Carol Finch (15 page)

He glanced at her, but he couldn’t tell if the prospect of having him miles away affected her in the least.

“I confiscated the pigeons from the line shack,” she commented a moment later. “I don’t know if they will lead you to the mastermind, but I thought it might be worth a try. Perhaps you’ll want to have one of our hired hands release the birds about the time we reach town.”

“Good idea,” Hawk praised. “If Fletch and I have miscalculated about the possibility of the ringleader being in town we should know soon. If necessary, we can focus our efforts elsewhere.”

He was silent for a moment then said, “I’ve thought about you a time or two this week.”
Fool! Why did you have to bring that up? What possible purpose will arming her with that information serve?

“Have you?” She glanced in his general direction then stared straight ahead. “Now that you mention it, you have crossed my mind once or twice this week.”
Imbecile! Don’t give your feelings away, in case he’s on some sort of fishing expedition. Didn’t you learn anything from your disastrous encounters with Antoine? You have to start working on
not
missing Hawk—and you had better be quick about it.
“Of course, I was curious about what progress you had made in the case.”

Hawk inwardly winced. All she wanted to know was if he had rounded up gang members? His male pride took a beating.

“I found myself wondering if your injuries had healed properly,” he said to cover any assumption she might have drawn about his lingering feelings for her.

“Oh, good, we’re almost home,” she said a little too brightly.

Which was a relief because this useless chitchat was making her insane. She felt awkward and restrained, afraid she’d expose her feelings and humiliate herself again. A week ago she had become comfortable with Hawk because she could be herself while she was with him. Now everything had changed and she didn’t know how to behave around him. All these suppressed feelings of vulnerability and uncertainties were eating her alive.

“We should arrive separately,” Hawk suggested. “Your brothers won’t be too thrilled to see me…especially if I ride in with you.”

“Of course, we wouldn’t want to give them the ridiculous impression that there is something between us besides mutual interest in solving this investigation. And, of course, my gratitude to you for saving my hide a few times last week.”

Gratitude?
That’s all she felt for him? he mused. That and a reckless night of passion that never happened because no one heard a damn tree fall in the damn forest—or some such absurdly ridiculous nonsense.

Well, for her information, just because no one else heard her soft moans of pleasure and her breathless pleas did not mean that
he
hadn’t heard them, that
he
hadn’t felt the wild ripples of desire shimmering from her body and echoing in his.

Come to think of it, he was outraged that she had shrugged off the kind of sexual encounter that fantasies were made of.
Didn’t happen? Like hell it didn’t!

“I’ll let you ride in first,” Hawk said more gruffly than he intended. But he was still steamed about her fierce denial of a night that he would probably never forget.

She nodded stiffly. “I’ll set two extra places at the table for supper.”

“Thank you,” he replied with exaggerated politeness. “Fletch and I are grateful.”

He watched her canter her horse downhill—and he wanted to shake the stuffing out of her for behaving so indifferently when he was having such difficulty remaining detached. The woman was making him loco. He didn’t expect her to fawn over him when he showed up unexpectedly, but hell! She didn’t have to act as if forgetting him was such a simple feat.

It hadn’t been easy for him, damn it. What mental mechanism did
she
have that
he
didn’t that made it so annoyingly easy for her to disregard those incredible feelings he’d experienced that night when the world stood still…and time ceased to exist…and the trees crashed to the forest floor…in silence?

Hawk huffed out his breath, cursed Shiloh a few times in frustration, and then rode up to the ranch house to face Noah and Gideon’s greeting scowls.

He would be as cool and remote as Shiloh when they faced each other across the table at dinner, he promised himself. He’d look right through her and see how she liked being ignored….

“Well, hell,” he muttered when understanding dawned. Maybe Shiloh had distanced herself from him because he’d ignored her in his relentless attempt not to give away his feelings the night he’d arrived to interrogate her brothers. Had he hurt her feelings, while trying to protect her from her brothers’ speculations?

Or did she simply not like him very much? It was killing him, not knowing why Shiloh had made love with him with such reckless abandon, and then cast him off as if their relationship counted for nothing.

What does it matter? he asked himself. Their brief tryst was over and that was best for both of them.

“I don’t know why you had to invite the Hawk brothers to sleep in the house and to join us for supper,” Gid grumbled to Shiloh. “We offered them beds in the bunkhouse.”

