“A fine line, I realize,” Josh said. “But still a line. I just wanted to know if you could pay for the supplies.”
“Why?” she asked, clearly still suspicious. “What does it matter if they won’t deliver them?”
“They won’t have to,” Josh said.
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m going to go get them.”
FOR THE FIRST time in a long time, Josh was grateful for his reputation. It had taken little convincing, once the two enterprising brothers who ran the small freight line realized they were indeed face-to-face with The Hawk, to get them to turn over the supplies. They’d been so glad he was paying for them instead of taking them outright, that they had gladly thrown in the sturdy wagon and pair of healthy-looking draft horses for the extra fifty dollars he’d offered, and had clambered onto the next stage headed back to Rock Springs with every sign of eagerness.
Which meant, Josh thought glumly as he sat in the small, smoky saloon that was crowded even in early afternoon, that he was just about broke once again. He’d had enough for a meal and a drink—the former hadn’t been that good, and the latter’s quality he was still considering—and not much else.
He was aware of being watched by several pairs of eyes in the room. Warily by most, but with interest by those in the rouged-and-painted face of the woman who had followed an inebriated but happy-seeming cowboy downstairs a few minutes ago. She paused to get a drink at the bar—brandy, Josh noted—asked the bartender something, patted her bright blond hair, and then began to sidle toward Josh.
He should have thought of this, he told himself. He could have passed up that overdone steak and taken care of this other problem. After what had happened with the widow, he clearly needed some female company. And this woman, attractive enough in the way of sporting women, would have taken care of that. But now he had a stomach full of tough beef that was near a sin in cattle country, and an itch he couldn’t afford to scratch, unless this woman was cheaper than she looked.
“Evenin’,” the woman said, “I’m Lily. Mind if I sit down?”
Josh looked at her for a moment, at the red silk dress cut low over her generous breasts, and tight enough to draw the eye to the curve of her waist and hips. The display was effective, reminding a man of the other differences between man and woman, and encouraging him to do something about it.
Angry with himself for not thinking of this before, he said, “As long as it doesn’t cost me anything.”
The woman hesitated, then sat anyway. She put the glass on the table in front of her. “Tapped out?” she said, her tone a combination of sympathy and businesslike inquiry.
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the handful of coins he had left, held back a dollar, and tossed the rest on the table. “That close,” he said.
She watched the coins fall with a practiced eye; Josh guessed she had the total figured before the one silver dollar rolled to a stop. Then she glanced at the bartender before she looked back at Josh.
“Gus says you’re The Hawk.”
“He does, does he?”
“Are you? You look kind of young.” She gave him a flirtatious smile. “Mighty pretty, but young.”
“Only on the outside, Lily,” Josh drawled.
She smiled, and as she raised her glass for another sip of brandy, Josh noticed the slight crookedness of the line of the red paint she’d used on her lips.
“So, are you The Hawk?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
There was a note in her voice he’d heard before, the tiniest of edges that told him she was one of those women who sought out men like him, men with a reputation. He wasn’t sure why they did it. He only knew they seemed to get something out of it that he didn’t understand. Nor did he begrudge them; no matter how content some of them seemed with their lives, he couldn’t quite believe any woman was truly happy taking any man who could pay the price. But right now he couldn’t afford to be choosy. And she was pretty enough, albeit a bit worn.
“Name’s Hawk,” Josh admitted. “The rest depends on who you ask.”
“Well, now,” she said as she gathered in the coins and put them in a neat stack, “this might buy The Hawk about anything he wanted.”
Looked like he would get that itch scratched after all, Josh thought. He braced himself, expecting an onslaught of heat like the one that had hit him the other day.
It didn’t happen. Instead he found himself thinking of drab, baggy dresses that made him imagine the slender body beneath, of hair a much more subtle shade, of skin clean and soft, and a pair of amazing golden eyes not rimmed with dark paint.
He shook his head to rid his mind of the images, inwardly laughing at himself. The woman leaned forward, giving him an even dearer view of what she was offering. She was amply endowed, and he looked at her with some fascination. But no response.
He was losing his mind. Or his manhood, he thought sourly. Between the widow and that damned book, he couldn’t even think straight anymore. Here he was, being made an offer he’d be crazy to turn down, the chance to seek the release he’d been dying for just a day ago, with a willing and tolerably attractive woman, the only kind of woman he dealt with, and he couldn’t even stir up a trace of interest.
He watched as she finished the brandy, then licked her lips in a suggestive manner that promised him things he hadn’t thought about in a long time. His body should have roused to the mere idea, but instead he just found himself thinking that if he left now instead of waiting until morning, he could be back in Gambler’s Notch by noon.
Inwardly, he rattled off a string of curses directed at himself and his own stupidity. Outwardly, he sighed. “Some other time.”
The woman looked surprised. “I don’t make that kind of offer to just any man, Hawk.”
“Thank you,” he said, for the moment meaning it. “But some other time.”
