Wyoming Strong

Sara caught that expression on his face and couldn’t understand it. She averted her eyes and smiled at an elderly cattleman who seemed to have come to the benefit alone.

“Pretty young woman like you shouldn’t be hanging out with an outlaw like me,” he teased. “You should get out there and dance.”

She smiled sadly as she nursed a soft drink. “I don’t dance.” She did, but she couldn’t abide being that close to a man. Not anymore.

“Now that’s a pity. You should get our police chief to teach you.” He chuckled, indicating Cash Grier, who was out on the dance floor with his beautiful redheaded wife, Tippy, doing a masterful waltz.

“I’d just trip over my feet and kill somebody.” Sara laughed softly.

“Hi, Sara,” one of Eb Scott’s men called to her. She knew him. Gabriel had invited him to the house a couple of times. He was tall and dark, very handsome, with flashing green eyes. “How about dancing with me?”

“Sorry,” she declined with a smile. “I don’t dance...”

“That’s silly. I can teach you. Here.” He took the soft drink away and caught her hand.

She reacted badly. She jerked back, flushed. “Ted, don’t,” she said in a curt undertone, tugging at her hand.

He’d had at least one drink too many. He didn’t realize what he was doing to her. “Oh, come on, it’s just a dance!”

Wolf Patterson caught him by the collar and almost threw him away from Sara.

“She said she didn’t want to dance,” he told the man, and his posture was dangerous enough to sober the other man up. Fortunately, they were in an alcove, and they didn’t draw attention. Sara was embarrassed enough already.

“Gosh. Sorry, Sara,” Ted told her, flustered, as he glanced at Wolf Patterson, whose eyes were glittering like fresh ice.

“It’s okay,” she said in a husky undertone. But her hands were shaking.

Ted grimaced, nodded at Wolf and made himself scarce.

Sara swallowed, then swallowed again. She was shaking. Any sort of aggression from a man, even slight, was enough to set her off.

“Come with me,” Wolf said quietly. He stood aside, indicating the side door.

She followed him out into the night. It was cold, and her coat was in the hall with all the others.

Wolf took off his jacket and slid it over her soft, bare shoulders. It was warm from his body. It smelled of masculine spice.

“You’ll get cold,” she protested.

He stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “I don’t feel the cold much.”

They stared out over the long pasture that led to a wooded area around the community center. The night was quiet, except for the distant sound of dogs howling. There was a crescent moon that gave just enough light to let them see each other.

“Thanks,” she bit off, not looking at him.

He drew in a long breath. “He was drinking. He’ll apologize the next time he sees you.”

“Yes.”

“You have some real issues with men,” he said after a minute.

“No, I...”

He turned quickly toward her. She jerked backward helplessly.

He laughed coldly. “No?”

She bit her lower lip and lowered her eyes. “You think you can get over things,” she said in a dull tone. “But the past is portable. You can’t run from it, no matter how fast you go, how far you go.”

“You can cash checks on that,” he agreed bitterly.

“I’m sorry I set you off, at the house,” she began.

“You remind me of her,” he bit off. “She was beautiful, too. Brunette, black eyes, olive complexion. In the right light...” He hesitated. “Do I remind you of the man who hurt you?” he asked abruptly.

“He was blond,” she said unsteadily.

“I see.”

She closed her eyes.

“Gabriel won’t tell me a damned thing about you.”

“We’re even. He won’t tell me about you, either.”

He managed a faint laugh. “Curious about me, are you?”

“Not...that way,” she said under her breath.

“Really?” He turned and moved just a step closer. “You were kissing me back in the pasture.”

She flushed. “You caught me...off guard.”

“Just how experienced are you?” he asked bluntly. “Is that innocence real, or is it an act? Something to disarm a man and make him feel protective?”

She wrapped his jacket closer around her thin shoulders. “I live inside myself,” she said after a minute. “I don’t...need other people.”

“I feel that way, too, most of the time. But then there are the long, empty nights when I have to have a woman just to get through them.”

Her face flamed. “Lucky women,” she drawled.

His hand came up, very slowly, and pushed back a long strand of silky black hair from her face. “Yes, they are. I’m a tender lover,” he said softly.

