On Wings of Magic (10 page)

“It’s all right, honey—you’re safe now,” he murmured.

“Hawke—it happened again,” she sobbed painfully. “It happened again in the dream. Make it stop … please make it stop!”

He soothed her gently with his voice and his hands and, after a time, she became calm again. She was only barely aware when he pulled the covers back up around them.

“Stay with me,” she whispered, already half-asleep.

“I will,” he told her softly.

Kendall thought that he’d said something else, but she was drifting back into a pleasant dream, and the words disturbed and puzzled her.

Why would the black knight say that he loved her …?

Chapter 5

An ungodly racket woke Kendall late the next morning, and she winced in pain as she half fell out of the bed. At least a dozen elves seemed to have taken up residence in her head, and they were building something with huge hammers.

And the pounding that was presently coming from the door of her suite wasn’t helping matters.

Kendall was halfway to the bedroom door before she realized that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Holding her throbbing head with one hand, she managed to locate the closet and her robe. She even managed to put it on. Then she stalked—carefully—to the door of the suite, flung it open, and snapped,
“What?”

Immediately, the sound of her own voice echoed cruelly in her head, and she clutched it with both
hands, staring with bleary eyes at her inconsiderate visitor.

It was Rick. A somewhat hesitant Rick, staring at her and holding a black sandal in one hand.

Kendall returned the stare and wished that something in this situation made sense. Try as she would, the night before was a complete blank. Except for that damned Purple Passion.

“Miss James?” he asked hesitantly, as if there were some doubt. “I came to return this.” He handed her the shoe.

Kendall stared at
it
for a moment, accepted it, then looked back at Rick.

“There’s a message,” he offered solemnly, his lips twitching.

“Please,” Kendall whispered, “not so loud. What’s the message?”

“Quote: Tell Cinderella that she must have lost her slipper in the lobby. She should be more careful.’ Unquote.”

“Coward. Why couldn’t he deliver the message himself?”

Rick shrugged. “He had to go to the other hotel for a while. Said it’d be safer if he stayed out of range today.” The manager appeared to have a hard time keeping a straight face. “I see you’re—uh—a little under the weather, Miss James.”

“Under the weather?” Kendall would have laughed hysterically if she’d thought her head could take it. “I’d have to feel better to die.” Before he could do more than grin sympathetically, she went on flatly. “Would you deliver a message for me, Mr. Evans?”

“Rick. And sure I will.”

She nodded and winced again. “I want you to repeat exactly what I tell you to your conveniently absent boss and the bartender downstairs.”

“Okay.”

“Quote: ‘Cinderella knows a hundred and three ways to cause acute pain to the parts of your body you prize the most. And just as soon as her head decides to stay on, she’s going to practice a hundred and two of those methods on you.’ Unquote. Got it?”

“Got it.” Rick was definitely trying not to laugh. “Would you like for me to send up some aspirin, Miss James?”

“Kendall,” she corrected him automatically. “No, thank you. I have some with me.”

“I would suggest breakfast, but—”

The hand holding Kendall’s head slipped down to cover her mouth, and she gave him a painfully goaded look. “No,” she mumbled around her fingers, “please don’t make that suggestion.”

“Sorry.” He backed away rather hastily. “If you need anything, just call—”

“I know. Room service.” She closed the door carefully.

For the next hour or so, Kendall didn’t think. She swallowed a couple of aspirin, hung out the Do Not Disturb sign on her door, and then filled the sunken tub in her bathroom with steaming water. Then she soaked. For at least an hour.

Emerging at last from the bath, she felt reasonably human—given another million or so years of evolution, that is. Automatically, she put on her black bikini, thinking vaguely that perhaps the sun
would bake the remaining poisons out of her system. Then she pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

She was just coming out of her bedroom, when she noticed two things. Gypsy’s entrance into the room from Hawke’s suite distracted her attention from the other thing. She walked across the room and closed the door firmly behind the big cat.

