Chapter 22

Susannah heard about the Nighthawk two days after Sean MacDougal’s funeral.

Erin had finally made it over to the ranch. She apologized that she hadn’t made it the day before, as promised, but the night visit of the stranger had thrown the MacDougal plantation into an uproar. There had been a visit from the sheriff, and a fresh flow of tears from her mother over the fact that Sean MacDougal hadn’t lived to see justice done.

Rumors had been passed around, and an unending string of men visited the ranch, closeting themselves with Sam as they tried to determine who the man was, and what he wanted.

Susannah listened in silence as Erin described the black-clad man, the contents of the pouch he’d delivered to her, the vow to return. “No one can guess who he is,” she concluded.

Where was he now?

Susannah had to clench her fists. She had not seen Rhys for days, not since that night he’d made love to her. She had not seen him, or heard from him.

It hurt beyond imagining that she was hearing now, from someone else.

Where was he?

The question kept ringing in her head. Why hadn’t he come back? Had he been hurt again?

Wes rode in then, summoned by Susannah, and he listened intently as Erin repeated the same story. The news was common knowledge now, but the Fallon ranch was still so shunned that no one had ridden in with the information, and they were so shorthanded, no one had had contact with hands from the other ranches.

“A black horse?” Wes asked, trying to understand. He had not seen Rhys Redding since Sean MacDougal’s death. Where in the hell would he get a black horse? But it had to be Redding. His mouth twisted at the thought. A Texas twang, a black horse, a superb rider. A phantom. And he’d thought perhaps Redding had given up on them, had taken his advice and ridden out. Wes thought he used to be a hell of a lot better at judging men, but then Redding had been an enigma right from the beginning.

“Nearly black,” Erin replied, looking a little puzzled at Wes’s frown.

Wes cursed to himself. It was like Redding to take off on his own. No word. No explanation. Certainly no discussion of what he planned to do. Christ, a holdup man, a bandit.

Still, as he listened to Erin repeat the man’s words, he couldn’t help but consider the poetic justice of it. The bill of sale came from the Martins’ safe, but they can’t do anything, not without admitting their theft.

He recalled the threat made to Redding days earlier. If he said anything about the whipping, he would be charged with horse theft, perhaps even murder. How neatly the threat had been turned around.

Still … safecracking?

He saw Susannah’s eyes on him, a twinkle in them, almost as though she understood every thought going through his mind. Perhaps because they had also gone through hers.

But the discussion now was back to the identity of the masked stranger. Susannah and Wes played the game, weighing different possibilities even while wondering what Rhys Redding was up to now. And why he hadn’t returned to the ranch.

“Sam’s invited most of the involved ranchers to a meeting tomorrow night to discuss the Martins—and the man who calls himself the Hawk,” Erin said, her eyes on Wes. She knew he would hear of the meeting in any event, and she wanted to prepare him.

His eyes darkened. “But not me. Is it because I fought for the North, or because I have one leg?” He laughed bitterly. “At least no one can accuse me of being your hawk.”

Erin’s mouth dropped open at the thought. There was no one along the Colorado with more integrity than Wes Carr. And yet … there was something in his eyes that seemed to say more than his words were saying.

But for the life of her she couldn’t imagine what. The horseman did have two legs. She’d seen that much. And Wes Carr was simply too blindly honest to ever wear a mask. It was one of the things she loved best about him, even when he went off to fight for the Union.

She sighed. “It’ll take time, Wes, before they forgive your siding with the Union. Men were hanged a few miles from here for their northern sympathies. Germans from the San Antonio area.” She shook her head. “They’re so proud of their own loyalties, I don’t understand how they can be so unforgiving of loyalties of others.”

He shrugged. “I realized that when I came home, but I’d hoped … Hell, I don’t know what I hoped.”

There was a sudden silence, a pall that dropped over them like a shroud.

“I’m going into Jacob’s Crossing tomorrow to talk to the army. I imagine that will make things worse,” Wes said finally. “But tell Sam that if they … need any help, I’ll do what I can.”

