Hawk's Way (8 page)

She's gotten under my skin.

So maybe he was a little worried about her. That didn't mean his heart was involved. He worried about abused kids and the homeless, too. That didn't mean he was going to miss her when she was gone. Why, all they'd ever done was talk. He'd hardly even touched the woman.

She would be dynamite in bed!

All right. He admitted he'd had a few daydreams about her. Was it so bad to imagine what it would be like to make love to her? She was a beautiful woman. Her innocence appealed to him. What would it be like to be the first to touch her, to see and feel her responses to the kinds of pleasure a man and woman could share?

She's trouble.

If he was being honest with himself, the truth was he felt something different with Angel than he had felt with any other woman. Maybe it was the protective instincts she aroused in him. Or the way she constantly challenged him and refused to knuckle under to his opinion. There was no doubt about it—she was different. What bothered him most was that he had actually thought once or
twice about what it would be like to have her around all the time. Angel had made him yearn for something he had professed not to need—a closer relationship with a woman.

Somehow, in the darkness of that cave, he had formed a bond with Angel that he was finding difficult to untie. He had kept other women at bay with word and deed; Angel had simply slipped past all those fortified walls like fog slips through the mountains.

Dallas hit the brakes, and the truck skidded to a stop as he observed the scenario at the opening of the cave.

“What the hell?”

He reached instinctively for his Colt revolver and swore heatedly when he realized that in his frantic concern for Angel, he hadn't picked it up from beside the bed.
Never, never
had he forgotten his gun!
That's what comes of letting yourself get involved with a woman
, he thought bitterly. The gun would have helped. But it didn't really matter. He wouldn't mind busting a few heads together.

* * *

Angel took one look at the leering face of the man as he waved his flashlight back toward his friends, and she reached for the knife in her pocket. In the time it took him to refocus the
flashlight on her, she was standing before him with her weight balanced on the balls of her feet, the knife held loosely in her hand. A stench, a sickly sweet smell emanating from the man, curled her nostrils. He was wearing some sort of sleeveless denim jacket that hung open. There was a great deal of flesh visible from the waist up, all of it hairy.

“Now, now,” he said. “We don't want anyone to get hurt, do we?”

“No,” Angel agreed. “So I suggest you start backing up.”

The man just laughed. “I'm not going to hurt you,” he said. “Me and my buddies just want to have a little fun.”

“Like shoats in a pigpen,” she muttered.

“What was that?” he demanded. “You say somethin' about pigs?”

“I'm telling you to back up,” she said. “Or face the consequences.”

He chuckled. “Little thing like you ought to know better than to try talking back to a big fella like me.”

Angel moved without warning, slicing at the big man's naked arm. The cut was shallow, but the stranger yowled as if she'd gutted him, and he dropped the flashlight to clutch his wound.

Angel grabbed the light and ran while he was still grappling with his bloody arm.

“She's comin' your way!” the man shouted to his friends. “Stop her! That bitch cut me with a knife!”

Knowing she was armed kept the other three men at a distance. Angel never slowed down, just waved the knife at them, feinted as though she were going to attack, and then ran like the devil. By the time she reached the cave opening, the man she had wounded had reached his friends, and she could hear him exhorting them to go after her, ranting at them for their cowardice in the face of “one tiny little woman.”

Once out of the cave, Angel used the flashlight to search for Red. He had drifted off a ways, munching grass—near four strange, menacing machines that she had not noticed in the shadows when she'd arrived. She edged warily around them to reach Red, then threw herself into the saddle and lit a shuck out of there, back toward Dallas and safety.

Mere seconds later she looked over her shoulder to see that the men had mounted the machines as though they were horses. The roaring sound behind her was more terrifying than the scream of a cougar. She looked back and saw that the heads of the four men had been completely en
cased in large, dark objects, becoming featureless. Indeed the men and machines seemed like exotic one-eyed beasts chasing after her.

It became very clear, very fast, that she could not outrun them. When Angel saw a set of headlights, she veered toward them. Hopefully this was someone who would help her; she was no worse off if it wasn't. She was counting on providence to arrange for her rescue. Otherwise she would fend for herself. These four men might overwhelm her, but they would pay dearly before they did.

Dallas took one look at Angel riding hell-bent for leather on Red, chased by four rough-looking men on motorcycles, and reached for his gun. When he found it missing, he realized he was going to have to rely on cunning and intelligence—and luck—if he hoped to get Angel out of this without anybody getting hurt. Of course if he ended up having to use a little muscle along with his brain, he wasn't going to mind one bit.

He stepped down from the cab and went to stand just beyond the front lights of the pickup, which he had left on after he killed the engine.

Angel yanked Red to a sliding halt, threw herself out of the saddle and headed toward the truck on the run. “Help!” she cried. “I need help.”

“Over here, Angel,” Dallas said in a quiet voice.

She flew into his arms and he gave her a quick, hard hug before putting her away from him. “Go stand over by the truck, but stay out of the light.”

The appearance of the truck had changed things for the men on motorcycles. They skidded their bikes to a stop on the fringes of the light and revved the engines threateningly.

“This is none of your business,” the wounded man shouted from the darkness. “Get back in your truck, mister, and get outta here.”

“I'm making it my business,” Dallas said. “You can make something out of it if you want to, but I won't go down easy. Any of you boys wants to try me, come ahead.”

