Warrior's Embrace (30 page)

“Black Hawk’s slut wants to know who I am.”
His laughter sent shivers through Elizabeth.

The man came toward her, his eyes wild and
evil looking. “I ain’t no Indian lover. That’s for sure.”

Elizabeth cursed herself for being unarmed.
Hawk had warned her of the danger. Repeatedly.

And he had been right. She had made a fatal
mistake in thinking that she was out of danger.

She would have to keep her wits about her.
That was all.

“I have no quarrel with you.” Elizabeth held
her hand out, palm up, in a gesture of supplication. “Every man is
entitled to his own views, and if ours differ that doesn’t mean
that we are enemies.”

“Enemies? Enemies!” The man’s wild laughter
echoed through the woods. “We ain’t enemies.” He began to move
toward her then, talking as he came. Elizabeth forced herself to
stand still. Perhaps if she didn’t show fear, he would turn and
walk away. “I’m the avenger. Yessir, that’s what I am. I’m the
avenger, and you’re the victim.”

She almost fainted. Even if she were well,
she would be no match for this man. She turned and ran.

He lunged for her and caught her leg. She
went down, screaming. Immediately she felt his dirty hand clamp
over her mouth. Elizabeth struggled, kicking and scratching and
biting. If she was going to be the victim, she would not be an easy
one.

“Be still, slut.” She sank her teeth into his
hand and hung on. “I’m going to teach you a lesson or two.”

The first blow landed in her stomach.
Elizabeth fought and struggled until she was too weak to move.
Gradually the forest faded and the sun got dim. She was vaguely
conscious of her attacker standing over her, feet planted on either
side of her body.

“What a tidy little present for that
troublemaker.”

Elizabeth groaned as he picked her up. There
didn’t seem to be a spot on her body that he had missed. He carried
her for what seemed like agonizing hours. She had no idea where he
was taking her. Finally, as the pain got worse, she no longer
cared.

Suddenly he dropped her. The hard ground
jarred her body and rattled her teeth. Just before she blacked out,
she heard her attacker yell, “She’s all yours, Black Hawk.”

Hawk was in his north pasture, supervising
the loading of cattle for the market when he saw his brother
coming. He shaded his eyes against the morning sun. Steel parked
the car under an oak, bailed out, and started running.

It took Hawk about two seconds to read the
alarming body language. He bent over his stallion and urged it into
a gallop. When he was even with his brother, he wheeled in tight
and leaned down low, shouting.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Elizabeth. I’ve lost her.”

Hawk vaulted off his horse and caught Steel’s
shoulders. “What do you mean, you’ve lost her?”

“I think she spotted me this morning in the
woods. When she didn’t leave for work, I got worried. She’s always
so prompt.”

Steel stopped talking, and Hawk realized he
was gripping his brother’s shoulders so hard that his own knuckles
were pale. He released his brother. “Go on.”

“I broke into the house a little while ago to
check on her. She’s not there. Her car is in the garage, but she’s
gone.... I’m sorry, Hawk.”

“It’s not your fault.” Hawk forced himself to
remain calm. Nothing had happened in days. There was no reason to
believe anything had happened now. “Elizabeth is very strong
willed. She probably spotted you, then called one of her friends to
pick her up somewhere. She’s probably at work right now, laughing
about fooling both of us.”

He wished he believed what he was saying, but
he didn’t. From the moment Steel had appeared, Hawk had known
something was terribly wrong. He felt it. It was almost as if he
heard Elizabeth calling his name.

He vaulted onto his stallion. “Call the bank,
Steel. See if she’s there. Then meet me at my cabin.”

“Where are you going, Hawk?”

“I know a place....” The wind caught his
words and carried them away as he galloped across his pasture and
into the forest.

Elizabeth would have come through the tunnel.
That’s where he would start looking.

He rode hard and fast, and within fifteen
minutes he was at the entrance to the tunnel. There were signs of
her everywhere—footprints, broken twigs, even a strand of her long
black hair caught in the low-hanging branches of a tree.

“Elizabeth.” He didn’t realize he had spoken
her name aloud until he heard the mournful echo in the silent
forest.

