Determined to win back a permanent place in his children’s hearts, Hawk promised not to let business consume him as it had before. His presence was going to have to be more than merely physical if they were ever to grow into the kind of family he wanted them to become. Thus it was that he decided to observe Ella’s easy camaraderie with the same kind of resolve that had helped him pirate several successful, albeit hostile business takeovers. All he had to do was watch and learn.
Hawk could come up with no appropriate business analogy by which to compare Ella McBride. Watching her was more like stargazing—a dizzying exercise in the perception of universal forces coming together in youth and exuberance and amazing sensitivity. The fact that she seemed to grow prettier each day didn’t hurt his eyes any either.
Hair that once had seemed to him too red and wild to ever fit into his idea of refined beauty was beginning to evoke in him a longing to sample its fiery fiber against his own flesh. Unbidden throughout the day, images of fiery copper spread out upon his own pillow flashed through his mind, and he would upbraid himself for having such careless thoughts. He couldn’t help but compare Ella’s earthy beauty to that of Lauren’s cultivated elegance. His wife’s blond sophistication and blue blood had made for a nice trophy at his elbow, but all that golden allure had proven very cold in bed. From what Hawk had sampled of Ella’s kisses, he suspected that she could be stroked into a volcanic display of passion that would rock a man off balance for a lifetime.
Hawk was delighted to hear the front door bang open with the return of his family. Suddenly feeling more contented and productive than he had all day, Hawk continued working at his computer station for another fifteen minutes before using his stomach as a pretense for getting a snack and sneaking through the other room. He wanted to see how Ella was keeping his two cherubs so unusually quiet without the aid of television.
In the middle of his living room Hawk found Ella bent over an ironing board that had been standing against the washroom wall for what he assumed was decoration. The last time anyone had actually ironed for him was his own mother. Lauren wouldn’t have known one end of an ironing board from another. In fact, she would have turned up her pretty nose at the thought of ever doing such a labor-intensive task herself. Just the smell alone of the hot iron and the steam rising from beneath it brought back memories of his childhood. Hawk’s mother had maintained that ironing was an act of love to show her family how much she cherished them.
The children were gathered about Ella as if she were performing a magic act rather than some taxing, ordinary chore. Methodically moving the iron back and forth, she wove them a story. From an observer’s point of view, it seemed to Hawk that the act of ironing in itself helped unloose the creative flow from somewhere deep inside Ella. Her face took on the removed, rapt look of someone channeling from the heavens above.
Hawk found himself drawn into the story she told. It was an enchanting tale of a dragon that had lost his taste for saccharine maidens and sought instead double bacon cheeseburgers and fries. Every so often, Ella would punctuate her story with a shot of steam from the iron, purposely creating the impression of a dragon in the near vicinity.
Leaning up against the doorway, Hawk studied the scene with a professional eye. How she managed to make drudgery exciting was something he wished he could bottle. Ella seemed genuinely interested in the children’s feedback at the conclusion of the story. Hawk found it curious that she would seek their input.
“Make up another one,” Sarah demanded, startling Hawk with the possibility that Ella might have devised such a clever, entertaining story all on her own. Fantasy held little allure for the business world, but it did for anyone wanting to hold a child’s attention. An apt student, Hawk was willing to learn whatever he could from this creative, free spirit.
“Bravo!” he said at the story’s conclusion.
When Ella looked up and discovered him leaning against the doorsill, she blushed a lovely shade of pink. Why it pleased Hawk to have such an effect upon her was nothing he cared to ponder right at the moment, but there was no denying the rush of gratification that coursed through his body at her obvious awareness of his proximity.
“With the children’s help,” she said, making sure to include them in the process and give them credit for their input into the story she polished. “Telling stories is a hobby of mine.”
Ella was unwilling to share her dream of becoming a children’s author/illustrator with just anyone. She had made a habit of protecting her ideas from anyone who might squelch her creativity. She suspected someone as business oriented as Hawk just might be inclined to laugh at her modest dreams.
He surprised her, however, by saying, “It’s a charming hobby. One I wouldn’t mind cultivating myself. It looks like it might come in mighty handy at bedtime.”
Ella smiled. Bedtime was clearly a sore subject. For the past several nights she had heard Hawk struggling to get the children into bed and keep them there. Figuring her shift was over once her pajamas were on, she allowed Hawk and herself the dignity of managing the children in his own loving, though admittedly inept, fashion. Both children asked to stay up later than what Hawk had decreed as bedtime, requested glasses of water and then, of course, extra trips to the bathroom, and generally did everything in their power to play their father like a Stradivarius. Just about the time Ella would mentally declare Hawk to be unsuited for fatherhood, she would hear the sound of Dr. Seuss stories floating down the hallway and be carried away to happier memories of her own. Hawk’s readings were followed by the same nighttime prayer she had uttered when her mother was still around to tuck her in. Ella knew any father was better than one who ran away from his responsibilities like her old man had. Hawk was trying, God bless his heart. As far as she was concerned that in itself held redemption.
