Hawk's Way Grooms (7 page)

“I will.”

“What if you can't?”

“I'll be playing again in the fall. Count on it.”

“You're purposely avoiding my question.
What if you can't?
”

He rose, but it took obvious effort to do so without the cane. She said nothing while he accomplished the feat—a minor miracle considering the condition he'd been in two weeks ago.

“Let's go,” he said gruffly, reaching down to help her to her feet.

She shoved his hand out of the way. “I'm not a cripple, either, Mac,” she said. “I can manage on my own.”

“Damn it, Jewel! What do you want from me?”

“Honesty,” she said, rising and standing toe to toe with him, her eyes focused on his. “You never used to lie to me, Mac. Or to yourself.”

“What is it you want to hear me say? I won't quit playing football! It's all I ever wanted to do.”

“You wanted to be a paleontologist.”

“That's what I said. But inside—” he thumped his bare chest with his fist “—all I ever dreamed about, all I ever wanted to do was run like the wind and catch footballs. It was just so impossible for so long, I never let myself hope for it too much. But I made it happen. And I'm not going to give it up!”

Jewel felt her heart skip a beat. She hadn't known. She hadn't realized. If what Mac said was true, then he was facing a much greater crisis than she had imagined.

“Avoiding reality isn't going to make it go away, Mac,” she said gently. “You have to face your demons.”

“Like you have?” Mac retorted.

Jewel's face blanched. She turned her back on him and headed up the trail toward the mouth of the canyon.

“Jewel, wait,” Mac said as he hurried after her. He grabbed her arm to stop her. “If you're going to insist on honesty from me, how about a little from you?”

“What is it you want to know? You know everything,” she said bitterly. “You're the only one who does!”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You never told anyone else? What about your fiancé?”

She shook her head violently.

“Why the hell not?”

“I couldn't tell Jerry. I just couldn't!”

In days gone by he would have put an arm around her to offer her comfort. But things had changed somehow in the two weeks since they had met again. His eyes offered emotional support, instead. “God, Jewel. That's a heavy burden to be carrying around all by yourself.”

“I'm managing all right.”

“What happened to Jerry What's-his-name? Why did you call off the wedding?”

“I couldn't…I wasn't able…I could never…”

She saw the dawning comprehension in his eyes. “I don't want or need your pity!” She tried to run from him in awkward, hobbling strides, but he quickly caught up to her and pulled her into his arms.

“Don't run away,” he said, his arms closing tightly around her. “It doesn't matter, Jewel. It'll get better with time.”

She made a keening sound in her throat. “It's been six years. I can't forget what happened, Mac. I can't get it out of my head. Jerry was so patient, but when he tried to make love to me, I couldn't let him do it. I couldn't!” Her throat ached. A hot tear spilled onto her cheek and a sob broke free.

She grasped Mac tight around the waist and pressed her face against his bare chest, sobbing as she never had on the day she had been attacked or at any time since then. She had been too numb with shock to cry six years ago. And she had been too full of guilt when she broke up with Jerry to allow herself the release of tears.

“Shh. Shh,” Mac crooned as he rocked her in his arms. “It's all right. It doesn't matter. Everything will be all right.”

She felt his lips against her hair, soothing, comforting, and then his hands on either side of her face as he raised it to kiss her tear-wet eyelids. He kissed her nose and her cheeks and finally her mouth. His lips were firm, yet gentle, against her own. She yielded to the insistent pressure of his mouth, her lips soft and damp beneath his. He kissed her again, his lips brushing across hers and sending a surprising frisson of desire skittering down her spine.
Oh, Mac…

She pressed her lips back against his and heard a sharp intake of breath. She froze, then stepped back and stared up at him in confusion.

He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again, obviously upset and looking for a way to explain what had happened between them. She wondered if he had felt it, too, the wondrous stirring inside, the need to merge into one another. What if he did? Oh, God. It would ruin everything. She couldn't…and he would never…She took another step back from him.

“Wait, Jewel. Don't go,” he said, reaching out a hand to her. “We have to talk about this.”

“What is there to say?”

He took a step closer, and it took all her willpower not to run from him. She felt an equally driving need to press herself against him, which she resisted just as fiercely.

“I don't want what just happened to spoil things between us,” he said, his voice anguished. “I could see you needed comfort, and I…I got a little carried away.”

