by Sharon Ihle
Hawke paused, puzzling over this capricious wife of his—affectionate and almost loving one minute, cold and remote the next—then slammed his hat on his head and stalked out the door.
Sensing that she'd done something to irritate her husband, but without any idea what it might be, Lacey vowed to make it up to him by fixing the most memorable breakfast of his life. This morning, and for the first time, she simply would not allow any mistakes in the kitchen. Recalling Kate's instructions and the one glaring error she'd committed the day she'd attempted to create those buttermilk pancakes—neglecting to grease the pan first—Lacey scooped out a nice big slab of lard, popped it into the skillet, and slid the heavy cast iron pan over to the hottest part of the stove. Then she sat down at the table and went about forming a pile of perfectly round patties from the sausage meat.
Outside, Hawke stomped through the rain and mud, thinking that if he'd left his slicker and hat behind, the frigid storm might have done what his wife was apparently unwilling to do—cool off his overheated body. As he worked off some of those frustrations, he began to take a closer look at Lacey's reluctance from her point of view. What if in Ireland, marriage and all it entails was conducted a little differently? Who knows? Maybe there, a period of adjustment was the norm for a couple who barely knew one another. It could be that she just needed a little more time with him before getting to the most intimate part of their marriage. If that were true, at least it would explain her attitude a little better.
As reasonable as this hypothesis sounded, Hawke found himself hoping to God that the amount of time she needed wasn't more than the three nights he'd already waited for her to come around—even controlled as he usually was, he knew he wasn't going to last much longer if he had to go on sleeping beside his irresistible bride without touching her. To be sure of her reasons, he thought with a start, he probably ought to ask Lacey if this period of waiting was customary in Ireland. Of course, before he could do that, he would have to find not only the right words, but the right moment to bring the subject up—a difficulty in its own right considering the fact that he was damn near as embarrassed as Lacey when it came to discussing such matters.
As he mulled over this newest dilemma, Hawke's stomach growled, reminding him of the signal he'd set up with his wife. Strolling over to the barn doors, he glanced across the yard to the kitchen window. At first he thought he saw her springy hair bobbing this way and that in the glass pane. Then with terrifying clarity, Hawke realized that what he was looking at was not Lacey waving back at him, but the wings of a fire. The kitchen curtains were ablaze!
Fear is more fatal than hate.
—Canon P.A. Sheehan
Chapter 11
When he burst into the kitchen through the back door, Hawke expected to find Lacey frantically beating off the flames, splashing water at them, or... something! But he found her standing stock-still, her hands firmly clenched into fists and her back against the farthest wall, just staring as if mesmerized by the fire which had already devoured his curtains and were now gorging themselves on the pine log walls of his home. The lid blew off of Hawke's temper as he realized everything he owned, his entire house was in jeopardy of burning down, and his own wife just stood there doing nothing—nothing.
"Dammit all, woman," he bellowed, racing toward the window. "Have you gone mad? Help me. Run outside and fill the pail with water."
Lacey was already pretty well gone when Hawke barreled his way through the door, slipping deeper and deeper into one of her spells as the terror of what was happening here in the kitchen mingled with blotchy memories of so long ago. If indeed she hadn't tumbled into the chasm of total withdrawal by then, hearing her husband refer to her as a madwoman was the final blow that pushed her over the edge.
Lacey ran from the house through the still-opened back door, bolting past both the bucket and the well, and continued to run, racing out of control as if the devil himself was at her heels.
Assuming that she'd gone after the water, Hawke grabbed up a towel and began beating at the flames which by now were licking the ceiling of his home.
Later, after he'd managed to put out the fire in spite of the fact that his wife had not returned with the water he'd requested, he went in search of her. Although his anger was still simmering on high, concern for Lacey cooled it considerably once he'd searched the grounds high and low calling her name and not found her.
