«Stay put,» he said tightly.
Jessica didn’t answer, but she didn’t try to dismount, either. Wolfe slid off on the right side in a single flowing movement. His hands went to the small, booted foot that poked from thesnowclotted folds of cloth.
«Where does it hurt?»
Jessica glanced at Wolfe. She didn’t have to look far. Even sitting on horseback, she had very little height on him. She hadn’t his strength, either. She had nothing but the certainty that she would rather die than go back to being a bright marker on the gaming table of aristocratic marriages.
She would rather die than live as her mother had.
Memory and nightmare twisted suddenly, sending a shudder through Jessica. Before the tremor had passed, Jessica understood that she had one other certainty, as welclass="underline" Wolfe would never accept this marriage; he would only become more cruel in his efforts to drive her away.
You will rue the day you forced me into marriage. There are worse things than being caressed by a savage. You shall learn each one of them.
Now, too late, Jessica believed Wolfe. Now, too late, she knew there was nothing left to stand between her and the wind.
«Where does it hurt?» Wolfe repeated impatiently.
«It doesn’t.»
Wolfe’s head snapped up. He had never heard that tone from Jessica before, a sound as unemotional and unmusical as stone. Her eyes were the same way. Opaque.
«I saw you limping.»
«It doesn’t matter.»
The flare of temper in Wolfe’s eyes was replaced by uneasiness.
«Jessi?»
Lost in the echoes of her terrifying discovery, Jessica neither heard nor answered Wolfe’s low query. He hesitated, then began probing the soft leather of Jessica’s boot with fingers that were gentle and firm at the same time. He thought she flinched when he pressed deeply against her ankle, but it was difficult to be certain.
«Can you ride?» Wolfe asked, stepping back.
«I’m riding.»
There was no mockery in Jessica’s words, merely a statement of fact. At the moment, she was riding a horse.
«Jessi, what’s wrong?»
She looked past Wolfe, through him, seeing only the emptiness of the wind, hearing only its low, triumphant cry.
With swift almost vicious movements, Wolfe took up the right stirrup of his saddle. He couldn’t get it short enough for Jessica’s slender foot to reach.
«Bloody hell,» he muttered.
If Jessica heard, she said nothing.
A gust of wind brought the sound of a horse cantering closer. Wolfe glanced up, sawRafe’s big bay coming into sight, and went back to letting the stirrup down to its former length.
The trailRafe was following told its own story. A horse going to its knees, a ragged swath cut by Jessica’s body, and the deep gouges where Wolfe’s big mare had plunged down the slope. Jessica’s bloodless face and Wolfe’s flattened mouth told more of the story, but not enough.
«Is she hurt?» Rafe asked.
«Her right ankle is sore, but it’s her pride that took the worst beating.»
Rafelooked at Jessica. She didn’t notice him. Nor did she seem to notice anything else. There was a quality about the stillness of her body that madeRafe’s eyes narrow. He had seen men who looked like that, men pushed to their limits by pain or starvation or war.
«She’s finished,» Rafe said. «There was a good camping spot back about a mile.»
The wind twisted again, drawing a veil of snow over the cold land.
«We’re going over the Great Divide.» Wolfe vaulted into the saddle behind Jessica. «See that Two-Spot doesn’t get lost. The pack horses are used to following him.»
A touch of Wolfe’s spurs lifted the brown mare into a trot. A hard arm came around Jessica, holding her in place. Her body went rigid, but she said nothing. Nor did she fight him. She did nothing but sink farther and farther into herself, looking for a way out of the trap in which she had so brutally tangled herself and Wolfe.
She found none but to endure and then endure some more.
I can’t.
And pray that Wolfe would change because she could not.
I can’t.
I must be strong. Just for a bit longer. A few minutes.
The minutes passed.
A few more.
When those minutes passed, Jessica asked herself for a few more, and then a few more, until half an hour had gone by, an hour, then two. Three.
Slowly, a breath at a time, she endured, learning how to live without Wolfe as her talisman, learning how to survive in a world ruled by the soulless wind of nightmare and memory combined.
10
«Wolfe, I can’t believe it’s really you! Caleb said the high passes were buried in snow after the last storm.»
Willow’s husky contralto cry made Jessica’s lips flatten into an unhappy line. She should have expected the bloody paragon to have a beautiful voice. Rather grimly, Jessica waited to see what the paragon looked like, but even when Willow stepped from the house, she was still concealed by the dense shadows of the porch.
«It’s me, all right,» Wolfe said, smiling as he dismounted and crossed the ground with long strides to give Willow a hug. «I’ve brought you a present.»
«Seeing you is present enough,» she said, laughing and holding out her arms.
The clear affection in Willow’s voice and face was matched by Wolfe as he folded Willow close in a gentlebearhug. A dark combination of jealousy and despair snaked through Jessica, shaking her, for she had believed she could no longer be touched by anything but the black wind whispering to her of nightmares that had been reborn in daylight, and memories that refused to remain forgotten.
I would have had a chance with Wolfe but for the bloody paragon. She is destroying me as surely as slow poison.
Jessica stared into the shadow of the porch, but could see nothing of Willow except slender arms wrapped around Wolfe’s waist.
She’ll be beautiful, ofcourse, Jessicathoughtbitterly.Asbeautiful as this huge meadow and as perfect as those mountains crowned with ice.
Unhappily, Jessica glanced around, measuring the glory of the mountain ranch against the darkness that was condensing relentlessly in her soul, draining color from her life as surely as the slow condensation of night would drain color from the day.
«Come and meet your present,» Wolfe said, smiling down at Willow as he released her.
«Meet a present?»
«Ummm.»
The purring sound of pleasure Wolfe made was a steel-tipped whip flaying Jessica’s raw emotions. She had thought she could feel no greater rage, no greater despair, than she had felt the day she had ridden over the Great Divide.
She had been wrong. She seemed to make a habit of being wrong where Wolfe was concerned.
May the bloody paragon writhe in Hell.
Then Willow stepped into the bright sunlight and Jessica’s breath came in with a harsh sound. The paragon wouldn’t have to wait for Hell. It had already sunk its unsheathed claws deeply in her body. Willow was in the last stage of pregnancy, frankly round with the babe that would tear her apart trying to be born.
Dear God, help her in her time of need.
The silent, involuntary prayer that vibrated through Jessica was deeper and more powerful than her jealousy. She could take no pleasure in the agony that awaited Willow in childbed. Nor could she hate Willow any longer. Jessica could feel only a terrible empathy with the girl whose fate was to writhe and scream for mercy that never came, a wife’s endless cycle of male rutting and childbed’s torture; and over all, around all, consuming all was the black wind and the disbelieving shriek of the newly damned.