Just One Night (Presents Plus)

by Carole Mortimer

  Hawk nodded. ‘Any luck?’

  The other man swallowed hard. ‘No.’ He drew in a ragged breath. ‘You see, the thing is—’ He looked as if he were in torment.

  ‘What is it?’ Hawk demanded sharply. ‘Has something happened to Stephen?’

  Jake’s mouth tightened. ‘If he’s the one responsible for taking Holly I’m going to kill him!’ he stated flatly, his eyes blazing.

  Hawk’s sudden tension was also her own. What on earth did Jake mean? Of course Stephen hadn’t really got Holly. The younger man hadn’t had that much to do with the baby, but she was sure he had no reason to harm her.

  * * *

  Hawk felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. Stephen had Holly? He couldn’t imagine what had caused Jake to even think that, let alone that it might be true!

  ‘It’s because of the money.’ Jake collapsed on to the sofa, his face in his hands. ‘If I hadn’t told him he wouldn’t get any more money from me none of this would have happened!’ His shoulders began to shake as he sobbed.

  Hawk put Leonie firmly to one side, going down on his haunches beside Jake. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Stephen wouldn’t do a thing like this for money,’ he shook his head.

  ‘You don’t know what he’s capable of.’ Jake too shook his head. ‘None of us really do.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Hawk’s control snapped as he grabbed hold of Jake’s shirt-front and shook him. ‘Why do you think Stephen might have taken Holly for money?’

  ‘Because Stephen is a drug addict.’

  Hawk released Jake slowly, turning to look at June as she stood in the doorway, aware of Leonie’s stricken gaze on him as he shook his head disbelievingly.

  ‘It’s quite true,’ June said softly as she came into the room and closed the door behind her. ‘I should know—my son died of a drugs overdose,’ she added quietly.

  Hawk heard Leonie give a pained gasp, as nausea washed over him. ‘Jake?’ he prompted harshly, his breath catching in his throat as the other man slowly nodded. ‘Stephen?’ he said disbelievingly. ‘Surely he isn’t stupid enough to have—’

  ‘It’s the intelligent ones who always believe they can experiment with drugs and then just give them up any time they care to.’ Once again it was June who answered him, sitting beside Jake now, her hand resting sympathetically on his. ‘They believe that right up until the day they realise that it isn’t fun any more, that they need the drugs so desperately they’ll do anything to get them. If you can realise and accept that while the drug possesses them they’re no longer your child you stand a chance of helping them, of understanding them; my husband couldn’t, and he died of a heart attack at only thirty-eight.’

  And Amy had died because one of those doped-up bastards had been so high they didn’t know what they were doing!

  But accepting that Stephen, a boy he had been so close to he had almost been like his own son, was also one of those mindless addicts, was impossible. Memories of the fair-haired angel he had looked as a child as he had enticed Hal into one piece of mischief after another flashed into his mind. Not Stephen—he couldn’t believe it!

  And if he couldn’t believe it how much more painful it must have been for Jake.

  He looked at the other man, at the way he stared sightlessly in front of him, all trace of the teasing flirt he had always been completely erased. Because he knew that everything June had said about Stephen was true.

  ‘Why?’ he groaned. ‘Stephen didn’t need drugs!’

  ‘He does now,’ Jake said dully. ‘And he does anything to get them. He even had me bring some through Customs for him once from a friend of his in Mexico.’

  Hawk’s eyes narrowed. ‘When?’

  Jake gave a ragged sigh. ‘About a month ago. Hell, I know more accurately than that,’ he said bitterly. ‘It was exactly four weeks ago.’ He looked up at Hawk with darkened eyes. ‘Yes, the day before I gave you my notice,’ he acknowledged. ‘The package got damaged in my case, and when I realised what was in it I confronted Stephen with what he’d made me do. He didn’t care that I’d broken the law, betrayed a friend, he just wanted the drugs so that he could shoot up again! He won’t go into a clinic, refuses to accept that there’s anything wrong with him. He dropped out of college because he would rather be in his flat pumping drugs into his body. I tried, I really tried to help him,’ he choked, his hands clenched tightly together. ‘But I finally had to admit that there’s nothing I can do, that he won’t let anyone help him.’

