Wyoming Strong

Gabriel looked over her head at Wolf Patterson’s cold expression. He glared at his friend, but Sara looked as if she couldn’t take any more.

“Yes,” he told her. “Come on.”

* * *

SHE MADE COFFEE. They sat at the kitchen table and drank it.

“What did he say to you?”

“The usual things.” She sighed. “But he did tell me about the woman...”

“Ysera?”

She looked up. “Is that her name?”

He nodded. His face was grim. “We hated her. We knew what she was doing to him, but you can’t drag a man away from a woman he thinks he’s in love with. She damned near destroyed him.” He frowned. “He’s never spoken of it to anyone. Not even to me. I know about it from a girl who worked with her. She thought Ysera was warped, mentally. I have to agree.”

“He told me about her to warn me off,” she said. She shook her head. “I can’t imagine a man putting up with that.”

“He loved her,” he said simply.

She drew in a breath and sipped coffee. “He said that he didn’t think therapy could do anything for him.” She flushed.

“What else did he say?”

She laughed hollowly. “That I must have teased our stepfather until he went crazy to have me.”

“I’ll break his damned neck!”

“You will not,” she said, pulling his shirtsleeve to make him sit back down. “He doesn’t know a thing about me. It’s what even one of my friends thought.”

“You were thirteen!”

She winced. “Maybe I wore shorts too much...”

“Oh, God, don’t do that to yourself!” he burst out. “You were a child, far more innocent than most girls your age. He’d been after you for months.”

“I didn’t tell you that!” she exclaimed, embarrassed.

“The prosecutor told me,” he replied. “He was livid. He said they should have the death penalty for cases like yours.”

She lowered her eyes to the table. “I have no peace. I have nightmares.” She smiled sadly. “There’s this man I play WoW with,” she recalled. “He says he has nightmares, too. Of course, he could be a woman or a man or a child, I don’t really know, but he...he gives me peace. We get along so well together. He said that he couldn’t get away from the past. I know how that feels.”

He didn’t dare tell her that her WoW friend was none other than Wolf Patterson. The player was the only real confidant she had, besides Gabriel. It was one of the only happy things in her sad life, that game. Perhaps it was the only thing Wolf had, as well.

“Do you know who he is in the real world?” he asked conversationally.

“Oh, no. I don’t want to,” she added. “The game isn’t like real life. We just have fun playing together, like children.” She laughed. “It’s so funny. I don’t have friends, you know. But I have a friend in him. I can talk to him. Not that we go into specifics. But he’s a compassionate person.”

“So are you.”

She smiled. “I try to be.”

“Sara, do you understand now why I told you that you can’t afford to let Wolf get close to you?”

She nodded.

“Someone said that Ted got insistent about dancing with you,” he said abruptly.

“Yes. He tried to drag me out onto the dance floor,” she replied uneasily. “Mr. Patterson caught him by the collar and almost threw him into a wall.” She shivered. “He’s scary when he loses his temper.”

“Only because he never loses it,” Gabriel replied. “That’s one man you don’t ever want to make mad. Well, if you’re a man, that is. I’ve never known him to hurt a woman.” He studied her. “He was aggressive with Ted?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to make the obvious assumption, but it presented itself just the same. Ted was trying to put the make on Sara, and Wolf was protective of her. Jealous over her? Possibly.

“It wouldn’t end well,” he said, thinking out loud.

“Don’t you think I know that?” she asked. “He even told me that he...gets even for what the brunette did to him, with other women.” She flushed.

“He doesn’t talk about it, to anyone,” he repeated. “Why did he tell you?”

“I don’t understand why, either,” she replied. “He hates brunettes.”

“You have to make sure he doesn’t develop a taste for you,” he said firmly.

She nodded. She was remembering how it felt to kiss him, to be in his arms, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t dare tell Gabriel how things had already gotten physical between them.

“Don’t worry,” she said gently, and smiled. “I’m not suicidal.”

* * *

A FEW DAYS LATER, she had occasion to remember those words.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_29a0ffd7-2b6e-58ce-9de4-0ebb728179d6)

SARA WAS DRIVING past Wolf Patterson’s ranch on a Sunday afternoon, on her way home from picking up a loaf of bread at the Sav-A-Lot Grocery Store, when she noticed a big black form in the middle of the road.

She slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting what was on the road, a huge Rottweiler. It had blood all over it.

She parked her car in the middle of the road. There was no traffic, darn the luck, so she couldn’t wave down anyone to help her. She approached the big dog. It was whining. There was blood on its side, and one leg was turned at an odd angle.

“Oh, dear.” She ran to the car, pulled an afghan out of the backseat and put it in the front seat. Then she went back to the dog. It was enormous, but maybe she could lift it. If she could get it into her car, she could find a vet. She hoped it wouldn’t bite her, but she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She reached down, talking gently to it, smoothing over its head. “Poor, poor thing,” she whispered, and slid her arms under it.

She was wearing a yellow sweater and black slacks. Blood saturated her sweater as she struggled to pick up the huge animal. She heard a vehicle approaching and eased the dog to the ground. She ran toward the truck, waving her arms frantically.

“What the hell...!” Wolf Patterson exclaimed when he slammed out of the truck. She was covered in blood. He felt a jolt of fear. Had she been injured? “Sara!”