“All right, Mac. If that's the way you want it.” She would ruin everything if she pressed for more. He obviously wanted things to stay the same between them. He wanted them to be friends. That was probably for the best. What if she tried loving him and failed, as she had with Jerry? She would lose everything. She couldn't bear that.

“What's wrong, Jewel?”

She mentally and physically squared her shoulders. “I shouldn't have fallen apart like that. I've spent a lot of time in counseling putting what happened six years ago behind me.”

“Have you?”

“I'm as over it as I'm ever going to get,” she conceded with a rueful twist of her mouth. “It doesn't matter, Mac, really. I have the kids at camp. I have friends. I have a full life.”

“Without a man in it,” he said flatly. “Or children.”

She arched a brow. “Who says a woman needs a man in her life? And there are lots of children at Camp LittleHawk who need me.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “You win. I'm not going to argue the point.”

Jewel released a breath that became a sigh, glad the subject was closed. “We'd better get back to the house.”

He looked as though he wanted to continue the discussion, but she knew that wouldn't help the situation. She decided levity was what was needed. “I hope you saved some energy, because I know for a fact Colt will be waiting for you when you get back to the house.”

Mac groaned. “I forgot. He's going to throw me some passes.”

“I can always send him away.”

“I suppose I can catch a few passes and keep him happy.”

“And keep who happy?”

Mac grinned. “So I'm looking forward to it. Think what that'll mean to you.”

She gave him a quizzical look. If Mac was up to catching passes, it meant he was getting well. If he was getting well, it meant he would be leaving soon. She wanted to hear him say it. Maybe then she could stop fantasizing about him. “What will it mean to me?” she asked.

Twin dimples appeared in his cheeks. “You get the shower first.”

Jewel laughed. It beat the heck out of crying.

I
F THERE WAS ONE THING
C
OLT
W
HITELAW
wanted more than he wanted to fly jets someday, it was to have Jennifer Wright look at him the way she looked at his best friend, Huckleberry Duncan. Jenny didn't even care that Huck had a stupid name. When Huck was around, Jenny wouldn't have noticed if Colt dropped dead at her feet. She only had eyes for Huck.

Which meant Colt got to spend a lot of time watching her when she wasn't looking. Jenny wasn't what most guys would have called pretty. She was short and skinny, her nose was too long and her teeth were slightly crooked. But she had the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen. Jenny's eyes were about the bluest blue eyes could get.

It wasn't just the color of them that he found attractive. When he looked into Jenny's eyes he saw the pledge of warmth, the promise of humor and depths of wisdom far beyond what a fourteen-year-old girl ought to possess.

Jenny might be the same age as him and Huck, but it seemed she had grown up faster—in more ways than one. For a couple of years she'd been taller than Huck. This past year Huck had caught up and passed her. Colt had always been taller than Jenny. Not that she'd noticed.

This past year something else had happened to Jenny. She had started becoming a woman. Colt felt like walloping Huck when Huck kidded her about the bumps she was sprouting up front, but when she bent over laughing and her shirt fell away, he had sneaked a peek at them. They were pure white and pink-tipped. He had turned away pretty quick because the whole time he was looking, he couldn't seem to breathe.

His body did strange things these days whenever she was around. His stomach turned upside down and his heart started to race and his body embarrassed him by doing other things that were still pretty new and felt amazingly good and grown-up. He had it bad for Jenny Wright. Not that he'd ever let her or Huck know about it. Because Huck felt about Jenny the way Jenny felt about Huck. It was true love both ways. When they got old enough, Colt figured they'd marry for sure.

He kept his feelings to himself. He liked Huck too much to give him up as a friend. And it would have killed him to stop seeing Jenny. Even if she was always going to be Huck's girl.

“Hey, Colt. I thought you were going to throw me some passes,” Huck said, giving him a friendly chuck on the shoulder.

Colt watched as Jenny climbed up onto the top rail of the corral near the new counselors' cottages and shoved her long blond ponytail back over her shoulder. “You gonna be all right up there?” he asked.

She laughed. “I'm not one of your mom's campers, Colt. I'm healthy as a horse. I'll be fine.”

Colt couldn't help it if he worried about her. He didn't want her to fall and get hurt. Not that she appreciated his concern. He turned the football in his hands, finding the laces and placing his hands where he knew they needed to be.

