A brief excerpt from

WARRIOR'S SONG

© 1997 by Janis Reams Hudson

PROLOG

They were going to lose the ranch.

Despite the warmth of the August night, Brianna Flanigan shivered beneath her bedcovers. Just over three months since her parents had drowned, only another few weeks until time to sell the cattle and replenish their cash, and they weren't going to make it. They were going to lose the Rocking F.

Think! Think! she commanded herself. What would Da have done?

He would fight, that's what Brian Flanigan would do. He had fought, for more than ten years, to build the Rocking F into a lasting legacy for his children. Now, as the oldest child, Brie was responsible, not only for the ranch, but for her five brothers and sisters as well. There had to be a way to keep from losing their home, their heritage.

With her fists wrapped tightly in the sheet, she pressed her knuckles to her lips and prayed. Da and Mother had taught her to stand up for the family and herself, to fight for what was hers against all comers. They had also taught her, Brian with his Catholic ways and Caroline with her Protestant beliefs, to never be ashamed to ask for help.

She needed help now. If she was going to ask, she figured she might as well go straight to the top, because she didn't think anyone else would be able to help her. God, please send us the help we need to save the ranch. Da and Mother worked so hard all these years, don't let us lose it now, please God. Send us help. Amen. To be safe, she unclenched the sheet and crossed herself.

At once the icy panic in her chest eased its grip. She would do what she could, and the rest would come. God helped those who helped themselves.

Taking a deep breath, Brie allowed herself to relax. Warmth eased her into sleep.

She dreamed that a man came, tall and dark, strong of body and spirit. With legs braced, he placed himself boldly between the Rocking F and the rest of the world, defending the Flanigans with strength, cunning, and wisdom.

Brie woke feeling safe and protected for the first time in months. She had prayed for help, and God had sent her the dream.

A man would come. A white knight on a charging steed. A hero sent by God to save them.

CHAPTER ONE

He figured he was less than an hour from town when he drew in his horse and pulled out his field glasses to survey the road ahead. This close to a town he was likely to meet up with other travelers. He preferred not to. He was a solitary man bent on remaining that way.

There was a birthmark in the shape of a howling wolf's head on his left shoulder blade, so they called him Wolf. Nothing else, just Wolf. But unlike the creature for whom he was named, this Wolf didn't run with a pack. He had never had a den to call his own. No mate. No cubs. He had, however, felt the cruel teeth of an iron trap on his leg.

When he'd finally won freedom from captivity, he had looked upon the world and others of his species with scorn and mistrust, for they did not see him as one of their own. Perhaps he wasn't.

To them, he wasn't a man, he was a half-breed. In his veins ran the blood of warriors. He felt the restless burning there, the urge to fight an enemy he could not find, to defend that which was not his.

He belonged neither in the white man's world, nor the red. He was a man without a home, a wolf without a mate. A warrior without a tribe.

He'd had another name once, a real one, but if he'd ever heard it spoken, it was too long ago for him to remember. He didn't know if it was a white or Indian name. He didn't know whether it had been his mother or his father who was Indian, nor from which tribe his parent had come. Neither did he know what had happened to them. He'd been searching for answers for seventeen of his twenty-six years. It was in a town with the unlikely name of New Hope, ironically located along the banks of a river called the Purgatoire, that he hoped to find his answers.

From the hill where he sat he spied three riders following the river below. The brand on their horses caught his attention. The Double Diamond.

He didn't have to check the folded piece of paper in his vest pocket. The Double Diamond brand belonged to the Double Diamond Ranch, which belonged to the man he was looking for.

At the sound of an approaching wagon, the Double Diamond riders down below left the trail beside the river and hid themselves from the crossroad behind a thicket of willow and cottonwood whips.

Wolf didn't need the prickling along the back of his neck to tell him trouble was brewing, but his neck prickled anyway.

