Hawk's Way: Callen & Zach (4 page)

The hotel had been built in the 1880s, and it still featured several of the original Victorian sofas in the lobby along with a Turkish carpet and some silvered mirrors in elaborate mahogany frames. The hotel café dated from the 1950s. It had a long service bar with stools that had red plastic seats and chrome backs. Someone had added trophy deer antlers on the walls, along with macramé wall hangings from the 1970s and a few pictures of the hotel when it had been in its prime.

Sam saw four ranchers at the far end of the bar. They sat in the same seats every morning. Garth Whitelaw was sitting on the stool closest to him, near the center of the bar. The stool next to Garth was empty, and Sam slid onto it.

He stared straight ahead, looking into the mirror behind the bar. He could see the faces of everyone reflected there. Sam noticed that he looked more than a little the worse for wear. He was wearing a hat that hid most of his hair, but it obviously needed a cut. He hadn’t shaved and, to his chagrin, there was a love bruise under his right ear that Garth Whitelaw couldn’t miss. Sam braced his elbows on the bar and ordered himself a cup of coffee from the waitress and proprietor of the café, Ida Mae Cooper.

The conversation at the bar had stopped. He let his
eyes slide over three of the ranchers, daring any one of them to say anything. They each found something of interest to occupy themselves and avoided meeting his glance. When his green eyes met Garth’s stony gray ones, he let his contempt show on his face.

“Offering some more good advice this morning?” Sam taunted. “You men might want to take what Garth Whitelaw says with a grain of salt. He tends to change the truth to fit his purpose.”

There was an ominous silence as the men at the bar absorbed the insult.

Garth stiffened. He set down his cup of coffee and turned to Sam. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“If the shoe fits…”

Ida Mae sloshed some coffee into Garth’s cup. “Don’t want no fightin’ in here, boys.” Nobody could remember when Ida Mae hadn’t been running the coffee shop. She had grown up on a ranch in the area, so she knew how to handle a rowdy crowd. Not that things got rowdy much these days. Only, Ida Mae could see that Sam had coming looking for trouble, and she knew for a fact that Garth was more than willing to give it to him.

“Why aren’t you home with your wife?” Garth demanded.

A sneer cut across Sam’s face. “I left her asleep in bed. She was plumb wore out.”

“That’s no way to talk about my daughter,” Garth warned. “Or your wife, for that matter.”

Sam was too intent on hurting Garth to care that he was acting in a manner that was totally alien to him. He would have killed any other man who spoke such a slur against his wife. But Callen wasn’t just his wife, she was also Garth Whitelaw’s daughter. She was part and
parcel of his revenge. He was here to hurt Garth Whitelaw, not to protect his wife’s name.

“I just thought you’d like to know I’ll be going to the bank today to take care of my back mortgage payments,” he said.

Garth’s eyes narrowed.

“Can you believe it? Callen offered me her fortune,” Sam said with a snide grin intended to raise the hair on Garth’s neck.

“Why, you—” Garth started to rise, but was stopped by Sam’s wagging finger.

“Uh-uh,” Sam cautioned. “Ida Mae wouldn’t like it if you messed up her place.” He leaned closer and said in a voice not intended to be heard by the other men, “The Double L is lost to you, Whitelaw. Soon, your daughter will be, too.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Garth shot back.

“Just remember what I said, Whitelaw.” He rose, and Garth reached out to grab his arm. He yanked it free. “Stay away from me and my wife, do you hear?”

“I’ll see my daughter—”

“She’s not your daughter anymore,” Sam said. “She’s
my
wife. Stay away from the Double L, and leave Callen alone.”

“If this is about E.J.—”

“You’re damn straight it’s about E.J.,” Sam said, his face contorted in fury. “I want you to know what it feels like to lose someone you love and know they’re gone forever.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Garth demanded. “I had nothing to do with E.J.’s death.”

“Nothing anyone can prove,” Sam agreed. “But I know the truth. And so do you.”

Garth shook his head in frustration and disbelief. “You’re wrong, Sam.”

“Just don’t plan on seeing Callen again,” Sam said baldly.

“I’ll see my daughter when and where I choose.”

“Not if I say no. I have some influence with my wife. She won’t be working for you anymore, just so we have that straight.”

