“When—?”
“By Saturday morning,” he supplied. “Dance is Saturday night.” He caught up to Caroline before she reached the bakery next door.
“You are a very generous ‘uncle,’ Hawk. But really, I—”
“You don’t like being taken care of, do you?”
“I don’t like being bossed around.”
“Better get used to it. Remember, niece Caroline, for all intents and purposes, you are my prisoner.”
*
Caroline had never been to a country barn dance before. It was as unlike the Sunday afternoons at Miss Handley’s Dancing Academy as Shasta daisies were from cheese. The music was deafening. Two guitars, a banjo, a skittery-sounding violin, and the oddest-looking bass fiddle she’d ever seen, part washtub and part broom handle. The stomping of cowboy boots on the plank floor raised enough dust to make old ladies along the sidelines sneeze into their lace-trimmed handkerchiefs.
Hawk leaned in close. “Nothing like Boston, huh?”
She shook her head. “It is most definitely not like Boston.” She felt awkward and as out of place as a petunia in a cabbage patch. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. Her new flowered calico skirt was sinfully swirly, the most brightly colored garment she had ever owned. But she didn’t want to stand out. She wanted to hide in the shadows. She almost wished for her familiar too-big boots instead of the proper black leather lace-ups she’d purchased at the mercantile.
“What’s wrong?” Hawk whispered. “You look white as skimmed milk.”
“I feel conspicuous.”
He chuckled. “You are conspicuous. You’re the prettiest woman here.” His gesture took in the spacious wood barn and the crowd of people milling about.
Dumbstruck, Caroline stared up at him.
“It’s true,” he said. “I’m afraid to dance with you because sure as chickens lay eggs, the minute I take you out on the floor some local cowboy’s gonna cut in.”
She caught her breath. “Oh. Don’t let them, Hawk. Please.”
“You think I’m crazy? I wouldn’t let another man get within fifteen feet of you. So, you’d better dance with me, Caroline. I figure it’s the only way I’m going to get my arms around you for more than ten seconds.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the floor, and the next thing she knew he was holding her close and moving to the thumping of the bass fiddle. Her heart began to hammer.
“Sorry if my holster is bumping against you,” he said after a moment. “These days I wear it everywhere.”
“I cannot feel it.”
“Well, then, guess I’d better hold you a little closer,” he said with a laugh. “You carrying your pistol?”
She nodded.
He tightened his arm across her back. “You sure? I can’t feel it.”
That made her laugh, half in outrage and half in amusement. Good heavens, underneath this tough, unflappable lawman exterior, Hawk Rivera was just a man like any other.
No, not like any other. Her breath stopped. Hawk was different, so different she had let him kiss her, not once but twice, and now she was letting him hold her close in his arms, feeling his breath stir her hair.
Expertly he fended off the men who wanted to cut in, keeping her back to them and swinging her away just as male after male sidled forward, arm raised to tap Hawk on the shoulder.
A glow of warmth spread through her chest. Hawk was protecting her from all of them.
She began to relax her stiff spine. He must have felt it because he pulled her even closer, so close that her nose brushed his muslin-clad shoulder. He smelled of wood smoke and something spicy and male that made her stomach feel funny.
She wasn’t used to being held like this, face-to-face. It made her jittery. Apprehensive. It reminded her of…
She willed her mind to move elsewhere, to the chatter of people around them, the violin music that grew wilder and more uninhibited than any violin sounds she’d ever heard. She studied the children on the sidelines, and the women, some young and smooth-skinned, rocking babes against their breasts, and some older with graying hair pulled into buns and steel-rimmed spectacles, fanning themselves with folded paper fans.
Hawk stopped angling her away from the hopeful men at the edge of the dance floor, and she prayed they had all given up.
He had also stopped talking. Instead he just held her and let his body do the talking. His hand at her back was warm and insistent, pulling her into his chest until her breasts touched his shirt and the nipples tingled.
