Her Sheriff Bodyguard (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

T
he Smoke River summer
chautauqua
fell on the following Sunday. Caroline had never heard of a
Chautauqua,
in Boston they held summer concerts and operettas in the park, and sometimes a troupe of actors performed one of Shakespeare's comedies. But she had to admit she was curious about what a little town like Smoke River could produce in the way of entertainment.

It had been a blistering hot day, the kind that kept her camisole damp with perspiration and made her long to lift up her skirt and petticoat to let the air cool her legs. By evening, the entire town had collected at the tiny tree-studded park to sit on the grass and drink lemonade or smoke pipes and slap at the occasional mosquito.

Seated on a blanket in the shade between Hawk and Billy, Caroline fanned herself with one of the pleated squares of paper Fernanda had fashioned into fans for Ilsa and herself.

“Sure is hot,” Billy complained, tugging at the tight collar of his best Sunday shirt. Caroline offered her fan, but he pushed her hand away. “Fannin' my face like that'd make me look like a sissy or an old lady.”

Caroline smiled. “Do you think I am a sissy or an old lady? Or Fernanda or your mother?”

“Naw. Girls are already sissies.”

She laughed. “We are, are we? What makes us sissies?”

Billy's rust-colored eyebrows drew into a frown. “'Cuz girls don't like to get dirty or pick up worms or clean fish guts.”

Caroline flinched at the word
guts
and heard Hawk's chuckle. “You are quite right about worms and fish...um...entrails.” There was an element of truth to Billy's philosophy; however, she wanted to point out that girls were also good at things like public speaking, and writing, and music. “Girls are good at many other things, Billy, such as playing hopscotch and baking pies and knitting scarves.”

“But—”

“And thinking fast on their feet,” Hawk interjected.

“But—”

“Let it go, Billy,” Hawk said.

“And,” Ilsa said with a severe look over her shoulder at her son, “let's not spoil this lovely summer evening with quarreling. Do I make myself clear?”

“Aw, Ma...”

While Billy wrangled with his mother, Caroline studied the surroundings. A wooden stage had been erected on the lush grass, with a theater curtain that looked suspiciously like four quilted bedspreads gathered onto a pole. Kerosene lamps arrayed at the front of the platform provided footlights of a sort, and Carl Ness, acting as a master of ceremonies, welcomed the crowd to the festivities.

“Tonight, the citizens of Smoke River present our third annual summer musicale, and the show will include the fine talents of town folk you all know.” He retired to a spattering of applause, and the quilt curtain opened to reveal four men, all dressed in red shirts and blue suspenders.

“Why,” Ilsa exclaimed, “there's the barber, Whitey Poletti. I didn't know he could sing.”

Hawk leaned close to Caroline and spoke in her ear. “Hope he can sing better than he can cut hair.”

The quartet launched into “Home, Sweet Home.” Whitey Poletti's rich, honey-sweet tenor soared over the rapt listeners, and Caroline sent Hawk an
I-told-you-so
look.

“He's Italian,” he intoned.

Thunderous applause greeted each of the quartet's songs, and finally after two encores, the curtain was pulled closed. Hawk subtly positioned himself so his shoulder touched Caroline's, then bent his head to whisper near her ear.

“Remember your idea for laying my trap?”

Her heart began to pound. “Will it be soon? I am getting jittery just thinking about it.”

“Soon enough. Tomorrow I'll contact both newspapers in town to spread the word.”

She sucked in her breath. She was frightened. Even more than that, Hawk's nearness, and the soap and bay rum scent of his skin, was sending shivers up her spine.

“What's wrong?” he murmured.

“N-nothing, I guess.”

“Want to change your mind?”

“No. I know the feeling of safety I have here cannot last. I must move forward.”

“Damn,” he breathed. He increased the pressure of his shoulder against hers. “Kinda figured as much.”

The curtain parted again and a small figure in a starched pink pinafore stood alone on the stage. Billy jerked upright, his brown eyes riveted on the girl.

“Manette Nicolet,” Hawk breathed. Eli reached out a bony hand and poked Billy in the ribs.

Manette looked like a small, dainty angel with pink ribbons in her blonde hair. She waited until quiet descended over the audience, and then she began to sing.

“Au clare de la lune, mon ami Pierrot...”

Her voice was exquisite, a clear, high soprano that brought tears to Caroline's eyes. Billy sat with his mouth hanging open until the end of the third verse, and when the crowd erupted into cheers and clapping, the boy looked as if he'd been poleaxed.