Ella couldn’t help but wish there was somebody in her life who wanted to tuck her in. Someone with a sensuous voice, eyes as fathomless as a deep wishing well, and a heart more tender than one might first suspect.
Five
Wednesday nights soon became a weekly ordeal, the nature of which was akin to school assemblies that everyone knew they should appreciate but secretly dreaded. Wednesday was the day Ella left her charges in their father’s sole care to drive into town for her art class.
Since Ella’s desire for this class had been stated right up front and because Hawk didn’t want to deny anyone the opportunity to explore their talents, he bid the children to put on a cheerful face as they saw their nanny off on her first excursion without them.
It was hard not to feel just a little hurt by the excitement in her face at the prospect of taking time away from them. She seemed to glow with the prospect of spending the evening with interesting people of her own age. This served to make Hawk feel older than his years. Long past the time it was still actually visible, Billy and Sarah watched the puff of dust that followed Ella’s vehicle down the long dirt road that led into their paved driveway.
Hawk tried approaching the evening as an opportunity to grow closer to his children without having to compete with Ella’s wonderful imagination and genuine childlike focus. He was determined to show Billy and Sarah that he could be just as much fun as a virtual stranger he’d hired off the street. Seeing no reason why a business-type agenda couldn’t be applied to a family night, he carefully mapped out a series of meaningful and educational activities to fill their time most productively. He broached the subject with a bright smile.
“I bought you some new games.”
“What kind of games?” they asked skeptically.
“Fun ones,” he replied grimly.
Donning the look of martyrs, Billy and Sarah filed dutifully into the house, passing the television set with open longing upon their faces.
“Can we just watch cartoons instead?” Billy suggested.
“No.”
The word came out flat and irrevocable. It mattered little to Hawk that Ella had restricted their TV time so that they might a
ctually appreciate the opportunity to watch their big screen. All his heart heard was that his children would rather affix themselves to the TV than to him. The first game of the evening was set up with all the determination of a patriarchal gladiator.
“Trust me, this is going to be great, educational fun,” he assured them.
Unfortunately, Hawk was the one who got the best education. He quickly discovered that the game he had purchased was designed more for yuppie parents than for their children. Nonetheless, he tried to remain positive. Having covertly observed Ella’s interactions with his children, he attempted to mimic some of her more effective techniques.
“But Ella doesn’t do it that way,” Sarah told her father for the umpteenth time at another of his suggestions for making the evening more pleasant.
“I don’t care how Ella does it,” he exploded. “This is the way I do things!”
Soon what started out as a way to facilitate closeness among family members began to feel like punishment. When Hawk overcooked the microwave popcorn, the stench was so overwhelming that everyone, including himself, lost their taste for it. After hearing Sarah and Billy repeatedly complain that “this was stupid,” Hawk slammed the board game shut and threw it in the trash. Had his children been his employees, he would have simply fired them.
As it was, he felt like handing them his resignation.
Marching over to the television set in defeat, he remembered how much easier his life had been when he had simply compartmentalized it into separate work and home boxes. Indeed, the male provider mentality that had driven so much of his life was far less stressful than managing a home and two willful children alone. Up until his wife’s untimely death, being a good provider was all Hawk knew about parenting. Fate certainly had a way of making people reassess their lives. Especially those built upon lies.
Grabbing a financial magazine off the end table, Hawk awaited Ella’s return with a mixture of resentment and anticipation.
Three hours later Ella was asking, “Why is the TV so loud?”
Assaulted by the volume the instant she opened the front door, what she really wanted to know was why the blasted thing was on at all. Hadn’t her presence and preference for creative activities made any impact on this family at all?
No one answered her question. She tiptoed over to the couch where the sleeping forms of the children were huddled beneath afghans that their grandmother had made for them. Hawk, too, had apparently fallen asleep watching cartoons. In the semidarkness of a room illuminated only by the eerie glow of the television set, he looked like a fallen warrior.
Ella’s breath caught in her throat at the sight. She longed to touch his dark hair where it curled at his neckline and see if the texture was as soft as she remembered. Reminded of the story of Sleeping Beauty, she wondered if a stolen kiss would go unnoticed or, since gender roles were reversed, whether a princess even had the power to awaken a dreaming prince. The thought sent a quiver all the way through her body.
Storing the idea away as a potential story idea, Ella drew the afghan that had slipped around Hawk’s waist to cover his arms. Wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, he was incredibly good-looking. His feet were bare as were the arms folded across his chest. Even slumber could not disguise the muscles corded beneath his forearms. She had heard him working out once or twice in the exercise room that she had initially assumed was just for show. He certainly put that pimply, young model from her art class to shame.
How Ella longed to paint Hawk exactly in this pose. In sleep, his chiseled features lost all haughtiness. The day’s worth of stubble that shadowed his lower jaw and upper lip combined with the T-shirt stretched taut over his chest gave him a certain James Dean bad boy allure that coaxed a sigh from his appreciative audience. Indeed, he was the most gorgeous specimen of manhood Ella had ever dared to inspect so up close and personal.
