Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (25 page)

Craig was about a half mile from Esther’s driveway when he saw the battered metallic blue car turn into it. Even at that distance he recognized the vehicle and felt his heart slam into overdrive.

My God, Richard Jackson was going to see Esther! A multitude of horrible images crossed his mind, and he found himself clinging desperately to the hope that Jo’s presence would be enough protection. Or that Richard Jackson really was harmless, that all he had wanted to do was apologize.

None of that helped ease his anxiety. Esther had needed him and he wasn’t there and there wasn’t an excuse good enough on the entire planet.

He was already burning some huge blisters into his heels, but now he ignored them, spurring himself to a run. Two miles. He could do two and a half miles even in these damn cowboy boots in maybe fifteen minutes. Damn! He was going to scrape together the money and get himself a decent pair of jogging shoes so he didn’t have to wear these damn cowboy boots except when he was planning to ride.

Esther.
Fear for her raced up from the pit of his stomach and burned his throat. God, how could he have been asinine enough to think he could safely leave her alone for a couple of hours…a couple of hours which had turned into over three what with one thing and another.

He swore under his breath and spurred himself to an even faster pace. She had to be all right. She absolutely, positively
had
to be all right.

Because he couldn’t live without her.

All that hogwash he’d been dishing out about being a wanderer, about being Indian, about having nothing to offer her…well, maybe it was true, but he could damn well change all of it except his being Indian, and that apparently didn’t strike her as any kind of a big deal. Hell, she hadn’t even asked the usual curious questions. Nope, Esther Jackson saw him as a man, plain and simple, and something about that was like a balm to his soul.

Because never before in a relationship had his heritage seemed so insignificant. Among his own kind it had dictated whom he could date, and in the white man’s world it had either acted as an attractant or a repellant. With Esther it seemed to have no effect at all.

And he liked that. He liked not being continually faced with a whole set of preconceptions that he either fulfilled or failed to fulfill, like some kind of script he’d never been allowed to study before the play began. He liked the feeling that anything he happened to be at a given moment was good enough because it was
him.

Nobody in his whole damn life had made him feel that way except his sister, God bless her.

And his fear that Esther wouldn’t be able to put up with the disapproval…well, she’d shown her stuff pretty clearly when they went out to dinner and she told that jackass off. In fact, everything about her life said she wasn’t the kind to wimp out when the going got tough.

On the other hand…he wasn’t sure she felt anything for him, even though she’d trusted him last night.

The memory was like a jolt of adrenaline, spurring him to an even quicker pace. The blisters on his heels were hurting like hell and he felt some new ones growing on the side of his foot. So much for the protection socks were supposed to offer.

He said prayer after prayer for Esther’s safety, all the while trying to convince himself that she was going to be just fine because all Richard Jackson wanted to do was apologize to her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wasn’t crazy enough to hurt her. Hell, the man had just gotten out of prison. Why on earth would he want to put himself right back in?

But arguing for sense was grasping at straws and he knew it. The man had been capable of grievous harm to Esther and her mother in the past, and there was no good reason now to believe he was any different.

Craig cursed himself for all the times he had tried to tell Esther that she probably had nothing to fear from the man. He’d meant it at the time, but now he could only think what an optimistic fool he’d been. Of course she had something to fear from this man. She’d helped put him behind bars for murder, and it was entirely within the realm of possibility that he wanted revenge.

But no, he reminded himself. He’d come to her door, then left when she didn’t answer. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have broken in. No, he didn’t want to hurt her. He couldn’t want to hurt her.

His thoughts were revolving like an out-of-control Ferris wheel, round and round over the same ground. He tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t let go of the single-minded insistence that Richard Jackson couldn’t possibly hurt Esther.

His feet seemed to become numb, the pain from the blisters receding until he felt it only as if from a great distance. Intellectually he knew he was getting closer to her house with each step, but emotionally he felt as if he were getting nowhere at all, even when he recognized a landmark and it confirmed that he had covered a quarter mile, a half mile, then a mile.

