Hawk's Way Grooms (8 page)

Colt had been pale, but Mac's face was completely drained of blood. His teeth were gritted against the pain, and he was leaning heavily on Huck Duncan's shoulder and favoring his leg. It took her a second to realize it wasn't his poor, wounded and scarred left leg he was favoring, it was the other one. Now both legs were injured!

“What happened?” she asked as she crossed quickly to hold the screen door open for him. As soon as she moved, Colt seemed to wake from his shocked trance and took a place on Mac's other side. The two boys helped him keep his weight off both legs as they eased him through the kitchen and onto the sofa in the living room.

While the boys stood awkwardly at her side, Jewel dropped to her knees and eased Mac's foot up onto a rawhide stool that Grandpa Garth had given her one Christmas, a relic of bygone days at his ranch, Hawk's Way. Then she started untying the laces of Mac's athletic shoe.

“I can do that,” he said, trying to brush her hands away.

“Sure you can, but let me,” she insisted. She eased off the shoe and the sock beneath it and immediately saw the problem. His ankle was swelling. “Can you move it?” she asked.

Slowly, hissing in a breath, he rotated the ankle. “Doesn't feel broken,” he said. “I've had enough sprains to recognize one when I see it. Damn. This is all I needed.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Macready,” Huck said in an anguished voice. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

Mac looked up at the boy and said, “Call me Mac. And it wasn't your fault, Huck. Your tackle wasn't what caused the problem. I just didn't see that gopher hole soon enough.”

Jewel watched him smile at the boy, pretending it was no big deal, when she knew very well it was. This was a setback, no doubt about it.

“But your leg—” Huck protested, his eyes skipping from the awful scars on Mac's left leg to the swelling on his right ankle. “How're you gonna walk now?”

“One step at a time,” Mac quipped with an easy grin. “Fortunately, I brought a cane with me. That should help matters some.”

Jewel turned to Colt and said, “Wrap some ice in a towel and bring it here. You go help him, Huck.”

When they were both gone, she gently moved the ankle. “Are you sure it isn't broken?”

He sighed. It was a sound of disgust. “It's a sprain, Jewel. Not even a bad one.”

“I should have warned you about gopher holes,” she said.

“I didn't step in a gopher hole,” he said quietly, looking at the hands he held fisted against his thighs.

“Then what—” She saw the truth in the wary look he gave her. His leg—his
right
leg—must not have supported him. She reached out a hand, and he clutched it with one of his.

She didn't offer him words of comfort. She could see from the grim look on his face that words wouldn't change what had happened. She didn't point out the obvious—that his football career was over. He had to see that for himself.

But if she had thought this accident would make Mac quit, he quickly disabused her of the notion.

“This'll slow down my rehabilitation some,” he said. “Will you mind if I hang around a little longer? I know camp's starting in a day or so—”

She rose to her feet, her hand coming free of his. “Of course you can stay!” she said, her voice unnaturally sharp. She didn't want him to go away. She liked having him here. But she couldn't believe he was ignoring the implications of this injury. How long was he going to go on batting his head against the wall? Couldn't he see the truth? Didn't he understand what this accident meant?

“Mac—”

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don't say it. Don't even suggest it.”

“Suggest what?”

“This doesn't change my plans.”

“But—”

His face turned hard, jaw jutting, shoulders braced in determination. She had seen that look before, but she had been too young and naive to recognize it for what it was.

“Be my friend, Jewel,” he said. “Don't tell me why I can't do what I want to do. Just help me to do it.”

She stared at him as though she had never seen him before. She knew now why Peter Macready had survived a form of cancer that killed most kids. Why he had become the best rookie receiver in the NFL, despite the fact he had never been the fastest athlete on the field. Mac didn't give up. Mac didn't see obstacles. He saw his goal and headed for it without worrying about whether it could be reached. And so he invariably reached it.

Jewel wished she had half his confidence. She might be a married woman now with a baby in her arms.

Maybe it wasn't too late for her. Maybe she could learn from him how it was done. Maybe she could take advantage of Mac's presence to give her the impetus to change her life. If Mac could recover from a shattered leg, why couldn't she recover from a shattered life?

The boys returned with two dish towels loaded with ice and fell all over each other arranging the cold compresses around Mac's ankle. Jewel saw Mac wince when their overenthusiasm rocked his ankle, but instead of snapping at them, he launched into a story about how he had played a whole football game with a taped-up sprained ankle, thanks to an injection of painkiller.

