Lone Star Loving (3 page)

What he hankered for was a good look at one of those girls promised to him back in '69. Then, on the eve of his leaving the Four Aces to visit Sam Washburn, Maisie McLoughlin had set Hawk on his current course.

“Bring the lass home,” she had said, appealing to what she knew to be Hawk's affection for her, a ninety-year-old Scotswoman who pined for a wayward great-granddaughter. She'd also piqued his curiosity.

“But keep yer hands to yerself,” the feisty woman–old as the plains and skinny as a rail–had demanded. “Bring my great-granddaughter back in the condition ye find her. A virgin.”

“What if she's not?”

Fires jumped and blazed in the aged blue eyes; she shook an arthritic finger. “The lass may be a lotta things, but ye'll not be finding her loose. So don't ye be poking at her maidenhead.”

As for the “lass,” Hawk had been wondering what it would be like to mate with a McLoughlin daughter since he'd obtained the medicine of manhood. He made no promises to her great-grandmother.

The Old One started jabbering about how she had lost weight and sleep over the “tarnished angel running off t' wed that Blyer peacock.”

Recalling her parents' banishment of their daughter, Hawk asked, “If you want my help, I need some answers. Do Lisette and McLoughlin hate her simply because she's a runaway?”

“They doona hate her! They love the lass. But she is”–the Old One dabbed at her eyes–“hard to love. She has done her best to drive us all mad. Running off to marry that peacock was the last straw.”

“I was under the impression they aren't married.” Hawk crossed his arms. “And I'm no magician. I can't make a virgin out of a married woman.”

“She ain't wed! Her father alerted every county clerk in the state t' watch for an application for a marriage license. There hasna been any. Now, get riding, lad! I'm wanting me lass at home.”

Hawk packed his bag. The Old One gave him one last instruction as he was riding away. “ 'Twon't be easy, lad, bringing her home. She's a stubborn wench. Scare sense int' her if need be. And she'll be needing it.”

“Scare sense into her?”

“Ye're an Indian, ye know what t' do.”

“Ma'am, my people are the peaceful sort. With a bow and arrow I'm considered a fine hunter, but I'm not a marksman with a gun. And I am
not
trained in scare tactics.”

“Ye'll think of something.”

That had been Fredericksburg; this was the aftermath of Laredo. His curiosity had been appeased. As for keeping her virginity intact, there was a good chance Charity was no flower of purity, given that she'd run off after that Blyer character, then had taken up with Gonzáles and his lot, which spoke chapters about her nature.

Spunky might have its allure, but an outlaw woman went against the grain of a man who fought for right, not wrong.

Anyway, the Old One would get her descendant to an attorney. Hawk squinted at the stars before he strode into the physician's shack. All he had to do was get Charity to the powwow point in Uvalde, then escort the two women to the Four Aces Ranch.

Then Hawk would be done with her.

A minute or so after vowing to be done with Charity McLoughlin posthaste, Hawk entered the sleeping room that was lined with the paraphernalia of medical science. But his eyes didn't linger on the stoppered bottles, nor the shelves of medical books, nor the instruments of Sam's trade.

Hawk eyed his captive. A lantern cast a soft glow over her shapely form. Her hands shackled to the rungs of an iron bedstead, she lay dressed atop a worn quilt. Her skirts had worked their way up to her knees, displaying worn velvet slippers and curvaceous legs.

“Not bad,” he murmured to himself. “For a hellcat.”

His gaze moved upward. Wavy hair, long and luxurious, cascaded across her shoulders and down to her nipped waist, and his fingers strummed the air in a rhythm suddenly and irrationally impatient to twine through those locks. His glance settled on cheeks tinged with roses, then on a lush mouth opened slightly as if in invitation. His head moved downward.

Were the situation different, though–if Charity were a different sort, or if he were nothing more than a kidnapper out for his own gain–Hawk would crawl in bed with her and find out just how much was spunk and how much was bluster.