Garth heaved a frustrated sigh. “I’m telling you again, I’m not responsible for what happened to E.J.” He paused before adding sardonically, “And my daughter, as you will soon discover, is a woman with a mind of her own.”

Sam already had some inkling of that, but he was determined to keep Callen so busy she wouldn’t have time to miss her job—or see her father, even if she wanted to. “Just stay away from her,” Sam repeated. “She’s dead to you.”

Sam whirled on his booted heel and stalked out of the café. When he reached the covered wooden porch outside the Stanton Hotel, he took a deep breath and let it out. He was not normally a vindictive man, and the outpouring of rage he had felt toward Garth Whitelaw had left him feeling drained. It was two hours before the bank opened, and he had just walked out of the best place in town for breakfast.

He thought of going home, and an image rose before him of Callen lying tangled in the sheets on his bed. Hell, he’d just go on home and get back in bed with her. There was plenty of time to come back into town later and pay the banker. He had accomplished what he’d set out to do. There was no reason why he couldn’t go home and enjoy his wife…while she still was his wife.

T
HE FIRST TIME
C
ALLEN’S MOTHER
called to invite the newlyweds to dinner, Callen accepted on the spot. She had been spending all her time fixing up the house, waiting to see if her father would relent and ask her to come back to work at Hawk’s Way. So far, he hadn’t budged an inch.

“Of course, we’ll come, Mom,” she said. “What time? We’ll be there. Sam? Oh, I’m sure he’ll be free. Don’t worry, Mom. We’re both looking forward to it.” She had laughed at the cautious note in her mother’s voice. Maybe her wedding hadn’t been auspicious, but her marriage was everything she had dreamed it could be.

She was astonished, therefore, when Sam informed her he had made plans to take her out that evening.

“I was hoping to surprise you.” He had a sort of sheepish look on his face that melted her heart.

“I wouldn’t spoil your plans for the world,” Callen said. After all, she didn’t want to discourage any romantic notions Sam might have in the future. “I guess I’m not used to being married,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I’ll have to get used to asking first before I make arrangements that include both of us.”

Callen had called her mother with their regrets. The next time her mother called, about two weeks later,
Callen said, “I’ll have to check with Sam. Can I call you back later tonight?”

She had brought up the subject at dinner. Sam paused only hesitantly before he said, “Sunday dinner? I don’t know why not. Sure, tell them we’ll come.”

Callen gave him a big kiss. “Thanks, Sam. It’ll make my mom so happy. And I know you’ll like my dad, once you get to know him.”

Only, when Sunday came, Sam had an emergency he had to take care of that precluded going to Sunday dinner at Hawk’s Way with Callen. Some fence was down along the south pasture, and his prize bull had wandered onto Abel Johnson’s property. Abel didn’t mind, but Sam hated giving away free stud service on his bull.

“I have to get him back right away,” Sam said apologetically. “We’ll have to have dinner with your folks another time.”

Callen called and apologized to her mother. They set another tentative date for a week later. When the following Sunday came, Sam was sick with the flu. He looked awful, and Callen hadn’t the heart to make him keep the dinner engagement with her parents.

When they had been married for three months, it came as a shock to Callen when she realized that she and Sam had not yet darkened the portals of Hawk’s Way. In fact, she and her parents hadn’t even crossed paths. It was easy to excuse the omission. She and Sam had both been incredibly busy.

Her time had been spent turning Sam’s home—now her home, as well—into a charming, cheerful place by using lots of hard work and secondhand everything. She had managed to recover the couch with an Indian
print in warm Western colors and was amazed at what a little polish had done to the furniture. She had bought paintings over the years, mostly by southwestern artists, which she had hung on the walls.

She discovered gallons of a pale yellow paint in the barn, which Sam confessed he had bought more than a year ago for the house. She took it to the hardware store and had it shaken up, and began painting the outside of the house. To her surprise, when Sam realized what she was doing, he stopped his repairs long enough to share the job with her. When they were done, she had stood arm-in-arm with Sam and admired the house.

“It looks so different!” she exclaimed. “It has a sort of rustic charm—”

“You mean, it doesn’t look like a dump anymore,” Sam interrupted sarcastically.

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” Callen protested. “I only meant that now I can see the care that went into building this place. Someone meant this house to survive for generations.”

