by Lenore Wolfe
“I quite agree.” He grinned unabashed. “I’m a heathen, with a soul as black as the darkest night.” Suddenly, his eyes became stormy. “And speaking of—come here, Amanda,” he commanded softly.
She shook her head, almost violently, sending her dark hair flying. “Oh, no! No, I did so before and...” she flushed, unable to finish.
Dark eyebrows collided, giving him the look of his namesake. “Then I shall come to you.” He reached to draw back the covers as he spoke.
Mandy got a glimpse of dark curls and jumped forward. “All right! I... just lay back down, you’ll open your wounds.”
When she reached his side, her gaze collided with his. She was drawn down deep into their golden depths—spiraling down—drowning in their green-gold pools. Her breath caught, and she reached out to steady herself.
A warm hand, with the strength of steel and the gentleness of a soft kiss, grasped hers, and pulled her slowly into his embrace. When his lips were mere inches from hers, he asked in a husky voice, “What were your visions of?”
Mandy took a deep breath and tried to still her thundering heart. Unfair. Hawk didn’t follow any of the rules. He might be dangerous to his enemy, but if she had any of the sense her papa bestowed her with, she’d run as far, and as fast, as she could—for he was far more dangerous to her.
“I-I think you know,” she whispered.
He arched his hawk-like brows at her. “I do, but I want to hear you say it.”
“No,” Mandy pulled back. “A man with your manners does not deserve confessions.” She swallowed hard, realizing what she’d just revealed.
Hawk pounced on that one. “Confessions?” He grinned as if he were a man with a juicy morsel, his hot gaze searching for the rest.
Mandy groaned and scrambled out of his grasp. She helped him as he struggled to put some pillows behind him, careful to stay out of his reach. Biting her lip, she prayed for the right words. Finally she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, “This town is owned by McCandle, Hawk. I have nowhere else to turn. By your own words, you will follow the path set before us, but when it’s done, you will leave me alone. I will have no choice. My ranch hands are good, but they’re not fools. And there’s not a man outside my ranch who would even consider going up against McCandle without the backing of a good gunman and the power to follow him. If you turn away from me, I will take the only path left to me. I will not let him win!”
She saw the barely leashed fury simmering in his golden gaze and the ridged planes in his body.
“Just because you have the upper hand on me—does not mean you own me. Remember, by your own words you will leave me.” Her eyes narrowed. She turned away. Then, said over her shoulder, “Now, my ranch hands will be waiting when you’re ready.”
Hawk correctly read the warning, neatly veiled, beneath her words. He chose to ignore it, irritating her further. “Why are your hands not afraid of McCandle?”
“They’ve been with my papa for years. They think of me as their daughter.”
Hawk nodded. After a moment, he asked, “Would that be Jason McCandle?”
“Yes. You know him?”
Hawk’s nod was curt. “All right, I’ll go by your rules,” he grinned, “under one condition.”
Wide-eyed, Mandy nodded. “Wh-what condition?”
“That you never ask me why I was after McCandle,” he bit out. Mandy’s eyes narrowed on him. She bit her lip, wondering at this new development. She wanted to ask him already. How could she agree to such an ultimatum? Yet how could she not? Hawk wanted revenge as badly as she did, that much was obvious. It’s why he’d come here after McKinney. But why? She would agree—for now, but the burning need for answers was too much a part of her not to be sated.
“All right.” She nodded. “I agree to your terms.”
Hawk grinned. “Like hell you do.” He pierced her to the spot with his golden gaze. “It will drive you insane. But know this, Mandy. This is the one thing your busy, little mind will leave alone. The only reason I brought it up is because, sooner or later, you’re going to want to ask why. And I want it clear. Don’t even try to get those particular answers, Mandy. Do not be hunting for my past, and do not try to understand that side of me. It would only get you hurt.” His gaze narrowed. “Understood?”
“Yes,” she answered in a breathy whisper.
“No. You do not. But you will.”
