Warrior's Embrace (35 page)

“You’re good with women, Steel. Tell me what
I’m doing wrong.”

“Everything.”

“That bad?”

Steel laughed, then sat down beside his older
brother and put a hand on his shoulder. “I was just teasing. It was
my chance to get back at you for always being in charge and for
always being right about everything.”

“I’m the oldest. I’m supposed to be in
charge.”

“Elizabeth is a strong-willed woman. I
suspect she’s having a hard time dealing with that.”

“Why? I’m only making good sense. Why should
that be difficult for her to handle?”

“Because she’s pregnant, and she’s probably
very scared.”

Hawk stood up and paced around his brother’s
apartment. “I’ll admit to being a little scared myself. What if I
lose her. Steel?”

“You won’t lose her. Don’t you remember? The
Chickasaws have never lost a battle since DeSoto?”

After his brother had gone, Steel got into
his Chevy and drove to see Elizabeth McCade. If she was surprised
to see him, she didn’t show it. She held the door open as if he
were a favored guest.

“Good afternoon. I suppose I should have
called.”

She smiled. “The Hawk brothers do have a way
of dropping in unexpectedly. I don’t think I’ve thanked you
properly for helping save my life.”

“Seeing you looking so good is thanks
enough.”

She had a low, musical laugh. Steel thought
he was going to enjoy having her for a sister-in-law.

“Did Hawk send you?” she asked as she
escorted him into her den.

“No.”

“In that case, do sit down and make yourself
comfortable. I’ll get some tea. “

He selected a comfortable-looking chair. As
Elizabeth left the room, he absently ran his hands along the sides
of the cushions.

“What the heck?” He came up with a strip of
leather. It felt like... it looked like... Steel grinned. It
was
a leather lacing from his brother’s shirt. The Hawk
was not doing too bad for an old man. Maybe there was hope for this
marriage after all.

Elizabeth came back with the tea, and Steel
discreetly stuffed the lacing back into the cushions. She handed
him a teacup, and he settled back in the chair and crossed his long
legs.

“Look, Elizabeth, I’m not going to beat
around the bush about why I’m here. Do you love my brother?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Steel set the
fragile teacup aside. “He’s strong willed and bullheaded and
something of a dictator, but he’s also brave and loyal and true. I
never thought I’d see the day he would fall in love, but he has. He
loves you, Elizabeth, and he wants to marry you. That admission
can’t have come easy for the Hawk.”

“Why?”

“He’s not just a man, Elizabeth, he’s a
legend.” Steel leaned forward and told the story of his father.
“The Hawk was the firstborn. He heard the stories about our father
from the time he was a boy. Somehow he took it upon himself to
carry out the legend, to be everything our father had been to the
Chickasaw Nation... and more.” Steel smiled. “I’m not saying that
my big brother has never had any women. He was always a lusty
soul.” Steel grinned. “But I guess you already know that.”

“If you weren’t such an engaging young man,
I’d take offense.”

“As long as you don’t take it with that big
gun you carry.”

They laughed together. Steel found it very
easy to laugh with her.

“I guess all I’m saying, Elizabeth, is that
the Hawk will never be what you would call ideal marriage material.
But I know he wants you and this baby desperately, and I hope
you’ll give him a chance.” Steel grinned. “And if he doesn’t work
out, there’s always me.”

“The only promise I can give you is that I
will carefully weigh all my options and make a decision I think
will be best for everybody.”

“I had hoped to go home with you in the
backseat of my trusty Chevrolet and present you as a gift to my
brother, but I guess your promise will have to do.”

Steel stood up, and Elizabeth took his hand.
“I do love Hawk, and I will never deny him his child.”

“He wouldn’t let you.” He bent down and
kissed her cheek. “Good-bye... for now.”

o0o

Hawk came that evening at sunset. Elizabeth
was sitting in the swing on her front porch when he rode up on his
horse. Backlit by the sun he looked like some magnificent god. She
put her hand on her chest, thinking that if hearts could stand
still, hers was doing exactly that.

“Hello, Elizabeth.” He spoke formally.