She realized she had never danced with a grown man before. The gangly boys at the dancing academy had never held her like this; they scarcely knew how to move their huge, clumsy feet. But she liked dancing with Hawk, and that surprised her. She liked hearing his breath pull in and out and grow ragged when she looked up at him, liked feeling his heart thump under his blue shirt.
After an hour they stopped at the refreshment table, cobbled together out of two sawhorses and three two-by-twelve boards. Hawk ordered lemonade for her and beer for himself, and in his typical fashion he ignored making introductions. Maybe he didn’t want her name too well-known around town. Or maybe Ilsa was right; Hawk had very rough manners.
She found she didn’t care. Maddie Silver smiled at her from across the room, as did Jeanne Halliday, the mother of little Manette, the girl Billy insisted he was not sweet on. Eli was busy partnering Ilsa and then young Noralee Ness and then a beaming Fernanda, who danced with real verve.
It was unexpectedly pleasant being here, she decided, sipping her lemonade. But she knew it would all change when she spoke her piece to the townspeople and Hawk got ready to spring his trap. He’d told her he knew deep down it was the only way to catch her assailant.
Then people would begin to take sides and arguments would start, questions would erupt from hostile listeners. And all those men who now wanted to cut in on Hawk on the dance floor would yell insults at her and harangue against their wives or girlfriends for even listening to her.
But she had to do it. Someone, a lot of someones, must carry the message to everyone who lived in this great and good country so that they could all be truly free and equal. But the next time she gave a speech she would, as Hawk warned, be once again in the line of fire.
She downed two more cups of lemonade and tried to calm her nerves. Eventually Hawk guided her over to Marshal Johnson and his very pregnant wife, Ellie, and went in search of Jericho Silver. The instant he disappeared, Caroline noted that the marshal stepped away from his wife and stood apart, scanning the throng of dancers and onlookers, his hand resting casually on his holstered revolver.
Maddie Silver smiled and patted the bench beside her.
“Someone is always watching over you, Caroline. You need not worry when you dance with Hawk.”
“Oh! I must confess I wasn’t even thinking of that. I was thinking of Hawk. How shortsighted of me!”
Maddie gave an unladylike hoot of laughter. “And you imagine when Hawk is out there on the floor with his arms around you, he is thinking about anything as unromantic as guarding you?” She sighed in mock distress, then leaned closer.
“Hawk is thinking only about dancing with you, Caroline. I have never seen our sheriff so, um, shall I say inattentive to his duties.”
Hawk strode across the room to claim Caroline again, a frown creasing his forehead and his dark eyebrows lowered.
In an instant Jericho was beside him. “Trouble?”
“Hell, yes, you smart-ass sharpshooter,” he muttered under his breath. “Woman trouble.”
Jericho glanced sideways at his wife, then slapped a friendly hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “Hell’s half acre, Hawk, I never thought I’d see you flinch that way. You know, my friend, that woman trouble is the worst kind of trouble a man can have.”
Chapter Twenty
I am worry for my lady. Here in this house of the sister of Señor Hawk she is safe, but I see in her face a true thing. She is worry too much.
&n
bsp; All is kindness in this place, and my lady goes about freely. Señor Hawk has guards who are watch over her, but she is still fear something. Maybe she does not grow fond of this house because she knows to leave soon.
I have fear for this trap Señor Hawk is plan for sometime soon. If is a mistake, my lady will suffer.
Sunday morning after Jensen’s barn dance, Caroline found herself alone in the kitchen with Ilsa. When Billy’s mother had suggested he attend church with Eli, the old man’s gray-speckled eyebrows had risen in surprise, but at a look from Ilsa, he had marched the grumbling boy out the front door just as the church bell began to toll.
Caroline stood at the stove stirring a kettle of strawberry jam. Ilsa’s jam disappeared from the glass jelly dish faster than the fresh-churned three-pound blocks of butter purchased from the mercantile. Now the entire kitchen smelled heavenly, rich and fruity.
