Page 58 of Unwilling Wolf

With narrowed eyes, she nodded once, stiffly.

“Good. Oh, and I like the yellow dress you’ve been wearin’. Get dressed, and I’ll hitch up the mules.” With that crooked smile that made her insides do flip-flops, he left.

Oh, so he liked the yellow dress?

The wine-colored one it was then.

Eliza threw the other pillow at the door for good measure.

Chapter Seventeen

During the first quiet—and at times, awkward—hour of the ride into town, Garret didn’t seem willing to talk, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to start a conversation with him. He’d seen her tits, as he’d crassly called them, last night. Though she sat beside him in the wagon, she found herself inching farther away so she wouldn’t accidentally touch him.

Truth be told, she understood his fears. She didn’t like them, but appreciated where he was coming from. She’d thought the boy she’d known and the man he was now didn’t resemble each other, and that irked her. As it happened, they were different in most ways but one. Garret was still an honorable person who protected those he cared about. She just didn’t know if she fit into that category yet. Or if she ever would.

Best to start slowly. Being friends would have to somehow be enough.

In truth, he had been unknown to her from the moment his angry glare lit on her face the first time at Roy’s homestead. The memory of his hatred made her shiver to think about.

Garret gave her a sideways glance, his expression curious.

“You’re awful quiet,” he accused her.

“Well, you saw my bosoms last night and truth be told, I don’t know how to process last night.”

“They’re perfect.”

“And yet you came into my bedroom first thing in the morning and tormented me.”

“Don’t be so easy to torment and I’ll get bored and leave you alone.”

She wanted to punch him in the face, but ladies didn’t punch people, and she was a lady. She steeled herself. “Last night, after you left abruptly,” she started out sarcastically. “I was thinking of how much you hated me when you saw me at Roy’s place. The first day, when you hadn’t recognized me?”

Garret nodded solemnly. No use denying it.

“The way you looked at me— I never want to earn that look again, I guess is what I’m trying to say.”

He snorted. “Woman, you’ll probably earn that look from me once a day at least. You get mad as a badger and have a mouth to match. I think I’d be worried if you weren’t pissin’ me off somehow.”

She pursed her lips against a laugh. Truly she did. Encouraging him wouldn’t help in the least. But sometimes, as her mother would say, men were brash, which unfortunately for her was apparently amusing. “Mmm, well, I do find it my duty to keep you on your toes now that we are married. Not mated, as you let me know last night that is more important, and I am just a wife. I mean, it wouldn’t do to be mindlessly happy all the time, now would it?”

A short, booming laugh erupted from him, and he shook his head. He was quiet for a long time then said, “My ma and pa were happy.” He was watching her out of the corner of his eye. “Before she passed, they were happy.”

“Roy and my mother were happy, from what I can remember,” she told him. “But I’m sure any woman would have been happy with Roy. He was a kind and devoted man.” Her heart hurt just talking about the dear man, her true father. “Why didn’t he take another wife and have children of his own?”

“He thought about it sometimes. We would talk about it before I went off to Georgetown. He thought you and your ma were it for him though, and he found peace with it. He said he was happier than any one man should be when he had you two. Said it would be unfair for him to be lucky enough to find that kind of happiness twice, so he gave up before he tried.”

“When will I be able to see him again?” she asked softly, staring out at the landscape so Garret wouldn’t see the moisture welling in her eyes at the thought of the man who had been the only father she’d ever known.

“It’ll be awhile, Eliza. He’s…”

“He’s like you?” she guessed.

Garret didn’t answer, so she guessed more. “You bit him, didn’t you? That’s how you saved his life? You made him like you? Like Lenny and Cookie and Burke?”

After a full mile of silence, Garret said, “He asked me not to. You should know he was begging me not to. You should know the kind of man you married.”

Eliza stared at his stern profile. “He’s alive though?” She wanted to hear it again, just to reassure herself.

---