were sensitive to such things. Her wolf was uneasy as well, but for other reasons. There was nothing she could do for her wolf.

“It’s all right,” she told the dog, or maybe she was telling herself.
“I’m very good at handling things. I’ll handle this, too. You must admit, Mr. Coogan would be preferable to Mr. Holt and at least he has ideas to improve our circumstances.” Rachel paused and frowned. “On the other hand, if Mr. Holt becomes the Alpha, he would have to put me aside to find a proper Mate. That has its advantages, too.” Her shoulders slumped. “Perhaps not. The Alpha could live for a very long time.”

The dog was not comforted. It paced and whined and kept looking
from the gate to Rachel.

“He’ll be back soon
,” Rachel reassured it and it was then she felt the first drops of rain.

Quickly stripping the cloths from the line, Rachel carried her basket back into the house. She had to call the dog twice before it would follow her back into the
kitchen.

“You need a name,” she told it
as she stuffed the first batch into the dryer. “Even a dog deserves a name. To call you Dog feels insulting.”

She was referring to the age old prejudice wolvers held against dogs. They were inferior creatures, unable to communicate or reason as a wolver did in his canine form. They needed a master to care for them.
A dog could never be anything more than a dog and to label a wolver with the name was an insult.

The dog whined and laid down with its head between its paws, nose pointed at the door.

“I know exactly how you feel,” she sympathized. “It’s almost like being a woman.”

Rachel undressed down to her chemise and drawers and donned the silk dressing gown that once was her mothers. Free of her stays and tight fitting clothing,
she propped her pillow against the headboard and settled in to read a few more chapters of
Jane Eyre
. Poor Jane; to be caught in a world where she couldn’t have the one man who saw the real woman she kept hidden inside. In what seemed like minutes, the dryer dinged and Rachel reluctantly set the book aside.

While she folded the first batch of cloths, t
he dog became more agitated. It looked from Rachel to the door and back again, taking a few steps in each direction as if torn between what it was told to do and what it wanted to do.

It finally dawned on Rachel that the animal needed to relieve its bladder.
When she opened the door, the dog ran immediately to the gate while she stood in the shelter of the open door. The rain was little more than a drizzle, but the yard was already turning to mud.

“No, she laughed, “Do what you have to, right where you are. I’ve cleaned up worse in the rooms upstairs.”

The dog whined and paced some more and then suddenly stopped; head up, ears erect and twitching in their search for sound. Finding the direction, nose and eyes followed.

At the sight of the dog’s intensity, Rachel
froze and listened, too. And then she heard it; the low, faraway howl of a wolf. It was her inner wolf who recognized it as a call for help.

The shepherd took one last look at Rachel and ran for the gate. In a graceful leap, it sailed over the obstacle to its freedom and was gone.

Without thinking, Rachel ran to the gate. An unladylike word slipped from her lips as she fumbled with the stiff latch. Once through, she gathered the dressing gown up around her waist and ran after the dog. Challenger McCall was in trouble.

Chapter 15

The dog didn’t wait. It flew up Schoolhouse
Lane and onto Main Street, running straight for the bordello and then veering right to head out into the open land beyond the town.

Rachel couldn’t keep up. Her house shoes were too loose for running and after stumbling several times, she ripped them from her feet and threw them aside. The dressing gown followed, freeing her arms to pump along with her piston
ing legs. She hadn’t run like this since she was a girl, but she was strong from hard work and her muscles remembered the motions. She gave no thought to what she must look like or what people would think. Challenger McCall was in trouble and that was enough to make her forget propriety and what she should or should not do.

The dog paused and looked back. It waited until she was alm
ost abreast and took off again.

The land here was different than that of the town, with small rises of earth and outcroppings of rock
that presaged the rough terrain of the foothills beyond. Unchanged by the passing centuries, Rachel felt its primal call, just as she had when she was a girl. She’d been taught her kind originated in Scotland, but running here as a cub, playing among these dips and rises and rocks, she’d doubted her history lessons. This land was meant for wolvers to run free.

The dog sped up the next rise, higher than the others
they’d already traversed. Its four legs found no hindrance in the loose dirt and stone that trickled down the slope as Rachel scrambled after it. She envied it those four legs. Her wolf snarled in unhappy agreement. Rachel had not run as a wolf since she was seventeen.

She topped the rise, straightened, and started to run down the other side when a flash of light
semi-blinded her. It caught the dog in mid-leap, giving the impression of the animal growing larger. Rachel had no time to contemplate this optical illusion because suddenly, she was tumbling down the hill, skidding on the four legs she’d wished for only moments ago. This was not the graceful and controlled change she’d experience years ago when the Alpha brought her over the moon that first time, nor the two times after, when the Hunter’s Moon called her to go over alone. Her wolf took control of her legs, restoring her balance, but it took a moment longer for Rachel to adjust to her perspective of sight.

