Jane Bonander Read Online Free PDF Page B

searching, he’d finally turned to the lists of settlers who had come overland in covered wagons, venturing west before the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Creek. He found her among them. Don’t ask him how he knew; he just knew. It was at that moment that he realized he had a sixth sense about his mother.
    He wondered if she ever had any premonitions or intuitions about him. Nightmares, hopefully. But in truth, she probably didn’t even think about him. After all, he hadn’t been important enough to save.
    In the meantime, one thing had not changed. He didn’t feel welcome in the world, for he was neither Indian nor white, yet the blood of both coursed through his veins.
    The blaze in the fireplace crackled and hissed, and rain buffeted the cabin, clamoring at the windows, seeping in around the frames. Wolf sat in Angus’s old chair near the fireplace, his feet wrapped in warm wool stockings and propped up on a battered footstool, his boots drying by the fire.
    Once again he looked down at the letter he’d picked up at John Sutter’s post, noting the November date and the troubled message.
    Mr. McCloud,
    I have a proposition for you. I ain ’ t a well man. When you get this, please contact my lawyer, Earl Williams, in Martinez. He’ll get in touch with me and find us a place to meet.
    Amos Larson’s squiggly signature was shaky at the bottom of the page.
    Wolf folded the letter and tapped it against his chin. As he studied the fire, he wondered what Amos wanted from him. He’d liked the old man. They’d had many intense discussions; Wolf sensed that Amos was dying. He’d felt terrible leaving him the way he did, but he could predict what would have happened if he’d stayed. Josette Larson was a tease, pure and simple. It didn’t matter that she’d acted sweet and innocent; she’d known what she wanted, and she’d wanted him.
    He snorted a soft laugh. Christ, that sounded arrogant, didn’t it? But hell, she wasn’t even subtle about it. She had heat in her drawers, that one. And the way she’d talked about her sister had put him off as well. He was far from the most innocent man in the state, but even he knew that when a person spoke ill of someone, they were often trying to cover up something in their own life.
    The vision of Amos’s older daughter shoved its way into his head, and he uttered another indelicate snort. That was one rancher’s daughter who hid none of her feelings. She’d wanted him out of their lives in no uncertain terms, and had been about as receptive to him as a tree stump. She intrigued him. She was the kind of woman a man like him didn’t dare dream about, because there wasn’t a chance in hell he could have her.
    But dream of her he did. She was a complex package of contradictions. Light eyes that brimmed with intelligence and wit, when they weren’t snapping with anger, and a full, lush mouth most whores he knew would kill for. A back so ramrod straight, he thought she might have a poker for a spine, and an ass that jiggled as sweetly as jelly on a plate. A stubborn, tenacious chin, and a neck as smooth and white as swan’s down. Contradictions.
    Hell. It was a waste of time to think about her. If he could have been another kind of man, he’d have wanted a woman like Miss Julia. A woman who was pretty enough, but whose beauty went deeper than the surface. A woman who would work hard beside him, be faithful, have his children … Tension gathered in his groin at the thought of bedding a woman like that. He often wondered what had happened to her baby’s father. Oddly, in the two weeks he’d been on the ranch, no one had ever talked about him.
    Bedding Miss Julia … He let out a whoosh of air. The idea made him reel. He’d never had a woman like that. A woman who hadn’t been used by many others. But there was a passion in her, he’d seen it in her eyes. And obviously she’d experienced such passion once, anyway. The baby was proof of that.
    She wasn’t one of those