“Our trust in each other,” Tate finished.
They shared a tender kiss to seal the bargain. But it turned into something much more. Or would have, if Maria hadn’t interrupted them.
“Señor Adam, there is a man here with the new rodeo bull he says you must sign for.”
“I’m coming, Maria.”
Adam gave Tate another quick, hard kiss. “Until tonight.”
“Until tonight.” Tate managed a smile as he turned and left her. He had given her an awful lot to think about. But it was better to confront these issues now, before the baby came, than later. Garth had always said, “If you have a hill to climb, waiting won’t make it smaller.”
As Adam began to realize over the next several weeks, it was one thing to believe yourself trustworthy; it was quite another thing to earn someone’s trust.
He made love to Tate each night, revering her with words and gestures. But he never told her that he loved her. It was plain from the cautious way she watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking, that she wasn’t yet ready to hear the words—and believe them.
Maria got thoroughly disgusted watching Señor Adam and Señora Tate tiptoe around each other. She nagged at him in Spanish to tell Señora Tate he loved her and be done with it. “If you say it often enough, she will believe it,” Maria advised.
“Do you think so?” Adam asked. “Even if she thinks I’m lying through my teeth?”
“But you would not be lying!” Maria protested. “She will see what is in your eyes. And she will believe.”
Adam truly wished it were that simple. He was beginning to despair of ever convincing Tate that he loved her enough to want her both as his wife and the mother of his child.
The situation might have gone on unresolved, with both Adam and Tate less than happy, if Maria hadn’t decided to take matters into her own hands.
As far as Maria was concerned, it was as plain as white socks on a sorrel horse that Señor Adam loved the little señora, and that she loved him. The problem was getting the two of them to recognize what was right in front of their noses.
So right after lunch one day she sent Señor Adam off to the store to buy some spices she needed for dinner. She waited a half hour, then raced into the office where the señora was working.
“Señora Tate, come quick! There’s been an accident! Señor Adam—”
By the time Adam’s name was out of Maria’s mouth, Tate had already left her chair. She grabbed hold of Maria’s sleeve and demanded, “How badly is he hurt? What happened? Where is he?”
“It was the new Brahma bull, the one he has penned in the far pasture,” Maria said. “He was not watching closely enough and—”
“The bull stomped him? My God! How did you find this out? I never even heard the phone ring! Has somebody called an ambulance? We have to get Adam to a doctor!”
“Señor Buck has already called the doctor. He is with Señor Adam now.” Maria smiled inwardly. She hadn’t even had to invent an injury for Señor Adam. The señora had done that herself. She said, “Señor Buck—”
“Thank God, Buck’s with him!” Tate headed for the kitchen to get the keys to her pickup from the peg where she usually left them. But they weren’t there.
“Where are my keys? Maria, have you seen my keys?”
Maria closed her hands around the set of keys in her pocket. “No, señora. But your horse, she is saddled already for the ride you wished to take this afternoon.”
“That’ll probably be faster anyway. I can go cross-country. Thanks, Maria. You’re a lifesaver!”
Tate had barely been gone ten minutes when Maria heard Señor Adam’s pickup pull up in back of the house. She sniffed the onion she had ready and waiting and went running out to the truck, tears streaming, waving her hands frantically to attract his attention.
“Señor Adam! The señora! Hurry!” Maria hid her face in her apron and pretended to cry.
“What’s wrong, Maria? What happened to Tate? Is she all right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but bounded up the back steps toward the house.
“She is not there!” Maria cried.
Adam’s face bleached white. “She’s gone? She left me?”
Maria saw she had made a serious mistake and said, “Oh, no! But she went riding toward the pasture where you are keeping that big-humped bull. Her horse must have been frightened. Señor Buck found her there on the ground.”
“She’s hurt? Has she been taken to the doctor?”
“She is still there. Señor Buck is with her—”
Adam didn’t wait to hear more. He jumped back into his pickup and gunned the motor, heading down the gravel road, hell-bent-for-leather toward the opposite end of the Lazy S.
Maria dabbed with her apron at the corners of her eyes where the onion had done its work. Well, she would soon see the results of her meddling. If she was right, there would be more smiles and laughter around this house in the future. When el bebé arrived, Tía Maria would tell the story of the day Papa rescued Mama from the big bad bull and brought her home to live here happily ever after.
* * *
TATE MANAGED TO GET through the gate that led to the new bull’s pasture without dismounting, but she still begrudged the time it took the mare to respond to her commands as she opened the metal gate and closed it behind her.
Once she was inside the pasture she kept a sharp lookout for the huge Brahma. She wasn’t sure what Buck had done to secure it after it had stomped Adam. The chance that it might still be roaming free in the pasture made her shudder in fear.
Tate hadn’t gone far when she heard the sound of a truck spinning gravel somewhere beyond the pasture gate. There was no siren, but she thought it might be the ambulance. Maybe they would know exactly where to find Adam. Tate turned the mare back toward the gate and headed there at a gallop.
She was almost to the gate when she realized the huge Brahma bull, with its thick horns and humped back, was standing there, apparently drawn by the sound of the truck, which usually brought hay and feed.
