by Martha Hix
“What if what happened in Uvalde hadn’t happened?”
She frowned. “I thought we were going to keep our relationship strictly business, yet you’ve invaded my bedroom and you’re asking leading questions.”
“Can’t help myself.”
A dry laugh passed her throat. “I guess I can’t keep my own word, either.”
“Then answer me. What about your feelings for me?”
“I told you I’d fantasized about you, almost all my life. I waited years for you to rescue me from myself.”
“I still could.”
“Get me free, then we’ll talk about it.”
She was dismissing him, wasn’t she? He had to make certain. “Tell me something. Would you be willing to live on a reservation?”
“You said you aren’t going back to the territory.”
“I won’t. I was speaking speculatively.” To his way of thinking she needed to understand who he was and where he’d come from. “Would you be willing to dirty your hands with the chores of an Indian woman? Would you, a white woman who knows the splendors of this place, be willing to live in a mud lodge?”
“I can’t cook. I don’t clean. And I certainly don’t like sleeping on the ground.”
“You wouldn’t have to do any of that. But I would expect children. Lots of them.”
She paled. “We . . . we’re talking about the future, when the present isn’t settled.”
“Keep talking like that,” he said, forcing lightness into his tone, “and I’ll think you don’t have faith in my abilities as a defense attorney.”
“You ask too much.” Forced coolness chilled her statements. “I keep seeing that hotel lobby in Uvalde. And how you and Maiz were in collusion. Now you’re talking about a passel of children. You certainly have high regard for your powers of persuasion.”
“I do. Now–answer me. Do you or do you not want children?”
“If God grants me the time on this earth, I want many children. But not yours.”
Hawk would change her mind. Of this he had no doubt. But he figured a change of subject was in order. “This afternoon you wanted to know about my childhood.” He raised a brow. “Still interested?”
She squeezed her arms under her breasts, then sighed. “Yes.”
Good. Scooting around her, Hawk took a couple of steps to the side of her bed. He unbuttoned and shrugged out of his shirt, then eased onto the bedcovers. One hand going to brace his neck, he looked at her. She stood at his side, her long braid brought forward over one shoulder and falling to her waist.
“Get in bed, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“I told you. No lovemaking.”
“I just want to hold you closely,” he replied in earnest.
He inched across the bedclothes, arcing his arm to pat a place beside him. “Come to me,” he murmured, luring her with his voice, his eyes, his being. “Come to me, my curious hell-kitten.”
He knew she stifled a laugh.
She eased onto the fresh, clean sheets. Hugging the opposite side of the bed, she asked, “Were you a happy child?”
“Yes. I had everything I wanted, near-about. The only trouble was my parents’ displeasure that I wanted to be more Indian than they expected.”
“How could that be?”
“My mother Laurann would’ve been pleased if I’d acted the good white boy. My father wanted whatever my mother wanted. He’s a henpecked sort of fellow.”
“Then you were as misunderstood as I.”
“There’s a chance of that.”
Charity turned her face to him. “My mother always said, as a boy, you were a warrior in training for battle.”
“We’ve discussed this before. I was born a hundred years too late. There are no more wars for the peaceful Osage people.”
“I wish you could’ve been whatever you wanted.”
Hawk scooted over to drape an arm across her waist. “Had I been born in the 1700s, we would have missed each other.” He rather enjoyed it, pushing her to her limits. “Would you have wanted that, Charity, never knowing me?”
She moistened her lips. “No.”
He grinned. “You do know me. And I don’t ever intend to let you forget me.” He caressed her hip. “I am the Fierce Hawk of your fantasies.”
“Oh, Hawk, don’t you see anything? It’s not Fierce Hawk I want. It’s you.”
Turning still as a statue, Hawk gazed into her eyes. “Fierce Hawk and I are one and the same. Can you accept the truth?”
