He’s carrying a lot of pain around with him as well, Kate thought, remembering the horrible story she’d read.
“But what?” she asked.
“I’ve got a feelin’, but I could be wrong.”
“What is . . . your feeling?”
Pike shrugged again. “That boy’s no born killer. He’s good, and he’s cooler than most, but he’s not cold. Not clear through. Not yet anyway.”
Kate didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse.
“Funny thing, though,” Pike said, as if he were merely thinking out loud, “I got the idea, when he was locked up here waiting on the hangman, that he didn’t really mind the idea of dyin’.”
Kate stared at the marshal. “What?”
Pike nodded. “He seemed almost relieved. Like a man who was tired of living.”
“Tired of living?” Kate’s forehead creased. “But he’s so young . . .”
“Twenty-five, the paperwork says. But years don’t always tell the tale.”
She thought again of the story she’d read in that book, that beautiful, unusual book that he was so secretive about. What had happened to him, what he’d gone through, could indeed make a person older than his years. But still, the idea shook her.
“You think he really . . . wanted to die?”
Pike tugged at his mustache again before saying thoughtfully, “More like he didn’t want to live anymore. Leastwise, not like he’d been living.”
Kate sat silently, considering this. She knew too well how that felt, to have reached the point of finding death a more pleasant alternative than the life she’d been handed. But she wasn’t Josh, didn’t have his power, his strength. How much worse had his life been to drive a strong, fearless man like Josh to welcome death?
“Pardon me, Mrs.—er, Miss Kate, why are you asking? Is he giving you some kind of trouble?”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “Not at all.” Not the kind of trouble you mean, anyway, she added silently.
“Well, then, if you don’t mind my saying so, there are those in town who think he just might have done you a good turn.”
Kate paled. Hastily, she stood up. She searched the marshal’s face, looking for any sign of suspicion. She found nothing.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, ma’am. It’s just that . . . everyone knows Arly was a mean one. And that you had some mighty hard times. Some of us feel we should have done something to help.”
“You tried, Marshal. There was no way to help, not with Arly. Thank you for speaking with me.”
She was halfway back to the mercantile before her heart slowed to its normal rate.
That boy’s no born killer.
Perhaps not, she thought. But he’d certainly seen his share of killing, at an age when he should have been concerned only with being a child. If the story she’d read was true, his family had been nearly wiped out by the war. The war her father had run away from.
She turned away from the thought. She didn’t think about her father very much, and hadn’t for a long time. At first, she’d told herself he hadn’t known what he was doing, the kind of situation he was leaving her in. But she knew he had known what kind of man Arly was. She’d heard her mother arguing with him about it, one of the only times in her life her mother had ever dared to dispute her father’s decisions.
It was the memory of her mother that hurt. Kate had hoped that just this once, her mother would not give in. But she did, and the Daytons had gone on their way, abandoning their oldest daughter to her fate.
And abandoned was how Kate had felt at sixteen; she’d felt as much an orphan as Luke, which was probably why she’d felt such empathy for the boy, and had sneaked him food, and a pair of sturdy shoes when winter was coming. But she’d soon come to realize that even Luke, for all that he was a child with no one to look out for him, had a better lot than she. He at least didn’t have heavy, meaty fists of a drunken beast to dodge—until the day the boy had tried to pay her back by helping her escape, and Arly had caught them both.
She stifled a shiver at the memories, and wondered how long it would take before they went away. She wished they would go now. She had no desire to recall the ugliness.
But Josh apparently did. Why else would he have that book? She supposed it was different if your ugly memories were tied to something big, something momentous like a war. But still, she couldn’t see why he would want to remember all the grim details that were in the story she’d read. But he must, or he wouldn’t be writing the story down.
It was very odd, she thought, that a gunfighter would write a history of his family. Yet all the writing in the book was the same, so it had to be Josh’s. And the family tree, with all those names and branches . . . how had he ever found all that out? She barely knew anything about her family beyond her great-grandparents on her mother’s side; her father had never spoken of his own family. But Josh apparently knew the name of every Hawk who had ever lived. How was it possible? Had Josh’s grandfather helped him with that, before he died? But how could even he know that?
When she reached the mercantile, she tried to turn away from her scattered thoughts and pull her mind back to business; she had some accounts to go over. Once Arly had discovered she had a knack for numbers, he’d chortled over his good deal, getting a cook, a laundress, a clerk who could keep accounts, and a woman to use in his bed every night, all for a pair of boots. A canny trade, he used to tell everyone, even if the woman wasn’t much to look at.
She paused just inside the door when she saw Mr. Rankin standing at the counter, talking to Josh.
“—only enough for one more set of shoes. I needed that iron,” he was saying.
Josh lifted a shoulder in a negligent manner. “Now you have it.”
“Thanks to The Hawk.”
She saw Josh’s jaw tighten. “I suppose.”
He didn’t sound at all happy about it. He looked up then, seeing her in the doorway, and his expression became unreadable. Mr. Rankin turned, and saw her as well.
