Nighthawk's Child

by Linda Turner

  In full view of his nosy neighbors, there was, unfortunately, nothing she could do but play along with him. So she clasped her arms around his neck and laughed when he pretended to stumble. Then suddenly, they were at the door, and the laughter faded as he leaned down to kiss her.

  He didn’t have to say anything for her to know the kiss wasn’t nearly as spontaneous as it appeared. But her heart didn’t seem to care. He kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and just that easily, he set her head spinning. Breathless, clinging to him helplessly, she kissed him back and never knew when he unlocked the front door and carried her over the threshold as if he were a knight returning to his castle with his prize.

  The second he kicked the door shut behind them, however, he immediately set her on her feet and released her. Tumbling back to earth with a jolt, Summer couldn’t have been more hurt if he’d slapped her. There were times when she was in his arms that it was hard for her to remember that they were playing a role. He didn’t seem to have that problem.

  The sting of tears burning her eyes, she quickly turned away, only to gasp softly as she suddenly got a good look at the entrance hall and stairway. There were flowers everywhere, and white bows and ribbons decorating the banister all the way up the stairs.

  At her gasp, Gavin followed her gaze, only to swear. “What the hell! Where the devil did all this come from?”

  Surprised, Summer said, “You mean, you didn’t do it?”

  “No! I wouldn’t do that to you. We have a business arrangement. The rest of the world thinks we’re in love, but that ends when we walk through the front door. We don’t have to pretend when there’s no one here to see.”

  “Then who…?”

  But even as she asked, Summer had her suspicions. Before she could voice them, however, he growled, “C’mon,” and started up the stairs.

  Following the trail of white ribbon, he led her straight to his bedroom, where he took one look at the table that had been set up in front of the fireplace and once again started to swear. Her eyes wide, Summer couldn’t blame him. Talk about a scene set for seduction! There was champagne on ice, a fire already crackling in the fireplace, and an intimate dinner for two laid out for them on the table, complete with china, crystal, and silver. And on one of the plates was a note informing them that dinner was in the warming oven downstairs in the kitchen and would be ready when they needed it.

  There was no signature on the card, but Summer didn’t need one to know who was responsible for this little tête-à-tête. She recognized all too clearly the handiwork of her dear, sweet cousins. Cleo and Jasmine, indignant over the fact that the authorities wouldn’t allow Gavin to take Summer on a honeymoon, had obviously put their heads together to come up with a way to at least make their wedding night special.

  Touched—and more than a little embarrassed—she said gruffly, “I’m sorry about this, Gavin, but I think I know who’s responsible. My cousins.”

  “Your cousins! How the hell did they get in here?”

  She hadn’t thought that far. “I don’t know. I certainly didn’t loan them the key you gave me. Who else has a key?”

  “No one. Except my cleaning service—”

  Putting two and two together, she groaned. “Let me guess. You use Acme Cleaning Service.”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Because my aunts use the same one at the B and B and my cousins are friends with some of the maids. I’ll bet they got the key from one of them.” Wincing at the thought, she said, “I’m sorry. They stepped over the line. They should have asked me first, and they certainly shouldn’t have used one of the maids to gain access to your place. They were just upset that we couldn’t go on a honeymoon. I’ll call them tomorrow and make sure they apologize—”

  She started to stack the plates together, but he stopped her. “An apology’s not necessary, Summer. They just wanted to do something special for you. And you don’t have to pick everything up. Since it’s all here and the food’s already cooked, we might as well eat. Your cousins would be hurt if they found out we didn’t appreciate their efforts.”

  Surprised by his consideration, she hesitated. “Are you sure? This is so awkward.”

  “It’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Why don’t we both change, then we’ll see what other surprises they left for us in the kitchen? I’ll get your bags.”

  Using the guest bathroom down the hall from the master suite, Summer decided to go for comfort instead of style and changed from her wedding dress into jeans and a forest-green turtleneck sweater. When she rejoined Gavin in his bedroom, she discovered that he, too, had changed into his most comfortable clothes. Dressed in black corduroy jeans and a flannel lumberjack shirt, he’d already brought the food up from the kitchen and was waiting for her.

