The Healer (12 page)

It wasn’t until he was driving into the outskirts of Little Top that he began to breathe easy. Once at his house, he hit the garage-door opener and drove straight inside. He slammed on the brakes just before he hit the wall, then pushed the button to lower the door.

Only after he was out of the car and walking into the kitchen did he begin to think of how close he’d come to getting caught. He pulled off his clothes and tossed them in the laundry bin, then walked naked into the bathroom. He turned on the light, braced himself on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, then leaned over the toilet and threw up.

When Jonah heard the shots, then the frantic yelp of a dog in distress, he increased his speed, ignoring the slap of branches against his face and the brambles tearing at his clothes.

A buck, startled by all the unwarranted noise in the forest, jumped out of a thicket across Jonah’s path before dashing away. Jonah stumbled to keep from running headlong into the animal, then felt the deer’s panic and inhaled the musky scent of its body as it bounded out of sight. By the time he regained his footing, the sounds of gunshots had faded. Hobo was no longer baying. He didn’t want to think of the consequences and kept on running.

Just when he thought he’d taken a wrong turn, he ran up on the dog lying near the path and licking at his side.

Hugely relieved to find the dog still alive, Jonah stopped and dropped to his knees.

“Hey, boy. What have you gone and done to yourself this time?” he said, as he ran his fingers along the big dog’s body.

The dog whined, then licked Jonah’s fingers. Moments later, Jonah felt a sticky trail along the bone of Hobo’s shoulder and guessed that one of the shots had nicked him. Without hesitation, he laid both hands on the wound.

An eerie silence came over the forest as, once again, the healing light enveloped both man and dog. An owl watched from a nearby tree branch, while a fox on its way to the creek walked up beside Jonah, sniffed at his heels, then quietly slipped away into the darkness.

Moments later, Jonah rocked back, then stood up. Hobo stood, licked Jonah’s boots, then the tips of his fingers.

Jonah touched Hobo’s head. “Go home,” he said.

Hobo turned without hesitation and loped up the mountain to the cabin. But Jonah wasn’t through. As long as there was a trail to follow, he was going to take it.

He watched until the dog disappeared, then lifted his head. He closed his eyes, letting all his senses go free until, once again, he could smell the man’s fear. With that scent for a guide, he began to track the stalker with every animal instinct he possessed.

It wasn’t until he came upon a small clearing attached to a single-lane road that he realized he’d lost it. Even though darkness had completely enveloped the forest, he could still see everything, including the tire tracks where the man had driven away. Frustrated, he had no other option but to return to the cabin. He thought of Luce, waiting and afraid, and hastened his steps. As he did, he felt the first flakes of snow against his face.

By the time he reached the clearing in front of Luce’s cabin, the snow was falling heavily, masking all but the closest sounds. Jonah had seen glimpses of the porch light Luce had left burning, and now that he’d cleared the trees, it touched him to think she’d kept it on as a beacon for him to find his way home.

As he started across the yard, he was suddenly aware of the chill in the air and the dampness of his clothing, and lengthened his stride. Just before he reached the steps, the door swung inward. Luce paused, silhouetted in the doorway, then ran forward and threw herself into his arms.

He caught her in midstep and lifted her off her feet as he pulled her close against him.

“I was so scared for you,” she said, as she buried her face against the curve of his neck.

“I was afraid for
you,
” he said. “I wanted to catch him…but I was too late.”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but that you and Hobo are back. You’re back, and you’re safe,” Luce said, then wiggled out of his arms. “And you’re freezing. Come inside…hurry. You need to get out of those wet clothes before you get sick.”

He followed her inside, then locked the door after it was shut. Hobo was lying beside the fire, none the worse for wear. Luce was already at the fireplace, adding a couple of large logs to the fire.

Within a few moments the bark on the logs had caught fire, and the warmth of the blaze was welcome. As soon as the heat began to seep through his clothes, exhaustion hit.