The teenage boys dropped to his feet in awe and admiration. Jewel started to leave, but Mac reached up and caught her hand. “Join us,” he said.

“I have work—”

“Just for a few minutes.”

She figured maybe he didn't want to be stuck alone with the boys. She would stay with him long enough to let them hear a story or two before shooing them away. She settled beside Mac on the worn leather couch—another donation from her grandfather's house at Hawk's Way. Mac's arm slid around her as naturally as if he did it every day.

She resisted the urge to lay her head on his shoulder. Putting his arm around her had been a friendly gesture, nothing more. But she was aware of the way his hand cupped her shoulder, massaging it as he regaled the three of them with stories of life in the pro football arena.

As she sat listening to him, an insidious idea took root.

What if she came to Mac tonight and explained her problem and asked him to help her out?

She trusted Mac not to hurt her. She trusted him to go slow, to be patient. He didn't love her, and she didn't love him, so there wouldn't be that particular pitfall complicating matters. It would be just one friend helping out another.

She could even explain to him how she had gotten the idea. That she had seen his determination to play football again and been inspired to try to solve a problem that she had thought would never be resolved.

All she wanted him to do was teach her how to arouse a man and satisfy him…and be satisfied by him.

She tried to imagine how Mac might react to such a suggestion. He was obviously an experienced man of the world. Only…What if he wasn't attracted to her that way?

Her mind flashed back to the scene in the canyon earlier that afternoon, when she had felt Mac's arousal. But he had apologized for that. Maybe when push came to shove, he wouldn't want to get involved with her.

Jewel didn't hear much of what Mac said to Colt and Huck. She wasn't even aware when he sent them away. She was lost deep in her own thoughts. And fears.

She wished the idea hadn't come to her so early in the day. Now she would be stuck thinking about it until dark, worrying it like a dog worried a bone.

All she had to do was cross the hall tonight and knock on Mac's door and…She didn't let her imagination take her any farther than that. Oh, how she wished night were here already! It was so much easier to act on impulse than to do something like this with cold calculation.

Of course, she was far from cold when she thought about Mac. Her whole body felt warm at the thought of having him touch her, having him kiss and caress her. She just wanted to get through the entire sexual act once without cringing or falling apart. That's all she wanted Mac to do for her. Just get her through the moments of panic before he did it. Get in and get out, like a quick lube job on the truck.

The absurdity of that comparison made her chuckle.

“Are you going to let me in on the joke?” Mac said.

“Maybe.” If she didn't lose her nerve before nightfall.

M
AC WAS LYING IN BED WONDERING
what Jewel would do if he crossed the hall, knocked on her door and told her he wanted to make love to her. She would probably think he had lost his mind. He had to resist the urge to pursue her. Jewel didn't need a fumbling, first-time lover. He, of all people, knew how much she needed a kind, considerate,
knowledgeable
bed partner. Which, of course, he wasn't.

She needed a slow hand, an easy touch—wasn't that what the song said? He had a lot of pent-up passion, a lot of celibate years to make up for. He was afraid the first time for him was going to be fast and hard. Which might be fine for him. But not for her.

Mac wished he didn't have such vivid memories of what had happened to Jewel that day in July six years ago. Any man who had seen her after Harvey Barnes had attacked her…He made himself think the word. After Harvey Barnes had
raped
her…

He had never wanted to kill a man before or since. He had been there to come to her rescue because he had seen Harvey drinking too much and worried about her, like a brother might worry about his sister. Jewel would have pounded him flat if she'd known he had followed her and Harvey when they slipped off into the trees down by the river.

He had kept his distance, even considered turning around and heading back to the noise of the carnival rides at the picnic, which seemed a world away from the soothing rustle of leaves down by the river. He had heard her laugh and then…silence.

He figured Harvey must be kissing her. He was standing at the edge of the river skipping stones, thinking he'd been an idiot to follow her, when he heard her cry out. Even then, he hadn't been sure at first whether it was a cry of passion.

The second cry had chilled his blood and started him running toward the sound. He could remember the feeling of terror as he searched frantically for her amid the thick laurel bushes and the tangle of wild ivy at the river's edge, calling her name and getting no answer.

There were no more cries. He saw why when he finally found them. Harvey had his hand pressed tight over Jewel's mouth, and she was struggling vainly beneath him. He saw something white on the ground nearby and realized it was her underpants.

He might have killed Harvey, if Jewel hadn't stopped him. He hadn't even been aware of his hands clenched in the flesh at Harvey's throat. It was only Jewel's anguished voice in his ear, pleading with him, that made him stop before he strangled the life out of the boy.