“Go long!” he shouted to Huck, who had already started to run over the uneven terrain, which was dotted with clumps of buffalo grass and an occasional prickly pear cactus.

Colt threw the ball with ease and watched it fall perfectly, gently into Huck's outstretched hands. Huck did a victory dance and spiked the ball.

“We are the greatest!” Huck shouted, holding his pointed fingers upward on either side of him in the referee's signal for a touchdown.

They made a pretty good team, Colt conceded. About the best in the state. Both of them would likely be offered athletic scholarships to college. Huck was so rich—his father was a U.S. senator from Texas—he didn't need a scholarship to pay for college. Colt's family could easily afford to send him to college, too, but he kept playing football because he had heard it might help him get into the Air Force Academy.

If Huck had wanted to go to the Academy, his dad, the senator, could write a letter and get him appointed. Colt didn't have that advantage. He would never presume on his friendship with Huck to ask for that kind of favor from Senator Duncan. So he had to find another way to make sure he got in.

Huck retrieved the ball and started walking back toward Colt and Jenny. Colt took advantage of the opportunity to have Jenny's full attention. “He's pretty good,” he said, knowing Huck was the one thing Jenny was always willing to discuss.

“He is, isn't he,” she said, a worried frown forming between her brows.

“Something wrong with that?” Colt asked, leaning his elbow casually on the top rail next to Jenny's thigh where her cutoffs ended and her flesh began. Casual. Right. His mouth was bone-dry.

“I don't want him to go away,” she said.

He watched her face as she watched Huck. “You think football will take him away?”

“No. Huck loves football, but I think he'd be willing to attend a college somewhere close just so we could be together. Only…” Her head swiveled suddenly, and she looked him right in the eye. “You're going to take him away.”

He swallowed hard, his hormones going into overdrive as she continued staring at him. He managed to say, “I am?”

She nodded solemnly. “He's going to want to follow wherever you go, Colt, and I know your plans don't include staying here in Texas. I don't want to get left behind.”

Jenny was dirt-poor, and even if she could have gotten a scholarship to a college somewhere else—which, with her brains, she probably could—she had to stay at the Double D Ranch to help take care of her sick mother and four younger brothers.

“Huck would never leave you behind,” Colt said seriously.

“He might not have any choice. Not if he went off to fly jets somewhere with you.”

Colt felt angry, vulnerable and exposed. “How did you know about that? About me wanting to fly jets?”

She shrugged and slipped down off the top rail of the corral. “Huck and I don't have any secrets.”

“He shouldn't have told you,” Colt said, feeling his heart begin to thud at the closeness of her. He wanted her to step back so he could breathe, so he could think straight. Didn't she see what she was doing to him? “That was private information,” he snapped. “It doesn't concern you.”

Her fisted hands found her hips. “It does when Huck is thinking about going with you.”

“I never asked him to come along,” he retorted.

“Hey, you two! What're my two favorite people arguing about?” Huck said, grinning as he stepped between them and slipped an arm around each of their shoulders. Colt stood rigid beneath his arm. Huck still had the football in one hand, and Colt knocked it to the ground.

“Ask your girlfriend,” he said, bending to retrieve the ball and pulling free of Huck's arm. “I've got to go find Mac Macready. I'm supposed to throw some passes to him this morning.”

Huck left Jenny standing where she was and headed after Colt. “Macready's really here? I mean, I heard rumors in town he was, but I wasn't sure. You're really going to throw some balls to him?”

“I said I was, didn't I?” Colt stopped where he was and looked back over Huck's shoulder to where Jenny stood abandoned. Her expression said it all.

See what I mean? You lead. Huck follows.

It wasn't his fault. It had always been that way. If Jenny didn't like it, she didn't have to hang around. Colt turned back to Huck.

Huck's sandy hair had fallen over his brow and into his eyes. His rarely combed hair, combined with his ski-slope nose and freckled cheeks and broad smile, gave him an affable appearance he deserved. Huck didn't make enemies. He wouldn't have hurt a fly. Colt was sure he hadn't meant to hurt Jenny's feelings. Huck just forgot to be thoughtful sometimes.

“What about Jenny?” Colt asked.

“Hey, Jenny,” Huck called. “You want to hang around and meet Mac Macready?”

Jenny shook her head.

“See? She's not interested,” Huck said. “But I am.”

Colt sighed. “You want to stay?” he asked Huck.

