Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (24 page)

Chapter 23

It was the second night of the Hunter’s Moon, but no one was running. By mid-afternoon, the blue sky turned
a dull and dreary gray and the wind began to blow. Storms were moving in fast and no one wanted to be caught in the coming downpour.

The tourists packed up and went home early
. Rachel was grateful there were only two cancellations for Tea and, when it was over, no one stayed to ask questions or chat. Fat drops of rain were beginning to fall by the time the last guest left and the wind seemed to come from every direction, swirling around the buildings, kicking up little tornadoes of dust that danced along Main Street.

“Go home, Bertie.” Rachel piled the last of the dishes
by the sink.

“Bah! It’s a little rain.
There’s dishes to finish and potatoes to peel for tomorrow, and you still got supper to fix,” she protested, but her eyes went nervously to the window as something picked up by the wind smacked against it.

Both women jumped when the outer door crashed open.
Rachel rushed to close it.

“Sorry about that,” Challenger McCall said, shaking his head, “The door got away from me in the wind.
” He grinned as Dog skittered past him and hid behind Rachel. “The tough guy is afraid of storms,” he explained, “Can he stay here while I escort Mrs. Mullins home?”

“I don’t need
no escort to walk a half mile.” Her little house was at the other end of town.

“A little bitty thing like you would blow away in this wind and Victor says with your
reputation, that might start rumors, particularly if you’re carrying a broom.”

“Mr. McCall! What a thing to repeat!” Rachel scolded, though with her black dress and wrinkled face, the little cook did resemble a storybook witch.

Bertie scowled at the reference, reinforcing the image, and then she laughed. “You tell Victor he better be careful or come Hanging Day, it might turn out to be real.”

Victor was to play
the outlaw, Jake Brannigan, at the trial and hanging. and Bertie was proud of his earning the role and mentioned it as often as she could.

McCall laughed. “I will, but let’s get you home first. He sent over his
Fish for you to wear.” He unrolled a yellow pommel slicker, a match for the green one he wore.

“What’s he wearing
then?” Bertie asked, anger forgotten. “He needs to stay dry more’n me. All that gettin’ shot and falling off his horse makes his bones ache something terrible and this rain won’t help.”

“He’s closing the storm shutters over at the bank and land office. He’s wearing his jacket, so if we hurry, I can get this back to him before he’s soaked through.
”

“Go, Bertie. I can handle what’s left and don’t worry about Arthur
. He’ll be fine,” she told McCall and nodded to the old blanket in the corner. “His bed is ready and waiting, if he’d care to spend the night.” She then looked McCall in the eye and hoped he understood the message.

He did. He
raised his eyebrows and asked innocently enough, “Are you sure?”

“
I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t.”

“
Land sakes! Victor could be drowning out there and you two are worried about the dog?” Bertie interrupted impatiently, “Get your engine stoked, Sheriff, this train is pulling out.”

Bertie was already swimming in the much too large raincoat that dragged on the ground, and when McCall settled his hat on her head
and spun her toward the door, Rachel laughed. With Bertie turned and temporarily blinded, McCall leaned over and gave Rachel a quick kiss.

“All fired up and ready to go, Bertie.” He held the door for her to pass through, but as soon as they were clear of it, he scooped her up into his arms. “All aboard,” he called in a conductor
’s voice as Bertie squealed.

The cook
was still protesting as they went through the gate, but she had one hand on the hat to keep it from blowing away and she didn’t struggle at all.

Yes, i
t was the second night of the Hunter’s Moon and no one was running, but Rachel felt its call as she’d never felt it before and couldn’t wait for Challenger’s return. Yet there was a bittersweetness to her anticipation, because she now foresaw the pain her future held and it would be much worse than she originally thought.

She couldn’t bear to think of another woman in his arms, another woman smiling at him as he came through the door each night, another woman bearing his pups. How could she bear to watch it every day wi
thout it tearing her heart out? How would it be for him? She knew he felt something for her beyond gratifying his body’s needs. He’d made that clear and his wolf’s reaction made it clearer still, but would he continue to feel that way or would the magic he’d hold as Alpha draw him to another?

Rachel
knew nothing of how the Alpha’s call worked in terms of finding a human Mate. She knew the woman would feel an immediate attraction to the Alpha when they touched and once mated, they would form a bond that could only be broken by death. Was that bond formed with love? Did the magic work both ways? She hoped it did. She wanted Challenger to be happy and she would do nothing to stand in the way of that happiness.

Her wolf snarled
so vehemently that Arthur sensed it and raised his head to look at her.

“I know. I know,” she told
the dog, who was lying in the middle of the floor where he could watch both her and the door through which McCall had left, “One night with him was all it took for me to see the truth of it. I thought I could hide it. I thought I could live with it, but I can’t, not here in Gold Gulch.”

She was surprised by how easy the decision was.
She’d never lived anywhere else. She’d never wanted to. This was her home and this was her pack and yet… This hadn’t been a home since her mother died and until last night, she’d felt no sense of belonging to anything greater than herself. She’d used the hotel to hide away from the world around her and she would do it no more.

She was, therefore, calm and prepared when her father entered the kitchen as she was
sliding the Cottage Pies into the oven for the lodgers’ supper.

“Rachel, we must talk,” he said as he took a seat at the table
. “You agreed to a mating and yet Mr. Coogan has informed me that there will not be one.”

Apparently, her bite to his nose had done the work her words could not.

“It would seem,” she said cheerily, “that Mr. Coogan and I have at last found mutual agreement.”

“I take it, then, congratulations are in order. You have settled on Mr. Holt.”