“Mrs. Dixon,” he said in greeting.
She nodded and smiled at the man who had always, even under Arly’s fiercest glares, at least been polite to her. “Was your shipment satisfactory, Mr. Rankin?”
He nodded in turn. “I was just thanking Mr. Hawk, here, for getting that load here so quick.”
Her mouth quirked wryly. “Having a famous gunfighter take delivery does seem to speed things up.”
Rankin smiled. Josh did not. With a final touch of his hand to his forehead, the blacksmith left and went back to his forge.
Kate turned to look at Josh. He remained unsmiling. She wondered if he was still angry at her for looking at his book. She walked toward him tentatively, pondering apologizing yet again, wondering if it would do any good.
Before she could decide, he spoke rather harshly. “I didn’t set out to be famous, you know.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing, just looked at him curiously as she walked behind the counter, wondering what had set him off on this.
“I just . . . happen to be good with a gun, that’s all. It’s something I can do that men are willing to pay for. When I started, it was just a job. A way to make a living. I never wanted . . . the rest.”
“The legend?” she asked softly as she came to halt beside him.
He grimaced. “Some men may like having people be afraid of them all the time. And I admit it has its uses. But I don’t like it.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
She didn’t know what had possessed her to say it, although, she realized with some amazement, it was true. And when he looked at her intently, she wished she hadn’t said it. And she wished she hadn’t come so close to him. But she couldn’t seem to back away, either.
“It didn’t se
em like that yesterday,” he said.
She knew he meant when he’d grabbed her and she’d panicked. “That wasn’t you I was afraid of. I wasn’t thinking. I was just . . .”
“Reacting?”
She nodded. Josh looked at her for a long, silent moment. “How did you survive, Kate?” he finally said, so softly she wondered if he’d meant to say it out loud.
“I got very good at staying out of Arly’s way.”
Josh shook his head, as if in wonder. “Did he ever know, Kate? Did he ever see that he hadn’t ever conquered you, he’d only . . . made you hide?”
She stared at him; that was exactly how she’d thought of her life with Arly, as a time spent hiding, hiding herself in both body and soul, until she would someday be safe to come out again.
“Some men never learn,” he said in that same soft voice. “They never see that any creature with spirit is best handled with care. They want to break that spirit, and never see how much more they could have if they fed it instead.”
Taken aback by both his perception and the softness of his words, Kate tried to deny the sudden welling of emotion he’d roused in her.
“It sounds as if you’re comparing me to a horse,” she said, trying to sound offended. “Or perhaps some other, lesser animal.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed easily, as if he saw right through her efforts to dissemble. “But as it applies to animals, it applies to people as well. No one with gumption takes easily to having it crushed.”
Her head came up. She had to stop this, it was making her feel too . . . She wasn’t sure what it was, this heart-pounding, stomach-knotting, hot-and-cold feeling he caused in her, but it had to stop.
“Especially a Hawk?” she asked, hoping to divert him.
He shrugged. “It seems they particularly don’t take well to bullies.”
“You say that like you’re not a Hawk yourself.”
He looked away then. “Maybe I’m thinking I shouldn’t be.”
Something in his tone made her regret she’d said what she had. “But you are,” she said.
“And I’ll be the last,” he said, a bitterness in his voice she’d never heard from him before. “The last Hawk. It dies with me.” His mouth curved into a twisted smile that echoed his tone. “A grand ending to a centuries-old bloodline, don’t you think? A killer who’ll buck out in smoke someday? The last of the Hawks, dead in some street, because he couldn’t even get himself hanged?”
Before she realized what she was doing, she had reached out and grabbed his hands.
“Josh, stop it,” she said, suddenly understanding what had driven him to the same action yesterday.
He stared down at her, so intensely that whatever she’d been about to say to him died unspoken. The bitterness in his expression faded, to be replaced by something hot and fierce she didn’t recognize.
“Kate,” he whispered. His voice had changed as well, had taken on an undertone of vibrancy that sent a shiver of that crazy hot and cold racing down her spine.
He lifted a hand and touched her, a gentle finger beneath her chin tilting her head back much as he had before, when he’d tried to tell her some foolishness about her eyes being the same color as that lovely gold ribbon.
But there was something different about this time, something that made her breath stop and her heart seem to miss a beat, then hurry to catch up. She wanted to pull away; she couldn’t bear the way he was staring at her, the way his eyes seemed to bore right through her, as if he were searching her soul.
“Josh,” she begged, not sure what she was begging for. She told herself it was for him to release her from whatever this hold was he had on her, but when she thought of the loss of the heat of his touch, she was no longer sure.
And then he moved, his hands slipping down to her shoulders. He lowered his head slowly, as if reluctantly, his expression one of a man fighting himself. He drew closer to her, and Kate thought she should move away, but didn’t quite know why. She didn’t realize until his lips brushed hers that he meant to kiss her.
