CROSSFIRE (15 page)

And her silence had hurt him, that she could tell. But his mother was gone now, and he could never ask her why. "I can't imagine what I would do if anything ever happened to Eth," she said, drawing a hand to her heart. "It's like he's the other part of me. We've always known exactly what the other is saying or thinking without having to say a word."

Hawk just shrugged. "It's hard to miss something you never had."

She didn't entirely believe that, but chose not to argue the point. Not now, anyway. "You do miss your mother, though. I can see it in your eyes."

She expected him to shutter away the emotion, but his gaze remained naked for a change, unguarded. "She was a special lady."

The smile touched her lips so naturally, she didn't try to fight it. A single mother raising a hellion like Hawk Monroe. The woman must have been a saint.

"What?" Hawk demanded.

She saw no harm in speaking the truth. "I'll bet you were a handful to raise."

His smile was slow, naughty, completely breathtaking. "Nah, that didn't happen until later."

Deliberately, Elizabeth pulled in a deep breath and ignored the voice of caution growing louder by the heartbeat, the one that warned her to end this conversation. Now.

"Tell me," she said, reaching for her bottle of water.

"Tell you what?"

She unscrewed the lid and took a slow swallow, careful to leave some for the morning. "About your life. Your mother. Growing up."

Hawk muttered something under his breath. "Twelve."

She blinked. "What?"

"My shoe size," he said. "I figured it was only a matter of time before you demanded that, too."

The rush of heat almost had her unzipping his bomber jacket. She glanced at his dusty boots, his
big
dusty boots, and wondered how in the world the man could turn a conversation that fast. The memory assaulted her freely, wholly, of his big bare feet.

You know what they say about the size of—

She broke off Miranda's giggled comment before the memory could consume her. Yes, she knew what they said.

She also knew it was true.

"Growing up," she said, all business. The cave was dark. No way could the man see the flush that swept up her neck. "Your life."

He knew, though. He knew, because somehow he'd deliberately backed her into that corner. The purely amused, purely masculine laughter in his eyes told her that.

"It all started on a dark snowy night," he said, hunkering down across from her. He sprawled against the wall, letting his long legs fall open. "My parents forgot to use protection and—"

She kicked him. Before she even realized her intent, she'd rammed the toe of her tennis shoes against his shin. "Behave."

The gleam in his eyes turned wicked. "Come on, Ellie. Lighten up. It's much more fun to be naughty."

In the moment, maybe. But later, after, that's when consequence stripped away pleasure, leaving only pain. "I'm not trying to be fun."

His smile faded, from his eyes and his mouth. "Maybe you should."

More heat, coiling around more places. "My rules now," she said. "You've already had your turn." The second the words left her mouth, she realized how they sounded. "Tonight," she clarified. "You had your turn tonight, and you chose to spend it playing twenty questions." Thank God. "Now it's my turn."

He held her gaze a moment, then let his dip from her face down her body, slowly, thoroughly, like he'd once done with his hands. And his mouth. "You sure twenty questions is all you want, sweetness? It's cold outside. Maybe you'd like to find some way to stay warm instead?"

This, she thought. This was why the two of them could never spend more than fifteen minutes alone without going for each other's throats.

She knew what he was doing, the control he was trying to regain. He wanted to distract her. Infuriate her. Shut her down.

Tonight, it wasn't going to work. "I'm plenty warm," she said, then mentally cringed. It was freezing cold outside, with a howling wind that gusted stronger by the minute. If she was warm, it could only be for one reason, and the gleam in his eyes told her he knew the reason. "I'd rather have your life, thank you."

Silence then, as the statement she'd meant flippantly wobbled between them.

"Your life story," she clarified.

"Ah, yes," he said, and she could tell he worked hard not to laugh. "Of course." But first, he nudged a booted foot against hers. "There's a price, though."

Well-worn leather and brand-new canvas separated their feet, but the rush of contact ran up her leg. "I've already paid."

This time he did laugh. "I'm talking about now," he clarified. "What's done is done, doesn't matter anymore."

"I told you about Kristina," she reminded. Maybe that had seemed inconsequential to him, but she'd never talked of Kristina's death before, not even with Nicholas. She couldn't figure out how Hawk had barged through the barriers.

"I want a dance."

And
Elizabeth
wanted to strangle—

A dance.

The word caught up with her, landed deep, jammed the breath in her throat. Her heart rate revved up a notch. A trained special forces operative, the man knew how to move in for the kill without a sliver of warning. He leaned against the cave wall, one leg cocked at the knee and the other stretched before him, drumming his fingers against his denim-covered thigh like he hadn't a care in the world. But his eyes … his eyes glowed with a predatory intensity that set her blood on fire.

Chapter 8

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"
W
e can't even stand up in here," she pointed out.

Hawk glanced around the small dark cavern, toward the darkness beyond, at her. "Not tonight," he said, his gaze skimming her face like his fingers had two years before. "At the charity auction."

She just stared at him. Her family hosted the auction every year, a stuffy, black-tie affair designed to raise money for cancer research. He would be there, of course. He would be there if they made it to
Richmond
and Zhukov remained at large. That would be his job, to protect the Carrington family.

Hawk
Monroe
and tuxedos went together about as well as grizzly bears and tea parties.

"The choice is yours," he said in that low, crushed-velvet voice he could slip into with damning ease. "Fair is fair. I'll give you what you want, but you have to give me what I want."