Retracing his steps, Hawke stormed back into the barn and looked into all the stalls and feed rooms again in hopes of stumbling across some hint that she'd been there. Still he found no sign of Lacey. He paused for several moments outside the foaling stall, wondering if she'd been fool enough to try walking down the road to Three Elk again. After what happened here today, it made sense, he supposed, to seek her friend Kate. Deciding it couldn't hurt to take a ride in that direction, Hawke had just stepped away from the stall when he heard scratching sounds coming from above. The loft. Since it was Crowfoot's domain, he hadn't even thought of looking for his wife up there, but given the circumstances—none of which he understood—he decided to have a quick look. Once he'd climbed up the ladder and maneuvered through his dwindling supply of alfalfa, Hawke approached the carefully arranged bales of straw which served as the boy's lair.
He hadn't really expected to find Lacey there, so it was with a good bit of surprise that he discovered her sitting in the straw, wrapped in the boy's thin arms. "What the devil...?" Hawke took another step toward them.
"No." Crowfoot raised a hand, warding him off. "You go."
"The hell if I will." He moved in closer, only to be held at bay by a pair of lethal onyx eyes.
"You go. She not... she—" Crowfoot beat a tattoo against his own chest. "She hurt. You go."
"Damn it, son, you think I can't see that for myself?" And he could, easily. Lacey was staring out through the opened doors of the loft as if looking at the house, but her eyes were glazed over, seeing absolutely nothing. He didn't know exactly what was wrong with her or what drove her to this, but he did recognize the look for what it was: Shock.
Crowfoot renewed his grip on Lacey, then glanced up at Hawke and glared. "You go. She cannot talk. Maybe later."
"If anyone's going to go, it'll be you," he said, reining in his temper as best he could. "I'm Lacey's husband and I'll take care of her."
Instead of relinquishing his hold, the boy shook his head defiantly and pulled Lacey even tighter into his small embrace. Hawke could hardly believe this of Crowfoot, a boy who was barely more civilized than a wild animal at eight years of age when he and Caleb first took him in. It had taken them months to get even one word out of the withdrawn child. How had Lacey reached him so quickly? And how was Hawke to reach her? Something ugly rolled through him at the thought, and along with it, the feeling that he was on the outside looking in. Hawke recognized the sensation as jealousy, which he thought was ridiculous since the object of this insane rage was a boy, not a man. But Hawke was jealous, in any case. And he knew it.
Dropping to his heels, he softened his voice, using the tone he reserved for gentling horses. "I can see your concern for Lacey, son, but surely I'm the better choice to help my own wife. Have I ever done anything but help you when you needed it?" The bright glare slowly began to leave Crowfoot's dark eyes. "Didn't I even have enough sense to leave you to yourself when you didn't want anyone around? I never pushed or pressured you, did I?"
The boy gave a surly shrug, but averted his gaze.
"Then what are you worried about? You must know that I would never do anything to hurt Lacey. I only want to help her."
Releasing his grip on Lacey at last, Crowfoot hung his head. "You not hurt lady. I know."
"Then leave me alone with her for a while. Fair enough?"
The boy regarded him for a long moment before he said, "Hawke fair. And good, too. I go." Then in an instant, his wiry body moving with its usual stealth and speed, he jumped up and took off.
"Lacey?" said Hawke after Crowfoot had g
one. "Look at me, will you?"
But as she'd done during his exchange with the boy, she just sat quietly without so much as flinching, and continued to stare out at the house. Trying another tack, Hawke approached his uncommunicative wife and sat down in the straw beside her.
After slipping his arm across her shoulders, he spoke to her in a low whisper. "Hello, Irish. A little mad at me, are you?" Not that he thought he had anything to apologize for, but even this didn't draw so much as a flicker from those wide blue eyes. "Well, if you are mad, don't worry about it. It's a common affliction to anyone who's unlucky enough to meet up with me—and I do know how much you Irish folks value your luck." Still nothing, so he tried a little silliness. "Why, I once got Caleb so damn riled over something I did, he kicked himself in the butt."