* * * *

Brianna Flanigan steeled herself for the ordeal of crossing the river. Faith, but it seemed she was always having to steel herself for something these days. Raising her five brothers and sisters when she herself was barely nineteen. Bartering for supplies because she didn't have cash money. Facing down the major every time he waved more cash money in front of her than a body could spend in a lifetime, offering to buy the one thing Brie would not part with--the Rocking F Ranch.

Then there was the river. Every time she rode into New Hope or returned home from there, she had to cross the river that had killed her parents last spring.

To be fair, it was usually a tame river, like today. Murky brown but trying to reflect the blue of the sky, the Purgatoire was less than a foot deep and no more than twenty feet wide at the crossing. It flowed smoothly over a sandy bed here, rushed shallowly over gravel and rock there.

But sometimes this tame, life-giving river turned into a killer. Give it an extra foot of snow melting down from the San Juans, throw in a toad-strangler of a thunderstorm across the mesas of the high plains when the river was already nearly out of its banks, and it raged and rushed, defiantly sweeping away anything and everything in its path like a hungry monster. Including, last spring, Brian and Caroline Flanigan.

Brie slowed the team for the crossing.

Next to her on the wagon seat, five-year-old Katy whimpered and buried her face in Brie's lap. "I can't look."

Brie would have stroked her sister's head, but her hands were full of reins. "You don't have to look. We'll be across in no time. The river can't hurt us when it's this shallow."

"I know." Katy nuzzled her face against Brie's thigh. The child did know it was safe to cross the river, but that didn't make her any less afraid. She knew, logically, that she wasn't likely to drown while taking a bath, either, but since her seven-year-old brother had ghoulishly explained what drowning meant, Katy had adamantly refused to allow water to even so much a trickle across her face.

Face-scrubbing and hair-washing had become a genuine challenge where Katy was concerned.

"Sing me a song, Brie, so I won't think about it."

To take Katy's mind off her fear, Brie let the Irish roll thick and pure across her tongue. "A song is it you're wantin'?"

Katy giggled at the heavy brogue.

"Faith, she's laughin' a'ready and I haven't even warmed up me pipes." The giggle started with a laughing shriek this time, and Brie eased the team into the river at the shallowest crossing for miles, the spot with the lowest banks. Fortunately for her, the road from here led south directly to Jones Canyon and home.

"How's this, then?" Brie whistled a few notes of one of Katy's favorite songs as the horses pulled the wagon through the water.

Halfway across, Katy forgot her fear and sat up. "Sing it, sing it," she pleaded.

"All right, then, but you'll have to help me." Before Katy had time to realize they had yet to reach the far bank, Brie began. "Hush little baby, don't be sayin' a word. Mama's gonna buy you a pretty red bird. If that pretty red bird won't sing--"

Katy joined in. "Mama's gonna buy you a tambourine."

Smiling, they reached the opposite bank and sang the next verse together. "If that tambourine won't play, Mama's gonna buy you a silver tray."

With a hoarse caw, a crow beside the trail ahead flapped its wings and took off, its black feathers gleaming in the afternoon sun.

"Look!" Katy squealed. "We sang so bad we scared the bird."

Feigning indignation, Brie tilted her nose in the air. "What does an ol' crow know, anyway? We sang beautifully. Didn't you hear him? That was a cry of envy if ever I heard one. More likely it was the horses that scared him off."

A moment later Brie realized she was half right. Horses had scared the crow. But not her horses. From the thick stand of young willows and cottonwoods along the bank burst three riders, whooping and hollering and firing their six-guns into the air.

Brie's wagon team tried to bolt. She bit her tongue on a swear word and struggled to restrain her horses. Damn fool cowboys, she thought with disgust, stinking drunk in the middle of the day.

"Whoa, there." Swaying in the saddle, one of the riders leaned down and tried to steady the team. He over-estimated his balance and fell cursing to the ground.

"Looky what we got here," another one hollered to his friends.