“Hawk has gone over to the sheriff’s office,” Ilsa said in answer to Caroline’s unspoken question. “Sandy, his deputy, is a staunch Methodist—never misses a Sunday service.”
Caroline nodded. Fernanda had just left for Mass at the Catholic Church. “Come, sit down,” Ilsa invited. “I will pour you some coffee.”
“I am not the least bit tired, Ilsa.” She gave the jam a double figure-eight pass with the wooden spatula.
“Sit down anyway, Caroline. I want to tell you something.”
“Oh? What about?”
“About Hawk.”
Her stirring arm halted. “What is it? Has something happened?”
Ilsa purposefully set her mug down on the bleached muslin tablecloth. “It’s about something that did happen, years ago. I want to tell you about it.”
With an odd premonition, Caroline lifted the kettle off the heat and sank onto the straight-back chair opposite Hawk’s older sister. “Tell me.”
“It was years ago, when Hawk was a young man. I had married and left home by that time, but when this occurred, I came back to Butte City.” Ilsa rose to fill Caroline’s coffee mug.
“Hawk was married when he was just seventeen. Did you know that?”
Caroline tried to keep the surprise out of her voice. “No, I did not.”
“To a young half-Spanish, half-Cherokee girl. Her name was Whitefern. She was quite beautiful. Our mother did not approve, but Hawk married her anyway, and she came to live with them on the ranch.” Ilsa hesitated.
Caroline sipped her coffee and waited.
“My stepfather, that is Hawk’s father, didn’t like Whitefern. Maybe it was because she was part Indian and he was half-Indian himself, so he disliked that part of himself because now he was Don Luis with the big ranchera and the beautiful English wife.”
Caroline noticed that there was little coffee in Ilsa’s mug. She started to rise. “Shall I fill your cup for you?”
“No. I need to finish this before Hawk returns.”
A feeling of foreboding settled over Caroline like a shroud of black fog. Whatever it was, she knew instinctively that Hawk would not like Ilsa’s telling her about it.
“Whitefern became pregnant and had a child. A boy. Don Luis was furious. He didn’t want a part-Indian grandson inheriting the ranch someday, even though his own son was one-quarter Cherokee.
“One night there was a terrible argument at the ranch house. Our mother sided with Hawk and Whitefern, but Don Luis would not listen. He sent Hawk into Butte City to bring a lawyer, and that night Whitefern took the baby and slipped off to return to her people in Mexico. Our mother went with her. Hawk knew nothing about it until…”
The hair on the back of Caroline’s neck bristled. “Until?” She could scarcely voice the question because she didn’t want to hear the answer.
Ilsa toyed with her mug of cold coffee, turning it around and around on the tablecloth until Caroline couldn’t stand it one more minute. Gently she laid her hand over the older woman’s work-worn one. “Tell me the rest.”
Ilsa brushed her fingers across her eyes, then laid her hand in her lap. “There was an ambush. Somewhere out on the desert, on the way to the border, three men kidnapped Whitefern and the baby. And Momma. The next day…” Her voice choked off.
“The next day a neighboring rancher rode in and told Don Luis what he had found. Two women, one white, one part Mexican, had been raped and mutilated so badly they were almost unrecognizable. The baby’s skull had been smashed in.”
Caroline knew she was going to vomit. She dropped her head and concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths until the bile in her throat receded. “Go on.”
“Don Luis sent a vaquero into town to find Hawk, and the two of them set out to bury the remains and track down the killers. Even then, Hawk could track better than anyone in the territory. But I wish he had never found what he found.”
Caroline nodded in silence.
“On the way back to the ranch, someone shot Don Luis. He died before Hawk could get him home.”
Ilsa paused and closed her eyes. “Hawk was never the same after that.”
“Dear God in heaven,” Caroline whispered.
“Hawk went to the Texas Rangers and told them he was going to hunt down the three men, and when he found them he was going to kill them. I remember he said they were going to die slowly. Hawk has enough Indian in him to know about such things. I never wanted to know what he meant.