  ‘He has to want to help himself,’ June put in quietly. ‘It’s the only way.’

  Hawk was finding it almost as difficult as Jake must have done to come to terms with Stephen’s addiction. He had always despised people who took drugs, hated them because one of them had taken Amy’s life. But he had never known one personally before.

  And from what he had been able to tell of Stephen since his arrival here he was becoming recklessly careless, mixing drugs and alcohol. He was going to kill himself if he didn’t stop soon.

  And he might have Holly!

  * * *

  Leonie had always known June’s husband and son were dead, she had been drawn to the other woman because of the tragedy, but she hadn’t realised just how much of a tragedy it was until now. Poor June!

  But what if it was Stephen who had Holly, a drug addict who could become desperate enough to do anything?

  ‘Hawk, you have to find him!’ Leonie clutched frantically at his arm.

  He turned to her like a man in a daze, and after the shock he had just received she could understand the emotion, made all the more traumatic because his first wife had been killed by a drug addict, a fact she was sure Jake was well aware of, his guilt about Stephen extending much further than the drugs he had unwittingly taken into America illegally. Jake had to be fully aware of how unsympathetic Hawk would be about Stephen’s plight.

  How unsympathetic they would both be if Stephen did have Holly and she were to be harmed!

  ‘Oh, I’ll find him,’ said Hawk in answer to her plea. ‘And if he has Holly, I don’t care how much I cared for him in the past, he’ll regret the day he ever crossed me!’

  Jake stood up. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, I—Okay,’ Hawk accepted tightly as the other man looked determined. ‘You can tell me the places you’ve already tried!’

  ‘Jake’s been through hell since Stephen turned up here with Hal.’ June spoke softly once the two women were alone. ‘He blames himself, of course. We all do.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Leonie gave a pained frown, still caught up in thoughts of Stephen having Holly.

  ‘Parents,’ June explained sadly. ‘When a child becomes an addict like Stephen or my Robert did we always think there must have been something we could have done to prevent it, that something we did must have caused our child to turn to drugs.’

  Jake’s need to change the way he had been living his life? But Leonie wasn’t interested in hearing this now, she just wanted to think positive thoughts about having Holly safely back with her!

  ‘It isn’t usually that way at all,’ June shook her head.

  ‘June, I’m really not—’

  ‘Interested,’ the other woman acknowledged softly. ‘I can understand that. I just wanted you to realise that Stephen is sick, that his actions aren’t ones he would normally make. Drug addicts aren’t normal. Stephen needs help—’

  ‘I need my daughter!’ cried Leonie in an anguished voice. ‘I need her back with me safe and well. I need her with me so that I can watch her grow up, to see Hawk’s eyes gleam with pride when she takes her first steps, calls him Daddy for the first time, begins school, brings her friends home for tea, meets the man she wants to marry! That’s what I need!’

  June got up wearily. ‘I know you do, love. I know you do,’ she choked. ‘I really don’t believe Stephen has her,’ she shook her head.

  ‘You don’t think he’s that dangerous yet?’ Leonie pounced desperately. />
  ‘All drug addicts are dangerous,’ June said heavily. ‘But if Stephen was so desperate for money he kidnapped Holly you would have received a ransom demand by now.’

  That was true, it had been thirty-six hours now since Holly had been taken; if Stephen were that desperate for money to feed his habit then he would have contacted them hours ago. That brought her right back to Michael again. He wasn’t desperate for money, just to enjoy making her suffer, as he had always done.

  God, she couldn’t bear this! How was she supposed to live until the time Michael called them with his ransom demand!

  * * *

  Hawk stared grimly into the unlit fireplace, absently stroking Tulip as she lay on his legs, barely conscious of the two policemen who had been at the house ever since that first night, only the loud ticking of the clock sounding louder and louder in his head. Time. Surely it was something that had to be running out?

  He hadn’t mentioned it to Leonie, but he knew she had to realise they should have heard from someone by now.

