Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (9 page)

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Just sit out here with me on the porch. I have a spoon for each of us and we’ll eat out of the carton.”

She started to step out with him when she realized she was still carrying the butcher knife. “I— Just a minute. I’ll be right back.”

When she returned without the knife, they sat together on the top step and ate from the carton like a couple of kids. Moment by moment her fears receded until they seemed like a bad dream she had had long ago. The night became once again beautiful, the Milky Way a misty, sparkling spray across the heavens.

The ice cream was one of the better brands, rich and creamy, and she savored it slowly on her tongue.

“This is my favorite time of day,” Craig remarked. “When I was trucking it was the best time for driving. Now it’s just a quiet time when the work is done. I’ve spent a lot of hours looking up at the stars.”

“I prefer the dawn.”

He looked at her. In the faint silver light of the sliver moon, his face was unreadable. “Any particular reason?”

“It means the night is over.”

He didn’t reply, just waited for her to continue. Something about his silence made her feel safe, as if she could be sure he would not judge her.

“It’s ridiculously obvious,” she said deprecatingly. “My father always got drunk at night. Never in the morning or the afternoon. So the nights were scary. Full of threat.”

“Makes sense. That’s why you were holding the knife when I got here.”

She nodded. “I’d worked myself up into a fine state.”

“Don’t say it like that,” he chided. “Don’t say it as if you have anything to apologize for, because you don’t. Anyone in your position would be uneasy. Isn’t there someone you can get to stay with you until you’re sure there isn’t any danger?”

Esther shook her head. “I don’t really know anyone around here.” She smiled wryly. “I’m a recluse, you see.”

Just then, headlights turned off the highway and began to head up the driveway toward them. Esther gasped. Her stomach rolled over uneasily as fear speared through her. Her father!

Craig watched the lights for a couple of seconds then turned to Esther. Even in the dim moonlight she could see that his face had gone hard. “Go inside,” he said flatly. “Get the hell out of sight.”

With one more wild look at the approaching headlights, Esther obeyed.

C
raig stood on the top step, waiting as the car approached. From inside the house, Guinevere barked, and he heard Esther shush her.

He was bound and determined that no one was going to hurt Esther Jackson while he was near enough to do anything about it. He’d gotten only the sketchiest glimpse of what her childhood must have been like, but he had no trouble filling in the blanks. Nobody, absolutely
nobody,
deserved the kind of treatment she’d had from her parents, and by God he was going to make sure that her father didn’t hurt her again.

A corner of his mind insisted on reminding him that he didn’t know this woman, that her problems were really none of his concern, but he paid it no heed. For even though he’d always been a loner, he’d also felt it was the obligation of a human being to get involved when someone needed help, and Esther Jackson plainly needed help. It was a purely humanitarian gesture, he told himself. There was nothing at all personal in it.

His hands clenched and unclenched as adrenaline began to pump through his veins. That damn car was sure taking its own sweet time getting here. He watched the headlights wind their way up the narrow dirt track, knowing full well no one was driving this way by accident. Whoever it was better have a damn good excuse.

As the vehicle drew close, he saw the silhouette of a rack of lights on top of it. A cop. That didn’t make him feel any easier. While a cop wouldn’t pose any threat to Esther, he was never going to forget being carted off to jail for a crime he hadn’t committed. If hell froze over and demons played with snowballs, he would never again feel easy around the police.

The sheriff’s Blazer pulled to a stop in front of him. The spotlight flashed on, nearly blinding him. He heard the car door open, then Virgil Beauregard’s voice reached him.

“Where’s Miss Esther, Mr. Nighthawk?”

“Inside. We didn’t know who was coming up the road, so she’s waiting inside.”

“Ask her to step out, please.”

Slow anger burned in the pit of Craig’s stomach. He understood perfectly that the cop was only doing his job, making sure that Esther was all right, but he didn’t like the assumptions behind it.

Esther had apparently been listening, because she stepped out onto the porch before Craig even turned to come get her. Behind her, through the screen door, Guinevere chuffed.

“I’m all right, Beau,” she told him. “Mr. Nighthawk and I were just having some ice cream together. I’d offer you some, but I suspect it’s all melted by now.”

The spotlight snapped off and Virgil Beauregard became visible. He approached them. “Sorry for the scare, Mr. Nighthawk, but we’ve been alerted to keep an extra sharp eye on Miss Esther, and I’ve never noticed her lights being on this late before. And I didn’t expect to find anyone here.”

Craig nodded, understanding but still irritated. There was no way he was going to tell anyone it was okay, not after his life had been destroyed by suspicions.

“Thanks, Beau,” Esther said. “I really appreciate you going to the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, Miss Esther. Living this far away from everyone, you got no one to depend on except us.”

