Dark Warrior: To Tame a Wild Hawk

by Lenore Wolfe

  Mandy scrambled to the other side, watching him warily when he took his bandanna from around his neck. He then grabbed her wrists and bound them above her head. “Damn you, Hawk,”

  He rolled her to her side and delivered a stinging slap to her backside.

  She growled her temper in a long infuriating snarl.

  He reached up her dress. And she sucked in her breath. He pulled one of her stockings down her leg and off her foot. And then, he tied her feet to the foot of the bed.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He rolled her to the side and delivered a second stinging slap to her bottom.

  “What,” she gritted through her teeth, “are you doing?”

  “I’m saving your beautiful backside.”

  “You can’t keep me tied up here forever,” she yelled in fury.

  “No. But I can sure keep you tied up here until we’re done dealing with McCandle,” he stated this with infuriating calm.

  “All right!”

  A dark brow shot up.

  She glared at him, a mutinous look on her face.

  He turned for the door.

  “I’ll behave,” she yelled in alarm.

  He stopped. “Not good enough.”

  “I’ll...” she breathed through her anger. “I’ll—do what I’m told.”

  He raised both of those damn brows of his.

  “What else do you want?” she screamed.

  “I want the truth,” his voice dropped low in anger. “No more lies. No sneaking out of here. No more secrets. Agreed?”

  Her chin lifted in rebellion.

  He turned to leave.

  “All right!”

  He slowly turned around. His golden eyes searched hers for the truth.

  “I promise,” she breathed, her heart picking up now with a familiar flutter.

  He waited.

  She sighed. “No more sneaking.”

  Still, he waited.

  “No more lies,” she promised.

  He didn’t blink.

  She sighed. “No more secrets.”

  And still he waited.

  “Well!” She pulled at her bonds. “Let me up.”

  He grinned at her. Then, he turned and left, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  “Damn you, Hawk!” She screamed every word she could lay hand to. She yelled until her voice gave out and still he did not come. Finally, in total exhaustion, she fell asleep.

  When she woke, sometime later, it was dark. Although she couldn’t see him, she could feel him watching her.

  “Don’t ever risk your life like that again,” his voice was subdued and slightly slurred.

  Her eyes fought to see him in the dark. “I won’t,” she said, just above a whisper.

  He pulled his hand across his face. It still scared the hell out of him. She had been breaking into McCandle’s. And while he’d known she was up to something, he’d never dreamed she would do something so dangerous.

  “I’m sorry, Hawk,” Mandy whispered, tears slipping down her face.

  He heard the tears in her voice and, with a groan, he stumbled from his chair and freed her bonds. Then, he hauled her into his arms. “How long?” was all he could get out.

  She stroked his face, searching his features with her fingers, reveling in the feel of his embrace—the fulfillment his arms brought to her.

  Before I met you,” she finally answered, “I stole his cattle.” Hawk growled, and she gave a nervous grin. “Then, one day, I realized I’d never ruin him that way. I had to do more, so I started breaking in and looking for the combination to his safe.”

  The thought of her in such danger made his physically sick. He held her so tightly she protested, and he had to let up. Again, he made her swear to him.

  “I swear,” she said, softly. Then, she frowned.

  “Why isn’t Lydia up here raising cane?”

  “Because, after your latest escape, she’s decided you’re safer in my hands. She said she never dreamed you were doing something so dangerous.”

  She should take exception to that—really, she should—but it was too hard to do so when he was holding her like this.

  And he held her long into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The day Hawk finally relented, and let Jake and Charlie escort the women to town, was cause for celebration. Mandy and Kat chatted excitedly and made plans throughout the ride there. Mandy hadn’t seen Meg for days, and she had so much to tell her.

  They left their mounts at the livery, and she led Kat toward her friend’s house. Meg smiled in happiness at seeing Mandy standing at the door, and she gave her an enthusiastic hug, pulling both her and Kat into the house. “So how’s married life? As if I didn’t know.” She rolled her eyes, laughing.

