Heart of the Hawk (23 page)

“And someday, someone will beat me.”

Luke shook his head vehemently. “Not you. Not ever. You’re The Hawk.”

Josh reached out and grasped the boy’s shoulders. “Everybody dies, Luke, and gunfighters sooner than most. Someday, somebody will come along who’s faster, a better shot, or who gets the drop on me. Or I’ll get careless—”

“No!” Luke jumped down from the counter, dodging away. “No, not ever,” he cried out again, backing up as he stared at Josh, wild-eyed.

The boy stumbled over something on the floor behind him. Arms flailing, he struggled for balance, and before Josh could reach him, went down in a heap. Angry and embarrassed, the boy kicked out at the object that had caused his fall. Then he stopped as if frozen, staring at the floor.

Josh knelt beside the boy, fearing he’d hurt himself, although it had looked like a harmless enough tumble. But the way he was sitting so still, as if he were afraid to move, just staring at—

Josh’s breath caught as he at last saw what it was that Luke was staring at. It lay on the floor beside his bedroll, where it had skittered away when Luke had kicked it. It looked as it had always looked. As if it had never been gone. As if it had never been touched.

As if he’d never consigned it to the stove’s flames and stood there and watched it burn.

The Hawk book.

KATE HELD THE book gingerly in her lap. Luke had nearly run her down as she’d come in the kitchen door, clearly frightened by the sight of the book all of them had seen go up in smoke, and frantic to get away from it. Josh was sitting on a chair beside her, elbows on his knees, looking at it as if he wanted to run away like the boy had. She wasn’t at all sure she didn’t want to do just that herself.

And none of them had had the courage to look inside it. She wasn’t even sure she liked holding it. She’d wished for something to distract her from the predicament she was in, from Arly’s final betrayal to Alex’s astonishing proposal. It appeared that wish had been answered.

Wish away, lawyer. Just think real hard before you do, in case you get it.

Josh’s words to Alex echoed in her mind. She should have heeded that warning herself. She’d hardly been prepared for the incredible story Josh had told her, of this book and its connection to his family, and how the stories he’d grown up with had told of its appearance to each of the Hawks who were the last of the line. It had been frightening enough to see the changes inside the book, and she’d been fighting not to remember Josh’s insinuation that the woman mentioned had to be her when she knew it couldn’t be, for the very simple reason that she could not have the children the book foretold. But this . . . this was beyond even frightening.

“How can this be?” she finally asked, not even caring about the thinness of her voice.

“I don’t know.”

“But you . . . burned it.”

Josh’s expression tightened. “Do you think I don’t remember?”

“No, but . . . we saw it happen.”

“I know. I watched it. I smelled the leather burning. I saw the pages curl, then turn black and crumble. It burned. I know damned well it burned.”

She didn’t even cringe at the curse; Lord knew she’d heard worse from Arly, with far less provocation. “Then how—”

He jumped to his feet. “I don’t know!”

She gave a little start, her fingers tightening around the book involuntarily. Josh let out a harsh breath. He raised a hand and ran it through his hair. Kate found her fingers curling for a different reason, as she wondered what it felt like, that long, dark, thick mane, which reminded her in turn of the way he’d threaded his fingers through her hair when he’d kissed her last night. . . .

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s all right. You certainly have reason enough to be . . . edgy.”

“That’s no excuse for yelling at you,” he said, looking at the book rather than her as he spoke. “You’ve had enough of that in your life.”

His empathetic words, even delivered in such an offhand manner, tightened her throat, and she felt her eyes brim. His image was blurry as she saw him sit back down. She blinked rapidly, and tried for a lighter tone.

“This part was never in the stories?”

He went very still. Slowly, he lifted his gaze from the book to her face. In his eyes was a distant look, as if he’d focused inward, or on some long-ago or faraway place.

