Joan Johnston - A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

Katoya had mysteriously arrived on the Hazard doorstep on the day Nathan’s mother had died, as though by some prearranged promise, to take her place in the household. Nathan had been sixteen at the time. No explanation had ever been forthcoming as to why the Blackfoot woman had come. And despite Nathan’s efforts in later years to ease the older woman’s chores, Katoya still worked every day from dawn to dusk with apparent tirelessness, making Nathan’s house a home.

As Nathan sat down at the kitchen table, he wondered whether Harriet Alistair had found anything worth eating in her bare cupboards. The fact he should find himself worrying about an Alistair, even if it was a woman, made him frown.

“Were you able to buy the land?” Katoya asked as she poured coffee into his cup.

Nathan had learned better than to try to keep secrets from the old Indian woman. “Harry Alistair wouldn’t sell,” he admitted brusquely.

The diminutive Blackfoot woman merely nodded. “So the feud will go on.” She seated herself in a rocker in the kitchen that was positioned to get the most heat from the old-fashioned wood stove.

Nathan grimaced. “Yeah.”

“Is it so important to own the land?”

Nathan turned to face her and saw skin stretched tight with age over high, wide cheekbones and black hair threaded with silver in two braids over her shoulders. He suddenly wondered how old she was. Certainly she had clung to the old Blackfoot ways. “It must be the Indian in you,” he said at last, “that doesn’t feel the same need as I do to possess land.”

Katoya looked back at him with eyes that were a deep black well of wisdom. “The Indian knows what the white man has never learned. You cannot own the land. You can only use it for so long as you walk the earth.”

Katoya started the rocker moving, and its creak made a familiar, comforting sound as Nathan ate the hot lamb stew she’d prepared for him.

Nathan had to admit there was a lot to be said for the old woman’s argument. Why was he so determined to own that piece of Alistair land? After all, when he was gone, who would know or care? Maybe he could have accepted Katoya’s point of view if he hadn’t met Harry Alistair first. Now he couldn’t leave things the way they stood. That piece of land smack in the middle of his spread had always been a burr under the saddle. He didn’t intend to stop bucking until the situation was remedied.

Nathan refilled his own coffee cup to keep the old woman from having to get up again, then settled down into the kitchen chair with his legs stretched out toward the stove. Because he respected Katoya’s advice, Nathan found himself explaining the situation. “The Harry Alistair who inherited the land from Cyrus turned out to be a woman, Harry-et Alistair. She’s greener than buffalo grass in spring and doesn’t know a thing about sheep that hasn’t come out of an extension service bulletin. Harry-et Alistair hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of making a go of Cyrus’s place. But I never saw a woman so determined, so stubborn….”

“You admire her,” Katoya said.

“I don’t…Yes, I do,” he admitted with a disbelieving shake of his head. Nathan kept his face averted as he continued, “But I can’t imagine why. She’s setting herself up for a fall. I just hate to see her have to take it.”

“We always have choices. Is there truly nothing that can be done?”

“Are you suggesting I offer to help her out?” Nathan demanded incredulously. “Because I won’t. I’m not going to volunteer a shoulder to cry on, let alone one to carry a yoke. I’ve learned my lessons well,” he said bitterly. “I’m not going to let that woman get under my skin.”

“Perhaps it is too late. Perhaps you already care for her. Perhaps you will have no choice in the matter.”

Nathan’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. The old woman was more perceptive than was comfortable. How could he explain to her the feeling of possessiveness, of protectiveness that had arisen the moment he’d seen Harry-et Alistair. He didn’t understand it himself. Hell, yes, he already cared about Harry-et Alistair. And that worried the dickens out of him. What if he succumbed to her allure? What if he ended up getting involved with her, deeply, emotionally involved with her, and it turned out she needed more than he could give? He knew what it meant to have someone solely dependent upon him, to have someone rely upon him for everything, and to know that no matter how much he did it wouldn’t be enough. Nathan couldn’t stand the pain of that kind of relationship again.

“You must face the truth,” Katoya said. “What will be must be.”

The old woman’s philosophy was simple but irrefutable. “All right,” Nathan said. “I’ll go see her again tomorrow morning. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to get involved in her life.”

Nathan repeated that litany until he fell asleep, where he dreamed of a woman with freckles and braids and bibbed overalls who kissed with a passion that had made his pulse race and his body throb. He woke up hard and hungry. He didn’t shave, didn’t eat, simply pulled on jeans, boots, shirt, hat and coat and slammed out the door.

When he arrived at the Alistair place, it was deathly quiet. There was no smoke coming from the stone chimney, no sounds from the barn, or from the tiny, dilapidated cabin.

Something’s wrong.

Nathan thrust the pickup truck door open and hit the ground running for the cabin. His heart was in his throat, his breath hard to catch because his chest was constricted.

Let her be all right, he prayed. I promise I’ll help if only she’s all right.

The kitchen door not only wasn’t locked, it wasn’t even closed. Nathan shoved it open and roared at the top of his voice, “Harry-et! Are you in here? Harry-et!”

That was when he saw her. She was sitting on the floor in the corner with a lamb clutched to her chest, her eyes wide with terror at the sight of him. He was so relieved, and so angry that she’d frightened him for nothing, that he raced over, grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, leaving the back door standing wide open? You’ll catch your death of cold,” he yelled, giving her shoulders a shake to make his point. “Of all the stupid, idiotic, greenhorn—”

And then it dawned on him what he was doing, and he let her go as abruptly as he’d grabbed her. She backed up to the wall and stood there, staring at him.

Harry Alistair had a death grip on the lamb in her arms. There were dark circles under her eyes, which were wide and liquid with tears that hadn’t yet spilled. Her whole body was trembling with fatigue and the aftereffects of the shaking Nathan had given her. Her mouth was working but the words weren’t coming out in much more than a whisper.

Nathan leaned closer to hear what she was trying to say.

“Get out,” she rasped. And then, stronger, “Get out of my house.”

Nathan felt his heart miss a thump. “I’m sorry. Look, I only came over—”

Her chin came up. “I don’t care why you came. I want you to leave. And don’t come back.”

Nathan’s lips pressed flat. What will be must be. It was just as well things had turned out this way. It would have been a mistake to try to help her, anyway. But there was a part of him that died inside at the thought of not seeing her again. He wanted her. More than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life. But she was all wrong for him. She needed the kind of caretaking he’d sworn he was through with forever.

It took every bit of grit he had to turn on his booted heel and walk out of the room. And out of her life.

What is accepted dress-for-success garb for country women?