Her Sheriff Bodyguard (16 page)

Then his right hand went to the pocket of his jacket, and Hawk was on his feet, moving toward her. Suddenly everything slowed down. It seemed to take hours to cross the few yards to where she stood frozen at the makeshift podium. Somewhere to his left he heard someone yell.

He saw the man's arm come up and aim a blued steel revolver straight at Caroline.

Her mouth opened in a scream and he lunged for her, knocked her to the floor and covered her body with his just as the gun went off. A scalding bolt of lightning bit into Hawk's back.

A roaring sound hit his ears and a flash of orange light streaked past his shoulder. He heard a man cry out and something heavy thumped onto the floor behind him.

A woman screamed. Someone shouted something, but it was cut off by the sound of chairs and benches overturning and people's footsteps scrambling for the exit. And a second gunshot.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. His vision went gray but he shook it off.
Stay conscious
.
Stay with it
.

Hands pulled at him but he clung to Caroline's shaking body beneath him.

“Let go of her, Hawk. The bastard's dead.” Jericho Silver's voice.

He raised his head. Caroline's hand lay near his shoulder, her fingers clutching his shirt.

“It's all right, Hawk. She's safe.” Sandy told him.

“How...?”

“She shot him. Must have had her pistol in her skirt pocket. Anyway, she fired just as you tackled her.”

He tried to get to his feet, but a pair of strong hands held him down. “Lie still, you stubborn bangtail. You've got a bullet in your back.”

That explained the heavy, burning pain between his shoulder blades. He could hear Caroline sobbing, feel her body move convulsively as he lay on top of her.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw two pairs of legs. One belonged to Elijah Holst; he recognized the worn jeans. The other had to be Rooney Cloudman, who still wore his faded blue army trousers.

“Gonna roll you offa her,” Rooney said. “Gonna hurt some.”

Som
e
!
It hurt like nothing he could ever remember, not even the knife slashes purposely striped across his rib cage, courtesy of a renegade Mescalero out for revenge. He must have started to bleed, because now his shirt felt wet and hot.

Someone shoved a folded quilt under him. It got sticky pretty fast, so he knew he was losing blood.

Caroline scrambled to his side and bent over him, still weeping. He opened his eyes, fighting to stay awake. Her skirt had a small black hole in it. Hell, she'd fired right through the pocket. He tried to smile.

Her small, warm hands lifted his head into her lap and her tears kept dripping onto his face. He opened his lips to tell her something... What was it? Seemed important, but now everything was growing dark.

The last thing he heard was Caroline's broken voice crying his name.

Chapter Twenty-Six

H
e heard voices, one praying in Spanish and Caroline's, and then Ilsa's, then Caroline's again. His back and chest ached and he couldn't figure out where he was.

Footsteps pounded somewhere, light ones, like a kid wearing shoes too big for him. A door cracked open.

“Uncle Hawk?”

Billy. That must mean he was home, lying in his own bed. He wanted to open his eyes and see into the walnut tree outside his window, but his lids seemed to be glued shut. Head ached, too.

“Uncle—?”

“Shhhh,” someone warned. “He is sleeping.”

“He's been asleep for two days. When's he gonna wake up?”

The soft voice spoke. “When he is ready,
mi amiguito
. You tell your
madre, si?
Will be soon, I think. The
señor
, he make groan sounds.”

The kid's footsteps receded, and then a breath of cool air wafted over him as someone else entered, someone in a long swishy skirt. Someone who smelled of roses.

“Go down and eat some supper, Fernanda. I will watch over him.”

The door closed and Hawk tried again to open his eyes. He needed to see her, make sure she was unhurt. “Caroline.” He rasped her name but could only utter that one word.

“Hawk,” she whispered near his ear. “Don't try to talk. The doctor says you will be all right, but you must rest for a few—”

He caught her hand. “Tell me,” he croaked.

She laid a cool cloth across his forehead but said nothing for a long minute. Then she released a long breath and he heard her settle onto his straight-back desk chair; it had always creaked when he straddled it, so he guessed he'd weakened the slats.

“You were shot, Hawk. It was my father who...” Her voice quavered. “Papa was aiming for me, but you—” She swallowed audibly.

“You dove on top of me and took the bullet instead. Oh, Hawk, I told you I had shot him ten years ago. I thought I had killed him then.”

He squeezed her hand.

“Anyway,” she resumed, her voice steadier. “Jericho and Marshal Johnson said that the bullet hit his chest, and this time I really did kill him. They said it was self-defense.”

“Damn right,” he groaned.

“I am not sorry that I did it. He would have killed me, and he almost did kill you.”

“Not dead yet,” he managed.

She lifted the cloth from his hot forehead and swung it over him. Whispers of cool air washed against his face. When she replaced it, it was cool again.

“Head hurts.”

He heard her stand up, and her hand came to rest on his bare shoulder. “The doctor gave you more laudanum this morning. That's why your head aches. Try not to talk.”

Someone came into the room and he heard faint whispering. Something about broth. His stomach rebelled at the prospect.

