Night Hawk'S Bride (Tyler) (Harlequin Historical Series, No 558) (15 page)

“Tell me what troubles you,
shaylee.
” He produced a blanket she hadn't noticed and drew it around her. A soft Indian blanket woven with intricate care.

She ran her finger across the dark hawk in the pattern. Night Hawk's family, she realized. He came from the Hawk clan. If she married him, she would become a Hawk, too. She hadn't realized it before but somehow seeing the bird's image made her stop. Made something real that hadn't been before.

We are different, he and I.
Different cultures, pasts and expectations. Something Henry said troubled her now.
Those people aren't like us. They don't marry. If you're lucky, maybe he'll allow you to live with him.

Night Hawk had never mentioned marriage.

“Tell me, Precious One.” His love enveloped her like velvet, rich and warm. A good man. An honorable man by anyone's standards. “Something is wrong. There are tears gathering in your eyes.”

She wanted him to be a dream. A man she'd imagined all her life. An all-conquering hero who would right every wrong just for her. Who would stand up to her father, give her a home, a name, love her un
conditionally and above all else. A fairy-tale love imagined by a girl who'd been lonely and unloved all her life.

Night Hawk was a man and no dream. His power pulsed beneath her fingertips with every beat of his heart. He had vulnerabilities like any man. He was flesh and blood, muscle and bone and no fantasy. As great as he was, he was a man.

A man who had never spoken of marriage.

Tell him, her heart urged. He would be happy.

But he would not marry you, her mind argued and she remembered Henry's warning.

“You seem so unhappy, Marie. Is it your father? Has he done something to hurt you?” Always stalwart, always true. Night Hawk held her as if she were the most precious woman on earth to him.

How could she tell him? What if he rejected her? What if he'd stopped dreaming of a life with her?

What if the dream had only been hers all along?

“Yes,” she mumbled into Night Hawk's shirt. “Papa has upset me greatly.”

“He is a hard man, but he loves you.”

“That's what I always believed.” She felt like the biggest fool, clinging to her lover when she couldn't find a way to tell him the truth. He deserved to know.

Then she remembered how father had made her feel. Dirty. Shameful. Night Hawk would never treat her that way. Would he?

Tears burned behind her eyes but they wouldn't fall. Telling him had been so easy when she imagined it. But now, she had doubts. Again, how very much reality and fantasy differed.

It's time to grow up, Marie.
She realized it, a great truth from her heart. It was time to accept the consequences of her actions. To stand on her own feet without leaning on anyone.

“Yes, it's my father,” she said slowly. She released her hold on Night Hawk's shirt, her fingers stiff from gripping him too tightly. She'd been hanging on for dear life. The world spun crazily, but she met Night Hawk's gaze and the spinning slowed. “He knows about us.”

“I was afraid of something like this.” Tenderness, such tenderness. He brushed stray tendrils from her brow as if she were a child to be cared for.

When she was a woman responsible for her unborn baby's life. “Papa took the news hard.”

“He disapproves. I had hoped—” Night Hawk's face twisted as if in pain and he stared into the forest. He breathed in deeply, his wide chest lifting. She couldn't interpret the shadows in his eyes and could only guess.

“I am not the man he wants for a son-in-law.” A muscle snapped in his rock-hard jaw. He held himself so stiffly he looked as if he were entirely made of stone.

Just as he had on the day she'd met him.

“Henry cares for his reputation most of all, you know that.” Marie steeled her spine. She was an adult now, grown-up, able to gather up the pieces of her sorrow with dignity.

“Let me guess. He no longer wishes you to see me.”

“No, he said I had to make a choice.” She waited,
wondering what he would do. She would not cling to him like a needy girl.

“I see.” His throat worked as if he held much back. Tender words? Or relief, she wondered.

Did he want a wife? Or a bed partner? Even a man as noble as Night Hawk could break his word. Or decide when it came down to it that he didn't want her. If Henry could admit to being prejudiced, then who knew what lurked dark and unseen in a man's heart?

Only time would tell for sure.

“What is your choice, Marie?” He said the words harshly, as if he were angry with her. “What do you want?”

You,
her soul cried out. “I don't know,” she managed, knowing it was the wise answer. “I can't decide these things alone because they concern you. Because what I do will affect you.”

He looked so hard, like a man who had lived and prospered in this harsh wilderness. A man who was part of the land, part of the wild. And yet she still loved him.

She always would.

The sky opened, and the snow fell in sharp, mean strikes. The air grew colder. The flakes drove at a harsh angle. She waited while Night Hawk gazed at the far horizon, as if an answer would be painted there by the wind.