He tracked quickly, following the signs. When
he saw the other signs, he vaulted from his stallion and knelt on
the ground. A man, a large one, had been in the forest this
morning. He had been sloppy and careless. Cigarette butts littered
the forest floor, and three empty whiskey bottles lay at the base
of a pine tree.

A glacial cold descended over Hawk, and a
rigid control took hold of him. As he followed the parallel signs
of Elizabeth and the man, Hawk was as forbidding and deadly as a
stalking grizzly.

He was almost within sight of his cabin when
the signs merged. His heart froze, and his breathing threatened to
shut down. The signs were so clear, he could almost see the
struggle. He knelt and came up with blood on his hands.

He lifted his face to the morning sky. “If
this blood is Elizabeth’s, I swear that there will be no hiding
place for the man who did this.”

Hawk saw her the minute he entered the
clearing. Elizabeth was piled on his doorstep, one leg angled under
her body, and her black hair spread across the dirt.

“Elizabeth!” He drew his knife and ran toward
her in a zigzag pattern. If the man who had done this to her was
still watching, Hawk wouldn’t be an easy target.

When he reached her, he knelt down and
cradled her in his arms. “Elizabeth... Elizabeth.” She was dirty
and bruised and bloody. His hands searched her body as he called
her name, over and over. He felt a pulse. It was weak, but it was
there.

“Hawk!” Steel called as he got out of his car
and ran toward him.

“I did this to her, Steel.”

“No.”

“Yes. It might as well have been me.” Hawk
buried his face in her dark hair. “I couldn’t stay away from
her.”

“It’s not your fault.” Steel spotted the note
lying underneath Elizabeth’s hip. “Here. Let’s get her into the
car. We’ve got to get her to the hospital.” Under the guise of
helping with Elizabeth, he palmed the note and stuffed it into his
pocket. His brother didn’t need anything else to worry about.

Steel drove like a maniac while Hawk held
Elizabeth. His brother looked as if he had been carved from marble.
God help the man who had done this to Elizabeth, Steel thought.

o0o

Hawk didn’t want to leave her side, even when
the emergency room nurses insisted.

Steel put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“There’s nothing we can do now except wait.”

It seemed like hours before the doctor came
back to them.

“Which one of you is her husband?”

“Her husband?” Steel asked.

Hawk stepped forward. “Elizabeth belongs to
me.” The question he most wanted to ask was stuck in his
throat.

“You’re her next of kin?” The doctor turned
his keen gaze on Hawk.

“She has no kin. She has only me.” Hawk took
a step closer. His control was beginning to snap. He wanted to grab
the doctor’s lapels and yell in his face,
Is she alive?
“I
am responsible for her.”

“She has a concussion, severe contusions, no
broken bones, no internal bleeding.”

“Was she...”

“Sexually molested? No. Thank God.” The
doctor played with his stethoscope as he faced Hawk. “She’s had a
very severe beating, but I don’t think she will lose the baby.”

“The baby?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No. I didn’t know.”

“We’ll monitor her carefully, of course. But
at this point I think both mother and baby will be fine.”

“When can I see her?”

“It will be hours before she wakes up, but
you can go in now.”

The doctor left, and Steel put his hand on
Hawk’s shoulder.

“Thank you for standing by me. Steel.”

“That’s what brothers are for.”

“You can go home now.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be here until Elizabeth awakens, and
then I’ll find the man who did this to her.”

Steel squeezed his brother’s shoulder and
left the hospital. But he didn’t go home, he went to see Sheriff
Wayne Blodgett. If Steel had anything to do with it, the Hawk would
never get his hands on the man who had attacked Elizabeth.

After his brother had gone, Hawk went
directly to Elizabeth’s room. She lay on the bed with tubes running
out her arm. Her hair was spread upon the pillow, framing a face
that looked unnaturally pale and still.

Hawk sat on the edge of the bed and took her
hand. Elizabeth never stirred.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell
me about the baby?”