“After Hawk saved my life several times, the best you can do is a cot in the bunkhouse?” Shiloh sniffed reproachfully. “If he’d saved
your
skin wouldn’t you be more charitable?”

“This isn’t about being charitable and hospitable,” Noah said emphatically. “We have no intention of encouraging Hawk, in case he has an interest in you.”

Shiloh paused from placing silverware on the table to gape at him. “Interested in me?” she repeated. “I told you that I’ve taken myself off the marriage mart.”

“That doesn’t stop a man from desiring a beautiful woman,” Gideon pointed out.

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and stared at her annoying brothers. “And you know all about temptation and desire because you occasionally frequent Paradise Social Club to appease your urges?”

Her brothers had the decency to look embarrassed.

“I suppose you’re suspicious of Hawk because, being male, you know how his mind works. Right?”

“Yes.” Noah grimaced when she scored a direct hit. “But the point is that we don’t want you to be hurt again, which obviously you were when that Antoine person rejected you.”

Shiloh went back to arranging the china and silverware. “Regardless, Hawk and Fletch are to be treated respectfully. Which includes your courteousness and civility at dinner.”

“Fine,” Gideon mumbled begrudgingly. “Just so he doesn’t get the idea that we approve of him. Not that he seems the kind of man who needs anyone’s approval for anything. He strikes me as the type who lives by his own code and to hell with everyone else’s opinion.”

Shiloh smiled thoughtfully. “I like that approach. I can’t think of anyone whose opinion is so vital to me that I’d live my life according to their expectations. Being a spinster is refreshingly liberating,” she gushed enthusiastically.

“God, don’t start on that subject again,” Noah bemoaned.

“Ah, there you are,” Shiloh said when Hawk and Fletch ambled into the dining room. “And just in time. Please make yourselves comfortable while my brothers fetch some wine.”

At the prompt, they strode off to pour the drinks.

“Nice place,” Fletch complimented. “A palace on the prairie, you might say. Reminds me of the grand château I visited on the outskirts of Denver while working a case for the railroad. The place reeked wealth. Too bad all this prosperity has to come at the hands—ugh…”

Shiloh glanced over in time to see Hawk gouge his brother in the ribs. “You have every right to feel resentful that our prosperity comes from land that once belonged to your people. I feel the same resentment when I find myself restricted by male-dominated society.”

“No one promised life would be fair,” Hawk pointed out. “You make the best of the hand you’re dealt and that’s that.”

Noah and Gid strode back into the dining room to set two glasses of wine in front of their guests.

And dinner went downhill from there.

Still, it was better than the near-hanging incident.

After the stilted conversation at dinner Shiloh returned to her room to shed her fashionable gown. Dressed in her nightgown and robe, she stepped onto the gallery to inhale a deep breath of fresh evening air.

The memory of Hawk sitting directly across from her at dinner came quickly to mind and she smiled, remembering how he had taken particular care to emulate her table manners—which, compared to the New Orleans aristocrats were sadly lacking. It was sweet, really, that Hawk had tried to improve her brothers’ first impression of him. Not that Noah and Gid had been receptive, but Hawk usually didn’t give a flying fig about what people thought of him.

Frowning contemplatively, Shiloh pivoted to stare down the gallery toward the guest room she had offered to Hawk. Why would he care what her brothers thought of him? Surely he wasn’t trying to impress
her.
Shiloh smirked at that absurdity. She and Hawk had moved far beyond table manners on the
night that didn’t exist.

Shiloh stood there for the longest time, wondering why she’d paid such close attention to every comment and gesture Hawk had made at dinner. Lord, she hoped no one noticed her preoccupation. Her brothers were already fretting over Hawk calling on her socially—which would never happen.

Muttering at the myriad of thoughts chasing each
other around her head she wheeled toward her room. She had luggage to pack for tomorrow’s trip to Cerrogordo. Plus, she was exhausted from all the activities she’d squeezed into the past few days, hoping to take her mind off Hawk.

An hour later Shiloh set her luggage beside the door. Weary, she collapsed in bed—and felt a wave of loneliness so overpowering that she nearly drowned in it.

Ah, what she wouldn’t give to cuddle up in Hawk’s sinewy arms and sleep contentedly for the first time in over a week.

She lay there for what must have been two hours, staring at the ceiling, counting flocks of sheep. Tired though she was, restlessness tormented her…. That same edgy restlessness had haunted her waking hours all week.