Harvey was nearly unconscious by the time Mac finally let go and turned to Jewel. Seeing her torn, grass-stained dress and the trickle of blood coming from her lip enraged him all over again. Jewel whimpered with fear—of him, he realized suddenly—and the fight went out of him.

He started toward her to hold her, to comfort her, but she clutched her arms tight around herself, turned her back to him and cried, “Don't touch me! Don't look at me!”

His heart was thudding loudly in his chest. “Jewel,” he said. “You need to go to the hospital. Let me find your parents—”

She whirled on him and rasped, “No! Please don't tell anybody.”

“But you're hurt!”

“My father will kill him,” she whispered.

He could understand that. He had almost killed Harvey Barnes himself. Then she gave the reason that persuaded him to keep his silence.

“Everyone will know,” she said, her brown eyes stark. “I couldn't bear it, Mac. Please. Help me.”

“We'll have to say something to explain that cut on your lip,” he said tersely. “And the grass stains on your dress.”

“My beautiful dress.” The tears welled in her eyes as she pulled the skirt around to look at the grass stains on the back of it.

He realized it wasn't the dress she was crying for, but the other beautiful thing she had lost. Her innocence.

“We'll tell your father Harvey attacked you—”

“No. Please!”

He reached out to take her shoulders, and she shrank from him. His hands dropped to his sides. He realized they were trembling and curled them into tight fists. “We'll tell them Harvey attacked you, but you fought him off,” he said in an urgent voice. “Unless you tell that much of the tale, they're liable to believe the worst.”

He had never seen—never hoped to see again—a look as desolate as the one she gave him.

“All right,” she said. “But tell them you came in time. Tell them…nothing happened.”

“What if…what if you're pregnant?” he asked.

“I don't think…I don't think…”

He realized she was in too much shock to even contemplate the possibility.

She shook her head, looking dazed and confused. “I don't think…”

He thought concealing the truth was a bad idea. She needed medical attention. She needed the comfort her mother and father could give her. “Jewel, let me tell your parents,” he pleaded quietly.

She shook her head and began to shiver.

“Give me your hand, Jewel,” he said, afraid to put his arms around her, afraid she might scream or faint or something equally terrifying.

She kept her arms wrapped around herself and started walking in the opposite direction from the revelers at the picnic. “Take me home, Mac,” she said. “Please, just take me home.”

He snatched up her underpants, stuffed them in his Levi's pocket and followed her to his truck. But it was too much to hope they would escape unnoticed. Not with Jewel's seven brothers and sisters at the picnic.

It was Rolleen who caught them before they could escape. She insisted Mac find her parents, and he'd had no choice except to go hunting for Zach and Rebecca. He had found Zach first.

The older man's eyes had turned flinty as he listened to Mac's abbreviated—and edited—version of what had happened.

The dangerous, animal sound that erupted from Zach's throat when he saw Jewel's torn dress and her bruised face and swollen lip made Mac's neck hairs stand upright. He realized suddenly that Jewel had known her father better than he had. Zach became a lethal predator. Only the lack of a quarry contained his killing rage.

Jewel's family surrounded her protectively, unconsciously shutting him out. He was forced to stand aside as they led her away. It wasn't until he got back to his private room in the cottage he shared with a half-dozen boys aged eight to twelve and stripped off his jeans, that he realized he still had Jewel's underwear in his pocket.

The garment was white cotton, with a delicate lace trim. It was stained with blood.

A painful lump rose in his throat, and his eyes burned with tears he was too grown up to shed. He fought the sobs that bunched like a fist in his chest, afraid one of the campers would return and hear him through the wall that separated his room from theirs. He pressed his mouth against a pillow in the bedroom and held it there until the ache eased, and he thought the danger was over.

In the shower later, where no one could see or hear, he shed tears of frustration and rage and despair. He had known, even then, that Harvey Barnes had stolen something precious from him that day, as well.

Mac learned later that Zach had found Harvey Barnes and horsewhipped him within an inch of his life. And Zach hadn't even known the full extent of Harvey's crime against his daughter. It seemed Jewel had been right not to tell her father the truth. Zach would have killed the boy for sure. Harvey's parents had sent him away, and he hadn't been seen since.

Things weren't the same between him and Jewel after that. She smiled and pretended everything was all right in front of him and her family. But the smile on her lips never reached her eyes.