“No, Papa, I have not. There will be no happy couple to congratulate.” Rachel took a seat across from him and faced him squarely. “I never meant to deceive you. When I made that decision, I was angry and upset at the thought of being mated off against my wishes. At the time, I thought I had no choice, but I do have a choice, and I have made it.” Folding her hands, she took a breath and spoke as calmly as she could.

“
When Mama passed, I was too young to understand. All I wanted was to feel secure. This hotel was my world and you were the center of it. When things started to change, I did what I had to do to stop it, to keep things as they were.”

“And you’ve done a fine job of filling your mother’s shoes. It’s given me great pleasure seeing you mature into the woman your mother was,” Josephus Kincaid approved, “That’s why it would be a shame to let it go. You’ve worked so hard.”

She could argue. She could tell him that the responsibility to make things right should never have been hers, but he hadn’t seen it then and wouldn’t see it now. A wolver couldn’t change the color of his tail. Nevertheless, she had to try to make him understand.

“I
tried so hard to be everything you wanted me to be. I tried so hard to be everything Gold Gulch expected me to be.” Rachel shook her head sadly. “And I succeeded.”

Oblivious to her unhappiness, her father nodded in agreement.
“You have succeeded, admirably, which is why I cannot understand your recent behavior.”

“Papa, you’re not listening.
Mama’s shoes don’t fit. They never did. I’ve spent half my life trying to hold on to someone else’s past and I never once asked myself what I wanted. My recent behavior, as you call it, is me asking the question and finding part of the answer. I want my life to change.”

“And a mating with Mr. Holt will do that, dearest. He has wealth. He has position.
He will protect and care for you. I realize he’s a bit crass, but under your gentle guidance, he’ll soon see the error of his ways.”

“Why?” she asked, repeating
Mr. McCall’s question. “Why is he so interested in me now, after all these years? What recommends me to him?”

“You are a lady of
good family!” her father protested. “He has noted your fine qualities and is impressed by them.”

“That is nonsense.”
Mr. McCall would call it something else. “Bullshit.”

“Rachel!”

Rachel ignored him. “There are other, younger, prettier, and more fashionable ladies in this town with better dispositions than mine. And do not dare mention love, because we both know that sentiment does not enter into it. The hotel is the only thing we have of value and while Jack Coogan might think taking on the debt is worth it, a man like Barnabas Holt would not.” Remembering Jack Coogan’s words, she took the chance. “He wants my money, doesn’t he?”

In his shock, her father sputtered, “That
isn’t something to concern you.”

“Shouldn’t concern me? Papa, this is my life we’re talking about. Where did it come from? How much is it? Can we put it toward the debt?”

It would make her leaving so much easier if she knew her father had a fresh start, too. And then she realized how foolish that thought was. If her father could spend it, it would have already been spent.

“It comes from your mother’s people.
It was a gift to you on the occasion of your birth, to be held in trust until your mating and their approval of your choice. I have written to them repeatedly asking for the trust to be broken since you refused to mate, but they have refused my every entreaty. Your mother’s parents did not find me a suitable mate for their daughter. When she chose me over them, they cut off all financial support.”

Rachel sat back in her chair, more stunned at this revelation than the money
.

“Mama had a choice,”
she whispered to herself, “She came to the crossroads and chose the path she would take.”

She’d often
wondered, when the days and the work seemed endless, if her mother was happy and concluded that she couldn’t have been, solely because Rachel was so unhappy with the same life. Now, hearing this, she remembered what she’d long forgotten; the reason for her wanting things to remain the same. It was the security of a happy home.

She remembered the two comfortable chairs in the corner of the kitchen where
, after the hotel had been put to bed, her parents would sit and whisper and laugh while she did her schoolwork at the big kitchen table. Back then, Papa only visited the saloon when his Gold Gulch role required it. There was music then, too, from the old upright piano in the parlor which was now taken up by the Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Lounges. Papa donated the piano to the schoolhouse when there was no longer a place to keep it or, she thought now, no one to play it.

“Papa, what happened to the chairs you and Mama used to sit in, the ones that were over there where Arthur has his bed?”

Josephus Kincaid, his own mind wandering in the past, blinked and answered. “Up in the attic. They always took up too much room in here, but your mother said the parlor was too cold and formal for family and she preferred what she called our cozy corner in the kitchen.” He laughed a little. “It wasn’t so cozy when the weather was bad and we had to hang the tablecloths from ropes strung across the kitchen. That was before your mother insisted we get a dryer. Don’t you remember?”

She’d forgotten that and more. “You used to hang the cloths with her. You called it your quiet time.”

“When you were a little pup, you would pout because we would make you go to bed. We wouldn’t let you come with us,” he remembered fondly.

“
When I was older, I would peek around my bedroom curtain and spy on you. I could never figure out why it was so important you be alone. You only talked.” She understood it now. Her quiet talks with Mr. McCall were important, too.

Her father laughed again and it struck Rachel that she hadn’t heard him laugh like that in a long time. Others would say he was a convivial, almost jovial man, but to her, his laughter always sounded false, as if he were playing his role. This laughter was
what it should be; real.

“Your mother talked. I listened. She had
dreams. She had a plan for this place. She always saw what it could be and I, her faithful servant, would have done anything in my power to make those dreams come true.” He shrugged and the smile died.

“Her parents were right about me. I was nothing without her
, a sham. With her, I could be everything she dreamed I’d be.” The smile came back. “She dreamed of building a small theater behind the hotel where I could produce plays like those of the travelling troupes that performed here years ago. I think I should have liked that.”