Her astonishment vanished, overpowered as a jolt rattled through her, a burst of fire and ice that made those shivers she’d felt before seem weak, faint precursors of the sensations that flooded her now. His lips were warm and gentle, and he tasted vaguely of coffee and the peppermint candy she’d seen him sneak more than once. But there was another taste there, something hot and distinctly male, something that made it impossible for her to do what she knew she should do—pull away from him.
She felt herself tremble, felt her muscles go oddly slack, but then all she knew was the feel of his mouth on hers, and the incredible size and heat of him, and the thudding of her pulse in her ears.
She heard a tiny, mewling sound, and realized with some shock that it had come from her. As if in answer, she heard Josh growl, from low and deep in his chest, wild cougar to her helpless kitten.
The sound stopped abruptly, and just as abruptly, Josh broke the kiss and pulled his head away. His movement was short and sharp, and for a moment he just stood there, looking down at her, his lips parted as if he were finding it as hard to breathe as she was. Then he released her, looking at his hands as if he hadn’t realized he’d been holding her. He didn’t look like a man who was happy about what he’d just done.
She stared up at him, stunned. One hand crept up to her mouth. Shaking fingers touching her lips, lips still tingling from the feel of his.
Josh looked back at her face, and seemed to take in her dazed expression and the trembling of her fingers. His brows lowered.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he said, as if irritated. “You’ve been kissed before.”
Slowly, unable to speak, Kate shook her head.
Josh frowned. “You were married,” he said, the irritation more discernible now.
She shook her head again. She tried to speak, but her words came out in broken, choppy little spurts. “I . . . Arly never . . . he didn’t . . .”
Josh stared at her in patent disbelief. “He never what? Kissed you? You were married for four years, and he never kissed you?”
“I . . . never . . . like that. Never gentle, and sweet, like that.”
Josh’s forehead creased. “But he did kiss you.”
“In the beginning he did. But when he kissed, it . . . hurt.”
He drew back a little. “Hurt?”
She nodded once, or tried to. “He . . . liked it, if I cried out. He said it made him . . . ready.”
She saw a shiver ripple through him, saw the look of distaste on his face. She’d disgusted him. She should have realized it would disgust any man, to know what she’d been to Arly, little more than a whore, despite the short, lonely marriage ceremony she’d gone through in front of a drunken Reverend Babcock. Josh was probably sickened that he’d kissed her.
“May he roast in hell.”
Kate went very still, despite the little quiver his words sent through her. Was it possible he hadn’t been disgusted by her, but by what Arly had done to her? It seemed impossible, but then, so did the idea of Joshua Hawk kissing her, and she couldn’t deny that had happened, not when her lips were still tingling and her fingers still trembling.
Josh turned away from her, and she heard him let out a compressed breath. After a moment of strained silence, he shoved a piece of paper that lay on the counter toward her.
“The telegraph man was in, bought some lamp oil. And Markum came in for some stovepipe. Three feet of it. I wrote it down there. The money’s in the drawer.”
She stared down at the paper, at the neat printing and tidy figures, trying to compose herself. If there was anything powerful enough to distract her from what had just happened, it should be this. The Hawk working in a mercantile, selling goods like any shopkeeper. For her.
And it wasn’t until mu
ch later that she realized what else that paper, and the way Josh had written those items and the figures, had told her.
The writing, tidy and precise though it was, bore no resemblance at all to the writing in the Hawk book.
Chapter 10
“I THINK IT WAS sweet of Alex.”
Kate sipped at her tea, looking at her friend over the rim of the cup. Her Sunday mornings with Deborah had been the one bright spot in her dreary life since she’d come to Gambler’s Notch. Even Arly couldn’t go against the expected tradition of closing the mercantile Sunday mornings for Reverend Babcock’s sermons, although he had always opened in the afternoons. And even Arly hadn’t dared to order her not to see Deborah, although he tried to control everyone else she saw; the woman was far too consequential in town for him to set himself up against her. Not only was she the closest thing to medical help the town had, and the daughter of the town’s well-respected doctor, Deborah’s liking for the expensive tea shipped in from the States had put a lot of coin in the mercantile’s till over the years.
Deborah also, Kate thought, had the only chickens in town, and was therefore the sole source of fresh eggs for the store. Arly might have been mulish, but he hadn’t been a fool when it came to supplies.
“I suppose it was,” Kate said in answer to Deborah’s observation about Alex Hall’s rush to her rescue.
She didn’t add that Alex had also looked a trifle foolish; she knew Deborah liked the young lawyer. In fact, she’d often wondered if Deborah perhaps didn’t feel a little more than liking for the man.
“Alex . . . cares for you, you know.”
Kate stared at Deborah. That was two people who had hinted at that now. “I barely know him.”
“That’s because Arly kept you from getting to know anyone,” Deborah said, her tone angry.
Kate shifted in her chair uncomfortably. All this bitter talk about Arly, now that he was dead, was growing increasingly bothersome to her. Deborah sensed her unease, and waved a hand in understanding.
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