by Peggy Webb
“Yes. We’ll just take off your shoes and socks.”
She tucked him in, pulled the covers up to his chin, then kissed him softly.
“Good night, Ricky. I love you.”
“I didn’t say my prayers. I have to say my prayers.”
Callie took the tiny hand he offered, then sat on the side of his bed. Ricky squeezed his eyes shut.
“God, it’s me—Ricky—and I got a new mommy. It’s Callie, and she loves me.” Ricky opened one eye and squinted up at Callie. “How much do you love me, Callie?”
She spread her arms as wide as they would go. “I love you this much.”
Satisfied, Ricky shut his eyes once more.
“She loves me more than anybody, and I’m gonna have a horse and a granddaddy and a grandmother and lots of toys.”
Suddenly uncertain, he opened his eyes to confirm this with Callie.
“Can I have lots of toys?”
“Yes. You’ll have toys and books and cousins and lots of friends to play with.”
Grinning, he shut his eyes again. “See, I told you, God. I told you if you’d let Callie come get me, she’d be the best mommy in the whole world.”
Ricky stopped praying, and was still so long Callie thought he had fallen asleep. She’d started to leave when Ricky spoke.
“About Joe, God. Me and him’s a good pair. How about lettin’ him be my daddy? Amen.”
Ricky’s eyes popped open, and he beamed up at Callie. “Good night, Callie.”
She brushed his hair back from his forehead, then planted a kiss there.
“Night, angel.”
She was able to maintain her poise until she left his room. In the hallway she leaned her head against the wall and cried.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The two men sat in the gazebo talking, both with faces that looked as if they had been carved in bronze, both with a thick mane of hair, one stark white, the other jet black. They had been talking for the past hour, and in that time Calder felt as if he had come to know Joseph’s soul.
Years ago he had learned to trust his instincts, and every instinct he had was telling him that at last, here was a man worthy of his daughter.
“This is not an easy task you have set for yourself,” Calder said.
“That’s the understatement of the year. Your daughter is not only brilliant and beautiful, she is also stubborn. But I am going to win her if it takes the rest of my life.”
“That’s exactly what I told myself about her mother. Let me tell you something about Callie. It’s the same thing Ellen’s father told me many years ago—her bark is worse than her bite.”
Joseph was quick to laugh, and his laughter was hearty. Calder liked that in a man. Callie needed somebody to laugh with.
“Then we are in agreement,” Joseph said. “No one else will know I am here, especially Ricky.”
“I’ve been promising to take him on a camping trip. This is the perfect time to go.” Thinking about the little boy, Calder broke into spontaneous laughter. “We’ll ride double on Sugarplum. He’s going to argue with me, of course. After three lessons he thinks he’s big enough to ride Lucky anywhere he wants to go. When he loses that argument, he’s going to insist we ride that spawn of the devil, Thunderbolt.”
Joseph narrowed his eyes. “I was right. You deliberately chose that stallion for me.”
Calder’s eyes twinkled. “How else was I going to know if you’re a man?”
They both stood facing each other, two tall men in complete accord.
“Thank you,” Joseph said.
Calder put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“You have my blessing. May the Great Spirit guide you, Joseph Swift Hawk.”
When Calder first suggested the camping trip, Callie hadn’t been enthusiastic. Ricky was just getting settled in, she’d argued. Wasn’t it too soon? What if he had an accident? What if he missed Callie?
In typical Calder fashion, her father overrode all her protests, and the two of them had set out early that morning. With Ellen spending every day at Brenda’s through the last few weeks of her pregnancy and Eric down at the newspaper office, Callie felt as if she had the entire Red Cloud compound to herself.
There was the clinic, of course, but that was business, not family. Besides, the population of the village was on a wellness streak, and Callie spent only a couple of hours a day at the clinic. Doug Brenner insisted she didn’t have to come at all.
“Take some time off, Callie,” he said. “Get to know your son.”
Today she’d taken the younger doctor at his word. And she was glad. It felt good to be down on her knees digging in the dirt. Nearby, her garden cart was filled with annuals. Callie had a vision of her garden as a rainbow of color.
Sweat dripped under the brim of her garden hat and ran in a streak down the side of her cheek. Callie brushed at it with the back of her hand, then sat back on her heels to survey her handiwork. The annuals she had planted looked as if they had grown there naturally, which was exactly what she wanted.
Nothing stiff and formal for Callie. She liked all things wild.
Out of nowhere a feather drifted downward and landed at her feet. She glanced up into the sky, but there was no bird in sight.
“Strange,” she muttered.
She’d picked up her trowel and started to dig when something caught her eye. A dark band with a white tip.
The red-tailed hawk.
“Hello, Callie.”
His voice pierced her heart like knives. Joseph. After all these weeks.
She was grateful for the trowel. It gave her something to hold on to as she stood to face him.
His hair was longer than when she’d last seen him. He was leaner. More at ease. As if he had somehow become more comfortable in his own skin.
The physical impact of Joseph screamed along her nerves, and her heart hammered so hard she wondered if he could hear. A million questions raced through her mind. Why was he here? What did he want? What did he know?
