Wild Hawk (8 page)

“Not in the way I’m sure you’ll assume, but yes, I loved him. He gave me my first job, when I hadn’t an ounce of experience to justify his faith. He challenged me at every turn, forced me to grow, to find my full potential. And in the end he trusted me with his soul.”

Jason stared at her for a long, silent moment. “You think he had a soul?”

“I know he did. Because I know it was a tortured one, at the end. When he learned your mother had been killed, even though it was twenty years ago, it nearly destroyed him.” She took a deep breath to steady her voice. “Your father was everything you’ve said, Jason. But he was so much more, besides. There was a part of him he never let the world see, a gentler side, a side that laughed, and was generous, and told wonderful stories . . .”

Her words faded away, and because she couldn’t stop herself, she gathered her nerve to ask him something, more in the hopes of making him think than actually expecting an answer.

“Was your mother the kind of woman who would fall in love with an awful man, and stay with him for seven years? Despite the fact that he wouldn’t get a divorce, would never marry her?”

For the first time she saw his jaw tighten. Perhaps Jason West wasn’t frozen solid, not quite.

“My mother,” he said tightly, “was a . . . kind, gentle woman. She worked harder to take care of me than anyone should have to. All because she was foolish enough to
love
Aaron Hawk.”

He nearly spat out the word, as if it were something so unpalatable he hated the taste of it.

“You wanted to know why I took that car?” he went on, his voice suddenly fierce. “It was our neighbor’s. I took it one day when it was so cold the rain had turned to sleet, and I knew she was walking home from work in it. Because our car was broken down, and she couldn’t afford to fix it. And she shouldn’t have been out anyway; she was sick, but she had to pay the rent on that dive we lived in. And my
father
never gave a damn.”

Kendall felt a choking tightness in her throat. She wanted to explain, to say that Aaron had tried, but her instincts told her Jason was in no mood to hear it. It was a moment before she was able to say quietly, “But she loved him.”

“Yes.” Jason’s tone was almost acid. “She did. She never, ever said a word against him. Never once did she blame him. She said he never lied to her. Like that makes it all right.”

Kendall looked at him for a long moment. “Who are you angry at, Jason? Aaron? Or your mother?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that it must have been hard, for you to hate him so much when your mother never stopped loving him. You must have been . . . upset with her, that she still cared.”

“It wasn’t her fault. She was a smart woman. She just had this . . . blind spot.”

“About Aaron?”

His mouth twisted. He sipped the last of his coffee, set down the cup, and stared into it. “And about love. She believed in it. I think she believed up until she died that someday he’d come for her. Falling in love was the only foolish thing she ever did.” He let out a breath. “Except maybe for having me.”

Kendall nearly gasped at this betrayal of pained emotion in a man she would never have expected it from. Anger, yes, but never this kind of pain. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she finally managed to speak.

“You don’t really think she regretted that, do you?”

His head came up abruptly. He glared at her, looking as furious now as he ever had, when just moments ago she had thought she was really making progress with him.

“Damn, you are good, aren’t you? Maybe you really were what you said you were. Did the old man teach you that?”

“Teach me . . . what?” she asked carefully.

“How to find the weak spot and go for it. How to lull with those big eyes, coax people into spilling their guts for you—”

“All I did was listen, Jason. If that’s all it took, then perhaps you needed to . . . spill your guts, as you so charmingly put it. Although if it’s any comfort, you didn’t let slip much I hadn’t already guessed.”

It didn’t seem to comfort him. The silence spun out, strained and somehow bleak.

“More coffee?”

The waitress’s chipper voice increased the tension between them rather than breaking it.

“No,” Jason said flatly. “I’m leaving.”

He ignored the woman’s rather blatant pout as she walked away, and stood up. He pulled a crumpled bill out of his pocket and tossed it on the table.

“Jason, please—”

“I should let you pay for it,” he said, his voice as cool as if that momentary break in his composure had never occurred. “But I don’t want a damn thing from the Hawks. Not twenty-five cents, not twenty-five million. Now are you going to move that fancy car of yours, or do I move it myself?”

HE MISSED HIS plane. Not only that, but the reservations clerk had practically broken down in tears when he’d snapped at her because the soonest she could manage to get him back to Seattle was for him to take the last small commuter flight to L.A., which didn’t leave for another hour and a half, and then he’d have to literally run for a connecting flight that left there for SeaTac twenty minutes later.

He’d tried to apologize, but he was reasonably sure he’d only made things worse. So he’d accepted the ticket she’d handed him with unsteady hands in silence, then felt like a complete ass when he overheard the older woman who relieved her at the desk tell her to hurry home to her sick daughter.