Struggling with the reins, Brie fought the frightened team for control. The wagon jerked and jolted, jarring a squeal out of Katie. The girl threw herself at Brie and wrapped her thin arms tight around Brie's waist. Now Brie had not only the horses to struggle with, but Katie as well. As the team began to settle, the wagon gave a hard lurch. Alarmed, Brie glanced toward the wagon bed to find the third cowboy had jumped aboard.

"Get down!" she cried. "Look what you've done! You've gone and torn open one of my flour sacks, you--" Her words ended in a shriek as she was plucked abruptly from her seat by the man still on horseback. The action broke Katy's hold on Brie. Katy screamed and fell to the ground in the scant space between the hooves of the man's horse and the front wheel of the wagon.

"Katy!" With the metallic taste of terror in her mouth, Brie clawed at the arm that held her. "Katy!"

"Well, doggone," her captor slurred. "Looky there, boys, I dropped one."

"Let me go, you bloomin' blighter!" Brie kicked and squirmed, making the horse dance sideways, thankfully away from Katy. "Katy, run!"

But Katy was too scared to run. She huddled against the wagon wheel, sobbing and crying for Brie.

Brie managed to slip from the man holding her, but there was no escape. Her captor dismounted, and the three men surrounded her, laughing, swaying drunkenly.

"Whooee, she's a hot one, ain't she?"

"I'll show you hot." Brie plowed her right fist into the nose of the nearest cowboy, the one who'd torn open one of her sacks of flour with his spurs.

The injured man bellowed with rage and clasped his hand to his face. Blood spurted between his fingers. "By Gawd, the little hellcat busted my nose! Hold her for me, fellas. I'm gonna teach Irish Red here a lesson."

Until that instant, Brie hadn't had time to be afraid for herself. Now a shiver of panic raced down her spine. She whirled toward the wagon to grab the horsewhip but was yanked off her feet by the same iron-hewed arm that had dragged her from the wagon. She shrieked in outrage and fear.

"I got her, Harve!"

Brie kicked her captor in the shins and reached behind to claw at his face. With a yelp and a curse, he let go of her. She nearly fell, but another man grabbed her before she hit the ground. She kicked and screamed again, her breath coming harsh now, burning her throat and lungs.

"Hell, Lee, I'll show you how to hold a hellcat." But this second man couldn't hold her long before she squirmed loose again.

Brie whirled to run, intent on leading the men away from Katy, who still crouched, crying, against the wagon wheel. But everywhere Brie turned, another leering face loomed, another outstretched pair of hands groped. The men hooted with laughter and circled her, drawing closer and closer until the metallic taste of fear threatened to gag her.

Suddenly there was a deep, snarling growl, like a wolf on the attack. A dark blur moved behind the men encircling her. One by one, her tormenters were plucked up and tossed backward into the brush as though they were no more substantial than rag dolls.

Breathless and stunned, Brie stared at her rescuer. He was tall and lean, with shaggy black hair hanging over his collar. His shoulders were wide, his hips narrow, and his legs long. His coppery skin spoke of Indian blood; his eyes were the charged gray of an angry thunderhead. His face was a heart-stopping mixture of angles and planes, high cheekbones, narrow nose, full lips. He was . . . magnificent.

Ask and thou shalt receive. Awestruck, Brie gaped as everything inside her stilled. It's him!

She'd never seen the man before, but she knew as surely as she knew her own name that he was, quite literally, the answer to her prayers.

Then he was besieged as the three cowboys recovered from shock and jumped him all at once. Fists, curses, and grunts flew thick and fast, but it was no real contest, even at three to one. The cowboys were sloppy drunk. The dark stranger was lethal. He fought hard and dirty, using fists, boots, and elbows. He took his share of punches, but in what seemed like mere seconds, the three cowhands lay beaten and groaning. Brie had never seen anything like it.

The stranger gave the three men a look of disgust, then bent and retrieved his hat. After whacking it against his thigh twice to knock off the dust, he settled it on his head and turned to Brie. "Are you ladies all right?"

