by Lenore Wolfe
“Do you knock?” Her voice was sarcastic.
“No,” was his only answer. He crossed the room and sat down beside her. Reaching for her foot, he set it in his lap, massaging her bruised toes. “What did you do?”
She scowled. “I kicked the bed post.”
Hawk grinned at her. “Giving in to that temper of yours again?”
Mandy’s eyes snapped, and she tried to yank her foot back. But Hawk easily stopped her, his fingers traveling up her ankle. Her eyes flew wide, and she watched with a helpless little “O” on her beautiful mouth as his hand moved up her calf. Her eyes slid up, colliding with his golden, smoldering ones, and she thought she’d go up in smoke. She gave a breathless little pant, and it was Hawk’s turn to lose it.
With a growl, he climbed slowly up her body until his lips were a breath from her own. “Lady, you set my blood on fire.”
His kissed her deeply.
“What makes you think we’re going to do that anymore?” Mandy teased, between soul-shattering kisses. “We can’t get it annulled now...”
Hawk cut her off with a deep plundering of her sweet mouth, his hand brushing the underside of her breast, before coming up to cup it.
“Mandy?!” Aunt Lydia yelled from the doorway.
“You,” she shook her finger at Hawk, “have a problem at the barn. And, for heavens’ sake, you should close the door.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hawk stood up, holding his hands up in mock innocence and, with a definite swagger, made his way to the door. He turned just before he went out and gave Mandy a look of clear intent. Then he was gone.
Mandy giggled breathlessly. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” she accused.
Aunt Lydia smiled, then gave a girlish giggle of her own. “I will admit. It was kind of fun.” She harrumphed. “Serves him right.”
“Aunt Lydia!” Mandy laughed, blushing.
“Well.” The older woman gave a look of innocence. “It does. Besides, I wasn’t sure you didn’t need help, since I overheard your conversation down in the foyer and knew he’d caught you in one of your nightly outings.” She raised a brow at Mandy, as dawning broke in the younger woman’s eyes. “Did you think I didn’t notice that you were missing from your bed every week?”
Mandy’s mouth dropped open. “How long have you known?”
“Several weeks.” Her Aunt Lydia shook a finger at her. “How much did he figure out?”
Mandy’s shoulders dropped. “I don’t know. And if you’ve noticed, he’s sure to figure me out.”
“Then you better stop, child.”
Mandy frowned and shook her head. “I can’t, Aunt Lydia. Not—quite yet.”
In the parlor, Hawk poured himself a drink. “Damnation!” he muttered.
“Women trouble?”
Hawk rounded, pistol in hand.
Jake’s grin was full of glee, coming from his comfortable seat on the chair in the corner. “One up on you, old man.”
“Damnation,” Hawk growled again, “she’s making me soft.”
“She’s not making you soft,” Jake scowled. “You’re doing that all on your own because you can’t get her off your mind. Do us all a favor, will ya? Put yourself out of your misery. Hurry up and admit the truth to her before you get us all killed.”
Hawk’s cold, green eyes raked his friend. “This, from a man who gets his nose bent out of joint every time he sees me kiss the lady. When she learns the truth, I’m done for. She’ll hate me.” He ground his glass down on the counter. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway?” He raked Jake with a cold stare.
Jake shrugged, placed his drink on the small table beside him, and stood up. “Just figured you were right about McCandle hitting here next. Looks as though I missed the show.” Picking up his Stetson, he placed it on his head. “She’s good for you, old man.”
“Yeah, well,” Hawk tossed back his drink, his teeth pulled back when he swallowed, “you just wait.”
Jake grunted, and they left the house.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mandy slipped out of the house three nights later. She saddled her horse with practiced efficiency and walked her down the lane. When it was safe, she put a dark hood over her hair and tied a dark bandana around her neck for when she got to McCandle’s place. She was about to mount up—when she heard a lone horse behind her. Her heart took off, thundering in her ribcage. She’d been caught! What to do now? She almost sagged with relief when she recognized Kat. “You scared ten years off my life,” she said in low tones.