He walked over to an isolated pair of seats near the boarding gate, dropped his coat and bag on one, and sat heavily down in the other.

Great, West
, he muttered to himself.
You
miss your plane, make a woman with a sick kid cry, and now you get to spend an hour and a half sitting here doing nothing
.

Nothing except what he’d been doing ever since he’d left the motel, after Kendall Chase had moved her car, saying nothing more to him, as if she’d finally given up.

Nothing except thinking of question after question that he wanted to ask her, even though he resented his own curiosity. Questions like did she really believe Alice Hawk would go to such lengths to make sure her husband’s illegitimate son never saw a penny of Hawks’ money? And just what exactly did this supposed codicil say? And where was the one copy she’d said Alice hadn’t found?

But even those were questions he could live with. He could understand why his mind kept turning to them. They didn’t matter, because he didn’t really believe the whole preposterous story in the first place. It was the other persistent questions that really bothered him. The things he shouldn’t even be wondering about at all. Things like why she really hadn’t taken the hundred thousand and just gone on her merry—and considerably richer—way? What had Aaron Hawk really left her? And what had her relationship with the old man really been? What had she seen in him that no one else had?

If, of course, any of it was true.

Even if it was, what was her real motive? He couldn’t believe it was simply to carry out an old man’s last wish; he didn’t even believe this was the old man’s last wish. No, there was something else going on here, something he couldn’t see yet.

But he would. Nobody went to all this trouble for nothing. Perhaps she got a bonus or something if she pulled this off. But that would have to mean that Aaron really had left him something, which was even harder to believe. The man hadn’t given a damn about him or his mother for thirty years; there was no reason to believe he’d changed simply because he’d run out of time.

And if his suspicions were correct, and it was all a scam of some kind, what did she get out of it? Maybe the alleged codicil really was a forgery, and she figured he’d pay her a bigger chunk to help him pass it than the widow would to stop her. Now that made sense. If she could convince him to fight the will, and the forgery was good enough to stand up in court, then she might figure she was in for a lot more than that tidy little deposit. Ten percent of twenty-five million was a nice round figure.

He yawned widely, wondering if the useless cycle of conflicting questions was tiring him out, or if it was the prospect of a long, not particularly comfortable journey home. He leaned back in the chair, which squeaked noisily with the sound of denim rubbing on vinyl. He yawned again.

Maybe he’d go for another cup of coffee. He wouldn’t be able to sleep on the little prop jet plane he’d be getting on anyway. He looked around the nearly empty terminal and at the small cafeteria across from the second gate down. He reached for the strap of his bag, ready to sling it over his shoulder.

He went rigidly still. His heart seemed to stop for an instant, then began to slam in his chest.

Sticking out of the side pocket of the leather bag was the book.

Chapter Seven

HE WAS GLAD IT was cold. It explained why he was shivering. And he’d had more than enough of things he couldn’t explain since he’d arrived here. He pounded on the motel room door again.

She had to be here. Her car was here, still full of boxes and bags, and it was parked right in front of the only room with a light still on. Apparently, as he’d hoped, she hadn’t been kidding about checking in here. Or about moving out of the Hawk mansion.

He knew he was doing it on purpose, concentrating on the mundane, the normal, so he didn’t have to think about the rest. He was going to have his answers about that soon. Very soon. As soon as Kendall Chase opened her damn door.

He lifted his hand to knock again, ready to use his fist this time. He stopped himself midmotion when the door swung open before he connected.

“I thought you were on a plane.”

“I . . . missed it.”

He swallowed, annoyed at the catch in his voice. But he hadn’t expected her to come to the door like this, in a robe that enveloped her in peach-colored satin yet somehow emphasized her feminine shape, with her hair down and flowing over her shoulders in a dark, thick, smooth mass that made his fingers curl with the need to touch it, to see if it could possibly feel as silky as it looked. This was a far cry from the formal, poised woman he’d seen at the funeral, and the slightly less formal but equally poised woman he’d sat across from in the coffee shop.

She let out a tiny sigh. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intent.”

He had to concentrate to keep himself from once more letting his gaze slide over her, lingering on the unexpectedly lush curves of hip and breasts, and that he had to make the effort irritated him. That, and the feel of the book in his left hand, brought his sense of purpose raging back.

“Then tell me just what your intent is with this.”

He held the book up in front of her. She looked at it blankly. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t play dumb, Kendall. Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t suit you.”

“And surprisingly enough, constant insults don’t suit you. If that’s what you came back for, you can just leave.”

