«Western wives take care of their own horses. They curry, saddle, bridle, clean the feet of, rub down, and otherwise —»
«Go to the house,» Wolfe interrupted curtly. «I’ll see to your horse.»
«Well, I should hope so,» Willow said tartly. «Jessihas ridden just as far as you have and she hasn’t a third your strength. Plus that ridiculous sidesaddle. I’d like to see howspritely you’d feel if you had to ride that way. Honestly, Wolfe, what’s gotten into you?»
Jessica wondered at the dull red stain on Wolfe’s cheekbones as he turned away and led horses toward the barn, but Willow tugged at her hand, distracting her.
«I’ve never been able to make a good cup of tea,» Willow confessed, leading Jessica firmly toward the porch. «You’ll have to show me how.»
«A paragon who can’t make tea.» Jessica blinked. «Impossible. Breathtaking.» She smiled slightly and shook her head. «Actually quite wonderful.»
«Who said I was a paragon?»
«I did,» Jessica admitted. «With a lot of encouragement from Wolfe.»
«Good Lord. Why?»
«Because compared to me, you are.»
Willow made a rude sound. «You’ve had a very long trip. It must have affected your mind. Not to mention Wolfe’s. I’ve never seen him so edgy.»
«Perhaps a cup of tea would help,» Jessica suggested with an unconscious sigh.
Willow muttered something that sounded like, «A swift kick in the pants might do more good.»
«Paragons don’t think such things.»
The hazel flash of Willow’s eyes was alive with wry laughter. «Perhaps. And perhaps paragons just aren’t caught thinking them.»
The front door opened and closed, cutting off the sound of women’s voices. The men hadn’t been able to hear any real words for the last few minutes, but it hadn’t been difficult to guess what the topic of conversation was — Wolfe’s manners.
Or lack thereof.
After a few moments of silence, Wolfe glanced up from the pack horse he was working on and let out a long breath. Hearing it, Rafe smiled.
«Well, I can see that marriage hasn’t trimmed Willy’s tongue one bit,» Rafe said wryly as he undid the saddle cinch. «She can still tear a mean strip when she has a mind to. Only thing she does better is make biscuits.»
Wolfe grunted.
«Of course,» Rafe said, lifting the saddle one-handed from the horse’s back, «the fact that a man knows he has it coming tends to make it sting all the worse.»
Wolfe spun around, ready to take exception toRafe’s calm words, but the other man had already turned away. Saddle balanced on one shoulder, saddle bags and bedroll slung over the other, Rafe was walking through the barn door.
Letting out another long breath, Wolfe made another stab at reining in his temper. The whole point of bringing Jessica to the ranch had been to show her how completely unsuited she was to be a Western wife. It hadn’t been to point out how hard Wolfe was being on her. He knew that already.
Just as he knew his plan to make Jessica cry annulment was working. Slowly, surely, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, he was wearing down her certainty that she would win the contest of wills with Wolfe.
I shall not tire of being your wife.
Yes, you shall.
With each breath Jessica took, they were coming closer to the moment when she would be forced to admit her defeat and free both of them from the cruel trap of a marriage that never should have been.
Wolfe hoped Jessica would give in soon. Very soon. He didn’t know how much longer he could go on grinding a graceful elf into dust. He had never felt another person’s pain so clearly. It was worse than being hurt himself, for he had learned to control his own pain long ago, when he had realized that to many people his Indian mother put him beyond the pale of true humanity.
The viscount’s savage.
But there was no way to control the effects of the pain Wolfe was causing Jessica. There was only the knowledge that when the pain became great enough, she would quit the sham marriage between aristocrat andhalfbreed bastard.
Nothing of Wolfe’s grim thoughts showed on his face as he worked over the horses, or later when he went to the house and found Jessica asleep in the extra bedroom. In the daylight filtering through the muslin curtains, she looked almost ethereal. Asleep, the fierce will that burned so surprisingly beneath her fragile surface was banked, giving no hint of what lay beneath the delicate features and fine bones.
Broodingly, Wolfe looked at the translucence of Jessica’s skin and the lavender shadows beneath her eyes. Seeing her like this, he could barely believe she had the strength to sit up, much less to defy him when men far stronger than she was would have given up the game long since.
Unbidden, a memory surfaced in Wolfe…a cold day in spring and a creek in flood. Trapped amid the debris was a blue-eyed wolf cub whose back had been broken. The cub had snarled silently up at Wolfe, prepared to die fighting with teeth that had known nothing but a mother’s milk. Wolfe had allowed the cub’s needle fangs to sink all the way to the bone, for it had been the only way to get in close enough for a quick, clean kill, ending the cub’s suffering.
With an effort, Wolfe banished the memory and the chill that had come in its wake. He wasn’t going to harm Jessica physically, much less kill her. The trap they were caught in was less tangled than flood debris. It would spring open at a single word from her pale lips.
Annulment.
Wolfe tore his attention away from Jessica and began looking for places to put the valises and fur blanket he had brought in. The far corner looked promising, but a second look showed that it was occupied by a cradle. Stacked nearby were other tiny pieces of furniture, waiting the for next generation of Blacks to be born.
The thought of what it would be like to be awaiting the birth of his own child went through Wolfe like lightning, leaving only darkness in its wake. He set down the valises and turned to leave. His steps brought him past the bed. He stopped, held by something he could not name.
Jessica stirred and shivered with the residue of winter that still gripped the house. Despite her chill, she didn’t awaken. Instead, she huddled around herself as though understanding even in sleep that she must hoard her own warmth, for there was no one to care for her.
Jessi…damn it, what are you doing to us? Let go of me before I do something that we’ll both regret to our dying breath.
The soft fur blanket settled as lightly as a sigh over Jessica. Wolfe drew the blanket up to her chin, stared at the beauty of her hair against the lustrous fur, and then left the room in three long, silent strides.
* * *
«WHY am I called Reno?» he asked, repeating Jessica’s question.
«Oh dear,» Jessica said quickly, looking up from a plate of Willow’s delicious food. «Was it rude of me to ask? I’m still not certain of your customs.»
Reno smiled. The flash of his teeth against his black mustache was vivid, but not as vivid as the green of his eyes framed by thick lashes a woman would have envied. Like Willow andRafe, Reno’s eyes were slightly tilted, almost cat-like in their impact. Unlike Willow, there was nothing the least bit feminine about Reno. He was as big and hard asRafe.
And lifeRafe, Reno had been captivated by the delicate British elf whose ice-blue eyes and coolly accented English were at odds with the fire buried in her glorious hair.
«Red, you couldn’t be rude if you tried.»
As Reno spoke, he kept an eye on the huge basket of biscuits that was making the rounds of the dinner table. If he didn’t watch closely, Rafe would make off with more than his share.
«A while back I was looking for gold over in the SierraNevadas,» Reno said absently. «I came across an old