He grew hard just thinking about it.

Hard and hot.

Gulping a couple of drafts of air to ease his engorged lower region, Hawk shucked the fringed jacket, leaving his torso clad in a cotton shirt. He felt somewhat relieved. He turned from the sleeping woman; when he did, he heard the bedclothes rustle.

“You dirty, low-down polecat,” he heard her mutter.

Keeping his eyes on the door and his back to Charity, he stopped his retreat. “You've awakened.”

“Brilliant deduction.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“What a question. Of course I'm not all right.”

From the venom spewing from her tongue, Hawk figured the chloroform hadn't upset her stomach.

The iron posts protested as she tried to get free. “Unlock these blasted shackles,” she ordered.

“Are you hungry?”

“I said unlock these manacles!”

“Not a good idea. But I am willing to feed you some dinner, Miss Charity McLoughlin. There's a pot of venison stew simmering. Sure you wouldn't like a bit of supper?”

Silence descended; it didn't take glancing over his shoulder to know she was skewering him with a look of loathing.

He decided to get the rules of the warpath straight. “Charity, you are my captive. And I give the orders. You can make it easy on yourself. Or you can make things difficult. Take your pick. Now, I'm not going to unlock the handcuffs. Understand? But I am willing to feed you, and I suspect you may be hungry, so do you want the stew, or not?”

He wondered what would win out, her hunger or her defiance.

“I . . . I do.”

“Good girl.”

He quit the room.

 

 

Those turquoise eyes were half closed, yet the anger in them was full-blown when Hawk carried a bowl of stew into the sleeping room. “Charity, I'll have to prop you up with a few pillows,” he said, “or you'll strangle on your meal.”

“You're ever so kind,” she said sarcastically.

“Raise up.”

He placed a couple of pillows behind her, catching a whiff of rose water blended with the musky scent of woman as he did so. He felt the rush of her breath against his shoulder at the same moment that strands of her hair brushed against his mouth. And the collective effect–

“You're smothering me, you big ox.”

He reared back to sit on the bed's edge.

She was watching him, denouncement written in her oval face. Rebuke that turned to pure curiosity. Her brow quirked as she looked him up and down. “Do much wood chopping?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I asked if you're a woodchopper. With brawn like yours, you must spend a hefty amount of time swinging an ax. Then again . . .” She paused to continue her assessment. “Your skin isn't quite white and I see traces of savage in your features. Perhaps axes don't interest you at all. Perhaps you swing war clubs. You're an Indian, aren't you?”

“I am,” he answered, giving her credit for her astuteness.

Sam had been right. Not many pegged him as Indian, especially not when he was garbed in white trappings. Hawk took it as a compliment that Charity had made such a swift and accurate appraisal of his ancestry.

Complacent, he smiled. “Earlier, you wondered if I was as ugly as you expected. Do you think Indians are ugly?”

“If you're fishing for a compliment, think again. If you were as handsome as John Wilkes Booth–Lucifer, burn his soul–I wouldn't tell you.” She eyed the knife thonged to his thigh, swallowed, then nervously moistened her upper lip. “Going to scalp me before this is all over?”

He'd heard more than his share of comments like that in his twenty-seven winters. Such affronts were especially bad when he'd attended law school in Maryland. But his mother's relatives had pulled strings to get their “heathen” relative enrolled, and Hawk had wanted a law degree bad enough to suffer the indignities. By becoming an attorney, he had concluded that he could help his people in these days of reservations and government agents.

Thus, he had become inured to prejudice. But it was a good ways to Uvalde, and he could do without her insults.

Hawk said, “Not all Indians are out to scalp women.”

Despite her superior airs, her mouth bowed sensuously, and Hawk read something in her expression. The hellcat eyed him as a man. Color be damned. Maybe she wasn't as much her father's daughter as he had first supposed.

“I'm not interested in scalping you,” he said. “Not unless I have to.”