Would he reject her? What would she do if her father was right? Was the love they shared too new and fragile? Or had it been only a dream?

“I would sacrifice anything to make you mine.” His
confession surprised her. “Anything but your happiness.”

Say the words, she silently begged. She needed him to need her. She wanted him to reach out for her. To offer her the marriage she desperately wanted.

“I can wait for your decision.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. Tenderly he leaned his forehead against hers so they were eye-to-eye, face-to-face. She could see all the shadows in his heart.

He's not going to propose.
The realization weighed her down, so heavy that it took all her strength not to weep. The truth was, all along she'd been the one talking of marriage and wishing and dreaming.

A girl not yet a woman with lessons to be learned. Marie ran her fingers down Night Hawk's cheek. His bronzed skin was as warm as gold. The ridge of his high cheekbone and the cut of his face would be forever etched in her memory.

“You need to go, Night Hawk.” She hated saying the words, but she would spend no more time waiting. No more time wishing. All their silences spoke louder than any words. “The captain is waiting for you.”

“You are important to me.” He kissed her gently and deeply, the kiss of a loving man. Not a hurtful one. “Can you tell me, is there a chance you will want me now?”

“Yes.” She lifted her chin, fighting to stay in control. Once, she would have flung herself in his arms and let him lead her to his bed. Now she did not have that innocence of spirit. “There is a chance, if you want it.”

“That is all I ask.” He kissed her like a fantasy man with the right blend of gentleness and heat.

He left her trembling, he left her wanting. He left her ashamed.

What did she do now? She had no place to go. No one to cling to. Only her own two feet to stand on.

As the storm worsened and the snow turned to ice all around, she knew she could not linger much longer.

She would have to make her choice.

“W
hoa! That's enough, boys,” Night Hawk called down to his team of draft horses. The geldings halted in unison, keeping the ropes taut over the pulleys. The twenty-foot log they were lifting swung dangerously in the air, buffeted by the heavy wind.

Night Hawk rubbed his hands inside his jacket pockets to dry them, then reached through the driving ice. A gust slammed into the log and drove it straight toward him.

He ducked, slipping on his icy perch. The log swung over his head, slammed into one of the new main supports for the house and shook the entire structure.

Night Hawk caught the log and slowed its swing enough to nudge it into place. You're a fool, he told himself. What was he trying to do? Get himself killed?

Frustration roared through him with more force than the wind, and nothing would relieve it. Not working with his horses. Not walking the fences. And especially not sitting alone in his cabin. He could still feel
the weight of Marie in his arms. The sweet woman scent of her clung to his shirt and tormented him.

There is a chance, if you want it.
Her promise drove him now. She'd been different, distant. As if she were a stranger he'd never met before and not the woman who owned his heart.

Time was running out. He could sense it like the storm to come. The sky was leaden, and black at the horizon. Ice drove in heavy pellets, falling like snow, but when those warmer clouds arrived, there would be hell to pay.

Was that what his relationship with Marie was to be? Something that worsened until there was no chance for them?

Determined, he pulled the mallet from his belt and a wooden peg from his pocket. If Henry knew they were lovers, then what would he do? The colonel hadn't shown up with a loaded musket, but Night Hawk wasn't fooled.

Henry Lafayette wasn't going to accept him. Not as a husband for his daughter. If only he'd started work on the house sooner, the dwelling would be finished now, gleaming and new. A home that would tell Marie and her father that he was equal to any white man. That he was prepared to love her for the rest of her life.

The wind gusted. Night Hawk wrapped his legs around the unsecured log and placed the mallet over the peg. He drove the wooden nail deep into the belly of the log. Every pound of the mallet released frustration, but it did nothing to ease his fears.

Why had Marie been so distant? What had she been
telling him with her set chin and unshed tears? How furiously had Henry objected?

Yet her words bolstered him when the black clouds came. When the earth turned too slippery for the horses to work the ropes. He rubbed the geldings down and fed them warmed oats, but then he returned to his work.

There is a chance, if you want it,
she'd promised.

Hope strengthened him and he faced the wind and ice. For her.

 

Marie heard the chink of ice skidding across the fort's stable roof. The hopeless sound of winter at its worst. The angry wind slapped loose wallboards and let in shards of ice. The temperature dropped until she was shivering.

She snuggled deeper in the extra pile of clean hay she'd forked into Kammeo's stall. She hated how the faint, pleasing winter scent of Night Hawk somehow lingered on her clothes, or maybe it was her imagination again. Yearning for him so much, needing him to stand tall and claim her. To charge through that door on his big black stallion, take her in his arms, give her a wedding ring and take her home. To his cozy little cabin in the woods.