  Mandy grinned. “Kid and Kat are now getting married. You will attend their wedding, won’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. Come in, we’ll have tea and you can tell me everything.” She ushered them to the parlor. “Don’t you dare leave anything out.”

  They spent the next hour filling Meg in. Some of it had her laughing till the tears rolled down her face—the sad parts had her crying with Mandy.

  “Ashley’s really angry,” Meg warned her. “Your marriage to Hawk has put him over the edge. And now whatever you did may have ruined him. The whole town’s talking about it. He’ll do anything to get to you.”

  “Just don’t give him any excuses to come after you to get to me,” Mandy ruefully shook her head. “It’s because he knows my ranch is lost to him. That everything is now lost to him. He won’t stop until he kills each and every one of us—or we kill him.”

  “I’m thinking you’re right Mandy,” Kat agreed. “That man’s crazy, and noth’n will stop him ‘till he’s dead.”

  While waiting for the women, Jake and Charlie had laid in supplies. Finding they still had time on their hands, they went into the saloon and ordered drinks. At first Charlie took his and went to a table, but seeing Jake was staying at the bar, Charlie grabbed his bottle and glass, and started making his way back across the barroom floor.

  As he crossed through the sunlight from the saloon door, suddenly Jake grabbed his gun and shot past Charlie’s shoulder. Behind him, Charlie heard the soft thud of a bullet hitting flesh, and a man’s yelp before he hit the floor.

  “Only had two drinks,” he muttered.

  “Sorry about that, old timer,” Jake replied.

  “Dag-nabbit.” Charlie turned on him. “You are gonna go and punch holes in every one of the yarns I spin, ain’t ya?”

  Surprised, Jake stood, unmoving.

  “I was just gonna give ya a hard way to go about being a greenhorn and hold’n your drink with your gun-hand.” He set down the bottle and glass. “Then, you go and draw like that with your left.”

  Jake relaxed. “Is that what this is all about? That’s just a little trick I use to catch men who are gunning for me unawares.”

  Charlie gave him a look of pure disgust, then turned and shuffled his way to the dead man lying in the doorway just as Mandy and Kat came running up the boarded walk.

  “Where’s Jake?” Mandy said, out of breath, relieved to see Charlie was all right.

  “Inside,” Charlie muttered. “Only had two drinks. Boy was drink’n with his gun-hand, then all a sudden he goes and draws like greased lightening with his left.”

  Mandy smothered a smile with her hand at Charlie’s grouching. Looking up as Jake approached, she searched for signs of injury. Finding none, she smiled openly.

  “I’m supposed to tell people you can draw like that. You ain’t actually supposed to be able to draw that leghorn that fast.”

  “Well,” Jake growled. “I can do better with my right if that’s what’s bugging you.”

  Charlie squinted up at him, unblinking. “Was that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “What’s your problem, old timer?” Jake growled.

  Kat laughed. “Seems t
o me, you can draw faster than some of the gunfighters Charlie likes to spin yarns about.”

  Jake grinned. “And here I thought you had a problem with my gun-play. Well, hell, Charlie,” he couldn’t resist. “I guess you never saw Hawk...”

  Charlie rounded on him. “Don’t even know if this is someone Ashley hired, or someone gun’n for you just to prove who’s faster. Now, you’re gonna go and tell me the man protecting my little girl is faster’n that?”

  “He saved my life because he’s that fast, Charlie,” Mandy chided, softly.

  All the wind seemed to go out of the old timer. “Been alive all these years. Ain’t never seen noth’n like that.” A small trace of pride tinged his voice. “You should’a seen it. He drew faster’n a rattler can strike.” He shook his head and started shuffling down the boarded walk. “Tommy won’t even believe me when I tell him.”

  Stepping off the boarded walk, out into the sunlight, Jake slowly looked around. Standing next to him, Kat felt him tense. “What is it?”