When the bull heard the horse behind him, he whirled to confront the interloper on his territory. Tate found herself trapped, with no way out. She yanked the mare to a halt, holding her perfectly still, knowing that any movement would make the Brahma charge.
Adam swore loudly and fluently when he realized Tate’s predicament. He slammed on the brakes, grabbed a rope from the bed of the truck, and hit the ground running.
“Don’t move!” he yelled. “I’m coming.”
“Wait!” Tate yelled back. “Don’t come in here! It’s too dangerous!”
Adam didn’t bother with opening the gate, just went over the top and down inside. The rattle of the fence had the bull turning back, certain dinner was about to be served. He stopped, confused when he saw the man on foot inside the fence. He nodded his lowered head from Tate to Adam and back again, uncertain which way he wanted to go.
Adam shook out the lasso and started looking for something he could use as a snubbing post. Not too far away stood a mediumsize live oak.
Adam didn’t hesitate. He walked slowly toward the Brahma, which began to snort and paw at the ground in agitation. The bull’s attention was definitely on Adam now, not Tate.
“Please don’t come any closer, Adam,” Tate said quietly.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this all worked out.” If he missed his throw, he was going to run like hell and hope he got to the fence before the Brahma got to him.
But Adam’s loop sang through the air and landed neatly around the Brahma’s horns. He let out the rope as he ran for the live oak. He circled the tree several times, enough to make sure the rope was going to hold when the bull hit the end of it.
By then, Tate had realized what he was doing. She raced her mare to the live oak, took her foot out of the stirrup so Adam could quickly mount behind her, then kicked the mare into a gallop that took them out of harm’s way.
The Brahma charged after them, but was brought up short by th
e rope that held it hog-tied to the tree.
Tate rode the mare back to the gate, where Adam slipped over the horse’s rump, and quickly opened the gate for her. Once she was through, he fastened the gate, and reached up to pull her off the mare.
They clutched each other tightly, well aware of the calamity they had barely escaped. As soon as their initial relief was past, they began talking at the same time, amazed by the fact that they had found each other alive and well and unhurt.
“Maria told me the bull had stomped you!”
“She told me you had been thrown from your horse!”
“I wasn’t thrown!”
“I wasn’t stomped!”
The realization dawned for both at the same time that they had been manipulated into coming here under false pretenses.
“I’ll kill her!” Adam said.
“I think you should give her a raise,” Tate said with a laugh.
“Why? She nearly got us both killed!”
“Because she made me realize I’ve been a fool not to believe what I know in my heart is true.”
“I do love you, Tate,” Adam said. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. “I do love you.”
“I know. And I love you. When I thought you might be dying—or dead—I realized just how much.”
“When I thought something might have happened to you, I felt the same,” Adam said. “I should have been saying ‘I love you’ every day. I love you, Tate. I love you. I love you.”
Adam punctuated each statement with a kiss that was more fervent than the one before.
Tate was having trouble catching her breath. She managed to say, “Adam, we have to do something about that bull.”
“Let him find his own heifer,” Adam murmured against her throat.
Tate laughed. “We can’t just leave him tied up like that.”
“I’ll send Buck and the boys back to take care of him and to pick up your mare. We have more important things to do this afternoon.”
“Like what?”
“Like plotting how we’re going to get even with Maria.”
As they drove back toward the ranch house, Adam and Tate plotted imaginative punishments they could wreak on the housekeeper for lying to them. It wasn’t an easy job, considering how they had to balance her dubious methods against her very satisfying results.
“I think the best thing we could do is have about five children,” Adam said.
Tate gulped. “Five?”
“Sure. That’ll fix Maria, all right. She’ll have the little devils sitting on her lap and tugging at her skirts for a good long while!”
“Serves her right!” Tate agreed with a grin.
Adam stopped the pickup in front of the ranch house, grabbed Tate’s hand and went running inside to find the housekeeper.
“Maria!” he shouted. “Where are you?” He headed for the kitchen, dragging Tate along behind him.
“Here’s a note on the refrigerator,” Tate said.
“What’s it say?”
Tate held the note out to Adam.
Dear Señor Adam,
Tell her you love her. I’ll be gone for two—no, three—hours.
Love, Maria
Adam laughed and pulled Tate into his embrace—where the first of Maria’s little devils promptly kicked his father in the stomach.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this Hawk’s Way book, keep an eye out for the rest of the books in this series by bestselling author Joan Johnston!
Hawk’s Way Series
Hawk’s Way: Dallas
Hawk’s Way: Jesse
Hawk’s Way: Adam
Hawk’s Way: Faron
Hawk’s Way: Garth
Hawk’s Way: Carter
Hawk’s Way: Falcon
Hawk’s Way: Callen
Hawk’s Way: Zach
Hawk’s Way: Billy
Hawk’s Way: Mac
Hawk’s Way: Colt
Hawk’s Way: Sisters
Available wherever ebooks are sold
ISBN: 9781488024962
HAWK’S WAY: ADAM,
originally published as THE RANCHER & THE RUNAWAY BRIDE
Copyright © 1993 by Joan Mertens Johnston
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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