by Julie Miller
"No," Raul answered, readying his rifle and moving in to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Hawk. "My uncle trusted very few people. The man to whom he arranged to sell the artifacts is not Tenebrosan. He would not know his way here."
A ripple of unease quickened Sarah's heart. "Should I put the girls back in the truck? Hide them in the trees?"
She exchanged a look with Raul. The young man shrugged his shoulders and frowned, looking as clueless as she. He was simply following Hawk's lead, unwilling to let down his defensive duty.
Sarah clamped down on the urge to strike out at Hawk for frightening them all this way. Bracing her fists on her hips, she turned on him. "Damn it, Hawk, talk to me! I don't know what's going on, and you're scaring the hell out of me!"
His stony features softened when he looked down at her, his eyes scanning her upturned face. But he didn't smile. "Not very ladylike, schoolmarm. But always courageous, aren't you?" What he might have intended as a compliment sounded more like a whisper of regret. "I'm sorry." He nodded up ahead. "I think we're about to get rescued."
"How do you know?" she asked, her ire diminished by his odd lack of joy at the news.
"I just know."
He offered no further explanation. He walked forward a few steps, braced his legs and stowed his weapon over his shoulder, forming an imposing sentinel to greet the tan Humvee just now coming into Sarah's view.
The squat, sleek vehicle zipped toward them, unmindful of the road conditions. As it came closer, Sarah could make out the silhouettes of two men behind the windshield. When it came within fifty yards, the driver honked the horn several times. Hawk lifted his hand in greeting.
"It's okay." Sarah waved the girls forward.
The Hummer skidded to a halt, and the driver popped up from behind the wheel. The faded blue Kansas City Royals baseball cap perched on his tobacco-brown hair softened the crisp, mercenary formality of the jungle fatigues he wore.
"Shadow Man!" He vaulted over the door to the ground, a trim, six-foot-plus package of coiled energy. A pair of silver aviator-frame sunglasses only partially hid the devilish glint in his eyes. He held his hand outstretched as he bounded over to Hawk, who met him halfway.
"Rafe." Sarah marveled at the subtle easing of tension around Hawk's shoulders when the two men shook hands. "I wondered if anyone got my message."
The man named Rafe pulled off his glasses, revealing a pair of sparkling green eyes. "It was about time you called in. We'd been in El Espanto a whole twenty-four hours, wondering whether to bide our time or hire a reliable guide to come look for you."
"He is the only reliable guide."
Along with the others, Sarah shifted her focus to the second man. He climbed more slowly out of the vehicle and walked toward them, swaying from side to side in a stiff-legged limp. Despite his irregular gait, he carried his shoulders with the regal pride of a military man. His close-cropped cinnamon-brown hair reinforced her observation even before Hawk spoke.
"Major."
"Those days are long past, Hawk." He extended his hand, taking the sting out of his clipped correction.
"Kel."
"Good to see you in one piece." Keeping hold of Hawk's hand, Kel pulled his arm to the side and looked at the hanging tatters of Hawk's bloody shirt. Lifting one brow with a cynical twist, he revised his greeting. "Good to see you, at least. Is that the medical attention you mentioned?"
"Nothing a shot of penicillin won't fix." Hawk pulled his fingers back and splayed them across his hips, nodding to either side and, for the first time, including Sarah and the others in their conversation. "We've got minor scrapes and abrasions, probably a few blisters. Not that any of them would complain."
Hawk's compliment garnered tired, proud smiles from the girls and Raul. "I'm more concerned about the preliminary stages of dehydration and exposure. I'd like to get a solid meal into these kids."
"How do cheeseburgers sound?" Rafe walked past Hawk, introducing himself to each of the girls, one by one.
"Cheeseburgers?" echoed Lynnette.
Rafe's smile crooked with boyish enthusiasm. "Complete with high-fat French fries and the paper wrappers to match."
"Yes!"
"Real food."
"Do you have any ketchup?"
The enthusiasm of the girls' responses to his tempting offer would have misled a stranger about the level of their fatigue.
