Witchchild

by Carole Mortimer

  He shrugged, 'That isn't for me to decide. But she is very ill,' he added harshly. 'I can't believe she actually tried to kill Leonie,' he groaned huskily. 'That Holly's kidnapping was all a ruse to achieve just that. And she did it all because she loved me!'

  Leonie could see exactly how much all this had upset him on top of Holly's abduction, knowing how shaken she had felt when she got home, needing to be close to the people she loved and who loved her. But Hawk was different from her, and she recognised that he needed to be alone for a while to come to terms with Sarah's warped idea of love.

  'You must be famished,' she said brightly, knowing food was probably the last thing on his mind. 'Let's go into the kitchen and I'll get you some supper.'

  'As long as June doesn't threaten to quit because you've taken over her kitchen,' he drawled, giving the housekeeper a teasing smile.

  June smiled. 'Once you've tasted Leonie's cooking for a while you'll be begging me to stay!' she told him confidently.

  'I'm marrying a woman who can't cook?' said Hawk disgustedly as he followed Leonie from the room as she wheeled the carrycot in front of them to park it just inside the kitchen, both of them wanting their daughter near.

  She turned to give him a mischievous smile. 'I can write fourth-rate detective novels!'

  Hawk sat down at the kitchen table with a groan. 'Are you still going to be reminding me of that when we're eighty?'

  'When you're eighty, my dear man,' she said lightly, putting steak on to cook while she got out the salad from the fridge, 'I'll still be a spritely sixty-six!'

  His mouth quirked. 'I bet I'll still be able to match you in stamina.'

  'As you chase me around the bedroom?' she teased.

  'Probably,' he grimaced. 'Walking stick and all!'

  They both needed this ridiculous sense of fun after the tension of the last few days, and Hawk especially needed to relax.

  'I'll probably be chasing you,' Leonie said dryly.

  'You won't hear me complaining!' He grinned.

  Leonie placed a cup of coffee in front of him. 'Just plain ordinary coffee, in your honour,' she said. 'June bought some last time she went shopping as she's been getting rumblings of disapproval from the men in the house!' she told him pertly.

  He took an appreciative sip of coffee. 'I won't tell you what Jake said about the decaffeinated sort!' he smiled.

  'I can imagine,' she drawled. And she could imagine; the decaffeinated coffee definitely lacked the boost ordinary coffee gave to the adrenalin.

  Hawk leant on his elbows on the table, his cup held in his hands, his expression suddenly haggard again, and Leonie realised the time for teasing had passed.

  'It's all right, Hawk.' She stood behind him, her arms about his neck, her hands resting against his chest, her cheek against his. 'Holly and I are both fine. It's all over now.'

  She could feel him tremble as he drew in a ragged breath. 'Seeing you falling towards that train will haunt me for the rest of my life,' he shuddered.

  Her arms tightened about him. 'I know.'

  Hawk shook his head. 'Sarah said that she's loved me for years, that she knew I was attracted to her too when I was so supportive during her divorce.' He sighed. 'She was upset—I would have done the same for anyone. But Sarah didn't see it that way, and all these years she harboured the idea that we were somehow a couple. Then six months ago I stopped dating other women and took her to social functions that I had to attend.' He sighed. 'After making love to you over nine months ago I couldn't get you off my mind, and dating other women became something that just didn't interest me. Sarah was my secretary, I thought she realised I only took her out because of business.' He looked up at Leonie with pained eyes. 'Once we moved in here and I couldn't take my eyes—or my mind—off you, you—you became a threat to her, to what she thought we had together!'

  Leonie let him continue to talk as she held him, knowing he needed to tell her—and that she needed to hear.

  'She saw us together that night we had dinner at the hotel, although she didn't realise why I'd been so interested in knowing about you all those months ago until Hal held Holly for the wedding photographs. Then she saw the resemblance.' He shook his head. 'She finally broke when I told her that I was taking you back to New York with me instead of her. From what I can tell she hated you, blamed you for taking me away from her. She wasn't able to recognise that I loved you long before you loved me!'