Shiloh sighed heavily as she rolled from bed to don her robe. When she stepped outside the sounds of night reminded her of the evening when she and Hawk…

Need blasted through her like a hot summer wind. Days of denying her desire for Hawk took its toll. She longed to recapture the incredible pleasure and unprecedented sensations he had introduced her to. Erotic memories spun around her, converging with such intensity that she couldn’t fight back. Didn’t want to fight the feelings again tonight.

Shiloh stared at the door to Hawk’s room. Did she dare cast caution to the wind this one last time? There would be no other opportunities to savor the passion Hawk called from her because, when this assignment ended, she would never see him again.

Listening to the whimsical entreaty of her heart instead of her head, Shiloh moved silently toward Hawk’s room.
One last night,
she mused as she eased
open the door—and flinched when a cold steel blade pressed against her throat and she was slammed against an unyielding muscular body.

“W
hat the hell?” Hawk retracted the knife when he realized Shiloh had sneaked into his room unexpectedly. He had seen the unidentified shadow flitting across the carpet. Instinct and training had put him on instant alert. “Damn it, woman, you can get your throat slit by sneaking up on me like that. What are you doing here—?”

To Hawk’s startled amazement Shiloh grabbed him by the hair on his head and pulled his face down to kiss the breath out of him. She arched provocatively against his naked flesh and her tongue mated with his as her arms settled on his shoulders.

His body burst into flame instantaneously. He crushed her against his aching contours, wanting to be inside her more than he wanted his next breath. And he couldn’t find his next breath because her adventurous hands glided down his hip to enfold his rigid flesh. She stroked him experimentally and pleasure sizzled into every fiber of his being.

He should have objected when she walked him backward until the back of his knees bumped the edge
of the bed. But she was holding him powerless in her hand and his body clenched with hungry need. He did manage to croak out a feeble protest that they might be discovered together, but it didn’t seem to faze her. She seemed to be on a crusade—and he was it.

When she urged him onto his back and sank down beside him, he reached up to curl his hand around her neck, drawing her sensuous lips back to his. The brush of her lips was as feathery as butterfly’s wings, but her touch still burned like a brand. Every nerve and muscle in his body trembled in response to the forbidden pleasure buffeting him.

“I was craving another taste of you,” she confided as she leaned closer, her breasts caressing his chest through the filmy fabric of her nightgown.

Wild pulsating need rumbled through him as she caressed his throbbing flesh from base to tip. His breath hissed out and his lungs nearly collapsed when her unbound hair drifted over his belly and her moist tongue flicked at him playfully.

“Shiloh, I don’t think I can…” His voice gave out before he could tell her that he wasn’t sure he could endure the exquisite torture of her intimate kiss. Icy-hot pleasure scorched him as she cupped him, then traced him lightly with her tongue and teeth.

“Don’t talk. Don’t think.” Her warm breath misted over his aching flesh and melted his brain into mush. “I want to learn to pleasure you as completely as you pleasured me.”

“I did? You already have…”

Words caught in his throat when phenomenal pleasure pummeled him. She continued to measure the rigid length of him with her lips and nibbled at him with her teeth until he groaned aloud. She aroused him
by feverish degrees, dragging him to the crumbling edge and leaving him teetering on mindless oblivion.

And then she destroyed him completely when she took him into her mouth and suckled him gently. All the while, her hands drifted lightly over his thighs and belly, weaving an erotic spell that defied anything he had ever experienced. A silvery drop of need betrayed him as she kissed him intimately, again and again.

“I can’t endure another moment of—” He gasped then moaned in unholy torment when she flicked at him with her tongue.

“No?” There was a teasing challenge in her voice. “I think you can endure anything, Hawk… I am trying to pleasure you, not torture you. Am I succeeding?”

“All too well. This is the kind of pleasure that can torment a man to death,” he said hoarsely as he tried to pull her lush body over his. “Come here. I need you.”

“Not as much as I want you to. Not yet. I want to know every inch of you before this night is out,” she whispered.

And to that dedicated end Shiloh made a deliberate study of him-tasting him—exploring the various textures of his muscular body, savoring the ragged moans of surrender she summoned from him. She reveled in the feel of his hair-roughened flesh beneath her questing hands and lips. She felt empowered while she caressed his hard flesh and felt him tremble.

