Jane Bonander by Wild Heart

emotions. “And McCloud found him?”
    Nathan Wolfe nodded. “He’d been with the Army when they’d set the explosives.”
    Another bit of news about her husband she hadn’t known. “He was in the Army?”
    “You didn’t know that?”
    She attacked the dishes with vigor. “No. He didn’t mention it to me.”
    “Well,” Nathan added, “he did scouting for them. The commanding officer told him that the official report would read that they’d been killed by Indians. The man was covering his carelessness at not canvassing the area better before he set off the explosion. As you can imagine,” he continued, “that didn’t sit well with McCloud.”
    No, she couldn’t imagine. He made it sound as though McCloud was a man of scruples. Nathan Wolfe obviously knew something about her new husband that she did not. On the other hand, she thought with a twist of her mouth, perhaps she knew the real Wolf McCloud.
    “Years later he’d heard of a white boy living with an Indian tribe on the north coast. He discovered it was Jackson.”
    “And they let McCloud take him?”
    The man smiled. Again, as before, it transformed his features. “He wasn’t a prisoner. They’d found him wandering in the woods near the cave after the explosion. They gave him a home when he would have died.”
    “And you’ve remarried?”
    His smile widened and his eyes filled with such tenderness, Julia had to look away.
    “I have. Susannah and I each brought a son to the marriage. Corey is almost nine years old. We have two daughters, Miranda and Caroline.”
    Julia sensed the love and pride in his voice and still couldn’t look at him. Somehow, knowing that others loved so fiercely made her heart ache, for her marriage was such an imitation of what a marriage should be. But never would be.
    She was in the process of removing the dishpan when he took it from her and walked toward the back door. “How did you and McCloud meet?”
    When he returned with the empty dishpan, she attempted to ignore his question, hoping he’d forgotten he asked. He hadn’t.
    “You and McCloud,” he said. “How did you meet?”
    “He … um … He worked for my father, here on the ranch. But please, Mr. Wolfe,” she added, “tell me more about him. He’s very reticent when it comes to talking about himself. For instance, how did he get those scars on his back?”
    Nathan Wolfe glanced away. “Some of them are from a grizzly.”
    Her heart leaped into her throat. “A bear attacked him?”
    “That’s the story he tells.”
    Julia thought about it. “You said some of his scars came from the grizzly. What about the others?”
    Nathan Wolfe’s probing gaze made Julia uncomfortable. It was as if he knew far more about her situation with McCloud than he’d let on.
    “He has a lot of secrets, ma’am, but he’s a good man. He’s had a hard life.”
    Julia wiped off the flowered oilcloth on the table, then cleaned the counter space in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “A hard life? Really, Mr. Wolfe, haven’t we all?”
    “McCloud’s has been harder than most. Consider the plight of half-bloods. They don’t belong in either world.”
    Julia stopped working. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
    “Most of us don’t. I admit I didn’t until I met McCloud. At our first meeting he had a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood.” Nathan Wolfe laughed. “Cockiest bas—” He coughed. “Pardon me, ma’am. Cockiest man I’d ever met.”
    At least that hadn’t changed. “Do you know anything about his childhood?”
    Nathan poured himself a cup of coffee. “Not much. He’s pretty tight-lipped about that.” His gaze was thoughtful as he stirred in cream. “I do know he was raised in the wilderness by a couple of rough trappers and probably a squaw or two.”
    Julia went to the table and sat, clutching her hands in her lap. Unable to imagine being raised that way, she felt an insane ache in the pit of her stomach for the child McCloud