“Don't gawk, redskin. It's rude. If you're going to feed me, do it.”

He reached for the bowl. Raising the filled spoon to her lips, he watched as she devoured the portion, then another and another. “Charity, how long has it been since you've eaten?”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. Her eyes closed, a dense fringe of black lashes rested against her fair skin. “It seems as if forever. I've got a powerful hunger.”

The huskiness in her voice and his own powerful hungers broke his resolve to leave her be. To hell with misgivings. To hell with any disapproving McLoughlin. In the matter of man and woman, it was nobody's business but their own.

Furthermore, he would enjoy it, conquering this tarnished angel. It might take using the Old One's scare-tactic suggestion, Indian or otherwise, but Hawk wasn't above using any means to get what he wanted.

“I told you–don't look at me that way,” Charity demanded. “I'm not some entrée at a starving man's feast.”

“Perhaps you'd like to think you're not.” Captivated by eyes that were like turquoise before sun and time had mellowed the hue to green, he went for another spoonful of the fragrant stew, ate it himself, then blew to cool another. “You see, I, too, am a person of powerful hungers.”

Before she accepted the offering, she asked, “Tell me, Hawk. Are you planning to rape me before you try to extort money from my family?”

“Eat your stew.”

But the moment he placed the spoon at her lips, she turned not only her head but also a shoulder. The motion sent his arm on a downward path, the spoon falling to the pillow. His hand landed on her breast; his fingers curled around the heavy mound.

It was soft, sweet. And he felt the nipple harden beneath the pad of his thumb. Charity clasped the bed rails even tighter. Scanning the conflict of emotions written across her face, he murmured her name as if in a chant.

“You
are
going to have your way with me,” she whispered.

“Don't you want me to?”

Her eyes narrowed. “If I let you do your dirty deed, will you set me free?”

“It wouldn't be a dirty deed.” He stroked the calico-covered, hardened crest. She squirmed on the bed. And he felt a quiver that he knew she was trying to hide. He moved closer, combing his fingers through the thick hair at her temples. “I think anything between the two of us would be nothing but good.”

“I know your wife would be thrilled to hear that.”

“I don't have a wife.”

Her lips parted, and he knew it was to make some scathing remark, but he angled his head, his mouth descending on hers to restrain the comment. She tasted the way he knew she would, warm and sweet, and his tongue worked its way inside.

She could have bitten him, but she didn't. She could have kicked him. She didn't. There were a lot of ways Miss Charity McLoughlin could have fought him, and Hawk wondered why she didn't. He didn't mull over her lack of fight for long.

His hands skimmed her arms, settling at the sides of her breasts, and his shaft throbbed in his britches.
Wah'
Kon
-
Tah!
The reality of Charity was sweeter than any youthful fantasy. His hunger surprised Hawk, and he realized no woman had ever excited him this way. Perhaps because she
was
so wild and untamed and unpredictable . . .

Always he'd gotten a thrill from bringing down wild beasts, and this woman was the wildest and most beautiful of beasts. He meant to send the bow of lust straight into her.

He whispered her name, once and then again. His fingers becoming acquainted with the feel of her throat, her earlobe, the rich texture of her hair, he murmured in his native language, “Maybe I'll never take you home. Maybe I'll keep you with me. Forever.”

One of her legs moved across the back of his thigh as she whispered against the edge of his lips, “Hawk, won't you let me put my arms around you?”

“No.”

“That doesn't seem fair.” Her voice, soaked in the richness of warm thick cream, spread through him. “Unbind me, Hawk.”

“Don't ask that of me. Don't . . .”

“I
am
asking.”

Those huge blue eyes beseeched him; he felt his resolve weaken. He knew it was foolish. He shouldn't trust her. Yet he wanted their lovemaking to be everything it ought to be.

His fingers reached for the key.

Charity's unfettered fingers immediately went for the bowl of stew. Once more she had outwitted Hawk; the hot contents slashed his left cheek.

