Warrior's Embrace (25 page)

“What kind?”

“Hawks.”

He kissed her lightly, then stood up and
pulled on his jeans.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to check things out.”

She didn’t have to ask why. A cat had sneaked
up on him. He was wondering what else might have sneaked in under
the cover of darkness.

“Be careful, Hawk.”

“Wait right here, Elizabeth. I’ll be back.”
He snapped off the lamp and disappeared.

He moved as quickly and quietly as a phantom.
Elizabeth hugged her arms around herself. Tomorrow he would leave
just that quickly. There would be no sign that he had ever been
there. No sign except the one inside her. Hawk was indelibly
stamped on her heart.

o0o

Hawk stayed in the black night longer than
necessary. There were no intruders in Elizabeth’s house or on her
property. Of that he was absolutely certain. Still, he hesitated to
go back to her—which was ridiculous, of course. He had known from
the beginning that he would leave her.

He was a warrior. Although he no longer rode
into battle armed with bow and arrow as his ancestors had, he was
still fighting the same enemy: He was battling those who would
destroy his home and eventually his people. The battles were much
more sophisticated and the enemy much more subtle. But politics was
a dirty and sometimes deadly game, and those who fought against the
power and money mongers set themselves in a dangerous position.
There was no way he would subject a woman to the kind of life he
led, always on the edge of danger, always the point-man, always the
target.

As he circled the grounds once more, he
thought of his enemy. The fight over his ancestral land would soon
be over. He and his people would be victorious. But there would be
other battles, other enemies. Modern man was selfish and greedy. In
his hell-bent desire to gain money and power, man was slowly and
systematically destroying the world he lived in, with absolutely no
thought to future generations—to the air they would breathe, the
water they would drink, the kind of world they would inherit.

Hawk’s ancestors for generations before him
had fought for a better, cleaner world, a world in which man lived
in harmony with nature; and so would he continue to fight. Hawk
would remain strong, and he would fight alone.

o0o

She called in sick to the bank the next
morning. “I’m afraid I’ve come down with something.”

Hawk smiled at her over an enormous omelet.
After she had hung up and joined him, he took her hand and ran it
over his bare chest.

“What have you come down with,
Elizabeth?”

“Lust.”

“It must be catching.”

o0o

Hawk stayed with her until sunset. They were
in the guest bedroom downstairs, with Elizabeth stretched across
the covers in disarray and Hawk standing over her, tucking his
knife into his belt.

They stared at each other with everything
they wanted to say bottle inside. They had already said good-bye in
a thousand inventive ways.

“Don’t forget your rifle,” she finally said,
breaking the long silence.

Hawk put one hand tenderly on her cheek.
“Elizabeth...”

“Go,” she said, looking up at him. “Go
quickly.”

She watched until his hand was on the
doorknob, and then she couldn’t bear it any longer. “Hawk!” He
turned around. He was so still, he might have been cast in bronze.
“Good luck,” she whispered.

“Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said, and then he
was gone.

Hawk now a part of her past.

o0o

Elizabeth learned of Black Hawk’s exploits
through the newspapers and the reports on the local television
station. “Black Hawk Lives,” the headlines proclaimed the day after
he had left her. There was even a picture of him, magnificent as he
sat on his black stallion, granting his interview to the press. “We
will never back down,” he was quoted as saying. “We will fight to
the end for what we believe to be right. We fight not merely for
ourselves, but for all people. We fight to preserve the past and
ensure the future.”

She saw the interview on the six o’clock news
and again at ten. Black Hawk dominated her den, almost as if he had
stepped off the television screen and come back to her.

The summer days dragged by. Elizabeth counted
the hours since Hawk had gone, then she counted the days, and
finally the weeks.

She could no longer stand her life. The
things she had once considered safe—going directly home after work,
shunning all but an absolute minimum of social engagements,
shutting herself away from the world—began to pall.

