Hawk's Way: Garth

by Joan Johnston

  “What about your family?” Candy asked.

  “They’re all ranchers themselves. They’ll understand my stock comes first.”

  “If you’re staying, I’m staying,” Candy said. She would much rather spend the time with Garth than endure the speculative looks of his brothers and sister and their spouses.

  “Suit yourself,” Garth said. “If you ask Charlie, he’ll fix us some sandwiches and a thermos of coffee to tide us over tonight. I’ll get some blankets from the tack room.”

  Candy took her time getting back to the kitchen. At the last minute she checked to make sure no sign remained of her lovemaking with Garth in the barn. To her chagrin, her shirt was hanging half in and half out of her jeans. She stopped and tucked it in neatly, then shoved her hands through her hair in hopes of straightening a few of the tangles.

  Candy stood at the screen door and watched the antics inside with amazement. Everybody seemed to be in the kitchen helping with supper. Perhaps helping was the wrong word. They seemed to be playing catch with a raw potato. Tate threw it to—or was she throwing it at?—Faron, who caught it and tossed it to Jesse, who tossed it to Honey, who tossed it to Adam, who tossed it back to Tate. Tate then handed it to Charlie One Horse, who cut it into four pieces and dropped it into a pot of water on the stove.

  Candy took advantage of the laughter that followed to quickly step inside.

  “Where’s Garth?” Faron asked.

  “He’s in the barn,” she answered. “He sent me in to let you know we’re going to be spending the night there.”

  Faron cocked a brow. “Oh, really?”

  Candy flushed as she realized Faron had misinterpreted her words. “There’s a mare foaling,” she rushed to explain. “Garth thinks it would calm her down to have company. So we’re going to stay with her.”

  Faron looked at Tate, who looked at Jesse, who looked back at Faron. Garth had brought a lot of women to Hawk’s Way, but he had always kept ranch business and his personal pleasure separate in the past. To be honest, none of the women Garth had ever invited to the ranch would have been willing to spend the night sleeping on a blanket in the hay, let alone baby-sitting a nervous mare.

  So the three of them took a second look at Candy Baylor.

  Candy tried to ignore the measuring eyes she felt on her as she crossed to Charlie One Horse. “Garth said you’d fix us up a thermos of coffee. I’ll make us some sandwiches, since we won’t be here for supper.”

  She was on her way back out the door when Tate stopped her.

  “You don’t have to spend the night in the barn if you’d rather not,” Tate said. “My eldest brother can be something of a bully.”

  Candy appreciated Tate’s concern, but she hurried to reassure the young woman that she wasn’t acting under duress. “I came here to learn everything I can about managing a place like Hawk’s Way. I’m looking forward to watching this birth. I’ve never seen a foal born before.”

  “Never?” Tate asked. “It can be a pretty messy proposition. Are you sure you want to be there?”

  Candy nodded her head. “Garth will be there.”

  Candy didn’t realize until the words were out what she had revealed to Tate. Her absolute confidence in Garth. Her absolute certainty that if he was by her side, there was nothing she couldn’t handle.

  Tate smiled. “Well, well.”

  There was nothing more Candy could say without making the situation worse than it already was. “I’d better get going. Garth will be waiting for me.”

  She flushed when she realized how that sounded.

  “I mean,” she corrected, “he’ll be getting hungry.”

  That was even worse.

  “For supper,” she stressed.

  Tate burst out laughing. She nudged Candy out the kitchen door. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll all be fine. I just hope that mare delivers in time for you two to come to the christening tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Garth would never—”

  Tate shook her head. “I’m afraid you don’t know my brother as well as you think. The ranch comes first—always. You won’t find anyone here who doesn’t understand that. I think all of us love Hawk’s Way, but to Garth…It’s all Garth will ever have.”

  Candy heard the caution in Tate’s voice. Garth’s sister was telling her that while the rest of the Whitelaws might marry and have families, Garth would not. Candy was being warned not to offer Garth her heart, because he would most likely break it.

