Page 98 of Unwilling Wolf

“And I would do it again,” he said remorselessly.

“Brute. I will admit I like to write stories. It has always been a little escape for me. My aunt thought it frivolous for a woman to write more than letters, and told me so often. Whenever I had a moment out of her sight, though, I wrote. My mother thought I should keep at it if it made me happy. She didn’t say it out loud, but sometimes she read my short stories and seemed proud. She told me once that sometimes courage skipped over a mother and fell into a daughter.” Her voice broke unexpectedly on the last part. She missed her mother terribly.

“I went to school for a while,” Garret said. “I even remember some of it.”

“Roy told me in a letter that you went to finish your schooling in Georgetown.”

“I mean to tell you that because that was my escape.”

“Oh, I see. I always wanted to go off for school. Well, what did you study while you were there?”

Garret gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Believe it or not, I was in schooling to be a lawyer. In fact, the sheriff has been at me to be a lawman since I got back. I reckon if I can’t save the ranch, he’ll get his way.”

She had always known Garret was smart and capable, even when they were children, but had never expected him to take up law. “Is being a lawman what you want to do?”

“Sometimes. Being a lawyer and a lawman are very different. Maybe the old me could’ve been a lawyer, but not the me I am now. Being a lawman though? Getting the chance to keep the town in line? Keep the robbers on the run and go after the bad guys? I have a specific skill set for that kind of stuff. I could lose myself in being a lawman, sure.”

“Then why try to save the ranch at all?”

He cocked his head to the side as if he couldn’t tell whether she was serious, and then shook it. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

“I know it don’t make sense. It seems like nothin’ but bad happened there. I never blamed the land for it though, and I guess the presumptuous part of me thought if I ran the Lazy S, I would do it better than my old man ever did. I get flashes of memories, and I hate it, but I guess a stubborn part of me thinks I can wipe those away, and make new memories with the Pack.” He cleared his throat. “Now, maybe with you.” Sighing, he glanced back at Burke and Lenny again, then returned his attention to her. “And then after I came back for a visit and Wyatt bit me, I went to war—just me against everyone. Burke found me, and then Lenny and Cookie, and then Wells, and I had a purpose, you know? A man is only as good as his purpose. I had these people under me who depended on the ranch too, and it became about more. It became about the territory, and land that would keep our wolves steady. Where would Cookie and Lenny go if the ranch goes down? Burke and Wells? Hell, I see it as home too,” he finished, shrugging. “My memories of the before are muddy or nonexistent, but the memories I have there since I became the wolf? They’re clear.”

“None of that is hard to understand, Garret.”

He considered her for a long time. “I have an admission.”

“Admit away,” she encouraged him.

“This whole time I thought you were from some easy life away from here, and I was angry at you for coming out here like your ma had done. I thought you did it on a whim, or maybe for the romance of it all, but I misjudged you, and I’m sorry.”

She blinked at him in surprise, and he added, “You’re still annoying though.”

“Please,” she said grinning. “I think you mean entertaining. Gracious. Intriguing. Magnanimous.”

“No, ma’am, I do not, and now you demoted yourself to irritating and bothersome,” he said with a cheeky glint in his eyes.

With a jerk of his head toward Burke and Lenny, he motioned for them to catch up, and when they had, said, “We’re going to take the hard way in. I don’t want to risk passing the Jenningses or any of their informants on the way into Whitfield’s land, so we’ll go through the brush from here. It’ll take us longer, but will be safer. Let’s get a move on. We’re burnin’ daylight.”

A kick to the horses, and they were off.

She was learning him little by little, and Garret didn’t like to sit in a deep moment. He didn’t like the emotions that were associated with talking about the real things. But she did notice he was staying in those moments longer and longer now.

Any progress with a stubborn, dominant, unwilling wolf was still progress.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The day dragged on and on. Garret stayed in the lead, and with the boys around, Lenny was very quiet, leaving Eliza to her thoughts as the hours passed slower than water boils. The sun beat down with single-mindedness—to fry her. Thank goodness for the hat Garret had given her before they’d left that morning. Her fair skin would have been crispy after so long in the relentless sun. The hat was mannish and unbecoming on her, though a similar one on Garret made him look strapping and mysterious. Now, she almost laughed at her vanity because she would likely be ruddier than a tomato without Garret’s foresight in providing her with it in the first place.

Off the main road, whitetail deer, possums, rabbits, and the occasional escaped pig from a nearby ranch had etched winding trails through the brush. The horses tended to travel one after the other, but unfortunately Buck was a behind-sniffer and had been kicked in earnest at least twice by Lenny’s mare. It didn’t deter him. Lenny pulled up and around at an opening in the dense woods, putting her mare at the back of the group. Eliza smiled in apology at her horse’s typical male behavior as she passed, but the girl wasn’t looking at her. Lenny looked…spooked.

Surely she wasn’t cross with her. She’d tried to pull Buck back. In fact, she had spent a great deal of time and effort giving the paint distance, but Buck had been unwavering in his obnoxious quest.

As she peeked around Burke to offer a verbal apology, Lenny swept the edges of the clearing with a piercing look. Buck and her inability to curtail his proclivities might not be Lenny’s problem.

The going was unhurried, as traveling through dense brush and thin trails slowed them down to a crawl. The group rode straight through lunch, eating in the saddle, and it was nearing the time they would need to make camp. The low-hanging sun threw the trees’ shadows across her thighs, and the birds that had been chirping in the trees quieted in an instant. Even the breeze seemed to still.

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