Kat’s cat-like eyes shone, even in the moonlight. “I don’t know what you’re up to,” she tossed her curly, golden mane behind her shoulders, “but I want in on it.”
“Hawk doesn’t know,” Mandy warned her. “And if he ever finds out, there’ll be hell to pay.
Kat grinned at her. “Then, I guess he’d better never find out.” She looked behind her. “By-the-way, I all ready made sure he didn’t follow you tonight.” She looked back at Mandy with meaning.
Mandy choked on a laugh. “How?”
Kat gave her a conspiratorial smile. “I just made sure he would be busy for awhile—with some calf troubles. Us women gotta stick together.”
“Have to stick together,” Mandy automatically corrected. Kat had asked her to help her to speak better, since she had her cap set on Kid.
Kat’s smile shone like pearls in the moonlight. “Have to stick together,” she repeated. “I am going to speak like a real lady in no time.” She reined her horse around. “But I sure don’t know about acting like one.” She grinned.
Mandy’s own smile flashed in the moonlight—but an eerie shiver crawled up her spine when she thought about Hawk. She sure hoped Kat was right, and whatever she’d done to keep him busy kept him there till well after they got back.
She tossed Kat a dark hood out of her saddlebags.
“Here. Put this on.” She mounted her horse and reined her around. “Come on, I’ll explain on the way.”
Mandy stood behind the curtain and Kat behind some furniture in the corner while Ashley finally did the thing for which Mandy had been waiting for over three months, and approached his safe.
With bated breath, she watched as he twirled the dial to unlock the door. Slowly, inch by painful inch, she moved up behind him. As the door swung open, she raised her Colt, butt-first, and swung at his head.
Surprise caused her to drop the gun when he suddenly whirled to face her. The sound of her gun clattering to the floor dismayed her. He moved easily behind her, his arm going around her throat, cutting off her air in a painful grip.
“Finally,” he snarled in her ear, “we’re going to find out who our little, nightly visitor is. I have been waiting patiently for you to make your move all week.”
Despite her desperate hunger for air, Mandy couldn’t help feeling elated. She hadn’t been a complete ninny. A ninny, yes; but she had fooled him for a little while. It seemed everybody had figured her out.”
He reached up to yank the hood off her head. Mandy cringed, knowing the time was at hand. It was over. She had lost.
She heard a sickening thud, felt his arm go slack, and she was free. She turned and grinned at Kat. “Guess it’s a good thing you spotted me tonight.”
Kat looked stupefied. “Well, if I hadn’t been here, looks as though she was,” and she nodded at the woman behind Mandy.
Mandy swung around, quickly realizing just who had knocked Ashley out. She knew how Kat felt. She’d had much the same reaction the first night she had met her. Star Flower was, by far, the most exotic woman she’d ever seen.
“Hurry,” Star Flower told them, moving to bind Ashley’s hands and feet with a length of cord in her hand. “Get what you came here for.”
Kat looked from Mandy to the young woman who’d just saved Mandy from Ashley’s sure, murderous rage. “Who are you?”
“Oh, sorry,” Mandy whispered. “Kat, meet Star Flower, Ashley’s sister. Star Flower, this is Kat.” She looked at th
e bewilderment on Kat’s face. “Star Flower found me on my third night here. She’s been covering my tracks ever since—even doing some searching of her own. Ashley would have noticed something was going on here a long time ago if it were not for her help. She’s saved my hide more than once.”
Kat smiled at this. “You’re Indian? But your eyes...”
“Are my pa’s spring-green.”
Mandy frowned at that, but didn’t have time to examine it any more closely at the moment. She moved quickly. “He’ll kill you for what you’ve just done,” she told Star Flower. “And he’s going to be in a rage from what we’re about to do.” Taking out her bags, Mandy handed one to Kat, and they started loading them with the contents of the safe.