She searched the papers, looking for
something to do, someplace to go—a movie, a concert, anything to
get her out of the house. There was going to be a rally on the town
square that very evening, a gathering of citizens concerned about
“progress without conscience.” Black Hawk would be the speaker.

o0o

Hawk saw Elizabeth on the fringes of the
crowd. She was wearing a stern suit, and her hair was tightly bound
by pins.

His voice never faltered. He stood on the
stage as if nothing had happened, but in his mind he had her in his
arms; he was pulling the pins from her hair, stripping off her
severe suit to reveal the sexy, lacy lingerie he knew she would be
wearing underneath.

He finished the speech to thunderous
applause, then climbed down from the stage and started toward her.
The crowd hampered him. He was stopped for questions, for
congratulations, for interviews. Out of the corner of his eye he
saw that she lingered, waiting for him.

Finally he was able to reach her side. She
stood in the shadows of the World War II monument in a corner of
the square.

“You came to see me, Elizabeth.”

“Yes.”

“You came to join my cause?”

“I’ve always been sympathetic to your cause.
I needed no persuading. Though you do have great powers of
persuasion.”

As the crowd left, they studied each other in
the darkness. Soon they would be entirely alone.

“I don’t want you to be seen alone with me,
Elizabeth. My enemies are dangerous.”

He reached out and touched her cheek so
swiftly, so briefly, she didn’t even see him move. After his hand
was gone, she had only the warm spot on her skin to tell her that
he’d touched her.

“It’s not your cause that draws me, Hawk.
It’s you.”

“Elizabeth... We can’t continue.”

“I know.” She fought against the urge to
reach for him. “I just had to see you again. I guess I had to
convince myself that you’re real. Our time together seems like a
dream.”

“No, it was real.”

His gaze burned over her once more, and then
he was gone. Elizabeth sagged against the monument. She had come
looking for trouble, and she had found it. One look at Hawk, and
she was totally out of control. At that moment she would do
anything, go anywhere, risk everything to be in his arms once
more.

Fortunately for her, he had had the good
sense to walk away.

When she got home she stripped off all her
clothes, ripped the pins from her hair, and scrubbed herself under
the shower until she felt raw, as if she could wash Hawk out of her
system. She dressed in the skimpiest lingerie she had, a minuscule
bit of black lace and sheer silk, cut high on the sides and deep in
the front and back. Then she paced the floor.

By midnight she was exhausted. She climbed
into bed and fell into a fitful sleep.

A hand over her mouth awakened her.

“Don’t scream.”

Hawk! Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. He
was bending over her, dressed in the same buckskin shirt and jeans
he had worn to the rally. The hilt of his knife gleamed in the
darkness.

She reached for him, and his mouth slammed
down on hers. They kissed without restraint and without mercy, as
if he had just returned from war.

“I didn’t mean to come back, Elizabeth.”

“I know.”

“I couldn’t stay away. Not after seeing you
again.”

“I’m glad.” She reached for the lacings on
his shirt and began to pull them apart. Then she plunged her hand
into the opening and pressed it flat on his chest. She could feel
the hammering of his heart.

“I came through the tunnel so no one would
see.”

“Right now I don’t care if the whole world
sees.”

“I won’t endanger you, Elizabeth.”

“Shhh.” She put her hand over his mouth.
“Don’t talk. I don’t want to waste a moment of our time together
talking.”

He shed his clothes quickly and joined her in
the bed. The explosiveness of their passion threatened the antique
bed. For one hour they loved, for two, and still they couldn’t get
enough.

When their passion was finally spent, Hawk
spread Elizabeth’s hair across the pillow and kissed her cheek.
“You’re mine,” he whispered. And then he was gone.

o0o

Gladys eyed the clock the next morning when
Elizabeth came into work.

“Will wonders never cease? You’re ten minutes
late.”

“Traffic,” Elizabeth said. She had slept
right through her alarm clock. Only by the grace of God and the
early morning sun coming through a crack in her curtains had she
been able to wake up at all.

She hurried past Gladys in what she hoped was
her usual manner and shut herself up in her office. Hawk had not
said he would be back. That didn’t matter. She would go to
him—secretly, just the way he had come to her.