He shouted something–probably some Indian curse–and grabbed his face. Charity put all her strength into a mighty heave that sent him tumbling to the hovel's dirt floor. Despite her aches and pains of earlier that night, she bounded out of bed and was halfway to the door before he'd grabbed her waist and hauled her to his washboard stomach. Her shoulder blades thudded against a wall of chest.

“All right, hellcat,” he growled in her ear, his breath disturbing her hair. “We won't be sleeping together tonight. But you aren't getting away–”

“I'd rather die than sleep with a red devil!” she exclaimed.

Yet her words were false. Maybe the tumultuous emotions raging inside of her had something to do with the fantasy of a particular red man whom she'd never laid eyes on–
Good gravy, don't be thinking about that one!

When this savage had stroked her, this bronze, rugged, handsome man, he'd dashed her guard momentarily; she'd let herself become aroused, foolish enough to dream about a different situation, one where they would have wanted each other for each other. A lunatic's conception, given the situation.

But all Charity McLoughlin wanted in life was to be loved
for herself
. Always, she'd been judged on her headlong ways. Or for the family fortune no longer at her disposal.

“Let me go!” she insisted, and he pushed her away, yet his fingers fastened around her wrist; he swung her to face him. Eyeing her foe, she forced her lip into a curl. “I cringe at the mere thought of being your squaw.”

“You weren't cringing a few minutes ago.”

“I most certainly was.”

“You most certainly were not.” Above eyes brown like rich cocoa trimmed with cream, his straight black brows elevated. “I think you're as lusty as I am, hellcat angel.”

“A lie!” She tried to free her wrist; more pressure met her efforts. He turned his head to profile, presenting a rather hawklike and proud nose. “You disgust me,” she said.

She despised lies and liars, though she had been less than honest tonight. She had not cringed at his touch. And Hawk certainly didn't disgust her. There was enough of her mother in her not to be against someone because of their ancestry. Nonetheless, the only defense she had against her own torrential emotions was a sharp tongue. “I would never be a squaw to you or to anyone of your ilk.”

Again he faced her, and the look on his long, sculpted face taunted her. “Let's clear up a misconception. Number one, the white man's word ‘squaw' degrades women of my breed. Don't ever use that word again. Second, in your kind's parlance, ‘squaw' implies lifelong companion.” His fingers squeezed Charity's wrist with enough power to elicit from her a wince. “I'd never have you for wife,” he said.

She blinked. “Th-this is my l-lucky day.” A curious stab of pain knifed her breast, though she couldn't imagine why his denunciation had hurt her. Matching his cruel expression, she said, “Next you'll be telling me ‘papoose' is a bad word.”

His expression softened. “‘Child' is never a bad word. Children are loved above anything in my culture.”

Not a bad culture, his, Charity thought. “If you had a papoose, wouldn't it be ashamed to know its father is an outlaw?”

“If you had a papoose, wouldn't it be ashamed to know its mother is a shrew? A shrew
and
an outlaw?”

Despite herself, she fought the urge to laugh aloud at the absurdity of their situation. While his words had been as uncharitable as hers, his eyes had lit up in amusement. “Boy howdy, wouldn't a child be in a mess if it had the bad luck to have us as parents?”
Good gravy
. Why was she carrying on this way with her
kidnapper?
“We'll save humanity a bad seed, since you'll never, ever touch me.”

“Wrong.”

“If you think so, you're in for another think.”

“I don't think. I act.” He yanked her to him, pulling her wrist high on his chest. Beneath her fingers she felt the rapid beat of his heart and the stove-hot heat of his chest. His scent, manly and kissed by all outdoors, enveloped her as he bent to whisper against her ear, “I mean to have you. Temporarily. And you won't regret it.”

“Have you no conscience? There could be a child.”

“Wah'Kon-Tah
would never rain such bad spirit.”

She attempted to put some distance between them. “You hold much faith in yourself and your... whatever you called it.”

“Red devils have a way of doing that.”

