Wolf Bride by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online

infectious and I took his offered arm gratefully. I still scanned the area the lantern touched, but the fealty of a big strapping man with a foot long hunting knife visibly sticking from his belt sure made me feel safer.
    “You know,” I said, “you really shouldn’t see me in that state of undress until we’re married.”
    He frowned slightly and looked at me like he couldn’t tell if I was teasing. “I put a ring on your finger that says you’re mine. Far as I’m concerned, we’re good as married.”
    “When are we planning on making our little union official?”
    “As soon as the circuit preacher comes through town again, which should be any day now. Jeremiah sent for him the day we picked you up in town. You should wear your hair like that more often. You look like some wild, fierce thing.”
    He could douse the lantern and my inner glow from that unexpected compliment could light the clearing. I’d always liked my hair fine, but never had anyone else said anything nice about it. “Well, it wouldn’t be proper to wear it down and whipping around in town with all those high fallutin’ ladies and their pearl hairpins, now would it?”
    “No, I suppose not.” He sidestepped so I wouldn’t walk too close to the woodpile by the barn.
    “Maybe I could wear it like this just for you though. When we’re here. And when you’re being particularly nice to me.”
    He pushed the barn door aside and brushed his fingers against my back as he guided me toward the horse stalls. “I’d like that.”
    A dark mare stood exhausted over a foal in the hay. Still wet, the baby was just starting to test pressure on his front legs.
    I gasped and sank down to watch him through the wooden bars of the stall door. “Oh Luke! He’s just the dandiest little thing!”
    “I know you didn’t want to get up, and you surely could’ve seen him tomorrow, but then he’d be running around and dry and well on his way to independence. There’s something magic about seeing them when they’re so new and haven’t walked yet. Seeing them eat for the first time and buck around when they think they’re big enough to run.”
    I was having legitimate trouble keeping the squeal of delight securely in my throat.
    “There he goes,” he said, squatting next to me and resting a hand comfortably across the stall door.
    Indeed the little colt was wobbling upward in a grand effort at his first steps. The mare nudged and sniffed him as a reward for his attempts. After a few falls into the soft hay beneath, the tiny horse with the blaze of white down his nose stood and wobbled over to nurse from his mother. The remnants of an umbilical cord still hung from his underbelly and the mare licked his dark coat clean as he fed.
    Luke was right. Tender moments like these were surely magical.

Chapter Six
    Kristina
     
    I was at a loss as to what to do, and it was utterly infuriating. The boys, who worked like a well-oiled flour mill to load the wagon, weren’t the cause of my frustration. Instead, I was angry with myself for not somehow knowing how to help. Likely, these two cowboys had been working together long enough that they just knew how to get everything packed for town between the two of them without even saying a word. But there were three of us now, and one of us was expending a lot of energy flitting around and accomplishing absolutely nothing.
    In my defense, I did manage to fry us up some crunchy eggs.
    The sun was just peeking its sleepy head over the horizon, and the gray sky was streaked with the bright pinks and oranges that told of a clear day to come. Luke somehow wrangled two half wild and wholly enormous pigs and tossed them in the back of the buggy like he was in a daisy bouquet tossing contest. His strength was downright disturbing but would serve me well enough in the future.
    Tied or not, those pigs were frightening and I’d walk all those miles to town rather than sit in the back with their hungry, beady little eyes on me.