Beloved Wolf

She’d talked him into escorting her to her high school senior prom. They’d danced, they’d talked about how she would leave the following morning to do an internship at Joe’s radio station in Dallas, before she began college in the fall.

She’d kissed him. He’d kissed her back. Again and again and again. He’d held her, trying not to say the words that screamed inside his head: “Don’t go, don’t go. Stay with me, Sophie. Love me, Sophie.”

The foster son of Joe Colton owed the man better than that. The half-breed son of a drunk owed Sophie more than that. So he’d pushed her away, out of his arms, out of his life. Coldly, almost brutally telling her to go away, to grow up.

For the past nearly ten years they saw each other only at Colton family gatherings—which were only slightly less populated than some small countries. They acknowledged each other, but they’d never been alone together since that night.

They weren’t alone now. Joe was standing on the other side of the bed, tears streaming down his face as he held his daughter’s limp hand.

“She’s going to be fine, Joe,” River assured him, wincing at the sight of Sophie’s bruised and battered face, the bandages he could see peeking out above the slack neckline of the hospital gown. She looked as if she’d been dragged behind a runaway horse, her tender white skin scraped raw in spots, swollen and in livid shades of purple in others.

The largest bandage covered the left side of her face. There were more than one hundred stitches beneath that bandage. Her knee would heal. He’d make sure of that, even if he had to carry her on his back until the ligaments and tendons grew strong again. The scrapes and bruises, the scratches, would heal.

But her face? Sophie had never been vain, but she was young, only twenty-seven, and beautiful. How would she react to a scar on her face? A scar that reminded her, each and every time she looked in the mirror, of the terror she must have felt in that alley?

The mugger hadn’t just hurt her physically. River feared that he might also have destroyed her confidence, badly scarred her in ways not so readily apparent. Robbed her of her freedom, her ability to walk down a street without fear.

River ran a hand through his shoulder-length black hair, rubbed at the back of his neck. His eyes sparkled with unshed tears that threatened to spill down over his lean, deeply tanned cheeks.

On the bed, Sophie stirred slightly, moaned, seemed to be trying to open her eyes.

“I…um…I’ll get the nurse,” River said quietly as Sophie’s eyes fluttered open for a second, then closed once more. “But I’ll give you and Sophie a couple minutes alone together before I do.”

He turned on his heels and left the room, his worn cowboy boots barely making any noise against the tile floor. The door closed behind him and he stopped in the hallway, one denim-clad shoulder leaning against the wall, his right fist dug deep in his jean pocket as he used his left to rhythmically beat the cowboy hat against his thigh.

River James looked like exactly who he was. A cowboy. A cowboy whose mother had been a full-blooded Native American, and whose father had been a white man. He had the thick black hair of his mother, the vivid green eyes of his father, and the disposition of a man most wouldn’t lightly try to cross. Tall, whipcord lean, well muscled, hardened by years in the saddle as well as his unhappy life until the day Joe and Meredith Colton had taken him in, wised him up and given him a reason to believe he was somebody.

Until then, he’d been like a lone wolf. And once Sophie had gone out of his life, he’d reverted to that lone-wolf state. Complete unto himself. He didn’t need Sophie, he didn’t need anyone. At least that was what he’d been telling himself.

He’d been lying to himself.

It had been a long time since the thirty-one-year-old River James had felt helpless, defeated. It had not, however, been quite so long since he’d been angry. His temper had been his biggest problem when he’d come to Joe Colton’s house as a teenager, and even if that anger had turned into something closer to pride, it was never far from the surface—not where Sophie Colton was concerned.

He’d been angry with her for pestering him. He’d been angry with her for growing up, for making him aware of her as more than his “sister.” He’d been angry with her when he’d kissed her, when she’d tasted so good and he’d wanted her so much.

He’d been angry when she’d done the right thing and gone away, angry when she’d stayed away. Angry when she’d brought that idiot Chet Wallace to the ranch and announced that she was actually going to marry that grinning, three-piece suit—her engagement telling River that she didn’t want someone like him, but wanted someone who was his complete opposite.

Now he was angry with her for lying in that hospital bed, looking so damn fragile, so damn beautiful, and for making him wake up, yet again, to the fact that he loved her.

Had always loved her. Would always love her.

Two

J oe Colton leaned over his daughter’s bed and squeezed her hand. “Sophie? Sophie, honey? It’s Dad.”

Sophie stirred slightly on the bed, winced, then opened her eyes. “Daddy?” she asked, her voice weak.

Joe nodded, unable to speak. She hadn’t called him Daddy in years. Now he was “Dad,” sometimes, when she was being silly, “Senator.” But she was still his baby girl, and as she looked up at him, as her bruised bottom lip began to tremble, he would have cut out his own heart if it could take away just a little of her pain.

“Oh, Daddy, it—it was horrible,” Sophie told him, squeezing her eyes shut. “But I fought him, Daddy, I fought him. Couldn’t…Michael…couldn’t let anything hurt you and Mommy again.”