“No,” he muttered.

“He has to eat something,” his sister murmured.

“Maybe just some water for now, Ilsa.”

Oh, God, yes. His tongue was so swollen with thirst it felt like a dusty saddle blanket.

The door opened and closed again and Caroline touched his closed mouth with something metallic. A spoon. “Water,” she explained. She dribbled it past his lips, teaspoon by teaspoon.

“Then what?” he asked between swallows.

“Then they carried you up here to your room and the doctor...well, he cut the bullet out of your back. It was...pretty awful.”

He had wondered what felt so tight around his chest; must be Doc had trussed him up like a Christmas ham. Or two. Felt like he couldn't draw a deep breath.

“Sorry you had to see it,” he said.

“He tried to make me go downstairs, but, well, I wouldn't. I couldn't leave you.”

But she would leave him, eventually. Wouldn't she? In a way he was glad he couldn't see her. There was something he wanted to tell her, but he could only squeeze out a few words, and that wasn't going to be enough.

“Caroline?”

“Yes, Hawk? What is it? Do you want something?”

He nodded, even though it made his temples pulse in agony.

“You. I...want you.”

* * *

“Miss MacFarlane?”

The stocky man stepped up onto the front porch where Caroline sat with Ilsa and Fernanda.

“Rooney Cloudman, ma'am. Remember me?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“How's he doin'?”

“Better,” Ilsa said. “Doc says he'll be up and ornery very soon.”

“Well, Miss MacFarlane, I'm sure sorry to interrupt, but I had to bring you something. Found it in yer pa's pocket.”

All the breath left her body. “What is it?”

Rooney studied the toes of his boots. “You looked so peaked after the funeral I thought about just losin' it by accident-like, but...”

He produced a folded sheet of yellowed paper. Caroline reached for it, and Rooney caught her hand and squeezed it. “You know, ma'am, you don't have ta read it iff'n you don't want.”

She nodded and slowly unfolded the single page while Ilsa poured a glass of lemonade for him.

Carrie,

If you are reading this then I am dead or in jail somewhere.

I have wanted revenge for years, ever since you shot me and your mother took you away from me. I can't ever forgive that. Then she died and you stepped into her shoes and started speaking out, and that's when I knew what I had to do.

I had to stop you before you told about what I did to you.

Caroline sat for a long time with the unsigned letter in her lap. And then she tore it up in little pieces and put the bits of paper in her skirt pocket.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

F
ernanda settled beside her on the cool front porch and lifted Caroline's hand into her own. “You must decide,
mi corazón.

“I—I know.”

“You care for this man,
si
?”

Caroline nodded, then buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Fernanda, I am so torn. I promised Mama I would carry on with her work. Well, it's my work, really. It is so very important, for all women, not just the ones out here in the West.”

Fernanda looked at her in silence for a long moment. “In the country of my birth, this thing it is not important. But in Tejas, in America, such a thing it make a big difference.
Muy
importante.
”

Billy clattered through the screen door. “Fernanda, you wanna play checkers with me? Eli's upstairs with Uncle Hawk, readin' some dull old book out loud.”

The Mexican woman heaved herself to her feet and ruffled Billy's russet hair. “
Si
, I play checkers. If I win, you wash dishes, is true?”

Caroline had to laugh. Fernanda had made herself an important part of this household. “I will wash up the dishes,” she announced.

Fernanda paused, her hand on the door frame. “No, you do not,
hija
. You have big decision to think about.”

* * *

Hawk stood the inactivity of lying in bed for as long as he could, but after what he judged was three days, he got up and slowly and painfully pulled on his jeans and a shirt Ilsa had folded on the bureau next to the basin and pitcher of water. Then he walked unsteadily down the stairs in his bare feet.

It was almost supper time, he guessed. Fernanda was showing Billy how to set the table and Ilsa was at the stove, rolling out biscuit dough. Hawk sidled past them, noting his sister's accusing look and Fernanda's frown, and pushed through the back screen door. Sure enough, Caroline was in the yard, hanging laundry on the clothesline. Again.

All he could see behind the sheets swelling in the warm breeze were her shoes and the bottom ruffle of her white petticoat as it peeked out when she raised her arms.

He settled on the top porch step and waited. Getting down the stairs had cost him; he was breathing hard and his back felt like a bull had gored him.

She emerged finally, gave one sheet a tug to smooth it and started toward him. Damn she was one beautiful female. So beautiful it made his throat ache. She'd rolled the sleeves of her shirtwaist up to expose her elbows, and he had an insane urge to put his mouth on the flesh right there at the curve of her arm.

“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth when she saw him. “Hawk, whatever are you doing out of bed?”

“Got bored. Wanted to see you.”

“My heavens, I would have brought up your supper on a tray later—”

“Don't want supper on a tray. Want it sitting down at a table. With you.”

“Oh.”

“How come you didn't come upstairs all day?”

“I—I've been busy, as you can see.” She gestured to the flapping sheets behind her.