"American cheeseburgers?" questioned Raul. Sarah's heart warmed at the sound of lust in his voice. He'd acted as a man on their trek, but he still had the bottomless stomach of an eighteen-year-old boy. "I have never eaten one."
Rafe turned and clapped him on the shoulder, smiling. "You can eat as many as you want. Only the best for Kel Murphy. When we heard Hawk put teenagers on his team, he had the banquet flown in from Florida."
"Quit flirting, Del Rio. They're just kids," warned Kel.
Rafe stepped in front of Sarah, removing his hat and capturing her hand in one smooth gesture. "Not all of them."
With a flourish of old-world charm, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. He tilted his head up and winked at her. Suddenly she was keenly aware of the chapped condition of her lips, the sunburn on her nose, and the unkempt wildness of her hair. Sarah's gaze flew up to Hawk, questioning the sincerity of the appreciation reflected in Rafe's eyes. But the heat in her cheeks went unnoticed, as Hawk had taken Kel aside for an urgent, whispered discussion.
Uncomfortable with Rafe's close scrutiny, she licked her dry lips and pulled away, thrown off-kilter at the sudden change of events. She'd been in survival mode for so long, enduring physical stress and emotional upheavals, that it left her struggling now to remember some basic rules of social etiquette—such as answering when spoken to.
But this wasn't a man with a gun threatening her students, and it wasn't a journey across miles of unfamiliar terrain. This was just a man. A man with enough boyish charm to remind her of one of her students. She breathed in deeply and forced herself to look into Rafe's striking green eyes.
"I assume you're friends of Hawk's?" she asked, embarrassed by the shaky quality of her voice.
"I'm Rafael Del Rio," he said, easily excusing the lull in the conversation. "We served in the Corps together a few years back. My friends call me Rafe. The serious guy's Kelton Murphy."
That name sounded familiar, but in the midst of remembering her manners, keeping a nervous eye on Hawk, worrying about getting the girls a regular meal and a full night's rest, and trying to judge the level of sincerity in Rafe's flirtations, she couldn't place him. She filed the information away to consider later and found herself able to answer Rafe with a genuine smile. "Then I take it you're not the serious one."
"Not if I can help it."
She laughed at the severe face he made. The buoyant release tapped into the capped well of repressed emotions buried inside her. Rafe joined her laughter, eliminating any self-consciousness she felt. His gift of humor lightened the burden of shyness she carried on her shoulders.
But her laughter dissipated at the abrupt end to Hawk's conversation with Kel. He swung around to look at her, his heated focus pinning her across the heavy air as clearly as the urgent stroke of his hand on her skin. She saw a flicker of light in his shadowy midnight eyes, read the question crinkling around the corners of his mouth.
She curled her lips into a silent O. "What…?"
But he blinked and the light vanished. He turned back to Kel. "Do you think we can do that?"
Kel nodded, his face a grim mask. "I'll make the arrangements. Give me a day to get it done."
Get what done? What dreadful secret was Hawk hiding from her now? For a brief instant, when she had laughed, it was as if he had awakened from the spell of the seasoned warrior and become the gentle spirit-healer she had fallen in love with. But in the blink of an eye that man had vanished, and the silent mercenary had replaced him.
Kel whispered something else to Hawk, who eyed him for a moment before giving a single nod. Then Kel raised his
voice for all to hear and snapped an order to Rafe. "Break out the canteens and let's get some water to these kids."
"You bet."
The girls and Raul eagerly traipsed after Rafe to the back of the Hummer. Kel retrieved a map from beneath the front seat and spread it open across the hood. "Hawk?"
The two men leaned over the map and fell into a deep, hushed conversation, pointing out geographic positions and plotting some sort of strategy. Sarah crossed her arms and rubbed at the sudden chill spreading through her. Abandonment. She recognized the symptoms. She was an old hand at dealing with the overwhelming loneliness that could attack a person unaware. She'd lost the important people in her life, or been betrayed by them. And now, with Hawk… maybe she'd already lost him two hours ago. If he'd ever been hers to lose.