Perhaps she wasn’t a skilled seductress, but she had tried to be imaginative in the way she kissed and caressed him. She felt his big body shudder repeatedly, heard his breath break, over and over again. Satisfaction poured through her. Although she knew she could never claim Hawk’s wild heart, she had learned to exert
control over his masculine body, as he had enslaved her to the reckless passions he ignited in her.

“Enough—” His voice broke on a shattered breath.

She wasn’t sure she would ever get enough of him. He inspired feelings and sensations she was helpless to control. When he raised his head, his dark eyes glowing in the scant moonlight, Shiloh drew the nightgown over her head and cast it aside. She could feel his intense gaze on her as he lifted up his hands to trace the beaded peaks of her breasts.

His touch sent a burst of need burning into her very core. She straddled his hips, setting herself exactly upon him. She could feel him hard and throbbing inside her while they were locked together in an intimate embrace that felt all too perfect, all too right.

She moved upon him, pushing him deeper inside her then withdrawing with deliberate slowness. His quiet growl urged her to accelerate the rhythmic pace.

“I want to hear you beg for me as I begged for you,” she murmured.

“Anything you want,” he said raggedly. “Just make this maddening ache go away.” His hand tangled in her hair, holding her still as he thrust into her. “You’re killing me…please…”

Hawk melted into a puddle of fiery need when Shiloh leaned forward to brush her lips over his mouth, letting him taste his desire for her. He felt her feminine body encasing him like a velvet glove, caressing him with each sensual stroke, holding him deep within her silky softness.

He had never known that such mind-boggling pleasure existed. Had never known passion could be so intense that it bordered on maddening torment. But with Shiloh, he explored new heights and depths of desire.
He wanted her to the point of reckless frenzy. It took every ounce of self-control not to drive into her in his frantic need to ease the ache that riveted him.

With one fluid movement, he rolled sideways so that she was beneath him. He thrust into her again. His body trembled in his effort to restrain himself. He felt compelled to return the pleasure she offered him. He wanted her with him every step of the way when they spiraled from one dizzying pinnacle of ecstasy to another. He wanted her to feel as wild and helpless and desperate as he felt at this moment.

Hawk touched her everywhere at once, cherishing her, worshipping her. When she whispered his name frantically, he buried himself as deep as he could go. He lifted her to him, drawing her knees over his arms. He drove into her, feeling her burning around him like hot rain, melting body and soul into one throbbing essence. He muffled her wild cries of splendor as she shimmered around him. Pleasure intensified like a meteor blazing a fiery path across the heavens.

When she dug her nails into his back and gasped hoarsely, heart-stopping ecstasy cascaded over him. Her pulsating fulfillment riveted him and he clutched her close, holding on for dear life as breathless passion stole the last shreds of his composure. He shuddered in helpless release as he plunged into a vortex of pleasure that defied description.

Powerless, exhausted, Hawk slumped above her. Hearing her panted breaths against his shoulder filled him with an immeasurable contentment and satisfaction. Eventually, he eased down beside her to cuddle her close. But to his frustration, she withdrew to retrieve her nightgown.

Hawk watched her turn back to him to press a part
ing kiss to his lips. “Tonight didn’t happen, either, right?” he asked.

Her quiet laughter settled over him, making him yearn to pull her back down on top of him and hold her close for as long as he could. “That’s right. I wasn’t here,” she insisted.

“A figment of my imagination?” He tugged at her curly auburn hair to bring her lips back to his. He kissed her thoroughly, just in case this was the last time they were together—on
a night that didn’t exist.

“Goodbye, Hawk,” she murmured before she turned and walked out into the darkness.

Not
good night,
he noted as he inhaled her alluring scent on the pillow. Just
goodbye.
He frowned, disconcerted, wondering if, at this moment, she were silently telling that fool, Antoine, to eat his heart out because he could have been the one she turned to for passion instead of Hawk.

That thought didn’t set well with Hawk. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself that he and Shiloh had no future. It still outraged him to think he might be her consolation prize, the substitute for the man she really wanted.

Damn it, for a man whose motto was: No strings attached, no complications to tie you down, he was feeling used. Not that he wanted Shiloh to fall in love with him, of course. And he certainly didn’t want to fall in love with her because they didn’t fit in each other’s worlds. But still…

“But nothing,” Hawk muttered at himself. “Just go to sleep and quit trying to figure out what you want. It doesn’t matter what you want, anyway. This assignment is as personal as it is professional and business always comes first.”