The end of the summer came too soon, before they had reconciled their friendship. He went to her the night before he left, seeking somehow to mend the breach between them, to say goodbye for the summer and to ask if she was all right.

“Harvey Barnes is gone,” she said. “And tomorrow you will be, too. Then I can forget about what happened.”

“I'll be back next year,” he reminded her.

She had been looking at her knotted hands when she said, “I hope you won't come, Mac.”

Something bunched up tight inside of him. “Not come? I come every summer, Jewel.”

“Don't come back. As a favor to me, Mac. Please don't come back.”

“But why? You're my best friend, Jewel. I—”

“You know,” she said in a brittle voice. She raised her eyes and looked at him and let him see her pain. “You know the truth. It's in your eyes every time you look at me.”

He felt like crying again and forced himself to swallow back the tickle in his throat. “Jewel—”

“I want to forget, Mac,” she said. “I need to forget. Please, please don't come back.”

A lump of grief caught in his throat and made it impossible to say more. When he left that summer, a part of himself—the lighthearted, teasing friend—had stayed behind.

Mac had honored Jewel's wishes and stayed away for six long years. The really sad thing was, it had all been for nothing. She wasn't over what had happened. The past had not been forgotten.

He had often wondered if he'd done the wrong thing. Should he have told her parents the truth, anyway? Should he have come back the following summer? Should he have tried harder to get in touch with her over the years, to talk to her about what had happened?

A soft knock on the door forced Mac from his reverie. Before he could reply, the door opened, and Jewel stood silhouetted in the light from the hall. She was wearing a sleeveless white nightgown with a square-cut neck. The gown only covered her to mid-thigh. He could see the shape of her through the thin garment, the slender legs and slim waist and bountiful bosom.

He sat up, dragging the sheets around him to cover his nakedness and to conceal the sudden arousal caused by the enticing sight of her in his bedroom doorway. “Jewel? Is something wrong?”

She slipped inside and closed the door, so that momentarily he lost sight of her as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He heard the rustle of sheets and suddenly felt her body next to his beneath the covers.

“Jewel? What's going on?” He hoped his voice didn't sound as shocked as he felt. He didn't know what she thought she was doing, but he intended to find out before things went much farther.

He had expected an answer. He hadn't counted on her laying her palm on his bare chest. She followed that with a scattering of kisses across his chest that led her to the sensitive flesh beneath his ear. His body was trembling with desire when she finally paused to speak.

“Nothing's wrong, Mac,” she murmured in his ear. “I came because…” She nibbled on his earlobe, and he groaned at the exquisite pleasure of it. “I need your help,” she finished.

He put an arm around her shoulder, realized suddenly he was naked and clutched at the sheet again. “Anything, Jewel. You know I'd do anything for you. But—”

“I was hoping you'd say that. Because what I need you to do…It won't be easy.”

He waited, his breath caught in his chest, for what she had to say. “Anything, Jewel,” he repeated, his heart thundering so loud he figured she could probably hear it.

She pressed her breasts against his chest and said, “I want you to make love to me.”

His heart pounded, and his shaft pulsed. In another moment, things would be out of hand. His eyes had adapted to the dark, and with the moonlight from the window he at last could see the feelings etched on her face. Not desire, but fear and vulnerability.

“I want to feel like a woman,” she said in a halting voice. “I want to stop being afraid.”

He couldn't keep the dismay from his voice. “Aw, Jewel.”

A cry of despair issued from her throat, and she made a frantic lurch toward the edge of the bed and escape.

He grabbed for her, knowing she had misinterpreted his words. It wasn't that he didn't want her. He wanted her something fierce. He just wasn't the experienced bed partner she thought he was. He caught her by the wrist and pulled her back into his arms and held her tight, biting back a groan at the exquisite feel of her breasts crushed against his chest with only the sheer cloth between them.

“It's all right, Mac,” she said in a brittle voice. “I made a mistake. Let me go, and we'll forget this ever happened.”

She held herself stiff and unyielding in his arms. “Jewel—”

“Don't try to make me feel better. I deserve to feel like an idiot, throwing myself at you like this. I just thought…with all your experience…”

This time he did groan.

She tried to pull away, and he said, “You don't understand.”

“I understand you don't find me attractive. I'm sorry for forcing myself on you like this.”

“No!”
Tell her the truth, Macready. She's your friend. She'll understand.

But the words stuck in his throat. If he hadn't cared for her, if he didn't want her so badly, if things hadn't changed between them like they had, maybe he could have confessed the truth.