LeClerc 03 - Wild Savage Heart (16 page)

She took as long as possible to spread out the blankets, placing her own bed on the opposite side of the room from Hawk’s. He had slept within touching distance of her for weeks but suddenly she felt strange about sleeping close to him. What had seemed right and natural in the open suddenly seemed wrong within the confines of walls.

She didn’t let herself dwell on the expression she had read in his eyes. Surely it was her imagination that placed the possessive emotion there? He had never made any move toward her to indicate that he saw her as anything but an encumbrance, an unwanted liability.

And she still loved Adam, didn’t she? Molly closed her eyes and tried to bring his beloved face into focus. The warm blue eyes were overshadowed by a penetrating black gaze. The gentle grin was blurred by a mouth that rarely smiled, but when it did it threatened to take her breath away.

Molly slowly straightened the quilt that made up her bed. She ran her hand over the patchwork pattern and sighed softly. With her final chore of the day complete, she reluctantly returned to sit by the fire, Adam’s gun within easy reach. She watched as the greedy flames slowly consumed the wood, and she wondered when Hawk would return. Surely it was too dark for even an Indian to track someone effectively.

With no chore left to occupy her hands and loneliness her silent companion, Molly’s thoughts turned to the stranger. There was no doubt that he had been sent by her father or her father’s agent to find her and return her to Charleston. Charles Gallagher was not a cruel man — just one whose selfcentered ambitions had long ago caused him to forget that other people didn’t always share his opinions.

She knew, if she returned to Charleston, that he would berate her for leaving him. He would use guilt to control her future actions and would wrap a web of humiliation so tightly around her that she would never again be free.

The fashionable home on Tradd Street, with the piazza facing the lovely gardens and the library filled with books and priceless treasures, would become a prison. The captain’s walk on the roof of the house, a childhood hideaway with its view of the wharf and the ever-changing Ashley River, would be her only means of escape — an escape that would last only until Charles Gallagher demanded her presence for whatever whim needed attention.

Adam had been both a means of escape and a fulfillment of a dream. He had taken her from an elegant cage that offered every known luxury and he had carried her into the wilderness of North Carolina, offering only his love as a replacement for the grandeur she had left behind.

Molly rarely thought of the beautiful belongings she had abandoned in Charleston. She had made the better part of the bargain, trading them for Adam.

Suddenly, guilt crawled with needle-sharp claws through her heart. Had Adam been only a way to escape an intolerable life, she wondered. She had loved him, she had! She would have loved him for the rest of her life if death hadn’t taken him away. Then why, only a few short weeks after his death, her relentless mind asked, was she having trouble picturing his face?

“Oh, Adam,” she whispered in agony, “I did love you. Why did you have to die and leave me alone? We were supposed to share our life, grow old together and sit on our porch and remember our youth.”

Dry-eyed, Molly stared at the glittering flames and felt the guilt slowly release its fists as the warmth of memories replaced it. Their time together had been so short, the memories so few. She knew that eventually they would become like a dream. She felt a melancholy sadness different from her lingering sorrow. A sadness for what should have been but never would be, a sadness for what was.

Underlying the sadness was an awareness of a growing anger. Unreasonable as her rational mind knew it to be, Molly wondered if Adam had fought to live or if he had just accepted his death as inevitable. Self-pity threatened to overwhelm her as she fought the anger and sadness and the inflexible knowledge that her life had altered irrevocably.

Now everything had changed. Adam was gone, his loving touch a gently fading memory. The cabin that was to have been their haven seemed to loom forbiddingly in the light of a half moon. The halffinished chimney rose in an eerie skeletal framework while the door and window opened into the black nothingness of the interior. For all her earlier excitement at the idea of sleeping inside, she was strangely reluctant to enter it alone.

A yawn caught her unaware and with a tired sigh she rested her head against her bent knees. It seemed to her that she was always tired. But, she reasoned with herself, her days were so filled with work it was no wonder that as soon as darkness fell she was ready to sleep.

She closed her eyes as fatigue fought a winning battle with fear. She wouldn’t sleep, she promised herself, until Hawk returned. She’d just sit here by the fire and rest for a while.

With darkness concealing his presence, Hawk watched Molly. It alarmed him that he was so close and yet she was unaware of him. Anyone could silently walk up on her and attack before she could protect herself.

In the four months since they had left Charleston she had learned much, but not nearly enough. She still had so much to learn but so little time left in which to learn it. Hawk knew that if he was to reach home before winter set in and made travel hazardous, he had only a few weeks before he must leave.

She was a vision of gold in the sparkling firelight. Her hair was unbound and lay in rivers of honey gold around her shoulders and down her back. The light accentuated the warm color the sun had given her skin and he knew if he were close enough he would be able to see the freckles that danced across her cheeks and the bridge of her button nose.

Staring at her now, Hawk tried to remember when he had thought her plain, too tall, too thin. She had a beauty and spirit matched by few women. True, she was tall, she’d look like a giant beside petite Linsey. But he had discovered that he liked a woman who could match him in height — one whose head came to just beneath his chin.

He forced his wandering thoughts away from the memories of her in the river, her wet chemise clinging to her like a second skin, proving that she was far from thin. He closed his eyes at the memory of her shapely body, then quickly opened them when the vision became uncomfortably clear.

She was the widow of a man who had been a good friend. Circumstances had placed her in a position that she was unprepared to handle. He was proud of her ability to adapt to any situation, but the desire to learn could not replace experience. And only time would give her that experience — time he didn’t have to give her.

He refused to consider his reasons for not staying with her through the winter. His life was his own — he didn’t have to return home at a specific time. And yet he knew that he wouldn’t change his plans. He
couldn’t
change his plans.