“He's in love,” Hawk muttered. “Poor kid.” He hadn't meant for Caroline to overhear and her response surprised him.

“He is not ‘poor.' He is fortunate.”

He blinked at that. “Thought you didn't think much of love,” he said quietly.

“I—”

The curtain jerked open once more, and now the little stage was crowded with musicians—Thad MacAllister playing the fiddle, along with a banjo player and someone plucking away on the washtub bass Caroline had wondered about at last Saturday's barn dance. They roared through “Turkey in the Straw” and “Camptown Races,” trying to outdo each other with runs and flourishes and little unexpected turns.

“You ever hear music like this?” Hawk whispered.

“Never.”

He leaned closer. “Makes me want to kiss you.”

She gasped. “What?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said,” she whispered. “Why on earth would all this noise make you want—?”

“Hell's bells,” he murmured, “I want to kiss you even when it's quiet.”

“Hawk! Do stop.”

“Can't. Been thinking about it ever since we sat down.”

“Hush. We are in view of everyone in town.”

“Yeah. That's why I'm not kissing you.”

She pulled sideways to stare at him. “We were discussing our plan to flush out...”

Hawk gave a soft groan. A large part of him wanted to stop everything right here, tonight, and not move forward with anything except being close to her. Another part of him knew it had to be done. Otherwise, Caroline would never know a moment of peace.

Suddenly she stiffened. “Hawk, look.” She tipped her head toward a knot of men standing on the sidelines. He followed her gaze, then checked to make sure Rooney Cloudman and Marshal Johnson were in position. He recognized all the men in the knot except for two; one was young and green-looking, in a spiffed-up shirt and shiny new boots. The other man was Overby.

Overby? What was he doing here?

Hawk caught Rooney's eye and pointed. Rooney sent him a grin that made Hawk feel like an overprotective mother hen. Quietly he slipped his arm around Caroline's waist and pulled her closer.

“Don't worry. Rooney and the marshal have them covered.” He kept his arm in place.

Caroline turned toward him and her chin brushed his shoulder. “I want this whole thing to be over with.”

“Me, too. It will be. Just need a few more days, enough time for the newspapers to spread the word.”

“How many days?”

“Three, maybe four.”

She sighed out a shaky breath. “I don't know if I can stand waiting.”

“You can stand it,” he said softly. “I've seen you under pressure. You don't buckle.”

“I feel like it, though.”

“We're gonna get him, Caroline. Whoever it is, we'll get him.”

If the man stalking her turned out to be Overby, he was as good as got right this instant. He curved his hand around her rib cage and kept it there, relishing the warmth of her body under the lacy shirtwaist, feeling her breath pull in and out. Caroline was alive and responsive and he wanted to be a lot closer than he was.

Yeah, but what the hell are you going to do about her afterward?
The minute they caught their man, she'd be leaving to continue her speaking tour. He didn't want to let her go, but he knew he couldn't keep her, either. But Lord knew he couldn't take much more of this in-between stuff.

The next musicale acts went on but Hawk couldn't concentrate. He tried thinking about anything other than the woman beside him, but his mind was a muddle.

The last presentation was a real surprise. The curtain parted and there stood Verena Forester, dressed in a sober black dress with a black lace shawl about her narrow shoulders. But her face, my God. Her face was luminous with emotion.

She raised one arm and started to recite something—poetry, he guessed from the lilt of the lines. The audience hung on every word. Her voice was low and musical, full of real depth of feeling. Hawk stared at the woman, wondering why he'd never thought of her as anything but a dried-up old maid dressmaker.

The poem was about love and loss.

“And over the waves, and over the seas, she searched for her lover. Through wind and through storm, through gales and through rain...

But she never will find him again...”

By the time Verena was halfway through her recitation, Caroline was in tears, along with Ilsa and Fernanda and most of the women in the listening crowd. Hawk himself had an unexpectedly thick throat.

They walked home in silence, Billy still starry-eyed, Eli surreptitiously wiping his cheeks with his bandanna, and Ilsa and Fernanda close together with their arms linked.

Hawk and Caroline moved in step with each other along the quiet street, not speaking and not touching. He could tell she was intensely aware of him beside her; tonight he was more aware than he had ever been of the current between them, how it danced along his veins and spoke to her. Invited her. God, what was he thinking?
Not with Caroline
.

He wanted her so much he was blind with it.

Not with Caroline
.