  His expression softened as he glanced at her, her head resting against his arm as she dozed restlessly, the first sleep she had had in almost forty-eight hours. She looked like a child herself; she wasn’t strong enough to take any more pain.

  And yet here they sat, waiting for the telephone call that would bring their daughter back to them.

  He and Jake had spent the afternoon trying to find Stephen, barely talking to each other, both filled with a grim purpose. Hawk didn’t doubt for one moment that if they had found Stephen with Holly Jake would have been the one to go for the younger man’s throat.

  As the afternoon dragged on he had become more and more convinced that Stephen knew nothing about Holly’s disappearance, and with that acceptance had come his compassion for Jake, the realisation that it could so easily have been Hal in Stephen’s condition. As Jake had said to him so long ago, there were much worse things Hal could have told him than that he was in love with a woman who was older than him and whom he had only known for three weeks!

  If only someone would call! Most of the crazies had had their cheap thrill by now, and all that was left was the loud tick-ticking of that damned clock!

  He and Leonie had kept close to the telephone all day, one or both of them taking every call, although he had tried to spare Leonie from the really sick ones. What was wrong with people, that they had to twist a knife that was already deeply buried in their hearts!

  But Leonie was sleeping now, and for that he felt grateful. He knew that—

  He stiffened as the telephone rang again, and Leonie came instantly awake. Both of them were on their feet within seconds, waiting for the policeman’s nod of assent before grabbing up the receiver.

  The muffled voice on the other end of the line could have belonged to anyone, and Hawk wondered if this weren’t just another of those sick calls. Then he tensed.

  ‘—the tiny mole on her right shoulder,’ the hollow-sounding voice taunted.

  Hawk nodded frantically to the two listening policemen, clutching Leonie’s hand in a grip that must have been painful but which didn’t even make her wince, her whole attention riveted on his telephone conversation.

  ‘What do you want?’ he demanded harshly.

  ‘So you believe I have her,’ the muffled voice jeered.

  His hand tightened about the receiver. ‘I know you have her,’ he conceded raggedly.

  ‘Very well,’ the voice was briskly impersonal now. ‘I want her mother to bring—’

  ‘No!’ he rasped, shaking his head in fierce denial. ‘I’m not letting you near Leonie!’

  ‘Hawk—’

  He shook his head at Leonie as she would have cut in. ‘I’ll bring you whatever you want,’ he spoke savagely into the receiver.

  ‘Not good enough, I’m afraid,’ that hollow voice taunted. ‘It has to be your precious Leonie.’

  Hawk drew in a harsh breath. ‘I said no.’

  ‘You aren’t in a position to argue,’ the voice insisted. ‘Now listen to me closely, because I’m only going to say this once—I’m not about to make myself a gift to those nice policemen you have listening in on this call,’ it mocked.

  Hawk was barely aware of the demand for a million pounds in exchange for Holly’s safe return, agreeing to everything that was asked of him, knowing that the police were taping the call. He was more concerned with the fact that Leonie was the one who was going to have to deliver the money, that they were going to have no choice but to agree to that very positive demand.

  There were no guarantees that Leonie taking the money would give them back Holly, and there was every chance that Spencer would take delight in causing Leonie more suffering.

  They had no choice but for Leonie to take the money Spencer demanded, but God, he couldn’t stand it if he should lose Leonie too!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LEONIE listened to the tape of the conversation once more, knowing that neither she nor Hawk could help identify the caller, that the voice was too muffled and hollow for them to positively be able to do that. But they were nonetheless both still convinced that it had been Michael.

  A million pounds. He wanted a million pounds. She was sure Hawk had that amount of money, but could he get it in time for tomorrow night, the time the caller had told them they could do the exchange at a busy underground station in the heart of London?

  Hawk seemed to sense her worry. ‘I’ve had my bank standing by since it happened,’ he told her gruffly.

  ‘Sir,’ one of the policemen stood up, a fresh-faced young man who looked too young to be in the position of responsibility he obviously had. ‘We don’t advise that you—’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what you advise!’ Hawk turned on him savagely, his eyes blazing. ‘That’s our daughter that maniac has!’