“So that’s where you were. Defected to the enemy camp, I see.” Gypsy ignored the stern voice, leaping up onto the sofa and beginning to wash a forepaw.

Kendall sighed, and then turned to contemplate the other thing. It was sitting on the small desk by the door, and it was just lovely. A Paul Revere bowl, made of gleaming copper and holding a leafy green plant. She didn’t immediately recognize the plant.

It hadn’t been there the night before. She was sure of it. Well, almost sure of it. Had Hawke put it there? She approached the bowl warily and stared at it. A moment’s study convinced her that Hawke had sent it. There was a tiny bird stamped delicately into the copper near the lip of the bowl. A hawk, she was sure.

Muttering to herself, she reached out a hand to touch the plant, then drew back abruptly as she recognized the plant. “You’re a Venus’s-flytrap,” she told the plant in a bemused voice. “Why would he give me a Venus’s-flytrap?”

It was at that point that she realized the night before deserved some serious thought. She went over to sit on the sofa beside Gypsy, absently scratching the cat beneath her chin.

She remembered the drink. And the dancing. And she remembered laughing quite a lot. Too much,
in fact. The longer she sat and thought, the more she remembered.

A merciful God would have left the evening a total blank.

Kendall was glad there was no one present as she slowly relived the night before. She had asked him—no, dammit,
begged
him—to stay with her, she remembered. And he had. She could remember everything else. What she had done, what she had said…

Surprised, she realized that she could think of Rosita now without that dreadful pain. Hawke had been right—sharing the pain had eased it. She would always be grateful to him for that.

But the rest …

She decided to be angry about the rest. It would be safer that way. If nothing else, the anger would sharpen her survival instincts. She needed that small edge. Never mind everything they had in common. Never mind the fact that he had seen a side of her she’d never shown anyone else. Never mind.

She wouldn’t let herself love him.

Love was dangerous. It was reckless, foolish, and potentially painful. No matter what tricks Hawke pulled out of his hat, she wouldn’t give in to him. She wouldn’t let him go to her head, or her heart; she wouldn’t become his summer fling.

And she damn sure wouldn’t drink another Purple Passion.

Having made those firm decisions, Kendall gathered up her beachbag, dropped her room keys inside, and headed out. She didn’t warn Gypsy to stay in the room.
Let
her sharpen her claws on Hawke’s sofa. It
would teach him not to send Venus’s-flytraps to puzzled women.

She found Rick in the lobby by the desk, and something he’d said to her earlier tugged at Kendall’s mind.

“You’re looking better,” he greeted her cheerfully.

“Beast. Never tell a woman she’s looking better; it makes you sound very ungentlemanly.” Taking pity on his bemusement, she waved away the comment and asked curiously, “Did you say Hawke was at the other hotel?”

He nodded. “That’s right. A problem with the staff that he had to deal with.”

“He owns the other hotel on the island?”

“Sure.”

Kendall propped an elbow on the desk and stared at him. She should have known. She really should have. “Tell me,” she said carefully, “does this island have a name?”

“Of course.” Rick sounded surprised that she didn’t know. “It’s called Isle of the Hawk.”

She leaned her forehead on a raised hand and sighed softly. “Don’t tell me. He owns the whole damn island?”

Rick’s smile held a trace of sympathetic amusement. “’Fraid so. It’s been in the family for generations. A buccaneering ancestor—Hawke’s namesake—used this island as a base of operations way back when pirates roamed the seas. The island got its name from him.”

Kendall frowned slightly. “Hawke told me that he bought the hotel.”

“He did. After ’Nam, he traveled for a while.
Kept coming back to this place. When his father died, he traded Some of his family stock for the island—and the hotels. He has two younger brothers who manage the family holdings in the States.” Rick shrugged. “Then he called me in to manage for him.”

Several things fell into place in Kendall’s mind. “You were with him in Vietnam. You’re the ‘mutual friend’ Father Thomas was talking about.”

