Page 50 of Unwilling Wolf

His pa used to beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of him. It had started after Ma had died, and it hadn’t stopped until the day he rode a carriage away from here and made his way to Georgetown to escape this godforsaken place.

And now he was back.

And now Elizabeth was back…no…Eliza. Eliza was back.

She was different now, but so was he.

Neither one of them were the soft children they’d once been.

He cleared his throat, preparing for a question that had been sitting heavy in his chest since the memories she’d dredged up had assaulted his mind. He carefully kept his back to her, and cleared his throat again. “Why did you leave?” He’d tried to ask it nonchalantly, but the tone of his voice had come out too serious for his liking. “Not that it matters.”

“My mother tricked Roy. And me. I thought she was going to buy fabric for a new dress. She told me she wanted green fabric so it would make my eyes look brighter. She said I looked like my real father, and he’d always looked best in green suits. I thought I would get fabric for a new dress and maybe a peppermint stick from the general store if I was well-behaved enough.”

Her voice was clear as a bell, and had a dreamy quality that made him turn just enough to glance at her face. She was still sitting at the table, but now she was fiddling with the corner of a cloth napkin. Her eyes were drawn and somber, and it looked as if she was seeing memories, not this world that they existed in now. Pretty Eliza. Her damp auburn hair had curled up and framed her pretty face. She had full lips, big green eyes and dark lashes, and a shade of pink on her cheeks that was fetching. He ripped his attention away from her when she looked at him.

“She dragged me onto that train, and I think I cried the whole way to Boston.”

“Roy fell apart, you know,” he said low.

“I can only imagine,” she said softly behind him.

Her sigh sounded, and the chair legs scooted loudly against the wooden floors, making him flinch at the pain that sound brought to his oversensitive ears. She grabbed a rag and began cleaning up his muddy bootprints on the floor.

“Don’t,” he rumbled. “I’ll get those.”

“I don’t mind, and besides, I don’t like sitting still when we talk about the past. At times such as these, it’s very loud in my head.”

Garret understood that. His wolf was loud in his head most of the time.

He checked the cornbread in the coals of the wood-burning stove, but it was still too soft in the middle. Maybe another ten minutes and it would be ready.

“I waited for Roy to disappear into the drink like my father did when things got hard.”

“Did he?” Eliza asked.

“No. He disappeared into his ranch. Never saw a man work himself harder. For a long time, I thought he was staying busy to escape thoughts of the two of you, but I asked him about it one day.”

The sound of her scrubbing paused. “What did he say?”

“He wanted the place to be perfect when the two of you came home.”

If he had a heart, the soft little exhale she made would’ve pulled at it.

“I wanted to come back home,” she whispered. Truth. “Every day I thought of him, and of this place, and of…”

“And of what?” he asked.

The scrubbing sounded again. “And of Buck.” Lie.

Garret narrowed his eyes and tossed her another glance over his shoulder, but she was keeping her face carefully downturned and scrubbing the mud from the floors in slow, diligent circles.

“I’m not your mother or mine, Garret,” she uttered.

He had been on his way to stir the pork and beans again, but froze with his back to her. He knew what she meant. She’d been thinking on what he’d said earlier, about belonging in Boston like her mother had. He’d regretted saying that, but for the life of him, he didn’t know how to tell her that.

“I don’t think you’re like anyone but you,” he told her.

“Good. If I leave you someday, hate me then. Until that day comes, I won’t pay for the things I haven’t done.”

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