Ella smiled at his chivalrous attitude. “I’m not exactly Lolita, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she told him evenly. “And you’re not some celebrity grandpa looking for arm candy—as if anyone could ever mistake me for that—in a futile attempt to recapture his youth.”
Ella refused to let the stunned expression on Hawk’s face stop her from saying what was on her mind. Just because she would probably lose her job for what she was about to say didn’t mean she was going to let this man labor under any false assumptions about her. If there was anything she despised, it was people presuming she was less than capable because of her age.
“I’m a very mature twenty-one, and I’ve been taking care of myself for a whole lot longer than this state’s juvenile system would ever admit to in a court of law. So if you’re laboring under the assumption that you took advantage of some silly college girl who expects a proposal from you, nothing could be further from the truth. I know you’re on the rebound from your wife’s death, and I respect your feelings for her. I also won’t deny that I enjoyed every minute of what happened between us. Thoroughly, if you want to know the truth, and I’d do it again if given half the chance. So if you’re not too uptight to see where this relationship leads, I’d actually like to give it a try. My guess is we’re not particularly well suited, but I’m not ready to give up on you or your children just yet. Of course, I understand how I might make you uncomfortable, so if you still want to fire me, I’d like to remain friends,” she said.
For a moment Hawk almost thought she was going to stick out her hand and ask him to shake on it. Where did this woman come up with such outlandish ideas? Ella’s outspoken manner was a far cry from the kind of womanly wiles to which he’d been subjected in the past. Perhaps he had underestimated her part in what had led to their passionate encounter. He certainly had no intention of firing her. Not only would it go against his own sense of decency, his children would disown him.
“You are a most remarkable woman,” he said, gathering his wits about him.
Certainly no one would ever accuse Ella McBride of pulling her punches. The power of her right hook presently had him on the ropes. So much so that he didn’t bother countering her assumptions about how he felt about Lauren. It was such a painful subject for him that he refused to talk about it to anyone.
“Of course you still have a job for as long as you want one,” he told her, avoiding more difficult subjects.
It almost bothered him that Ella didn’t seem to consider herself beautiful as much as did her assumption that she deserved no better than a romp in the hay from him. Hawk took for granted that, presented with a similar tempting proposition to indulge in a sexually satisfying relationship without any strings attached, few of his male associates would think it sounded nearly as villainous as it did to him. Why, she might as well ask for extra for services rendered like some common prostitute instead of the precious gift she had bestowed upon him. Still, Ella was right about one thing. He was not ready to get down on bended knee and make the same mistake twice.
Whether he ever would have opened up to her about his distrust of the opposite sex, including a fear of gold diggers, not to mention his own insecurity about the way Lauren had misused him, was a moot point. Billy stepped out onto the deck rubbing his eyes and looking for breakfast. How very like the surrounding birds they all were in seeking Ella’s comfort and support, Hawk thought to himself.
“You go ahead and finish your sketch,” he told her. “I’ll make breakfast today.”
So touched by the offer that it almost brought tears to her eyes, Ella chided herself for being such a sap. It was, after all, the least Hawk could do when he had so politely brushed her off after the most incredible sex ever recorded. His refusal to talk about his late wife only confirmed what she already suspected. Theirs was a love that transcended time and space and even death. There was no way she could ever hope to compete with what he and Lauren had.
Although breakfast only proved to be cold cereal and milk with toast, Hawk’s gesture was something dear to Ella. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and glanced outside.
It was a glorious day, the kind that begs to be spent outdoors amid sunshine and flowers and people. Ella was just about to toss Hawk’s discarded newspaper in the trash when something caught her eye. She had forgotten that this was the weekend for the annual Frog Festival at Deer Valley, a small community nearby which consisted primarily of blue-collar workers employed at the local steel mill. By and large these hardworking people were convinced that education was the key to advancing their own children’s chances at succeeding in life. Because the state of school finances left their buildings in deteriorating condition with no frills left over for maintaining extracurricular activities, the community came together once a year in a money-making project targeting a specific improvement project. This year they were working to refurbish the gym and hopefully have enough extra to buy a new scoreboard. After all, the Deer Valley Wranglers had come within a hair of winning the State Basketball Tournament the year before, and pride was high in the community.