  “There you are,” he said as she tentatively stepped into the bedroom. “C’mon in. I hope you’re hungry. We’ve got enough food here for an army.”

  Cleo and Jasmine had, indeed, outdone themselves. They’d cooked Cornish game hens, wild rice, stuffed mushrooms, and a squash casserole rich with cheese and cream. Then, to top it all off, they’d talked their mother into making her prize-winning cheesecake. Dripping in a chocolate-cherry sauce, it looked positively sinful.

  Summer’s mouth should have watered just at the sight of the feast Gavin had spread out in front of her. She’d had nothing but a dry piece of toast for breakfast, and with her stomach jumpy with nerves for most of the day, she’d barely eaten anything at their reception. But when she sat down across the table from Gavin, her attention kept drifting to the bed on the opposite side of the room.

  It was a huge walnut bed with austere lines, but even here, Summer’s cousins’s touch could be seen. They’d turned back the comforter invitingly to display new sheets, and on the nightstands on each side of the bed were scented candles just waiting to be lit.

  Knowing Cleo and Jasmine as she did, Summer could just see them humming to themselves as they fussed around the room, making certain everything was just right. Under other circumstances, she might have seen the humor in the situation, but she couldn’t right now. Not when she only had to look at that huge bed to picture herself there with Gavin, making love by candlelight. She was, she promised herself, going to kill the two women as soon as she got the chance.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. You’re just picking at your food, and you haven’t eaten anything all day. Would it help if we moved everything downstairs to the dining room? It won’t take any time.”

  Jerking her gaze from his bed, Summer cursed the blush that burned her cheeks and wanted to sink right through the floor. Had he noticed she couldn’t stop looking at the bed? she wondered wildly, then wanted to kick herself for even having to ask. Of course he had!

  “No, this is fine. Really,” she said when he didn’t look convinced. “I guess I’m just tired. The last two weeks have been pretty hectic. I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

  That brought the subject right back to the one she wanted to avoid, but she couldn’t avoid talking about it for the rest of the night. Silently groaning in defeat, she forced a weak smile. “In fact, I think I’ll just skip dinner, if you don’t mind. I’d rather just unpack, then take a shower and go to bed.”

  “I’ll show you where everything is.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said hurriedly, feeling guilty for interrupting his meal. “Finish eating. I can explore on my own.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not very hungry, either,” he admitted with a wry grimace as he pushed away from the table and rose to his feet. “The master bath and closets are right through there,” he said, nodding to the door behind her. “I’ve already cleared out space for you, so just put your things wherever you like.”

  “Space?” Surely she heard him wrong. She just looked at him. “What do you mean…space? I thought I’d be staying in the guest room.”

  It was his turn to blink in surprise. “
There is no guest room. The house has three bedrooms, but I use one as an exercise room, and the other is Alyssa’s room. The only bed in there is a crib.”

  Stunned, she felt as if he’d just pulled the rug right out from under her feet. Surely he didn’t expect her to sleep with him! It would never work. Not after the kisses they’d shared. They’d both just be asking for trouble.

  Don’t panic, she told herself. There had to be another solution. “Then I’ll bunk downstairs on the couch,” she said desperately.

  “For the next year? C’mon, Summer, be reasonable. I suppose I could buy a bed for the exercise room, but I’ve had the same cleaning service for the past two years, and they usually send the same maids every week. What do you think they’re going to say about me buying a spare bed just days after I get married? When they clean that room, they’re going to know you’re sleeping there, and then it wouldn’t take long for word to get out that our marriage is a sham. Then everything we’ve done so far would have been for nothing.”

  He made it all sound so logical, so practical. He could have been discussing the weather for all the concern he showed. But it wasn’t that simple. He was talking about sharing a bed with her for an entire year, sleeping side by side night after night, just like any other married couple. But they weren’t married, not in the way she intended to be married one day, and her heart skipped at just the thought of crawling into bed with him. There had to be another solution.