“Must we talk so much?” Her fingers moved to cup his jaw; one calf moved to the bend of his knee. “Can’t you simply take me back to the road... where we–where I–was naive to what you and Maiz concocted? Can’t you simply make love to me, without making me think? As you did in the park. I want to be in the storybook that is me and you . . . a captor and his captive, eager for nothing but each other.”
For days he had prayed for her to say these words. Yet . . . Inwardly he bemoaned the ironies of life and tribal proscription. As if they had minds of their own, though, his fingers trailed to the top of her thighs, finding the extra padding. Don’t do it. Back off.
He pressed his shoulder blades to the mattress and slammed his eyes closed. Fingers, soft and feminine, slid up his throat, over his jaw, and stroked a closed eyelid. His brazen angel–oh, how she tempted him.
He swept her palm to his lips, pressing a kiss to the warm center, and he laughed in the face of taboo. He pulled Charity into his arms; she went eagerly. Raising up, he slanted his lips over hers. His hands searched for treasures found and conquered in Uvalde and atop Firestorm. Once more, he and she were driven by passion, wanting and needing and demanding. There was little foreplay needed.
“Take me,” she demanded. “Now.”
She ripped at his buttons, and britches went flying. He swept aside any barrier to his entry and took her with one hard stroke. Wah’Kon-Tah, he prayed, you are wrong. It’s good in here! Good, wonderful medicine for what ailed him.
“Hawk,” she murmured, her fingers digging into his back as he plunged into her, time and again. “Fierce Hawk. David Fierce Hawk.” Her hands moved to his ears. “David,” she whispered lyrically. “Such a beautiful name.” Her lips parted; her tongue darted to his lower lip. “You do wild things to me ... David.”
Never had he allowed anyone to call him by the name his mother had given him. It simply wasn’t Indian. But on Charity’s lips it seemed right.
He smiled. “Call me anything you like.” As long as you call me.
At that moment he felt her tremor. Her head moved from side to side, and Hawk quickened his movements. The pressure in his groin increased, demanding relief. She tightened around him, and he lost control, spilling himself into her.
“I don’t hurt anymore,” she admitted as he held her in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
It wasn’t so awful to make love at a time like this, he realized. Even yesterday–even an hour ago!–the mere contemplation of making love like this would have made his skin crawl. Had he changed so much? He wondered if he wasn’t as Indian as he yearned to be.
Chapter Twenty-four
In the shadows before dawn, Charity lay in Hawk’s arms. Unable to rest after their night of wild lovemaking, she stared at the dimly lighted room, the room where she had grown up; it had held her childish hopes and dreams, her disappointments and tears.
Twenty years old, and I’m still in hot water.
Rather than dwell on that, she concentrated on Hawk. He looked so peaceful sleeping beside her. Peaceful and happy. But she knew he wasn’t a happy man. And she yearned to know more about what had made Hawk Hawk.
The tips of her fingers caressed his temple, then swept down his strong jawline. He groaned in his sleep, then opened one eye. “Is it morning?”
“Almost dawn.”
He opened the other eye. “ ’Morning.” His arms went around her, pulling her to him. Seemingly contented, he dozed off again.
She would h
ave none of that.
Blowing a stream of air across his closed eyes, his nose, she tickled his chin. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
He chuckled, batting his eyes at the intrusion. “Vixen, didn’t you get enough last night?”
“No.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Wonderful.”
“Besides that,” he said with concern in his tone. “How’s your tummy?”
“You cured what ailed me.”
He raised himself above her, one hand sliding beneath the crook of her arm, and she delighted in the unkempt look of him. She took in the clipped hair, the straight brows above his heated and dark gaze, the high-boned cheeks, and his sensuous lips. He smelled warm and manly and all Hawk. Once more her passions built. Maybe later she would chide herself over being aggressive in coercing him to lovemaking, but not now.
Nevertheless, she did congratulate herself on keeping mum about love.
“Cured what ailed you, you say?” he said. “I guess that makes me a shaman.”