For the past ten years the annual Frog Festival had become a favorite among locals and tourists alike. In the past Ella had volunteered her services at numerous booths. What fun it would be to partake of the festivities as a participant this year. When she asked the children if they would like to accompany her, they were wildly excited. They couldn’t imagine what an official frog festival would have to offer, but after being cooped up all day yesterday because of the rain, they were certain to have a jolly time.
Hurt that no one thought to ask him along, Hawk decided to invite himself. That his children looked at him as if he had just sprouted an extra arm out of his forehead didn’t dissuade him in the least. Sick and tired of spending every waking minute working, he was ready for a break. The thought of spending yet another day home alone with no one to converse with but electronic “friends” while Ella and his children were off on another Mary Poppins adventure held little appeal for Hawk. Not to mention the fact that he was intrigued by Ella’s suggestion that they give their strained relationship a chance to see where it might take them. That it was presently headed toward a frog festival came as no surprise to Hawk who had long ago come to the conclusion that any destination Ella chose was bound to be magical.
Eight
The Tenth Annual Frog Festival took place in the middle of Deer Valley City Park. The park was little more than an empty lot with a few well-used pieces of playground equipment scattered throughout. Still, it looked festive enough with brightly colored tents and homemade signs proudly proclaiming an array of booths. A schedule of events was posted at the entryway. For a dollar apiece adults were admitted to Lily Pad Land and directed to the nearest ticket booth. Children were let in free of charge.
After buying a fistful of tickets, Hawk followed Ella to the center tent where the highly anticipated and emotionally charged frog race was just about to begin. Participants placed bets on the amphibian of their choice and took their places outside a large circle drawn in the dirt with white paint. There they urged their respective frogs to be the first to jump outside the circle. Hawk placed a dozen tickets on Crazy Frog’s Legs while Ella bet on Amphibious Force. Sarah picked Polly Wog as a long shot, and Billy bet on Jeremiah the Bullfrog to win.
Polly Wog, the decided underfrog in the competition, edged out her closest competitor, Rana Pipiens, by a “nose” to win her backers an entire homemade boysenberry pie. The victors made their way to a nearby picnic table to enjoy their spoils. The pie was as delicious as the day itself. Nobody seemed to mind in the least that the children’s mouths were stained bluish purple with berries by the end of the impromptu feast. Chock-full, they raced to the nearest set of swings, promising to come back the instant their father called them back to the table.
Ella stretched out on the bench and patted her full tummy. The clouds overhead revealed the faces of gods pleased to see mankind put aside their daily worries to indulge
in a bit of fun. That it was all for a good cause made the pilgrimage that much more sanctioned in the heavens above. Dressed in nothing more than a pair of old cutoffs and a white T-shirt from a former Frog Festival appropriately covered with frogs in all manner of whimsical poses, Ella looked right at home. As she seemed to be wherever she was—whether that be driving Hawk’s expensive car, under a benevolent sky, or beneath him. She looked lovely lying there with her glorious russet mane fanned about her face, innocently displaying her well-developed shape. Hawk thought the mountains had nothing on Ella’s form.
Eager to try their skill at any number of surrounding booths, the children returned as promised without having to be summoned. As they wound their way through the open-air stalls, it seemed everyone knew Ella. Everywhere they turned someone was calling out her name. Hawk was duly impressed with her easy manner and her memory for names and faces—right up until a robust fellow sneaked up behind her and swung her right off her feet.
“Buzz!” she cried out in surprise.