  Leonie moved then, coming round to sit on his knees, holding his face cupped between her hands as she gazed into his eyes. 'I told you I began to love you that night we first made love,' she said softly. 'If you hadn't jumped to the wrong conclusions about Laura's and Hal's absence the next morning I believe I might have let myself love you sooner than I did.' She kissed him deeply before snuggling against his chest. 'None of it matters now, Hawk. What does matter is that we're together, we have a beautiful daughter—and the rest of our lives to show our love to each other. We have a lot to be grateful for,' she added with feeling.

  Hawk gazed down at the tiny woman he held in his arms, knowing he had more reasons than most never to take their love for granted. He had lost Amy, and he had almost lost Leonie; Leonie would never ever doubt his love for her, he would make sure of that.

  'I love you, Mrs Sinclair-to-be,' he told her gruffly.

  'Please,' she said in mock disdain. 'The name will be Mrs Henry Hawker Sinclair the Second. And I love you too,' she added mischievously.

  He barely had time to respond to her kiss before she got lightly to her feet to check on the steak he knew he didn't want—even if it was perfectly cooked. He just wanted to be with Leonie.

  He watched her moving gracefully around the room, his woman-child who also happened to be a witch; she had certainly bewitched him. She was the most lovely creature he had ever seen, almost not quite real; it was like being in the presence of a beautiful sprite. He was going to spend the rest of his life besotted with this witchchild!

  He frowned a little as she took a plate of chicken from the fridge and began to cut it up into small pieces. 'I thought I was having steak?' And from the burning smell coming from the grill it was going to be far from perfectly cooked!

  Leonie looked up to give him a pert smile. 'Oh, this isn't for you,' she shook her head. 'Whenever Laura and I have reason to celebrate—and we certainly have tonight!—then the cats always get a dinner of boiled chicken.'

  The cats. He should have known! Leonie would have been burned as a witch a couple of centuries ago!

  He stood up to switch off the cooker, picking up Holly's carrycot to pause at the doorway. 'While you're taking the cats their supper I'll be waiting for you upstairs, contemplating a way we can celebrate,' he told her huskily.

  Her delight with the suggestion glowed in her eyes. 'Are you sure you wouldn't rather have dinner first?' she teased.

  'Nectar and honey will do me just fine,' drawled Hawk, chuckling softly as she began to blush. 'And hurry up, woman,' he growled. 'I am famished!'

  And when Leonie joined him a few minutes later they shared a banquet, celebrating in life, their love, in all the years they had ahead of them.

  EPILOGUE

  'Well, my darling,' Leonie looked up at her husband with glowing eyes, 'it's our first wedding anniversary; have you been bored so far?'

  Hawk gazed back at her across the candlelit table. 'I believe I was supposed to ask you that?' he drawled.

  She gave a happy laugh. 'How could I possibly be bored with a man who drags me and our daughter around half the world with him on business trips? How could I be bored with the man who has made such a success of the Winnie Cooper series that the public is crying out for more? How could I be bored with the man our daughter calls "Hunk"?' She chuckled softly at the embarrassment Holly had caused her father on several occasions when she had called out to him across a crowded room. They all knew it was Holly's version of Hawk, but no one else did! 'Last of all,' she lowered her voice seductively, 'how could I possibly be bored wit
h a man who's so inventive in bed?' She batted her eyelashes at him flirtatiously.

  'I believe you were the one who came up with the idea that we should—'

  'Hawk!' Damn, he still had the power to make her blush like a schoolgirl!

  He laughed throatily. 'I loved your idea, Leonie!'

  The last year had been such a happy one, so filled with love and laughter. And they had so many more years yet to come, all of them as good, she was sure.

  She stood up to move seductively around the table. 'Maybe you should refresh my—' She broke off as a cry from upstairs interrupted the silence of the evening. 'Maybe later,' she ran her fingertips lightly down his rugged jaw.

  'The story of my life,' groaned Hawk as he too stood up.

  Leonie turned to him with glowing green eyes. 'Don't I always remember?'

  He gave a sensual smile. 'Always.'

