TOUCH OF THE WOLF By Susan Krinard

She could not have explained how this one scent, so unlike any she’d encountered before, made her heart pound and her breath come short. It was extraordinary, like a flower blooming out of season in the desert. Unique. Compelling. And yet…

She knew it. It was the dream made form. It was life. It was herself.

And as she stood frozen in amazement, the scent began to drift away, fading beyond her reach.

She stepped into the street and caught the trailing end as if it were a rope snatched from her hand by a cranky maverick. North; it was leading her north, and the source was not far ahead.

She could not lose it. She was the best trailer and tracker on her uncle’s ranch; none of the other vaqueros even came close to her skill. Under the sallow glow of the streetlamps she followed the scent at a run, barely aware of passersby, unnoticed because she wished to be.

The one she sought was unmistakable. When she found him, she knew.

He walked by himself, head down and gaze bent on the street ahead as if he expected all obstacles to melt from his path. He was tall, and broad-shouldered; he wore a coat and hat and carried a cane, and his stride was sharp and purposeful.

Cassidy had seen men of every kind on her roundabout journey to London. Tall men, short men, handsome and plain, high and low, rich and poor, gentle and cruel. But always as human as the people she’d known in New Mexico.

He was something else altogether.

It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see his face and didn’t even know his name. The need within her was strong; it was a wild thing in itself, the part of her that longed for awakening. It was too powerful to resist. She had no choice but to follow this man, this familiar stranger, as she would follow her destiny.

He was entering a wide square, with neatly clipped lawns and hedges and isolated trees and rows of grand houses, all very much alike, on every side.

The wealth of fine carriages and handsomely dressed people told Cassidy who lived in these houses. It seemed right that her stranger should belong among them. He walked up the steps to the entrance of one of the houses, and after a moment the door opened and he stepped inside.

Cassidy crouched behind a shrub and rubbed her palms on the worn knees other trousers. The poets spoke about things like fate and destiny. Maybe they had something to do with why she was here, at this place and time.

Isabelle would be horrified at her situation, if she knew. But Cassidy couldn’t turn back now. She was working up the nerve to cross the street when a carriage drew up in front of the house, a sleek vehicle with spirited horses and a driver and a uniformed man who leaped down as the carriage came to a stop. Her stranger emerged from the house again, and the uniformed man held the carriage door open for him.

By the time the coach moved away Cassidy had already made her decision. She let the coach gain a little distance ahead, and then ran after it. She could run for miles, if she had to. A slight drizzle had begun, a wetness that soaked her clothes and skin. She barely felt it.

The coach followed a curving street out of the square and moved onto a wider lane, flanked on one side by iron-fenced gardens. Cassidy remembered Isabelle pointing it out to her as Buckingham Palace, belonging to the queen of England. But the carriage moved past, to a busy intersection that took all of Cassidy’s concentration to negotiate. Then they were alongside Hyde Park, the biggest open space Cassidy had seen in London, and turning east on a narrower street, once more boxed in by rows of tightly packed houses.

It was more difficult to hide herself here. There were many carriages, people getting in and out, entering the houses and leaving them amid bursts of laughter and faint music. The house where her stranger’s carriage stopped was the busiest of all, brilliant with light, guarded by costumed men who bowed to the guests as they came to the door.

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