“Does a cowboy wear spurs?” Huck replied with a lopsided grin.

They headed for the counselor's cottage where Mac was staying, leaving Jenny behind at the corral. Colt glanced over his shoulder at her. It looked for a moment like she might follow them. Then she turned to where her horse was tied to the corral next to Huck's, mounted up and loped the gelding in the direction of her family's ranch.

“You shouldn't ignore Jenny like that,” Colt said, turning back to Huck.

Huck seemed to notice suddenly that she had left. “What did I do?” He shook his head. “Women. They're mysterious creatures, old buddy. Don't ever try to understand them. It's a waste of time.”

“Why did you tell her about me wanting to fly?” Colt asked.

Huck looked chagrined. “We were talking about the future and…it just came up.”

“Make sure it doesn't come up again,” Colt said. “That's my business, and I don't want the whole world knowing about it.” Especially when he was afraid he wasn't going to be able to make his dream come true.

“Jenny isn't the whole world,” Huck argued. “She's my girlfriend. I have to tell her things.”

“Just don't tell her things about me,” Colt insisted.

“That's hard to avoid when you're my best friend,” Huck said. “Besides, if we're going to be jet pilots—”

“When did my plans become yours?” Colt asked.

Huck grinned and pulled an arm tight around Colt's neck in a wrestler's hold. “We're friends forever, pal. Where you go, I go. If you fly, I fly. Enough said?”

Colt wished it were that simple. He wished he could express his desire to be a jet fighter pilot and expect his parents to be happy about it. He had never said a word to them, because he knew they would hate the idea.

He might be one of eight adopted kids, but his mom and dad had made it pretty clear over the past couple of years that he was the one they expected to inherit Hawk's Pride. They already had his life planned for him. They expected him to come back home after college to manage the ranch.

He was grateful to have Zach and Rebecca Whitelaw for parents. He loved them enough to want to make them happy by fulfilling their expectations. It just wasn't what he wanted for himself. He wanted to fly.

So he made his plans surreptitiously, meanwhile letting his father teach him everything he would need to know to run the cattle and quarter horse end of the business. His father had told him his sister Jewel was taking over Camp LittleHawk, and that was fine with him. Although he kind of liked the ranching business, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with a camp for kids with cancer.

Not that he didn't have sympathy for the plight of all those sick kids. But he had learned his lesson early. He had befriended a couple of them when he was old enough to make friends. It was only later, when he asked why they hadn't returned the following summer, that he learned the awful truth. Sometimes sick people died.

It was a sobering lesson:
Illness could rob you of people you loved.
He had found a child's solution to the problem that had stood him in good stead. He stayed away from sick people. Which was why he hadn't been to Jenny's house much, even though Huck went there a lot. Her mom was dying slowly but surely of breast cancer.

Colt might have argued further with Huck, except he caught sight of Mac Macready coming around the corner of the house with his sister, Jewel.

“Hey!” Colt called. “Ready to catch a few passes?”

“You bet,” Mac called back.

Colt looked for signs of reluctance or resignation on Mac's face. After all, Colt was just a kid. He didn't see anything but delight.

“Just give me a minute,” Mac said with a smile and a wave. “Be right with you.” He turned and said something in Jewel's ear, then headed in Colt's direction.

 

J
EWEL HEARD THE KITCHEN SCREEN DOOR
open and called, “Is that you, Mac?” “Jewel?”

“Colt?” At the sound of her brother's frightened voice, Jewel hurried from her bedroom wearing an oversized plaid Western shirt, jeans and boots, her hair still wet from her shower. She met Colt halfway to the kitchen. “What's wrong?”

Her brother stood white-faced before her. “It's Mac. He fell.”

Oh, dear God.
“Should I call an ambulance?”

“I don't know,” Colt said, his hands visibly trembling. “I thought maybe you ought to come and see for yourself first. It was awful, Jewel. One minute Mac was fine, and then Huck tackled him and…he didn't get up.”

“Huck
tackled
him? What on earth were you boys thinking, Colt? You know Mac's recovering from surgery!”

“We thought it would be more fun—”

“Did he hit his head when he fell?”

“I don't think so. I think—”

Before Jewel could make the decision whether to call 911, Mac appeared at the kitchen door, one arm around Huck's shoulder, the other pressed against the thigh of his scarred leg.