Rick looked blank for a moment, then nodded with a faint smile. “I’m the one who talked to Father Thomas about Hawke, if that’s what you mean. And we were in ’Nam together—in the same squad.”

“And the tattoo?” she asked wryly.

“Tattoo?” He seemed startled, but then comprehension came and he grinned. “Oh—the hawk. Yes, I’m one of the guys responsible for that. We had fun that night,” he added reminiscently.

“I’m sure.” Kendall started to say more, but her attention was caught by an older woman who was passing the desk and smiling at her. The woman from the elevator last night? Amanda?

“Feeling better?” the woman asked Kendall cheerfully.

“Oh … fine, thank you,” Kendall managed to answer weakly. She watched until the woman had left the lobby, then looked at Rick. Obviously, he was trying to stifle laughter. “I suppose you think something’s funny?” she muttered irritably.

“Funnier than you know.” Rick made an effort to straighten his face. “That lady was Mrs. Foster. This morning she extended her reservation another week. She told me that she just had to see how the romance turned out.”

Kendall didn’t believe him. It was absurd, of
course. She glared at him. “You just wait!” Her voice was threatening. “One of these days, you’ll get yours—and I hope I’m around to see it. I’ll laugh myself silly!”

“You’ll be around,” he said with a peculiar smile. “If it ever happens.”

“It will.” She ignored the first part of his statement, turning on her heel and stalking toward the doors leading out to the pool. She could hear him laughing behind her, and the sound set the seal on her temper.

She passed the pool without a glance, intent on finding one of the shaded lounges she’d seen on the beach. The path was deserted, the beach nearly so. Most of the hotel guests, she decided, were having lunch. Kendall wasn’t hungry.

She shed her shorts and T-shirt, fished in her beachbag for her sunglasses and a paperback novel, then settled down on the shaded lounge she had chosen.

A few minutes later a young waiter came out and placed a small table by the lounge. On the table he set a frosty glass. Kendall stared at it. “What’s this?”

“Mr. Evans sent it out, Miss James.”

She took a sip of the fruity drink, then looked suspiciously at the young man. “What’s in it?”

He looked bewildered. “Fruit juice, Miss James.”

Kendall didn’t like the looks of the tiny umbrella jutting out of the glass. “That had better be all that’s in it,” she told the young man ominously.

Nodding hesitantly, he beat a hasty retreat, still looking bewildered.

Kendall felt a giggle pushing its way up, and sternly repressed it. Determined, she went back to
her novel. Hopefully, it would discourage casual conversation from anyone walking by. It did.

Hours later she was nearing the end of the book, and the sun was beginning to sink in the western sky. She had gotten up a couple of times to reposition the umbrella shading her, but other than that, she hadn’t moved all afternoon.

She glanced up absently, and barely managed to keep from jumping when she saw Hawke standing at the foot of the lounge and staring at her. He was wearing slacks and a knit shirt, and looked as if he weren’t quite sure what her reaction would be. Kendall wasn’t sure either.

“I got your message,” he offered finally.

“Good. Take it to heart.”

He sighed, and assumed a ridiculously woeful expression. “Have a little pity for me. There I was, all set to have the night of my life—and the lady in my arms kept being attacked by fits of the giggles.” His voice was pained.

Kendall silently held up one hand, thumb and forefinger rubbing gently together.

Hawke stared at the gesture. “What’s that?”

“This,” Kendall told him succinctly, “is the smallest violin in the world, playing hearts and flowers just for you.” Halting the gesture, she turned her attention back to her book.

“Well, thanks.” His voice held a tremor of laughter. “No sympathy from you, I see.”

“None.” She was grateful for the shielding sunglasses, which were hiding the gleam of laughter in her eyes.

“My little gift of apology didn’t help, obviously.”

“Why
a Venus’s-flytrap?” Kendall felt irritated at her curiosity, and added with great dignity, “Not that I can accept it.”