Wild Hawk

by Justine Davis, Justine Dare

  Kendall watched as he hung up. “Problem?”

  He got up and started toward her. He’d already been up and taken a shower before she’d even awakened this morning; his hair was still wet and slicked back.

  “No. Just thought I’d get my one phone call in ahead of time, before Alice sics the cops on us,” he said, grinning as if there wasn’t every likelihood that exactly that could happen.

  He’d reached her then, settled his hands lightly on her shoulders, and bent to kiss her thoroughly. Instinctively her hands came up to rest on his chest. He hadn’t put on a shirt yet, and the feel of his skin, satin smooth over hard, fit muscle, distracted her nearly as much as the feel of his lips on hers again did.

  It shouldn’t have this effect, she thought dazedly when at last he broke away from the kiss. Not after last night, not after the hours they’d spent proving that it wasn’t a fluke, this lightning that flashed between them. Not after they’d been so wild her body still ached from the unfamiliar use, and his bore the marks of her fervent response in more than one reddened line left by her nails. And they both had a few other marks to show for the night’s work as well. And in some very interesting places.

  No, it shouldn’t have this effect on her, just a simple good morning kiss and the fact that he had no shirt on. Not when he’d kissed every inch of her, and she’d explored every inch of him, repeatedly. Yet it did. And when he at last released her, she wondered vaguely if he knew that. If perhaps that was why he’d done it, so that she would be distracted from what he’d been saying on the phone. Not that there had been anything curious about it, except for that remark about playing it along for a while longer. But at the moment, even if he had done it to distract her, she couldn’t manage to care.

  She set down the towel she’d been using on her hair and picked up the big, blunt-toothed comb she had bought at a drugstore they’d stopped at after their trip to court yesterday. Jason hadn’t wanted to go back to the motel for their things yet, although he’d admitted that by now Alice probably knew where they were; he’d only expected his ruse with the airline tickets to give them a day. But it had been the day they’d needed, Kendall thought, to begin to stop Alice.

  “So,” Jason said, to Kendall’s disappointment, pulling on his shirt, and then leaning a hip against the sink counter as she began the somewhat laborious task of untangling her hair, “how long do you think it will take the old bat to rally the troops?”

  Kendall considered that for a moment. “Aaron was once able to hold an emergency board meeting within twelve hours. But that was before things were quite so scattered. There are a couple of people on the board who are some distance away, now. It will take time for them to get here.”

  “And they may not be willing to jump quite so fast for Alice?”

  She hadn’t come out and said it, but he didn’t miss a thing, Kendall thought. He rarely did. “Not right away. But she won’t waste any time making sure they see things her way when they get here.”

  “From where?”

  She paused in her combing. She wasn’t sure why it mattered to him, but she answered anyway. “John Corelli’s in St. Louis, he’s the farthest. The rest are fairly close.”

  “But not all in California?”

  “No.”

  She glanced at him in the mirror, wondering why he wanted to know, since it had no bearing on their problem. She tugged at a stubborn knot at the back of her head, then moved the comb to work at the tangle from beneath.

  “Here,” he said, moving to stand behind her, “let me do that.”

  Before she could protest he’d taken the comb and was working with a surprising gentleness at the tangle, barely causing a tug at her sensitive scalp.

  “So the BOD is scattered all over? Even those here on the coast?”

  BOD? Odd that he would use the abbreviation for board of directors, Kendall thought. She looked at him in the mirror again, but he appeared to be concentrating solely on her hair.

  “Besides Corelli, Paul Barker is in Seattle,” she said after a moment. “Martin Burr is in Phoenix. Two are original investors, still in California. The sixth seat has never been taken, Aaron always voted a proxy.”

  “Hmm.”

  It was a sound of neutral acknowledgment, as if he hadn’t really cared about the answer, but had just been making conversation. And there really was no reason for him to care where the board members were. Perhaps, she thought wryly, he was just making sure the conversation didn’t drift to something he didn’t want to talk about. Like them.

  He’d sorted out the tangle now, but rather than turning the comb back to her, he began on another section of her hair. She could feel his heat, knew if she leaned back it would sear her. And they would most likely wind up back in bed. She resisted the urge.

  He moved unhurriedly, as if he had nothing better to do than deal with the mass of her hair. He never pulled too hard, just worked through the strands until he was able to comb through them in one long, smooth motion. Slowly. As if he was enjoying it. As she certainly was; she was a little surprised at how good it felt to have him lavish so much care on such a mundane task for her. He kept on long after the tangles were gone.

  “So that’s it,” she said teasingly when at last he stopped, “you’re a hairdresser.”

  She heard him chuckle. “Hardly.”

  She turned and took the comb from him, and walked across the room to where her purse sat on the small desk, to pull out the scarf she planned to use to control her wet locks.

  “No? What, then?”

  She looked back at him in time to glimpse a look of caution on his face before he said, “I . . . still work with marine diesels, sometimes, but I work with boats, mostly.”