She stepped back, nervously. She didn’t like the mental pictures that were forming in her mind.

“Sara, are you all right?” Gabriel asked from the doorway.

They both turned to look at him. “Yes,” she said.

He gave Wolf a speaking look. “You should come back in. It’s cold.”

“I’ll be there in just a minute,” she promised.

Gabriel nodded and went inside, but with obvious reluctance.

“Your brother doesn’t want me anywhere near you,” Wolf told her.

“Yes. He told me that you’re...” She flushed as she recalled what Gabriel had said, that Wolf was aggressive with women he wanted. “He said that you have a past that you haven’t dealt with.”

“Like you,” he returned.

She nodded. “He said we could hurt each other badly.”

“He’s right,” he replied with narrow, dark eyes. “Past a certain point, I wouldn’t be tender. And I think aggression is what frightens you the most.”

“I can’t...do that,” she said, her voice curt.

“Do what?”

“Sleep...with anyone.”

His face hardened. “Then you shouldn’t send out signals that you’re available. Should you?”

“I haven’t!”

“You lay in my arms like a silken doll and let me have your mouth,” he said under his breath, his voice deep and soft and sensuous. He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “That’s a signal.”

“I was surprised,” she shot back. “Caught off guard.”

“You don’t like men close to you,” he said, thinking out loud. “You were frightened of Ted. But you like it when I touch you, Sara.”

“I...don’t!”

His forefinger went to her soft bow mouth and traced around its outline in a slow, sensuous appraisal that made it tremble.

He moved a step closer, watching her face lift helplessly, feeling the quick, involuntary whip of her breath.

“Your brother was right,” he whispered as he bent. His mouth shivered over her parted lips, barely touching, tracing, tempting. “I’m much more dangerous than I look.”

She wanted to move away. She really did. But the feel of him so close to her, the smell of him, familiar and dear, the hard warmth of his mouth teasing hers, made her reckless. She’d never really wanted a man to kiss her. But she loved it when Wolf did. He made the bad memories go away.

His fingers were tracing up and down her long neck, making sensuous little patterns while his mouth smoothed over her lips.

“You could become an addiction,” he whispered. “That would be the worst thing I could do to you.”

Her eyes opened wide on his face, seeing it harden, seeing his eyes glitter.

“I mean it,” he said roughly. “I hate brunettes. I wouldn’t mean to take out old vendettas on you, but I might not be able to help it.” His mouth crushed down on hers briefly and then lifted. “She liked to make me crazy in bed, then she laughed at me when I lost control and went over the edge.”

She caught her breath at the images that flashed through her mind.

“I don’t think she ever felt a damned thing. But she pretended that she did, at first. She told me she was a virgin. She even acted like one...”

He jerked away from Sara. His pale eyes were glittery on her face. “Just like you,” he said in a rough undertone. “Backing away to make me come close then pretending that I got through her defenses, that I wasn’t like the other men who frightened her.”

She began to understand what Gabriel meant. She felt a sense of loss. This man was far more damaged even than she was.

“Have you ever had therapy?” she asked sadly.

“Therapy.” He laughed out loud. “I had two years of a woman ridiculing me every time I lay in her arms, making me beg for satisfaction. Can damned therapy fix that?” he asked in a rasping tone.

She winced.

“So I date blondes. They don’t come with bad memories, and I can make them lose control, make them beg me.” He smiled coldly. “Payback.”

She had a sick feeling deep inside. He would do that to her, if they ever became involved. He would make her pay for those scars the other woman had given him. She hadn’t realized until then that she felt different with him than she ever had with other men.

“Have I shocked you?” he asked sarcastically.

“Yes,” she replied softly. “I...haven’t ever... Well, that’s not quite true.” She lowered her eyes. “My stepfather tried to have me. He was brutal and vulgar and there was a trial... I had to testify against him. He went to prison.”

“Did you tease him?” he asked coldly. “Drive him crazy until he had to do something about it?”

Why had she thought he might feel differently than other men had? She laughed softly to herself. She took off his jacket and handed it to him. “I’m sure that’s what I did,” she replied. “It must have been my fault.”

He couldn’t see her face. He didn’t realize that she was being sarcastic. “Poor damned fool,” he bit off. “Just don’t think you’ll ever get the opportunity to try it out on me.”

