Hawk's Prize

by Elaine Barbieri

  Jenna Leigh studied Whit’s sober expression for long moments before she nodded. “All right. I won’t take any chances.”

  Whit’s eyes narrowed. “I meant what I said, Jenna Leigh.”

  “I told you, I won’t take any chances.”

  “You’ll stay right here and let me take care of it.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  His gaze narrowing further at her quick acquiescence, Whit cautioned, “Jenna Leigh—”

  “The same goes for you, too, Whit. I don’t want you to take any unnecessary chances.”

  “I never take unnecessary chances.” Turning toward the door, Whit continued, “I’ll keep you informed. That’s a promise.”

  “All right.”

  His hand on the doorknob, Whit turned back to say, “Behave yourself, Jenna Leigh.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Doing his best to ignore the worry that Jenna Leigh’s obedient manner inspired, Whit mounted up and turned his horse toward town.

  He did not see Jenna Leigh watching him to make certain he was gone before she walked out the rear exit of the house to the spot where she had a horse saddled and waiting. Nor did he see her mount up and ride off as fast as she could.

  Jenna Leigh drew her horse up in front of the Daily Galveston office and dismounted. Her expression sober, she could not stop herself from breathing deeply of the familiar smell of printer’s ink as she walked inside. It reminded her of the years she had spent with Irene Prescott after the fire, while Irene had functioned as her surrogate mother and as one of the most well-respected women in the newspaper business. She could not help smiling at the clanging of the presses. It was music to her ears and indicated that although the afternoon edition had been printed and distributed for the day, owner and editor Noah Dickerson had obviously gotten enough advertising to warrant the printing of an individual sheet to be inserted in the next day’s edition—a financial windfall for a newspaper whose financial status had known its ups and downs.

  Knowing better than to attempt to be heard over the din, Jenna Leigh nodded in greeting to the men working at the presses as she approached Noah’s office. She had proved her value as a reporter on the Daily Galveston before marrying Clay. She had continued to contribute to it on a regular basis since her marriage, but without the demanding schedule she had formerly upheld, a situation that suited both her boss and her. Her visit that afternoon, however, did not concern her column.

  Jenna Leigh entered Noah’s office and closed the door behind her. She sat down on the stiff, cane-bottom chair and looked into the man’s face when he glanced up at her. Noah was a bear of a man with a demeanor that might frighten even the most avid of suffragettes, but she wasn’t cowed. She liked him because he liked her and respected the work she had done for him. They had long since passed the formal stage in their relationship; yet she hesitated as she said without preamble, “I have a favor to ask of you, Noah.”

  Noah raised his hairy brows and adjusted his thick glasses. Jenna Leigh knew what he was thinking. She had never asked a favor of him, and he was intrigued. Not desiring to keep him in suspense, she said, “I’d like you to tell John to make the entire past year’s issues of the Daily Galveston available to me so I can go over them.”

  “You would, huh?” Noah scratched his thick, muscular neck as he looked at her quizzically. “It’ll take John a considerable amount of time to dig them out for you. Would you like to tell me why you want them?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Oh . . . personal! Meaning mind your own business, Noah.”

  “That isn’t exactly what I meant, but I suppose my response could be taken that way.”

  “What did you mean, then?” Noah’s gaze drilled her through the thick lenses of his glasses. “You know I don’t like mysteries.”

  Jenna Leigh responded cautiously, “There’s no mystery about it. It’s personal because I learned this morning that my younger brother—the one Whit and I couldn’t seem to locate—was a Confederate officer during the war, and he had some problems during the last few weeks before Lee surrendered. Something about a Union payroll that he and his men had been ordered to capture.”

  “The war’s over, Jenna Leigh. That’s old news.”

  “Not if that payroll was never recovered and if the Union Army is still searching for him in relation to the raid.”

  “Humm . . .” Noah frowned. “That must’ve been a pretty big payroll. What are you looking for?”

  “Anything I can learn about the robbery.”

  “Why?”