“What is a shaman?”
“A medicine man.”
“You do have all the right medicine.”
Feathering a kiss on the tip of her nose, he said, “How about I try . . . making sure you feel good all day long.”
Suddenly the sun broke through the windows, reminding Charity of what the day would bring. But what was wrong with a tad more lingering? “Hawk, I want you to make good on your promise. I want you to tell me all about yourself.”
He pulled away to lie back on the pillow. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about your family.”.
“My mother is white, but you know that. My father—Iron Eagle—is a half-breed. He’s chief of the Osage nation. And I have a sister, Amy. She’s married to a brave from our village. They have two daughters and another papoose on the way.”
“Why didn’t you go back to them, once you left Washington?”
“A difference of opinion on the settlement of whites in the territory.”
“I take it you weren’t for it?”
He nodded. “Whites have grabbed enough land. What was given in treaty to Indians ought to stay that way.”
She observed the conflict of emotions that flickered across his face. How awful it must be, being an Indian. Before, she hadn’t given much consideration to Hawk’s troubles. He had once called her an angel of broken wing. His own proud wings had been clipped by these modern times.
Her fingers touching his face, she said, “I’m sorry. I wish it weren’t too late to turn back the tide.”
He brought himself up to a seated position, then swung his naked legs over the bedside. “Time to get dressed. This’ll be a busy day.”
Though she hated it that he cut short their conversation, she couldn’t argue against his reason for making an exit. Charity was struck with guilt. They shouldn’t have made love. Hadn’t she forced him into a promise of business only? Hadn’t she wanted to keep her distance? You have no strength of character, Charity McLoughlin.
As Hawk pulled on his britches and began to button them, he said, “You should get dressed, too. Your father will be home this morning. And we’ve got that business with the sheriff to attend to.”
“Do you think I’ll be jailed?” she asked, pushing an arm through the sleeve of her wrapper.
“I’d say you won’t, being you’re a McLoughlin.”
“That didn’t keep Papa out of the Austin jail.”
Suddenly she laughed, picturing her law-abiding father being thrown in with the criminal element. Laugh she might, but she was pleased and proud that he had punched out Ian and Campbell Blyer—in the name of Charity McLoughlin.
Before yesterday, she would have never thought him capable of such a move. Did Papa care more for her than she had imagined?
“Charity . . . do you want me with you when you speak with him?”
“No. He is something—someone—I must face on my own.”
Minutes after Hawk exited her bedroom, Charity was tending to her female-needs and plucking at the soiled sheets that held the scent of man and woman. Giving the sheets a final tug, Charity wadded them into a ball, then rushed to the large bathroom that had been built the previous year from an adjoining sitting room, and was supplied by an elaborate system of cisterns and aqueducts designed by Margaret and a cadre of her confederates, all well-schooled in Roman architecture, among other disciplines.
“Me, myself, I think I’ve done good just figuring out how to use all these contraptions.”
Her actions in the bath were meant to keep her mind off the upcoming confrontation with her formidable father. Charity filled the porcelain tub with cold water, grabbed a bar of soap, and bending at the waist, she scrubbed at the sheets. At last, the tainted water swirled down the drain; she leaned back to rub the perspiration from her brow.
A pain low in her back, spreading around to her tummy, announced what she already knew. This was her time of the month. Always, Charity had been plagued with menstrual cramps; sometimes they had sent her to bed for the duration. Strange, she hadn’t hurt when Hawk had made love to her, and the pain wasn’t vicious today.
“Oh, Hawk—what am I going to do about you?” she wailed under her breath. And then she recalled their night together. “David. I like that name.”
“Charity?”
She jumped upon hearing the feminine voice, then straightened. Maria Sara Montaña stood in the doorway. So lovely and perfectly coiffed was her petite friend. So lovely—and so welcome!