  “Hawk was right, Ashley’s hired himself some killers.”

  “Man’s got a sixth sense.” Mandy’s eyes narrowed on the gunfighters before looking away. “Guess it’s all out in the open now.”

  Jake nodded. “How long before you’re ready to leave?”

  “Can we have a half an hour?”

  “Yeah. I’ll meet you at the store. We’re going to need some extra supplies for the ride home.” He indicated the men down the street with a nod of his head. “First I’ll see the sheriff.”

  Mandy hadn’t drawn attention to the Colts strapped to her narrow waist when she rode out with Jake. She’d waited until they were away from the house to dig them out.

  Kid would have turned around and hauled her straight home, but Jake hadn’t said a word. Now, she wished she had not taken them off when they reached town. The folks in town already tended towards gossiping about her—without her wearing her Colts into town. But the risk was too great not to be well-armed at all times, now.

  She wasn’t used to having such hardheaded males around. She wondered if Jake had guessed at how well she could use them—and doubted he’d have let her keep them if he hadn’t. Jake unnerved her. His steel-gray eyes didn’t seem to miss anything, always seeming to assess everyone’s secrets like there wasn’t anything they could hide.

  Mandy hoped he couldn’t see all of hers.

  The women quickly picked out all the items they were going to need for the upcoming wedding. The gunmen outside lay like a wet blanket on the previous laughter.

  “How do you know Hawk?” Mandy finally got up the nerve to ask about halfway into their ride home.

  “We were kids together.”

  Mandy frowned. “But he left when he was six. How could you two still be such good friends after all these years? Besides, you know how to fight together.”

  Jake glanced at her, brows raised.

  Mandy shrugged. “I can tell by the plans you two lay. And the way you fought on the roundup.”

  Jake went back to scouting their surroundings. “He came back to the South. We fought for the North together.”

  “And when his sister and nephew died—were you there?”

  Jake’s eyes snapped back to her with a killer’s lethal flame, and Mandy froze. The dangerous, but calm, man, she’d come to know had suddenly become a blazing inferno.

  “Oh, Jake!” she whispered. “Not your wife?”

  The fire went out of his eyes. His face once more became impassive. “I told Hawk you’re too sharp. You’re good for him, you know. Not some fancy lady who can’t get dirty.”

  Mandy thought about taking exception to that. “Thank you... I think,” she muttered the last. His next words stopped her.

  “But a lady who sure looks fine in a dress.”

  She blushed and looked away “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said after a moment.

  He shrugged.

  “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t Hawk? Charlie wouldn’t have been ribbing you like that, would you have, Charlie?”

  “Women,” Jake hissed between his teeth.

  “I think he’s been so cold so long, he’s forgotten that side,” Charlie mumbled.

  “Charlie!”

  “No, Mandy,” Jake broke in, “he’s right. I haven’t known anything but an unrelenting hatred since I came home that day.”

  Mandy blinked; so many words from Jake at one time, and with feeling, too. An improvement. Maybe he had been cold and full of hatred, but she suspected time was healing those wounds. And when his shell of hatred came off, the true pain and healing would begin.

  That’s if the ice wall around his heart melted before it became a permanent fixture of stone.

  “Get down!”

  Mandy was snapped out of her thoughts by Jake’s barked order. Instinct took over, and she obeyed without hesitation. The four of them were on the ground, and scrambling for shelter, when the first shot kicked up the dirt by Kat.

  Kat, of course, immediately returned fire, along with a few choice words. Within seconds, they were surrounded by gunfire and returning some of their own.

  “I swear, I’m going to shoot that no-account Ashley McCandle right in the butt the very next time I see him,” Mandy bit out, reloading her gun

  Kat laughed. “Then one toe, then another...”

  “And another, ‘til he can’t walk.”

  “Then, we can start in with his fingers...”

