Nightway (23 page)

“I stopped today because I wanted to make certain for myself that you were all right and to assure you that no mention of your name was in any of the reports. As far as the media are concerned, my father suffered his attack while he was visiting Judge Garvey, a close friend of the family who lives near here,” he explained. “It’s unlikely that this story will be questioned, but if word of your involvement is leaked to the press, some reporter might contact you to check it out.” He reached inside his jacket and took out a business card. “Don’t let anyone interview you. Outside of denying it, I don’t want you to talk to any of them, but call me immediately. I’ll handle it for you. I wouldn’t want you subjected to some of the snide comments those reporters might make.”

No one had ever been so concerned about protecting her reputation except John. She’d always thought this brand of gallantry was a thing of the past. When she took the business card from him, he reached out to warmly enclose her fingers in his grip. It was pleasing to see her hand in his. She couldn’t look away.

“You don’t have to say anything, Lanna. I don’t want you to be hurt by all this. I know I’m doing what my father would want.”

When his hand tenderly shaped itself to her chin, Lanna unconsciously swayed toward him. His head made a slow, almost hesitant descent. When his mouth touched hers in a passionless kiss, she quivered at the warm contact. A second later the pressure changed to become seeking and exploring, tentative and curious the way a first kiss often is. With obvious reluctance, he straightened slowly and studied her reaction with his amber-flecked brown eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized unexpectedly. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s easy to see why my father found you so irresistible.”

“We were friends, nothing more.” Lanna was sorry he regretted the kiss; she had enjoyed it.

“Yes, I remember.” Chagrin flitted across his face. “It’s just when I touch you … well, let’s say that it doesn’t arouse platonic feelings.”

Lanna experienced a thrill at the admission. He disturbed her and it was good to know it wasn’t one-sided. With his looks and charm, Chad probably had any number of women chasing him. She sobered when she realized that as J. B.’s son, he was also likely to inherit a great deal of money, which put him out of her class. Yet John hadn’t cared whether she was rich or poor, a member of the moneyed or working class. Wasn’t Chad made from the same mold? She kept
presuming Chad was the older, since John had said he was like him. She wished she had asked John more. It was too presumptuous to ask Chad now.

Withdrawing his hands, Chad took a step away from her. “I wish I could stay and keep you company for a little while longer, but there are so many arrangements to make,” he said regretfully.

“When is the funeral? I’d like to attend the services … if I may?” She asked his permission because she didn’t want her presence arousing questions.

“Naturally, you may.” His quick smile nearly took her breath away. “Since my father was so well known, it will naturally be a large funeral. If anyone asks—which I doubt—simply tell them that you are acquainted with one of the family members and that you came to pay your respects. Specifically, you know me.”

Chad waited while Lanna jotted down the time and place of the funeral. “I wouldn’t have felt right not attending the services for John, but I didn’t want to cause you any trouble, either,” she told him.

“I know that the last thing you want to do is cause trouble. I don’t have any doubt about that.” His expression was a mixture of satisfaction and approval before it sobered into concern. “Will you be all right if I leave now?”

“Yes,” she promised.

Still Chad hesitated. “May I call you the first of next week after things have settled down?”

He definitely wanted to see her again. The knowledge shined in her eyes. “Please. I’m home most evenings unless I have shopping to do.”

“I’ll be talking to you, then.” He moved toward the hall door.

A smile curved Lanna’s mouth when Chad had left. Unexpectedly, she had found a reason to look forward
to tomorrow. Her gaze strayed to the kettle and she realized she hadn’t turned the gas on to boil the water.

Slowing down the late-model rental car, Hawk turned into the private driveway marked by two adobe pillars. On either side of the asphalted surface, the sun-scorched earth was landscaped into a desert garden that utilized the native prickly pear and saguaro cactus and scrubby palo verde to achieve its effect. The lane curved in front of a rambling, adobe house roofed with red tiles. Hawk parked the car at the head of the stone walk that led to the front door.

His long, fluid strides carried him with unhurried swiftness to the door with the black wreath hanging in its center. He rang the doorbell and waited, his narrowed blue eyes restlessly sweeping the hazy blue sky and the distant range of mountains that formed a gray blot on the horizon. The turning of the doorknob squared him around to face the door. It opened to frame Carol’s fashionably wand-slim figure, clad in an expensive black dress. Her mouth formed quickly into a smile of welcome.