And what about the feather?
She gripped the trowel so hard her knuckles turned white. “Hello, Joseph.”
His eyes swept over her, and the hunger in them nearly drove Callie mad. She strengthened her resolve.
She was not going to let her heart rule her head. Not this time. Now she had Ricky to think of.
Smiling, Joseph reached out to touch her cheek. “You have a smudge…right there.”
His fingers made contact, and her skin caught fire. She was going to jerk away, in a minute, when she could breathe again.
As if he’d read her thoughts, he bracketed her face and held her still.
“You told me never to touch you again unless I mean it.” His eyes were deep and dark and full of secrets as his thumbs circled her chin. “I mean it, Callie.”
Could she believe him? Did she dare? For one glorious summer he had been her Hawk, and then he’d left. How many times would a broken heart mend?
“I’ve come to claim you as my own.”
“To claim me?”
She had a vision of a savage warrior tossing her over his stallion and riding off with her. The idea was positively the most antiquated thing she’d heard in years. Perfectly barbaric. And absolutely thrilling.
She kept that part to herself.
“You and Ricky,” Joseph added.
Ricky. Of course, that had to be it. He wanted the child.
And if he knew about Ricky, then he knew about her leaving the Center for Disease Control.
She stepped back, a woman whose heart had suddenly frozen over.
“To get the child you have to take the woman. Is that it, Joseph? I’m just part of the bargain.”
“Callie, Callie.” He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away. “I know how this must look to you.”
“Do you? Do you have any idea how it looks, Joseph? I leave virology and presto, a major obstacle is removed. Then, low and behold, I get Ricky, and suddenly you see a way to h
ave a wonderful little boy and a bed partner, too.”
Something moved in his eyes, something dangerous.
“Bravo, Dr. Joseph Swift.” She applauded, then stalked toward her house. Majestically, she hoped. At least her head was high, her back straight and her eyes dry. What more could she ask?
She had gained the rose arbor when his voice stopped her cold.
“Hawk,” he said. “My name is Hawk.”
For a moment he thought she was going to come back to him, but Callie kept on walking. Joseph wasn’t defeated, not by a long shot.
Callie had more spunk in one little finger than most women had in their entire bodies. Winning her was not going to be easy.
He watched until she was at her house, grinned when she slammed the door, then knelt beside her gardening cart. It was full of flowers whose names he didn’t know.
He picked up a small pot, ripped out the plant and plunged it into the hole she’d dug. Then he grabbed another. He could do this. He was bound to have some of his mother’s gardening talent.
Besides, he was a full-blood. A by-God-vision-inspired Sioux. His ancestors had lived off the land. He could certainly plant a few puny flowers.
He glanced toward the house, and saw the curtain fall back into place.
Good, Callie was watching. He wanted her to know that he didn’t plan to go away. Not now. Not ever.
Joseph Swift Hawk had come to stay.
The man had gone mad.
Callie had wanted her flowers to look as if Mother Nature planted them, and by George, she’d gotten her wish. They looked as if they’d been dumped into her garden by a tornado. Or at the very least, a strong wind.
Callie let the curtain fall back, then fixed herself a good strong cup of tea. Let him stew out there in the hot sun. Let him starve. She was not about to be part of anybody’s bargain package.
She took a bracing sip of tea. The curtain fluttered in the breeze.
What was Joseph doing now? Resisting the urge to look, she sipped her tea.
Hawk. He’d said his name was Hawk.
Callie’s heart took wings. Lord, how she loved the man, no matter what his name.
Curiosity got the best of her, and she peeked out the window. Joseph was sitting on her garden bench with his back to the house. Funny behavior for a man who’d come to win a woman.
Restless, her nerves as taut as piano wire, Callie carried her tea through the house in search of a good book. Anything to take her mind off the warrior in her garden.
She was reaching for a book when the phone rang.
“Callie…” It was Peg, out of breath. “I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you the news.”
“You know the baby’s gender?”
“No, not yet. It’s about Joseph. He’s back in America.”
In my backyard, Callie thought, but she didn’t say so.
“In Atlanta, at the Center for Disease Control,” Peg added.
“Visiting? Consulting?”
“Bingo! He’s a consultant now, both at the institute in Italy and at the center here in Atlanta.”
Callie had to sit down. “Then he’s not leaving the field?”
“Lord, no. What would we do without him?”
“He’ll still be living in Italy, I suppose.” Callie tried to keep her voice casual. “Or Atlanta.”
“No, he said something about living out West.” Callie’s heart stood still. “Callie…are you there?”
“I’m here, Peg. I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. What’s going on?”
“Joseph is in my garden.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line, then Peg’s voice, tender and wise.
“Is that the only place he is, Callie?”
“No…he’s in my heart.”
Peg sighed. “Lord, I love love.”
Callie couldn’t read, of course, not after the phone call. Besides, she was hungry.
She went into the kitchen, sliced apples and cheese, then made herself a hearty sandwich. The wonderful thing about gardening was that gardeners burned lots of calories.