That's
what she wanted. To be his wife. To give this baby she carried his name.

The baby. She should have told him. Regret gathered in her chest until she couldn't breathe. All she would have had to do was say the words. But then what would he have done?

Married her out of obligation? Or worse, not mar
ried her at all like Papa had said. Those horrible, hateful words he'd spoken remained like a black cloud in her mind.

What was she going to do now? She could not beg Night Hawk to take care of her. She had too much pride for that. After all she'd been through, after the lessons she'd learned, she would never again lean on a man. He could be the noblest human being she'd ever met, and she still wouldn't lean on him.

A child depended on her now, and in four or five months she would be holding their baby in her arms. A helpless infant who needed her to make the right decisions now.

Where did she go? Back home? To face Henry's fury? That would mean accepting his threat to return her to Ohio.

Maybe that's for the best.
She covered her stomach with her hand. If she returned to Ohio, no one here would know of her mistake. No one in the settlement knew she'd been with Night Hawk. In Ohio, she would have her aunt's help and guidance.

But what about Night Hawk? He'd said so little. He'd seemed so distant. Maybe he hadn't said the words she needed to hear, but he loved her. She knew that.

Is there a chance you will want me now? Night Hawk had asked. But didn't he understand that the next step could only be his?

The wind grew in fury and what sounded like a branch scraped over the roof. She was grateful for this warm place to think. Exhaustion settled over her, thick
and heavy, but she wouldn't sleep or dream. She had too much on her mind and many problems to solve.

 

A branch thick with ice flew through the air and slammed into the half-built wall beneath him. Swiping the miserable sleet from his face, Night Hawk knew he had to head indoors. The next branch that came his way in these high-force winds could knock him ten feet to the ground.

He climbed down carefully, slipping and sliding all the way. Ice bit into him like nails, and the wind drove it deep into the layers of his clothes. His skin burned with cold. His bones ached with it.

The wind brought the scent of thunder, and Night Hawk's neck prickled. That wasn't good news. He could smell it in the air—the precipitation and the fury. The storm would get meaner and stay that way.

He had no choice. He had to go in. It was the last thing he wanted to do. To stop now when he was so determined. He felt as if his chance with Marie was slipping away.

After sliding up the back steps, he stumbled into the kitchen. Darkness surrounded him. The storm had bled all but the faintest light from the afternoon. The house seemed alive with the sounds of the howling wind and driving ice against the log walls.

The rooms echoed with every move he made. The rustle of his frozen clothes. The tinkle of ice hitting the floor like shards of glass. The thud of his boots as he kicked them off. The fall of his step on the unheated boards.

This is how his life would be if Marie turned away
from him. He'd felt her sorrow today over her father's reaction. She'd been hurt, but she had stopped clinging to him. Maybe she no longer needed him. Or wanted to need him.

It was as if someone had reached through his ribs and yanked out his heart. Had he already lost her?

Restless, he set the fires and lit them. Soon the warmth drove the chill from his little house. Settling heavily onto the stone hearth, he held out his hands to heat them. Every inch of him ached from the cold.

The wind gusted against the house. Again. Then again. Big loud bursts that drove the ice so hard they sounded like steel through the thick shingles.

A storm like this could cause much damage. Night Hawk limped across the front room to look out at his stables. They were only shadowed humps in the growing darkness that came as the storm met dusk, but those structures were better built than his house. The horses would be safe in their stalls.

A bark rang outside, and Night Hawk let him in. “Meka! You look like a snowbound bear.”

The huge dog smelled of the forest where he often ran, and brought in with him a shower of ice. His fur and paws thick with the sleet that had frozen to him, he clunked across the floor to the hearth. He dropped with a sigh on the heated stones.

How strong the wind was. Through the windows, Night Hawk could plainly see both large and small branches tumbling end over end along the frozen ground. A strange feeling settled over him, like the brush of a feather down his spine, and he had the sudden urge to run outside.

That made no sense. The winds and flying debris were dangerous. Troubled, he rubbed his hand over the nape of his neck, where the tingling was strongest. The sensation remained.

A hawk's cry pierced the howling wind. Was it the injured bird? It couldn't be. The creature was still unable to use its wing. Yet when Night Hawk heard the sound again, it came from the sky and not the barn.

The prickling at his nape began to burn.

“Meka!” he ordered. “Come!” He threw open the door.

The wind exploded with the sound of thunder. Lightning forked from the sky and struck a tree in the orchard. Fire mushroomed, engulfing the tree.