She reached over and ran a hand up his arm. For a moment he hesitated, wondering if maybe he could work up some interest after all. Nothing. He wasn’t aroused; he was only tired.
“I’d make you happy,” she said huskily. “Very happy.”
Not likely, Josh thought. But he said, “I’m sure you’d try.” He stood up, dug his last silver dollar out of his pocket, and added it to the whore’s stack of coins. “Buy yourself a night off instead, Lily.”
Something flickered in her dark-rimmed eyes, some trace of the woman he supposed she’d once been. “I’ll save you a spot on my dance card,” she said softly. “Come back and collect it sometime, Hawk.”
“Maybe,” he said. He picked up his own glass, downed the last swallow, and headed for the swinging doors.
By the time he reached the stable where he’d left the wagon and its load, he’d again run through every curse he knew. And every vicious word had been directed at himself.
Still swearing, he tied Buck to the back of the wagon. He left the buckskin saddled, just in case, but took his Winchester out of the scabbard and set it on the wagon seat. It had been a while since he’d driven a team, but he supposed he’d remember fast enough. He checked the load, although he doubted anybody would have dared to go near it once it became known it was his.
After a moment’s thought, he went back and got his saddlebags as well; the widow had insisted on sending him off with a good supply of jerky and bread that he figured he’d be glad of in a few hours.
“Should have eaten that instead,” he muttered to himself as he slung the bags up onto the seat.
They hit with an oddly heavy-sounding thud.
His brow furrowing, he lifted the bags again. There was more than just food in there, he thought, lifting the flap on the heavier bag cautiously. He reached inside and felt a familiar shape. His breath lodged in his throat. Disbelieving, he pulled it out.
>
It was the book. The book he’d intentionally left behind, shoved behind a crate in the widow’s storeroom.
And he knew damned well it hadn’t been in those bags when he’d left Gambler’s Notch.
“YOU GAVE HIM all the money you had set aside to pay for supplies?”
Kate nodded at Deborah.
“And he left the day before yesterday?”
Kate nodded again. She could see Deborah calculating the hours to Granite Bluff, and how long it might take to get back with a heavily loaded freight wagon.
“He couldn’t be back until late tonight, even if he turned right around and started back the next morning,” Kate said, staring out toward the front of the store where the early afternoon sun was glinting off the glass. She’d done the same calculating in her mind countless times as she’d lain awake last night, wondering how big a mistake she’d made.
And trying not to acknowledge the incredible possibility that this odd, off-center feeling she’d had ever since Josh had left stemmed from a very simple source: that she missed him. She hadn’t realized how he’d taken up so much of her life and her thoughts until he was gone, and she found herself wandering aimlessly, pacing, waiting. When she at last realized what she was doing, she’d run from the knowledge just as she’d run from Arly.
When her friend said nothing more, she forged on.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m a fool?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’ll never see that money again, or the supplies?”
“No.”
Deborah picked up a can of peaches and added them to her basket. Kate sighed. “You are a wonder, Deborah. How do you manage to be so . . .”
“Wise? Discreet? Restrained?”
Kate smiled. It wasn’t a particularly happy smile, since she wasn’t it all sure she wasn’t the fool she’d expected her friend to call her.
“All of those things,” she said. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Deborah looked uncomfortable. “If I’d been a true friend, I would have thought of a way to get you away from Arly long ago.”
Kate shook her head. “He would only have hurt you, too. I couldn’t have lived with that. It was so awful when he hurt Luke, because of me, and I—”
“Hush,” Deborah said soothingly. “It’s over now. Arly’s gone, and you don’t ever have to worry about him hurting anyone again.”
Kate sighed, for the first time wondering if she could live with this, either.
“Do you think he’ll have any trouble?” she asked, without stopping to think what her assumption that Deborah would know who she was talking about might imply.
Deborah blinked, then gave her friend a speculative look. “I would think The Hawk could accomplish just about anything he set out to do.”
Kate’s mouth tightened. “You just don’t think he really set out to get my supplies.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“He said . . . he said he wasn’t a thief.”
“I doubt that he is.”
“But I gave him all that money—”
“Kate, Kate,” Deborah said, shaking her head, “that might seem like all the money in the world to you, but to The Hawk? I suspicion he gets that much for a day’s work.”
In that case, Kate thought wearily, perhaps I owe it to him, for he certainly did a fine day’s work for me. She saw Deborah give her a sharp look, and tried to smile.
“I swan, girl, you’re up and down these days,” Deborah said. “I know you can’t be sorry to be free of Arly.”
“No,” Kate admitted.
“I suppose it’s wicked to be glad of a man’s death,” Deborah said, “and the good Lord knows I’ve seen enough of men dying to wish never to see it again. But if ever a man deserved it, that one did.”
“I . . . suppose you’re right.”