“That fire feels so good,” he said, then began to undress, suddenly anxious to get out of his wet clothes. “These are coming off,” he warned.

“Oh. Sure,” Luce mumbled, and thought to move away to give him some privacy, but found herself mesmerized by the process.

Piece by piece, he stripped off the clothes, revealing a body toned to perfection. She watched with her lips slightly parted, remembering now and then that she needed to breathe. When he was standing before the fire wearing nothing but his briefs, she shuddered, then closed her eyes and turned away, only to look back when he began to move.

She watched as he scattered the clothes about on the floor in front of the fire to dry. When he turned around, he caught the hungry look in her eyes and groaned.

“Luce…I—”

“I kept some stew and cornbread warm for you,” she said.

He took a slow shaky breath, then nodded. “Give me a couple of minutes to get some dry clothes,” he said, and reluctantly left the warmth of the fire to go to his room.

Luce’s hands were shaking as she began dipping some stew into a bowl. Then she took the cornbread out of the warming oven, poured hot coffee into a thick crockery mug, and carried it all to the table. By the time she had his place set, he was back.

“This looks and smells wonderful,” he said as he sat.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No, as always, it is I who thanks you.”

He began to eat while keeping an eye on Luce’s nervous movements. She was uneasy—but he also felt her desire. She wanted him, but she was afraid. And while part of him hated the fact that she felt uneasy around him, he could hardly blame her. He had no previous experience with women that even came close to what happened when they were together. How could he expect her to trust him when he couldn’t even trust himself?

Luce couldn’t sit still. Every time she looked at him, she kept remembering how he’d looked, silhouetted against the firelight. His long, muscular arms and legs, the wide shoulders and flat belly, and the plain white of the briefs against his smooth brown skin.

When he’d dressed in dry clothes, he’d also pulled his hair into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, giving her full access to his face. She knew it wasn’t politically correct to think of a man as beautiful, but it was the only frame of reference that came to mind.

Jonah caught her looking at him and smiled, then winked, as he took another bite of stew.

Luce flushed, then smiled back. “So sue me for staring,” she said. “Besides, after that striptease, you can hardly blame me.”

“I warned you first,” he said.

“Which only made me look harder,” she countered.

He laughed out loud, then shook his head. “An honest woman. What is a man to do?”

The smile slipped off her face. “I’m toying with the notion that he could do just about whatever he wanted to do.”

Jonah’s heart skipped a beat.

“What if he wanted to…do it with you?”

Luce was standing on the edge of her future. She knew that if she told him no, that would be the end of it. But she didn’t want to tell him no—about anything—and the knowledge that she held so much power was scary.

“Then I would tell him to go for it.”

Jonah laid down his spoon and took a deep breath.

“You remember what I told you…about the bounty on my head and the people always looking for me?”

Luce nodded.

“It’s one of the reasons why I’ve never let myself become involved with anyone. I’ve never invested emotion in loving because it could get the person I love killed.”

He watched as Luce’s nostrils flared slightly; then her dark eyes narrowed.

“All the people I loved are already dead, Jonah Gray Wolf, and I had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t me who caused their deaths, but it doesn’t change a thing. Nothing ventured. Nothing gained. I don’t understand it, but I don’t want to lose whatever this is between us.”

Then she shoved a shaky hand through her hair in frustration. “Look at it this way. I’ve been living with fear for months. Your presence may be what’s keeping me alive.” Then her chin quivered slightly. “And I’m so tired of being alone.”

Jonah knew what she meant. Loneliness was such a part of his life that he’d begun taking the emotion for granted. But here was Lucia, willing to risk everything for a chance at love.

He reached across the table, then turned his hand palm up, waiting for her to take it.

Luce didn’t hesitate.

She laid her hand in his, and when their fingers threaded, then clasped, she knew this was right.

She stood.

Jonah followed.

Together, they walked across the floor, then paused in front of the bedroom doors.

“In my room,” Luce said.

“Why?” Jonah asked.

“Because when you’re gone, I want to remember you here…in my room…in my bed…in me.”

