Hawk's Way: Callen & Zach (14 page)

He found himself pacing the tiled floor as he waited for Rebecca to appear. He resisted the urge to go see what was taking her so long and called to her instead. “Hey, kid! Are you dressed yet?”

He stopped and stared when she appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes were blotchy, and her nose was red. She had obviously been crying. The headband was gone, and so were the moccasins and the Indian dress, for that matter. She was wearing a simple print cotton summer dress with narrow straps that exposed her shoulders, and sandals that left her legs and feet bare. The dress was fitted to the waist and flared into a full skirt. She had gathered her hair into a ponytail so she looked all of seventeen.

His heart lurched.

It was as though he was seeing her for the first time as she really was. A young woman. Very pretty. Open and honest. When he met her glance, he realized the blind trust, which had been there as recently as this morning, was gone. Her green eyes were wary. Her chin trembled.

“I’m ready,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“You’ve been crying.”

“I… It’s been a hectic day.”

“It’s not over yet. Are you sure you want to go to my mother’s party?”

Her chin came up, and her shoulders squared. “Of course.”

She still had gumption, Zach thought. At least that hadn’t changed. “Let’s go, then.”

He stood back and was distressed to see that she shied away as she passed by him. He reached out to stop her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I would never hurt you, kid.”

She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. Her voice was low and vibrated with feeling. “You already have.”

R
EBECCA TOOK A SIP OF COFFEE
that burned her tongue and quickly set down her coffee mug. She glanced at Zach, who sat on the opposite side of the kitchen island. “It’s that time of month,” she blurted. Meaning, of course, that she wasn’t pregnant and that they wouldn’t be having intercourse for the next few days.

For the third month since she had married Zach, her period had come exactly on time. She risked a glance at Zach and found his expression as grim-lipped as she had expected it to be. She bit back an apology. It wasn’t for want of trying that she wasn’t pregnant. She and Zach made love at least once every day and sometimes twice. She had begun to look forward to those interludes, because otherwise, Zach avoided her company.

Her dream of making Zach fall in love with her had gone dreadfully awry. On the other hand, she was making tremendous progress on her camp for kids with cancer, which she had—quite cleverly, she thought—dubbed Camp LittleHawk. Zach had done everything she had asked to help make the camp a reality. Unfortunately, she had yet to fulfill her part of the bargain by providing the child he so desperately wanted.

“Maybe I should go see a doctor,” she suggested.

“I think it’s a little soon for that, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Rebecca replied irritably.

She had discovered that Zach never argued when he could get his way by completely avoiding a discussion of the subject. She watched him do it now.

“I noticed that both bunkhouses are finished,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken that means you have everything in place for your camp to open. When does the first bunch of kids arrive?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, her face lit by the excitement she felt. “We’ll have an even dozen, six boys and six girls.”

“I met your new assistant yesterday.”

“Rowley? I know he’ll be great with the kids. He always has a smile on his face,” Rebecca said. “It also turns out that he was raised on a ranch, so he’s comfortable around horses and cattle.”

“He’s got a broken arm,” Zach said.

“Well, yes, that’s true,” Rebecca said. “But he’s quite good at saddling horses one-handed.”

Rebecca had first spotted Rowley Holiday hitchhiking along the highway into town with a saddle thrown over his shoulder. Of course, she had stopped to pick him up. At first, the young man had been a bit taciturn, but soon she had him talking about his life as a rodeo bronc rider. His broken arm was a bit of bad luck, he said, that was going to make things a little tough for the six weeks it took his arm to heal.

She liked his enthusiasm for his work and his willingness to shoulder life’s burdens with a smile. The next thing she knew, she was offering him the job as camp counselor.

Like Mrs. Fortunata, Rowley had no credentials for the job. But it wasn’t a conventional kind of camp.
Although every child coming to the camp had cancer, they were all in remission or stabilized by treatment. She had arranged to have a doctor on call, but the truth of the matter was, all she needed was a pair of willing hands—or even one good strong one—and an authoritative voice to direct the boys, while she and Mrs. Fortunata took care of the girls.

“It’s perfect,” she had said. “You can spend some time working for me and Zach and then hit the rodeo circuit again.”

“Oh, I don’t know, ma’am…”

That was another thing she liked about the cowboy, his courtesy. “You have to take the job, Rowley. Camp’s starting in a week. I had talked my husband into taking the job, but he’s awful busy with ranch business. You’d be doing us a favor.”

And of course, being the nice sort of man he was, Rowley had accepted the job. She had brought him back to the ranch and told him to make himself at home in the counselor’s suite in the boys’ bunkhouse.

