Nightway (34 page)

“I don’t see why you’re hanging around here. I told Chad you would be out when he came back. He’ll be here tomorrow.” His statement contained a threat.

“You should have checked to find out what my plans were.” He peeled the sweat-dampened saddle blanket and pad off the horse’s wet back and spread them over the saddle. “I’ll be going back out in a few days.”

“Don’t you think you should be checking on your share of the cattle?” Rawlins asked.

Hawk unbuckled the throat strap of the bridle and slipped the headstall off the horse’s ears. “It will be an honest count.”

“Two ranches can’t work the same land because there isn’t room for two bosses. I thought you’d be smart enough to know that,” the foreman jeered, satisfaction glittering in an embittered face.

“Did you?” Hawk smiled with cold recklessness. “I’m just a dumb half-breed.”

“You’d better get back to the roundup.”

“I don’t take orders from you.” He wiped the sweat from the horse’s back and withers, its skin shivering in reflex under his gloved hand. “I’ll be riding out in a few days. If that isn’t good enough for you—or Chad—it’s just tough.”

“What if it isn’t?” Rawlins challenged as his jaw turned white.

The grating rasp of the other barn door sliding on its track half-turned Hawk, not completely, because he wasn’t about to turn his back on Rawlins. A fiery pleasure flared through his veins and into his bones when he saw Lanna walk through the opening. In his mind, he reached for her, although he didn’t move, except to slide a glance at Rawlins.

“I’ll leave in my own good time, Tom. You’d better let it go at that,” Hawk advised in a low voice that would not carry down the wide passageway of the barn.

“Hello.” Lanna’s voice swept through his senses like a windsong, swirling and dipping.

Rawlins was angered by the interruption, but he hid it well. “Are you and Carol going riding, Miss Marshall?” he inquired smoothly.

“Yes, we thought we would,” Carol answered for Lanna.

“I’ll catch up the horses for you,” Rawlins volunteered.

Hawk was aware that Rawlins had left, but he continuted to study Lanna. Her round hazel eyes looked wounded and tired. There was no joy of life in her face. Had he broken her fine spirit with his cruelty? Hawk experienced a wild need to hold her in his arms and give back that vital spark he had destroyed.

With a quick step, Carol came between them to take Lanna’s arm. “Let’s give Dad a hand with the horses.” She escorted Lanna toward the doors.

Not once did Lanna look back as she left willingly with Carol. Hawk’s gaze followed her every step of the way until she was out of sight. What had he expected? He cursed bitterly because he knew he wasn’t going to seek her out and apologize. He hated himself for that.

Lanna’s dreams were violent and confused. She was out on the roundup, riding with Hawk. Only instead of driving cattle, they were herding people. All of them were wearing grotesque masks. Yet Lanna easily recognized them. Every time she rode past the one with the yellow mask, the figure would wave a letter under her nose and insist that she write a note to Johnny and sign her name. Lanna knew it was Carol. Chad was carrying a heart of solid gold, which he kept trying to give to her.

The nightmare lasted for a long time. All the while she kept riding in circles around the masked people, never getting anywhere. She kept asking Hawk which way to go, but he kept asking if she wanted to ride with him.

When she woke up, she had to struggle to separate fantasy from reality. The vivid colors of their masks kept flashing in her mind, and the intensity of her confusion lingered until well into the morning.

Not even Chad’s arrival in the early afternoon could bring Lanna out of her depressed mood. His smiles weren’t able to charm her anymore, and his compliments sounded flat to her ears. Yet he appeared just as sincere and concerned as before. Lanna realized that the difference was she didn’t care. It confused her. She thought she would feel better once Hawk had returned, but this dull mood persisted.

“Tom was mentioning to me that he has decided to start the fall cattle drive tomorrow, bringing the herds down from the summer pastures.” Chad stirred his
martini with the olive. “It should be in full swing by Saturday.”

“He’s left it late in the year as it is,” Katheryn murmured in vague criticism. “It’s already the last week of October.”

“But it’s been very mild,” Chad reminded her, then smiled. “That isn’t the point I was trying to make. When he told me about starting the drive, I thought it would be a great opportunity to show Lanna the more glamorous side of ranching. She’s had more than two weeks of rest, leading a tame existence. She needs a little adventure to spark her enthusiasm. What do you think, Lanna?” He put the idea to her. “Would you like to spend a couple of days on the drive? We could sleep out at night under the stars, providing it doesn’t rain, of course.”