She nodded. She tore her gaze away from his, unable to bear the desolation there.

“Is Mr. Redding still here?”

Somewhere. The word radiated between Wes and Susannah.

Wes nodded grimly.

“Is he better?”

Wes’s eyes cut over to Susannah, who smiled. “Much better, I think.”

“There’s some soup in the buckboard for him.”

Wes glared and started to say something, but Susannah interrupted. “He’ll be very grateful.”

“I’d better go. I promised to be back before supper,” Erin said, obviously reluctant to do so. Susannah hurriedly excused herself and went out on the porch, which overlooked the river. If she had any idea where he’d gone, her nighthawk, she would saddle up and go after him.

She thought about him all dressed in black. She’d seen him that way before, but then in formal, civilized clothes, not as Erin had described him. He had been devastating then with his lean dark looks. She tried to imagine him as Erin had described—dressed in a black shirt, a deadly-looking gun belt, snug black trousers. Well, perhaps Erin hadn’t mentioned snug, but Susannah pictured them that way. His trousers were always snug as they hugged those long, muscular legs. The image sent shivers snaking up and down her spine, coiling the nerves in the pit of her womanhood. She didn’t even question for a moment that he was the mysterious “hawk.” It fitted him so perfectly. But why hadn’t he returned to the ranch, if he was back in the area?

She hadn’t missed Wes’s moment of censure, when Erin had mentioned the safe, but even then there had been an understanding of sorts there. And she also knew why Rhys had not discussed his plans with Wes. Wes could be rather … rigid about such things.

So had she been at one time. But those days were gone. They were fighting for their lives now, and she knew there was no one she’d rather have at her side.

Rhys, where are you?

He rode in later that evening.

Susannah had picked at her food, and Wes didn’t eat at all. Susannah didn’t know what he and Erin had discussed after she’d left, but her brother’s lips were grim, and the lines around his eyes even deeper.

Wes retired after checking the pickets around the ranch, leaving Susannah alone in the room. Hannah had already gone to her room, being a firm believer in “early to bed, and early to rise.”

Susannah heard the now familiar warning of “riders” and she felt her stomach start to twist. Instinct, which was so strong where he was concerned, told her the rider was Rhys. She put down a book she was trying to read and went to the door.

A solitary figure rode in on a chestnut horse. She noticed that right away. No black horse. No dark bay. A chestnut. The same one he had taken. He was dressed as he had been days ago when he’d come from Austin, black broadcloth coat, fancy trousers. No gun belt, but a rifle was tucked into the saddle. His head was bare, his face tan, his eyes as dark and unfathomable as ever.

She waited on the porch as he rode to the barn, past the armed sentries, and dismounted. She knew he saw her, but he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he took the horse inside the barn.

Susannah couldn’t help herself. Her feet inexorably carried her over there. She hesitated just inside, watching him as he took off the coat and laid it carefully on the side of one of the stalls, rolled up his sleeves, and started unsaddling his mount.

She walked over to his side, watching his back tense as if he were about to receive a blow of some kind. She didn’t understand why. But then she never completely understood anything about him, merely accepted, because she had to accept. No, because she wanted to accept.

“I was worried about you,” she finally said after a tense silence.

He started to say something and then stopped, giving her a wry smile. Then it broadened into an abashed grin that so lightened and changed his face that she had to grab onto a stall divider to keep her legs from failing her. This was the Rhys she so rarely saw, and yet made his place in her heart so poignantly alive. The glimpse of a boy through the cynical shell.

“I was going to say there is no need to worry, but I’ve given you some, haven’t I?” he said with that hint of amusement that was so effectively turned back on himself. “It seems you, or your brother, are constantly nursing me for some reason or another.”

His hands easily lifted the saddle from the horse’s back and balanced it over the wall of the stall, not far from Susannah’s hands. Hands she feared were trembling from their need to touch him, to reassure herself he was here, whole. His gaze met hers for a moment, and they seemed even darker than usual, the ebony piercing her like daggers, reaching into her without giving anything in return, without revealing what she knew her own eyes were revealing: the need that was radiating between them again, that heated the air between their bodies with such intensity she thought she would explode in flames.