  She began to pull her hair back and tie the scarf around it. It would dry into a flyaway mass, but she didn’t want to take the time right now to use the hair dryer on it.

  “Like the fishing boat you worked on as a kid?” she asked as she looped the scarf into a small bow.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes bigger ones, sometimes smaller ones.” He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Half the population in Seattle is connected with boats somehow, I think.”

  “Makes for job security, I imagine,” she said.

  He smiled at her, and she decided to take advantage of the fact that he had at least answered her this time. Besides, she wanted to know what he did with boats that had netted him a platinum credit card. A corporate one. Perhaps he had an exceptionally generous boss, who’d loaned it to him to come to his father’s funeral.

  “So what do you do with these boats? Work on—”

  The ringing of the phone right beside her made her jump, startled. George, she thought. He was the only one she’d given the number here to.

  Jason took a step toward her as she reached for the receiver, then stopped as she picked it up and said hello. He didn’t look very happy, and she wondered if perhaps he’d given the number to someone and had been expecting a call back.

  “Kendall?”

  Alton’s voice told her she’d been right in her guess, but he sounded tentative, cautious.

  “I thought it must be you. What—”

  “Is West there with you?”

  “Yes, right—”

  “Then don’t say who you’re talking to. I don’t know what his game is, but he’s up to something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tell you the rest later, but have you ever heard of North Pacific Marine Services?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if you were anywhere near Seattle, you would have,” Alton said, sounding a bit morose. “They’re one of the biggest marine supply, repair, and salvage operations in Puget Sound. They supply parts, repair everything from engines to sails, and salvage what can’t be repaired.”


  Kendall forced herself not to look at Jason. Was this where he had gotten the corporate card? Oh, God, was he in trouble? Had he taken it without authorization or something?

  “The owner started out with just a small diesel repair shop,” George said, “then added the salvage operation, and built it up from there over the last fifteen years.”

  “So?” Kendall said carefully.

  “So, it seems that the owner of the company is also worth a mint because a couple of years ago he came up with some new desalinization process that makes small-scale conversion of salt water to fresh twice as efficient and four times as fast.”

  Kendall took a deep breath. “And?”

  “And that owner who’s worth millions just happens to be Jason West.”

  She hung up without another word, and turned to stare at Jason.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “NO WONDER YOU weren’t worried about going to jail.”

  “Kendall—”

  She ignored him. “Nobody would believe you’d perpetrate a fraud for twenty-five million dollars when you’re worth twenty times that.”

  “Not quite.” He smiled, although he looked a little wary. “But not bad for a kid with a GED, huh?”

  She ignored that, too, except for vaguely registering that somewhere along the line he’d gotten his diploma after all. She ignored everything, except the gnawing pain that had settled somewhere between her heart and her stomach. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could ease the distress. It had no effect at all. She sank down on the edge of the bed. Jason took a step toward her, but halted when she drew away from him.

  “But you just let me blunder along,” she said. “Did you enjoy watching me worry myself sick about seeing that you got Aaron’s bequest? Did it amuse you to hear that Aaron worried about how you were living, whether you were in need? Did you—”

  “Kendall, stop.”

  “Stop? All right, I’ll stop. As soon as you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Exactly what I told you,” Jason said. “I’m going to take Alice down.”

  She stared up at him, seeing in his face more implacability and ruthlessness than she had ever seen in Aaron’s. It made her shiver. Had she been blind?

  No. She’d seen it in him before. She just hadn’t wanted to believe that’s all there was in him. For her own foolish reasons. But right now, she would swear there was nothing in him but determination and single-mindedness. She’d known the desire for revenge against Alice for his mother’s death was part of what was driving him. She had accepted that, could even understand it. She just hadn’t understood it was his sole motive. But now, looking at his eyes, fierce with hatred, she couldn’t doubt that it was.

  “Losing what Aaron left you will hardly ruin her.”

  “I know.”

  Her stomach knotted even tighter. She stared at him. It was impossible to believe this was the same man who had made such sweet, passionate love to her, who had held her so tenderly, the man who had laughed with her just yesterday. There was nothing of sweetness or tenderness or laughter in this man, and the only passion she saw was a passion for vengeance.

  “But you’re going to . . . take her down.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But rest assured I will do it.” He turned and walked away from her then, to stop and stare out the window of the room. “I’ve been planning this for years.”

  Kendall got to her feet. “Years? You only just found out she killed your mother.”

  “It’s a small matter of . . . adjusting my sights.”

  She looked at his back; even from here she could see the rigidity there. “You’ve been planning for years,” she repeated slowly. “Whatever it is, it was originally for Aaron, wasn’t it? What is it, Jason? What are you going to do?”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “And if I tell you? What will you do?”

  She stared at him. “You think I’d help Alice?”

  “No. But what would you do for Aaron?”

  “Aaron?”