  The young policeman glanced uncomfortably at Leonie. ‘We understand that, Mr Sinclair, but you have no proof that—Well, it’s going to be difficult to have Mrs Spencer watched in a place like—’

  Leonie was no longer listening. What the young policeman hadn’t finished saying was that they had no proof that Holly was still alive! Her hopes had been raised, only to be dashed again by the stark truth of that.

  Hawk’s furious face swam dizzily in front of her, the startled exclamations of the three men sounding distant to her as she fainted for the second time in two days.

  She opened her eyes to find herself in her bedroom, the bedside lamp burning softly as Hawk sat grimly beside the bed waiting for her to wake up, having once again helped her into her nightgown. She smiled at him wanly. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He sat forward, clasping her hands in his. ‘I can’t let you be the one to go tomorrow, Leonie.’ His eyes were shadowed with pain.

  ‘I have to,’ she reproved gently. ‘You heard him—it’s me he wants.’

  ‘What does it matter who it is as long as he gets the money?’ snapped Hawk.

  She smiled sadly. ‘We both know it isn’t just the money he wants.’

  ‘I’m not going to let him hurt you any more, damn it,’ he said harshly. ‘I promised you—’

  She put a gentle hand against his rigidly clenched jaw. ‘I love you, Hawk. I love you very much!’

  He closed his eyes as if in pain, coming down on his knees beside the bed, his head resting against her breasts. ‘God knows I love you more than life itself,’ he choked. ‘If anything happens to you—’

  ‘It won’t.’ She lightly caressed the dark thickness of his hair. ‘Hawk, make love to me,’ she requested intently.

  He raised his head to look down at her dazedly. ‘It’s too soon after—after—’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said quickly as both of them threatened to break down again at the painful memory of why it was too soon. ‘Another week and Doctor Fulton will pass me medically fit for anything,’ she continued in an over-shrill voice. ‘Hawk, I need to be close to you, as close as we can get, I need to be a part of you!’ she added intensely.

 
; ‘I need you too,’ he said raggedly, his face pressed against her breasts once more. ‘But I’m afraid of hurting you,’ he admitted gruffly.

  ‘You’re hurting me by denying me,’ Leonie told him shakily, wondering if she would actually have to beg to get this sensitive man to make love to her, knowing she would if she had to.

  * * *

  The last thing Hawk felt like doing was making love, not knowing if he possessed the gentleness tonight that Leonie would need during her reintroduction to lovemaking.

  But he needed her desperately too; he wanted to be buried inside her, to stay that way until she had to leave to get their daughter.

  But what if he should hurt her, what if he should unleash the savagery he felt inside on this beautiful witchchild?

  He daren’t take the risk.

  * * *

  He was going to refuse her, Leonie could see it in his eyes. Not because he didn’t want her, she was sure of that.

  ‘Come and hold me.’ She folded back the bedclothes invitingly. Hawk stood up, about to join her on the bed, when she stopped him. ‘Not like that,’ she said huskily, touching his denim-clad thigh. ‘I want you to hold me in your arms like you did last night.’

  Uncertainty flickered in his eyes, and she could clearly see the battle he fought within himself before reluctantly unbuttoning his shirt and then removing the rest of his clothes.

  His body was warm, so very warm, and she snuggled against him, feeling his tension increase, casually draping one of her legs over his, knowing by his sharply indrawn breath that the contact had affected him as deeply as it had her.

  He wanted her—she needed no further proof of that as she ran her fingertips lightly across the hard wall of his stomach down to the velvet shaft that pulsed at her softest touch.

  She had never seduced a man before, never wanted to, but she knew that they could only live through the pain of uncertainty tonight by belonging to each other, completely and utterly.

  Hawk’s breath was sucked in in a gasp as she trailed kisses down his throat to his chest, suddenly gripped with curiosity to know if those flat brown nipples were as sensitive to her lips as hers were to his, flicking her tongue across the hardened nub, knowing by the way one of Hawk’s hands clenched in her hair that he was just as aroused by the caress as she was.