Callie pressed her hands against her concave belly, and was filled with an unaccountable sadness. Brenda was huge in her pregnancy, and afterward she would still have the nicely rounded belly of a woman who has borne children.
“Empty womb syndrome,” Callie said. That’s what was wrong with her. Joseph was in her garden, planting, enriching Mother Earth.
He was good at that.
Her hands folded over her flat belly, Callie stood at the kitchen sink, watching him and remembering how they had stood together in Texas, cocooned by the blanket, Ricky between them. A family.
It had felt so natural, so right, as if they would stay that way forever, a unit forged by love, a unit that would expand over the years to make room for the children that would surely come.
Emptiness coiled in Callie’s belly, and she knew her need wasn’t for food. The truth struck her with such clarity that she wondered why she had wasted all these weeks.
Everything she wanted in life was standing in her garden. Her home, her family, her future were wrapped up in a tall man whose black eyes flashed in the sun.
So what was she doing in the kitchen?
Joseph finished writing the poem, then laid it on the garden bench. Now what? He didn’t know how to court a woman. Good lord, he was forty years old. It had been years since he’d wooed and won Maria.
And Callie was a different kind of woman altogether. Untamed, high-spirited, exciting.
To see her was to want her. Every time they met, they got swept up in the wild river of passion, and everything else fell by the wayside.
“It’s going to be different this time,” he vowed to himself.
And yet, their bodies spoke a language that needed no words.
He glanced toward the house. Somewhere inside was the woman he loved above all things, his heart, his life, his soul.
And here he was, sitting in the garden alone. Galvanized, Joseph bolted from the curving stone bench, and started toward the house.
The screen door popped open as Callie flew out the door, arms wide-open.
Suddenly he was running. They met at the rose arbor, met and merged.
“I’ve been such a fool,” she said. “I don’t know why I…”
He stopped her confession with a kiss. Lips blended, bodies swayed, hearts merged. Love welled up in Joseph, and he conveyed all that was in his heart in a kiss so tender it brought tears. They wet his cheeks, and he couldn’t tell if they were his or hers.
“I’ve waited so long for you,” she whispered. “A lifetime.”
“I came for you, Callie, only you. If you were in the midst of an outbreak on the Ivory Coast, I would still come to claim you.”
He kissed her throat, her cheek, her eyes. Sighing, she leaned toward him.
“Ricky is a bonus,” he added, “an unexpected surprise.”
“You didn’t know about him?”
“No. I had planned for the two of us to get him. Later.”
“I love you Callie.” He captured her lips once more, and they were caught up in a magic so powerful they didn’t pull apart until a curtain of darkness dropped over the land.
“I love you, Joseph Swift.”
“Hawk.”
“I love you by any name.”
Surrounded by the fragrance of her grandmother’s roses, Joseph drew Callie down to the soft rich earth underneath the arbor, and there they pledged their love to one another in a ritual as old as time.
Afterward, he brushed the bits of grass from her hair and kissed her lips and smiled into those blue eyes that he had never been able to put out of his mind, not for one single moment since the day they’d met.
“We always seem to end up coupled in the arms of Mother Earth,” he said. “Do you think we’ll ever make love in a real bed?”
“I’d bet on it.”
Smiling softly, she took his hand and led him ins
ide.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Callie woke up she saw four things on the pillow next to hers—a note, Joseph’s harmonica, the feather of a hawk and a single red rose. Dew still clung to the petals.
Smiling she unfolded the note. It was a poem written in Joseph’s bold hand:
The rose blooms because you smile upon it,
and the sun pales beside the glow of your skin.
Your laughter is life’s blood, and your love
the air I breathe.
With you I am Hawk,
soaring toward Father Sky,
covering you with mighty wings,
planting my seed deep in the womb
that will nourish my children.
With you, I live.
Callie felt the hot sting of tears. Her love for Joseph swelled so that she pressed her hand over her heart to hold it all in.
There was movement deep in a corner of the bedroom the morning sun had not yet risen, and Joseph stepped out of the shadows, wonderfully, magnificently naked.
“I wanted to watch you unobserved.” Joseph sat beside her on the bed and cupped her face. “Do you like my gifts?”
“Oh, Joseph. I love them.” She pressed the hawk feather to her lips. “Every one of them.”
“When my ancestors set out to win a woman’s hand, they brought ponies.”
His choice of words was not lost on her. Callie’s heart stood still.
“I don’t think I could fit a pony in the bedroom,” she said.
“Or a nice buffalo hide.” He was smiling.
“I prefer cool clean sheets.”
“How about warm rumpled ones?” He pressed her back against the sheets.
“As long as you’re in them.” She wound her arms around his neck and drew him close.
He tasted her lips, found them sweet beyond imagining, and for a moment all talk was suspended.
“My gifts have a practical purpose,” he said, finally. “Besides being a slightly battered, world-weary warrior’s wedding gifts to his beloved.”
Her body on fire, she whispered, “Tell me.”
“Why don’t I show you?”
Eyes gleaming, Hawk picked up the harmonica. Callie settled back against the pillows, ready for a song. Instead he circled the cool metal on her nipples. She caught a deep, ragged breath.