Heart of the Hawk (21 page)

“Deborah,” he finally gasped out, “you are a treasure. And I’m proud to have you count me as your friend.”

Deborah’s smile became slightly stiff. His friend. That’s what she was best at, it seemed, being everyone’s friend. Kate, Alex, shy Mrs. Boardman, they all came to her to talk. Even the marshal had occasionally dropped by under the guise of checking on her since her father had died, and stayed to probe for advice on how to handle this person or that in the town she’d lived in longer than he had.

She was confidante for half the town, but it seemed there was no one for her to confide in in turn. Not that she could, she thought, chastising herself for her selfish thoughts. How could she ever confide to anyone what sensible, settled Miss Taylor secretly longed for in the night?

“Deborah? What’s wrong?”

She gathered her composure. “Nothing, Alex.” Then, choosing the topic she was certain would divert him, she added. “I’m merely worried about Kate. What can we do to help her?”

Alex looked down at his hands. “I’ve . . . been thinking about little else. And I think . . .” He hesitated, his voice sounding odd. After a moment he went on. “I think the best thing would be for her to marry again.”

So, Deborah thought, he’d come around to it at last. She did her best not to appear downcast as she made herself cast aside the last of her foolish daydreams. She felt guilty for even thinking about her own silly hurt feelings when Kate’s entire life was in chaos.

Alex was probably right; it would be best for Kate to marry again, now that she had lost the store. There was little else she could do in town, or in any other town, for that matter, not as a woman alone.

Still there were things to consider.

“She’s barely a widow, Alex,” she said. “It’s hardly proper for her to be thinking about marriage so soon. Even if her first marriage had been . . . a pleasant one.”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t that,” Alex said. Then, in response to her point, added, “It would have to be a long engagement, of course.” He studied her for a moment. “She could . . . stay with you during that time, couldn’t she? Even if it was . . . a long while?”

“Of course. That’s wisest, don’t you think? Gives a couple a chance to know one another, to be sure you’re doing the right thing.”

“Yes,” Alex said, with the air of a much older man, “I’ve seen too many folks very unhappy because they’d married too soon, without really knowing the other person, you see.”

“And then one day they’re surprised to find they don’t even like that person.”

“Exactly,” Alex exclaimed, apparently delighted at her understanding. “People need to take time, so they’re not surprised later.”

Deborah nodded. “They need to talk, to learn about each other.”

“Precisely. I mean, look at you and me—we’ve talked for hours. I know how you feel about so many things, and you always understand me.”

“Yes,” Deborah said, her throat growing tight.

Couldn’t he see what this was doing to her? Was he really so blind to her feelings as to not realize she even had them? Did everyone in this town think her so firmly an old, settled spinster who had no needs, no desire for anything more out of her life?

“And you make me laugh,” Alex went on, seemingly as oblivious as she’d feared, “and see sides of things I never thought of. And you laugh, too, even if the story I tell you isn’t really so very funny. And I know that you like that special tea, and you know how I like my coffee.”

“Yes,” she said tightly, “yes, I do.”

“And I can talk to you about anything. That’s important, isn’t it?”

“Very. A . . . husband and wife should be able to talk about anything.”

He was tearing her heart out, and he didn’t even know it, Deborah thought. She wondered if he would even care. Of course, he would, she thought. Alex was a kind, caring man. But he would be horribly embarrassed if he ever guessed that his confidante, a woman five years older than he, and at thirty far too old to be entertaining such notions, harbored a secret fondness for him that went beyond the bounds of friendship. And she guessed that Alex had had more than enough embarrassment for one week.

“Deborah?”

His questioning tone told her she’d failed to respond to something he’d said.

“I’m sorry, I was . . . thinking,” she said. “Did you ask me something?”

“Er . . . yes.” He was wearing a rather militant expression, and Deborah braced herself. “You don’t think . . . I mean, that man is still there . . . You don’t suppose Kate . . . ?”

“What are you asking, Alex?”

“She doesn’t
care
about that man, does she?”

“Josh?” Deborah asked, using the name purposely, although she wasn’t certain of her motivation, or whether it was of the purest kind.

“Josh?” Alex gaped at her. “You call
The Hawk
Josh?”

“Well, it is his given name,” she said blithely, a tiny bit pleased, albeit meanly so, to see him disconcerted a little.

“But he’s—”

“A very charming man.”

“Charming? My Lord, Deborah, this is The Hawk you’re talking about!”