Soon she would be forced to make a decision, one that he would refuse to help her make. Until that time came he would continue to be her teacher and friend.

Silently, Hawk moved through the darkness until he entered camp behind Molly. Kneeling beside her, he grabbed a handful of hair and jerked her head back. Startled eyes met his own and a scream was stifled at its birth as recognition replaced fear.

“Had I been an enemy you would have been dead before you knew I was in camp,” he snarled.

“You bastard!” Molly screamed as she pulled her hair from his grasp.

“Very good! You can now say that with almost no effort.”

“You did that on purpose!” she hissed as she stood.

Hawk leaned his rifle against a tree. Grabbing his tin cup he hunkered down beside the fire and filled the cup with coffee. His black, ambiguous gaze never left hers as he drank deeply of the dark, rich brew.

“If it was your intention to scare me to death you very nearly had your wish.” Molly paced beside the fire, the shawl wrapped protectively around her shoulders.

“If that had been my purpose I would have succeeded.” He stood but stayed in the glow of the fire. The light played over his features, lovingly sculpturing his high cheekbones and his square jaw. He didn’t need the shoulder-length, jet black hair to proclaim his ancestry. It was clearly visible in his face, in every inch of his majestic body.

“What would you have done if I had been a stranger, intent on harming you?”

“Oh God, not another lesson at this time of night,” Molly moaned.

With disgust Hawk threw the remains of his coffee at the fire. It popped and sizzled at the invading liquid then seemed to glow brighter.

“Answer me, woman!” he demanded. “What would you have done.”

“Screamed?”

“And?”

Molly rubbed a hand over her face wondering what answer would satisfy him. “Wait for you to come?”

“It’s not a game, Mrs. Royse,” Hawk growled as he approached her. He grabbed another handful of hair and pulled her head back until she was looking into his face. Stopping just short of causing pain, he wrapped the silken strands around his hand.

“Do you have any idea of what a determined man can do to a defenseless woman?” He held her body against his until she was forced to accept the knowledge of his superior strength.

“Have you ever heard of rape, Mrs. Royse?” he snarled.

“You’re frightening me, Hawk.”

“I won’t always be here, Mrs. Royse, and some men get pleasure out of making a woman scream.”

“Stop it!”

“He’ll abuse your flesh in as many ways as he knows how, getting satisfaction from your fear, thriving on your screams. He’ll hold you to the ground and grind his body into yours. You can scream and bite and scratch, but that won’t stop him. And when he’s done, if he doesn’t kill you, you’ll wish you were dead.

“There might be several men. They’ll each take a turn on your soft, white body; maybe more than one turn. When they’re done, there won’t be an inch of your flesh left unmolested. The degradation won’t stop when they do, you’ll never again feel clean. You’ll never be able to trust anyone again. You’ll always wonder if some other man is just waiting his chance at you.”

“Stop it!”

Hawk saw the fear in her eyes and with a snarled oath he released his hold on her hair. He turned and walked away from her, standing in the shadows of the fire, staring into the darkness.

“Your father has sent a man to get you,” he said quietly. “He is the first but he won’t be the last. He may even still be around here somewhere just waiting for an opportunity.”

Hawk bit back the threatening rage at the thought of a father who would so callously send a stranger after his own daughter. Did he give no thought to the treatment the stranger might inflict upon his helpless daughter on the return journey? Was his only goal to have her back, regardless of the means?

Turning, he stared at M oily, seeing the fear on her face and knowing it was as much for him as for the unknown man.

“Go to bed, Molly,” he said quietly.

“Hawk … I …”

“Tomorrow well start working on some selfdefense. We’ll practice with both the rifle and a knife.”

“Hawk … “ Not sure what she wanted to say, Molly stuttered into silence.

“Go to bed.”

Nodding silently, Molly turned and walked toward the cabin. She hesitated at the doorway, turning to look at Hawk. His unreadable gaze did not invite her to return to the fire, so she slowly entered the dark structure.

Hawk cursed himself silently: for his harsh treatment of her — for her inability to provide for herself. He knew he could have chosen a different way to show her the dangers she faced. He didn’t have to scare her to death to prove a point.

And now she feared him more than some unknown man who might or might not be intending to harm her.

Hawk leaned against the wagon and watched as the fire slowly burned to embers.

Changing into her nightdress, she listened for the sound of his footsteps, anticipation changing to disappointment when he didn’t come. Since Adam’s death, she had not fallen asleep alone. Each night Hawk had held her until sleep claimed her. She quickly discovered that she missed him, his quiet strength, his gentle understanding. She stared through the darkness, ignoring the unfamiliar creaking and groaning of the cabin and as her eyes adjusted she found that the blackness was far from absolute. The unfinished windows and door, as well as the spaces between the logs that still needed to be chinked, all allowed the moonlight to filter into the room.

A long time later the moon gave her more than enough light to see Hawk as he soundlessly entered the cabin.

“Hawk?” she whispered, sitting up, the quilt falling to her waist.

He had known she wouldn’t be asleep. He had put off coming into the cabin as long as possible, hoping she would be. He was afraid to discover if she now feared him to the point of terror. But that one word, his name whispered in a voice that was unknowingly seductive, answered his questions.

Hawk walked to the far side and lowered himself to the floor. He leaned against the wall and gathered Molly into his arms.

“I shouldn’t have —” he began only to be interrupted by gentle fingers against his lips.

“Tomorrow,” she said softly. “I’ll yell at you for scaring me to death, you’ll boss me, as always. We’ll solve our differences in the light of day.”