  By that time Jake was looking at the two women as if they’d grown horns. “Next, the two of you will be burying him up to his head in an ant hill.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Kat quipped.

  “You’d think you’d both been raised by Indians.”

  Eyebrows raised, the two women looked at each other.

  “As a matter of fact...” Kat started.

  Jake raised his hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  Kat looked at Mandy, smiling, and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “See anything from your position, Charlie?” Jake called out, softly.

  “Nope. But them snakes out there are just wait’n for us to raise our heads, so’s they can blow ‘em off.”

  Jake grunted and reloaded his Winchester. “What about you, Mandy?”

  “I think if the one I’ve got lined in my sight pops up just one more time...” She pulled the trigger and heard a yelp. “Stop whining, it was only a shoulder wound,” she called out. “If I had wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Now, go home and tell McCandle to leave my ranch alone, or the next time I shoot you, believe me, you won’t be crying about it.”

  A bullet splattered the rock next to her face, the fragments hitting her cheek.

  “Well, it was worth a try.”

  “Next time you shoot,” Jake growled. “Shoot to kill. Or you’ll be the dead one. That’s the unforgiving code of the west.”

  Duly reprimanded, Mandy watched for the next shooter.

  Two hours later, they hadn’t heard a shot for some time. “Do you think they’re gone?” Kat called softly.

  “Nope,” Jake hissed. “They’re just waiting us out.”

  “Damn this heat,” Charlie complained.

  “Yep, that’s what they’re counting on.” Jake checked his surroundings yet again.

  Mandy shifted to a more comfortable position. “Do you think Hawk will be coming?” she directed at Jake.

  “Not for a while,” Jake answered. “He won’t notice till we don’t come in for several more hours. Then, he’ll head right out.”

  “How do you know?” Kat questioned.

  “Because, that’s how we operate. That’s how we know something’s gone wrong, without wasting precious time deciding.”

  “Should’a known,” Charlie grumbled.

  “I said to keep your head down.” Jake frowned in Charlie’s direction, then went back to watching their surroundings.

  “Come on out,” one man yelled. “And we’ll take ya in to talk to the boss.”

 
“Yeah, over a saddle,” Mandy snapped.

  “Sell your land, and we’ll leave ya alone.”

  “Over my dead body,” Mandy yelled.

  “That can be arranged.”

  “Where have I heard that before,” Mandy bit out.

  “We can sit here,” Ashley’s man called back, “until you change your mind, or you’re all dead; your choice, ladies and gentlemen.”

  “You’ve only got one problem,” Jake called back.

  “What’s that?” someone answered.

  “Nobody’s mistook me for a gentleman—in a long, long time.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t live by no one’s rules.”

  Mandy’s brows shot up.

  “I make them.”

  “Big talk. Big man. Let’s see how you’re talk’n in a few more hours.”

  Jake turned and got comfortable against the rock.

  “And now?” Kat asked.

  “We wait.”

  “Do you think we could get near the water canteens?” Mandy asked almost an hour later. “My tongue feels like old, shriveled-up wool.”

  Jake squinted at the sun.

  “Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. By the time Hawk realizes we’re late, then rides here, we’ll still have about a two- or three-hour wait.”

  Without further urging, Kat jumped up. Dodging from rock to rock, she went around the other side of the closest horse, led them to a safer spot and grabbed two canteens. Heading back, dirt kicked up around her feet as she slid safely around a rock. She tossed one to Mandy, who took a grateful drink and tossed it to Jake.

  Back-handing the moisture off her face, Kat threw hers to Charlie. “Let me sneak around ‘em,” she directed this to Jake.

  “No,” he grated out. “Nobody’s going to play hero when a little patience will bring us all what we need.”

  Kat made a face and kept her sights on a hat that kept popping up. “If you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  By the time, Jake had figured Hawk would show, Charlie was shooting at anything that moved. “Set on us, will ya!” He shot again. “Well, come on out and get us.”