“Mr. Patterson,” she said with ragged pride, “it would never occur to me that you’d be that stupid. Excuse me.”

She brushed by him and went into the civic center. She found Gabriel standing by the punch bowl. She was poised, but very pale.

“I’d like to go home, please,” she said in a haunted tone.

Gabriel looked over her head at Wolf Patterson’s cold expression. He glared at his friend, but Sara looked as if she couldn’t take any more.

“Yes,” he told her. “Come on.”

* * *

SHE MADE COFFEE. They sat at the kitchen table and drank it.

“What did he say to you?”

“The usual things.” She sighed. “But he did tell me about the woman...”

“Ysera?”

She looked up. “Is that her name?”

He nodded. His face was grim. “We hated her. We knew what she was doing to him, but you can’t drag a man away from a woman he thinks he’s in love with. She damned near destroyed him.” He frowned. “He’s never spoken of it to anyone. Not even to me. I know about it from a girl who worked with her. She thought Ysera was warped, mentally. I have to agree.”

“He told me about her to warn me off,” she said. She shook her head. “I can’t imagine a man putting up with that.”

“He loved her,” he said simply.

She drew in a breath and sipped coffee. “He said that he didn’t think therapy could do anything for him.” She flushed.

“What else did he say?”

She laughed hollowly. “That I must have teased our stepfather until he went crazy to have me.”

“I’ll break his damned neck!”

“You will not,” she said, pulling his shirtsleeve to make him sit back down. “He doesn’t know a thing about me. It’s what even one of my friends thought.”

“You were thirteen!”

She winced. “Maybe I wore shorts too much...”

“Oh, God, don’t do that to yourself!” he burst out. “You were a child, far more innocent than most girls your age. He’d been after you for months.”

“I didn’t tell you that!” she exclaimed, embarrassed.

“The prosecutor told me,” he replied. “He was livid. He said they should have the death penalty for cases like yours.”

She lowered her eyes to the table. “I have no peace. I have nightmares.” She smiled sadly. “There’s this man I play WoW with,” she recalled. “He says he has nightmares, too. Of course, he could be a woman or a man or a child, I don’t really know, but he...he gives me peace. We get along so well together. He said that he couldn’t get away from the past. I know how that feels.”

He didn’t dare tell her that her WoW friend was none other than Wolf Patterson. The player was the only real confidant she had, besides Gabriel. It was one of the only happy things in her sad life, that game. Perhaps it was the only thing Wolf had, as well.

“Do you know who he is in the real world?” he asked conversationally.

“Oh, no. I don’t want to,” she added. “The game isn’t like real life. We just have fun playing together, like children.” She laughed. “It’s so funny. I don’t have friends, you know. But I have a friend in him. I can talk to him. Not that we go into specifics. But he’s a compassionate person.”

“So are you.”

She smiled. “I try to be.”

“Sara, do you understand now why I told you that you can’t afford to let Wolf get close to you?”

She nodded.

“Someone said that Ted got insistent about dancing with you,” he said abruptly.

“Yes. He tried to drag me out onto the dance floor,” she replied uneasily. “Mr. Patterson caught him by the collar and almost threw him into a wall.” She shivered. “He’s scary when he loses his temper.”

“Only because he never loses it,” Gabriel replied. “That’s one man you don’t ever want to make mad. Well, if you’re a man, that is. I’ve never known him to hurt a woman.” He studied her. “He was aggressive with Ted?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to make the obvious assumption, but it presented itself just the same. Ted was trying to put the make on Sara, and Wolf was protective of her. Jealous over her? Possibly.

“It wouldn’t end well,” he said, thinking out loud.

“Don’t you think I know that?” she asked. “He even told me that he...gets even for what the brunette did to him, with other women.” She flushed.

“He doesn’t talk about it, to anyone,” he repeated. “Why did he tell you?”

“I don’t understand why, either,” she replied. “He hates brunettes.”

“You have to make sure he doesn’t develop a taste for you,” he said firmly.

She nodded. She was remembering how it felt to kiss him, to be in his arms, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t dare tell Gabriel how things had already gotten physical between them.

“Don’t worry,” she said gently, and smiled. “I’m not suicidal.”