Since he had a comeback for everything she said, Charity was beginning to think she wouldn't have the last word. A disturbing notion. “You're well-spoken for a heathen. Some white missionary must have taken pity on you at some point.”

His mouth captivated her, with its white teeth and full lips, but suddenly those lips were set in a thin line. “Lady, don't put my temper to the test.”

“Likewise.”

“Get some rest,” he said in exasperation, and shoved her onto the bed.

The lumpy mattress, ill-covered by the worn quilt, bit her spine. As he clamped one of the manacles on her wrist again, she kicked his thigh and pummeled his upper arm with her free fist. Talon-strong fingers grabbed her hand, and he had a rope looped around that wrist as well as the bed rail in no time.

Her chest heaving, she spit out, “May hell take you. If you intend to wrest money from my father, Hawk, have at it. You'll know soon enough that your efforts are in vain. As fruitless as those of your kind when they tried to keep whites from their manifest destiny. You'll fail. And in the meantime, I'll make your life a living hell. I've got twenty years of experience along those lines. Ask any McLoughlin.”

“Get yourself pulled together before sunrise.” He rose to his full height, staring down at her almost murderously. “We leave at dawn. As I said before, you can make this as easy or as difficult as you want it.”

“Go to hell.”

“You have a harlot's mouth.”

“You seemed to like it a few minutes ago.”
Good gravy, don't give him any encouragement!

“Your submissive lips, not your sharp tongue.”

Gads, her lips had been
submissive!
She drilled Hawk with a look of defiance. “Perhaps I was too free with my favors. It won't happen again. You may have kidnapped me, but I demand respect. You
will
keep your hands to yourself. Understood?”

Without a word or a gesture of acknowledgment, he quit the room, dropping the hide door in his wake and leaving her with her thoughts.
Thoughts?
They would be better categorized as fantasies.

It was as if she were a girl again. The same sort of scene happened countless times. Each occurred at home, at the Four Aces Ranch. A specific incident stood out. The triplets must have been seven at the time. Their brother Angus had just progressed to baby steps. And they had recently moved into the grand home Papa had built for Mutti.

Papa's delay in returning from one of his cattle drives to Kansas left a pall on the Christmas Eve festivities.

In deference to their mother's heritage, a tree had been brought into the great hall. The scent of cedar permeated the room, along with beeswax candles and bows of holly. Mutti–as the triplets called their mother in the German language she was set on teaching them–fastened candles on the tree. Their great-grandmother sat in her rocker and complained about all the fuss.

“Lass,” Maisie had said to Lisette, “ye'll be burning the house down with all those candles. And if we'll not be reduced t' ashes, yer bairns will be learning t' play with fire.”

Lisette's blue eyes sparkled. “Hush,” she said in the accent of her fatherland, and gave a look of love to her husband's grandmother.

Righteous indignation, mingled with love, met that adoration. “Sometimes I wonder aboot yer ways. Such as the time ye promised a daughter t' that Indian lad up in the territory.”

Charity's ears pricked up, and she abandoned the wooden puzzle that had kept her occupied since supper. Her sisters stopped stringing popcorn to look at each other, then at Charity. Over and again, the triplets had heard this tale. And they had always been interested in it. Well, Margaret wasn't all that interested; she reverted to stringing.

Lisette placed a candle on a cedar bough. “I didn't
promise
a daughter to David Fierce Hawk.”

Small fists covering their mouths, Olga and Charity giggled. Olga then reached for little Angus, who cuddled against his sweet sister. Charity, never one to keep her mouth shut, implored, “Tell us more about the Osage boy, Mutti.”

“Shut up, triplet.” Margaret pushed the needle through a kernel of popped corn. “You talk too much.”

“Do not!”

“Yes, you do.”

Charity wanted to cry; she loved Margaret and longed for her approval. But instead of crying, she balled her fist, boxed Margaret's shoulder, and hissed through a half-grown-in front tooth, “I hope you catch smallpox and die, like Aunt Monika did.”