Chapter Eight
Spurs a-jangling, a tall, dark stranger stopped at the bar and set his Winchester on the bar top. “Whiskey,” was all he said, and he did not raise his head or acknowledge the bartender when he said it
The bartender opened his mouth to object to the rifle, but when his eyes met the steely ones of the stranger, the words stuck in his throat. He poured the drink instead. “That’ll be two bits, mister,” he managed to get out.
The stranger slapped a coin on the bar top, then tossed back his whiskey. His lips pulled back. “Seen a man named Hawk hereabouts?” he asked after a moment.
“Friend of yours?” the bartender countered. People around here didn’t cotton to questions, especially McCandle.
The stranger’s gray eyes narrowed to steely slits.
The bartender swallowed. This man didn’t abide by anyone’s rules. “He’s laid up at the doc’s on down the street.”
The stranger’s face remained emotionless but, if it was possible, his eyes got deadlier. “Laid up?”
The bartender felt sorry for McCandle. Hawk on his own was a formidable enemy. But up against these two, he didn’t stand a chance. “Did I say laid up?” He made to clean up an imaginary spot. “He’s up and around now.”
The stranger reached up and tipped the brim of his hat. “Much obliged.” He picked up his Winchester and strode out the door, spurs ringing out in deadly quiet.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
A cowboy sneered at him, picking up his own whiskey. “You might be when McCandle gets wind of this.”
The barkeeper gave him a hard look. “Get out of my sight.” He tossed down his towel. “I’ve got someone to go see.”
When Mandy answered the door in mid-afternoon, it was to meet the deadliest man she’d yet seen in the west, standing on her front step. Her heart leaped into her throat when she realized his presence could only mean one thing.
He was after Hawk.
She tried to stop him. But he pushed by her.
“Hawk!” she yelled.
He looked in the first room. Finding nothing, he went bounding up the stairs, Mandy right behind him. He located Hawk’s room in the next moment, his huge, imposing frame in the door, blocking her way.
At least he wasn’t shooting. Finally, he moved inside, and she was able to slip by.
Hawk let his colt slip back in his holster with a scowl.
“One-up on you, old man,” the stranger said.
Hawk growled, then grinned. “Actually, thanks to Mandy’s warning, I was one-up on you,” he retorted.
Mandy looked at Hawk, then the stranger. They’d lost their minds.
“Mandy,” Hawk gestured at the man, “this is Jake.”
That’s all Hawk told her, just Jake. It was Mandy’s turn to scowl.
Hawk cocked one of those damnable eyebrows at her. “And this is Mandy,” he said with meaning.
Jake’s gaze was intent on Hawk. He surveyed Mandy with new interest. “Ma’am.” He tipped his hat.
“Who the hell are you?” Mandy shot at him. “And what do you think you’re doing, barging in here like that?”
Hawk grinned.
Jake frowned, his eyes narrowing on her.
Mandy swallowed. “I mean, you don’t go barging into Doc’s without even waiting to be invited in.” Then, she turned. “Gentlemen, I’ll get you some coffee.”
When she’d left, Jake turned to Hawk. “So where’d you find her?”
Hawk ignored the question. He’d never really explained the Grandmothers to Jake. Some, but not all. Besides, there was a b
etter topic. “She wants me to help her to save her ranch—from a man named McCandle.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed to mere slits at this. “Are you going to?”
Hawk nodded. “Yep. Cause he’s our man.”
Jake’s gunmetal eyes went killer cold. “In that case, I want in.”
“I thought you might say that.” Hawk moved carefully to the door. “Mandy, we’ll be requiring something a little stronger than coffee,” he said down the hall.
“Now you’re talk’n.” Jake smiled.
And Hawk knew—Jake rarely smiled.
Chapter Nine
Deep mist enshrouded him, making it hard to see her. Frantic, Hawk reached for her again. And again, he missed. He sensed him, his enemy. He lay close now. Hawk had to reach her before it was too late. Mandy rose from the mist. Hawk wanted to shout his relief—until he realized how it was she rose. Powerful talons wrapped their way around her waist. One slowly curled around her neck. The tip of one talon bit into her. Hawk sprang forward, but it was too late. A talon sank deep into her side.