“Hawk.” Involuntarily she pressed her hand
over her abdomen. Although it was far too soon to be feeling
movement, she actually thought she felt a flutter, as if her baby
had recognized his father’s voice.

“It’s a beautiful Sunday evening, isn’t it?”
He was still being distantly polite. Elizabeth cocked her head to
one side and smiled. “Do you mind if I come calling?”

“Come calling?”

“Courting, I believe they used to call
it.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for
that?”

“I don’t want my son to think his father
didn’t pay proper respect to his mother.”

“Then... won’t you dismount and join me in
the swing?”

Hawk dismounted, and it was only then that
Elizabeth saw the bouquet in his hand. It was Queen Anne’s lace and
black-eyed Susans, tied with a length of fishing cord. He held the
bouquet to her.

“For you.”

“Thank you.” She put the wildflowers to her
face.

“They grow by the roadside on my ranch. Both
of them remind me of you, the wild daisies with their dark eyes and
the Queen Anne’s lace with its exotic beauty and tough stem.”

She laughed. “Do you think I have a tough
stem?”

“A very tough stem.” He sat beside her on the
swing, close enough so that his thigh touched hers. It felt natural
and wonderful and right. Elizabeth wished she were a woman without
a past, enjoying the innocent feelings of first love. But she was
pregnant and confused and a little scared about her future.

“Thank you for the flowers, Hawk. I’ll
cherish them.” He took her hand. “Do you think we should be doing
that on our first date?” she asked with a smile.

“I’m the bold kind. I believe a little
hand-holding is in order.” He kissed her hand and held it against
his lips for a long time. Elizabeth shivered.

“Cold?” He slid his arm around her shoulders.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be out in the evening chill in your
condition.”

“It’s not polite to mention my condition on
our first date.”

“Then I won’t.” He pulled her close so her
head rested on his shoulder, then he set the swing in motion. “This
is very pleasant, Elizabeth.”

“Hmmm.”

“A man could get used to this.”

“Not you, Hawk. You could never get used to
spending your spare time in a front porch swing.”

“What about you, Elizabeth? How do you plan
to spend your spare time now?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve pulled the shutters back around
yourself. “ She sucked in an angry breath and tried to pull away.
“Be still, Elizabeth. You need to hear this.”

“How do you know what I need?” She shoved at
his chest, dropping her flowers.

“I’ve always known what you need,
Elizabeth.”

“It’s always passion with you, isn’t it,
Hawk? I thought this was going to be a nice, pleasant visit. You
even brought flowers. But no. You always turn it into a battle of
the sexes.”

“I’m no good at this.” Hawk kept his hold on
her, and his face became fierce. “I was going to give you the
flowers and be pleasant and charming and then get on my stallion
and leave.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders, and a
muscle worked in his jaw. “It will always be this way with us. You
can’t deny the passion any more than I can.”

“Oh, yes, I can.”

“Why, Elizabeth? Why do you want to?” He
leaned over so that his lips were almost touching hers. “Don’t you
see? Shutting me out is another way of running. Denying our love is
the same as closing all the shutters in your house and becoming a
recluse. You’re doing the same thing you when you came back from
Yale.”

“How dare you—”

“I won’t let you become a recluse from
love.”

He captured her mouth, and as always, the
magic took over. Finally, still holding her close, he stood up and
ran his hands though her hair.

“I love your hair,” he whispered.

They stood that way for a long while, with
his hands in her hair and hers clasped protectively over the tiny
miracle that would be their child. Finally he turned and walked
away.

She watched as he rode off, and then she sank
back onto the swing. Her wildflowers were scattered on the porch
floor where she had dropped them.

Silently she bent to pick them up. In the
manner of all wildflowers that are taken from their natural
habitat, they were already wilted.

Hawk was like his bouquet. Wild and
beautiful. He would never survive being taken from his natural
habitat—the woods and rolling hills that surrounded him, and the
political and environmental battles that cried out for his
leadership.