“He’d never believe we would cross him. He’s cruel, and we’re all terrified of him.”
“Obviously, not all,” Kat retorted.
“But he must never know that—or all is lost.” Star Flower stuffed a rag in his mouth, then bound it with a handkerchief around his head
“Hurry,” she urged. “I must leave, in case he wakes.”
She started for the door but came back to the safe to whisper, “Be sure and take the papers,” she pointed them out. “They are all the deeds he holds to those poor people’s lands, and the notes he waves over their heads.”
Elated, they grabbed them all. “I must talk to you,” Mandy told their ally. “Where can we meet you? Can you sneak away?”
“I will let you know the time and place,” Star Flower replied. Helping Mandy to fix her disguise, she told her, again, “I must go. He must not awake and find me here.”
Mandy nodded and hugged her. “Be careful. You live with a demented man. You should come with me. You would be safer with us.”
Star Flower shook her head. “I’ll be of more help here.”
“But he’s dangerous!” Kat exclaimed in a heated whisper. “He’ll kill you if he finds out you’ve betrayed him.”
“I cannot give up now,” Star Flower replied firmly. “I’ve come too far to let go now. It is good that you finally got what you were seeking.”
Hugging her again, Mandy watched their friend leave. Kat nudged Ashley, hard, with the toe of her boot. His moan told them he was still pretty much out. Then, as quietly as they’d come, they picked up their hard-won treasure and made their escape.
Two hours later, they sat on Mandy’s bed, staring in surprise at the papers they’d recovered. Mandy giggled softly, and threw the papers into the air in barely suppressed glee.
Oh sweet, sweet revenge. She had finally got a lethal swing in on Ashley McCandle. “This is going to hurt him where it counts,” she told Kat. “This will put a dent in Ashley’s pocketbook that will have him reeling.” For she held in her hands all the deeds for the lands he had captured along the railroad. And more importantly, to her anyway, she held every note he had against her friends and neighbors. She sobered when she realized the killing fury this would send Ashley into, when he awoke. She sent a silent prayer to up above—for Star Flower. “Maybe we should warn Hawk.” She frowned at the thought. How would she ever explain this to him—and all she had done in the past?
“But I see that you won’t.”
Mandy shook her head. “He’d be impossible to deal with... seeing this... realizing...” It was with a heavy heart that Mandy hid her hard-won treasure in the safe in the library. Her heart beat a heavy tempo of dread. In all her planning, she had never contemplated Ashley’s reaction if and when she’d succeeded.
Now—well, this would probably force Ashley’s hand—and his resulting fury.
And if he killed Star Flower... or Hawk... She had to warn White Wolf. He was in the gravest danger of all. She had to get him to stop—at least for a while.
She put her hand on Kat’s shoulder. “I have to go back out,” she told her friend. “And this time, you cannot go with me.”
Kat’s eyes narrowed on her. “It’s too dangerous for you to go alone.”
“I’ve been doing it for some time now, Kat. I’ll be fine. You must trust me on this.”
Kat shrugged. “If you must, but if you don’t return soon, I’ll be coming after you. So you might as well tell me how long—and which direction. It’ll save me a lot of time.”
Mandy smiled at her friend and told her what she wanted to know. For the second time that night, she stole out of the house, and off the ranch.
The night was still and eerie. Mandy’s heart beat like a drum, every muscle in her body telling her that bad times lay ahead. And lately, she could swear she was being watched, maybe even followed.
She knew where Ashley was on those nights.
That only left a certain... White Indian.
The moonlight shone on the path in front of her, her horse’s hooves ringing out on the road beneath its feet. She winced. She could really do with an unshod pony right now. Her Henry lay over her lap, and her Colts were in their holster on her hips.
She was taking no chances.
There was a time when she had visited her friend and cohort without hesitation. But now, thanks to Ashley, she had to ride as though armed for war.
When she reached the cabin in the woods, she whistled softly so she wouldn’t get her head blown off.