Chuckling lightly, Hawke glanced at Lacey's expression, hoping to find at least a little crack in her armor. She was as stiff as a new saddle. Even Crowfoot hadn't been this distant when he and Caleb first came across him. The boy at least looked at them when they spoke.
As he considered other ways of reaching her, Hawke took Lacey's hands in his. Absently caressing the soft skin at the back of the hand she was always hiding from him, the right, he considered grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her to awareness. Or perhaps, he thought, there was a less violent way. What if he were to kiss her or take her into his arms? She might even—
His thoughts stalled on the last word as his fingers passed over an extremely rough patch of skin on Lacey's palm. Turning her hand over, Hawke was startled to see that almost the entire area was webbed with scarring. When he recognized those scars as the telltale reminders of a bad burn, all of her little eccentricities began to make sense to him; especially her reluctance to get close to the fireplace or stove. It even explained in a small way why she hadn't tried to douse the flames in the kitchen.
Remembering how he'd shouted at Lacey when he found her standing there watching his house burn down, Hawke brought her palm to his mouth and pressed a kiss to it as he muttered, "Oh, Lacey—why didn't you show me this before now, or explain what happened to you?"
She heard Hawke's voice in the distant part of her mind, and had heard it since he started calling her name in the yard. It was a sound she couldn't shut out as easily as the nurses at the hospital, a deep, insinuating voice which had the power to reach her heart even through the walls of the spell. Still, it wasn't until his lips touched her scar that Lacey became fully aware of her husband's presence—and of what he was doing. A new kind of turmoil started within her at that display of tenderness, lifting her above the spell, but leaving her completely confused. She didn't know what to do, how to do it, or even who she was. Then the tip of Hawke's tongue touched down on that pad of damaged flesh, searing her body and mind clear through to the core.
With a sharp intake of breath, Lacey snapped out of her spell and jerked her hand from Hawke's grasp. Then she met his gaze, her mind and vision, if not her heart, clear. "Don't do that. How can you? My palm must feel like—like a plank to your poor mouth."
He glanced at the fist she'd made of that hand and shrugged. "Not to me, it doesn't."
"But it must. I can put my finger to this," she stroked her damaged palm, "and feel that 'tis like rubbing up against the bark of a tree or touching something... dead."
"Think what you will. It's just a little scar to me, a part of you." Hawke reached for her hand.
"Don't touch it." Lacey shrank away from him. "Please don't even look upon me there."
He shrugged. "If that's what you want, all right. Is it still painful, or something?"
"Only to my mind." She hung her head. "I cannot bear to see the look in your eyes when you, if it..." Embarrassed, Lacey let the sentence die out. Her eyes filling with tears, she remembered what drove her to the barn and quietly added, "I'm sorry, too, for what happened in your kitchen. 'Twere an accident, I swear it. Is the house badly burned?"
"The house is... fine. I never did like those stupid curtains with the daisies all over them, anyway." Tilting his head toward her hand, he asked, "Tell me what happened to you. How were you burned?"
"I—I wish I could tell you, but... truth is, I cannot remember. I was but a wee lass not quite seven when it happened." Seeking his gaze, wondering how much more she could tell him and still have at least a little of his respect, Lacey watched Hawke carefully as she explained a small segment of her past. "I only know that my dear mother and father died in the same fire that burned me." The heavy sense of guilt that always weighed her down grew heavier at the thought, swelling her throat with a pain that ached all the way down to her heart. Lacey tried, but she couldn't go on.
Hawke didn't press her for more details. If he'd learned one thing through his experiences with Crowfoot, it was that information such as this came slowly and painfully, and that forcing too much too soon could do more harm than good. Instead, he slipped his arm across her shoulders again and gave her a gentle hug.
"Thank you for telling me about it, Irish. I just wish you'd have told me when we first met, or at least, after we got married." Hawke gave her a wry smile. "I wouldn't have been quite so determined to make you learn how to cook, that's for sure."
"Aye, you're right. I suppose I should have told you a wee bit more about myself before now. Please know that I'm truly sorry for everything."