  They went up the stairs together. The cry was a little louder now, so Leonie quickly moved to pick up her baby son before he woke up his brother.

  Twins. Boys. Born exactly ten months after Holly had been born.

  She gave Mark Daniel to Hawk while she prepared herself for feeding him. 'Now aren't you glad,' she drew in a little gasp as Mark latched eagerly on to her breast, sucking enthusiastically, 'that I talked you out of having that vasectomy until we were sure I wasn't already pregnant again?' she said warmly.

  Hawk sat on the bed to watch her, as he always did if he was at home when his sons needed feeding.

  There had been no complications with this pregnancy, or the birth, although Hawk had been more than a little shaken when the doctor told him after Mark Daniel's birth that there was another baby on the way. David John had been born a few minutes later.

  Both boys had silky baby blond curls, and at two months old their eyes were already turning the grey of their father and much older brother, Holly's eyes having fooled all of them and turned the green of her mother.

  Leonie's greatest joy had been in being able to feed her sons herself, finally able to share that closeness with her child.

  'It would have been a waste, yes,' Hawk drawled.

  'And the doctor says we can have more children if we want them,' she reminded him. Mark had almost finished his supper, which was perhaps as well because David was starting to stir as he began to feel hungry. They were very tactful, her sons, rarely waking up at the same time for their food.

  Hawk's eyes widened. 'Isn't three enough?'

  Leonie gave him a slow smile. 'Nectar and honey?' she taunted, laughing softly as his cheeks were the ones to colour this time.

  'Hmm,' he murmured, lightly touching his tongue to his lips. 'Wouldn't they be perfect names for twin daughters?'

  As usual when he turned the tables on her, her cheeks were burning. 'Laura telephoned today,' she firmly changed the subject, the intimacy of their conversation making her shift uncomfortably. 'She doesn't want to go to Paris, she likes it in Florida.' Laura and Hal had travelled extensively the last year, and as Laura had promised, she and Hawk had had several arguments about where he sent them.

  'Doesn't everyone?' he returned unsympathetically. 'Wait until she's had a few moonlit walks in Paris and she won't want to leave there either.'

  'She's threatening to make you a grandfather if you move them again,' Leonie warned.

  He grinned. 'All the more reason for them to go to Paris.'

  She returned his smile. 'That's what Hal said!'

  His smile deepened. 'Hal's getting more and more like me as he gets older, isn't he?'

  And wasn't he proud of the fact! But why shouldn't he be? As far as Leonie was concerned there wasn't a finer man in the world than the man who was her husband.

  'Maybe they'll have the twin girls,' she suggested lightly, knowing how much her sister and Hal wanted a child of their own. It seemed she and Hawk only had to make love once and she became pregnant, but Laura and Hal were having a little more difficulty. But Laura had confided in her today that she was very hopeful at the moment, was pretty confident that the test she had had would prove positive. Leonie had a feeling it would too.

  'As long as they don't give them the names of flowers I don't care,' Hawk said dryly.

  'You were the one who gave me a kitten wearing a diamond bracelet for our anniversary,' she reminded him as she placed David at her breast, gently smoothing his silky hair as he indulged a little more slowly than his brother.

  'I didn't name it Sunflower!' he scorned.

  'It looks just like a sunflower with that lovely orangy fur,' she defended.

  'It looks like a ginger tabby to me,' jeered Hawk.

  'That's because you have no imagination, no poetry in your soul—'

  'I don't?' he said softly, his silver gaze holding hers.

  'You—you—You!' Leonie groaned with feeling, the ache between her thighs becoming a burning torrent. 'Oh, Hawk, I want you,' she told him raggedly.

  He moved to kneel in front of her, lightly cupping the breast his son wasn't latched on to. 'Believe me,' he rasped, his hand caressing, 'you're going to have me!'

  He hadn't known life could be this wonderful. This last year with Leonie had been the best he had ever known, and each day he seemed to fall a little more in love with her, until he was sure he couldn't love her any more than he already did. And then he would know that he did.