This time he let his gaze drift over her slowly, enjoying the view. He lingered for a moment on the curve of her breasts, wondering if perhaps her nipples, peaked now from the cold air that had reached her from outside as she stood in the doorway, matched the soft peach color of the robe.

“And if I came back for something else?” he said, his mocking tone leaving her no doubt as to what he meant.

“Then I’ll slap you and you can just leave.”

Her retort was so quick he grinned before he could stop himself. Her eyes narrowed, and for an instant he thought he’d finally rattled her. But when his gaze went back to her face, he knew he was wrong. She was looking at him as if she was mightily tired of this whole thing.

“You would, too, wouldn’t you?”

“Slap you? Yes.” Her mouth quirked. “But don’t take my word for it, any more than you have for anything else. Make the wrong move and let me prove it.”

He was almost tempted to try. He had a feeling many people had underestimated this woman. And he had a suspicion he might just be one of them. But he wasn’t going to do it now. Not before he got some answers. A lot of them.

“Later,” he said. “Right now what I want is an explanation.”

Her glance flicked to the book as he gestured at her with it. Then she looked back at his face.

“Of what? That book? What do I have to do with it?”

“I know you planted it in my room, and then somehow slipped it into my bag. What I want to know is why? What’s the point?”

“The point is,” she said, her voice sounding as frosty as the air was becoming as it neared midnight, “that I’m getting very tired of being accused of doing things I’ve never done.”

She moved as if to shut the door. Jason moved faster, planting his booted foot across the sill, preventing her from closing him out.

“You were outside my room right after it appeared. And you were the only one around before it showed up at the airport.”

She went very still. “Appeared?”

His mouth twisted ruefully; he hadn’t meant to phrase it like that. “Never mind. Just answer the question. I already know I’m not a Hawk, and never will be. So what’s the point? Why the family history to remind me?”

Her eyes widened. In shock. Unmistakable shock. Her gaze flicked to the book he held.

“Family history?” she whispered.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know anything about this?”

Even as he said it, he would have staked his life that her shock was real. Then he gave himself a mental shake; he’d never been fooled by a pretty face, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Her gaze came back to his face. Her expression was one of pure awe now. “It came? It really did? The Hawk family book?”

He stared at her. She spoke as if it were a royal title. And with such reverence that she could have been speaking of . . . he wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t think of anything that would make him feel the way she sounded. And that made him even more wary.

“It’s real?” she asked, a little breathlessly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Aaron told me about it, often, but . . . I thought it was just one of his stories.”

“Stories?”

“One of the Hawk legends.”

Jason snorted inelegantly. “You mean one of Aaron Hawk’s grand visions of himself.”

“Not Aaron. The Hawk family.”

“Same thing.”

“No. It’s not. And that’s what Aaron finally realized. That there was much more to it than just him.”

She glanced at the book, still looking a little awed. Jason had to force himself not to follow her glance, and the effort, oddly, made him shiver. She seemed to notice it, because she stepped back, making room for him to pass her and step into the room if he wished.

“It’s very cold. If you’ll come in, I’ll . . . try to explain.”

He hesitated. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to hear any more of her tales of his father’s supposed deathbed change of heart. And when he changed his mind and decided to cross the threshold, he told himself it was because he was going to pry the truth out of her, make her admit she’d planted the book both times he’d encountered it. And he refused to consider that either his hesitation or his decision to accept her offer had anything at all to do with the effect the sight of her in that swath of peach satin had on him.

The moment he was inside the room that was a tan and blue twin to the one he’d had, and had closed the door behind him, cutting off that blast of cold air, she disappeared into the bathroom. He stared at the closed bathroom door for a moment, brows furrowed, wondering what had made her dodge out of sight like that. Could she somehow have sensed his sensual reaction to her? Or had she taken his earlier mocking threat seriously?

A bare two minutes later she emerged, clad in a pair of faded blue jeans and what appeared to be the same sweater she’d had on before, that he could now see was a pale gray-blue. He barely had time to notice that before irritation kicked through him. What the hell did she think he was, some kid who was ruled by his hormones?

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, his voice clipped. It didn’t help anyway, he thought, looking at the way the soft, worn denim clung faithfully to her curves, and how the soft sweater made her seem so eminently touchable.

She gave him a long, steady look. “Maybe I wanted you to know I felt like I had to.”

Startled, he stared at her. Yet again he had the feeling that he had underestimated this woman. And again, unwillingly, he found himself acknowledging it.

“Touché again,” he said, touching a finger to his temple. “I had that coming.”

She looked startled in turn, as if surprised he’d said it. He was a little surprised himself, something that had happened all too often since he’d been here. And that irritating knowledge put an edge in his voice as he tossed the book down on the bed.

