The Complete Mackenzie Collection by Linda Howard Page B

female scent teased his nostrils, beckoning him closer; she smelled warm and delicately fragrant, so feminine it made his entire body ache with longing. He moved away from her, knowing it was safer for them both if he put some distance between them.
    “I wasn’t thinking about a burglar.”
    “No?” She considered that, then realized what he’d meant and what she’d said in response. She cleared her throat and marched to the stove, hoping he wouldn’t see her red face. “If I make a pot of coffee, will you drink a cup this time or storm out like you did before as soon as it’s made?”
    The tart reproach in her voice amused him, and he wondered how he had ever thought her mousy. Her clothes were dowdy, but her personality was anything but timid. She said exactly what she thought and didn’t hesitate to take someone to task. Less than an hour before she had taken on the entire county on his behalf. The memory of it sobered him.
    “I’ll drink the coffee if you insist on making it, but I’d rather you just sat down and listened to me.”
    Turning, Mary slid into a chair and primly folded her hands on the table. “I’m listening.”
    He pulled the chair next to her away from the table and turned it to the side, facing her, before he sat down. She turned an unsmiling gaze on him. “I saw you in the hall tonight.”
    He looked grim. “Damn. Did anyone else notice me?” He wondered how she had seen him, because he’d been very careful, and he was good at not being seen when he didn’t want to be.
    “I don’t think so.” She paused. “I’m sorry they said those things.”
    “I’m not worried about what the good people of Ruth think about me,” he said in a hard tone. “I can handle them, and so can Joe. We don’t depend on them for our living, but you do. Don’t go to bat for us again, unless you don’t like your job very much and you’re trying to lose it, because that’s damn sure what will happen if you keep on.”
    “I won’t lose my job for teaching Joe.”
    “Maybe not. Maybe they’ll have some tolerance for Joe, especially since you threw the Academy at them, but I’m another story.”
    “Nor will I lose my job for being friendly with you. I have a contract,” she explained serenely. “An ironclad contract. It isn’t easy to get a teacher in a place as small and isolated as Ruth, especially in the middle of winter. I can lose my job only if I’m judged incompetent, or break the law, and I defy anyone to prove me incompetent.”
    He wondered if that meant she didn’t rule out breaking the law, but didn’t ask her. The kitchen light was shining directly down on her head, turning her hair to a silvery halo and distracting him with its glitter. He knew her hair was brown, but it was such a pale, ash brown that it had no red tones, and when light struck it the strands actually looked silver. She looked like an angel, with her soft blue eyes and translucent skin, and her silky hair slipping from its confining knot to curl around her face. His insides knotted painfully. He wanted to touch her. He wanted her naked beneath him. He wanted to be inside her, to gently ride her until she was all soft and wet, and her nails were clawing at his back—
    Mary reached out and put her slim hand on his much larger one, and just that small touch burned him. “Tell me what happened,” she invited softly. “Why were you sent to prison? I know you didn’t do it.”
    Wolf was a hard man, by nature as well as necessity, but her simple, unquestioning faith in him shook him to the bone. He had always stood alone, isolated by his Indian blood from Anglos and by his Anglo blood from Indians. Not even his parents had been close to him, though they had loved him and he had loved them in return. They had simply never truly known him, never been admitted into his private thoughts. Nor had he been close to his wife, Joe’s mother. They had slept together, he’d been fond of her, but she, too, had been kept at