“You know, you hang up an awful lot of laundry for a speech-making lady.”

“I did the washing, too. I...needed to keep busy. I needed to think.”

“About what?”

“Hawk, you know about what. It's about, well, about making speeches.”

“Yeah, I figured that. While you're doing all this thinking, I need to throw something else in the pot for you to consider.”

“Oh? Wait, I see a wrinkle!” She escaped into the sea of muslin on the clothesline. With a groan, Hawk heaved himself off the step and followed. He caught her between two rows of drying pillowcases and blocked her escape.

“Hawk—”

He reached out and touched her bare arm. “There's something I want to tell you, Caroline. I've been wondering how to say it, but there's no easy way, so here it is. I want you to stay here, in Smoke River.”

“You know I can't do that. I have a speaking engagement in Quincy next week, and—”

“Here in Smoke River,” he repeated. “With me.” He drew her into his arms and pressed his lips against her forehead.

“Hawk. Oh, Hawk, you have given me so much, protected me through all this mess and never once criticized me or what I had to say, even though I know you don't agree about the vote for women.”

“Didn't once. Maybe I do now. You can be damn convincing.”

“Really?” Her face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning. “Do you mean it? Really?”

“Yeah. And there's something else I really mean, too.” He held her gaze for a long minute. “I'm in love with you. Pretty deep, too.”

“Hawk,” she breathed. “You must know how I feel about you. You brought me back to myself. As a woman, I mean. Made me know that I could love someone. I am glad it was with you.”

He guided her out of the forest of sheets and turned her toward the side fence. “See that house over there?” He tipped his head toward the white two-story structure next door.

“Yes, I see it. It's lovely, but—”

“It's empty except for a lot of furniture. Old couple, Monty and Ruth Monroe, used to own it until they went to live with their daughter in Montana. Left everything just as it was.”

“It has a nice, big porch,” she ventured. “A ‘wraparound' they call it back East. But why...?”

“I want to live there.”

“But you live here in this house, with Ilsa and Billy.”

“I want to live there with you, Caroline. I want you to marry me.”

Caroline stared up at him, then at the pretty white house, then back at Hawk. “You know I can't, Hawk. I might want to, but I can't. There is something I must do and I cannot give it up. It is my life's work.”

“Figured you might feel that way. I wanted to change your mind.”

She was quiet for a long time, feeling his arms around her as tears clogged her throat. The thought of leaving him was like a knife slicing into her heart. She raised her face and he bent to kiss her, slowly and thoroughly, leaving the taste of mint on her lips and her body aching in places she'd only recently come to appreciate.

She wound her arms around his neck and he flinched; she'd forgotten his bandages.

“Don't stop,” he whispered. “I'd rather feel your mouth under mine than worry about miles of gauze around my chest.”

She fought back an absurd need to weep and kissed him until they were both having difficulty breathing.

“Supper time!” Billy yelled through the back screen door.

“Oh, hell,” Hawk muttered.

She laughed softly. “Hawk, you need to eat to regain your strength.”

“I'll eat if you promise to think about what I said.”

Her eyes filled. “I will. I promise.”

But she knew what her answer would be, what her answer would always be. She had chosen her path years ago. She had promised her mother, and herself, and she must continue until the battle was won.

* * *

Fernanda studied Hawk, then Caroline across the supper table. Neither had spoken two words since they sat down. Billy chattered on about school starting in September and the big trout he'd caught yesterday. Eli reported on the doings at the
Sentinel
office and how mournful Noralee Ness over at the
Lark
office had acted ever since Hawk had been shot.

Ilsa dished up stew and biscuits and blackberry cobbler without a word.

What is the matter with my lady? And with Señor Hawk? They are both alive, thank our Father in heaven. They are most foolish to throw strong feelings away.

She was glad when Billy pestered her for a game of checkers. Otherwise she would start to think black thoughts.

Is it only old women like myself who see life clearly?
She shook her head. Such a waste, it was.
A man and a woman should be rich together.

* * *

Harvey O'Grady stared at Hawk across the sheriff's paper-littered desk. “You gonna let her just walk away from you like that? Hell, Hawk, if I wanted her, I'd toss her over my shoulder and—”

“No, you wouldn't. That's rape, Harve.”

The mayor blinked at him. “Rape? Well I'll be a—Hawk, she's got you so mixed up you're thinkin' like a tipsy leprechaun. You're startin' to sound like one of them damn women suffragettes.”

Hawk looked at the mayor with dawning understanding. “You ever been married, Harve?”

“Well...yeah, I was married once. She up and left me.”

“Ever ask yourself how come?”

“What? Whaddya mean? I ordered her not to visit the Widow Donohue and she did it anyway, and then she up and left. Damn near broke my heart. That woman
belonged
to me.”

“A woman isn't something that ‘belongs' to you, like a sack of wheat. A man doesn't just overpower a woman like a wild mustang or a cow.”

Hawk topped up both their glasses, lifted his and downed it in one gulp. He couldn't feel any worse; might as well get jelly-legged drunk.