Before the numbing paralysis of self-pity could overtake her, Sarah moved to the back of the truck and began to rearrange the crates that had been moved to accommodate the kids. She climbed inside, stepping over backpacks to continue her work.
Busy hands, her aunts had often advised her, after losing her parents. Busy hands will heal your heart. It was Millie and Doris's own platitude. Sarah didn't know if she believed in the healing part of it, but she knew that staying busy provided a practical distraction from debilitating thoughts. She could wear herself out until she was too tired to think one way or the other about her pain.
She leaned her shoulder into a crate and pushed it into the center to balance the load of the truck. Weary from her brain to her toes, she sighed as she straightened, then reached for the next crate. An iron hand cinched her around the waist from behind. Startled, she had no chance to protest when Hawk lifted her from the back of the truck.
Still holding her, he pulled her back flush to his chest and circled his other arm around the front of her shoulders. He dipped his lips to the crown of her hair and rocked her back and forth, holding her tight.
"I've never heard you laugh before." His lips brushed against her ear. She felt a trembling in his powerful arms, heard the hesitancy in his soft voice. "You sounded so free, so open. I'm glad you can be. We haven't beaten you yet, have we?"
"We?" she said in a shaky voice, thanking heaven for his reassuring embrace, yet questioning the underlying message he hadn't put into words.
His arms stiffened. She felt him withdraw inside himself before he pulled away. For a flashing moment, Sarah wished she had Hawk's powers of perception so she could understand what demon was torturing him so. But she had no such magic, only a rusty feminine intuition that advised her to hold her tongue about deeper matters and keep the conversation light and impersonal to give him the space and time he needed to wrestle with that demon.
She turned and faced him, trying to align her mouth into a teasing grin. "Have you two figured out your battle strategy?"
She glimpsed the regret stamped in stone across his features before he, too, forced a slight smile. "Think you can drive a little farther?"
"If the truck can make it, I can."
"Good." The strain eased around his mouth. "Kel says we're only five miles out of town. He's rented a house on the outskirts of El Espanto. There we can rest, eat, get cleaned up. We're almost home."
Sarah had never felt farther from home in her entire life. "If you say so."
He raised his hand and brushed the back of his knuckles across her cheek. She understood the mute apology, but wished she understood what he was apologizing for. "Be patient with me, schoolmarm. I know you want to know about Luis and the others."
His gaze danced around her face, and she knew he was reading her aura. "I need to tell you about me. There are still some things… “He splayed his fingers, cupping her cheek before pushing them into the wispy curls behind her ear. Sarah leaned into the caress.
"What things?" she prompted, closing her eyes to savor the warmth of his rough palm on her skin.
"Just be patient. Please?" He pressed the pad of his thumb against the pout of her lower lip. He stroked it across her mouth, beseeching her. Her eyes shot open and she lifted her chin, granting him permission. He kissed her deeply, reverently, and all too quickly to satiate her wounded heart.
Then he pulled away without another word and walked around to climb into the passenger side of the truck. Sarah stood there a moment longer, nursing the sting on her lips with her tongue, and fortifying her courage. Maybe during this week with Hawk she had picked up a few of his talents for observation, after all.
She might never understand men.
But she understood fear.
And she wondered just what it took to make a man like Hawk afraid.
Chapter Twelve
"You know the unwritten rule." Sarah recognized the odd inflections of Rafe Del Rio's voice through the open doorway. "Nobody goes into Tenebrosa alone. I couldn't believe it when Brodie called and said you'd come down here. Hell, the name of the capital, El Espanto, means terror."
Terror?
Sarah tucked herself into the shadows of the deserted hallway. With the staff retired for the night, she'd encountered no one on her way to the kitchen for a glass of water. The single light shining from the library downstairs caught her attention. At first she thought someone had left it on by mistake, so she went to turn it off.
But the sound of hushed masculine voices turned her conservation effort into unintentional eavesdropping.
"What did you hope to accomplish with a bunch of kids tagging along that we couldn't do?" asked Rafe.
