Hawk's Way: Rebels (13 page)

She had suspected why Harvey had asked her out, but she hadn’t cared. She had just been so glad to be asked, she had accepted his invitation on the spot.

“Why would you want to go out with a guy who’s so full of himself?” Mac asked after she introduced him to Harvey. “I’d be glad to take you.” As he had previously, every year he’d been at Hawk’s Pride.

“I might as well go with one of my brothers as go
with you,” she replied. “Harvey’s cool. He’s a hunk. He’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the message,” he said, then teased in a singsong voice, “Pearl’s got a boy friend, Pearl’s got a boy friend.”

She aimed a playful fist at his stomach to shut him up, but the truth was, she was hoping the picnic date with Harvey, their first, would lead to a steady relationship.

Mac caught her wrist to protect his belly and said, “All right, go with Harvey Barnes and have a good time. Forget all about me—”

Jewel laughed and said, “That mournful face isn’t going to make any difference. I’m still going with Harvey. I’ll see you at the picnic. We just won’t spend as much time together.”

Mac looked down at her, his brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to say something and shut it again.

“What is it?” she asked, seeing how troubled he looked.

“Just don’t let him… If he does anything… If you think he’s going to…”

“What?” she asked in exasperation.

He let go of her hands to shove both of his through his hair. “If you need help, just yell, and I’ll be there.”

He had already turned to walk away when she grabbed his arm and turned him back around. “What is it you think Harvey’s going to do to me that’s so terrible?”

“He’s going to want to kiss you,” Mac said.

“I want to kiss him back. So what’s the problem?”

“Kissing’s not the problem,” Mac pointed out. “It’s what comes after that. The touching and…and the rest.
Some times it’s not easy for a guy to stop. Not that I’m saying he’d try anything on a first date, but some guys… And with a body like yours…”

Her face felt heated from all the blood rushing to it. Over the years they had managed not to talk seriously about such intimate subjects. Mac never brought them up except in fun, and until recently she hadn’t been that interested in boys. She searched his face and found he looked as confused and awkward discussing the subject as she felt.

“How would you know?” she asked. “I mean, about it being hard to stop. Have you done it with Lou?”

His flush deepened. “You know I wouldn’t tell you that, even if I had.”

“Have you?” she persisted.

He tousled her hair like a brother and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

In the days before the picnic, Mac teased her mercilessly about her plan to wear a dress, since she only wore jeans and a T-shirt around the ranch.

Her eldest sister, Rolleen, had agreed to make a pink gingham dress for her, copying a spaghetti-strapped dress pattern that Jewel loved, but which she couldn’t wear because her large breasts needed the support of a heavy-duty bra. Rolleen created essentially the same fitted-bodice, bare-shouldered, full-skirted dress, but made the shoulder straps an inch wide so they would hide her bra straps.

On the day of the picnic, Jewel donned the dress and tied up her shoulder-length hair in a ponytail with a pink gingham bow. Her newest Whitelaw sibling, fifteen-year-old Cherry, insisted that she needed pink lipstick
on her lips, which Cherry applied for her with the expertise of one who had been wearing lipstick since she was twelve.

Then Jewel headed out the kitchen door to find Mac, who was driving her to the picnic grounds to meet Harvey.

“Wow!” Mac said when he saw her. “Wow!”

Jewel found it hard to believe the admiration she saw in Mac’s eyes. She had long ago accepted the fact she wasn’t pretty. She had sun-streaked brown hair and plain brown eyes and extraordinarily ordinary features. Her body was fit and healthy, but faint, crisscrossing scars laced her face, and she had a distinctive permanent limp.

The look in Mac’s eyes made her feel radiantly beautiful.

She held out the gingham dress and twirled around for him. “Do you think Harvey will like it?”

“Harvey’s gonna love it!” he assured her. “You look good enough to eat. I hope this Harvey character knows how lucky he is.” The furrow reappeared on his brow. “He better not—”

She put a finger on the wrinkles in his forehead to smooth them out. “You worry too much, Mac. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Looking back now, Jewel wished she had listened to Mac. She wished she hadn’t tried to look so pretty for Harvey Barnes. She wished…

Jewel had gotten counseling in college to help her deal with what had happened that day. The counselor had urged her to tell her parents, and when she had met
Jerry Cain and fallen in love with him her junior year at Baylor, the counselor had urged her to tell Jerry, too.

She just couldn’t.

Jerry had been a graduate student, years older than she was, and more mature than the other college boys she had met. He had figured out right away that she was self-conscious about the size of her breasts, and it was his consideration for her feelings that had first attracted her to him. It had been easy to fall in love with him. It had been more difficult—impossible—to trust him with her secret.