“Yes,” he said finally, very softly. “Yes, it was. Gramps said the legend says . . . the book won’t be left behind. That it can’t be destroyed. That it will always reappear. That it follows the Hawk blood, legitimate or not, and whether it’s welcomed or not.”

She found it hard to believe that anyone would welcome such a thing.

“I suppose, when people believed in witchcraft and such, it might be easier to . . . believe this really happened,” she said slowly, “but welcome it?”

Josh shook his head, his jaw tight, his lips compressed. Then one corner of his mouth tightened. “I hope that boy can keep his mouth shut for once. Reverend Babcock already thinks I’m the devil’s born son. If he hears about this . . .”

Kate shivered.

“That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?” Josh said, sounding on the verge of laughter. “Escape the noose only to wind up . . . what, burned at the stake?”

“Don’t joke about things like that!” Kate exclaimed.

“Honey,” he said softly, the unexpected endearment completely unnerving her, “if I don’t joke about that, then I have to think about what happened with that book, and I don’t have any answers for that.”

It took her a moment, as that sweet word rang in her ears, to compose herself enough to answer him. “Except . . . what your grandfather told you.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s . . .”

“Impossible. Believe me, I know that.”

“But it happened. You burned the book, and now it’s here. As if it had never been even singed.”

“Yes.”

He sounded so strained, Kate thought. And why wouldn’t he? How did one deal with this? It frightened her, and it wasn’t her family that was apparently being haunted by this book, and had been for generations.

It took her a moment to recognize the odd feeling that crept through her then, a sort of longing that weakened the fear’s hold on her. Then she realized it was a wish that she’d come from a family like that, a family with a great sense of its own history, a family that passed that history down from generation to generation, a family which held together despite adversity, a family which would never think of abandoning one of their own to a man such as Arly Dixon. . . .

She felt the intensity of Josh’s eyes on her, felt a tension as if he were waiting, barely breathing, and realized that in her reverie she’d opened the book. She nearly slammed it instantly closed again, certain she didn’t want to know if it had changed once more, as it had practically beneath her fingertips the last time she’d seen it. She’d worked very hard at putting that out of her mind, trying to convince herself she had simply not seen that part of the book before, or had misread it, just as Josh had misinterpreted the part he thought had referred to her. Deep down she’d known it wasn’t true, but she’d had no other explanation for what had happened.

And now? Now she had an explanation, but it was one she couldn’t accept.

“I can’t believe it either, Kate,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “But what other explanation is there? The thing appears out of nowhere. I leave it here, and it shows up in Granite Bluff. The story in it changes right in front of us. And you and Luke both saw me put it in the stove. You know it burned. I know it burned. But here it is.”

“You’re talking about . . . magic.”

Josh sighed tiredly, as if he’d slept as little as she had last night. “I suppose so.”

“I don’t believe in magic.”

“Neither do I.”

She fiddled with the gilt-edged pages of the book, riffling through them with her fingers as if it were just an ordinary volume.

“I don’t believe in magic,” she repeated, “because no one ever wished harder than I did to be saved from my life with Arly. I wished and I prayed every day, and I didn’t care if redemption came from God, or the devil, or . . . or that wizard in this story. I still would have taken it.”

As she mentioned the story, she opened the book to that page, to the picture of Jenna and Kane. And again she felt the tug of longing, to be a part of such a family, to know her ancestors back to, if what this said was right, before history was even written. She wondered if Josh even appreciated what he had, if he—

I didn’t care if redemption came from God, or the devil, or . . . or that wizard in this story. I still would have taken it.

But her redemption hadn’t come from God, or even from the devil. It had come from Josh. Joshua Hawk, one of the Hawks that wizard had blessed. Or cursed, as Josh had ruefully said.

She opened her mouth, once more on the verge of telling him the truth, of ridding herself of the burden of the secret of what she’d done. But another thought stopped her short.

Her redemption had come from Josh. Did that mean the magical intervention she’d wished for had truly happened? Had it not been an accident that The Hawk had come to Gambler’s Notch?

