Bride of the Wolf by Susan Krinard Page B

have any choice but to look straight into her eyes. They weren’t just plain brown like he’d thought, but all kinds of tawny colors, like the pelt of a panther when the sun hit it just right. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips weren’t as thin as he’d remembered, either. In fact, they were the prettiest thing about her face, besides her eyes.
    She took a sudden step back. Her little pink tongue darted out to touch her lips, and Heath’s cock started up again.
    “Do we have an agreement, Mr. Renshaw?” she asked, her hands held rigidly at her sides, as if she was afraid she might touch him . “Do we have a truce until Jedediah returns?”
    Heath was damn grateful that she didn’t have a wolf’s hearing, or she would know just how fast his heart was beating. “If that’s the case,” he said, “you’d better start callin’ me Holden.”
    “I prefer—”
    “You want the truce or not?”
    “Yes. I take it that is your condition?”
    “Yes. And I’ll call you Rachel.”
    “Very well,” she said shortly. She stepped back again until her skirt brushed the rocking chair. “Now that that is settled, we must have a serious discussion about the infant.”
    “Why?” Heath asked, tensing up himself. “You said he was doing good.”
    “Doing well ,” she said, and then blushed. “The baby is growing stronger every day, Mr. Ren—Holden. But we must consider…” She swallowed. “If he has family, they must be located.”
    “Family?” His stare must have scared her a little in spite of her bold talk, because she sat down and clenched the arms of the chair so hard that her knuckles went white. “I found him all by himself. There wasn’t no one else around.”
    “ Where did you find him?”
    “An empty dugout between here and Heywood.”
    “What is a dugout?”
    “A shelter dug out of the side of a hill.”
    “What kind of family leaves a kid alone in a place like that?”
    Heath turned and paced to the end of the porch. “You were mad when I said you didn’t have to take care of him no more. You changed your mind?”
    “No! It’s just that I…” The chair squeaked as she shifted position, and her voice went very quiet. “Just because someone abandoned him doesn’t mean that there aren’t other kinfolk who would want him.”
    He has kinfolk, Heath wanted to shout. He clamped his teeth together instead and thought about what he was going to say.
    “I wouldn’t know how to find them,” he said at last, facing her again. “The kid had no name on him, nothin’ to say where he belonged. Folks in Javelina know about him now. If anyone wanted him, they’d have said when I was in town. I could ride to some other towns, ask around. But I won’t find out anything.”
    Her body seemed to go boneless. “It does seem an impossible task,” she murmured.
    “I don’t much care for folk who throw their kids away like rotten meat,” Heath growled.
    She looked up, and he wished he hadn’t said it. Her eyes had gone soft just the way they had when she’d been “grateful” for Lucia. “Anyone of decency would abhor such a thing,” she said.
    Was she approving of him?
    “You think I’m decent, Rachel?” he asked, smiling in a way that usually sent enemies cowering and everyone else to thinking better of crossing him.
    “I don’t know.”
    Honest. Straightforward. You would never think she could lie about anything.
    “That’s mighty nice of you,” he said, “considerin’ just yesterday you thought I was a killer.”
    “I…” She kept her chin up, even though he could smell that she was ready to run. “The gun is still where you left it. You are welcome to take it back.”
    The anger was passing through him now, breaking up like storm clouds as they tore apart on the wind. “You keep it. In case I get tempted to use it on somebody I don’t like.”
    She backed toward the door. “If that is what you wish,” she said.
    Heath shoved his hands in his pockets and watched her hurry