“Anyway, he joined the Rangers so he wouldn’t hang for murder because he was acting on his own. It took him almost a year, but he did find the men, and he did kill them. Because he wore a Texas Ranger star, he was held blameless. He was just nineteen years old.”
Caroline swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Ilsa, how did you find out about all this?”
“Hawk told me. When I came home to help at the ranch, he told me everything. I hated the place, especially after that, and Hawk was terrible to live with in those days. Later, Billy and I moved to Oregon, to Smoke River.”
Ilsa’s voice wavered, but it was Caroline who was sobbing. “Oh, Caroline, I should not have told you.” The older woman touched her arm.
“Why did you?” Caroline said through her tears.
Ilsa fished a plain handkerchief from her skirt pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Because I thought you should know why I am now going to say something to you that is really none of my business.”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. “What is it? Just say it.”
“Don’t hurt him, Caroline. I think my brother is beginning to care for you. Please, please, don’t hurt him.”
*
Fernanda watched Caroline scrubbing a pair of Billy’s jeans over the metal washboard and shook her head. “Mi corazón, you are work too hard in this heat. Let me—”
“No.” Caroline’s voice sounded as if she had been weeping, and that was very strange. She ducked her head and continued to rub at a stubborn grass stain. Tears splashed down into the soapy wash water. “I need to do this.”
“Ah,” Fernanda sighed. “Then I will see more inside what needs to do.” She pressed Caroline’s shoulder, then moved through the back door into the kitchen.
Hawk sat at the table, hunched over a mug of coffee.
“Señor,” Fernanda said softly. “Do you know why my lady scrub at washboard and weep?”
Hawk’s head jerked up. “No. Why is she?”
“Which, why she scrub? Or why she weep?”
“Weep, of course.” With one boot he kicked a chair out for the Mexican woman to sit down. When she did, he reached over and touched her hand. “I dunno why she’s crying, Fernanda. We haven’t had words, and I haven’t done anything dumb. At least I don’t think I have.”
“What does ‘have words’ mean? We, now, are ‘have words,’ no?”
Hawk grinned at her. “‘Have words’ means to have bad words. Like an argument.”
Fernanda nodded. “Caroline is good girl. She has never like ‘bad words.’ Maybe she is too, how you say, soft?”
“She’s soft, all right. Sure as shooti
n’, she’s all woman.”
Fernanda sat up straight. “And you, señor? You are ‘all man’ as I hear it is said?”
He stared at her. “That’s a mighty odd question. What is it you really want to know?”
“Señor, I know something of men. Once in Mexico I was much courted, so I know of men.”
“Yeah? What do you know?” Hawk always liked talking with Fernanda; she usually had something worth saying. He was beginning to like this conversation even better because it was about Caroline.
“I know, señor, that men desire women.”
“Hell, that’s not new. Ever since Adam and Eve—”
Fernanda looked straight into his eyes without the usual twinkle in her shiny black depths. “And I know that sometimes is only that a man has itch and he wants to scratch it. Comprende?”
Hawk said nothing. Did Fernanda think he—
Hell, yes, she did think that. And she thought that because he did have an itch, an overwhelming, aching itch, he damn well wanted to scratch it.
He met the Mexican woman’s steady gaze. Fernanda was telling him something in addition: do not scratch his itch with Caroline.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Fishing?” Caroline stopped stirring the bubbling kettle of applesauce and stared at Hawk’s nephew. “Thank you, Billy, but I don’t think—”
“Aw, c’mon, Miss Caroline. I bet you never been fishing back in Boston. Bet you don’t know how to bait a hook or nothin’.”
She wiped the perspiration from her forehead and smiled at the boy. “No, I can’t say that I do.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Billy insisted. He jiggled a metal bucket in front of her. “Worms,” he explained.
She risked a peek and wished she hadn’t. A mass of pink crawly things writhed at the bottom of Billy’s pail. The thought of touching the wriggly things turned her stomach.
“Please,” Billy begged. “Mama packed a picnic basket. Besides, you can’t make applesauce all day.”
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