Hawk sat up in a sweat. A nightmare. That’s all it was—a damn nightmare. He sat all the way up, welcoming the searing pain that ripped through his side. He had not been able to save one beautiful, young woman who lived on a plantation. He had not been able to save the boy. He sensed the same danger with Mandy. The dream warned him. He had not reached her in time. He wanted to strike out at something. He had not reached her in time!
Hawk heard her voice but did not answer at first. He could still feel the dream when he looked up.
She was standing there with sexy, sleep-lidded eyes, having been awakened from a deep sleep. Her dark hair tumbled loosely about her in a cloud. The filmy, white nightgown she wore added much to the imagination. Right now, Hawk’s was working overtime. He pried his tongue off the roof of his mouth. Silently he cursed himself for continually losing his tight rein of control around this bewitching woman.
He realized Mandy’s sleep-drugged mind wasn’t allowing her the usual protections she would have exercised if she’d been fully awake. He should shake her out of it, wake her fully and send her out, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He saw only the gleam in her beautiful eyes as he held out his hand.
Her body moved forward as though in a trance. In the low flicker of the lantern light, she placed her small hand in the larger one he now held out, palm up.
Slowly, he drew her down beside him and laid her on her back, looming up over her as he rested on his good side. With slow, tantalizing patience, he lowered his lips to hers. He had waited all his life for this one, defining, moment. With ringing clarity, he knew he’d come home.
His mind waged war with his heart, which had been for so long encased in glacial retreat. He was walking on dangerously thin ice, but his heart wasn’t listening. He only knew that this woman and her enchanting beauty intrigued him—invited him to walk where he’d never dared walk, never even knew he wanted to walk, before now.
She made him long for things he’d never dared to believe could be his, until the moment he’d laid eyes on her. His hands moved over her soft curves, the filmy material of her gown hiding nothing. He found her softness to be his exquisite torture. But Mandy was a lady, and the Dzi'tsiistäs believed a maiden should always be cherished. He wouldn’t cheapen her, or what they shared, for one night in paradise, especially not in a hospital bed.
With a low groan he pulled away, leaving them both bereft.
At first, she tried to pull him back to her, but he pinned her hands. “Mandy, get up!”
Mandy shook her head. Gradually the fog lifted, and she saw his golden eyes piercing her as if he were the hawk itself, holding her prey. With dawning realization she sat up, horrified. She closed her eyes. It was obvious what Hawk thought.
“Do not.” He shook her gently. “Do not ever be ashamed of how we feel when we come together.” He hooked a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I have not had too many good things come into my life, Mandy. For once, it’s going to be right. Not with me shot up. And not where we are.” He pushed the hair back from her face. “I do not ever want to see you have regrets.”
Mandy’s eyes filled with tears. In this beautiful man, with his bad reputation, hid a heart wanting to love. Beneath those cold eyes hid a lonely man, needing love in return. She was falling for the man the territories knew as White Indian. She was falling in love with a man who led a double life as a man who had the heart of a warrior, yet sought vengeance in the white man’s world, in the spirit of the west, as a fast gun.
She moved off the bed and backed away from him. But it was too late.
For every woman, there is that one man who could get her to go anywhere he wanted her to go, do anything he wanted her to do—reach into her soul and turn her whole world on its ear—challenge everything she thought she believed.
If she believed that man didn’t exist, she hasn’t met him yet. She might try to deny the truth of it. But if she met him, that one man, she was lucky if he stood behind her. Not so lucky if he came to crush her. And a woman might only learn the truth of it—when he walked out of her life.
Hawk was that man. He was her destiny. And he alone could raise her up.
Or break her.
Mandy placed the coffee on the old, silver tray, smiling as she listened to the man snarling in the next room. He really didn’t adapt well to being trapped in a bed until he was healed. It had been over a week since Hawk had been shot. There was no doubt in her mind; there would be no more keeping him down.