Kate shivered; she was cursed herself if she began to think in such ways.

“I know, Kate,” Josh said. “I feel the same way. It’s impossible, but it’s there, in your hands. How else do you explain it?”

“I can’t.”

She stared down at the book, at the drawing of the woman who had begun it all. A woman. A woman had done this. The thought that it had been a woman who had founded a dynasty that would continue unbroken long, long after her lifetime, made Kate feel oddly proud. And it appeared that none of the Hawks were bothered by this. Josh himself had had nothing less than pure admiration in his voice when he spoke of her.

Only when she turned a page and the long, rapidly expanding family tree of the Hawks began, did she realize that she’d read the entire story of Jenna and her warrior. And Josh had just sat there the entire time, watching her.

“I . . . I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to read it again, but it was just so . . . interesting, and I could read it so easily—”

“Don’t apologize.”

Josh stood up rather abruptly. Leaving the book in her hands, he turned and walked across the kitchen to the storeroom door. He pulled it open, then looked back over his shoulder at her.

“Kate?”

She bit her lip, steadying herself before saying tentatively, “What?”

“Marry your lawyer.”

She stiffened. Pain shot through her, and she fought not to let it show; he’d only kissed her, after all. And a kiss from a man like The Hawk meant little. Especially when given to a woman like her. She didn’t know why he’d done it, only that she would be a fool to believe it held any kind of promise.

Slowly, she rose with all the dignity she could muster. “I married once because I had no choice. I paid for it every single day afterward.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. Hall isn’t like your husband was. Give him a chance.”

It was good advice. She was certain it was. It was only that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, Josh advising her to marry Alex Hall. It took more effort than she cared to admit, but she answered him levelly.

“I will not marry again simply because I’m alone, or because some man happens to . . . pity me.”

Josh looked at her for a long, silent moment. Then he gestured at the book. “Read it,” he said. “Read all of it. Maybe it will . . . help you make up your mind.”

More likely it would drive her out of her mind, Kate thought as he left her alone. But she was drawn to the book as if it were indeed magic. She paged through the pages of slanted lines and carefully printed names, Hawk after Hawk after Hawk. She followed the lines as they narrowed, dwindled, until only one name remained. The last Hawk.

She turned the page. Looking back at her from a drawing just like the one of Jenna and Kane was another couple, this time a tiny, lovely woman standing next to a man whose resemblance to Josh was more than passing. Their story began on the opposite page, and without any thought of putting the book down, she began to read.

She read them all, the stories of all the last Hawks. And each one told of that Hawk fighting against believing in the magic, fighting the reality of the book she held in her hands. And fighting other things as well, she thought; the Hawks seemed to be well represented in whatever war or crusade was happening at the time.

She paused over the story of Matthew Hawk, the first Hawk to come to America. His story was as tragic as the others. His family had died on the long journey, leaving him as the last surviving Hawk. Yet amid the fires of the war for independence, he had found a woman to love—as all the Hawks did, eventually, it seemed—and the Hawk blood had pulsed on.

It was Matthew who had speculated that the book was meant to assure that the last Hawk didn’t give up, that it was a reminder of all the Hawks who had gone before, and who would be forgotten if the family died away. As for the how of the book, Matthew had been as wary and baffled as every other Hawk. Apparently none of the Hawks cared much for the idea that they were touched by magic.

Kate couldn’t believe she’d even thought that with any kind of seriousness. But in each tale of the last Hawk finding his way with the help of the book, she’d read of their disbelief, their skepticism, and oddly, that fellow feeling made her somehow more receptive to the idea.

Smiling at herself, she began to turn the pages again, reading the names of Matthew’s children, their children, and then their children, on and on, as the Hawk family began to grow and expand anew. But this time, the period of peace and growth was shorter than usual, less than a hundred years, and the abruptness of it, when the expanse of names plummeted to two, then one, gave her a feeling of loss as strong as if she carried the name herself.