“You know I’m right. You’ve got a good life to look forward to now. You’ll find some good, decent man to marry—”
“No.” Kate shook her head positively. “I’ll never marry again.”
“Now, Kate,” Deborah said in a placating tone, “not all men are like Arly. You’re young—”
“No,” Kate repeated. “Besides, who would want to marry me? Arly only did because he had to. A man wants a pretty woman, or at least one who can . . . who can—”
She broke off, unable to say the words, but knowing she didn’t have to; it had been Deborah who had given her the grim news.
“I never said you couldn’t have children,” Deborah said gently. “Just that it might be very difficult for you to conceive.”
Kate wrapped her arms around herself. She’d never wanted Arly’s child, had lived in fear of someday having to protect a child from her husband’s brutal wrath when she couldn’t even protect herself. She’d even been grateful when Deborah had told her a baby was unlikely. But now she found herself lacking in the only thing she could see a man would ever want her for. She certainly would never capture one’s attention with her looks.
“You have the store now,” Deborah pointed out.
Kate shook herself out of her self-pity. “What?”
“You’re a woman of some means now, Kate. That’s something to consider.”
“I . . . suppose so.”
She hadn’t really thought of it that way. The idea of a man who would want her just for the mercantile didn’t appeal to her, but was it really so different than a man who would want a woman only for the children she could give him? And for that matter, was either any different than Arly, who wanted her to fix his meals, do the work in the mercantile, and submit to him at night?
She shivered, shoving those ugliest of thoughts out of her mind. She didn’t have to share her bed with Arly anymore. Never again would she have to face that painful humiliation. With any man. There was no point; the only reason she could see that any woman would participate in that brutal act willingly was for children, and since she—
“Miss Kate! Miss Kate!”
Luke’s excited voice was audible before his rapid footsteps. The boy burst in, a grin as big as the Rockies on his face.
“He’s back! He’s got the wagon!”
Kate stared at the boy.
“Well, well,” Deborah said, her voice holding an undertone that suggested she was responding to far more than just Luke’s news.
Kate continued to stare at Luke, joy and relief flooding her so completely that she couldn’t speak.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Luke asked when she didn’t react. “The Hawk is home!”
The words sent a ripple of heat through her.
Home. The Hawk is home.
Chapter 6
JOSH WAS DUSTY, hot, and tired. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, his backside was sore from a night spent sitting on that miserable wagon seat, and his hands were stiff from the unaccustomed task of driving a heavy team. He was generally miserable, and didn’t much care who knew it. And he forgot it all a moment later, when he walked into the mercantile and Kate, eyes shining, threw her arms around him.
Instinctively, his arms went around her in turn, and then it hit him in a rush, that wave of heat that had been so strangely absent in Granite Bluff. Kate Dixon had more curves than he’d thought, and he swore he could feel each one. He felt like a boy who’d never had a woman’s body pressed against him before, and his own body responded as quickly as if it were true. As if having this particular woman welcoming him back were something he’d waited his entire life for.
He swallowed tightly, trying to brush off that ridiculous idea with the thought that if the widow held him so close like this for another minute, she was going to be in for a big surprise. So was he, for that matter, he thought as his blood began to surge, then pool low
and deep inside him. But for the life of him he couldn’t pull away from her.
Kate suddenly seemed to realize what she’d done, and released him hastily. Just as hastily she backed up a step, clasping her hands behind her back as if to assure him she wouldn’t do such a thing again. But her eyes were still alight as she looked at him.
“You came back,” she whispered.
Her relief was clear, and it added another layer to his exhaustion, frustration, and irritation. He resisted the urge to yank off his hat and hold it in front of him, hiding his half arousal; better that she knew what she’d done to him. It might keep her from doing it again.
“Of course, I did,” he snapped. “Did you think I was going to steal your canned peaches and disappear?”
“ ’Course she didn’t,” Luke put in with a laugh full of a boy’s reverence for his hero, and utter unawareness of the other tensions in the room. “But we didn’t ’spect you back so soon. Granite Bluff is a long ways.”
“You are early,” Deborah said mildly.
Only then did Josh realize that both the boy and the dauntless Miss Taylor had been standing there during Kate’s unexpectedly enthusiastic greeting. And while the boy might be too young to understand the undercurrent here, he doubted Miss Taylor was. She might be unmarried, but Josh guessed she knew a thing or two.
“I started back last night,” he said, less sharply but still gruffly. He glanced at Luke. “Go start on that wagon, will you? Untie the rope, and get that canvas off. I’ve got a lot of unloading to do.”
“You must be exhausted and hungry if you traveled all night,” Kate said. “Rest, and I’ll fix you something to eat. The drivers can unload—”
“You’re looking at the driver.”
“What?”
“The Barton brothers seemed in a big hurry to get back home.”
“I’ll bet they did,” Luke chortled happily. “I’ll bet they ran like rabbits once they found out they’d tried to cross The Hawk!”
Heart of the Hawk Page 8