* * *

A FEW DAYS LATER, she had occasion to remember those words.

CHAPTER FOUR

SARA WAS DRIVING past Wolf Patterson’s ranch on a Sunday afternoon, on her way home from picking up a loaf of bread at the Sav-A-Lot Grocery Store, when she noticed a big black form in the middle of the road.

She slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting what was on the road, a huge Rottweiler. It had blood all over it.

She parked her car in the middle of the road. There was no traffic, darn the luck, so she couldn’t wave down anyone to help her. She approached the big dog. It was whining. There was blood on its side, and one leg was turned at an odd angle.

“Oh, dear.” She ran to the car, pulled an afghan out of the backseat and put it in the front seat. Then she went back to the dog. It was enormous, but maybe she could lift it. If she could get it into her car, she could find a vet. She hoped it wouldn’t bite her, but she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She reached down, talking gently to it, smoothing over its head. “Poor, poor thing,” she whispered, and slid her arms under it.

She was wearing a yellow sweater and black slacks. Blood saturated her sweater as she struggled to pick up the huge animal. She heard a vehicle approaching and eased the dog to the ground. She ran toward the truck, waving her arms frantically.

“What the hell...!” Wolf Patterson exclaimed when he slammed out of the truck. She was covered in blood. He felt a jolt of fear. Had she been injured? “Sara!”

That was when he spotted Hellscream, lying on the road.

“What happened?” he bit off. “She’s my dog.”

“I don’t know,” she groaned. “I almost hit her before I saw her lying on the road. Somebody must have run over her and just left! Damn the coldhearted idiot who did this! I tried to lift her and put her into my car to take her to the vet, but she’s so heavy!”

“I’ll get her to the vet,” he said. He looked at Sara with narrow, shocked eyes. “Your sweater is soaked with blood.”

“It will wash,” she said. “Oh, hurry, she’s in so much pain!”

He turned and put the big dog on the seat beside him and sped away.

* * *

SARA HAD A SHOWER and washed her clothes. She hoped the dog would be all right. Gabriel had gone to see Eb Scott. She wished he was home, so that she could get him to call Wolf and ask about the dog. She was too intimidated by the big man to do it herself.

She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when she heard a car drive up.

She went to the door, peering out through the security port, and saw Wolf Patterson striding up to the porch.

He was wearing ranch clothes, denim jeans and a chambray shirt with a battered black Stetson and tan boots that had seen better days. Tan batwing chaps flapped when he walked.

She opened the door before he could knock.

“How is she?” she asked.

He nodded. “She’ll be fine. It’s Sunday and the staff was off, so I had to help Dr. Rydel hold her while he cleaned the wounds and stitched her up. He set the break in her leg. She’s pretty sick, but he says she’ll mend.” He hesitated. “Thank you for stopping.”

“I could never leave an animal hurt on the road.”

“Someone did. And I’ll find out who,” he added coldly.

Looking into those piercing pale eyes, she was glad she wasn’t the person who left his dog bleeding on the highway.

“Would you...like coffee?” she asked.

“Yes. Is Gabe here?”

“He went over to Eb Scott’s, but he should be back soon. Did you need to see him?”

“Yes. I’ll wait, if I may.”

“Of course.”

She poured black coffee into a mug while he straddled a chair at the kitchen table. He watched her move around the room, gathering up cream and sugar to put on the table.

“Do you cook?” he asked suddenly.

She laughed softly. “Yes.”

He was looking at the rack of cookbooks on the counter. “French cuisine?”

“I like French pastries,” she said. “We never lived close enough to a city to buy them, so I learned to make them. My father loved éclairs,” she recalled with a sad smile.

“Did your mother cook?”

Her face closed up. “Do you take cream or sugar in your coffee?” she asked instead.

His eyes narrowed on her suddenly pale face. He shook his head. “Your mother blamed you for what happened.”

She sat down and wrapped her hands around her mug. “Yes.”

“She saw you as a rival, I gather.”

He made it sound as if Sara had been grown when it happened. But it was too painful to discuss. “I don’t know how she saw me. She hated me. I never saw her again, after the trial. She died some time back.”

He lifted the mug to his lips and raised an eyebrow. “You could float a horseshoe in this,” he pointed out.