Jerry had been more patient with her than she had any right to expect. She had loved kissing him. Been more anxious—but finally accepting—of his caresses. They were engaged before he pressed her to sleep with him. They had already sent out the wedding invitations by the time she did.

It had been a disaster.

They had called off the wedding.

That was a year ago. Jewel had decided that if she couldn’t marry and have kids of her own, she could at least work with children who needed her.

So she had come back to Camp Little Hawk.

“Hey. You look like you’re a million miles away.”

Jewel glanced around and realized she could hardly see the white adobe ranch buildings, they had walked so far. “Oh. I was thinking.”

“To tell you the truth, I enjoyed the quiet company.” Sweat beaded Mac’s forehead and his upper lip. He winced every time he took a step.

“Haven’t we gone far enough?” she asked.

“The doctor said I can do as much as I can stand.”

“You look like you’re there already,” she said.

“Just a little bit farther.”

That attitude explained why Mac had become the best at what he did, but Jewel worried about him all the same. “Just don’t expect me to carry you back,” she joked.

Mac shot her one of his dimpled smiles and said, “Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself lately.”

“I’ve been figuring out the daily schedule for Camp Little Hawk.”

“Need any help?”

She gave him a surprised look. “I’d love some. Do you have the time?”

He shrugged. “Don’t have anything else planned. What kinds of things are you having the kids do these days?”

She told him, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. “Horse back riding, picnics and hayrides, of course. And handicrafts, naturally.

“But I’ve come up with something really exciting this year. We’re going to have art sessions at the site of those primitive drawings on the canyon wall here at Hawk’s Pride. Once the kids have copied down all the various symbols, we’re going to send them off to an archaeologist at the state university for interpretation.

“When her findings are available, I’ll forward a copy of them to the kids, wherever they are. It’ll remind them what fun they had at camp even after they’ve gone.”

“And maybe take their minds off their illness, if they’re back in the hospital,” Mac noted quietly.

Jewel sat silently watching Mac stare into the distance and knew he was remembering how it had been in the
beginning, how they had provided solace to each other, a needed word of encouragement and a shoulder to lean on. She knew he had come back because she was here, a friend when he needed one.

“I can remember being fascinated by those drawings myself as a kid,” Mac mused.

“Didn’t you want to be an archaeologist once upon a time?”

“Paleontologist,” he corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

“An archaeologist studies the past by looking at what people have left behind. A paleontologist studies fossils to recreate a picture of life in the past.”

“What happened to those plans?” she asked.

“It got harder and harder to focus on the past when I realized I was going to have a future.”

“What college degree did you finally end up getting?”

He laughed self-consciously. “Business. I figured I’d need to know how to handle all the money I’d make playing football.”

But his career had been cut short.

He turned abruptly and headed back toward the ranch without another word to her.

Jewel figured the distance they had come at about a mile. She looked at her watch. Six-thirty. Not very far or very fast for a man who depended on his speed for a living.

About a quarter of a mile from the house, Mac was using his hand to help move his left leg. Jewel stepped to his side and slipped her arm around his waist to help support his weight.

“Don’t argue,” she said, when he opened his mouth to protest. “If you want my company, you have to take the concern that comes along with it.”

“Thanks, Opal,” he said.

“Think nothing of it, Pete.”

She hadn’t called him Pete since he had started high school and acquired the nickname “Mac” from his football team mates. It brought back memories of better times for both of them. They were content to walk in silence the rest of the way back to the house.

Jewel had for got ten how good it felt to have a friend with whom you could communicate without saying a word. She knew what Mac was feeling right now as though he had spoken the words aloud. She under stood his frustration. And his fear. She empathized with his drive to succeed, despite the obstacles he had to overcome. She under stood his reluctance to accept her help and his willingness to do so.

It was as though the intervening years had never been.

Except, something else had been added to the mix between them. Some thing unexpected. Some thing as unwelcome as it was undeniable.

No
friend
should have felt the frisson of excitement Jewel had felt with her body snuggled up next to Mac’s. No
friend
should have gotten the chill she got down her spine when Mac’s warm breath feathered over her temple. No
friend’s
heart would have started beating faster, as hers had, when Mac’s arm circled her waist in return, his fingers closing on her flesh beneath the sweat shirt.

She would have to hide what she felt from him. Oth
erwise it would spoil everything. Friend ship had always been enough in the past. Because of what had happened, because she was in no position to ask for—or accept—more, friend ship was all they could ever have between them now.

