Hawks Mountain - Mobi (19 page)

Becky circled his neck with her arms and pulled his head down. The kiss intensified and soon became hungry, as if neither of them would survive if they stopped. He pressed her back against the counter. Again that soft moan escaped her igniting a fire in Nick that he knew could be extinguished in only one way.

He bent and hooked his arm behind her knees and lifted her against his chest. Purposefully, he strode quickly from the kitchen. At the foot of the stairs, he stopped. Looking deep into her desire fogged eyes, he murmured, “Stop me now if this isn’t what you want.”

She met his gaze. “Did you hear me say stop?”

He grinned, kissed her hard and then carried her up the stairs.

Becky awoke on her side.
For a moment she was disoriented. She looked around the bedroom lit only by moonlight and wondered where she was. Then she remembered and smiled. The clock on the bedside table read
one twenty-two
. She rolled to her back to wake Nick. But the bed was empty.

It was then she noticed him standing by the window.

“Nick?”

He continued to stare out the window for a moment, and then turned to her. The expression on his face was unreadable.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He walked toward the bed. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

He’d lied. He’d made himself stay awake, fearing he’d have a recurrence of that nightmare and scare her. Sitting on the side of the bed, he took her hand and pulled her toward him. He gathered her close, loving the feel of her bare skin on his, but mostly needing the peace having her in his arms gave him. With Becky near, nothing could darken his world.

“We should get you home before your grandmother thinks I’ve kidnapped you.”

She snuggled closer. “I don’t want to leave.”

God, he didn’t want her to go. He wanted to keep her here forever. But he couldn’t, not until he could come to her as a whole man.

“I know, but you have to go home.
Laureene
would have a field day if she knew you were here.” He smiled against her hair and then kissed her on the top of her head. Then he pulled back, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her once more. She clung to him, and then pulled him down on the bed with her. Resistance never entered his mind.

The sun was just peeking
over the horizon when they finally made it to the truck and started down the mountain to Granny’s. Neither of them said much. Nick steered with one hand; the other covered Becky’s where it rested on his upper thigh. For some reason, she felt if she didn’t keep touching him, he’d turn back into that cold, unreachable man she didn’t understand.

Finally, he broke the silence. “So you want to tell me now what that kiss in
Lydia
’s driveway was all about?”

After the night they’d just spent together, Becky felt more secure in telling him.
“Because you save people, Nicholas Hart.”

His smile disappeared, and Nick fell silent, then withdrew his hand from hers. He didn’t say another word all the way to Granny’s house. Becky could tell by his expression that another of his dark moods had claimed him. She could almost feel his withdrawal into himself.

Helplessness enfolded her and made her heart hurt for him. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to make his pain go away, to see him smile again. But she had no idea how to do it. Recalling his admission that he’d been in
Iraq
, she finally thought she understood where the shadows on his soul came from. But what could have happened that had affected him so profoundly? And why wouldn’t he talk about it?

After returning
from dropping Becky off, Nick sat in his truck in his cabin’s driveway for a long time, hating himself for allowing his demons to come between him and Becky. The pain in her eyes when she’d gotten out of his truck had been indelibly burned into his memory. His stony silence had hurt her, and he knew it, but he’d been unable to stop himself.

He ran his fingers through his hair, laid his forehead on the steering wheel and groaned.

Because you save people
.

Four words.
Four lousy words and all the torment came back. He knew she’d meant the praise as a compliment. But she might not be so quick to shower him with accolades if she knew the truth about him. That he hadn’t saved Ahmed. A helpless ten-year-old, with dreams of coming to the
United States
to go to school, of becoming an
American,
and he didn’t save him.

The last week and a half with her had been like being paroled from his mental prison. And last
night .
 . . there were no words to describe how perfect it had been to make love to Becky. He’d been able to put
Iraq
in the back corner of his mind and close the door on it.

He’d begun to believe that joining with Becky to help
Lydia
had given him a new lease on life. He’d been sleeping better. The nightmares hadn’t come back in days.

Then, in less than the time it took to blink, it had all fallen apart. And because he couldn’t summon the strength to fight it, he’d hurt Becky again.

He got out of the truck and slammed the door so hard the window rattled in its frame. As he strode across the yard, he stripped off his shirt. At the side of the house, he threw down the shirt and picked up the axe, then grabbed a chunk of wood, stood it on end on the stump and brought the axe down with all the force he could muster.

The handle vibrated painfully in his hands, but he ignored the sting and picked up another hunk of wood and split it with the same vigor. Over and over he repeated the same action until the pain of losing Ahmed and perhaps Becky began to ebb, and his arms grew so tired he could no longer lift the axe. Sweat poured down his bare chest and forehead and into his eyes. He wiped at it angrily and grabbed another piece of wood.

Finally, he collapsed against the stump and sobbed quietly into his hands. He cried for Ahmed and for Becky, but most of all he cried for the man he was afraid he could never be again.