And then he saw Richard Jackson’s car coming back up the drive. He considered trying to stop the man, then realized it would do no good. If Jackson had hurt Esther, he would probably just run Craig down. If he hadn’t…then it made no difference.

Their eyes connected, just briefly as Jackson drove by and Craig stepped to the side to give him room. Jackson nodded, and in some odd way Craig found that reassuring.

Then he hit the road again, running for dear life, needing to get to Esther the way he needed to breathe.

As he rounded the last corner, he knew that everything was all right, because Esther stood there on her porch, looking out over the prairie. She was okay. Scared, maybe, but unharmed.

He stopped running, giving himself a desperately needed chance to catch his breath. Now with each step he could feel the blisters like fiery brands on his feet. Muscles he’d almost forgotten about were shrieking a protest.

Esther, who had been looking toward the mountains turned and spotted him. The smile that spread across her face was like a ray of sunshine after a rainy week. It reached across the distance separating them and touched him deep inside, making a connection that he knew would never be severed.

All this time, he thought as he walked toward her, he hadn’t even realized what was happening to him. Now, please God, she would someday come to feel the same.

“Where’s your truck?” she called as he crossed the hard earth and walked up the path between the flower gardens.

“I had a blowout and ran into the ditch.”

“Are you all right?” Concern creased her face as she hurried toward the steps, limping visibly but ignoring it in her haste to reach him. “Craig? Were you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her, wincing as his blisters sent up a shriek of pain. “Except for some blisters. Damn cowboy boots weren’t meant for walking.”

She reached him and caught his hand. Did she have any idea, he wondered, of how that felt to him? The touch of her skin, so seductive and warm, the feeling that she cared even more seductive and warm, the concern in her beautiful hazel eyes drawing him to her until he was filled with yearning.

“How far did you have to walk?” she asked, gently tugging him up the steps and into the house.

“Oh, maybe five miles.”

“Your feet must be a wreck.”

“They do feel like it.”

In the kitchen she pushed him gently into a chair and then helped him get his boots off. Her help with his boots was so cute he didn’t have the heart to do it himself. She turned her backside to him, giving him a fine view even if she was wearing a skirt, and wobbled a little until she found her balance.

When she pulled his boots off, it was obvious he’d gone past the blister stage. His socks were soaked with blood.

“Oh, Craig! This is terrible! How could you keep walking?”

“Because I was worried about you.”

Esther caught her breath, looking at him, tumbling headlong, it seemed, into the dark pools of his eyes. She looked from his gaze to his bloody feet, then back again, as if unable to believe anyone had done so much for her.

Suddenly feeling embarrassed, he bent to pull off the bloody socks. “I’m gonna mess up your floor.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said softly. “Just sit there and let me get a basin of warm water for you to soak in.”

She had a galvanized steel tub, just the right size to soak both his feet in. Using a pitcher, she filled it with enough warm water to cover his feet to the ankles and brought a blissful smile to his face.

“Ah, that feels good,” he told her.

She smiled. “You just keep soaking. I’m going to look for some gauze and ointment to put on those blisters.”

They were pretty bad, he thought, taking a look at his feet. It would be a while before he would want to wear shoes again. Still, it had been worth it. He would never have forgiven himself if he hadn’t busted his butt to get here.

She returned a few minutes later with a towel, gauze, scissors and antibiotic ointment. She set everything on the table next to him.

“What did your father want?” he asked her.

She sat facing him and smiled. “You were right.”

“Right? About what?”

“That it’s better to face the demon.” Her smile grew and she gave a little laugh. “I faced him, Craig. I faced him and he’s nothing but a pathetic old man who messed up his entire life. He can’t hurt me anymore.”

He wanted to shout for joy, but he contained it. “No, he can’t. Not if you’re not afraid of him. That was always his leverage, wasn’t it? That you were afraid of him. Your mother probably was, too.”