Standing, Charity brushed her hair over her shoulders—it had come loose from the braid, thanks to Hawk’s questing fingers. She opened her arms. “Oh, Maria Sara, it’s so nice to see you.”
Her friend crossed the bathroom floor tiles to accept her hug. Stepping back, she said, “I have been worried sick about you. I was so afraid that things would not turn out as Oma had hoped.” Maria Sara smiled. “But it appears that my worries were for nothing. You and the Indian lawyer. . . Well, you have taken him as your attorney.”
“Don’t you mean, as my lover? Obviously, you’ve seen the wet sheets, and have formed an opinion.”
Maria Sara lifted a shoulder. “I could not help but notice the two snifters on your table. Especially after just passing him in the hall.”
“Who else saw him?”
“No one.”
“Good. You won’t say anything, will you?”
“Of course not.”
Charity beamed. In the name of friendship she launched into a brief account of what had befallen her since the night Hawk had snatched her from a street in Laredo.
“I heard there was a disagreement in Uvalde,” Maria Sara said. “Between your Indian friend and Ian.”
“Ian is difficult to get rid of.”
“Some might not want to be rid of him.”
Baffled, Charity scrutinized Maria Sara and the curious expression on her face. “Is this a riddle?” Charity asked. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Waving her hand dismissively, Maria Sara shook her head. “No, no.”
“But why did you say some might want Ian?”
“He is a handsome man. Many young women are drawn to him.”
“Well, I am not. Looks are only skin deep, you know.” Charity rolled her eyes. “Good gracious, I sounded just like Maisie, with that skin-deep business.”
The mexicana shuffled her feet and braided her fingers together. “Charity, amiga. I have been talking with Oma. She wants to—”
Aggravated, Charity cut in. “Please don’t let her manipulate you into the middle of our fuss.”
“I cannot help but be concerned. You are both very important to me, and it hurts me that you are at odds.” Maria Sara took a step in her direction. “Would you please speak with her?”
“I’ll think about it,” Charity hedged. Hoping to get off the topic, she said, “Enough about me. What about you? I understand you’ve been seeing my cousin Karl Keller.”
“Not . . . not really.”
“Why not? Can’t I infer something from your trip into town together, Jaime in tow?”
“Karl insisted.”
“Karl insisted?” Incredulous, Charity shook her head. “Bashful Karl insisted.”
“He’s not as shy as one might imagine.”
“Still water runs deep, eh?”
“You might say that.”
Sitting on the tub’s rim, Charity leaned forward. “He’s a fine man, my cousin.”
“I—I know. That is what scares me.” Maria Sara stared at the floor tiles. “He is much too good and decent for me.”
“Bah! You are wonderful.”
“Are you forgetting my employment in the brothel? Are you forgetting that I bore a child out of wedlock?”
“You sang in a brothel—you never sold your body. And Karl is no flower of purity, believe me.”
“He’s not?” A spark ignited in Maria Sara’s eyes.
“Of course not.”
Immediately Charity regretted her loose way with words. Tales of Karl had spread like wildfire through the family after that awful stepmother of his had seduced him, then made a point to let her husband catch them in the act. If Maria Sara were to find out . . .
“What I mean is,” Charity corrected, “he’s not a youth. And all men his age have some experience.”
Maria Sara shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think Karl is a virgin.”
Right. And Martin Luther founded the Mormon Church. Charity drew a bowlful of cold water, went for a wash cloth, and began to bathe her face. “How is your son?” she inquired.
“The Four Aces suits him.”
“I’m glad. And I’m glad you’re out of Laredo.” Noting the other woman’s lack of an enthusiastic reply, Charity set the cloth back in the sink. Was something wrong? Of course not! Maria Sara would be candid if something were bothering her. Friends didn’t keep secrets from each other.
“Maria Sara, you don’t know how much it means to me, your giving me money when I was trying to escape from Ian.”
“It was nothing.”
“Nothing? It was a sacrifice. And I will repay you. Someday.”