“It has. And it will,” Sam said in a determined voice. He was silent for a moment before he said, “Thanks, Callen. I needed to see it like this. Like it can be.”

He had gone back to his work mending the barbed-wire fence. She had refocused her attentions on the interior of the house. She replaced the heavy curtains in the master bedroom with vertical blinds from a discount store so she could still block out the sun during the hottest part of the day but enjoy the sunlight in the early morning and late evening. And she had pulled up the worn linoleum in the kitchen and found a beautiful hardwood floor, which she had refinished.

She spoke often to her mother on the phone, but it
had become almost a reflex to refuse her invitations. There never seemed to be time. Callen wasn’t sure how much of her reluctance to accept her mother’s invitations lately was a result of being busy and how much was the result of her growing awareness that Sam didn’t want to have dinner with her parents.

She wasn’t sure exactly when she had realized there was a problem, but the signs were blatantly evident when she finally did. Sam reacted oddly to the mere mention of her father’s name. Quite simply, his lips went flat and his eyes narrowed and a muscled jerked in his jaw. She could have gone alone to have dinner with her parents, but she didn’t want them to think she and Sam weren’t getting along. Because they were.

In fact, Callen had never been so happy. Sam was a dedicated and inventive lover, and he seemed to appreciate her efforts in the house. He was easy to talk to, and even though he seemed exhausted at the end of each day, he was never too tired to spend time with her. It was an ideal marriage. Except that Sam didn’t seem to want anything to do with her family.

And there was something else. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, except she had noticed a certain reticence in Sam whenever she tried to make plans for the future, plans that included children. He said he had enough to worry about just solving day-to-day problems. He couldn’t think about a family right now. And he was right. Still, it would have been nice to dream with him.

As much as it pained her to admit it, maybe Zach had been right about Sam lacking dreams and goals. For some reason Sam didn’t want to think about the future. She didn’t doubt that he loved her, even though he had never said the words. But she had become more and
more certain over the past three months that he was hiding something from her. She was afraid to ask him about it, afraid to burst the bubble of happiness that surrounded her marriage.

Finally, she couldn’t help herself. One night after supper, she blurted, “What’s wrong, Sam? Why don’t you want to have dinner with my family?”

He hesitated so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. When he did respond, he said merely, “You know how busy the past few months have been for both of us.”

But she wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “Did my father say something to you…I mean, before the wedding?” Callen held her breath. She couldn’t believe her father would have had the nerve to approach Sam and offer him money to call off the wedding, as he had done with her two previous fiancés. But she could think of no other reason for Sam to dislike her father so vehemently. If anything, Callen would have expected Sam to despise Zach. After all, Zach was the one who had confronted Sam at their wedding. But Sam’s anger didn’t seem to be aimed in that direction.

The longer Sam hesitated, the more frightened she became that her father had offered him money. Suddenly she didn’t want to know. “Forget I asked,” she said, rising abruptly and heading for the kitchen sink with a stack of dishes.

Sam followed her and wrapped his arms around her from behind. He nuzzled her nape as he said, “What brought all this on?”

She sighed. “You keep avoiding any contact with my parents. I wondered why.”

“It’s very simple, Callen,” he said in a quiet voice. “I want you all to myself.”

She was afraid to believe him because it sounded so romantic and made her fears seem ridiculous. “That’s all?” she asked. “Nothing else? What about my father? Do you—”

“Let’s not talk about your father. Right now, I just want to make love to my wife.”

He swept her into his arms, making her laugh at his impulsiveness. A moment later his mouth caught hers in a searing kiss, and then it was too late for thinking. She decided to let the future take care of itself. She was too busy loving Sam to worry about it.

Later, lying in bed beside his sleeping wife, Sam wondered how much longer he could manage to keep Callen separated from her father. It had been an exhausting exercise to keep an eye on Garth’s movements and make sure Callen was away from the house whenever he visited. He had come twice to the Double L. Both times Sam had taken pleasure in sending him away without seeing his daughter.

“Where’s Callen?” Garth had demanded the second time.

“In town shopping.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Sam had made an open gesture with his hand, inviting Garth inside. To his surprise, the older man hadn’t taken him at his word, shoved open the kitchen door and stalked inside.

“Callen? Are you here?” His call remained unanswered.