As they reached the kitchen door, she smiled up at Mac, and he smiled back.

“Home again, home again, jiggety jog,” she said.

“Same time tomorrow?”

She started to refuse. It would be easier if she kept her distance from him. But it was foolish to deny herself his friend ship because she felt more than that for him.

She gave him a cheery smile and said, “Sure. Same time tomorrow.” She breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to face him again for twenty-four hours.

“As soon as I shower, we can go to work planning all those activities for the kids,” he said.

Jewel gave him a startled look.

“Changed your mind about wanting my help?”

She had for got ten all about it. “No. I…uh…”

He tousled her hair. “You can make up your mind while I shower. I’ll be here if you need me.”

A moment later he had disappeared into the house. It was only then she realized he was going to use up all the hot water.

“Hey!” she yelled, yanking the screen door open to follow after him. “I get the shower first!”

He leaned his head out of the bathroom door. She saw a length of naked flank and stopped in her tracks.

“You can have it first tomorrow,” he said. His eyes twinkled as he added, “Unless you’d like to share?”

She put her hand flat on his bare chest, feeling the crisp, sweat-dampened curls under her palm, and shoved him back inside. “Go get cleaned up, stinky,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “We’ve got work to do.”

He saluted her and stepped back inside.

It was the right response. Just enough teasing and playful camaraderie to disguise her shiver of delight—and the sudden quiver of fear—at being invited to share Mac’s shower.

“W
OW
! M
AC
M
ACREADY IN THE FLESH
!”

Mac felt embarrassed and humbled at the look of admiration—almost adulation—in Colt Whitelaw’s eyes. Mac had just shoved open the kitchen screen door to admire the sunrise on his third day at Hawk’s Pride when he encountered Jewel’s fourteen-year-old brother on the back steps. He had known the boy since Colt came to the Whitelaw house hold as an infant, the only one of the eight Whitelaw kids who had known no other parents than Zach and Rebecca. “Hi there, kid.”

Colt was wearing a white T-shirt cut off at the waist to expose his concave belly and ribs and with the arms ripped out to reveal sinewy biceps. Levi’s covered his long, lanky legs. He was tossing a football from hand to hand as he shifted from foot to booted foot. With the soft black down of adolescence growing on his upper lip, he looked every bit the eager and excited teenager he was.

“Mom said you were coming, but I didn’t really believe her. I mean, now that you’re famous and all, I didn’t think you’d ever come back here. I wanted to come over as soon as you got here, but Mom said you needed time to settle in without all of us bothering you, so I stayed away a whole extra day. I’m not bothering you, am I?”

Mac resisted the urge to ruffle Colt’s shaggy, shoulder-
length black hair. The kid wouldn’t appreciate it. Mac knew from his own experience that a boy of fourteen considered himself pretty much grown up. Colt was six feet tall, but his shoulders were still almost as narrow as his hips. His blue eyes were filled with wonder and hope, without the cynicism and disappointment that appeared as you grew older and learned that life threw a lot of uncatchable balls your way.

“Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself,” Mac invited. He eased himself into one of the two slatted white wooden chairs situated on the flagstone patio at the back of the cottage. Colt perched on the wide arm of the other chair.

The patio was arbored, and purple bougainvillea woven within a white lattice frame work provided shade to keep the early morning sun off their heads and a pleasant floral fragrance.

Mac was aware of Colt’s scrutiny as he gently picked up his wounded leg and set the ankle on the opposite knee. When he was done, he laid his cane down on the flag stone and leaned back com fort ably in the chair.

“I was watching the game on TV when your leg got busted,” Colt said. “It looked pretty bad.”

“It was,” Mac agreed.

“I heard them say you’d never walk again,” Colt blurted.

Mac managed a smile. “Looks like they were wrong.”

“When you didn’t come back after a whole year, they said you’d never play football again.”

“It’s taken me a while to get back on my feet, but I expect to be back on the football field in the fall as good as new and better than ever.”

“Really?” Colt asked.

Mac was fresh out of the shower after his second morning of walking with Jewel, and wished now he had put on jeans and boots instead of shorts and Nikes. The kid was gawking at his scarred leg like he was a mutant from the latest horror movie.

Mac figured it was time to change the subject, or he’d end up crying his woes to the teenager. He gestured to the football in Colt’s hands and said, “Are you on the football team at school?”

Colt made a disparaging face and mumbled, “Yeah. I’m the quarter back.”