Hawk thought it a fitting name for a man wearing a bullfrog hat that made him look utterly ridiculous—and young and fun and unfettered by the kind of worldly cares weighing down his own tired shoulders. As Ella introduced them, Hawk wondered if she had actually dated this young man in the past. However irrationally founded, Hawk felt threatened by the possibility.
“We need someone to fill in at the kissing booth,” Buzz told Ella with a wink. He seemed to deliberately ignore Hawk’s glaring presence. “And since I personally know the value of your kisses, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind helping the cause.”
Noting the playful punch Ella delivered to Buzz’s shoulder, Hawk informed him coolly, “She most certainly does mind.”
I mind very much, he mentally corrected himself. Ashamed of himself for speaking for her as if she weren’t capable of making up her own mind, Hawk wondered what it was about Buzz’s youthful exuberance and cocky attitude that made him want to drive his fist right through the fellow’s smiling face.
As if reading his mind, or perhaps his menacing body language, Buzz leaned over to whisper in Ella’s ear. “Why don’t you lose the old guy and drop by the lake later in the day? We’re having a keg, and a lot of your old friends from high school will be there. Phoebe’s coming.”
Hawk suspected that subtlety wasn’t one of Buzz’s strong suits. He couldn’t help but think the younger man had intended his hushed tones to be overheard. Why Hawk found the thought of Ella attending a party with some of her old friends so disturbing was something he didn’t want to discuss. Maybe it was selfish on his part, but he nonetheless held out fragile hope that she might actually prefer spending the evening supervising his children and spending time with him. Not likely, Hawk thought ruefully. It was unfair on his part to expect a beautiful, young woman to give up an evening socializing with people her own age for a chance at prolonging a dead-end relationship with him.
“I’ll be over at the balloon catapult if you want to catch up with me later,” Buzz added, raising his voice to a more courteous level. “It was nice to meet you, sir,” he added as an afterthought to Hawk.
“Likewise,” he replied dryly.
Hawk wasn’t sure whether it was being called “sir,” the reference to him being over the hill or the festive atmosphere that caused his more playful side to make a presence. Keeping Ella firmly rooted to his side, he browsed the booths with his children, indulging them in whatever they wanted: frog-shaped cookies, frog kites, frog hats and webbed footwear. Against his better judgment, he even bought them each a pet amphibian. No bigger than his thumb, the poor creatures were confined to jelly glasses with holes poked into the lids. Hawk swallowed nervously at the thought of what their playful kittens might do if they ever got hold of Billy’s and Sarah’s frogs. If the frogs were lucky, their proud new owners would yield to the urge to open their containers and unwittingly let their pets escape to the surrounding grass. At this very moment, children of all ages were combing the surrounding area for signs of frogs on the lam.
By the time they made their way over to the balloon catapult, Hawk had already proved his prowess by banging a sledgehammer onto a lever that sent a frog-faced marker upward past “tadpole powered,” through the “average frogman range,” and upward to “bullfrog heights” where a bell was ceremoniously rung to distinguish the accomplishment. As Hawk was collecting his prize, Buzz called Ella over to his booth. She good-naturedly gave him the price of five tickets for the privilege of letting him thoroughly soak her with oversize water balloons. When they switched roles, however, her projectiles fell far short of their mark leaving a grinning Buzz unscathed. Ella maintained that it was all in good fun, and Buzz thanked her profusely for promoting the booth. Indeed a crowd had gathered to watch the grownups’ horseplay. Hawk was more inclined to think that little pervert Buzz had deliberately doused Ella in an attempt to host his own wet T-shirt contest. One in which Ella was bound to win. Hawk doubted whether she had any awareness at all of how incredibly beautiful she really was with her face shining and her shirt clinging to her voluptuous curves. That she thought herself less than stunning was typical of her total lack of self-awareness.
Hawk insisted on taking a turn at the catapult, positioning himself opposite of good old Buzz with an arsenal of hefty-size water balloons.
“Let me show you what an old guy can do,” he said, launching his first attack.