When they reached the house, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Walk around the block with me.”

“Why?”

“Just once. Let the others all go up to bed.”

She nodded, and they turned back down the street.

It was the longest block he could ever remember. When they returned to the porch steps, the house was dark except for a single small lamp on the table near the stairs.

Caroline headed for the staircase, but again he stopped her. “Wait.” He leaned forward and blew out the flame. Then he took her hand and led her up the steps.

Outside her bedroom door he drew her to a halt, placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her away from him. Then he stepped in close and began to remove the hairpins securing the twist at the back of her neck. Her breath caught, but she didn't move. He collected each wire pin and slid them into his shirt pocket.

He gathered her hair in both his hands and lifted it to expose her bare neck, then bent and pressed his mouth against her skin. She smelled of vanilla and she tasted, oh, God, she tasted like roses.

“Caroline.”

She tipped her head forward and he kissed her again.

“Caroline, come to bed with me. Now. Tonight. Before this plan of ours is put in motion and time gets away from us.”

A long, pregnant silence fell, and then she turned to face him, a question in her eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“H
awk? I am frightened of... Well, you know that, do you not?”

“I know,” he said, his voice quiet. “Let me show you what it can be like.” He wrapped his arm about her shoulder and walked her past her bedroom door, on down to the very end of the hallway.

His door opened onto a sparsely furnished room, with a chest of drawers on one wall, a plain table that served as a desk, now piled with books and writing papers, and one tall paned window. His bed stood beneath it, and Caroline saw that it was positioned so that from a prone position he could see out into the tree branches. A sturdy-looking bookcase served as a nightstand.

At her questioning look he gestured at the desk. “I read some at night.”

“Oh? What sort of things?”

He moved to the window, released the catch and raised it as high as it would go. A rush of cool, sweet-smelling air flowed in.

“History, mostly. Some Dickens.”

She hid her surprise, then remembered that his mother had been English and that he had tutors when he was young. Hawk was unusual to say the least. A Texas Ranger sheriff who read Dickens.

A man who wanted to make love to her
.

Her breath caught.
Could she?
She wanted him to, but... Could she?

Outside two song sparrows twittered and chirruped in the tree branches. In the half dark of this late-summer evening there was no other sound but their breathing.

Hawk moved toward her, stopping to face her without speaking. Very deliberately he lifted his hands to her shoulders and just stood there, waiting.

“I figured you might not want this after you thought about it. Do you?” His voice sounded slightly hoarse.

“Yes,” she whispered. “And no.”

“Hell, Caroline, tell me now, before I make a damn fool of myself.”

She reached to touch his chest. Under her palm his heartbeat was erratic. “I will tell you after you kiss me,” she said. “Oh, Lord, what a brazen thing to say! Somehow when I am around you I feel...unexpected things.”

“Yeah?” He placed his thumb under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “Like what?” His lips came to rest against her forehead. “Tell me.”

She couldn't look at him so she closed her eyes. “Well, I feel...happy.”

He brushed his mouth over her eyelids, then moved to a spot just behind her left ear and flicked his tongue against her skin. A dart of pleasure pricked, and she hissed in a breath.

“Oh,” she murmured. She angled her head to give him better access and felt his tongue circle lazily into the shell of her ear.

This time the jolt of sensation went all the way to her belly and below. It was astonishing how much she liked the feeling.

“Hawk,” she murmured. “You haven't kissed me yet.”

He gave a soft laugh. “I was hoping you'd notice that.” He pressed slow, feathery kisses under her ear, across her cheek, on the underside of her jaw. His lips were warm against her skin, and when the sound of his breathing grew ragged, another thrill shot through her. All at once she realized she held a kind of power over him. It made her feel safe. Not helpless, but in control somehow.

At last his mouth settled on hers and began to move over her lips, gently at first and then more urgently. When he lifted his head she was trembling.

He kissed her again, deepened it and made a low noise in his throat. Without breaking contact he lifted her hand to his neck, and when she brought her other hand to join it, he made that noise again.

“Caroline,” he said against her mouth. “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Don't stop.”

He laughed gently. “Trust me, if this is what you want, I won't.”

She felt his fingers rest on the top button of her shirtwaist and then carefully slip it free and move to the next, and the next.

“So many damn buttons,” he said near her ear. His voice sounded raspy. He lifted the lacy fabric away and put his mouth on her bare skin.