Most boys, especially in Texas, would have been ecstatic at the thought of being quarter back. “It sounds as if you don’t care much for football.”

“It’s all right. It’s just…” Colt slid off the arm backward into the slatted wooden chair, with his legs dangling over the arm, the football cradled in the notch of his elbow. “Did you always know what you wanted to do with your life?”

Mac nodded. He had always known he wanted to play football. He just hadn’t been sure his body would give him the chance. “How about you?”

“I know exactly what I want to do,” Colt said. “I just don’t think I’m going to get the chance to do it.”

“Why not?”

“Dad expects me to stay here and be a rancher.”

“Is that so bad?”

“It is when I’d rather be doing something else.”

Mac stared at Colt’s troubled face. “Anything you’d like to talk about?”

Colt shrugged. “Naw. I guess not.” He settled his feet
on the ground and rose with an ease that Mac envied. “Guess I’d better get going. Now that school’s out for the summer, I’ve got a lot of chores to do.”

Mac turned his eyes in the direction of the squealing windmill.

Colt laughed. “I’ll get to it right away. Hope it hasn’t been keeping you awake.”

“I’ve slept fine.” Like the dead. He had slept straight through the afternoon and evening of his first day here, and yesterday he had been exhausted after a day spent mostly sitting down, working out a crafts program for the camp with Jewel. He knew his body needed rest to heal, but he was tired of being tired. He wanted to be well again.

Colt began loping away, then suddenly turned and threw the football in Mac’s direction. Instinctively, Mac reached out to catch it. His fingertips settled on the well-thrown ball with remembered ease, and he drew it in.

Colt came loping back, a wide grin split ting his face. “Guess you haven’t lost your touch.” He held out his hand for the ball.

Mac looked up at the kid, an idea forming in his head. “How would you like to throw a few to me over the next couple of weeks, after I get a little more mobile?”

Colt’s eyes went wide with wonder. “You mean it? Really? Hot damn, that would be great! I mean, golly, that would be great!” he quickly corrected himself, looking over his shoulder to see if any of his family had heard him. “Just say when and where.”

“Let’s say two weeks from today,” Mac said. “I’ll come and find you.”

Colt eyed Mac’s injured leg. “Are you sure—”

“Two weeks,” Mac said certainly.

Colt grinned. “You got it.” He took the ball and sauntered off toward the barn.

Mac let out a deep sigh. He had given himself two weeks to get back enough mobility to be able to run for a pass, when it was taking him thirty minutes to walk a mile.

He turned as he heard the screen door slam and saw Jewel. She was just out of the shower, having been second again this morning, since she had gotten a phone call the instant they came back in the door from their walk. She must have blown her hair dry, because it looked shiny and soft enough for him to want to put his hands in it.

The only time he had ever touched her hair in the past was to tousle it like an older brother or tug on her ponytail. He couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to have all that long, silky hair draped over his body.

Mac turned away.
This is Jewel. Your best friend. You’d better get laid soon, old buddy. You’re starting to have really weird fantasies.

She was wearing jeans and boots and a long-sleeved man’s button-down, oxford-cloth shirt turned up at the cuffs with the tails hanging out. He wondered if the shirt had belonged to her fiancé and felt jealous of the man. Which was stupid, because Mac and Jewel had never been lovers.

Would you like to be?

He forced his mind away from that insidious thought. It would mess up everything if he made a move on his
best friend. He needed Jewel’s friend ship too much to spoil things that way.

The shirt was big and blousy on her, and she wore her hair pulled over her shoulders in front to hide whatever there might have been left to see of her figure, which wasn’t much.

He started to say “You look great!” and bit his tongue. It sounded too much like something a man might say to a woman he wanted to impress. “Hi,” he said instead. “Hope you had enough hot water.”

“Barely. I made it a quick shower. I’m definitely first tomorrow.” She took the seat next to him, leaned back and inhaled a breath of flower-scented air that made her breasts rise under the shirt. The sight took his breath away.

Whenever he had thought about Jewel in the years they had been apart, it was her laughter he had remembered. The way her eyes crinkled at the corners and her lips curved, revealing even white teeth, and how the sound would kind of bubble up out of her, as effervescent as spark ling water.

He couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t remembered her breasts. He could see why a man might stare. Had they been that large six years ago? They must have been, or close to it, because he had joked with her about them a lot, he remembered. And she had laughed in response, that effervescent, spark ling laugh.

He realized he hadn’t heard her laugh once since he had arrived. She had smiled, but her eyes had never joined her mouth. A sadness lingered, memories of more than uncatchable balls. More like forfeited games.