  Candy understood. But she didn’t agree. At least, she didn’t want to agree. She had seen signs that Garth might let her climb over, step across or otherwise breach the wall he had built over the years to keep himself safe from hurt. She refused to be discouraged by Tate’s well-intentioned warning.

  “I’ll be careful,” Candy said.

  Before Tate could say anything more, Candy clutched the thermos and the bag of sandwiches close and hurried out the screen door.

  The contrast between the sunlight outside and the dimness of the barn left Candy blind for the few seconds it took her eyes to adjust. She called out to Garth, but got no answer.

  “Garth?” she repeated. Still no answer. She felt a sudden anxiety. Something was wrong.

  She rushed a few steps farther into the barn, even though she was still having trouble seeing. Which was when she tripped over the wheelbarrow.

  Garth saw the sandwiches and thermos go flying in one direction while Candy went the other. He got to her just before she hit the ground. She clutched at him, and it was all he could do to keep from falling with her.

  With effort he regained his balance and stood her on her feet. She was still trembling, so he kept his arms around her. His own heart was beating fast from his terror at seeing her about to crack her head on the cement floor. He tightened his grasp, aware of what a narrow escape she’d had.

  “Lord almighty, woman! How did you miss seeing that wheelbarrow?” he said angrily.

  “Where were you, Garth? I called and you didn’t answer,” she retorted no less angrily.

  “I was trying to make someplace comfortable for you to spend the night,” he snapped back.

  They glared at each other for another moment before Candy lowered her eyes and hid her face against Garth’s chest.

  “I thought something had happened to you,” she murmured. “I guess I panicked.”

  “I guess you did,” Garth said in a husky voice. He felt a heaviness in his groin, a growing tension that arose from holding her in his arms. He wanted her again.

  His need for her frightened him more than he was willing to admit. Once again he pushed her away. To protect himself. And ultimately, to protect her.

  Garth let Candy’s feet drop and held on just long enough to make sure she was steady on them before he said, “I didn’t hear the thermos hit, so maybe it landed in some hay. See if you can find it without falling down again.”

  Candy was stung by Garth’s insinuation that she was clumsy. She marched over to the stall where the thermos had indeed landed safely on a pile of hay and picked it up.

  “Here it is,” she said. “Catch.”

  That was all the warning Garth got before she threw it to him. He had already picked up the bag of sandwiches and was forced to drop it again in order to catch the thermos.

  Candy walked over, picked up the bag of sandwiches and held them out to Garth. “You dropped something,” she said in a sweet voice.

  Garth opened his mouth and shut it again.

  Candy laughed at the look of chagrin on his face.

  Garth turned his back on Candy and headed toward the stall next to the one where the mare was treading. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

  Candy thought twice about following him. She didn’t understand how Garth could be so gentle one moment and so harsh the next. And lately he had no sense of humor. But she was hungry, and going back to the house for more sandwiches would require an explanation she would rather not make.

  She found Garth sitting on a thick pile of
hay he had covered with a wool blanket. He was leaning back against the side of the stall. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a roast beef sandwich in the other. Candy joined him, but kept to the farthest edge of the blanket. She helped herself to a cup of coffee from the thermos and grabbed one of the sandwiches.

  They ate without conversing. Candy focused her attention on the mare.

  “Starlight seems a little quieter,” she said.

  “Her labor’s stopped.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “It happens sometimes.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the vet?” Candy asked anxiously.

  “Not yet. We’ll wait a while and see if it starts again.”

  But “a while” turned into several hours. Garth maintained a stony silence that discouraged conversation. Candy wasn’t about to let him sulk all evening.

  “Mrs. Prescott is very beautiful, don’t you think?”

  “Faron’s stepmother? She’s pretty enough.”

  “And very young.”