Sometime during the brief fight Katy's tears had ceased. At his use of the word "ladies" she giggled.

Somewhat dazed by all that had happened in such a short time, Brie managed to nod. "We're fine, thanks to you."

The three men began to rouse. Brie shook herself and reached for the shotgun beneath the wagon seat. When she turned back around, two of the men were on their feet and heading for her rescuer. "No half-breed bastard's gonna get the best of me, by Gawd," one muttered.

Brie pulled back both hammers on the old double barreled shotgun and curled her finger across both triggers. "Back off."

One man's eyes bugged and his mouth fell slack. The other put his hands out as if to ward her off. "Easy, lady. We didn't mean no harm, did we, boys?"

"No harm at all, Shorty," another one slurred.

The third man staggered to his feet. "We 'uz jus' havin' a little fun, that's all."

"Fun's over," Brie announced coldly. "Get up on those Double Diamond horses and ride out. Rest assured I'll be having a little chat with the marshall about this."

"Ah, come on, honey, we--"

"You heard the lady," the stranger said coldly. "Mount up and ride."

"We're goin', we're goin'," grumbled the one called Harve.

"Well hurry up about it," Brie snapped. "This shotgun's heavy and my finger's starting to sweat. I might accidentally pull a trigger any second."

If she hadn't been so angry, and more than a little shaken, Brie might have laughed at the effect of her words. The three drunken cowboys seemed to turn stone cold sober right before her eyes. In a rush, they scrambled into their saddles and lit out across the river toward town.

The stranger who'd stopped to help watched them go. When their dust settled, he turned back to Brie. "Friends of yours?"

"Not hardly." She eased the hammers on the shotgun back to half-cocked. Propping the gun against the wagon wheel, she knelt in the dirt and helped Katy to her feet. "Are you okay? You didn't get hurt when you fell?"

Katy's lower lip trembled. "I got scared."

"Me, too," Brie said, hugging her sister. "But we're all right now, aren't we?" Brie released her and leaned back to brush the dirt from Katy's skirt and surreptitiously check for injuries.

"We're all right," Katy confirmed. A dimple winked from the chubby fold of one cheek. "The nice man helped."

"Yes." Brie stood and faced the stranger once more. "We're beholding to you, mister. I don't know-- You're bleeding!"

Wolf heard her plainly enough that he brought a hand to his throbbing cheek and felt the blood, but his mind was still trapped by hearing the little one call him a nice man. No one had ever called him nice. Probably because he wasn't. It was for damn sure that no little girl had ever smiled at him. The idea was as foreign to him as if his horse had sat up and read scripture from the Bible.

"And your shirt's torn," the woman added. Clucking her tongue like a mother hen over a stray chick, she pulled a white handkerchief from the drawstring handbag on the wagon seat and approached him. Before he fully realized what she was about, she reached up and pressed the handkerchief to the cut on his cheek.

Wolf winced. Not so much from the pain in his cheek as from the soft, almost imperceptible, brush of her fingers on his face. If he'd ever felt anything so soft before, or so gentle, he would have remembered.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, easing the pressure on his cheek but not taking her hand away.

Wolf wasn't used to being touched, not like this. It made nerves jump around in the pit of his stomach. He didn't much like the feeling at all. In irritation, he stepped back from her.

There was a heartbeat of silence as their eyes met, his hard, defiant, hers open and inviting. Then the woman became all business, folding the handkerchief and stuffing it into the pocket of her skirt. "The bleeding's almost stopped, but you'll be coming home with us so I can clean the cut and sew up those tears in your shirt."

Wolf eyed her carefully, struggling to keep his expression blank. Funny, but he'd never had to struggle with that before. But then, he'd never seen a woman like her before, either. Her skin was as pale as cream and probably just as smooth, although he knew he'd never be finding out for himself. She might have looked like a painting, so perfect was her skin, except for the surprising dust of freckles across her cheeks and nose.