“Are you going to explain this, or are we going to play games awhile longer?”

She sat down on the bed, crossing her legs in front of her. Her feet were bare, he saw. They were also small, gracefully arched, making him wonder if she was sensitive in that finely boned curve. He thought of all the ways to find out, and suppressed a shudder at the resulting wave of heat.

But she wasn’t paying any attention to his steady regard this time. She was completely focused on the book before her, staring at it. After a moment she reached out, touching the cover with a tentative finger, like a person who isn’t quite sure what they were reaching for wouldn’t vanish, like a dream figure who faded when wakefulness returned. Slowly, with exquisite care, she lifted the cover of the book. He watched, not the book but her face, her eyes, wondering if the flowing design on the inner flyleaf would have the same effect on her as it had had on him. When her fingers moved, tracing the curving lines, his stomach knotted oddly, but when she lifted her head to look at him he saw nothing of puzzlement or surprise or even fear in her expression. Instead there was a strangely awed look in her wide gray eyes.

“It is real,” she whispered. “All this time I thought it was just a story, but it’s real. And it came to you. Just like he said it would.”

Impatience gripped him again. “I’ve had enough of these cryptic statements. I want an explanation. And I want it now.”

“Jason,” she began, then stopped. She looked at him as if she was debating whether to go on. Then, gently, she asked, “Your mother never . . . told you The Hawk stories?”

“She didn’t have time to waste on fairy tales.”

She looked about to say something, then obviously changed her mind. Instead she asked, “Have you looked at the book?”

“Enough to know it’s full of my father’s crazy idea of a family history. The old man must have been loony to have gone to all this trouble to preserve a fantasy.”

“Aaron,” she said, her tone level, “never saw this book. It never came to him. But he knew about it.”

He let out a compressed breath, trying to rein in his irritation. And for God’s sake, he was pacing. He never paced. But he’d never encountered anyone like Kendall Chase before. How could a woman who was so obviously intelligent continue to spout ridiculous lies and expect him to believe her?

“I know,” she said, as if he’d spoken his thoughts. “You don’t understand. How could you? You don’t know the legend.”

“And I don’t want to,” he snapped as he turned at the far wall and started back. “I just want to know what the point of this is.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the book she was still touching, wonderingly, as if she still couldn’t believe it was real. “And why you’re so determined I take it with me.”

“I had nothing to do—” She broke off when he opened his mouth, holding up a hand as if to fend off his words. “Never mind. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Aaron was right, that the book came to you, just like the legend says.”

“You keep saying that. That the book came to me. If you’re trying to convince me you didn’t put it there—”

“You came here for answers. I’m trying to give them to you.”

“You’re trying to give me fairy tales.”

She gave him a level look. “All right. I don’t blame you for thinking that. I did, too, when Aaron told me. But this”—she ran a finger along the gilt edges of the heavy pages in a way that made his stomach knot again—“this is real. And it’s here. And I can’t explain how any other way.”

“I can,” he said coldly.

“Yes, I know. You think I did it.” She didn’t bother to deny it, as if she’d given up trying to convince him of anything about herself. “Why?”

“Because it’s the only logical explanation.”

“And of course, you must have a logical explanation. For everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked at him steadily for a long moment, with such sadness in her eyes it made him uncomfortable. “You gave up on the magic of life very early, didn’t you?”

“Magic?” He gave her the scornful look that deserved. “Magic is for people who can’t deal with reality.”

“Too bad,” she said softly. “I think it’s the people who can and do deal with reality who need the magic the most. Reality can be pretty ugly sometimes.”

“Life is ugly. Most of the time.”

She looked away then. She was still touching the book, stroking the gilt edges, tracing the flowing lines that apparently looked perfectly normal to her. He watched her long, tapered fingers move, but jerked his gaze away when he realized it was making him feel as light-headed as staring at that flowing pattern had. He spun on his heel and started back across the small room.

His sudden movement seemed to decide her. “You’ve missed your plane. You’re stuck for a while. Can it hurt to listen?”

He stopped pacing abruptly. He turned, and stood for a long moment, simply looking at her. She met his stare without flinching, and he couldn’t help thinking of how rare that simple act was. He’d once been told that if the eyes were the mirror of the soul, his soul had obviously turned to stone. That had been a woman, who had been crying when she’d said it, and he’d walked out then, knowing he’d stayed too long. But he’d heard it from men over the years as well, in cruder terms, but the sentiment was the same: Jason West was one tough, coldhearted bastard. He’d worked hard at making the adjectives as true as the noun was.