Jonah’s blood surged so fast through his body that he lost his breath. With a muttered oath, he picked her up in his arms and carried her into her room, shutting the door behind them. She was trembling as he laid her down, but he knew it wasn’t from fear. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Without wasted motion, he stripped. Then, without a word, he removed her clothes, leaving her lush, curvy body bare to the world.

“Ah…Lucia,” he whispered.

She held out her hand.

He crawled into bed beside her, then wrapped her in his arms.

W
hen Jonah took Luce in his arms, she lost her sense of self. Within moments of his embrace, their heartbeats synchronized. Luce felt the shift within her body and would have panicked at the thought of someone with this kind of power, but she couldn’t think past the feel of his mouth on the side of her neck and the growing ache in the pit of her stomach.

Jonah didn’t know how to reconcile the overwhelming urge to lose himself in this woman with his normal reticence. For a man who never let on what he was thinking, he could hide nothing from Lucia.

With every sweep of his lips against her skin, with every breath that he took, he was imprinting her as his own—branding her essence into his soul. For the rest of his life, in the dark, in a storm, blind and lost in a land in which he’d never been, he would still be able to find her.

For Luce, thought had ceased. He was a force of nature. A man whose touch she couldn’t resist. From the silky feel of his skin, warm to the touch without an ounce of extra flesh, to the long, dark fall of his hair brushing across her face, she couldn’t get enough.

When she felt his teeth graze the flesh below her ear and his hand slip between her legs, she grabbed a fistful of his hair and held on. A brief image of a wolf with amber eyes flashed through her mind, coupled with what sounded like a howl, and then the sense of running through air, but it all disappeared, and when she looked up, it was Jonah she saw above her. His voice was soft and coaxing, but the glitter in his eyes betrayed the depth of his passion.

When he leaned down, she held her breath as his mouth brushed across her lips, then her cheek, and then he whispered against her ear. “Lucia…Lucia…let me in.”

She exhaled softly, then closed her eyes as she moved to make way. When she did, he slid between her legs. It wasn’t until she felt him inside her body that she finally knew why she’d been born.

From the moment of their joining, he felt a bonding that had never happened before. He began to move, rocking back and forth, lost in her heat, caught by the pull of her muscles surrounding him, until he slowly lost his mind. Minute after minute, they rode the feeling, taking from it what they needed to survive. Then, suddenly, her fingers were digging into his forearms, and when he heard the stuttered gasps of her impending climax, he shattered.

Swept into the explosion of pleasure, Luce moaned as her bones melted and her mind went blank.

Jonah quickly followed her, riding surge after surge that left him weak and shaking, until, with a groan, he collapsed on top of her.

Almost instantly, he realized she was too small to bear the full measure of his weight and quickly pushed himself up. Braced on both elbows, he looked down at this woman who’d captured his heart.

Her eyes were closed, her lashes wet with tears. She was breathing through slightly parted lips as aftershocks from her climax continued to ricochet through her body.

“Lucia?”

She opened her eyes, then touched his face, as if to assure herself this was real. “Am I still breathing?”

He rolled off her, then laid the palm of his hand in the valley between her breasts until he could feel the pounding rhythm of her heartbeat.

“Yes.”

Luce moaned, then sighed and reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his. “Jonah?”

“Yes, Lucia?”

“That was magic.”

He brought her hand to his lips as he rose up on one elbow, then traced the shape of her mouth with his fingertip.

“Yes,” he said softly, then leaned over and kissed the path his finger had taken. “Umm…Lucia.”

“Yes?”

“This shouldn’t have happened.”

Luce’s eyes widened in shock, which quickly morphed into pain. “Then get out of my bed,” she said.

“Don’t,” Jonah said, and rolled over on top of her, then grabbed her wrists and pinned her down so that she couldn’t move. “It shouldn’t have happened…but it did…and I will never regret it.”

Luce was blinking back tears. “Then why did you say that?”