She was now lower to the ground and
the abrupt clarity of her wolf-sight, coupled with her precipitous change, had her head reeling. She tried to slow, take charge and make sense of what was happening, but her wolf surged forth with pent up power of long denial. Heedless of Rachel’s efforts, it took control and, with a ferocious snarl, leapt into the battle before them.

Unfamiliar with the wolf forms of those in her pack, she did not recognize the four who surrounded and lunged at the silver wolf in their midst.
Her wolf, however, immediately recognized the silver wolf as Challenger McCall and there was no question as to where her allegiance lay.

The s
he-wolf tore into the nearest wolf, her leap hitting it squarely and taking it to the ground. She rolled, righted and lunged with bared teeth where the human Rachel tried to back away. The two divergent personalities striving for control of one body caused more harm than good and when the skinny, dark wolf slashed at her shoulder with long yellow fangs, Rachel gave full command to her wolf, whose instincts for survival were stronger and had only one thought.

“
Mate!
”

The shepherd, too, showed no hesitation and dove at the smallest of the four
assailants.

The odds now more in his favor, the silver wolf shifted from defense to offense
with a burst of aggression that was frightening to behold. It leapt at the largest of the wolves, drawing blood with its first strike and turned to meet another as it angled in from behind. A frenzy of snarls and yelps followed, but Rachel was too busy with her own role in the melee to keep track of what was happening to the others. Her thick reddish coat and quick movement saved her from further damage, but years lacking exercise had taken its toll on the she-wolf and she was tiring fast.

The
re was a scream of pain as the shepherd was thrown to the side to land awkwardly on its back. In her concern for the dog, Rachel turned, neglecting her own flank. The largest wolf lunged for her. Challenger sprang to her defense and a rifle shot blasted through the night.

For a split second, the wolves froze in their tracks. Then Challenger chuffed at her.

“
Down!
”

Rachel
wolf didn’t question. She moved. She flattened her body against the ground, making herself as small as she could in the shadows of the night. Silence surrounded them as their opponents disappeared into the darkness following a quiet yip from their leader. Seconds, counted in heartbeats, passed, and when she felt no further threat, Rachel belly crawled to where Challengerwolf lay next to his dog. He licked at the blood flowing from the wound on the dog’s heaving side.

“
Challenger.
” Rachel bumped him with her snout. She felt his worry for the dog, but this place wasn’t safe.

The light flashed and Rachel sneezed. Her human body was kneeling next to McCall’s in the mud.
The drizzling rain felt cold against her skin. She shivered.

“How…?” she started to ask, but McCall was already on his feet with the faithful shepherd in his arms.

He moved toward town, covering the ground in an easy lope that seemed impossible with the burden he carried. Rachel scrambled to catch up.

“Mr. McCall, what is all this about? What happened back there?”

“You weren’t supposed to be there.” He said it like an accusation. “I only called dog. And keep your voice down. Sound carries at night.”

“So did your cry for help,” she hissed.

They passed the place where she’d dropped her wrapper and she paused long enough to shrug her arms through the sodden garment before running to catch up. Her slippers were nowhere in sight.

“It wasn’t a cry. It was a call,” McC
all said when she caught up, as if there were no break in the conversation.

“Cry?
Call? What difference does it make except to your masculine pride?” she countered in an angry whisper, “I heard it.”

“You couldn’t have.
You followed Dog.”

Rachel stopped in her tracks. “Do not presume to tell me what I did or did not hear, Mr. McCall.” She was so tired of these wolver males telling her what
she must do, how she must act, what she must say, and now, what she must not have heard. “Damn it!” she added as an expression of her anger and rebellion.

McCall
said nothing, but she thought she heard him snicker as she hastened to catch up.

“
Psst. This way,” a voice whispered out of the dark. “They’ll see you if you walk through town. They’re out front of the jail.” Eustace limped toward them, holding a rifle in his right hand. “Head around to Daisy’s back door. She’s expecting you.”

McCall barely stopped to listen, before heading to the back of the yellow Victorian house.

Eustace hefted the rifle that looked like none Rachel had ever seen. He grinned when he saw her surprise.

“I told you that bag was hefty. He’s got stuff
I didn’t think they sold, even in the outside, modern world. You think Uncle Sam’s got wolvers working for him?”

“
I don’t think so, Eustace.” McCall’s survivalist pack evidently had resources. She started for the back porch at a trot. “I do know that you broke the Law. Man shall not kill wolf.”

“I didn’t kill anybody.” His laugh was a whisper of breath.
“I just let them know I could.”