She left her front porch and went inside,
carrying her wilted flowers. Upstairs she opened her diary and
pressed the flowers between its pages.

o0o

For two days Elizabeth fought against the
logic of what Hawk had said. Hawk kept his distance. He was either
busy with a new cause or regrouping for another attack on her
ever-weakening defenses. She knew him well enough to know that he
would never give up on her.

On the third day there was a letter waiting
for her when she returned from work. It was postmarked New Haven.
She immediately recognized the handwriting. There was no mistaking
the spidery lines and Gothic curves.

Elizabeth carried the letter into the kitchen
and propped it on the table against the salt and pepper shakers.
Then she made herself a bracing cup of tea with honey and
lemon.

She stared at the letter a long time, tempted
to throw it away without opening it. She had no desire to know what
Mark had to say.

As she reached across the table to add more
honey to her tea, her newly rounded stomach bumped the table. Her
pregnancy would be showing soon.

She thought of Hawk, of the way he looked
every time she refused his advances, every time she sent him away.
Realization came quite suddenly: Mark was not really a part of her
past. He was with her at this very minute, influencing her to deny
the only man she would ever love, to deny the father of her
child.

Slowly Elizabeth opened the letter and spread
it on the table. “My dearest Elizabeth,” it read. How like Mark to
use a term of endearment, after all these years. He had always been
confident of his ability to persuade her.

Elizabeth forced herself to read on. “I know
you must be shocked to hear from me after all these years, but I
feel a need to rectify the past—if that can be done. My dear
Elizabeth, I treated you shabbily. Your friend Black Hawk made me
see that.”

Hawk, again. Always fighting battles, even
for her. Elizabeth smiled and started reading again.

“You were young and beautiful and innocent,
and I wanted you so badly that I took unfair advantage of you. I
realize that now. Then, I looked upon our affair as a grand and
glorious passion, one that might last through the years. I even
pictured keeping you in some small cottage by the seaside, always
at my disposal, while I went on with my life as a married man and a
respected professor.”

“I
did
love you, my dearest
Elizabeth. I never told you that. Perhaps I still love you.”

“But that’s not what I wrote to tell you. I
wrote to say, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for deceiving you, for failing
to protect you, and most of all for sending you away. The guilt has
gnawed at my conscience all these years. I hope you can find it in
your heart to forgive me, for I can never forgive myself. As ever,
Mark Laton.”

Elizabeth folded the letter and slipped it
back into its envelope. She felt no pain, no outrage, only a vague
sadness and an immense sense of relief.

She got up from the table and got a match and
a metal dish. Then she held the letter to the flames and watched
the ashes fall into the dish.

When the last shred of blackened paper fell
into the dish, she cooled the ashes with water and put them into
the garbage disposal. It made loud gobbling noises as it devoured
the last vestige of her past.

Staring down into the sink, she suddenly felt
a wild sense of freedom.

Elizabeth turned and marched upstairs. There
was no need to hurry. She knew exactly what she was doing to do,
exactly where she was going to go.

o0o

Hawk was in the barn when he heard the car.
He left his watch beside the mare and her newborn foal and slipped
outside under cover of darkness. As always, he was cautious,
especially now, especially since he was going to have a child. He
didn’t want his son growing up fatherless.

He saw her coming toward the barn, her
bearing proud and tall and the moonlight shining on her dark hair.
Hawk had to make himself keep from running to her. Their last
encounter had been a disaster. He had been determined to give her
some breathing room, some time to think. He didn’t dare give in to
impulse now.

When she was almost at the barn, she
hesitated. The moon caught her full in the face, so that she seemed
to be glowing from inside.

“Hawk?” she called softly. “Are you
there?”

“Yes, Elizabeth.” He stepped out of the
shadows. “I’m here.”

“I stopped by your cabin. No one answered the
door.”

He stood still, waiting. She came a step
closer.

“I saw the light in the barn... and I thought
you might be here.”

“Yes. My mare, White Star, has just foaled.”
The light from the lantern shone on the mare and her spindly-legged
foal. The newborn was black except for a white star on his
forehead. “The colt will be a fine stallion, just like his sire. He
will be my gift to my son.”