The memory assaulted her, slowly, fully, hotly. They'd danced that night, in public and in private. As long as she lived, she didn't think she'd ever forget the surprise that had flashed in his eyes when she'd taken him up on his dare, determined to prove she wasn't the uptight, spoiled, scaredy-cat he said she was. The leather pants she'd found in Miranda's closet had been perfect. His shock had been priceless.

What happened afterward had been … shattering.

"It's just a question of how badly you want it, Ellie, that's all."

The burn started low, spread fast. That's how it had begun before, she realized in some dimly lit corner of her mind. With well-chosen words strung together for maximum impact.

He was right, of course, but not in the way he thought. It wasn't his past she wanted, but her own future. To prove she'd learned from what happened, moved on. If she refused him a dance, if she didn't accept his dare, she gave him the false impression he could get to her, rattle her. Which he couldn't.

Not anymore.

She was the one calling the shots now. And she was the one who'd stumbled across a sore spot he wanted to avoid. There was something about his past he didn't want to tell her, didn't want her to know. He thought she'd rather back down, let the subject drop, then endure three minutes in his arms.

He was wrong.

"A dance isn't a problem," she said with a breeziness that pleased her. The auction was two days away. A lot could change by then. They might not even be home. "Now, talk."

The light of the lantern flickered across his face, drawing her attention to the white of his teeth when he smiled. They gleamed particularly bright against the backdrop of gold and red whiskers. "You want it that badly?"

More by the second. "You're digging your own grave,
Monroe
. The more you try to scare me off, the more curious I become."

"Then maybe I should have asked for a higher price."

She didn't stop to think. She picked up a rock the size of her fist and tossed it at him. "Talk."

He easily caught the rock and closed it in his hand. "Not much to tell. Mom dropped out of school to have me and never went back. She lived with a girlfriend for a while, and Macy would watch me in the evenings while Mom waited tables."

The words were point-blank and matter-of-fact, as though he was talking about a person other than himself. "Go on."

"When I was seven, one of her regulars, a widower, offered her a job keeping his house, cooking meals, running errands, caring for his children, et cetera. He had a small apartment above his garage and let us stay there."

"Your mom didn't have to work nights anymore?"

Something hard and sharp flashed through his gaze. "No, not really." He stared into the light of the lantern. "Steven treated us fairly. He was a good man. Sometimes he'd help with my homework or baseball swing. A few times he and his daughter came to my games."

Elizabeth
smiled. Every boy deserved a male role model. "That's wonderful."

His jaw tightened. "He never treated us like hired help. He even talked of setting up a scholarship fund so I could attend college. For a while life was … good."

Too late she realized they weren't headed toward a happy ending. She heard it in his voice, saw it in the hard lines of his body. "Something changed?"

"He died." The fingers he'd closed around the rock opened, letting it fall to the ground. "A hunting accident."

"The college fund?"

He turned to look at her, revealing a lack of emotion in his gaze that rivaled that of his voice. "You know what they say about the best laid plans. Steven's son resented every second his father spent with the maid's son. He wasn't about to honor his father's promise, not when doing so cut into his inheritance."

The chill returned, cutting to the bone. "Legally—"

"Steven's death was unexpected. Whatever his intentions, they weren't in his will."

And so Hawk and his mother had been left with nothing. He'd joined the Army, and she'd died. Alone. "I'm sorry,"
Elizabeth
whispered. Regret nudged at her. She'd been viewing his past, his childhood, as a game. A challenge. A way of gaining the upper hand. She'd never stopped to consider the impact dredging up the memories might have on him. "You deserved better."

The light of the lantern glinted in his eyes. "I got better," he said. "Life has a way of balancing. We don't always get what we want, but in the end we usually get what's best."

The words hung between them, forcing
Elizabeth
to realize how much she did not know about this man. She'd given him her body and trusted him with her life, but until this moment, this night, alone here in this cave, with each of them backed into their respective corners, she'd had no idea what lurked behind that in-your-face, macho bluster. There was a wisdom to his words, a blunt acceptance that could only come from pain.

"Happy now?" he asked.

Emotion stabbed into her throat. Through the darkness, she looked to where he sat so belligerently against the cave wall, watching her with those hot burning eyes.

"No." A deeply ingrained sense of caution told her to keep her distance, but there was no way she could pretend to be unaffected, not even to protect herself. She took no pleasure in his suffering. She took no pride in what she'd thought of as victory only a short time before. "I'm cold."

From the inside out.

She'd done this to him. In a quest to prove he could no longer affect her, she'd stripped away his insolence and proved just the opposite.

He held her gaze a long moment before answering. "You don't have to be." Slowly he opened his arms.

This time she didn't hesitate. She maneuvered across the rocky distance and lowered herself against his body, felt his arms close around her. The infusion of warmth was immediate, shocking.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He shifted, allowing her to sink fully against him. She'd forgotten how big he was. How hard. How when he held her, the rest of the world didn't seem to matter.

"Just doing my job," he muttered.

His job. That's all she'd been to him before, a job, an assignment, a challenge. She'd known that, and yet not even knowledge had stopped her from stepping too close to the fire. Her fault, not his.

He'd never promised her anything more. Never even hinted.

Pull away, the voice of caution whispered. Go back to the other side of the cave, accept the cold. Physical discomfort never lasted. That of the emotions, however, uneasiness that stemmed from within, rather than without, lingered, festered.