Uncomfortable with the conversation and trying to end it, Hawke took his share of the blame. "Yeah, well I'm sorry for the way I hollered at you in the kitchen."
"You—sorry? Oh... oh, Hawke." Tears spilled down to Lacey's cheeks in spite of her efforts to hold them back. "'Tisn't a thing in the world for you to be sorry about. I only want, I only hope that..." She couldn't go on, so fast was the flow of her tears by now. Lacey brought her hands to her face in hopes of hiding this newest embarrassment, but Hawke caught them before she could stop him, then gently eased her down on her back in the straw.
"I don't know about you," he muttered, settling in beside her, "but I'm getting tired of all this apologizing and forgiving. I can think of a lot better things to do with our lips than talk."
When he saw the glimmer in Lacey's eyes and the tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth, Hawke impulsively touched his lips to the spot. The kiss started out slowly at first, the sealing of a pact of forgiveness, but soon it became much more than a gentle sharing of the tender feelings growing between them. In fact, this was different than anything they'd ever experienced before; more passionate to be sure, but also more profound somehow. Hawke could feel Lacey relaxing beneath him; his, in a trusting sort of way, for the first time since they'd taken their vows.
That kiss led to another, then another, until Hawke finally realized that he wanted his wife so badly, he'd almost convinced himself it would be all right to take her right there in the straw in broad daylight. Not the best of ideas considering that Crowfoot could stumble upon them at any time. The image this prompted gave Hawke the strength to tear himself away from her, even though regret and frustration followed swiftly on the heels of the passion they'd shared.
At first he assumed his normal rigid control and sense of privacy were the things which drove him to back away from Lacey, but as he glanced down at her lying there in the straw, Hawke realized there was something more than simple control at work here, a new force he'd never felt before. Perhaps, he thought, it was Lacey's expression. She no longer looked frightened, scared, or withdrawn, but shone with a radiant sense of peace, a happiness which lit her lovely face from within. He wanted her, there was no doubt about that, and wanted her still, but the actual physical joining between himself and Lacey suddenly seemed almost a secondary concern. Was this the way it was supposed to be between a man and his wife, or had that soft spot inside gotten the best of him again?
Wondering at the changes coming over him, concerned too, how those changes might affect the strong independence he coveted so, Hawke climbed to his feet. "I need a little air," he explained gruffly. "You lay there and rest a min
ute."
Lacey watched him stride across the straw to the doors of the loft, her captivated gaze fastened on Hawke's tight jeans and the firm round buttocks beneath them. Even if he was her husband, it seemed wrong to stare at the man so blatantly, but she could no more stop ogling him than she could cool the heat radiating up through her cheeks. In fact, her entire body was on fire with wanting him, an almost desperate need to have Hawke back in her arms. What had come over her?
Lord! she thought, bolting upright. Could this be that modicum of pleasure Kate mentioned? Or maybe, she thought, trying to find a way to rationalize her uncivilized reactions to Hawke, this had something to do with her spell after he'd hollered at her in the kitchen. Whatever the reason, Lacey knew if he looked into her eyes just right or touched her the way he had again, she'd probably melt like butter under the summer sun, leaving him to do his ghastly bidding on her poor helpless body.
As if he realized what she'd been thinking, Hawke chose that moment to look over his shoulder, gazing at her with eyes glistening in almost the same black green of the Irish yews. Then he favored her with a lazy smile. Unable to control the response, Lacey shuddered from head to toe. Her cheeks, which had finally begun to cool, instantly caught fire again, the flames within burning hotter than before. Why did the man have to look so bloody good to her? And how was she to keep her wits about her now that she knew how deeply he could affect her?
There was only one thing to do: Keep Hawke at bay. And the first thing she had to do to accomplish that was learn to avoid his demanding, disconcerting, and worst of all, hypnotizing gaze. As long as she didn't allow those incredible eyes of his to collide with hers, trapping her as surely as the most deadly of bogs, she'd be just fine.
"What is it, Lacey?" Hawke asked. "You look troubled again. Is there something you want to ask me about?"