Hurry, a whispered force seemed to be saying, and he lunged off the steps. A tree sailed over his head and he rolled, hitting the frozen ground. Pain shot through him, rattling his spine and jarring his bones. When he sat up, he saw the giant fir, branches crippled by the ice, volleying like an enormous spear directly toward the skeleton structure of his new house.

The fir hit like a cannon's fire and the mighty logs exploded. The supports cracked into pieces and an avalanche of broken wood crashed over his cabin.

Night Hawk stared in disbelief at the ruins of his home. And his dreams.

 

Marie waited until the storm stopped before she crawled out of the warm hay. She'd had plenty of time to think. Determined, she pushed the stable door open and met the bitter cold head-on.

A half moon hung in the black sky, ringed by
blacker clouds. Silvered light filtered down to shine on the thick layer of ice. Like frozen water, the sparkling ice clung to branches and fence posts, walls and earth.

Broken limbs and fractured trees littered the dangerously slick path home. Slipping, sometimes falling, Marie skated around parts of roofs and what remained of a shed, a porch post and someone's outhouse door.

The bitter temperature sliced through her clothes, and by the time she skidded to a stop at her father's back door, she was trembling so hard she couldn't turn the knob.

The door swung open and a shadow stepped away from the threshold. Slow steps scraped on wood and then a chair grated hard against the floor.

She stepped into the cold room. No candles burned in the crystal holders on the table. No fire snapped in the hearth. She saw Henry's silhouette in front of the window, shoulders stooped, chin bowed.

“He didn't want you, did he?”

“I didn't tell him.” Marie worked the ice off her cloak's sash with her fingernails.

“Too scared, huh? You were afraid I was right.” There was no victory in Henry's accusation.

“Maybe.” She wouldn't lie. The sash came loose, ice crackled to the floor, and she shrugged out of the heavy, partly frozen cloak. Finding the peg by feel, she kept her back to the colonel. Thank heavens for the dark, because she didn't want to look at him.

A knock rattled the back door. Startled, she jumped toward the knob. Her pulse rattled through her as she reached for the handle. It was Night Hawk. It had to be. He'd come for her.

Henry jerked the door open, blocking her view of the doorway.

“Colonel.” Ned Gerard's baritone stripped Marie of her last hope. “We've got some serious damage—”

Fort business. She turned away, fighting bitterness. Always with Henry it was work first. Men looked to him for leadership, but there was no end to it. No end to being the colonel.

When what she needed was her father. A little girl's dream was shattered forever. Her illusions were dropping like flies in the first frost. Her feet dragged on the stairs as she climbed them.

There would be time in the morning to speak with Henry and settle the differences between them. She was not going to let him send her home like a shamed child. She had a job to finish and she had Night Hawk to deal with. Regardless of how painful it might be, she would tell her lover about their baby. If he rejected her, then she'd go home quietly. But if his love was as true as she hoped, then nothing could ever make her leave.

She wanted more than anything to be Night Hawk's bride.

There was nothing she could do now. She gave in to her exhaustion and slept.

 

The dawn's light shone gently on the ice-covered devastation. Diamonds glittered on the broken logs and the crushed cabin. The peaceful morning came quietly and beautifully. Night Hawk shivered in the frigid mists from the lake.

Two days had passed and still it was too dangerous
to move the logs. Thick ice covered every inch of the wreckage. Of the home he'd wanted to build for Marie.

It was just an ice storm, he told himself. They happened sometimes. Nature could have sharp teeth, and the morning was serene as if nothing had happened.

Had he and Meka been in the cabin when the logs came down on the roof, he would have been gravely injured. Maybe even killed. The loss of his hard work and his cabin ought to seem small by comparison. But it didn't.

He'd lost Marie's home, the only thing he had to offer her. His hands were empty. What if his future was empty, too?

“Night Hawk.” Josh Ingalls rode over the hill, dressed warmly. “I came to see if you had any damage from the storm.”

“Some.” Night Hawk tucked away his sorrows and his worries for later. He faced his friend who'd always been someone he could count on. “How about you?”

“Lost a few trees, and a branch knocked out a window. Nothing I couldn't fix. Nothing like this.” Josh gazed at the devastation, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe it. “The wind and ice are a bad combination. Heard there was damage like this at the fort. The wind took the roof off the new schoolhouse.”

The schoolhouse? That made him think of Marie. He'd left her in the forest when the snow had been turning to ice. Surely she'd headed in before the worst of the storm hit. He fought the sudden and intense urge to whistle for Shadow and race all the way to the fort to make sure.