“Not scared enough, apparently. He told me she used to like to flirt and dance with other men, and it drove him crazy with jealousy.”

“That’s no excuse to beat her up.”

“That’s what I said. He agreed.” She tilted her head a little and smiled more deeply. “I’m free of him, Craig. That’s the really important thing. I feel completely free of him for the first time in my life. I’m not frightened anymore. I don’t have to live in dread that he’ll suddenly turn up on my doorstep to kill me. It’s in the past and I’m free!” She threw up her arms as she said the last, and he found himself laughing with her.

“Free,” he agreed. “It must feel wonderful!”

“Nothing’s ever felt better…well, except one thing,” she added mischievously.

Understanding brought him to his feet, heedless of his blisters or the tub he was standing in. Bending, he swooped in for a kiss and found himself welcomed with a warmth that had previously been reserved to his dreams.

Lifting his head he smiled down into her hazel eyes. “It
was
pretty good, wasn’t it?”

Even as she nodded, he realized how little that meant. She had asked for one night, had been insistent that she wanted nothing more from him, and this morning had made it plain through her actions that she had meant what she said.

Suddenly deflated, he sat back down and considered just how hopeless his situation was. There was no reason on earth she should reciprocate his feeling. Absolutely none.

“Craig? Is something wrong?”

He shook himself and looked at her. “No, no, nothing. So you’re free of your fear. That’s wonderful.”

She looked at him oddly, as if guessing he was redirecting the conversation. Then she reached for the towel. “I think we can dry you off now.”

“I don’t want to ruin your towel.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just a towel. Here.” She handed it to him and opened the package of gauze while he toweled his feet dry. The bleeding had just about stopped. He took the antibiotic ointment from her and spread it over the raw patches that covered his feet. Then she insisted on holding his feet in her lap while she wrapped gauze over the blisters.

It was emotionally touching, but it was also one of the most stunningly sensual things anybody had ever done for him. When she was done and he stood on his feet, there was only one thing he wanted in life, and that was Esther Jackson in his arms.

He reached for her and she hesitated. “Esther…”

She looked up at him, her gaze uncertain. “We agreed to one night.”

“Damn our agreement,” he said forcefully. “Esther, I want you. I need you.”

A soft little sound escaped her, something like a sigh, and she leaned into his arms. “I want you, too,” she admitted.

Wanted but not needed. The distinction pierced him with a sense of impending sorrow, but he forced himself to ignore it. He would gratefully accept however much or little this woman chose to give him right now, and hope that someday she would come to feel about him as he felt about her.

They went upstairs hand in hand, Craig mindful of her dislike for being picked up and her fear of stairs. It was, he thought, a triumph that she could climb stairs beside him. Old fears must surely haunt her.

But if they did, there was no shadow of them in her eyes as she smiled at him. God, how he loved her smile! In her room, with sunlight streaming over them, they undressed each other slowly, savoring each newly revealed secret. Once or twice Esther was almost overcome by shyness, but when he pulled her close and kissed her, she relaxed and gave way to their rising passion.

There was something incredibly special about loving this woman in the daylight with nothing concealed. He stood over her without embarrassment and let her look her fill. Then, determined to prove a point, he bent over her and began to kiss her from head to toe with his eyes wide open.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered again and again, and he truly meant it. What he wanted was for her to believe it, too. If his lips could convince her, they would do so.

By the time his lips had trailed to the soles of her feet, she was quivering from head to foot and breathing through gently parted lips. Only then did he lower himself over her, covering her with his heat and his strength. At once her arms lifted to encircle him and hold him close.

“Am I too heavy?” he asked.

“No…oh, no! You can stay here forever if you like.” And she truly meant it. Being pressed head to foot against him in this intimate way was one of the most exquisite and soul-satisfying experiences she had ever had. Only her art brought her close to this sense of completeness.