  Watching her now as she tended their sons he was glad she had become pregnant again so soon after Holly. He knew that if she hadn't he would have insisted on denying them both the wonderful experience of knowing she once again carried his child, of watching those children being born. It was something he knew both of them would have deeply regretted missing.

  The day that Sarah had tried to take Leonie from him now seemed a lifetime away, and he knew that his life had been different then, completely empty without Leonie and the children they shared. Rather than pushing the trauma of that day to the back of their minds they occasionally talked about it, both accepting that Sarah had been ill, that she still was. The doctors were not sure how long it would be before—or if—she would ever get over this obsessive love she had for him. But she couldn't hurt them now, and she was receiving treatment for her own safety.

  'June and Jake also phoned today to wish us well.'

  Hawk came back from the past to the present, to his wonderful witchchild.

  'I invited them over for dinner tomorrow.' Leonie added huskily, 'I hope that's all right.'

  He nodded. 'How's Stephen doing?'

  Jake and June had been married six months ago, and when Stephen had decided to go back to law school the three of them had moved to London so that Jake and June could give him the support he needed. So far it seemed to be working out for all of them.

  'Fine,' Leonie answered without hesitation. 'He's bringing a girl-friend along with him tomorrow.'

  Hawk pulled a face. 'Holly will be upset!'

  Their tiny daughter idolised Stephen, had done from the time he began to visit them again nine months ago. Somehow Holly had seemed to know that he needed her childlike innocence to help heal him.

  His wife smiled. 'I'm sure Stephen will still find time for her; he loves her as much as she loves him. It's as well you aren't a jealous father,' she teased, settling David back in his cot.

  'Just a jealous husband, hm?' laughed Hawk, his arm about her waist as they gazed down at their now sleeping sons.

  Completely identical to look at, the boys were already beginning to show signs of a different temperament. Mark was obviously the leader of the two, already displaying signs of a temper, whereas David was more placid, quite happy to wait in line behind his brother. They were sons for any man to be proud of. And Hawk was very proud.

  Holly had grown into a lovely little girl the last year, fiery-red curls surrounding her angelically beautiful face as she slept in her cot with her bottom sticking up in the air, a slight smile on her lips, completely confident of her role as big sister to the boys she called 'bubbas'. It was going to be a great sh
ock to her when she got older and realised there was only ten months in age between her and those 'babies'!

  Hawk still trembled when he thought of all he had almost lost because of one very sick woman!

  Leonie felt him tremble against her, and knew that the memories still haunted him as they haunted her. But today was the first of the many anniversaries they would share, and she wasn't going to let anything spoil it.

  'Hawk, let's go to the bedroom and…' She stood on tiptoe to describe the delicious variation she had been anticipating on the theme they both loved so much.

  Hawk drew back to look down at her with widened eyes. 'Is that possible?'

  'According to Laura it is,' she nodded. 'But if you'd rather not—'

  'Laura?' he gasped—as Leonie had known he would, ushering her out of their daughter's bedroom to close the door softly behind them. 'Laura told you about that?' he said disbelievingly. 'Your demure sister?'

  She nodded again, her eyes glowing. 'Apparently she isn't demure with Hal,' she giggled.

  'Obviously,' drawled Hawk. 'Okay, Mrs Henry Hawker Sinclair the Second, let's go and try out this interesting proposition.'

  'Don't you mean position?' she teased.

  'Probably,' he said dryly. 'I was just trying to approach the subject delicately.'

  'That should be a first,' she laughed, opening their bedroom door, bathing the room in a warm glow. 'To bed, Hawk Sinclair,' she told him firmly. 'And now! I've been waiting hours for you to make love to me!'

  She felt feverish with wanting him, knowing it had always been, and always would be, this way between them.

  'I love you, Henry Hawker Sinclair the Second,' she told him with feeling.

  'And I love you, Mrs Henry Hawker Sinclair the Second,' he returned intensely. 'I always will!'

  'Love me, Hawk,' she gasped her need. 'Love me!'

  'I intend to,' he assured her huskily. 'And while I do you can explain to me how Laura says we manage to…' The bedroom door closed softly behind them, followed by a giggle, and then silence.