Finally one of the motorcycle engines went dead, and the man Angel had wounded with her knife stepped into the light.

“I've got me a grudge to settle with that bitch, even if I have to go through you to do it.”

For the first time, in the light from the truck headlights, Angel saw the face of the huge man who had confronted her in the cave. He had a mustache that hung down and hid his lips. His nose was too big for his face and his eyes too small. His hair hung limp and greasy.

Her gaze drifted down over the rest of him.
Obscenities were written on his denim jacket, and his hairy belly hung down over jeans that had some kind of metal studs along the outside seam. There were tattoos on his arms, like the black markings she had sometimes seen on the slaves—now freed by President Lincoln—who had come from Africa. He looked mean and in no mood to be reasonable.

“You and me,” the wounded man said. “Winner gets the girl.”

Dallas felt the killing rage rise up inside him and controlled it. This man had threatened Angel, frightened her, wanted to rape her. The hair stood up on his nape; he was a feral animal challenged for his mate. “Fine,” he said, his voice cold and hard. “You and me. Winner gets the girl.”

Dallas stepped into the light.

Angel saw the sudden wariness in the biker's face. He clearly hadn't been expecting to face someone of Dallas's stature. He still had the advantage of reach and weight. He stepped forward, hands fisted and held up to protect his face. Dallas lifted his hands into daunting fists, as well. Angel watched the two men circling each other, looking for weaknesses and an opening to attack.

The biker struck first.

Dallas dodged the blow but felt knuckles graze his cheek as he hit up under the biker's chin. He
heard the man's teeth click as his head rolled with the punch. He managed a solid hit to the ribs before the biker closed on him. The man was huge, and his bearlike grip was squeezing the breath and the life out of Dallas. Desperate, he kicked the biker in the shin. Dallas slipped out of the man's grasp as the biker limped backward in agony.

Dallas didn't give the man a chance to recover, but moved inside his guard with a quick right to the eye and a left to the solar plexus.

The biker gasped as Dallas's punch forced the air out of his lungs. He swung wildly, and Dallas ducked and came up punching again.

It was over quickly, as the biker dropped to his knees, then sagged to all fours. “Enough,” he gasped, blood dripping from cuts on his mouth and cheek.

Dallas grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him to his feet. “If I ever see you around these parts again, I'll make sure you spend your time here in jail. Is that clear?”

“Yeah,” the biker mumbled.

“Now you and your friends get on your bikes and get out of here.”

Dallas waited while the bikers revved their engines and then took off, wheels spinning. As the roar faded and the quiet took over, he turned to Angel. He had worked off some of his anger in
the fight, but his adrenaline was still pumping. He stalked over and stood spread-legged in front of her. He wanted some answers.

Angel had crossed her arms protectively over her breasts. She looked vulnerable, and suddenly he realized what might have happened to her if he hadn't arrived in time. He grabbed her shoulders and demanded, “Are you okay? Did any of them hurt you?”

“No. I'm fine.” She reached up and gently touched the bruise forming on his cheek. “I think you're the one who came off a little the worse for wear.”

He was furious because even now, angry as he was, frightened as he'd been for her, he wanted her. “Do you realize what would have happened to you if—”

She smoothed the hair back from his forehead. “Nothing happened.”

“Because you were damned lucky!” he said. He wanted her to stop touching him; he wanted her to touch him a helluva lot more. “What were you doing in that cave?”

She straightened the collar on his shirt. “Exactly what you think I was doing.”

His hold tightened on her arms. “You have no business in that cave. I want you to stay out of there.”

“No.”

Exasperated, he shook her. “Stop being stubborn.”

She put her hands flat against his chest and looked up into his fierce eyes. “Don't you understand? This is your world. I have to return to mine.”

All he knew was that he didn't want her going anywhere without him. “Don't go back,” he said. “Stay here with me.” He didn't know where the words had come from. He wished he hadn't spoken them, but he had. He waited with bated breath for her answer.

“I have to go back.”

“Why? What's back there that's so important to you?”

She reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a piece of folded paper and extended it to him.

Dallas had to let go of her to take the paper. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but it wasn't a WANTED poster. “Who is Jake Dillon to you?”

“My brother-in-law. He married my sister, then talked her into helping him rob a bank in San Antonio. She was killed and so was a bank teller. The posse caught up to Jake in Del Rio. He's being hung on Saturday. He's the reason my sister is dead. I want to be there to see him hang.”

“Bloodthirsty little thing, aren't you?”

“How would you feel about a man who was directly responsible for the death of someone you loved?”

He already had his answer. He had wanted to kill. Could he condemn her for wanting to see vengeance done by the law?

Dallas suddenly realized that what he was holding wasn't a copy, that it appeared genuine. Yet it wasn't old and yellowed. The date on the poster was 1864. Here was the proof he had lacked. He could have the poster checked to make sure, but he didn't want to have to make any explanations to any authorities. If she really was from the past, perhaps she deserved one last chance to get back.

He sighed. “All right. We'll go back through the cave one more time. But I want your promise that if we don't find what we're looking for, that's it. No more sneaking off in the middle of the night. You'll stay with me until you learn what you need to know to survive in this century. Agreed?”

She looked up into his eyes and said, “All right. It's a deal.”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth.

Dallas put his fingers to his lips, surprised at
how much they tingled from such a slight touch. “What was that for?”

“That was to thank you for coming to the rescue.”