Sam could see Garth was surprised by the look of the place. Garth had visited E.J. often enough to know how
they had lived. So he had to be aware of all the changes Callen had made. Even though Sam wasn’t personally responsible, he felt proud of what Callen had accomplished. He had been amazed himself at the changes his wife had wrought. Quite simply, she had made his house a home.

It wasn’t just the southwestern landscapes on the wall, or the lack of dust and cobwebs, or the shine on the furniture. It was the way she had rearranged the furniture so they could sit in front of the fire together. The way she made him comfortable in a chair before dropping to the floor in front of him and crossing her arms on his knees and resting her chin there while she talked animatedly about her day. The way fresh flowers found their way inside, along with sunlight and the evening zephyrs.

He wondered what Garth thought of all the changes. But he didn’t ask. Instead, he said, “I told you she wasn’t here.”

“You can’t keep her away from me indefinitely,” Garth replied. “If this continues much longer, I’ll just tell her what you’re doing.”

“Then I’d have to tell her why I don’t want to see you. How you tried to bribe me out of marrying her.” Sam relished the pinched look on Garth’s face. He had the man where he wanted him. “Go away, old man. Your daughter is lost to you. Just like my father is lost to me. I hope you suffer, the way I’ve suffered.”

Garth’s face had whitened, the grooves around his mouth had deepened. But he hadn’t argued, hadn’t tried to defend himself again. He had simply left.

When Sam had found himself confronted by Callen this evening, he had considered telling her about the offer of money her father had made to him. That surely
would have worked to alienate the two of them. But he had decided it wasn’t necessary to hurt her that way. She would be hurt enough when she learned the real reason why he had married her.

Sam slipped an arm around Callen’s waist and spooned her into his groin. He felt contented. Almost happy. Except that he knew all this was temporary. So there was a bittersweet quality to his life that made his chest ache and his throat swell. He wondered how long all the changes Callen had wrought in his life would last.

His personal life had undergone as many changes as his house over the three months of his marriage. Faced by Callen’s boundless energy, Sam had found himself roused from a lethargy he hadn’t realized had hold of him. At least he was sleeping at night, which made it easier to face a dawn that came too early, in his opinion. Sam hadn’t even realized how lonely his life had been, until Callen filled his evenings with talk of her plans for the future.

He has no dreams, no goals
.

Zach’s words had come back to haunt Sam often in the first months of his marriage, and he had been forced to acknowledge the truth of them. There had been a time, long ago, when he had dreamed big dreams. He had imagined himself escaping the loneliness of his life at the Double L by playing football for a pro team, traveling and meeting fancy women and living the high life. He had been fast on his feet and determined to succeed.

But that dream had been blown away with the cartilage in his right knee. He hadn’t been a good student and going to college for the sake of an education—
rather than to play football—hadn’t appealed to him. After high school he had returned to what he knew—ranching.

He was a good rancher; he understood his business. But with a whirlwind like Callen around, Sam realized just how slow-paced his life with E.J. had become. It wasn’t a matter of being lazy, exactly. He’d simply had no reason to work harder. He and E.J. had always had enough for their needs, and their needs had been simple.

All that had suddenly changed with E.J’s death. Callen was a big part of Sam’s reawakening. He couldn’t imagine himself lingering in bed after she was up and working. But even if he hadn’t married Callen, his life had been changed forever by E.J.’s suicide. He had been jolted out of his lethargy by the knowledge of how near he had come to losing the Double L. The last-minute rescue provided by Callen’s fortune had made him realize he didn’t want to live so close to the edge. If that meant working harder, then he would work harder.

Sam smiled wryly. The fact of the matter was, it had been necessary to work harder simply to get back to where he and E.J. had been before E.J. lost his shirt to the various swindles he had invested in. Thanks to Garth Whitelaw. Although Sam still had possession of the Double L, it was a long way from being a successful enterprise. He had begun to think and plan what he could do to make the ranch more economically sound.

He had shared his ideas with Callen at first simply because she seemed to expect him to converse with her in the evenings when they sat in front of the fireplace. He wasn’t really good at making small talk, so he had hesitantly revealed his idea to start training cutting
horses. He was damn near as good with horses as Callen, and it gave the ranch another source of income besides beef cattle.

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Callen had enthused. Her eyes had twinkled with mischief when she said, “I’ll just recommend
you
to my friends who want their horses trained, instead of Daddy.”