Since lusting after him while he was sleeping seemed somehow immoral, she determined to put her wayward thoughts to bed along with this man’s two adorable children. She reached for the remote control which was wedged between the chair cushions. Without warning, a hand reached out to encircle her wrist. Ella gasped.
How long had he been awake?
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Hawk told her gently.
That deep voice coming out of the darkness was as captivating as his touch. She entertained a vision of him pulling her into his lap and smothering her with more of those mind-drugging kisses with which he parted so sparingly.
“Let me go,” she said huskily.
He did, and the act left her feeling bereft. To cover the knocking of her foolish heart, she pointed the remote at him like a phaser off an old science fiction movie.
“Do you mind if I turn it down?” she asked, not waiting for his permission to mute the sound.
“You can shut it off for all I care,” Hawk replied.
The look on his face dared her to criticize his use of an electronic baby-sitter in her absence. Although he dearly wanted to know exactly why Ella was home so late, he didn’t ask. What this young woman did with her one night off a week was, after all, none of his business.
“How was class?” he asked offhandedly.
The look of joy that flitted across Ella’s pretty features was unmistakable.
“It was wonderful, actually,” she admitted, recalling the rare compliment the instructor had paid her in front of the rest of the class. Mr. Jenkins seemed to think that she had real talent—something seldom uttered aloud in college courses for fear that it might somehow corrupt one’s artistic soul. To Ella his kind words were like droplets of rain upon a wilting blossom. Over her lifetime, she had endured far more barbs than compliments. So much so, in fact, that she tended to be suspicious whenever any praise came her way.
Hawk wanted to look deeper into that rapturous answer she had given. Was it wonderful because she was infatuated with her instructor? Or because some young college swain had turned her head? Or just because she was glad to be away from Fort Bedlam for the evening?
Hawk wondered how long had it been since anything had given him as much pleasure as art class gave this lovely ingenue. Lately it seemed his business owned him rather than the other way around. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken any sort of excursion other than to the bathroom in the middle of the night with a child who’d had an extra glass of water before falling asleep. Was it any wonder that he was out of touch with the concept of having fun?
The sight of Ella struggling to pick Sarah up off the couch all wrapped up in an afghan caused something rusty to twist in Hawk’s chest.
“Let me do that,” he told her, taking his sleeping angel girl from her arms.
“I’ll turn her covers back,” Ella said quietly so as not to awaken her.
In the soft glow of the television tube, Hawk looked sexier than any man had a right to after a night of baby-sitting. His hair was mussed and the top snap of his jeans undone. It was all Ella could do to keep her eyes from drifting down in an inappropriate direction. The sight of him holding a child in his arms didn’t make Ella’s heart beat any slower. In fact, that display of paternal instinct deepened the attraction she’d been fighting from the moment she first laid eyes on this man.
Hawk placed a tender kiss upon his daughter’s forehead before turning out the light and heading back to the living room for his son. Ella wished she could sleep as soundly as the two children whom they transferred to their respective beds without so much as a peep from either of them. Tucking a favorite stuffed animal into bed with each one, she murmured “Sweet dreams” to them. Knowing that Billy was afraid of the dark, she stopped to make sure his night-light was on.
Oh, that it were so easy to dispel the monsters that followed one into adulthood!
A silent sentry, Hawk stood over his son’s bed for a long while. Feeling like he had failed both his children in the past, he intended to protect them against any evil the world might have in store for them.
“He’s b
eautiful,” Ella whispered, brushing aside a lock of Billy’s black hair from his forehead. “Both of your children are beautiful—inside and out.”
As are you, Hawk thought to himself. Irritated with himself for almost speaking the words aloud, he reminded himself of his promise to keep his hands and his errant thoughts to himself. Just one night holding the fort down by himself was a powerful reminder of how hopeless he was without Ella’s help. Having struck an agreement with her just the other morning over burned bacon, he could ill afford to scare her away with his libidinous thoughts.
Deliberately Hawk searched for safe ground. “If I haven’t told you yet, I think you’re terrific with them,” he told her sincerely. “I want to thank you for everything you do—for all of us.”
The compliment warmed Ella from the inside out. The heat it generated was reflected in the gentle smile that she bestowed upon him.
“You’re welcome,” she said, not trusting her heart to say more. Over the years, she could count on one hand the number of people who had offered such genuine appreciation of her talents. “They’re really wonderful company.”
Hawk’s lips curved into a lopsided grin. Having just spent the night wrestling with them on what felt like every single insignificant issue from popcorn to Popeye, he was physically and emotionally bushed.
“You’re too modest.”
He was on the verge of telling her that if her artistic talents were equal to her child-rearing skills, he had no doubt she would go far. Just then Billy flung an arm across his pillow and cried out in his sleep.
Wyoming Cinderella (Silhouette Desire) Page 6