  Garth grunted an assent. “Not what Faron was expecting, that’s for sure.”

  “Then it’s true?”

  “What’s true?”

  “Faron had a different father than the rest of you?”

  The skin stretched tight across Garth’s face. His fists bunched at his sides. “I try not to air the family linen in public.”

  “It must have been awful for you,” she said.

  “I survived,” he said in a harsh voice. “I told you I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re asking me why I don’t want to discuss the fact my mother was a whore!”

  Candy scrambled to her feet. “How can you say such a thing about your own mother?”

  Garth rose to his feet and towered over her. “Because it’s true!”

  “People make mistakes—”

  “That ruin lives,” Garth said ruthlessly. “My mother killed my father as surely as if she’d put a knife in him.”

  “He was bucked off a horse. He broke his neck. Your mother had nothing to do with that!”

  “He was drunk! He was drunk a lot after he found out what she’d done.”

  “But he forgave her!” Candy protested.

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  She fisted her hands on her hips. “Tate is proof of it!”

  “Tate is no proof at all,” Garth countered.

  “Why not?” Candy demanded. “Your father had to make love to your mother to get her pregnant again.”

  “He didn’t make love to her,” Garth said in an anguished voice. “He raped her.”

  Candy’s face bleached white. “Oh, no. Oh, my God, no!”

  “Are you happy now?” Garth put the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’ve never told that to another living soul.”

  A moment later Candy’s arms were around him. There was nothing she could say, so she said nothing.

  Garth refused her comfort by physically removing her hands and stepping away from her. But now that the dam had been breached, he was unable to stop the flood of words that followed.

  “Jesse and I were supposed to be spending the night with friends. I’d forgotten my jackknife, so I came back. Mom and Dad were arguing. She was begging him to forgive her, to let her make amends. He told her he would never forgive her. He could never forget, either, because Faron was there to remind him every day of what she’d done. But he still intended to exercise his marital rights.

  “She told him to stay away from her. That she couldn’t bear for him to touch her anymore if all he wanted was sex.

  “But he wouldn’t be denied. He was stronger than she was. I…I couldn’t leave without being discovered. So I heard it all. Her screams. His shouts. And her tears.

  “He was sorry afterward. He begged her to forgive him. You see, his betrayal of their love was every bit as wrong—as horrible—as hers had been.

  “There were complications, and my mother died in childbirth when Tate was born. And my father…my father cried. He was sorry she was dead. He didn’t want to live without her. I think he found a way to kill himself.”

  Garth’s voice had become progressively more guttural, his tone of voice more bitter, more cynical, until finally it ended in a harsh rasp.

  Candy had listened in shock and horror to the ghastly circumstances that had molded Garth into the man he was. She felt an awful sense of despair. After hearing such a story, how could she hope to convince Garth that he could trust her? More frightening, how could she trust him not to turn on her as his father had turned on his mother?

  “Garth, I—”

  “Get out of here.”

  “I only want to offer you—”

  “Sex? Sure, I’ll be glad of it. It’ll help me forget. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To make me forget my mother betrayed my father, and that he loved her so much he got himself killed rather than live without her!”

  Garth took one step and grasped a handful of her silky blond hair. He yanked her head back so she was forced to look up at him. His arm snaked around her and pulled her tight against his hips.

  Candy struggled with all her might. There was no way to deceive herself that this was love. It was something violent, something painful. And it would kill forever any feelings she had for him if she let him go through with it. She was certain Garth knew exactly how she felt, certain that he was driving her away to save her because he feared, as he had all these years, that if he ever loved a woman he might turn out to be just like his father.

  “Garth, stop!” she said. “You aren’t like him. You aren’t! And I’m not like her. Don’t make it impossible—”

  “It is impossible! Don’t you see that?”

  “No!” she said fiercely. She fought back the tears that brimmed in her eyes.

  “Don’t fool yourself!” he said with a sneer.