This sent Margaret crying. And Charity felt awful, for her mother went white. Uncle Adolf's wife hadn't been the only one to die last spring. So had Charity's three-year-old brother, Gilliegorm. Yet she couldn't bring herself to apologize to either her mother or her sister.

“Charity, you aren't very nice,” Olga interjected.

“I'm nicer than you are.” She forced a smirk at her nearsighted sister. “And at least I can see out of my two eyes!”

“Girls, hush.” Collected, Lisette moved over to the table that held a punch bowl of spiked eggnog, then filled a cup that she handed to Maisie. She received a pat on the hand and a smile in return. “Fierce Hawk is a splendid Indian boy. I use the word Indian loosely, since his mother is white. And his father's mother is half white. That makes him one-fourth Indian, doesn't it?”

The brainiest of the triplets, now fully recovered from her bawling fit, piped up. “It does.”

“Thank you, Margaret. I'm pleased you studied your sums.”

Charity shrank a bit at her mother's remark. Everybody in the whole world knew that Charity McLoughlin was stupid at sums. But she wished her mother would say something nice about her.

Lisette settled into a chair and tucked her long legs beneath her. Sipping eggnog, she said to Maisie, “I wonder what's happened to Fierce Hawk. Gil hasn't encountered the Osage tribe since our trip to Kansas in '69.”

“ 'Tis too bad ye havena made the trip again, lass.”

“I've small children, Maisie.”

“But I wooud be happy t' look out for them.”

“I know, dear one, but Gil says this is his last trip as trail boss. We're set for life, he wants to spend more time with the family, and he's looking to explore political possi–”

“We don't wanna hear about any old cattle drives,” Charity broke in. “We wanna hear about Fierce Hawk.”

Olga pleaded, “Oh, Mutti, do tell us.”

“All right.” Lisette smiled. “Fierce Hawk was such an interesting boy. I'll wager he's learned to read by now.”

“I like to read.”

“Oh, Charity, shut your trap.” Margaret took a sip of fruit juice. “You never let anyone else do the talking.”

Olga's weak eyes tried to focus on their mother. “Mutti, what about the part where he wanted to marry your daughter?”

Lisette scoffed. “Those were the words of the moment. I'm sure he's forgotten them by now.”

“He wouldn't forget them. He's an Indian. And Indians are good for their word. You said so, Mutti.”

“You don't know anything, triplet.” Margaret popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth.

“Thank the Lord, Indian days are coming t' an end,” Maisie commented, lowering her cup. “Ye may be fond of those Osage people, Lisette, but I'm thinking no Indian is t' be trusted.”

“You've been listening to too many of Gil's stories of the old days,” Lisette replied. “This is 1876. Times are changing.”

“Lass, how can ye be forgetting your own sister died at Comanche hands?”

“That was a long time ago. Indians will no longer be a menace, once the government has finished relocating them to reservations.”

“Was Cactus Blossom a menace?” Olga asked.

Three sets of girlish eyes waited for Lisette's reply, but Charity was the one to speak. “Let's don't talk about her.”

It made her mother cry, mention of her dead friend. Charity didn't like it when her mother cried. Always, she wanted to put her arms around Mutti's shoulders, but each time she balked. Everyone would think her silly. “Let's talk about what Saint Nicholas is going to bring us.”

“You won't get anything,” Margaret pointed out. “You haven't been good.”

Hurt, and afraid her sister spoke the truth, Charity picked up Angus's rubber ball and threw it at her sister's smug face.

“Charity!” At the same moment the ball missed its mark, Lisette wagged a finger. “That is more than enough. If you don't behave, you're going straight to bed.”

Withdrawing into the safe world of her fancies, Charity turned back to her puzzle, trying to fit Illinois into the United States map . . . and she wondered about Fierce Hawk. Did he really mean to marry one of the triplets? She hoped he'd pick her.