  “Leave it alone, Kendall. You did your job. You’re out of it now. Stay that way.”

  She surged to her feet. “That’s it? ‘You’re out of it’? I’m supposed to walk away?”

  “You’ll be better off. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” She stared at him. “How can I trust you, when I don’t even know who you are?”

  “You know all you need to know. Stay out of it,” he repeated. “And don’t worry about Alice’s threats. I’ll take care of that. I won’t let her do anything to you.”

  “No side-by-side jail cells after all?” She hated how bitter she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. “There go all my foolish, romantic notions.”

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. “I warned you.”

  “Yes. Yes you did, didn’t you?” She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “What are you going to do, Jason?”

  He shook his head. “There’s too much riding on this.”

  “So I’m supposed to trust you, but you won’t even trust me enough to tell me what’s happening?”

  His jaw tightened. “I’ve already trusted you more than I’ve trusted anybody since I was sixteen.”

  “And you barely trust me at all,” Kendall whispered. “My God, you really are Aaron’s son. In mind as well as blood.” She gestured, a little wildly, at the bed. “And what was this for, Jason? Did you enjoy . . . taking me to bed, knowing I had no idea who you really were? Or was this some kind of twisted way to strike at Aaron? You couldn’t hurt him, but—”

  “It wasn’t like that—”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “Let it be, Kendall. If you push anymore, you may not like what you find.”

  She was sure she wouldn’t. She wanted to run. Somewhere. Anywhere. To get away from this pain. A pain she somehow sensed was only beginning. Whatever he wasn’t telling her, it was going to hurt her even more. But there was nowhere to run to.

  I don’t want to run.

  Remember you said that.

  Her promise and his reply echoed in her mind. He’d known they would come to this. He’d never believed anything else.

  “Stay out of it, Kendall,” he said for a third time.

  He glanced at his watch, then back at her face. For a moment she thought he was going to say something else, but then he turned and walked away from her. Kendall stared after him, shaken, watching the door swing shut behind him as he strode out of the room. She stood there for a long time.

  She supposed everyone had to be a fool at least once in their life. And she was feeling like a pretty sizable one right now, after serving as a no doubt continuous source of amusement for Jason for four days. She couldn’t bear to think of it, not here in this room, where she’d lain in his arms and let him do anything he wanted to her, and done things she’d never imagined to him.

  Hastily she finished dressing. She stuffed the few items she’d acquired into her purse, slung it over her shoulder, then picked up the box that still held Aaron’s letters and the extra copies of the codicil. And the book.

  Stay out of it, Kendall.

  She set the box down.

  All right. Stay out of it she would. She’d put up with Aaron Hawk, and Alice Hawk, for ten years. She’d put up with—and fallen for—Jason Hawk for four days that seemed liked ten years. She’d had a bellyful of Hawk arrogance, of all kinds. And she was through. Jason could do whatever it was he was so set on doing to Alice, and he could do it alone.

  Leaving the box behind her, she left the room without a backward glance.

  She would have to rent a car, she thought as she rode down, trying not to remember the moment when she and Jason had come perilously close to making love in this very
same elevator.

  Having sex, she corrected herself brutally. That’s obviously all he thought it was. Not that he’d promised anything more; as he said, he’d warned her. It was her own fault for thinking it was more, her own fault for deceiving herself into believing he thought so, too. Her own fault for believing that the gentle, tender man had been the real one, and the ruthlessness a facade he’d adopted for self-protection.

  Why? Why on earth had she gone against the practices of a lifetime, acting totally against character, falling into bed with a man she barely knew, a man she knew so little about? Was it simply because he’d affected her in a way she’d never known? Was that all it took, a man whose touch set her aflame?

  The elevator door slid open. She stepped out, glad to be out of the confined space that was full of memories. She’d been safer, she thought, when she’d thought of him simply as Aaron’s son.

  Aaron’s son.

  God, was that what had happened to her? Had she been primed to fall for him? Had she had an instinctive soft spot for this man who so resembled his father? Had she never really had a chance?

  The door slid shut behind her with an audible thump, snapping her out of that particular useless pit of speculation. She would get a car and get out of here, she repeated to herself as she walked across the lobby with precise and determined strides. Then maybe she could think. She had to think, to decide what she was going to do next.

  When she nearly ran over an elderly lady in the lobby, she realized she’d better do a little more thinking about what she was doing now. She apologized profusely, then started for the doors again, this time watching where she was going. And this time, seeing the man who stood by the end of the registration counter, enthusiastically shaking hands with someone with his back to her.

  Paul Barker, she realized with a little shock. She hadn’t seen him since the annual board of directors’ meeting last year, Aaron’s last. Alice must really have called for that emergency meeting, if he was here already. Although why he was here at this hotel instead of at the house, where the directors usually stayed in the guest wing—an old-world style courtesy Aaron had always said cost him little and gained him much—she couldn’t imagine.