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“All right, all right, settle down. Rose drops only in my baths.”
“That’s fair. You’re a woman. Smell like a frilly woman all you want.”
“You don’t want Burke sniffing you and teasing?”
“I would rather get shot in the leg by a Peacemaker.”
She giggled and rested her forehead against his.
“I have to get the horses saddled. You finish up here and meet me downstairs, yeah?”
“You got it, Boss,” she said, using Burke’s nickname for him.
Garret shook his head, and his laugh came out snarly. “You’re trouble, woman.” He stood and gripped her throat gently as he kissed her, then put his dark felt hat on and gave her one last wicked grin as he left.
When the door was closed behind him, Eliza collapsed onto the bed and grinned up at the wooden beams of the ceiling. A trill of excitement and happiness filled her stomach and she couldn’t control herself. She kicked her legs and squealed to rid herself of some of the happy energy.
He had claimed her.
He had claimed her! And he’d been gentle and sweet, and had clearly enjoyed himself, and still liked to kiss her, and he was going to draw her a bath tonight, and everything was magnificent.
No one could say anything about their pairing now. No one! The marriage had been consummated, and she was different now. She wasn’t untouched. She was…she was…
His.
She bit back an excited smile and pushed off the bed to finish preparing for the day. It wouldn’t take those boys long to saddle the horses.
By the time she’d met Lenny downstairs, the boys had the horses waiting in front of the inn.
Whitfield’s horse was a magnificent creature. She was a gargantuan black horse with feathering from knees to hooves. The mare looked as if she belonged in some fairy tale from long ago. Even the way she lifted her legs high and fancy when she walked was mesmerizing. Her size was intimidating, but a few minutes with the mare proved she was a docile horse with a kind disposition.
The ride to the ranch was a quiet one, and a quick one. They had the horses at a trot most of the way. Breakfast had been skipped in their haste to get home, and by the time they rode onto Shaw land, her stomach was growling like a werewolf.
Fried eggs, stale bread, and slivers of cheese had to suffice because none of the group was willing to spend too much time cooking. Wells and Cookie were out hauling feed to the remaining cattle, and Burke joined them shortly after he’d finished breakfast. Lenny headed to the barn to start work on the chores, leaving Garret and Eliza in the house.
“Come here. I want to show you somethin’,” Garret said, and took his final swig of coffee. He set the cup on the table and led her into his bedroom.
Eliza went to sit on his bed, but he ushered her to the side, and moved it to the side. Kneeling by the wooden planks of wall that had been hidden by the headboard, he pried a couple of nails loose and pulled one of the wooden planks off. She would have never noticed the board was any different than the others, but he seemed to know exactly which it was by memory.
The board clanked quietly when he set it aside, and he pulled out a large, bulging coin purse.
“This is our savings,” he explained. “The Jenningses won’t take a payment on their loan unless it is in full, so I’ve been putting money away. This is what we have so far.” He handed her the leather pouch.
It was heavy in her hands, and she pulled open the drawstrings to find a small fortune. “This looks like a substantial amount of money, Garret. Why haven’t you put it in the bank?”
“Jennings has eyes in the bank, and I don’t want him knowing how close to or far away we are from paying him off. Plus I wouldn’t put it past him to send his men to rob the bank, and then I’ll have nothing. When I have the full amount my pa took out from Clint, I’ll get a lawyer involved in town. It’ll be all official paperwork when I give him the money, and the loan will be paid in full. The Jenningses won’t have any claim to pressure me over the Lazy S anymore.”
“How have you saved so much? You went to school in Georgetown. Even if you didn’t finish, finishing school is expensive. Won’t you have to make payments in Georgetown?”
“I had a benefactor. A wealthy one. He decided to take pity on me and pay for me to get the schooling I wanted. Even gave me money each month for living, but I stayed below my means and saved as much as I could. I got lucky.”
“I’d say.” Eliza handed him the purse, and he put the new funds they had earned from the sale of Whitfield’s cattle in it. “Well, isn’t that just a kick in the pants. We’re going to pay part of Jennings’s loan with money he so wrongly thought was already his.” She giggled at the mischievous look on Garret’s face.
A somber expression took him, and he paused, studying her. “Eliza, that first night the wolves came after you? Wyatt’s wolf was out there. He was a part of it, leading them. I know it was him who came up with the plan. I wanted to kill him. I still want to. I think about it. From the second you screamed my name, trying to get away from his wolves, it sent something boiling in my gut I can’t seem to get away from. And then you danced with him and he said those things to you, and you looked hurt. Woman, all I want to do is bleed him. But I know human law and we ain’t got any proof, save our word against his. And I can’t exactly explain to the sheriff in Rockdale that there’s a werewolf war brewing. And damnit, he has a big Pack. The law is aware of the back and forth we’ve been doing over the years, but the sheriff’s hands are going to be tied without concrete proof of the attacks. I will be no good to you or any of the Pack with a noose around my neck. I can’t get revenge like that.” Garret put the purse back and slid the board into place. “We’ll need to get our revenge by outsmarting them, and by paying Jennings off. Our revenge will be keeping the ranch despite their best efforts to take it from us.”
She nodded. She’d never expected Garret to kill for her, but his anger at being attacked by that snake made her feel satisfied in ways she couldn’t explain.
No, she most certainly didn’t expect him to kill for her, but if push came to shove, she knew he would. She’d seen him bleed for her.