It was time to go to the ranch.
Maybe once there she could talk him into letting himself rest a while. She smiled at the thought.
She doubted it.
She placed his breakfast on the tray and shut down the cook stove, hanging the checkered hot pads back on their hook. Taking him home seemed so final, so intimate. Mandy swallowed, hard. Dear Goddess, please don’t let her be making a mistake. Yet how could anything that felt so right be wrong? Besides, the Grandmothers had spoke of Hawk as her destiny. And they were right, for how could she beat her papa’s killers without him? She had tried. For several months, now, she had been stealing their cattle, like they had stolen from the neighboring ranches around them. She had tried robbing their payroll stage, mysteriously giving the money back to the ranchers where it belonged.
Nothing had even remotely put a dent in McCandle.
There were still her nightly escapades. She shook her head. It had been weeks, and she still had not achieved what she’d set out to do. Soon, she vowed. Soon—maybe things would turn her way.
Goddess, please do not let anything happen to Hawk. She nearly dropped the tray at the thought, and carefully set it back on the table. What if Hawk got killed because she’d involved him? She couldn’t bear it. She swallowed hard at the thought. It felt as though her lungs had caved in. Maybe she should have found a way to deal with McCandle on her own. The more she thought on this, the more she realized how selfish it was for her to have ever involved him in the first place. She would never be able to bear it if anything happened to him because of her. Why had it never occurred to her that she could lose him?
The way she’d lost her papa.
“Papa,” she whispered.
Her throat caught. She couldn’t lose Hawk to McCandle, too. She picked up her tray, her thoughts locked on a new mission.
Hawk scowled menacingly at her when she entered his room with the tray a moment later, but his glare altered at the sight of her own sour expression. He grabbed at his gun-belt hanging on the bed post. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Mandy set the tray by the bed and wiped her damp palms on the apron. “Hawk, I’ve been thinking...”
Hawk grumbled and let his Colt drop back into its holster. “More like worrying. Why do women always worry?”
Mandy ignored his sarcasm. She knew it was hard for a man like Hawk to stay down. When men like Hawk were held down for too long, they usually wound up
acting like an ugly, old grizzly bear coming out of hibernation—mean and grouchy.
She fought for her breath, and the courage to continue. She knew Hawk was going to fight her on this. “Hawk, I do not think I should enlist your help after all.”
Hawk’s unusual, gold-green eyes narrowed on her, making her want to fidget.
“Do not look at me like that.” She moved to the dresser to thwart his gaze.
“I think you try to sabotage us because of your fears,” he stated, so quietly she nearly did not hear him.
“Hawk!”
“You are not going to get rid of me now, Mandy. Our circles are intertwined. Do you understand? I will decide if, and when, I go.”
Mandy did not like the way he had put that. “You’re the most infuriating man I have ever met,” she pouted.
Hawk grinned at her, his anger gone. “And you are beautiful when you are mad, Mandy. You’re eyes get all snappy and glowing.”
“Of all the...” Mandy grabbed a pillow off the hope chest and heaved it at him.
Hawk caught it easily, laughing and then wincing from the pain it caused.
Mandy was spellbound. For a moment she stood, mesmerized by the transformation in Hawk’s face when he laughed. She wished she could make him laugh more often.
“You really are reprehensible,” she told him, but the anger was gone from her too.
Hawk scowled once more, his fun gone now that his little spitfire was no longer crackling. Mandy was his fire—all heat. “I’m a heathen, remember. Not a gentleman.”
“The Lakota treat their women well, Hawk. So that doesn’t hold water with me.”
Hawk’s eyes hardened. Mandy saw herself like a rabbit, poised to take flight—the Hawk moving in with dangerous, deadly talons. Now what had she done? One minute he was boyish laughter—the next impassive menace. There was much she didn’t understand about this man.
Like almost everything.
What had happened to make him so cold at times? “Tell me about the Lakota. How did you come to be with them, Mandy?”