He thought of all the ways they had loved, of
all the times they had come together in order to produce the
miracle that lay inside Elizabeth’s womb. Joy and pride and love
welled up inside him, and his spirit left the drab hospital room
and soared like the hawk for which he was named. And then a great
sense of sadness descended on him. How Elizabeth must have
suffered, knowing she carried his child and believing he would not
want it. He thought of her courage and her strength.

Had she known about the baby when he brought
Steel to be her bodyguard? She must have.

“You have no rights,” she had said. “You gave
them up in the cellar.”

And he had told her that he had given up his
claim to her. He pressed her hand against his lips.

“I never gave up my claim to you, Elizabeth.
Never.” He leaned close and studied her. Sleeping, she looked so
fragile, so vulnerable. It was hard to believe that the woman who
lay on the hospital bed was the same one who had threatened him
with a .44 Magnum.

“I have always loved you, Elizabeth McCade...
and I always will.”

Hawk held her hand between his and pressed
them to his forehead, then he bowed his head in prayer. He didn’t
know how long he prayed, how long he stayed by her bedside, holding
on to her hand. Time was no longer measured for him in minutes and
hours but in the rise and fall of Elizabeth’s breathing.

“Hawk?” Her voice was soft and weak as she
tried to lift her head.

“Shhh. Don’t move. I’m here.”

She squeezed his hand. “Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.”

Her eyes closed, and she was asleep once
more. Hawk left her bedside and paced the room. Soon... soon
Elizabeth would be fully awake, and he would find the man who had
done this to her.

o0o

Sheriff Blodgett wasted no time after Steel
came to him with the note and the story of the attack on Elizabeth
McCade. “Black Hawk, nothing of yours is safe from me” the crude
note had said.

“It’s the same handwriting as the note we
found the night his house burned,” Wayne told Steel as he stooped
in the woods, gathering evidence. He bagged and labeled the whiskey
bottles, the cigarette butts, and minuscule bits of thread and
cloth. “I’ll lay you odds it’s the same man.”

“What about the one already in jail?”

“He’s not the one who burned Hawk’s house.
And he’s certainly not the one who did this.” Wayne straightened up
and rubbed the small of his back. “I’m getting too old and fat for
this job. “

Steel laughed. “No, you’re not. You’re still
the best criminal investigator in this country.” He became serious.
“Can you find this man before the Hawk does?”

“Not if Blackie gets a head start on me...
but I’ll try.”

“I intend to see that he doesn’t.”

“Sounds like you are two peas in a pod.”

“I’ve never thought so before, but maybe we
are.” Steel grinned. “I wouldn’t mind that. The Hawk has always
been a hero of mine.”

“Mine too. But don’t tell him I said
that.”

o0o

Elizabeth didn’t awaken again until morning.
Hawk was sitting beside her bed, holding her hand, when she
stirred.

“Hawk?” Her voice was stronger.

“I’m here, Elizabeth.”

She stared at him for a long time without
speaking. He couldn’t read her face, but he saw the pain in her
dark eyes.

“Why are you here?” She pulled her hand out
of his, and her voice was cool and distant.

“You asked me to stay.”

“Now I’m asking you to go.”

“Elizabeth

“Please... just go. I don’t want to see
you.”

Hawk was torn between obeying her and arguing
with her. In the end he decided it was best to obey, at least for
the time being. Elizabeth was in no condition to be upset.

“I’ll go, Elizabeth, but I’ll be back.”

He walked quietly out of the room, then stood
outside her door, leaning on the door frame. He looked up when
Steel approached.

“How is she?”

“Much better.”

“You look beat. Why don’t you go home and get
some rest?”

“I don’t have time to rest.”

Steel put a hand on his brother’s arm. “Don’t
do it, Hawk.”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

“Let the law handle this.”

“I
will
avenge Elizabeth.”

“Hasn’t there been enough violence already,
Hawk? Won’t you be sinking to their level if you go after this man
in your present frame of mind?”

“There are some things a man must do.” He put
his hands on Steel’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, little brother.
Everything will be fine.”

“Let me go with you.”

“No. I need you to stay here and watch over
Elizabeth. Don’t let anyone in this room who doesn’t belong
here.”

“I guess you told her I’d be doing this.”

“No. And don’t let her see you. Elizabeth is
a proud and stubborn woman.”