“So it is.” She allowed herself a little more enjoyment at having rattled the usually very proper Alex into the oath. “But the only men I’ve personally seen dead by his hand appear to have tried to shoot him in the back.”

Deborah paused, thinking she was acting the fool, going on like this. But then Josh’s words echoed in her mind:
You’re
a fine-looking woman, Miss Taylor.
It gave her back her courage, and she went on in the best tone of female appreciation she could manage.

“I think he’s a very handsome man.”

“Handsome?” Alex almost yelped.

“Very.” Deborah smiled, enjoying this in a purely feminine way she’d never known before. “That dark hair, those blue eyes, that jaw. And he’s tall, and strong—”

Alex leapt to his feet. He stared down at her. “Deborah, what has gotten into you?”

She relaxed in her chair as if this were a perfectly normal conversation. “Perhaps it’s just nice to meet a man who treats me like a woman instead of a sister.”

Alex glowered at her. “Just what
has
he done?”

“Why nothing, Alex. He’s been a perfect gentleman.”

“Look, I know you have some idea that he’s not the bad man some say he is, and perhaps there’s something to that, but you can’t seriously think . . .”

“Think what, Alex?” she said sweetly.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking!” he roared.

I’m thinking,
Deborah realized in wonder
, for the first time in my life, that perhaps it isn’t too late for me after all.

Chapter 14

“OPEN THE DOOR, Kate.”

“Go away.”

“No.”

“Go
away
.”

“Open it, Kate. Or I’ll take it down.”

Josh listened to the silence from the other side of the door. It was dusk, in fact nearly dark, and she was still holed up inside her room. He hadn’t heard a sound since she’d run from them, not even the familiar sound of her light footsteps above his head. She’d gone to ground like a wounded fox seeking her den, and if he left her there, Josh was afraid she’d simply curl up and bleed to death inside. That valiant spirit would drain away, finally crushed by this final blow delivered from beyond the grave.

He backed up a step, ready to keep his word to take the door down if he had to. He’d fix it later, after he was sure she was all right. He picked his spot on the door, next to the knob, where the faded-to-gray paint was peeling the worst. He’d thought about painting the whole damned place, but he’d discarded the idea simply because it meant he’d probably be here another month, and he didn’t want that.

Hell, he didn’t want to be here another day. His life had started to fall apart in Gambler’s Notch, and was only getting more confused, and he wanted the place far behind him as soon as he could manage it. But he had to see to this first, had to know she was all right.

He set himself to kick the door. He wasn’t about to use his shoulder—it was still too sore from his encounter with Robards this afternoon, and using the right shoulder would put him with his back to the room, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, even knowing it was only Kate inside.

He gathered himself, but in the instant before he delivered the blow, he heard the faint sound of footsteps on the other side of the door. He lowered his foot back to the small landing, and waited. After a moment, he heard a slight metallic sound. Then more footsteps.

Nothing happened. After a moment, he reached down and tried the doorknob; it turned. He opened the door. When nothing happened again, he stepped inside.

He’d wondered what the place looked like, if the home Arly had provided for his wife was as paltry as the clothes she wore. The room was dim. Kate had not lit a lamp in the fading dusk, but even so, Josh could see that if anything, it was worse than he’d imagined. Although painfully clean and tidy, there was little comfort here, little sign even that a woman lived here.

The only furniture was a worn, small sofa, a single chair at a table even more battered than the one in the kitchen, and a large humpbacked trunk. The floor was bare wood, without even a rag rug to cushion it. A single kerosene lantern sat on the table, and a smaller version of the cast-iron stove that was in the store sat midway down a side wall, cold and empty despite the chill in the air now that the sun was dropping behind the mountains.

On the other side of the stove was an iron bed. Large enough to accommodate a man the size of Arly Dixon, but with little room to spare. Josh stared at it for a moment, wondering if the man’s viciousness had carried over into this part of their marriage as well, but in his gut he knew there was little chance it hadn’t. The images that leapt to life in his mind, of Kate at the mercy of the brutal Arly in that bed, made him nearly ill as he turned away from it.

By now his eyes had adjusted, and he finally saw her, huddled in a battered rocker he hadn’t seen at first by the single small window in the back wall. He pulled the door shut behind him and walked toward her.

“Kate,” he began.

“Don’t. There’s nothing to say.”