Then there was her hair, fiery red-orange, like the leaves of certain trees in the fall. She had it pulled back and tied at the base of her neck, but pieces of it here and there had sprung free. The whole mass looked like it wanted to burst loose of the confines of the blue ribbon holding it in place. As red as flames. He wondered if it would burn his hands if he touched it, but that, too, was something he'd never be finding out.

Her eyes were the deep green of a mountain pine forest. They were looking at him now like they could see straight into his soul. Hell, she'd be wasting her time looking for his soul. He didn't have one, or so he'd been told often enough. No soul, no heart, and nothing but cold steel for nerves.

The light of battle still glowed in those green depths. Would they sparkle like that for a man? For him? Dangerous thought. Crazy thought.

Her hands, hell, all of her was as dainty as a china tea cup. She looked like a stiff wind would blow her into the next county. Yet she'd fought those men like a she-cat and hadn't done a half-bad job of it, either. She'd hefted that shotgun like she knew how to use it and was fully prepared to let loose with both barrels.

Contradictions, he thought. As delicate as a robin's egg; as tough as old boot leather. And obviously without a lick of sense. "Don't you know any better than to invite a man like me home with you?"

The woman arched her brow. "You mean a stranger who jumps into the middle of someone else's fight to save my sister and me from Lord knows what might have happened to us?" She grinned at him. "They might come back, you know. You wouldn't want all your hard work to go for nothing, would you? You probably ought to follow us home just to be sure we make it. While you're there I can tend your cut and the tears in your shirt."

"I've had cuts and tears before."

"Not because of me you haven't." The woman turned and gave the little one a boost onto the wagon seat. "Up with you, Katy-girl. The nice man is probably hungry. We can thank him for his help by feeding him supper, don't you think?"

As the woman followed the girl up onto the seat, the little one looked up at her. "Do you think Saint Pat will like him?"

The woman gathered the reins in her small hands and threaded the traces through her fingers. She looked over her shoulder at Wolf, then smiled at the girl. "I think Saint Pat will adore him." With a snap of the reins, she urged the team to move out.

Wolf stood in the dirt beside the road and frowned. He wasn't about to follow her home like some damned puppy on a string. He was not a nice man, his cuts and tears would be just fine without her help, he didn't give a damn about supper, and no one had ever adored him in his entire life. He didn't want to be adored. He wanted to be left alone so he could go on about the business of finding his past.

What kind of woman invited a stranger home to supper? She didn't look stupid, nor did she look like a loose-moraled woman. She looked like a lady. Not that Wolf had any experience with ladies, except that they always seemed to be pulling their skirts aside, or crossing to the other side of the street, when he came near. Hadn't she heard those men call him a half-breed bastard? Didn't she realize that's exactly what he was?

She was loco, that's all there was to it. Loco, pretty as a picture, and pushy. She'd driven that wagon out as if she knew for a fact that he would follow.

With disgust, he mounted up and followed her into the mouth of the canyon ahead. Not because she'd told him to, and not because he wanted his face and shirt tended to by those gentle fingers. Not because she and the little one thought he was nice or because someone named Saint Pat might adore him. Not because she'd offered him supper. Not because the song she'd sung had struck some chord of memory that he couldn't quite pull forth. And damn sure not because those green eyes of hers tugged at something inside him that he hadn't even known existed. What that something was, he didn't know, didn't care.

He went because she was right, those three yahoos were just drunk enough to change their minds on the way to town and turn around and come back after her. From her attitude he could only assume that she had no idea what could have happened to her in the hands of men too far gone on whiskey.

Wolf shook his head, at her, at himself. He had no business getting mixed up in her troubles, but he knew himself well enough to know that he had no choice. If there was one thing in the world he could not tolerate, it was seeing a grown man use his strength against those smaller and weaker. When Wolf had heard the child scream earlier, the old scars on his back had twitched as if newly healed. Even now he had to fight to block out the past that rose up to haunt him.