  Annoyed by the tears that sprang unexpectedly to her eyes, Jenna Leigh replied, “Because Drew is my brother and Clay is my husband, and Clay is also the Union officer who’s been charged with finding and arresting Drew.”

  Showing no reaction to her tears, Noah said, “The robbery obviously didn’t happen in Galveston. What makes you think the story will be in our paper?”

  “As you said, it must’ve been a pretty big payroll for the Army to still be interested in getting it back. That might’ve made it news in Galveston, especially since this newspaper had Confederate sympathies, and the Confederacy was starved for positive news by then.”

  Staring at her a moment longer, Noah pulled his great bulk slowly to his feet as he said, “All right, I’ll tell John . . . on one condition. If a story comes out of this, I want you to write it up.”

  Jenna Leigh hesitated.

  “That’s the condition.”

  Jenna Leigh responded, “I won’t break any confidences and I won’t write up a story until this whole affair is settled—that’s my condition.”

  After another moment’s silence, Noah said, “That’s all right with me.”

  Seated at a vacant desk beside the plate-glass window sometime later, Jenna Leigh reviewed the dusty editions of the Daily Galveston surrounding her. Her concentration intense, she examined each page patiently. Her reporter’s instinct told her that there was more to the story about the payroll robbery than was generally known, and something inside her made her feel that she—

  An uneasy feeling caused Jenna Leigh to look up abruptly. A tall, dark-haired man was gazing at her through the window.

  Tall, dark-haired, and muscular, with unusual hazel eyes that were stunningly familiar, he was handsome in a way that she remembered well.

  Jenna Leigh stood up shakily. Could it be?

  She caught and held the fellow’s gaze for a brief moment before she called out, “Drew—is it you?”

  He was gone in an instant.

  Stumbling over a chair in her haste to reach the street, Jenna Leigh called out, “Drew, is it you? Please, Drew, don’t leave!”

  She emerged out onto the street to find that he was nowhere in sight.

  She was still standing there, frozen to the spot when Noah touched her arm and said, “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Hardly able to breathe, Jenna Leigh was momentarily unable to respond. Finally regaining her breath, she said softly, “I thought I did, but I guess I was wrong.”

  Still shaken, Jenna Leigh turned back to the office.

  His determination renewed, Drew walked boldly across the familiar black-and-white tiled floor in the outer office of Gault Shipping and Receiving. He did not answer the slight, blond-haired, bespectacled young man when the fellow asked his name. Nor did he stop as the fellow removed his glasses and stood up uncertainly, then tried ineffectively to block his entrance into Simon Gault’s office.

  Gault glanced up as Drew pushed open the door. Standing behind his massive mahogany desk, he watched as Drew approached.

  Hardly aware of the clerk who stood making excuses in the doorway behind him, Drew halted opposite Gault. The clerk’s ramblings ceased, and Drew waited until the door closed behind him before he broke the silence by saying coldly, “You’re Simon Gault, aren’t you?

  “Of course I am. Who are you, and what do you want?”

  Drew assessed the man sil
ently. Expensively clothed, fit, and well groomed despite his age, he was the owner of a shipping company that brought him respect and social acceptance that were vastly undeserved. He was the epitome of everything that money could buy.

  Drew studied him more closely as Gault returned his stare with eyes that were black with hatred, cold and conscienceless. Drew knew instinctively that the man’s innocence was all an act. Gault knew who Drew was. Everything Chantalle had told him was true. He was looking at the man responsible for Willie’s murder, and for the attack on him that had endangered Tricia’s life as well. He couldn’t be sure if the man bore hatred for everyone with the Hawk name, but he could not afford to take the chance that he did. One glimpse of Jenna Leigh seated near the window of the Daily Galveston had released him from the strange inertia that had been holding him in its grip. It had proved to him that whatever he thought of Jenna Leigh’s marriage to a Yankee, she was still the little girl he had protected most of his life. He would not allow anyone to hurt her.