She managed a smile. “I like strong coffee.”

“So do I.” He sipped it again. “My mother turned me out when I was about four. She hated my father. I had the misfortune to look like him.”

She didn’t betray that Gabriel had already told her about this part of Wolf’s past. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what a sweet mother was. Gabriel and I never had much love from ours.”

He turned the cup in his hands. “Neither did I.”

“Is she still alive?’

His eyes were terrible to look into. “I don’t know. I don’t give a damn.”

She sighed. “I would feel the same, if mine was still alive.”

He sipped coffee. “That was one damned expensive sweater you had on,” he said after a minute. “You didn’t even hesitate to lift Hellie.”

“Is that her name? Hellie?” she asked with a smile.

He nodded. He didn’t add that it was short for Hellscream. She wouldn’t understand the reference, anyway. Hellscream was a male orc in his video game, and he thought the name was amusing for a female dog. He hated Hellscream as leader of the Horde forces.

“I bought her when I moved here. She’s three years old. My best girl,” he added with a smile, one of the few genuine smiles she’d ever seen on his hard face.

She was studying the backs of his hands. There were fine scars on them.

He raised an eyebrow. “Something you want to say?” he mused.

“You said that you got scars on your hands from rappelling from helicopters in the FBI,” she said.

“Yes?”

“How do you get scars on the backs of your hands when you’re rappelling? You wear gloves, don’t you?”

His eyes had an odd expression. “You’re perceptive.”

She studied his face. “That means you aren’t telling me a thing, Mr. Patterson.”

He searched her eyes and then averted his. She was so formal with him. Well, she was young and he wasn’t. Thirty-seven to her twentysomething. It made him feel cold inside, those years that stood between them. Even if he was tempted, and he was, she was far too young for a man with his jaded past. Not to mention he was friends with her brother. He couldn’t afford to get involved with her. She was mysterious in her way, and she’d tempted her stepfather away from her mother. She might pretend to be innocent, but was she? Ysera had tried that trick on him. He didn’t trust women. Lying seductresses, the lot of them.

“You never stay down here on the ranch when Gabe’s out of town, do you?” he asked, for something to break the uncomfortable silence.

“No,” she said. “I’m...nervous if I’m alone at night.”

“You have an apartment in San Antonio, don’t you? You’re alone there.”

“I have neighbors that I know,” she replied. “Out here, there’s just me.” She swallowed. “Gabriel has enemies. One of them targeted me, in the past. I was very lucky that he was home at the time.”

He scowled. He hadn’t considered that Gabe’s line of work would put her in danger. But of course it would. He had enemies of his own. One had tried to kill him, although he wondered now if Ysera hadn’t sent the man after him. She’d sworn bloody vengeance when he turned her over to the authorities.

His eyes went to the silky blue blouse she was wearing. It had fine pearl buttons all the way down the front. Under it, he could see the outline of her breasts, firm and tip-tilted. They made him ache.

“Could you...not do that, please?” she asked, folding her arms across her blouse.

He leaned back in his chair and just looked at her. There was a world of sensual wisdom in his pale eyes. “You seem like two people sometimes,” he remarked. “One brash and hot-tempered, the other nervous and vulnerable.”

“We all have different sides to our personalities, I think. More coffee?” she asked, for something to say.

He nodded. His eyes were calculating, but she didn’t notice until it was too late. As she reached for his cup, he reached for her, and pulled her gently down onto his lap.

“Nothing heavy,” he promised, his voice deep and soft, like velvet. His big hand spread across her cheek, holding her face so that he could see her black velvet eyes. They were huge in her beautiful face, sad and apprehensive. “Your brother will be home any minute,” he reminded her.

Yes. But she worried about what could happen in the meantime. She put her hand on his broad chest, and it encountered the thick hair where the shirt was open at his throat. She caught her breath and tried to jerk her hand back.

He spread it into the opening, watching her face as he pressed her long, cold fingers into the thick hair. She shivered a little at the feel of him, so intimate. There was warm, hard muscle under the hair. His heart was beating heavily, like hers. She really should protest and get up.

But just as she thought about it, his thumb brushed over her full lower lip and teased it away from the upper one. He felt her shiver.