“And my neighbors,” Esther said warmly, resting her hand lightly on Craig’s forearm. “Would you like to come in for some iced tea? Or I could make coffee?”

Beauregard hesitated only an instant before accepting. Watching the other man climb the steps, Craig suddenly realized that Deputy Virgil Beauregard was sweet on Esther Jackson and she didn’t even realize it. And what he felt then was a hot surge of jealousy, fueled by her familiar use of his nickname. His jealousy heated up another notch when Guinevere greeted Beau as a long lost friend, and Beau returned the greeting with familiarity.

Beauregard had it all going for him, Craig thought as he followed the two of them to the kitchen. He was a good-looking white man in his late thirties with a steady, respectable job.

Not that it mattered. There was no possible way it could matter. Esther Jackson plainly wasn’t looking for a man, and Craig Nighthawk knew for certain that he wasn’t looking to get hitched, only to get laid, and Esther wasn’t that kind of woman.

Esther poured iced tea for all of them while Craig rinsed the melted ice cream out of the carton and tossed it. “Never ceases to amaze me how fast that stuff melts to nothing,” he remarked.

“It was already a little soft by the time you got here.” She gave him a smile. “I’ve been considering getting an ice-cream freezer.”

“I’ve got a really good one,” Beau volunteered. “My mother gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I don’t think I’ve used it but twice. You’re welcome to borrow it, if you like. I mean, it makes sense to try it out before you buy one. Make sure you like it.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

He shrugged and colored faintly. “I’m glad to do it.”

Well, Craig thought with sour humor, he supposed he could offer to lend “Miss Esther” a pair of sheepshearing scissors. Or some wire cutters, or some of the paper twine he used to bale wool.

Conversation languished for a few minutes, as if nobody really had much of anything to say. Finally Beau rose and carried his glass to the sink.

“I need to get back on patrol,” he said. “Thanks for the tea, Miss Esther.”

“My pleasure, Beau.”

He smiled down at her. “I’ll be back by a couple of times tonight, so rest easy.” Then he nodded to Craig. “Good night.”

Esther walked Beau to the door and watched him drive away into the night. It was good to know the sheriff was beefing up the patrols, good to know that men like Virgil Beauregard were watching over her.

Not that they would be able to do much good if Richard Jackson showed up. Her first instinct had been to turn to the police when she learned that he knew where she was, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized how useless police protection would be.

“Are you okay?”

Craig had come up beside her, and was looking down at her with concern.

“They’ll drive by here five or six times a day, maybe more, but it won’t do any good.”

“Why not?”

“Because they can’t watch me every minute. Because it never did any good in the past. They were never able to keep him away, or keep him from hurting us. He always came in the dark and—” She broke off sharply. “It doesn’t matter. If he’s made up his mind to get me, he’ll get me.”

She said it in a bleak way that ripped at his heart.

“No, he won’t,” Craig said flatly, his mind made up before he even knew it.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you’re not going to be alone at night. I can sleep on your porch as well as I can sleep out in the pasture or at home. If you can handle the daytime, I’ll handle the nighttime.”

She looked at him with an almost painful swelling of emotion. Her breathing accelerated and her heart seemed to squeeze with yearning—yearning for the safety and caring she had never had. “I—I’m…I can’t ask that of you.”

“You didn’t. I offered. Like I said, I can spread my bedroll as easily here as anywhere. Now you just trot yourself inside and go to bed. Don’t worry about a thing. Anybody comes near this place, I’ll hear him long before he gets here.”

“Guin will bark.”

The dog, recognizing her name, whined through the screen door.

“Sure she will. But you won’t have to face it alone.”

She looked down for a few seconds, as if she might find an answer to the puzzle written on the planks at her feet. Then she nodded, giving him a shy smile, and reached out to touch his arm lightly. “Thank you. I feel awful about letting you do this but…”

“But you’re afraid,” he completed. “You certainly have reason to be. And until we scope this out and have a better idea of what your father intends to do, I’m willing to do anything I can to help out.” Taking a chance, he covered her hand with his as it lay on his arm. She didn’t pull away.

“If I could trust him—” She broke off again and sighed, lifting her head to look out over the moon-washed landscape. “If I could trust him, I could believe his letter. But he always lied. He was always promising Mom that he wouldn’t hit her any more, or that he wouldn’t hit me any more, or that he’d never take another drink—the list was endless. He broke every promise he ever made.”

“Not a good guy to trust.”

She looked at him, wondering if he was being sarcastic, then laughed as she realized he was trying to lighten the mood. “No, he never was a good guy to trust.”