“Who was that on the phone?” he asked.

“Mrs. Templeton. Her eight-year-old son, Brad, is supposed to be a camper during the first two-week session, but he was having second thoughts about coming.”

“Why?”

“She’s not really sure. He was excited at first when his parents suggested the camp. She wanted me to talk to him.”

“Were you able to change his mind?”

Her lips curved. “Brad’s an avid football fan. I mentioned you were here—”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Mac said brusquely.

She looked as if he’d kicked her in the stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d mind. You always seemed to like spending time with the kids.”

He made a face. “It isn’t that I mind spending time with them. It’s just—” He didn’t want them to see him hobbling around with a cane. He didn’t want them feeling sorry for him. He didn’t want to be asked a lot of questions for which he had no answers.

He would know in the next few weeks whether his leg was going to stand up to the rigors of running. He wanted time by himself to deal with his disappointment—if that was what it turned out to be. He wanted to be able to rage against fate without worrying about some sick kid’s feelings.

“I’m sorry, Mac,” Jewel said, reaching out to lay her hand on his forearm.

The hairs on his arms prickled at her touch, and his body responded in a way that both surprised and disturbed him. He resisted the urge to jerk his hand away. That would only hurt her again.

This is Jewel. My friend. There’s nothing sexual intended by her touch.

Jewel might be his friend, but his body also recognized her as female. This sort of thing—unwanted arousal—had happened once or twice when they were teenagers, and she had touched him at an odd moment when he wasn’t expecting it, but he had always attributed those incidents to randy teenage hormones. That excuse wouldn’t work now.

All right, so she was an attractive woman.

That excuse wouldn’t work either. Jewel wasn’t pretty. Never had been. Her nose was straight and small, her chin was square, her mouth was a bit too big and her eyes were Mississippi-mud brown. Ordinary features all. She did have an extraordinary body. Her long legs, small waist and ample breasts were the stuff of male dreams. But Mac was offended on Jewel’s behalf to think that any man could want her because of her body and not because of who she was inside.

So, it’s her mind you find attractive?

As a teenager, he had liked her sense of humor, her enthusiasm for life and her willingness to reach out to others. He hadn’t seen much of the first two traits this time around, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a continued willingness to reach out to others that had made her return to Camp Little Hawk or, as he suspected, a desire to retreat from the world.

Mac had no explanation for his response to Jewel except that he had been celibate for too long. What had happened when Jewel touched him was merely the healthy response of a male animal to a female of the species. The problem would be solved when he found
himself a woman and satisfied the simple physiological need that had been too long denied. Which meant he had better make a trip into town sometime soon and find a willing woman.

“Do you want me to call the Templetons back and tell them your plans have changed and you won’t be here, after all?” Jewel asked.

He shook his head. “I guess it won’t hurt me to be nice to one little boy.”

“If you’d rather not—”

“I said I would.” He slid his leg off his knee and reached for his cane. “It’s not that big a deal, Jewel.”

She rose and reached for his arm to help him up.

He jerked away. “I’m not an invalid. I wish you’d stop trying to help me.”

He saw the hurt look on her face, but that was better than having her know the sharp sexual response her touch had provoked. That would ruin everything. Better to have her think he was in a lousy mood than find out that he wanted to suck on her breasts or put his hand between her legs and seek the damp heat there.

“I’m going in to town today,” he said, realizing he’d better get away for a while and cool down.

“Perfect! I need somethings from the hardware store. Could you give me a lift?”

Thank God she wasn’t looking at him, or she would have known something was wrong. He opened his mouth to refuse and said, “Sure. Why not? Give me a chance to change into a shirt and jeans and some boots first.”

She gave him a blazing smile that made his groin pull up tight. Hell. He’d better find himself a woman. And soon.

N
O DOUBT ABOUT IT
, J
EWEL THOUGHT.
Mac had been acting strange all day. Every errand he had run had taken him to the opposite end of town from her. Although they had made plans to meet for lunch at the Stanton Hotel Café, he hadn’t arrived until she was nearly finished eating. She was sitting on one of the 1950’s chrome seats at the lunch counter when he finally showed up, grabbed a cup of coffee, said he wasn’t hungry, remembered something else he had to do in town and took off again.

If Jewel hadn’t known better, she would have said he didn’t want to be anywhere near her. But that was silly. They were best friends.

They had agreed to meet in the parking lot near the bank at four o’clock where Mac had parked his extended cab Chevy pickup and head back to Hawk’s Pride. Jewel was sitting on the fender of the truck when Mac finally returned.