He let her in and closed the door behind her. “Why do you only come out here in the middle of the night now?”
“It’s no longer safe to meet you during the day,” she answered. She looked at her childhood friend. “I have hired the Hawk.”
He went still, then nodded. “This is good.”
“You know him?” she asked.
He nodded, again. “I know him.”
“What about you,” she asked, “now that we’re not stealing the McCandles’ cattle?”
“I will join my people.”
She took his hands into hers. “It is very dangerous times for the Tsistsistas, right now.”
“A time when I belong with my people; now more than ever.”
She lowered her head. “I will miss you my friend.”
“You love the Hawk.”
Her eyes flew wide, meeting his. “What told you that? Is it written all over my face?”
“It is written in your eyes.” He took hold of her shoulders. “May your love be long and full. I will miss you, too.”
She told him everything that had happened with Hawk and McCandle recently. Then, with tears in her eyes, she left.
She was half way home when she became aware she was being followed, again.
Like a dark thunder cloud, he rode out of the night. Before she could kick her horse into a full run, he was beside her, sweeping her off her horse. She fought as though she were a wild cat, until she heard his low growl. “Be still Mandy, or I swear I’ll paddle you, right here, right now.”
She went completely still. “Hawk?”
“You put yourself in danger,” his tone was far to calm.
She lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself.” Hawk growled, and Mandy jumped. “However,” she got out, “I never have to sneak out again.”
“Out here, with no one to protect you!” His arm tightened with threatening intent.
“Look how well armed I was.”
“Why were you out here?”
“I was saying goodbye to my friend,” she told him.
“In the middle of the night,” he eyed her in disbelief, “without anyone with you?”
“Think what you will. I was saying goodbye to my friend,” she reiterated.
They had reached the barn by then and Hawk ordered the horses put up. He walked her to their bedroom door. “Remember what I said would happen if you placed yourself in danger? If you risked your life? Do you remember that I said I would not be held responsible for what I did to your pretty, little back-side then?”
Mandy winced—and nodded.
Hawk turned and walked away.
She sagged against the door. He was really angry. Imagine how angry he’d have been if he had caught her the first t
ime she’d rode out, breaking into McCandles house.
Hawk stood in the night, every muscle of his body tense, a reflection of how angry he really was.
If he hadn’t walked away from her when he did—he really would have paddled her backside, all right, and as angry as he was, he might have hurt her in the process.
He’d had to walk away.
It took him until dawn to feel calm.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mandy bolted upright on the bed. Throwing off the covers, she hurried into her robe. Hawk was already in the hall, buttoning his pants. Another bellow, and the sound of glass breaking, had them racing for the stairs.
“Stop it, wild-cat!” Kid growled from behind the kitchen door. Opening it a crack, he jumped behind it as a plate sailed though and crashed against the wall to the far side, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces from the force.”
“You fish-eyed, yellow-bellied son of a whore,” Kat screeched.
Spotting Tommy, Kid waved him over. “Pretend you’re me and keep her busy. I’m gonna sneak in the back way.”
Grinning, Tommy opened the door, fully staying behind it. He watched as a plate sailed through it and thudded at Jake’s feet. Tommy slammed the door shut and heard another dish slam against it. Holding his breath, he tried to gauge Jake’s mood but could read nothing in those cold, steel-gray eyes.
They both looked back at the door when Kat’s screeching became two-fold.
“Put me down, damn you.” This, followed by a loud crash, took both man and boy through the kitchen door. Hawk came through the doorway on the other side, followed by Mandy, who was pulling the belt tight on her robe.
Hawk met Jake’s eyes over the couple sprawled on the floor—and grinned.
“You little, spitting fire-cat,” Kid huffed. He grabbed both of her arms and pinned them to either side of her head.
“Yes, she is,” Hawk answered.
Kid grinned. “Hear that, wild-cat, he agrees.”
“And she needs some taming,” Hawk added—and grunted when Mandy punched him firmly in his side.