Blocking the past was easier a short time later when, nearly two miles into the canyon, Wolf followed the wagon around a bend. Before him stretched a long, wide basin of rich grass where two other streams, one from the southeast, one from the southwest, joined the main stream meandering the length of the basin.

The ranch headquarters sat on a low rise at the base of a bluff. The two-story frame house looked new with its fresh white paint and dark green shutters. The covered porch across the front invited a man to sit on the swing or the rocking chair and gaze out over the land. Someone had planted cottonwoods around the house to lend shade in the summer.

There was a barn, several corrals where a few horses and cows dozed in the heat, a small adobe--probably the original homestead, Wolf guessed. Sheds, a large vegetable garden, and a small, neat apple orchard spoke of careful tending.

Someone had built something good here. Wolf had never had a home, had never even come close to having one. Never wanted one, for that matter, and wouldn't know what to do with one if he had it. He'd seen plenty of them, but none had ever tugged at him the way this place did. He didn't like the feeling.

A big red dog and two young red-headed boys bounded out of the barn. From the house came an auburn haired girl of about twelve wiping her hands on a white apron. Wolf had never seen so much red hair in his life.

The woman pulled the wagon up before the house.

"Who's that?" The oldest boy, around nine, eyed Wolf with narrowed, hostile eyes. A territorial look if Wolf had ever seen one.

The woman set the brake on the wagon and secured the reins. "This is a friend. I've invited him to supper." She climbed down from the wagon, then helped the little one down before turning to face Wolf. "Please, won't you get down? You can water your horse there at the trough." She motioned toward the nearest corral. Just inside sat a long watering trough with a water pump at one end.

He could water his horse just as easy at the stream a quarter mile away and be on about his business. He'd done what he set out to do--he'd seen them home. There was no reason to stay. He didn't belong in a place like this. He didn't belong anywhere.

Wolf touched the brim of his hat. "Thanks just the same, ma'am, but--"

"Faith, but where are my manners?" the woman said, interrupting him. "We never even introduced ourselves. I'm Brianna Flanigan, but my friends call me Brie. This is Katy," she said, indicating the little girl whose scream had brought Wolf running to their aid. "That's Tessa on the porch. The youngest boy is Rory, and the oldest is Sullivan. We call him Sully."

"And this is Saint Pat," little Katy said, her hand buried in the long hair on the back of the big red dog's neck. "That's short for Saint Patrick. We named him that 'cause he got rid of all the snakes, just like the real Saint Patrick did over in Ireland."

"Where's Elly?" the woman, Brianna, asked the girl on the porch.

"She's putting the dumplings in the pot."

"Run and tell her to make sure there's plenty, and while you're there set an extra place. Mr. . . ." The woman, Brianna, looked at Wolf expectantly. "What should we call you?"

He answered reluctantly. "Name's Wolf, ma'am."

She blinked--not an unusual reaction to his name--then smiled. "It's pleased we are to be meeting you, Mr. Wolf."

He nearly smiled at the Irish brogue growing in her voice. "No mister. Just Wolf."

"Well, Just Wolf, won't you get down and light a spell?" That quick, a slight Texas drawl replaced the Irish. "Elly's dumplings are guaranteed to melt in your mouth. Supper's the least we can offer after what you did for us."

"I appreciate the offer, ma'am, but--"

"Brie. My name is Brie."

Frustrated, Wolf tried again. "You don't owe me anything. I'll just be riding--"

"You said it yourself--what if those men come back?"

The lady didn't play fair. The men hadn't taken kindly to losing the fight to a half-breed, their three to his one. If they were riled enough, or got any drunker than they were, they might come back.

"What men?" Sullivan, the oldest boy, demanded.

"We ran into a little trouble on the road," Brie explained.

"Double Diamond riders, I'll bet," Sullivan said hotly.

"It's nothing to be worrying about, Sully."

"Then how come he's here?"