It was still daylight when she left work.
Through a series of discreet phone calls and careful inquiries, she
had found out where Black Hawk was now living. Since his house had
burned, he was staying in a small hunting cabin in the forest
bordering his land.

She took the winding gravel road that led
deep into the Chickasaw tribal lands to his ranch. It was a vast
spread with well-kept fences and carefully groomed pastures.

She drove slowly, but not so slowly as to
call attention to herself. Black Hawk was careful not to mark them
as a pair. She would be too.

After she had satisfied herself that she
could find her way back in the dark, she turned onto a side road
and made her way home.

When ten o’clock came, she dressed carefully,
let down her hair, grabbed her gun, and made her way into her
cellar. Black Hawk had shown her the secret passageway. She pulled
aside the loose brick that hid the latch, then entered the tunnel.
It was dark and damp.

She took a deep breath and plunged ahead.

It seemed hours until she came to the end of
the tunnel. Resolutely she climbed out and brushed the dust and
twigs from her skirt. Then she tried to orient herself.

In the darkness all the trees looked the
same. There were vast stretches of forest all around her, and there
seemed to be no way out.

“Don’t panic,” she whispered. “You can do
this.”

She looked upward, located the moon, and
began to track. There were no signs of Black Hawk. She hadn’t
expected to find any. He was not the kind of man who would leave a
trail.

It took her thirty minutes to find his cabin.
Keeping in the shadow of the trees, she made her way forward. She
had almost reached the door when she heard him speaking from
somewhere behind her.

“Don’t move.”

Slowly she turned toward the sound of his
voice. “Hawk. It’s Elizabeth.”

He had her in his arms so fast, she thought a
whirlwind had overtaken her. With one hand clamped firmly over her
mouth, he carried her into his cabin, kicked the door shut, and set
her on her feet.

“You could get hurt sneaking up on me like
that.”

“If that’s your idea of a welcome, Hawk, it
stinks.”

His heart was still racing from finding her
standing in his woods. He was in no mood for games.

“Why did you come here?”

“Do you have to ask?”

“It’s too dangerous. You shouldn’t be
here.”

“I’m a big girl, Hawk. And I carry a big
gun.”

“How did you get here?”

“Through the tunnel.”

As he always did in moments of great passion
or great turmoil, he resorted to the language of his ancestors.

“Please do me the courtesy of berating me in
my own language.”

“Elizabeth.” He took her hands. “I don’t
berate you. I curse the Fates that threw us together.”

“So do I.” Her quiet dignity impressed him.
“I don’t want this any more than you do. I don’t
need
this. Hawk... this wonderful and terrible connection between
us.”

“Neither do I. I won’t allow you to become a
part of my life.”

They looked at each other, mute. Finally she
broke the silence.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“I’m going to take you home. There are people
who want me dead, Elizabeth. If they see you here... if they know
what you are to me, they are likely to try to get to me through
you. I won’t have that.”

“What am I to you, Hawk?”

It was another long while before he spoke.
Elizabeth’s skin tingled, and a lump rose into her throat.

“You are mine, Elizabeth.”

More than anything in the world, she wanted
to deny her past, to forget its hard lessons, and to belong to this
passionate warrior. But she wouldn’t ignore the lessons of her
past, even for Hawk.

“No,” she said. “I belong to no man.”

He reached for her, but she stepped aside.
“My way, Hawk. Tonight we will do it my way.”

She took his hand and led him to a straight-
back chair. “Sit here.” He straddled the chair, and she walked
away, her skirt swinging around her hips.

It wasn’t her usual severe skirt she wore; it
was a skirt of soft butternut suede that hugged her hips like a
lover. A row of buttons ran from waist to hem down one side. A soft
cotton jersey top, slashed low to reveal cleavage, skimmed her
torso.

Elizabeth laid her gun on the bedside table.
Then she turned to him, lifted her hair off her neck, and began to
sway.