  “You’re the fool, Garth Whitelaw. And I’m not going to stay here and let you do something you’ll be sorry for later.” She stomped hard on his instep. He yelped and let her go.

  Candy raced from the barn, not looking back to see whether he was chasing her. She didn’t stop until she reached the kitchen door. She paused then, to make sure there was no one inside to see the tears that fell in hot tracks on her cheeks.

  She snuck in past the parlor where she saw the two mothers nursing their babies. It struck fresh pain in her heart to see her secret dreams played out in front of her and know she would never be a mother sitting there in front of the fireplace at Hawk’s Way with Garth’s baby at her breast.

  She tiptoed up the stairs and closed her bedroom door behind her. She stared at the bed, knowing she would never be able to sleep.

  Candy had to think what to do next. Maybe the time had come to leave Hawk’s Way. She wouldn’t be able to stand seeing Garth in pain and knowing he refused to reach out for the comfort—not necessarily sexual—she was willing to offer.

  But maybe she ought to stay. And give him comfort whether he wanted it or not.

  It was a long night. She was grateful for the sunrise, but she still hadn’t made up her mind what to do. She would at least stay at Hawk’s Way long enough to attend the christening. After that…well, she would see.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Candy was the first one down to the kitchen in the morning and started the bacon for breakfast. She put an apron over the simple jersey dress she had chosen to wear to the christening. It felt strange to be wearing nylons again. She had almost forgotten her other life as the debutante daughter of millionaire Evan Baylor.

  Candy was soon joined by Charlie One Horse.

  “Where’s Garth?” he asked. “I figured the two of you would come in together for breakfast.”

  “I spent the night upstairs. I have no idea where Garth spent it. You’re welcome to go find him. I’m cooking breakfast.”

  “Women,” Charlie muttered. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”

  They weren’t al
one for long. Jesse and Honey and Adam and Tate soon showed up with the babies. This time Honey’s two gangly boys, Jack and Jonathan, were with them. Candy thought dinner the previous night had been chaos—breakfast was even less civilized.

  Tate and Jesse starting tossing eggs back and forth. One of them missed, and Candy turned to find raw egg dripping down the front of the refrigerator. Shells lay cracked and broken on the tile floor, which was layered with a fine dusting of the flour Honey was using to make biscuits on the counter beside the stove. Both the babies were gurgling, and Madelyn was rocking their cradles, trying to keep the noise level down.

  They took turns eating as the fried eggs were done. Charlie had already cracked two eggs into the pan for Faron when he realized Faron and Belinda hadn’t come down yet.

  “Tate, go call your brother,” Charlie said.

  Tate stepped to the kitchen doorway and yelled, “Faaarrrooon! Your eggs are done!”

  “I could’ve done that,” Charlie muttered.

  Moments later Faron appeared. “I’m hungry as a bear. Where’s my breakfast?”

  “Still in the pan,” Charlie replied.

  “Where’s Garth?” Faron asked Candy.

  “Why ask me?” she retorted.

  “I thought you two—”

  “You thought wrong!” Candy said.

  At that moment, Garth stepped into the kitchen from the interior hallway. Obviously he hadn’t spent the night in the barn, either. He was dressed for church in a dark Western suit with a crisply ironed white shirt that set off his tanned skin and dark features. Lord, he was a good-looking man!

  Candy pointedly turned her back on him and focused her attention on the stove.

  She missed seeing the flash of pain in Garth’s eyes, but Charlie One Horse did not. He shook his head in disgust and muttered, “Women.”

  Garth felt like a wounded animal, defensive, ready to lash out. He stared at his brothers and sister, daring them to say something, anything that would give him the excuse he was looking for to explode. Fortunately for all of them, Belinda chose that moment to make her entrance.

  Every male eye in the room turned to stare at her. She had put her long blond hair up in an elegant twist, and she was wearing a sheath that outlined her figure, even though it concealed her from neck to knee.