“Is there anybody else you’ve hired that I should know about?” Zach asked.

“Nobody since Mr. Tuttle,” Rebecca said.

“Thank God,” Zach muttered. “And about Tuttle—”

Rebecca didn’t want to argue with Zach about her newest employee, so she jumped up and dumped the rest of her coffee in the sink. “I’ve got to get moving, Zach. I’ll see you tonight.”

Zach felt the butterfly touch of her lips on his cheek before Rebecca flitted out the door.

He left the kitchen a moment or two after her, headed for the barn. He watched her fanny sashay across the yard, not quite believing the upheaval in his life since
the day three months ago when they had gotten married. It had dawned on him, finally, that Rebecca hadn’t changed much at all since the days when she had roamed Hawk’s Pride with a menagerie of animals in tow. She was still bringing home strays. Only she had graduated to the two-legged variety.

Besides Mrs. Fortunata, who insisted on cooking for them to pay her way until the first campers showed up—and was a passable cook, if you liked a lot of pasta—there was the cowboy with the broken arm, Rowley Something, whom she had hired as a camp counselor, and an arthritic old man, Mr. Tuttle—who couldn’t close his fingers around a pitchfork, let alone lift a bale of hay—whom she had hired to muck out the stalls and feed the dozen-odd ponies she had talked him into buying for the camp.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford the salaries. He had started out with a sizable trust fund and had turned a profit with his ranch over the past fifteen years. He could easily be termed a wealthy man.

“But if you keep it up,” he had warned Rebecca, “Hawk’s Pride will become a Mecca for every freeloader in Texas with a sob story.”

She had looked up at him earnestly and said, “I would never let anyone take advantage of your generosity, Zach.”

How was he supposed to respond to a statement like that?

Hog-tied and buffaloed by a bit of female fluff, that’s what he was. He had given up trying to stop her from rescuing the homeless, the helpless and the unhealthy. Her generosity of spirit was simply a part of who she was.

Besides, Mrs. Fortunata was a nice old lady, and
Rowley had turned out to be a damned hard worker, even with one hand. And somehow, he had no idea how, Mr. Tuttle kept the stable clean and the ponies fed.

Zach watched from the barn, where he was saddling his horse, as Rebecca headed for one of the two bunkhouses—one for boys and one for girls—that had been built to accommodate the twelve pint-size campers. Rowley was working on a corral that would be used as a riding ring for beginners.

Zach pulled the cinch tight and lowered the stirrup but didn’t mount immediately. He leaned his arms on the saddle and watched Rebecca talk animatedly with the broken-winged cowboy.

His marriage wasn’t turning out at all the way he had expected. In the first place, he hadn’t anticipated being so fascinated by his wife. Most of the time, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her when they were in the same room together. Only last night, a tiny mole beneath her left ear had drawn his eye and his hand and finally his mouth. At breakfast, he had found himself imagining the feel of the delicate curls at her nape, the curve of her brow. Even this far away, he wasn’t immune to her charm. He felt his stomach sift sideways as she gave the new cowhand a sassy smile.

If it had simply been a matter of physical attraction, he might have sated himself with her body long before now. But he had been surprised to discover that he liked Rebecca most when she was discussing her plans for the children who would attend Camp LittleHawk, or the people she encountered who only needed a little helping hand—which she was glad to offer—to get on their feet again. Her eyes laid bare a warmth and enthusiasm for life that drew him like a hot fire on a cold Texas night.

He worried that he might be letting his admiration
for her get in the way of his better judgment. This wasn’t a real marriage. She wasn’t a real wife. Their relationship was supposed to be strictly a business arrangement.

Zach snorted. It never had been that, and he doubted it ever would be.

He felt an urgent need, however, to protect himself from the pain of another failed relationship. He had never seen Rebecca look sideways at another man, so perhaps she would never be guilty of infidelity. But he couldn’t help the nagging feeling that he was just one more cripple—one with an emotional handicap, rather than a physical one—that she had chosen to rescue, and that, like the others, once he was on his feet again, she would move on to someone else.

Loving her would leave him vulnerable because she might never learn to love him back. Oh, he would be treated with courtesy and care, thoughtfulness and cheer, but that wasn’t the same as being loved—body and heart and soul—was it?

The only way he knew to fight his growing attraction was to keep his distance from her. But every time he drew a figurative line in the sand, she adroitly, even nonchalantly, stepped over it. She was constantly coming to him to ask his advice. Did he think blue or green was a better color for the walls in the boys’ bunkhouse? Should she start with ten campers or twelve? What kind of crafts did boys like to do? Did he think the private suite for the counselor in each of the bunkhouses was large enough?