“Come in, Hawk.” She pulled the door open wide as she stepped aside. Her corn-gold hair was cut in a feathery, short style that subtracted years from her age. As always, there was the intense search of her bright green eyes when they met his gaze. Hawk didn’t know what she was looking for—perhaps forgiveness, even after all this time.

He crossed the threshold and walked onto the polished tile of the foyer while she closed the door behind him. “I’m on my way to the airport. I stopped to let you know I’m flying back to the ranch.” His presence wasn’t wanted here. And Hawk had no intention of lingering.

“You will come back for the funeral on Monday?” Carol tried to insist.

“No.”

“But—”

He didn’t let her finish the protest, slanting an eyebrow as he spoke. “Funerals are your way of burying the dead, not mine.”

“Who is it, Carol,” a man’s voice demanded an instant before Tom Rawlins appeared in the mosaictiled archway leading into a spacious living room. He stopped at the sight of Hawk, his nostrils flaring in anger. The years had pinched his quiet face into bitter lines, hardening him into an old man. “What do you want here, Hawk?”

“I didn’t come to pay my respects.” Mockery made a slashing line of his mouth, curved and taunting. “I came by only to tell you I’m leaving. A lot of the boys will want to come for the funeral on Monday, leaving only a skeleton crew at the ranch. With me there, that’s one more who can come.”

“You don’t give a damn if they come or not!” Rawlins snapped.

“That’s right. I don’t,” Hawk agreed smoothly. “But they do. So—?” He lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug.

“If you’re leaving, then go.” Rawlins waved toward the door.

“Daddy, please,” Carol murmured in irritation, turning to her father.

A stillness settled into Hawk. “Don’t give me orders, Tom, or I might just change my mind.”

“This isn’t the proper time to be arguing, Daddy,” Carol instructed, trying to prevent her father from making a scene.

With a last glaring look at Hawk, he turned on his heel and stalked away. Hawk felt the tension ease from
his muscles. His gaze slid to Carol with deceptive laziness. Ever since that time she had betrayed him, she had interceded for him many times against her father.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“It stopped being important a long time ago, Carol,” Hawk replied and watched her wince.

She opened her mouth to protest. “I wish I could change what happened.” But she was interrupted by the sound of running feet.

Hawk glanced at the young boy who dashed into view, a wide grin splitting his face. The boy was a miniature replica of J. B.—from the darkness of his brown hair to the laughing curve of his blue eyes. Only the slenderness of his build had he inherited from Carol.

“Hello, Hawk!” The boy greeted him with open enthusiasm. “Grandpa Tom said you are flying back to the ranch. Can I come with you?”

“Johnny!” Carol’s voice was low with surprised reproval. “You know J. B.’s funeral is on Monday. What would people say if his only grandson wasn’t there?”

“Ah, Mom,” the twelve-year-old complained. “I’m not going to have a chance to ride that new horse Dad bought me. After the funeral, I’ll have to go back to school.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand you, Johnny Faulkner.” Carol didn’t hide her irritation. “You would rather be riding a new horse than show respect for your grandfather by attending his funeral. What would people think if they knew?”

“Yes, Johnny.” Hawk smiled dryly, widening his eyes slightly in mockery. “It’s very important what people think. You should listen to your mother. She’s an authority on that.”

Her head jerked to him, pain whitening her face.
Hawk wondered why he had alluded to her sensitivity toward other people’s opinions—possibly because she had reminded him of it, or perhaps because he didn’t want Johnny to be as narrow-minded and prejudiced as his parents—and grandparents.

“But you aren’t going to the funeral, Hawk,” Johnny reminded him. “I heard Grandpa Tom tell Grandma.”

“The difference is, Johnny, that no one will care if I’m not there.” Which was the truth. Besides, although he no longer believed that dead bodies harbored ghosts, he saw no reason to look on a body pumped full of formaldehyde or at the satin-lined box that contained it. It proved nothing other than the fact that the man was dead.

“Why?” The question was asked out of sheer stubbornness.

Hawk laughed softly, catching Carol’s uneasy movement out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll tell you the same thing J. B. told me when I was about your age. When you’re old enough to understand the answer, no one will need to explain.”