Daisy, from whom the bordello took its name, held the door for them. “You didn’t say it was for a damn dog,” she said to Eustace.

“You didn’t ask,” he answered, shaking the water from his hat and oiled sicker.

“Eustace,” McCall called quietly from the kitchen, “Can you get to the jail? I need…”

“The black bag from under your bed?” He lifted the backpack he carried in his left hand. “I told you them mortise locks were easy to pop. Anyone around here locks their key inside, they call me. I’ve been doing it for years. Don’t worry, though. I locked back up when I left.”

“Hold this.” McCall motioned to Rachel to take over the
pressure he held against the dog’s wound.

Rachel complied without question.
The cloth was already soaked and Daisy handed her another. She took the bloody cloth to the sink where McCall was washing his hands and ignored the drips of blood that spattered her gown.

In a just world that rewarded clean and virtuous living, Daisy would look twice her age, dried, and worn out with hard living. She didn’t. She wasn’t beautiful, but she
was one of those handsome women who aged well and her use of cosmetics brightened her cheeks and highlighted a pair of bright, discerning eyes.

Age and
good living had rounded Daisy’s body to the point where a corset did more holding in than shaping what it held. By wolver standards, she was on the far side of middle age and yet she spurned the solid, dark colors of the other matrons and chose instead, to wear the bright colors of youth. Her bodices were cut dangerously low to show off what she laughingly called her charms. Yards of lace decorated the hems of her underskirts. When those skirts were lifted, garishly colored and patterned silk stockings showed off trim ankles encased in high buttoned shoes.

Daisy was a living denial of the wages of sin.

“What happened out there?” Daisy asked McCall.

“Dog tangled with some wolves.”

“Wolves or wolvers?”

McCall shrugged and began rummaging through the pack. “Dog
don’t talk much.” He gave Daisy his little boy grin.

Rachel ground her teeth. She bent over the dog and whispered in his ear.
“He smiles at her. He snaps at me. You don’t snap at me, do you, Arthur?”

“You’re not calling Dog Arthur,” McCall said beside her, so close he made her jump.
He began pulling packaged needles, scissors, ointments and bandages from the backpack.

“Well, you can’t call him Dog. It’s insulting,” she argued
, and if she sounded a little snappish, she had good reason. “And Arthur was a King. Knights of the Round Table,” she added for clarification.

“
I don’t care who he was. You’re not calling him Arthur.” He sounded quite definite. “Eustace, you’ve got to get Miss Kincaid home. Just in case anyone goes looking,” he added when Rachel started to protest.

“
There’s a small herd of ‘em out in the street, McCall. Don’t know how I can sneak her by without being noticed.”

Daisy went to the door leading to the rest of the house. “Lily,” she called, “I
need to speak with you, dear.”

Lily
waltzed in a moment later, smiling, but changed her demeanor immediately upon taking in the scene in the kitchen. She was a dark haired young woman who had no qualms about being seen in her scarlet corset without a chemise or corset cover. If it was cut much lower, everything would be exposed. Her underskirt was no skirt at all, but layer upon layer of something sheer and black, so sheer you could see the outline of her… Good Heavens!

Rachel looked up at McCall’s appreciative
expression and frowned.

“Hey, Lily,” he greeted, as
if he knew the girl, “How’s it going?”

He continued stitching up the dog, deftly tying off each stitch and snipping the odd looking thread before moving on to the next. The shepherd’s eyes were open and aware
, and Rachel marveled that the animal remained still each time the sharp needle was inserted. The bleeding, at least, had stopped.

The girl gave hi
m a quick wave. “Hey, Sheriff,” she returned with a curious look, and taking in his shirtless attire and blood stained chest, she shrugged, “Guess you’re not here to play dominoes with me, huh? Is he going to be okay?”

“Not tonight,
darlin’, and he’s going to be fine.” Finishing the last stitch, he stroked the dog’s ear. “Aren’t you, boy.”

Dog thumped his tail once in answer.

“Lily,” Daisy’s voice drew the young woman’s attention, “Miss Kincaid needs to get home and she needs to do that without drawing attention.”

Lily looked Rachel up and down, sizing her up. “She could probably wear something of mine
.”

McCall laughed as if she’d said something funny. “
Honey, your wardrobe is meant to draw attention. Does a great job, too.” He grinned and winked.

It was the wink that did it. Rachel pursed her lips. Her wolf growled, and when its teeth lashed out in a sharp snap, Rachel’s foot snapped out to the side, clipping McCall’s ankle.

“What?” he teased lightly at the look on her face. “Don’t look so high and mighty, Miss Prim. Even with the mud…” His gaze ran down her body with a great deal more than an appreciative grin. “…I’d wink at you, too.” And then he did just that.