The suggestion didn’t appeal to Lanna in her present mood. Normally, she would have been quick to agree. What was the matter with her? Yet she was about to beg off the trip when Carol spoke to enthusiastically add her approval to the plan.

“It’s a marvelous idea, Chad. It would be so much fun, wouldn’t it, Lanna?” she insisted. “I haven’t been on one since I was in school and Dad took me. It’s absolutely fascinating, Lanna. You do want to go, don’t you?”

In the face of so much optimism, Lanna couldn’t find an adequate reason to refuse, and she definitely needed something to shake her out of this lethargy. “Sure,” she agreed with a surrendering shrug.

“Good.” Carol rose from her chair and reached for Lanna’s hand like a schoolchild. “Let’s see what you have for clothes to wear. We’ll need something warm in the high meadows. Do you have a sturdy parka? If you don’t, I have one that you can borrow. It might be a little tight in the shoulders for you, though.”

Chad’s suggestion was quickly turned into a project. Lanna was swept along in the tide of planning and packing, whether she liked it or not. She let Carol make most of the decisions, which invariably meant consultations with Katheryn, who seemed to be the final authority on everything. Lanna was thoroughly tired of the subject by the time she went to bed. Oddly, there was serenity in her dreams that night, her sleep-world filled with rainbows and light prisms, sunsets and sunrises.

In the morning she awakened feeling revived and eager to embark on the ranch adventure Chad had proposed. By midday, her interest in it had waned. Lanna was certain Carol had talked it to death, then wondered why she couldn’t summon the same amount of enthusiasm. She was bound to see Hawk, so why wasn’t she excited? Was she coming down with the flu again? Or had it taken more out of her than she realized?

With lunch over, Lanna followed Katheryn into the living room. Carol and Chad were behind them, laughing and exchanging anecdotes of their separate adventures on previous roundups. It occurred to Lanna that this trip seemed to bring the couple closer together.

“I almost forgot.” Chad snapped his fingers. “I have some papers that need your signature, Lanna. They’re in my briefcase in the study. I’ll get them.” Separating himself from the group, he walked swiftly to the double set of doors.

“Go with him,” Katheryn suggested. She didn’t wait for Lanna’s answer as she called to her son, “Don’t bother to bring them out. Lanna can sign them in there.”

The instant Lanna entered the study, she felt like a puppet on a string being pulled in the direction the
puppeteer wanted her to go. Then she chided herself for having such cynical thoughts. Katheryn had pulled the string, not Chad. She quickly lost interest in the entire subject.

Removing a sheaf of papers from his briefcase, Chad flipped to the signature page. “There are only a couple of places where you need to sign.”

“What is this?” She didn’t feel up to deciphering several pages of legal jargon.

“It’s more or less a proxy, giving me the right to vote your shares of stock the way I see fit,” he explained. “There’s a board meeting coming up with a lot of major decisions to be made. There really isn’t time to brief you thoroughly on all the issues so that you can intelligently participate in the meeting.”

Lanna hesitated. “I should at least read it.”

“You’d only get confused.” Smiling, he offered her a pen. “It’s just a proxy agreement.”

“For something so simple, there are an awful lot of pages to it,” Lanna noticed. “Let’s go over it later, Chad.”

“Lanna, there isn’t any need to go over it.” His short laugh was tinged with exasperation. “I’ve already told you what it’s about.”

“I know you told me. If that is what’s in there, you shouldn’t object if I read it,” she reminded him.

“Of course, I don’t mind. It’s just so time-consuming.”

“I’m sorry I’m so stupid about these things,” Lanna retorted. “But I’m not going to sign anything without reading it first. I haven’t up to this point, and I’m not going to start now.”

“Don’t you trust me, Lanna?” Chad looked hurt and surprised.

“Yes, I trust you,” she insisted. But she realized she didn’t—not completely—when he was trying to pressure
her like this. “It’s just that I’m tired. And I really don’t care about all this right now.”

“I should have it signed before I go back to Phoenix. I don’t like letting things go until the last minute. Sit down,” he suggested. “We’ll go over it page by page, paragraph by paragraph.”

“No. Not now.” She wasn’t capable of concentrating on any one subject for a long period of time. “Later. After we come back,” Lanna promised.