“Glad you gave up wearing a corset,” he murmured. His warm breath washed over her chest and he kissed and unbuttoned until the garment was open to her waist; he tugged it free of her waistband and let it flutter to the floor. Then he untied the ribbon at the neck of her camisole and it, too, drifted to the floor.

His warm hand cupped her breast and she felt a stab of pleasure all the way to her toes. Before she could draw breath, he dipped his head and licked her nipple, and she made a sound she had never made in her entire life.

The next thing she knew his mouth covered the tip and she thought she would die of pleasure. Such a small thing, his tongue swirling against her flesh, but it was an exquisite thing.
Exquisite.
She never wanted him to stop, wanted him to go on forever laving her flesh with his tongue.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “Do you want this?” he asked softly. “Because if you don't, you'd better stop me now.”

It was the first time she had ever heard Hawk's voice sound hesitant. “I do want this. I want...you.”

He unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of it and tossed it behind him without looking. She heard his gun belt thud onto the floor, and then he was unsnapping her skirt and untying her petticoat and pushing them down off her hips. He rested his hand on the elastic of her pantalets, tugged once and slid them off.

Using both hands he touched her all over, smoothing his fingers over every inch of her exposed skin and following with his mouth and his tongue. His tongue, especially, did something extraordinary to her insides. Something addictive. She began to swell in places she'd never paid attention to, and in those same places she ached in ways she had never dreamed of.

Something was happening to her, something that was wonderful and scary and exquisitely pleasurable.

He lifted her into his arms, moved forward and laid her on his bed. She watched him shuck his boots, unbutton his jeans and strip them off, along with his drawers and his socks. When he was naked, he sat down beside her on the bed and took her hand.

“You can still back out,” he whispered.

In answer she grasped his hand and tugged him down to lie beside her.

Hawk was careful not to press his body against hers at first; instead, he used his hands, running his palms over her belly, her breasts, and then moving to her inner thighs. Finally he let his fingers rest on her mound of dark curls.

She lay very still, and he wondered if he'd gone too far, too fast. But she pressed her own hand over his and he felt like he'd been released from prison. Gently he slid his forefinger into her soft, damp folds and when she sucked air in between her teeth he smiled into the dark. She was wet and hot and so beautiful he wanted to weep.

Imagine that
, he thought. He, Anderson Rivera. Hawk, as he'd become known, the scourge of the Mescalero Apache, weeping at the feel of a woman under his hand.
This was sure as hell a first for him.

But damnation, that's just what he felt like doing.

She moaned and moved her hips subtly, and he slipped his finger all the way inside her and held his breath. When her small hand tentatively touched his manhood, he about came up off the bed.

“That feels good!”

“Does it really?”

He couldn't answer, just silently begged her not to stop. She moved her fingers over his throbbing flesh and he thought he would die and float up to heaven.

Was she ready for him?

He moved his finger inside her, then slid it out and sought the nub above her entrance. When he found it, her uneven breath told him all he needed to know. He stroked and circled while she slowly, so slowly touched his member with her soft, warm hand and he closed his eyes in ecstasy.

God, it had never been like this before. Never.

She began to move with him as he touched her and all at once he realized he was too close. He lifted her hand away from him, then stroked his finger inside her and leaned over to kiss her. Her arms came around him, pulling him closer. Pulling him on top of her.

He rose over her and positioned himself at her entrance. He couldn't stop now; he prayed she would come with him.

He entered her gradually, a little at a time, watching her face. “Caroline, look into my eyes.”

Holding her gaze, he thrust into her as gently as he could and waited, his heart hammering. God, she was small and so tight he wondered if she...

She looked up at him and—
goddamn
—she was smiling! Oh, yes. Yes!

He withdrew partway and thrust again, and again, moving steadily, deliberately, and when she lifted her hips to meet him he was lost. He heard her cry out, but it wasn't in fear, it was something else.

A rush of possessiveness and tenderness and pride all mixed up together pulsed through him, and he began to move with more purpose. Just when he sensed his release was coming, she cried out again and called his name, and that pushed him over the edge.

When he came back to himself he was still lying on top of her and she was looking at him with the oddest expression in her eyes.

“Caroline? Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, Hawk, at this moment I am more ‘all right' than I have ever been in my life.” She raised her head to kiss him and his heart damn near stopped. Tears glistened on her cheeks.

“Caroline?”

She sent him a slow, languorous smile. “Do not be concerned, Hawk. I always cry when I'm happy.”

His own eyes stung. He blinked hard and kissed her damp eyelids.