He leaned down until their foreheads were touching, then let go of her wrists and cupped the sides of her face.

“Because it’s the truth. Loving you gives Bourdain leverage over me. If he ever finds out you exist, he will use you to get to me. I have put your life in danger.”

A tear slid from the corner of Luce’s eye, then down onto the pillow.

“Oh. Well. My life is already in danger. I came with a stalker, remember?”

He thought back to the wild chase through the woods a short while ago. “I remember all too well.” Then he traced her tear with the tip of his tongue, tasting the saltiness.

Luce groaned. “I won’t tell anyone about us if you don’t,” she said.

Jonah shook his head. “We won’t have to. They’ll be able to tell by the look on my face.”

Luce looked up; then her heart skipped a beat. He might be right about that after all. The look on his face was fierce. “What are you thinking?”

His eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared. “A wolf mates for life. You belong to me now.”

Luce’s lips went slack. “Uh…I…”

“Yeah. I’m as surprised by this as you are, but we’ve known each other almost forty-eight hours. It’s not like I didn’t give you time to get to know me.”

Luce grinned. His humor was as unexpected as the love in her heart, and he was right. She’d been alone for such a long time. She’d had almost two whole days to get used to his presence. For a man as special as Jonah Gray Wolf, it was more than enough.

“Come here, you,” she said softly, then wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard and long until she heard him groan. Just when he was of a mind to die in her arms all over again, she scooted out from under him.

“You didn’t get to eat dessert. I’m going to go cut Bridie’s custard pie.”

“You’re my dessert,” Jonah said, and reached for her, but she kept on moving. “I’m going to let Hobo out while you get dressed.”

Jonah swung his legs off the side of the bed as he sat up, then paused, admiring her curvy body as she moved across the room.

“Okay, Lucia, you’re calling the shots, but you might want to put something on, too, or you’re going to freeze those pretty nipples.”

She made a face at him, but she knew he was right. She grabbed a pair of sweatpants and pulled them on, then yanked a sweatshirt over her head on her way out of the room.

He heard her calling the dog, then her high-pitched squeal as she opened the door to a blast of cold air. Still smiling, he went into his room, put on a clean pair of pants, then followed her into the living room, where she was about to put more wood on the fire.

He kissed the back of her neck, then took the log from her hands.

“Let me do this. You’re supposed to be cutting pie.”

Luce grinned as she relinquished the wood, but she didn’t move. Instead, she watched the play of muscles across Jonah’s back as he squatted down to feed the fire with new fuel. Impulsively, she reached out and tunneled her hand into the length of his hair. Sometime during their lovemaking, it had come undone. It was thick and still slightly damp—and like silk beneath her palm.

He rocked back on his heels and looked up at her. “What?”

“Nothing…I just…just…I wanted to touch you.”

Tenderness was an unknown in Jonah’s world. His voice grew husky with emotion.

“Then I thank you, my Lucia, because it’s been a very long time since anyone has cared enough to want to do that for me.”

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

Jonah stood up, then tilted her chin with the tip of his finger.

“Is it, now?”

She nodded.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her cheek against his chest until all she could hear was his heartbeat and the sound of his voice, promising that he would never leave her—that she would never be alone again.

D. J. Caufield liked the finer things in life, so when the call came from Major Bourdain about bringing in a man for a million-dollar bounty, Caufield grinned. For Caufield, the love of the chase was the biggest part of the kick. Anticipating the bounty yet to be claimed, Caufield decided to take a risk, picked up the phone and placed an order for a Hummer. The Hummer was a sure thing, because Caufield never failed.

The next day, FedEx delivered a file from Bourdain pertaining to the prey, a man named Jonah Gray Wolf. Caufield scanned it while eating breakfast. It soon became clear that this man wasn’t a normal bounty, but Caufield was intrigued. The part about animals coming to Gray Wolf’s aid was a bit farfetched, but a million dollars was enough incentive to get past the crazy twist of character Bourdain was claiming the guy had.