Was it any wonder he felt a little anxious?

To make matters worse, while he wanted a child as much as he ever had, the little boy he imagined now had
features and a smile that matched those on Rebecca’s face. He hadn’t expected it to matter which woman was the mother of his child. Suddenly, it did. He had no idea what he was going to do if Rebecca didn’t get pregnant before the year was up.

He heard Rebecca laugh, and the husky, full-throated sound caused the hair on his arms to stand up. His eyes narrowed on Rowley, who stood with his hip angled in a cock-strutting pose and a winning smile plastered on his lips. He watched Rebecca lay a hand on Rowley’s shoulder and saw Rowley bend his chestnut-haired head to listen intently to what she had to say. Then Rowley offered his hand to help Rebecca sit on a rail of the corral. Only his hand didn’t come away once she was up there. It stayed, resting on her thigh.

Zach felt his stomach cramp. The streak of possessiveness he felt took him by surprise. This wasn’t jealousy, it was something much more primeval, the response of a male animal whose claim on its mate is threatened by another male animal. He knew from bitter experience that an unwary man could have his woman stolen away from him.

Adrenaline flowed. Muscles flexed in readiness to fight.

Zach stalked toward the corral, his eyes never leaving the sight of the masculine hand on his wife. He wasn’t seeing Rebecca, he was seeing Cynthia in those last moments before he had thrown her out, her body slick with sweat, the sheets tousled around her and musky with the smell of another man. He didn’t give Rowley any warning, just grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around and hit him in the jaw.

“Zach! Are you crazy? What are you doing?” Rebecca
scrambled down from the corral and dropped to her knees beside the fallen man. “Are you all right, Rowley?”

Rowley had his good hand to his jaw and was gingerly working it. “I think so.” He looked up at Zach. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Keep your hands off my wife.”

Rebecca rose and stood toe to toe with Zach. “What’s wrong with you? Rowley didn’t do anything.”

“He was holding hands with you.”

“That was perfectly innocent!”

“Yeah. Right,” Zach said, his voice harsh with sarcasm.

“I think I’ll leave you two alone to work this out,” Rowley said, struggling to his feet.

“Don’t leave, Rowley,” Rebecca said. “Zach owes you an apology.”

“Like hell I do.”

“Apologize, Zach.”

“I’ll do better than that.” Zach turned to Rowley and said, “You’re fired. Pick up your things and be out of here before the end of the day.”

Rebecca was furious. “Don’t you move an inch, Rowley.” She rounded on Zach. “This is my camp, and you have no right to fire my employees.”

“This is my ranch, and if I say a man goes, he goes!”

Rebecca shoved a frustrated hand through her hair. “I need him, Zach. I can’t manage twelve kids by myself.”

“You’ve got me.” It was only then he realized he had been hurt when she replaced him with Rowley. Rationally, he knew she had seen somebody in trouble and been unable to pass him by without offering a helping hand. But it was hard playing second fiddle to another man.

“I know you’re there for me, Zach. Lord, I could
never face the thought of doing all this without you. But I thought I had put you on the spot asking you to help. We can really use another set of hands.”

“He’s only got one that works,” Zach snarled.

“Nevertheless,” Rebecca said, obviously exercising a great deal of restraint, “please tell Rowley you want him to stay.”

Zach inspected the cowboy through narrowed eyes. Rowley met his gaze steadily, neither apologetic nor confrontational. It wasn’t the look of a guilty man.

So maybe he had gone off half-cocked. Maybe he had acted a little crazy. But Rowley had gotten the point.
Hands off my wife
. As long as that was understood, he was willing to make peace with the other man.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Zach said gruffly.

Rowley took the hand Zach offered. “Forget it, Boss.”

“You’re welcome to stay.”

“Thanks.”

“See, now. Was that so hard?” Rebecca said as she slipped her hand through Zach’s arm and snuggled close. “I just know you two are going to be great friends.”

Zach and Rowley exchanged chagrined expressions. Knowing Rebecca, they probably would.

Z
ACH EYED THE EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY
who stared right back at him with unblinking eyes. “You sure you want to do this?”

“Uh-huh.”

He set the boy on top of the small pony and shoved the kid’s tennis shoes into the shortened stirrups. He had already given instructions on how to rein the horse. He gave the brim of the boy’s baseball cap a tug to make sure
it was settled on his head. All the kids wore caps, he had noticed, because not many of them had hair. Chemotherapy had left them in various stages of baldness.

He met the boy’s solemn, gray-eyed gaze and said, “Nothing to it, kid. Let your body move with the horse. If you run into trouble, grab hold of the horn.”