  “We should have discussed this more,” she said half to herself. “I don’t know what I was thinking of—”

  “You don’t have to worry,” he said gently. “Nothing’s going to happen. I haven’t forgotten the terms of our agreement. Our marriage is in name only, and that’s not going to change just because we share a bed. I can sleep with you without touching you.”

  She should have been relieved—he was a man of his word, and she could rest easy knowing he wouldn’t take advantage of her. But instead of reassuring her, his words struck her right in the heart. He might have had the best of intentions, but there was no misunderstanding his message. What he was really saying was that she didn’t have to worry about anything happening between them because he didn’t desire her. And although she knew that was for the best, it still hurt.

  She would, however, have died before she told him that. After all, she had some pride. So hiding her pain behind a weak smile, she said, “I know I can trust you, Gavin. I didn’t mean to imply that you were going to take advantage of the situation. I was just…surprised. I really hadn’t thought that far ahead because I’d assumed you had a guest room. But this will be fine,” she assured him, and tried to believe it.

  But later, when she crawled into bed beside him and he switched off the light, she realized she’d only been fooling herself. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and every nerve ending she had seemed to be attuned to Gavin and his presence beside her. The bed was a king-size, thank God, so they could each lie on their own side and still have several feet of space between them, but she was still aware of every breath he took.

  He moved—and her pulse jumped like a scared rabbit. Stiffening, she caught her breath, but he only turned onto his side away from her and settled into a more comfortable position. Within minutes his breathing lapsed into the slow, easy rhythm of sleep.

  Wide awake and clinging to the very edge of her side of the mattress, she stared at the darkness and didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. This was just their first night of marriage, and she was already a basket case. How, dear God, was she going to stand a year of this?

  In spite of the fact that they couldn’t go anywhere for a honeymoon, they’d decided they could still give the appearance of loving newlyweds by devoting the next week totally to each other. So Summer had taken leave from her job at the hospital and arranged for a friend to take over for her at her clinic. With nothing but time on her hands, she’d expected to lie around the house, read and relax and catch up on some much needed sleep. But after their awkward dinner the night before and a nearly sleepless night, the morning dragged and it became obvious to her that she wasn’t going to be able to relax. Not when Gavin was right there in her line of vision every time she turned around.

  Reading her mind as he watched her try and fail to concentrate on a murder mystery that was supposed to be the latest bestselling page turner, he said, “You know, we don’t have to hide away like we’re under house arrest or anything. If you’d like to change anything in the house, we could go shopping, do some redecorating. People would probably expect that, anyway.”

  Glancing up from the blurred pages of her book, she cringed at the idea of stepping out in public again and playing the role of loving wife so soon after the ordeal of yesterday. Granted, that was the sole reason for their marriage, but just once she wished that everything they did together in public wasn’t so orchestrated. She just wanted to be herself again.

  Still, she had promised to help him, and she was quickly running out of opportunities to do that. The trial started next week. “All right,” she said, “that works for me. We could look at window treatments—”

  That was as far as she got. The phone rang, and they’d both been doctors too long to ignore it. Gavin picked it up. “Hello?” A split second later he was handing the portable to Summer. “It’s for you.”

  She took it, only to frown when she recognized the voice of Laurie Mills, an intern from the hospital. “What’s wrong?” she demanded, instinctively knowing there was a problem.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you, Summer,” she said, “but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you know anyone named Bryan Gray Eagle? He showed up here a little while ago asking for you. He said his grandmother was dying, but when I asked where she lived so we could send an ambulance for her, he wouldn’t tell me. He just said to tell you, then he ran off.”

  Shock hit her first, then the pain, but she didn’t so much as flinch. “I’ll take care of it,” she said quietly. “Thanks for calling, Laurie.”