"I didn't come here to find Jonathan," answered Hawk. His softly modulated tones tightened with the barest hint of what Sarah thought to be his well-controlled temper.
"This place has too many ghosts for any of us. You more than most." Kel was talking now, his cultured voice laced with a touch of cynicism. A few moments of silence passed. Sarah caught her breath and inhaled the rich tang of tobacco smoke. "So why did you come here?"
"To pay an old debt."
"Nobody blames you for the colonel's disappearance."
Sarah leaned closer to the door frame to hear Hawk's response. "I do."
"Does Sarah know what you're planning?" Kel's question hung in the air like the aroma of their cigars.
"She's been through enough," said Hawk. "I'm counting on you to see her and the girls safely home.”
"You know we will," answered Rafe.
Hawk wasn't going home with them? Planning what? Sarah pressed her hand over her stomach to quell the rise of panic and impending loss inside her. No! she cried in her mind. Don't abandon me. Not yet. You said you needed time. Hawk, please, just give me more time…
The sound of chair legs scraping across the wooden floor halted her silent plea. She flattened her back against the wall, but knew, too late, that she'd been discovered.
"Sarah?"
When Hawk spoke her name from the doorway, she couldn't very well deny her presence. She didn't think she'd made a sound, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. He simply knew she was there.
She pulled the white cotton robe more tightly around her, holding it together with a fist at her neck. She stepped into the light spilling out around Hawk's silhouette. From this angle, she couldn't see the expression on his face, only the distinctive outline of his long, sleek hair falling to his broad shoulders.
Unsure if he was angry or not, she simply apologized. "I saw the light and heard voices."
"Sarah, come in." Kel issued the invitation, not Hawk. But Hawk turned politely and she brushed past him, not touching him, but close enough to inhale the damp, clean scent of his freshly washed hair and skin, close enough for every responding pore of her body to prick into a sea of goose bumps.
Rafe stood at the window, with a long-neck bottle of beer dangling between his fingers. Kel tapped his cigar into an ashtray and stood, adjusting his balance on his feet. Hawk stayed behind her.
Kel gestured to the seat across the desk from him. "Can I get you anything?"
"No, thanks. I wanted a glass of water. I didn't mean to intrude
."
"You're not." Despite her refusal, he opened a bottle of water from the bar behind his desk and handed it to her. Years of practicing good manners made her sit in the wicker chair and take a few sips.
Only then did Kel resume his seat. "Is everything to your liking? The girls are fine?"
Sarah fingered the collar of her robe. It matched the lace-trimmed cotton gown she wore beneath. Without knowing sizes or clothing tastes, Kel had arranged for nightclothes and daywear for each of his guests. This simple button-front chemise was probably the most feminine thing she'd ever worn to bed, and it fit her like a dream.
"The girls are out for the count. Even Lynnette gave up on her journal and fell asleep an hour ago. You've been more than generous."
"Kel's the master scrounger." Rafe pushed away from the window and plopped down in the seat beside her, lifting his bottle in a toast. "If you need anything, he can make it happen."
"I'd like to repay you somehow."
Kel shook his head and picked up his cigar again. "Think of it as a favor to a friend."
She followed his upward glance and discovered Hawk standing right behind her chair. He pulled the bottle from her hand and set it on the desk. Then he tugged on that same hand and pulled her to her feet. "I think I'll walk Sarah back to her room."
Tension sizzled through her hand where he touched her, like an electric current leaping from his fingers to hers. The bolt of energy zipped through her veins and lighted deep in her belly. She caught her breath, startled by the thrilling surprise of her body's reaction to his touch and the soft, firm promise in his voice. Embarrassed by the overwhelming rush of sensation that heated her cheeks, she tried to pull away and excuse herself, but Hawk tightened his fingers around hers.
"Good night, gentlemen," he said.
Both men stood, acknowledging Hawk and nodding to Sarah.
She stumbled through thanking her host and rescuer. "Good night, Rafe. Mr. Murphy."
Rafe's grin creased his mouth into a well-worn smile. "'Night, Sarah."