He stopped in front of her. The faint light from the window spilled over her, lighting her hair with a kind of halo, and casting her features into contours of light and dark. It was not, perhaps, a pretty face, he thought, not in the way of other young women her age, but it was a face with its own kind of beauty, the beauty of strength and spirit.

And it made him feel sick inside to see her look so defeated.

“There’s everything to say,” he said. “You can’t just give up.”

“I was a fool, and now I’m paying for it.”

“You are many things, Kate, but not a fool.”

“If you really knew some of the things I am, what I’ve done . . .”

Her voice trailed away. She looked at him then, her eyes wide with something that looked almost like guilt, although he couldn’t he sure in the dim light. He must be wrong, he thought; she had nothing to feel guilty about. But he needed to see her, to look into those golden eyes until he was certain she was all right. He walked over and lit the lantern on the table, trimmed the wick, then came back and crouched in front of her, bracing himself with his hands on the arms of the rocker.

“Kate, no matter what you think you’ve done, you don’t deserve this.”

“You don’t know what I deserve,” she said, an edge of desperation in her tone. “Josh, I—”

She broke off abruptly. He wondered what she’d been about to say; he’d had the strangest feeling that more than once she’d been about to tell him something, but had stopped herself. This was just the latest.

“What is it, Kate?”

“I . . . Nothing.”

He knew it was a lie, but he couldn’t bring himself to press her for the truth, not now, not when she was so vulnerable. He wished he could think of something to distract her, to take her mind off what had just happened. But all he could think to do was try to reassure her.

“You’ll be all right. We’ll think of something.”

He meant it. There had to be something to do about this. He just wasn’t sure what it was, not yet.

“You’ve done more than enough,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

As if he could stop, Josh thought. He only wished he could. He’d probably spent more time worrying about this woman than he’d spent worrying about anything. Except maybe that damned book.

He stood up, hoping he’d found the distraction he’d been looking for.

“You’re late,” he said.

She looked up at him. “What?”

“You’re late,” he repeated. “We’re supposed to be reading by now.”

He heard her sigh, a soft, wistful sound, but she didn’t speak.

“Come downstairs, Kate. We’ll join up with that crazy captain again.”

She shook her head. “It won’t change anything.”

“No, it won’t. But it will take your mind off of this trouble. Gramps used to say a man could lose all his troubles in a good book.”

He held out a hand to her. She stared at it for a moment, then at his face. Then, slowly, she lifted her hand to take his. His fingers curled around hers, and he felt the faint pressure as she clasped his in turn. She was a tall woman, but her hand felt delicate and fragile and soft in his. He liked how tall she was, he thought. She was a woman to stand beside a man, not hide in his shadow. She just didn’t know that. Yet.

And her touch sent a burst of heat through him that made him remember with vivid clarity how her mouth had felt under his, soft and warm and giving, with a sweet innocence that had startled him until she’d given him the harsh explanation that she’d never been kissed with gentleness before.

He felt the pressure of her hand increase as she rose to her feet. And just that quickly she was bare inches away, and the memory of that kiss was beginning to send fiery little licks of heat along his nerves. It didn’t matter why of all women it was this one, not now. It didn’t matter why, despite his long bout of celibacy, despite the fact that most men would call her plain, despite how they’d met and all the complications that meant, he could only seem to respond to this woman. It didn’t matter what the book had said, or how instinctive and fierce his rebellion was against the idea that a woman—this woman, it seemed—had been chosen for him by a fate that seemed to take special delight in playing with the Hawks.

All that mattered was that she was here, looking up at him with those incredible eyes that glowed in the lantern’s light, and that he wanted to kiss her again more than he wanted to take his next breath. And he seemed to have lost the will to stop himself.

Her lips parted on her next breath, and Josh was lost. He had to kiss her, had to taste that mouth that was as sweet as the honey her eyes reminded him of. He simply had to. He thought she would dodge away when he lifted his hands to her shoulders and pulled her close, but she didn’t move.

He meant to go gently, slowly, but at the first touch of her lips beneath his, he forgot all his good intentions. Only remembering what she had told him kept him from plundering the depths of her mouth as he longed to do. But he captured her mouth, savoring the softness of her lips, the taste of her, and when she didn’t draw back, flicked his tongue across her lips. When they parted at the first touch of his tongue, he nearly groaned aloud.

It was all he could do not to plunge his tongue forward into those honeyed depths, taking what he wanted so badly, but not for anything would he add to her painful memories. So he probed gently, stroking the inner edges of her lips, tracing the even ridge of her teeth. He heard her make a tiny sound of surprise, and felt her tremble.