According to the last entry in the file, Gray Wolf had most recently been seen in the mountains of West Virginia, and from the morning’s weather report, it was snowing there.

Caufield grimaced. Winter sucked. But a million dollars would warm up some really cold feet.

Hobo was scratching at Luce’s door to be let out when she finally opened her eyes. Jonah was still asleep in the bed beside her. She didn’t know whether to be horrified by her behavior or count herself blessed among women that this man had walked into her life. When he rolled from his back to his side and reached for her in his sleep, she sighed. It was definitely the latter.

“I’ve got to go let Hobo out,” she whispered, and kissed the tip of his nose as she crawled out of bed.

Within seconds, Jonah was wide-awake and reaching for his pants as he glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to seven.

“I’ll do it. I’ve got to go to Bridie’s, and besides, you’re supposed to get to sleep in this morning, remember?”

“Only if it snowed enough,” Luce reminded him.

Jonah arched an eyebrow. “You’re still doubting me?”

“I just want to see it,” she said, and made her escape while Jonah was getting dressed.

She opened the door for Hobo, who bounced past her and into the snow like a child who’d been let out to play. She smiled as she watched him leaping from bush to tree, biting at the snow and barking his excitement at the new arrival.

The snow had piled up past the bottom porch step, leaving the yard covered in a pristine blanket of white that Hobo was quickly destroying. Luce watched for a moment, then closed the door and went to stir up the fire.

Hot coals still glowed beneath the ash. All it took was a few digs with the poker, some kindling, then a chunk of dry wood, and she soon had the fire blazing. Once she was satisfied with that, she turned to the kitchen to make coffee. Even if she crawled back into bed later, she wanted a cup of hot coffee in her belly first.

The coffee was already brewing when Jonah came out of his room. His jeans were old but clean, and he was wearing a T-shirt underneath a red-and-black flannel shirt. She’d left his boots warming by the fire, and he smiled his thanks as he sat down to put them on.

“If you have some laundry you need done, leave it in the middle of your floor before you leave, and I’ll do it with mine.”

Jonah stood up, stomping his feet slightly to set his feet comfortably inside the boots, then eyed Luce’s bare feet.

“Don’t you have any house shoes?”

She shrugged. “No. I usually just wear a pair of heavy socks.”

He frowned, then realized he was smelling coffee.

“Can I take a cup of that with me?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, but I was going to make you some breakfast.”

“I’ll take one of those sweet rolls we bought yesterday. That will be enough.”

Luce dug the prewrapped honey bun out of the pantry, poured him a cup of coffee in her biggest cup, and carried them to the door where he was waiting.

“I didn’t want to track dirt across the floor,” he said, pointing to the boots he’d forgotten to clean when he’d stripped by the fire last night.

Luce smiled as she went on tiptoe to kiss him.

“Hobo tracks it for you,” she said, as she handed him the roll and coffee. “Give Bridie my love.”

He frowned, then set down the coffee and roll, and took her in his arms.

“I’ll tell her you said hello,” he said gruffly. “The love is mine.”

Then he kissed her.

And, like before, Luce felt the world around her shifting. When his mouth centered on her lips, the face of a wolf slid past her senses. Then suddenly he picked her up, her feet dangling against his legs as he turned her around and sandwiched her between the wall and his body.

Luce locked her legs around his waist and slid her arms around his neck as he tore his mouth from her lips. She moaned, wanting to regain that connection with him. But then all thought left her as he laid his cheek against her cheek and whispered in her ear.

It was a promise of things to come that Lucia Maria Andahar had never thought of, let alone become a willing participant in. It was enough to make her crazy. Then he nipped the lobe of her ear ever so gently with his teeth and pressed his lips hard against the pulse throbbing down the side of her neck.

Luce began to moan as the unexpected climax shattered her from her head to her toes. While she was still trembling from the force of his touch, he carried her back to bed, laid her gently in the same spot where she’d been sleeping earlier and pulled up the covers.