  She thought she had her emotions under control, but the second she hung up, Gavin said, “That was about a patient, wasn’t it? Someone you care about.”

  She nodded, her brown eyes dark with sadness. “Grandmother Gray Eagle’s dying. I have to go to her.”

  Gavin didn’t have to ask who Grandmother Gray Eagle was. A tribal elder who was wise in the ways of healing, she was an institution on the reservation, the one everyone went to when they were hurt or sick. And if Gavin remembered correctly, she was the one who’d taught Summer the ways of tribal medicine when she was just a girl.

  She had to be hurting right now, but she seemed to have herself well in hand, so he followed her lead and was all business. “You’ll need your boots and coat,” he told her. “It’s a nasty day. I’ll drive you to the hospital—”

  “Oh, but she’s not in the hospital.”

  “Someone from her family called an ambulance, didn’t they?” he asked sharply. “Or were they waiting for you to do it?”

  “She wants to die at home, Gavin,” she replied. “The two of us agreed a long time ago that when her time came, she would get word to me, and I would come to her home and help her make the transition to the other side. It’s what she wants. So there’ll be no ambulance, no life support, no white man’s medicine. She’s going to do this her way, and I’m going to help her.”

  Her eyes locking with his, Summer had known he wouldn’t like the sound of that, so she wasn’t surprised when his expression closed up tight. He’d never been interested in anything but traditional modern medicine, never wanted anything to do with the healing ways of his ancestors or the spiritual side of his nature. He might be Native American on the outside, but on the inside he was white and had no tolerance for any kind of medicine that wasn’t spelled out in a medical book.

  And she found that incredibly sad. He was a man with an incredible gift for healing, but there w
as so much he was missing, so much he would never truly know, because he practiced medicine with his head and not his heart.

  “If you’ll warm up my car for me while I change, I’ll be right down,” she said as she started to turn toward the stairs. “Oh, and I’ll need my medical bag. It’s in your study.”

  “The Gray Eagle place is back in Bear Canyon, isn’t it? I’m not letting you go all the way out there by yourself on a day like today,” he said stubbornly. “I’ll drive you.”

  She wanted to argue, but one look at his chiseled jaw and she knew better. “This could take a while,” she warned him. “She’s a strong woman. She may not let go easily.”

  “We’ll stay as long as it takes,” he retorted. “I’ll warm up the car.” Without another word, he headed for the garage.

  It was a miserable day to die.

  Seated next to Gavin in her four-wheel-drive Jimmy, Summer looked out at the desolate countryside and shivered. Overnight, the weather had turned horrible. Just yesterday, it had felt like summer, but now it was wet and icy, with a chilling wind out of the north that cut to the bone. And for the life of her, Summer couldn’t understand why Grandmother Gray Eagle had chosen this day of all days to die. She would have expected her to go in the spring, when the weather was warm and the wildflowers were in bloom and the birds would sing a song to the Great Spirit when she passed. Instead, she had chosen today, when the world was cold and raw.

  And there wasn’t a doubt in Summer’s mind that she, not the Great Spirit she believed in, had chosen her time to die. A woman of strong faith in the power of the spirit, Grandmother Gray Eagle had always controlled her own destiny and held the forces of life and death in her hands.

  Her heart heavy at the thought, Summer dragged her eyes away from the weather and focused instead on Gavin’s driving. “You do remember where she lives, don’t you?”

  It wasn’t something Gavin was likely to forget. He’d been in his first year of medical school when his parents had died within six months of each other—his father first, of a heart attack, then his mother of pneumonia. They both might have been saved if they’d let him take them to the hospital, but they’d refused and insisted he take them to Grandmother Gray Eagle instead. At the hours of their deaths, after a lifetime of instilling in him the belief that the white man’s ways—and medicine—would be his salvation, they’d abandoned their own teachings and put their trust in the primitive medicine of their childhood. And because of that, he was convinced that they’d died before their time. To this day, he’d yet to forgive them—or Grandmother Gray Eagle—for that.