He slid his hands up over her shoulders to her neck, threading his fingers into her hair, marveling at the thick, silken, rich feel of it, belying the plainness of the color. He wanted to take out all the pins he could feel, wanted to see it cascade down her back, wanted to see just how long it was, this smooth, satiny mass.

“Kate,” he murmured against her mouth. “Open for me, Kate.”

“Josh,” she whispered back, the movement of her lips against his as she said it made a shiver ripple through him.

She went still, as if she’d felt it. That tiny sound came again, and she gave him the entry he’d asked for. He traced her lips again, then explored farther, deeper. When he stroked his tongue over hers, she gave a little start. He felt her fingers digging into the muscles of his arms, sending out a jagged little barb of pain from his injury. He ignored it; nothing mattered now except the incredible, enticing allure of the woman in his arms.

He was spiraling out of control, his body making it clear that now that it had decided to cooperate, it was doing so thoroughly, almost painfully. As if it wanted to make up for all the months of neglect at once. He was already as hard as the barrel of his Colt, and about as ready to go off. He tried to clamp down on the urgent need that seemed to be consuming him, but then Kate moved, pressing herself against him, as if she intended to caress his rigid flesh with her body. The rising, boiling tide swept through him, so powerful he thought it unstoppable.

In the back of his mind was the knowledge that there was a bed less than a dozen feet away. But at war with that knowledge was the thought of what had no doubt happened to her in that bed, at the cruel hands of Arly Dixon. And no matter how badly he wanted to, no matter how hot he was, he knew he could never take her there, not with the images that would haunt her. He wanted no ghosts between them, not the ones she carried, or his own. He—

“Kate? Kate!”

The shout and the hammering on her door made Kate jump, breaking the kiss. For a long moment Josh looked at her, seeing the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the ill-fitting dress as she took in quick breaths, seeing the heat in her eyes that told him she’d not been thinking of brutal kisses, told him that she’d been caught up in the swirl of sensation just as he had.

“Kate!”

The lawyer, Josh realized belatedly. The metallic click of the doorknob turning and releasing echoed in the charged silence, and he remembered that, in his worry about her, he for once hadn’t locked the door behind him. Reluctantly, in the instant before the door swung open, he let her go. She swayed on her feet, and for an instant he almost did the same. He shook his head sharply, as if that would clear away the odd weakness he was feeling in his knees.

Alex Hall stepped into the room, calling Kate’s name yet again. When he saw them, he came to a halt, staring.

“So it’s true,” he said. “You are here.”

“Obviously,” Josh said coolly. He’d learned early on to mask whatever he might be feeling; betraying himself to an opponent was a good way to get himself killed.

The lawyer looked at Kate. If he guessed what had caused her flustered air, he didn’t say anything. “Kate, I know you’re upset, and you have a right to be. And I know he probably pushed his way in here, but you shouldn’t allow him to be here in your . . . room with you, alone.”

Josh stiffened. “And if I wasn’t here, you’d be alone with her now.”

“That’s different,” Hall said.

“Why?” Josh asked, his voice going very soft.

“Because I care about her welfare, and you . . .”

The lawyer’s voice faded as he suddenly seemed to take in the details of the scene he’d walked in on. Kate’s tousled hair, the brightness of her eyes, the slight swollenness of her lips . . . and if the man had any kind of eyes at all, Josh thought ruefully, the fact that he was still so aroused he could hardly stand up.

“And I what?” he said, softer still.

“Josh, stop.” Kate’s voice quavered slightly, but was audible enough. She looked at Alex. “He didn’t push his way in here, Alex. I let him in.”

“I . . . think I can see that,” Hall said, his glance flicking from Kate to Josh and back. “Kate, Kate, you don’t know what you’re doing, what kind of man this is.”

“And just what kind of man am I, lawyer?”

Hall drew himself up to his full height, set his jaw, and met Josh’s gaze. Josh stifled a flicker of admiration for the smaller man.

“Apparently,” Hall said, “you are the kind of man who leads on one woman while he’s . . . trying to trifle with another.”

Josh blinked. For one of the few times in his life he was completely taken aback. “What?”

“Mrs. Dixon and Miss Taylor are respectable women, and I’ll thank you to leave them both be.”

Josh heard Kate gasp in surprise, but didn’t look at her. “Miss Taylor?” he said in astonishment.