His aim was flawless, drilling his hapless opponent right in the face. He hit his target three out of three tries and deftly sidestepped two out of three volleys himself. The children squealed in delight to see their father drench his adversary and actually get wet himself. Ella led the clapping as the dripping warriors bowed to their audience.
Looking in the direction of the “Froggie Goes a Courtin’ Kissing Booth” Hawk saw that Buzz was right about the lack of interest displayed by all the eligible men available. The line had, in fact, dwindled to nothing. This was not particularly surprising considering the dour-faced maid positioned on the other side of the booth. One would think she would pay the customers instead of the other way around. Feeling guilty for such uncharitable thoughts, Hawk pulled Ella over to the booth and made a great show of dropping all his remaining tickets and a sizable bill into the receptacle placed there. He hoped Buzz was watching.
“Remember, this is for charity,” Hawk said, taking her into his arms and crushing her with a movie screen kiss that left Ella holding on to him to keep from falling down.
Lack of privacy did not affect the potency of that all too public kiss, the thoroughness of which caused the earth to come to a complete stop and reverse the direction it was spinning. Ella’s mind went numb. Public or private, she didn’t think she could ever get enough of this man’s kisses or the feel of his hard body pressed against hers. The fierce possessiveness that she saw reflected in his eyes filled her heart with hope.
Under the impression that it might well appear she was merely playing for the crowd, Ella kissed him back for all she was worth. Opening her mouth, she touched her tongue to his and darn near swooned right there in his arms. Recalling how hard she had worked to divest herself of the label, she hoped, dazedly, that Hawk hadn’t actually been referring to her as a charity case when he pulled her into his embrace.
The crowd certainly didn’t see it that way.
“Shucks,” one of them called out. “It didn’t work, princess—he’s still a frog!”
“I’d pay a dollar for a kiss like that,” declared another.
A woman, whom one could only assume was his wife, elbowed him sharply in the side. Ella laughed good-naturedly at their ribbing. Little did they know that she felt more frog herself than princess. It was far easier for her to cast Hawk as the knight in shining armor of whom she had dreamed as a girl. That he was out of her reach was a given. Nannies from across the way who lived in log cabins without running water or electricity were only asking for trouble if they aspired to change their rank through any means as fickle
as love. Hard work and education were the only ways Ella knew to change her social position.
Shaking off those old, beloved fantasies that had helped her survive her difficult childhood was more difficult than Ella would have imagined. Naturally, looking at life realistically wasn’t something reflected in her thinking or her artwork. She far preferred Don Quixote’s outlook of viewing life as it should be, rather than as it was. Ella knew that a part of her would always cling to the fairy tales that her mother had read to her as an impressionable child, but she also reminded herself that right now it was enough to simply share some good times with Hawk and his precious children. Pinning her hopes on childhood dreams was simply asking to have her heart cut out.
Considering that their relationship was mutually beneficial, Ella saw no need to upset an already rocking boat. Hawk had offered her the financial security to pursue her education and ultimately her life’s dream of becoming a “real” artist, not to mention the opportunity to be part of a real family—one that didn’t treat her merely like a paid servant. For her part, Ella felt good about helping Hawk to become more spontaneous and less tied down by business concerns. Worried that he was heading for an early grave, she took it as a personal mission to help him discover what was truly most important in life before it was too late.
She had never undertaken a more rewarding mission in her life. It was, after all, a labor of love.
Love!
That fickle, double-edged word held Ella at bay. Having never known her father and losing her mother to cancer at such a young age, she came to associate love with loss early on in her life. That misconception was reinforced in a string of foster homes in which love was frequently only a word used to manipulate a vulnerable little girl trying her darnedest to ingratiate herself to those in control of her life. Looking back, Ella could honestly say that love hadn’t gotten her anything more than a broken heart from her first crush, and her second, third and fourth for that matter.
Wyoming Cinderella (Silhouette Desire) Page 9