"Sullivan Adare Flanigan! Mind your tone. He has a name, and 'tis Wolf," Brie said, the Irish creeping into her speech again. "And he's here because I invited him. You'll not be makin' him feel unwelcome with yer surliness."

"What happened to his face?"

"Faith, but he's not a tree stump to be talked about as if he couldn't hear."

"There was three of 'em, Sully!" Katy's green eyes lit with excitement. "An' they was big--"

"Were big," Brie corrected with a roll of her eyes.

"--and tall and mean, but Wolf whipped 'em good, he did. I think he's our knight Brie promised."

Unease crept across Wolf's scalp. Great. She'd promised a knight, and like a fool, he'd ridden in.

Sully scoffed. "He's no knight."

"No." Rory, the youngest boy, eyed Wolf. A slow smile revealed a missing front tooth. "Who needs a knight? He's a warrior."

Wolf decided to ignore the talk. It was nothing to him. He was nobody's knight or warrior, but if the kid wanted to think so, he'd let him. A man didn't always like to admit the truth, and the truth, when he got right down to it, was that he was nothing more than a saddle bum. It suited him fine.

With narrowed eyes, Wolf searched the area for evidence of a man. A father, husband, older brother, anyone who could look out for the woman and children. "You live here alone?" he asked Brie while Katy regaled the others with a slightly exaggerated version of what had happened.

Brie's laughter rang pure and sweet and did funny things to his breathing. "Alone? There are six of us, Mr. Wolf. There is no such thing as alone on the Rocking F."

"I told you," he said with a snarl. "No mister. Just Wolf." Surely there was a man around. She and these kids couldn't manage a ranch on their own. "Who runs things around here?"

Brie arched a brow. "I do."

"I do!" The oldest boy, Sully, stepped forward, chest puffed out like a banty rooster. Then he grimaced. "At least, when I'm older, I will. But I'm the man of the house now that Da's gone."

"Gone?" Wolf asked sharply.

"Dead," Brie stated quietly. "Both of our parents were killed last spring."

Wolf eyed the group before him critically. "Last spring? You expect me to believe the five of you--"

"Six counting Elly," Brie offered, her eyes flashing green defiance. "And yes, we live here alone and run this ranch. Are you staying for supper or not?"

Wolf opened his mouth to say not only no, but hell no, he wasn't about to stay, but just then little Katy turned loose of the dog and came to stand beside Wolf's horse. She reached out and put her hand on his boot. "Please stay, Mr. Wolf. Saint Pat wants you to stay."

Hell. Six kids. Living alone, trying to run a ranch. Being hassled by drunk cowboys. Damnation, what had he gotten himself into?

Supper. Only that, he assured himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a real meal. If the troublemakers hadn't shown by the time Wolf had eaten, chances were, they wouldn't come at all.

He swung down from the saddle, and the little one, Katy, clapped and squealed. "He's staying, he's staying!"

Brie breathed a sigh of relief and turned toward the wagon to start unloading the supplies she'd bought in town. She'd been afraid Wolf wouldn't stay. "Rory," she called to her youngest brother. "Rescuing damsels in distress is thirsty work. Why don't you get M-- Wolf a nice cold dipper of water?"

"Okay." Seven-year-old Rory Flanigan flashed his snaggle-toothed grin and dashed toward the well.

"What happened to the flour?" Tessa asked, peering into the wagon bed.

"A slight mishap," Brie answered.

"The bad man busted it," Katy proclaimed solemnly.

"Leave that one in the wagon," Brie said tersely. Under her breath she added, "The major will be replacing that sack tomorrow if I have to dump what's left of it over his head."

Wolf heard her mutter and bit his tongue to keep from questioning her. How many majors could there be in the New Hope area? One. He'd checked. But he wouldn't ask about the man he'd come to find. The fewer people who knew why Wolf was here, the better. Because if United States Army Major John Palmer, Retired, turned out to be the man he sought, Wolf was going to kill him.

-- end of excerpt --

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