Hawk pounded his pillow in frustration a couple of times and squirmed to find a comfortable position. He didn’t have time to dwell on the riptide of confusing emotion caused by his secretive encounter with Shiloh. He needed rest so he’d be mentally alert when he arrived in town tomorrow.

A faint smile pursed his lips when a vision of Shiloh rose in his mind’s eye. This was still the most amazing
nonexistent
sexual encounter that he’d ever experienced. Maybe he should be offended that she refused to acknowledge what was between them. But what she did to him left him feeling too damn good to complain overly long.

Do you see what this woman is doing to you?
that sensible voice in his head said.
She has you so confused that you don’t know how you should feel, what you should think.

Hawk expelled a frustrated sigh, squirmed into another position on the bed and dozed off…eventually.

Shiloh awoke the next morning with a contented smile on her lips. She had slept well for the first time in over a week. She knew it had everything to do with the wondrous night she had spent in Hawk’s arms. Not to mention the satisfaction she had derived from practicing her newfound skills of seduction on him. He had confided that she had pleased him and that had done wonders for her self-esteem.

Rising, Shiloh bathed then took particular care in dressing for her trip into town. For Hawk’s benefit mostly, she acknowledged. Shiloh had been the one to establish the ground rules for their short-term affair and to declare there were no strings attached. She insisted that she had no expectations when it came to a com
mitment, but the truth was that she had begun to speculate what it might be like with Hawk in her future. She was beginning to wish…

“That’s a good way to get your heart broken again,” Shiloh said to her reflection in the mirror.

The only man she wanted in her life didn’t intend to settle down. She had to stick with her original vow to remain unmarried. She could be satisfied with her individuality and her independence on the family ranch. Yet…

Shiloh muttered at herself as she scooped up her carpetbags. She descended the steps to find her brothers eating breakfast. She glanced back at the staircase, surprised that Hawk and Fletch weren’t in the dining room already.

“Change of plans. They decided to leave early this morning,” Noah replied in response to her unspoken question. “Hawk said that he and Fletch needed to run a few errands.”

Disappointment washed over Shiloh, even though she made an effort to appear indifferent to the change of plans. Her brothers were carefully gauging her reaction to the news. She could tell by the tone of Noah’s voice that he was glad to have Hawk up and gone. A pity she didn’t share his feelings.

Shiloh’s appetite headed south after discovering Hawk had been in an all-fired rush to leave—which suggested that his interest in her had never been anything more than physical.

She had made it easy for him by insisting their trysts hadn’t happened. Shiloh was beginning to wonder if she had outsmarted herself.

It certainly looked that way.

That evening, Shiloh exited the hotel in Cerrogordo, bookended by her brothers. She surveyed the tables and
booths that sat in the center of the street. Two blocks of Main Street had been cordoned off for the townwide bazaar, feast and street dance.

She smiled in amusement as she watched several children competing in a sack race. Other youngsters bobbed for apples. At the east end of town, several men lined up to compete in horse races.

Her gaze shifted to the two well-dressed men that ambled down the boardwalk. There was something familiar about the way they moved, but…Shiloh nearly choked on her breath when she recognized the sophisticated versions of Hawk and Fletch.

“Good God!” Noah bleated in amazement. “You also cleaned up better than expected. I almost didn’t recognize you two.”

He could say that again, thought Shiloh. Her wide-eyed gaze flooded over Hawk’s fashionable three-piece suit and Bowler hat. He had clipped his long hair in a style similar to what her brothers wore. He no longer resembled the wild renegade in buckskins that she first encountered—or the rough-edged Ranger she’d come to know. He looked stylish and confident…and her heart twisted in her chest, knowing this fascinating man wouldn’t be a part of her future.

“You look lovely this evening,” Hawk told Shiloh very formally as he tipped his hat to her.

“Thank you, kind sir. You look quite dashing.” She cast Fletch an approving glance. “And so do you.”

Fletch took her hand politely and bowed over it. “Thank you, Miss Drummond. It is a pleasure to see you again.”

There was an enigmatic smile playing on his lips and it made her wonder if he might have seen her coming or going from Hawk’s room last night. Knowing
his background and profession, she suspected Fletch missed nothing that was going on around him. In that, he was his older brother’s equal.