  Drew began slowly, “You asked who I am, but you know the answer, Gault. What you don’t know is that I’m a fair man, so I’m going to make some things very clear to you. You don’t like my brother or me. That’s fine, because the feeling is mutual. But don’t think you’re going to even up your score with him by taking it out on the people closest to him. I won’t let that happen.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.” Simon’s dead eyes held his. “This is my office. I don’t want you here, so get out!”

  “In good time.” The threat in his soft tone unmistakable, Drew continued, “Just so we understand each other—I know you somehow saw the ring that I carry in my money pouch, and I know what conclusions you drew when you saw it.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Ignoring his protest, Drew continued, “So I’m warning you now, I’ll prove who killed Willie Childers. I’ll prove who sent Bruce Carlton to kill me, and I want you to remember that if anything else happens to anyone dear to me in the meantime, I won’t waste my time talking to you.”

  “I told you—”

  “Just listen!” His control beginning to slip, Drew continued coldly, “There won’t be any place you can hide from me, do you understand?”

  “You’re talking to the wrong man, I’m telling you.”

  “Maybe.” Drew gritted his teeth in a smile as he said softly, “You have nothing to worry about if I am . . . but you’ll remember what I said, won’t you?”

  Gault did not reply.

  Drew took a hard step closer and demanded, “Answer me.”

  Gault’s hand snaked toward his desk drawer. Leaning across the desk in a blur of movement, Drew slammed the drawer shut, catching Gault’s hand in it. Holding it tightly shut while Gault groaned with pain, he insisted, “Answer me!”

  His eyes bulging, Gault gasped, “I heard what you said!”

  Releasing the drawer, glimpsing the handle of a gun as Gault pulled his hand free, Drew added, “Now all you have to do is remember it.”

  Gault was cursing under his breath when Drew walked out of his office.

  Drew stepped down onto the dock and started back in the direction from which he had come. Jenna Leigh was a woman now, and he would make sure she did not suffer because of her relationship to Whit or him. He had lost Willie for that senseless reason. He did not intend to lose anyone else.

  Tricia’s image flashed into his mind, and Drew suffered an almost debilitating surge of emotion. He loved her. Separation from her grew more difficult every day, but coming face to face with the evil in Gault’s gaze had proved to him that he had done the right thing by separating himself from her. Danger followed him in too many ways. It shed its shadow on everyone dear to him. He needed to keep Tricia free of its darkness—at any cost.

  Simon stood at his office window, clutching his throbbing hand as he watched Drew Hawk limp away.

  Bastard!

  He had been right all along. The Hawks were poison for him—every one of them—and the Hawk men were even more dangerous than he’d believed.

  Simon cursed under his breath as the pain in his hand heightened. Drew Hawk believed he had won this time, but he would soon discover that small victories meant little when the game was not yet over.

  The need to maintain propriety until he was able to bend the consortium to his will handicapped him. It held him back from a full-fledged assault to attain final triumph over the Hawk family, but it would only take a few more days to convince a few stubborn holdouts. Then he would be free to follow through.

  The Hawks had no idea what was coming.

  Shuddering with pain, Simon nodded. But in the meantime, he would allow himself the small satisfaction of settling a score that had waited too long.

  Tricia paced her bedroom impatiently. Another day was coming to an end . . . another day of uncertainty. Where was Drew? What was he doing? Was he well, or was he ignoring a possible resurgence of the infection in his leg?

  Tricia’s pacing came to a halt. And she needed to know—did he really love her? Was he thinking about her? Did he ache inside at the thought of her, as she did each time she thought of him?

  He had said he was concerned for her safety.

  She was concerned for his.

  He had said he couldn’t concentrate on accomplishing what he needed to do when she was near.

  She couldn’t concentrate on anything she was supposed to do because he wasn’t.

  His absence had caused an impasse that she was not prepared to accept.

  She loved him. She needed to be near him. If he loved her, he would need to be near her, too.

  The sudden importance of that two-letter word loomed in her mind.