“Hush, baby,” Joe said, carefully stroking Sophie’s hair. “Just rest, baby. All we want you to do is rest.”

Mary came into the room, and Joe stepped back from the bed to join River as the nurse took Sophie’s vital signs, checked her IV.

“She’s sleeping again?” River asked the senator.

“I think so,” Joe said, nodding. “Look, River, it’s been a long night, and I know you have to get back to the ranch. That new stallion’s coming in today, right? So you just go, and I’ll get a hotel room and stay until Sophie can come back to the ranch with us. Okay?”

A muscle ticked in River’s cheek. He wasn’t being dismissed. He knew that. Joe just wanted to be alone with his daughter. “What about Meredith? Do you think she’ll want me to fly her here, to see Sophie, be with you?”

Joe Colton pressed his fingers against his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll phone her later. Right now I just want to stay here.”

River nodded and patted Joe’s back. “I’ll call around, make a reservation for you, and then head back to the ranch. You’ll phone later? Keep me—keep us informed?”

Joe didn’t answer him. Mary brushed past them, leaving the room, and Joe headed toward the bed once more, dragging a utilitarian metal chair with him, then sat down beside Sophie, obviously dug in for the duration.

River left them alone and headed back down the hallway, toward the elevators. He was family, yes, and had been since his teenage years. He wasn’t being dismissed, pushed away. But blood was blood, and Joe and Sophie were blood. River understood that, respected that.

The elevator doors opened as he approached, and Chet Wallace stepped out, looking as fresh and unwrinkled as if he’d just come out of the shower. His hair was combed, his face had been freshly shaved, his tie was snug against his throat. He could have been on his way to a morning meeting.

“Wallace,” River bit out, taking hold of the man’s elbow as Chet walked past him without so much as a nod. “Where’ve you been? Consulting with your tailor?”

“I beg your pardon,” Chet answered, trying to shake off River’s hand, without success. “Do I know—Oh, wait. You’re one of the employees at Hacienda del Alegria, aren’t you? Sophie’s parents’ ranch? I think I remember you now. Are the senator and his wife here already? I went back to my condo, caught some sleep, showered and changed.”

“How nice for you,” River said, finally letting go of Chet’s elbow. “The senator is with Sophie now,” he continued, motioning for Wallace to follow him into a small alcove set aside as a visitors’ waiting room. “Let’s talk.”

“I’d rather speak with the senator,” Chet said, but River’s slitted-eye glare seemed to make him reconsider, and he followed River into the alcove. “Now, look—”

“No, Wallace, you look,” River shot back, knowing he was going to have to perform a minor miracle if he expected to keep his temper in check. The man had gone home? Grabbed a few winks and taken a shower? No-good son of a bitch. “My name is James. River James, one of Joe and Meredith’s foster children, not that you need to know any of that. What I need to know is why you let Sophie walk home alone last night. Or do the police have that wrong?”

Chet looked at River for a few moments, then shot his cuffs. He was a tall man, as tall as River, but that was where their similarities ended. Chet was sleek, pretty boy handsome, the kind of guy who wore designer sweats as he worked out at his designer gym. Shooting his cuffs, wordlessly pointing out that he was a successful man wearing a six-hundred-dollar suit, was an action meant to intimidate River.

Yeah, sure. River didn’t think so. He just stood there, glaring at Chet Wallace, a tic working in his cheek, his hands itching to take the stylishly dressed man apart, piece by designer-label piece.

Chet broke eye contact first, his artificially tanned cheeks flushing slightly as he actually stepped back a pace, as if it had finally hit him that River James was a wild animal searching for prey, and that he was reacting pretty much like a deer caught out in the open.

In self-defense, Chet went on the attack. “Now look—James, is it? I already spoke with the police. Yes, Sophie and I had dinner together last night, and then she decided to walk home. Four blocks, James, that’s all. As a matter of fact, I was just leaving the restaurant myself when I saw all the police cars and the ambulance. I went to check and found Sophie. I’m the one who identified her.”

“Well, bully for you. Why did she decide to walk home, Wallace?” River asked, putting his cowboy hat on, then looping his thumbs through his belt. “You two have a little spat? That is what you’d call it, right? A little spat?”

Chet’s hand went to his Windsor knot, and he lifted his chin as he nervously shifted the tie from side to side. “We had a slight disagreement, yes,” he conceded. “Not that it’s any concern of yours.”

“I don’t care if you had the mother of all knockdown drag-outs, Wallace,” River told him tightly. “That’s none of my business. What I do care about is that you let her walk home alone.”

Chet held up one hand. “Oh, wait a minute, fella. You’re trying to say this is my fault? How does any of this become my fault? It was Sophie who went running off, you know. It was Sophie who— What? What’s your problem?”

River had bent his head, rubbed his temples with the fingers of his right hand and laughed. He’d thought, really believed, he could get through this without losing his cool. But this Wallace was too thick for words, and River wasn’t going to waste any more of his words on the jackass. He almost wanted to thank him for being so dense.