Then, with no more warning than a strange light in his dark eyes, he slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her gently against his chest. For an instant she thought she would lose her balance as her full weight came to rest unexpectedly on her weak leg, but then she was steadied against his chest.

“Relax,” he said huskily. “I won’t hurt you.”

Funny, but that had never occurred to her. Any other thought she might have had was swept away by astonishing sensations. He was so…hard. She had never imagined that the feeling of her breasts being pressed to the hard wall of a man’s chest would feel so…good. Or that she would be so aware of his hardness. As if she were leaning against a wall of steel. A
warm
wall.

Impossibly, he was still smiling, looking down at her with that strange fire in his eyes as he said, “If you want to squawk, do it right now, Esther. Otherwise I think I’m going to have to kiss you.”

“Why?” Her entire vocabulary seemed to have shrunk to that one word. She couldn’t gather her thoughts to say another thing. Besides, there was only one thing in the world that she wanted to know, and that was why, for the first time at this late stage of her life, a man wanted to kiss her.

His smile broadened. “Count on you to ask. Because you laughed.”

She blinked, her astonishment growing. “Because I
laughed?
”

“You have an irresistible laugh. Because you were scared and you laughed anyway. That’s special.”

And suddenly she felt special standing there in the circle of his arms, pressed to his chest, while his exotic face lowered toward hers. Special, and warm, and…tingly in a way she had seldom felt in her life.

And then his mouth settled over hers, warm and surprisingly gentle. It wasn’t the kind of kiss she’d seen in movies, the openmouthed gulping kisses that had always looked repulsive to her. It was a soft touching of lips that somehow coaxed her to tip her head back and welcome him.

His lips moved against hers and she responded, trying to give him the same feeling he was giving her. The softest, lightest of caresses, like a butterfly’s wings, or the brush of flower petals. So soft she leaned closer, needing something more….

He gave it to her, a gentle, teasing touch of his tongue over her lower lip. It tickled and she pressed her mouth harder against his, wanting the tickle to go away, to never end…and as she pressed harder her mouth opened, inviting him inside.

His tongue slipped past her teeth, finding hers and frolicking. She had never before thought of her tongue as an erotic organ, but then she had never thought she would actually want an openmouthed kiss. A French kiss, the girls in high school had called it. But whatever it was called, she found herself thrilling to the wondrous sensations his caresses evoked.

Oh, my! The brush of his tongue against the inside of her cheek danced along her nerve endings, spreading to the farthest points of her body. Another touch against the inside of her lip and she quivered, sensing that there was something even more powerful than these touches just ahead, something she needed and wanted more and more as he drew her deeper into the kiss.

But just as she was about to sag against him, he lifted his mouth and looked down at her. He was shaking. She could feel it. And panting as if he had just run a great distance.

But so was she. With dim amazement she listened to her own rapid breaths.

“You’re so sweet,” he whispered. “You don’t just have an addictive laugh, you’ve got an addictive mouth.”

Then he swooped on her again, taking her back into the pleasurable hinterlands of his kiss, drawing her deeper into the circle of passion. His arms tightened and she let go, trusting him to hold her, trusting him to take care of her.

It felt so good to finally just let go!

Her arms slipped up, and her hands gripped his shoulders as if she might drown if she didn’t hang on. His hands began to rub circles on her back, a sensation that at once soothed her and aroused her even more. Her blood seemed to be turning warm and heavy, like molasses, and in the pit of her stomach there was a fluttery sensation, like nervousness only it felt so much better.

When he lifted his mouth from hers again, she followed him like a flower seeking the sun, wanting so much more than these brief, fleeting touches. And there was more. Her entire body shrieked it.

Instead of giving her another kiss, he cupped the back of her head in one big palm and drew her head onto his shoulder. “I don’t…I don’t think we ought to keep this up,” he said breathlessly. “We might go somewhere we’re not ready for.”

She rested against him for a long time, fighting a wave of disappointment that threatened to make her weep. This was the first time in her entire life a man had kissed her, and she didn’t want him to stop, especially since this might be the last kiss she would ever get.

But she had too much pride to force the issue, and it was as plain as day to her that Craig Nighthawk wasn’t really interested in her as a woman anyway. How could he be, when she was defective. God, she was nearly thirty years old and she knew perfectly well how put off men were by her brace and limp. Not once in her entire life had anyone even asked her for a date, and the way she figured it, there was only one reason for that. She just didn’t have any sex appeal. Zip, zero, zilch,
nada.
It was as plain as the nose on her face.

Craig Nighthawk had kissed her because…because…oh, it was just because he felt sorry for her. Not because she had an “irresistible” laugh. Not because he was drawn to her. That just didn’t happen.