  If

  It occurred to her that Drew had never actually said he loved her. He had demonstrated in so many ways that she was a part of him he did not want to lose, but he had never voiced the words.

  Did that mean he would never say them?

  Her throat tight, Tricia took a breath. She needed to find out.

  Making a sudden decision, Tricia turned toward the doorway of her room. Moments later, she was moving rapidly down the staircase to the first floor.

  Whit dismounted, tied the reins to the hitching post, and hurried up the walkway toward Chantalle’s house. Another long day had come to an end. He had spent it combing the docks for anyone who had seen Drew or who might know where he could be found. Drew seemed to have been one step ahead of him all day long, and he had missed him every time.

  His brief visit with Jenna Leigh had done little to settle his mind. For all her grown-up beauty and intelligence, she had changed little since she was a child of ten. She still had a mind of her own and was determined to do what she felt she must. The success of the newspaper column she presently wrote as the crusading reporter J.L. Rebel was proof of that fact. He feared that despite her assurances, she would embark on an investigation that would get her into trouble.

  As if that were not enough, he had received a message from Chantalle—who seemed to have had no trouble finding him—that she needed to see him right away. That message had brought him to her house on the run.

  Whit opened the door of the bordello and frowned at the activity inside. He glanced at the clock in the foyer, aware that when the average citizens of Galveston started preparing to retire for the night, Chantalle’s house started to come alive.

  Momentarily uncertain, he watched Mavis enter the foyer. The soft-spoken prostitute smiled as she said succinctly, “She’s upstairs.”

  The realization that Chantalle’s women knew Chantalle had summoned him caused him to take the stairs two at a time. He reached Chantalle’s office and knocked firmly on her door.

  He pushed the door open in response to her reply and walked inside. He stopped abruptly at the sight of a slender, blond young woman standing near Chantalle’s desk. The angelic quality of the woman—her fair hair and features and a stature so delicately formed as to seem almost ethereal—contrasted vividly with the determ
ined look in her sea-green eyes as she stared at him.

  Uncertain, Whit turned to Chantalle and said, “You wanted to see me? Will told me it was urgent.”

  Standing up, Chantalle approached him soberly. She halted halfway between the lovely young woman and him as she said, “I’d like you to meet my daughter, Tricia Lee Shepherd.”

  Tricia Lee Shepherd.

  Whit extended his hand toward the young woman and said, “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am, but I admit to being confused at your family name.”

  “She’s my adopted daughter, Whit, which is the reason she doesn’t carry my family name.” Chantalle paused, and then added, “She’s also the young woman who was with Drew when he was almost killed in an attempted robbery.”

  “But that was at night in the Easton Hotel, if I remember correctly. How was she—?”

  Whit halted when the answer became clear to him.

  Filling in the silence, Tricia said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Whit.” She looked at him closely. “Strangely, if I had seen both you and Drew on the street, I would never have taken you two for brothers, despite your similarity of coloring and stature.”

  “We never did look alike.” Whit added, “But we thought alike. I suppose we still do. You’re a very beautiful woman, ma’am.”

  Tricia’s cheeks colored at his compliment. “Please call me Tricia . . . and please don’t tell me you think I look like an angel. Believe me, that’s far from the truth.”

  When Whit smiled in reply, silently acknowledging his reaction to her appearance, Tricia was temporarily unable to speak and moisture filled her eyes.

  Chantalle took up the conversation, saying, “Tricia asked me to send for you, Whit. She has some information she was anxious to give you.”

  Turning toward Tricia, Whit frowned. “Anything you can tell me that will clear up what’s been happening would be a help.”

  Tricia replied, “How about if I could tell you where to find your brother?”

  Whit went still, and Tricia continued hesitantly, “As you’ve probably realized, Drew and I are . . . were . . . close, but he left without saying good-bye. He told Chantalle that the attempt on his life made him fear for my safety. If I’d had the chance, I would have told him that I feel the same way about him . . . that I fear for his safety, too, and that I won’t feel content until I know he’s all right.”