Chad considered her for a minute, then gave her a wry smile and nodded. “All right. And I didn’t mean to sound like I was pushing you.”

“I know.” Perhaps he hadn’t.

Sitting on her horse atop a butte, Lanna had a clear view of high canyon meadows below. The burnt red hides of Hereford cattle made a steadily growing blot on the yellow grass below. The cowboys added to the herd in scattered groups of three and four animals, driven out from hiding by the searching riders. Chad had explained to her that the gathering had been going on for the last couple of weeks in preparation for this final drive.

Hawk stood out from all the other riders—in Lanna’s mind, at least. He worked alone, yet she often saw him directing the others. Wearing a blue chambray shirt and a buckskin vest lined with sheepskin, he was riding a fractious, bald-faced chestnut, rangy and unruly. Briefly, Lanna thought that the horse and rider were well suited to one another.

At this altitude, there was a briskness to the sunwarmed air. Lanna felt it and burrowed a hand inside the pocket of her down-lined jacket. A stiff breeze ruffled her mane of brown hair under the flat-brimmed hat. This tumble of jagged rock, yellow aspen, and
straw-green grass should have had an appeal to her. She sighed because it didn’t, and she wondered why.

Her placid mount twitched an ear. A second later, Lanna heard the clatter of metal-clad hooves on stone and half-turned in the saddle to see Carol approaching on her pinto.

“Hi!” Carol greeted her in a breathless voice and reined her horse to a stop beside Lanna’s. “Chad said he saw you ride up here. You have a great view!” She patted her horse’s neck as she surveyed the land spreading out before them.

“Yes, it’s really something,” Lanna supposed.

“How do you like it so far? It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Carol enthused.

“Yes, it is.” Lanna felt like a wet blanket compared to the blonde’s ebullience. She was being a drag, yet she felt helpless to change. “I think I’ll go back to camp and get some coffee. It’s chilly up here.” Aware of the protesting expression forming on Carol’s face, Lanna reined her mount in the opposite direction. She didn’t enjoy faking enthusiasm when she didn’t feel any.

Giving the sorrel its head, she let the horse pick its way over the wind-smoothened rock to the animal trail leading down from the butte. Its weaving path quickly led her out of sight of the butte, behind boulders and into a stand of blue spruce edged with shivering gold aspens. The stiff breeze carried the distant bawl of the cattle and the occasional shouts of the outriders. The sounds disturbed the more peaceful thud of her horse’s hooves as it ambled slowly through the whispering trees.

As she rounded a bend in the sloping trail, the trees thinned into a grass and rock-strewn glade. Another rider was approaching the clearing from the opposite direction. Lanna saw a flash of blue and white stripes
edging a brown vest. Then the horse and rider were out of the trees and directly across from her. The baldfaced chestnut tossed its head in a blowing snort and sidestepped impatiently under a checking hold. Hawk held her gaze for a long moment, then eased the pressure on the bit to let the horse go forward at a quick-stepping walk.

“Where are you going?”

Lanna couldn’t read anything in the mild inquiry or in his seemingly pleasant expression. “Back to camp for a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll ride with you,” he said and reined his headstrong mount alongside hers.

“I thought you rode alone.” She couldn’t resist making the stiff reminder.

“I just want to make sure you get there safely.” Hawk shrugged.

The impulse to question his sudden interest in her safety died as Lanna realized this might be his way of showing he regretted their last argument. He was a man with a lot of pride. Apologies wouldn’t come easy to him.

His resistive mount stayed a half-stride in the lead as they crossed the clearing. It worried at the bit and tossed its head, flashing a marled eye at its rider, as if hoping to catch Hawk off guard.

“Why didn’t you ever leave the ranch, Hawk?” Lanna ended the brief silence between them.

“Why should I have left?”

“Why did you stay? Why did you want to stay?” She rephrased the question.

“I’ve asked myself the same thing.”

“And?” she prompted.

“I was dealt a hand. I have to play it out. Maybe when all the cards are on the table, I’ll find out whether
I’ve won or lost.” His side glance said it was the only answer he was prepared to give for now.

A bird took flight from a bush in front of them. Hawk’s mount reared and plunged, finding a perfect excuse to misbehave. It took him a moment to bring the chestnut under control and back alongside Lanna’s sedate horse. Hers had barely flicked an ear at the bird.