Several evenings after the night Becky had spent with Nick, she walked into the kitchen where Granny Jo was peeling potatoes to go with the pork chops and green beans she’d planned for supper. She glanced up at her granddaughter, and then frowned. The girl had been acting like the walking dead for days.

“I’d have thought you’d be dancing on air after what you and Nick did for
Lydia
and then what followed with Nick.” She winked at Becky, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. Jo assumed she didn’t want to talk about it with her grandmother, but Jo hadn’t been living in a cave for the past ten years. She knew that young people didn’t wait until they were married anymore. Okay, if Becky didn’t want to talk about that, she understood. “I just hope the repairs are enough so that old windbag doesn’t have a chance of getting Davy away from her now.”

Becky shrugged vaguely, but said nothing. Instead, she flopped into one of the kitchen chairs, rested her elbows on the table, dropped her chin into her hands and stared blindly straight ahead. Jo had seen that look before. It had been the same one she’d had when she came back to
Hawks
Mountain
a few weeks back. No mistaking it, something big was eating away at the girl.

But Jo also knew asking her wasn’t
gonna
get an answer until Becky was ready to spit it out. In that way, the girl reminded Jo of her son David more and more every day. Becky’s dad had been just as close-mouthed when he’d been chewing on a problem. Why he’d walked around silent and frowning for weeks before he’d finally gotten up the nerve to propose to Susan. Then, when he’d eventually asked her, and Susan had said yes, nothing could have wiped the grin off of his face or kept him from spitting out words like a sub-machine gun.

Jo paused in her peeling for a thoughtful second, and then she grinned. Come to think of it, Earl Hawks had been the same way. Every November, right after Thanksgiving, while he worked on what to buy her for Christmas, he’d gotten quiet and had worn the same expression his granddaughter had on her face right now. Jo had always known when he’d finally gotten her present because
the look
suddenly disappeared, and his mouth went back into gear. Guess the old saying about the acorn not falling far from the oak had some truth to it after all.

After cutting up the last of the potatoes, Jo dropped them into a colander and then went to the sink to rinse them off and put them in a sauce pan of salted water to cook. That chore done, she set the pan on the stove, turned on the burner beneath it and adjusted the flame.

Periodically, she threw covert glances in Becky’s direction. The girl better let go of it soon, or she was
gonna
blow a blood vessel. Jo dried her hands on a towel hanging from a hook at the side of the sink.

“Becky?”

“Hmm?”

“You hungry?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Becky answered absently.

Granny shook her head. Whatever had been gnawing at this child for days had to be something
big.
She tried again to gain Becky’s attention. “Jake ate a rabbit today. Told me it was the best he’d ever had, but it could have used some seasoning.”

“That’s good,” Becky murmured.

Jo gave up. No sense talking to a stone wall. She went about making supper and getting it on the table. Becky picked at her food like a hen in the chicken yard. It wasn’t until Jo removed her granddaughter’s barely touched supper plate and set a piece of blueberry pie in front of her that Becky finally roused from her stupor.

“Granny, can I ask you a question?”

Jo sat down and leaned her forearms on the table. “You can ask me anything. Always could. I don’t see why that should change now.”

Becky sat up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. Her expression had altered from one of deep thought to one of frustration mixed with a big helping of mountain stubborn. “Why are men such jerks?”

That had been the last thing Jo had expected to come out of her granddaughter’s mouth. Worse, she wasn’t sure she could answer it. Then she noticed the rolling pin with the missing handle standing in the dish drainer. She went to the counter, poured two cups of coffee, carried them to the table and then returned to fetch the rolling pin. After settling back into her chair, she moved the rolling pin to the center of the table and looked Becky in the eye

Becky glanced questioningly at the rolling pin, but waited patiently, hoping her grandmother would impart some wisdom that would help her understand Nick better.

“Your daddy wasn’t two years old yet when your
Grampa
Earl wanted to spend a night out with the boys painting the town. Mind you, I never told him I didn’t approve of it
nor
that I didn’t see the sense in a grown, married man with a child acting like some teenager fresh out of high school. I thought surely, when I stopped speaking to him, that he’d get the hint that I was not happy about him going out carousing. But I guess he took my silence for approval and went off to join his drinking buddies at Larry Humphrey’s Town Tavern.” Granny rolled the pin back and forth with her forefinger as she spoke. “I tried waiting up for him, but when it got to be past
midnight
, I gave up and went to bed.”

She stopped to sip her coffee. “I was so
mad,
I didn’t even clean up the kitchen that night. I’d made pies that evening to pass the time and work off some of my mad, and I’d left everything sitting out on the table: flour, sugar, spices
and .
 . . this.” She gave the rolling pin a shove. It rolled across the table. Becky stopped it before it dropped off of the edge.

As she placed it back in the middle of the table, Becky gasped. It suddenly dawned on her that Granny was about to reveal the long-kept secret of how the rolling pin handle got broken, but it struck fear in her heart. “My God, Granny, you didn’t hit him with that thing, did you?”