Half-turning, he reached for the knob just as the doorbell rang. Hawk continued the movement to open the door to the caller. He recognized the squat, balding man as Benjamin Calder, another one of J. B.’s many attorneys. The man looked stiff and ill at ease, a bearer of bad tidings, Hawk thought to himself. The man’s gaze jumped over Hawk, saw him, then dismissed him. Hawk doubted if there was anyone in Phoenix, outside of the Faulkner family, who knew he existed.

“I’m expected.” The announcement was addressed to Carol. She had moved to stand beside Hawk, a possessive hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Yes, Mr. Calder,” Carol acknowledged. “Won’t you come in?”

Hawk moved to the near side of the door, unconsciously
slipping into the shadows of a potted fern and melting into the background, while the attorney entered the foyer. He intended to leave once the man was inside, but the staccato click of heels made him pause as he recognized Katheryn’s footsteps. He hadn’t seen her since he’d left her at the hospital last night.

“It’s about time you arrived, Ben.” She greeted the attorney in a sharp, impatient voice. She, too, was dressed in black and looked positively regal. There was no grief in her expression—only anger. She didn’t see Hawk standing in the shadows near the door. “What’s this nonsense about a new will?”

The attorney blanched under the attack. “It isn’t nonsense, Mrs. Faulkner.” He attempted to placate her temper with a reasoning tone. “J. B. had me draw up a new will a month ago.”

“Who is the chief beneficiary?” she demanded. “So help me God, if he disinherited Chad in favor of that damned bastard half-breed of his, I swear I’ll—” She stopped abruptly when Hawk took a step out of the shadows.

“Don’t stop now, Katheryn.” A corner of his mouth twitched. “It was just getting interesting.”

“You’ll never see a penny of it.” Hatred gleamed yellow in her eyes, savage as a puma protecting her young. “I promise you that. The Navaho bitch who whelped you was nothing but a whore, and I’ll have a half-dozen men with blue eyes and the same blood type as yours swear to it on the witness stand. It will be the longest and ugliest court battle you have ever seen.”

“Now that J. B. is dead, you can finally say all the things you’ve been holding back all these years, can’t you?” Hawk was unmoved by her threats. None of them could hurt him. Ultimately, she would be the one to suffer. The red-faced attorney was shifting his stance uncomfortably.

Hawk’s demeanor merely goaded Katheryn. “Rawlins should have killed you when he caught you raping his daughter.” She ignored the sharp gasp that came from Carol. Hawk shot a glance at the sound and saw the shocked confusion in Johnny’s wide eyes. The boy would have heard the story sooner or later. Hawk felt only a mild sense of pity that it had to be now and under these circumstances. “People are going to know about that,” Katheryn lashed out, continuing her threatening tirade. “And they will know how you’ve continued to intimidate and terrorize Carol. Everyone has seen the way she acts around you—afraid to cross you, afraid of what you might do. You can’t blackmail us anymore.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Faulkner, but—” the attorney interrupted hesitantly. “I don’t know who this man is … but—”

“Allow me to introduce myself.” Hawk stepped smoothly forward, an incautious light gleaming in his blue eyes. “The name is Jim Blue Hawk. I think Katheryn has very luridly explained who and what I am.”

The attorney shook his hand uncertainly, his gaze continuing to dart to Katheryn. “This man … Mr. Hawk … isn’t the chief beneficiary. There is a provision in the will for you,” he hastened to assure Hawk. “You are to be given a clear deed to half of the ranch property and some cash, while the half with ranch headquarters goes to Chad, but—”

“But what, Ben?” Katheryn challenged, her fury slow to die.

“The bulk of his real estate holdings here in Phoenix—after bequests to you, family members, and certain employees—has been left to a … Miss Lanna Marshall.” His halting announcement shocked them all into silence.

As Hawk tipped his head back, rich, hearty laughter rolled from his throat, and swept through the room. He was laughing at himself, laughing at the others, and laughing at J. B. wherever he was because he had had the last laugh on them all.

Turning away, Hawk walked to the front door and opened it. He was still chuckling to himself as he started down the stone path to the rental car parked in the driveway. Behind it, another car had stopped. Chad was just climbing out, an irritated frown clouding his handsome features at the sight of Hawk.