Bride of the Wolf by Susan Krinard Page A

voice.
    Heath cleared his throat. “Maurice told me that you took in some of the washing.”
    “Does that surprise you, Mr. Renshaw?”
    “I thought you wanted to take care of the baby.”
    Her chin jerked up. “I keep him with me when Lucia is not feeding him. Many women are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.” She folded her arms across her chest, and Heath couldn’t help but notice that she was fuller in the bosom than he’d realized. “I am not accustomed to being idle, nor did I come to Texas to drink tea and lounge about in the parlor.”
    Trying to figure her out was worse than useless. Heath knew she’d already been cooking. She’d offered to cook for him . She intended to be just the kind of wife Jed would have needed, baking pies and cleaning and washing and doing everything else women were supposed to do.
    But Jed wasn’t here. Heath would have expected her to wait until her husband came back before taking on so much.
    With a speed that left her no defense, he seized her hands and turned them palm up. The fingers were longand slender, but her fingertips were marked with calluses that could only have been earned with steady labor.
    She snatched her hand away. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly, and she looked about ready to hit him.
    “I’ll ask you to keep your hands to yourself,” she snapped.
    He almost laughed, but it wasn’t from humor. “You done hard work before,” he said.
    The cool, prim lady was gone now, replaced by that wild thing he’d glimpsed yesterday in the parlor. “Have you seen enough?” she demanded.
    He didn’t want to speak the real answer to that question. “Dog Creek has gone a long time without the services of a lady,” he said.
    “Then you had best begin getting used to it.”
    She looked so ornery that Heath was dangerously inclined to admire her spunk. “You should be inside with the kid,” he said.
    “He is sleeping, and Lucia is watching him.” She glanced toward the barn, and her voice got a lot quieter. “There must be cows that need milking.”
    He tipped his hat back on his head. “You want to milk the cow?”
    “Do you doubt that I am capable of it, Mr. Renshaw?”
    “That’s usually Joey’s job.”
    “If I’m not mistaken, you need all your remaining hands on the range with the cattle. Isn’t that so?” She waved her hand to the north, where the desert grassland stretched out beyond the creek. “Shouldn’t you be out there yourself?”
    It sounded too much like another order, and Heathlet himself be provoked. “You plan on bein’ the one runnin’ things once Jed comes back, Mrs. McCarrick?” he asked. “You figure you can bully him the way you did the men you knew back East? You should know it ain’t quite the same out here, ma’am. Or do you need more proof of that?”
    She dropped her parasol and her body curled inward all at the same time, as if he’d called her a whore to her face. He reached out and caught her arm. It was so tight that he was afraid it would snap if he pressed too hard.
    “You’d best get back into the shade, ma’am,” he said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. Anger not at her, but at himself. He’d sunk pretty low by using Jed against her when Jed was never coming back.
    He picked up the parasol, keeping his grip, despite her resistance, all the way back to the shade, and sat her down in the old rocking chair Jed used to favor on summer nights, when he would smoke his pipe and talk to Heath about his dreams.
    Rachel recovered quickly. Whatever had made her so upset didn’t stop her from standing again and pushing her face up to within an inch of his.
    “This cannot go on, Mr. Renshaw,” she said. “You may not like me, and I may feel the same about you, but we must both live here until Mr. McCarrick returns. I will no longer engage in these ridiculous battles with you. I will treat you with the respect due your position, and you will do me the same courtesy.”
    Heath didn’t