The Lone Wolfe

Yet the words stuck in her throat, in her heart. Did she really have a right to ask—and know—such things? She wasn’t even part of the Wolfe family. She might have spent her whole life on the Wolfe estate, in the family’s shadow, but she’d never been one of them. She knew that, had always known that. She’d been an observer, a silent witness, a peeping Tom. Never part of the family, not even remotely close. Her friendship with Annabelle and her father’s faithful service were the only links to the family whose actions had played such havoc with her own life. Why should she have ever expected the Wolfes to feel any sense of obligation or responsibility to her or her father? Annabelle’s offer to let them stay at the cottage had been a kindness, an act of charity that no one else had known about.

And yet Jacob obviously felt responsible; he’d shown her with that cheque. Yet she didn’t want money, even if it was deserved. So just what did she want from Jacob Wolfe?

‘So what have you been doing all this time?’ she asked. Her voice sounded too loud, too bright. Jacob stilled. He was good at that, Mollie thought. She knew she’d caught him off guard only when he became more cautious, more careful, his movements both precise and predatory.

‘Many things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Work.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘This and that.’

Mollie laid down her fork, exasperated by his oblique answers. ‘Why don’t you want to say? Was it something illegal?’

Jacob’s brows snapped together in a dark frown. ‘No, of course not.’

She shrugged. ‘Well, how am I supposed to know? You never sent a letter or left a message. Annabelle waited—’

‘I don’t,’ Jacob told her, his tone turning icy, ‘want to talk about my sister.’

Mollie refused to back down. ‘She’s my friend too.’

‘So I gather from the photographs plastered on her wall.’ Now he sounded mocking, and Mollie flushed. She hated the thought of Jacob seeing those photos, gazing at her in so many awkward and emotional stages.

‘Well, if it’s not something illegal, I don’t know why you can’t tell me,’ she resumed after a second’s pause. Jacob’s eyes flashed blackly.

‘And I don’t know why you’re so curious, Miss Parker,’ he drawled, his tone soft. Yet there was nothing soft about his body or expression; everything was hard. Hard and unrelenting and cold.

Mollie swallowed. Suddenly this had stopped being a conversation. It had become a battle, and one she wasn’t sure she wanted to fight. She had a feeling Jacob would win. She lifted her shoulder in a shrug and lightened her tone. ‘Of course I’m curious. You mentioned yourself how I’m the one who has been here for so many years. How I waited. And I did. I waited and I watched everyone leave, one by one, starting with you. So yes, I’d like to know what started the exodus.’ Somehow, as she’d started speaking, her tone had hardened and darkened. Mollie stopped, her lips still parted in surprise at just how bitter she sounded. She felt a little flicker of shame.

‘So,’ Jacob said after a moment, his voice still sounding soft and yet so very hard, ‘you don’t just want to know what I’ve been doing, but why I went.’

Mollie’s breath escaped in a soft, surprised rush. She might as well see this through. ‘Yes.’

Jacob leaned back, his position relaxed even though his eyes were wary and alert. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you think I left?’ Mollie stared at him, speechless. She hadn’t expected that

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