But still his eyes said nothing.

His body did. He couldn’t control that as well as he could his eyes. His hand had curled into a fist, and his back had gone rigid. Her eyes lowered. His pants were stretched tight over his growing desire.

His gaze had followed hers, and now his lips twisted into a smile again, this time a dangerous smile without amusement as he reached for her, pulling her roughly into his embrace, his lips plundering hers, so hungry she thought they might devour her.

A lovely thought.

She relished the hunger in the embrace, the angry surrender she knew he abhorred but couldn’t prevent. She knew suddenly why he hadn’t returned before.

His body cried out with need his face didn’t show. Oh, Rhys, she thought as her arms tightened around him. She wanted to scream at him that it was all right to show emotion, to love and want love, but he seemed to resent that need so much he’d purposely stayed away.

She hung onto him, her body clinging to his, grateful that the barn was empty, that the sentries were outside. She felt him grow hard against her, even as his lips and tongue made their own kind of love, wild and turbulent. Untamed. Always untamed. Like him.

She felt his muscles ripple in reaction to her touch as her fingers played with the back of his neck. No, not played. They were too intense for that. They seduced, demanding with their wandering pressure, and she felt him tremble with the resulting spasms. She was learning a great deal of seduction. Peculiar how naturally it came.

She smiled through his kiss, and he felt it. He drew back and watched her expression with a bemused expression. “Are you laughing, madam?” he said stiffly, though there was a current of laughter in his own voice.

“I was giggling happily,” she defended herself.

His mouth twitched. “I’ve been accused of many things, but causing giggles is not one of them,” he said sternly, although his eyes gleamed, the blankness filled.

“Your frown is gone,” she observed irreverently.

“You have a way of doing that, Miz Susannah,” he said, “despite my best intentions.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?” He was holding her, looking down at her face with interest.

“Why is your best intention to frown?”

“To scare away little girls.”

“I’m not a little girl.”

His mouth grew grim again. “No, Susannah, you’re not. You’re not that. But I’m no good for you.”

“Is that why you stayed away?”

“Partly.”

“The other part?”

“I made you a promise.”

Susannah thought of their conversations. What promise? He usually avoided them like the plague. Her eyes asked the question.

But instead of answering, his fingers touched her lips, which she knew were trembling, and then they spread their magic over her face with a touch so wondering that it incited her even more than the barely contained violence of a few moments ago.

Gentle. So gentle. So much more gentle than the wildly needful kiss of seconds earlier. So much contrast, each shade speaking of a different part of him, revealing another piece that he tried to keep to himself. She heard his groan, low and harsh, and knew that he realized his tightly woven cloak was coming unraveled.

She put her hand to his face for a moment, holding it against the slightly bristled cheek, enjoying the roughness, the slight abrasion that pricked and tickled rather than hurt. She loved him so, that mouth that twisted to hide his emotions, the eyes trained to keep at bay any sign of weakness. He hated that, those moments of weakness, and yet here he was, allowing and enduring her search into him.

“I wasn’t going to come back here,” he said in a low, intense voice.

“Because you’re the Hawk?” she said.

He looked at her through hooded eyes, just like the bird of prey she’d mentioned. “You’ve heard.”

“Oh, yes,” she said softly.

He didn’t bother to deny anything. He knew her too well.

“And your brother?”

She nodded. “Erin came over to tell us.”

“To tell you, or to see him?”

She grinned. “Both.”

“I hope … he’s coming to his senses.”

“That’s a strange observation, coming from you.”

“Hummmmm,” he said, his hands moving down to her breasts. “Might improve his disposition.”

She glanced up and met his eyes. “What improves yours?”

“You do,” he said. “Unfortunately.”

“And you don’t want it improved?”

His mouth went down to the hollow in her neck. “Not particularly,” he said in a muffled voice that she barely understood.

She wanted to say she very much liked the way it had improved, but then his mouth moved upward, his tongue leaving a blazing trail from her neck to her lips, and blocked any more questions.

And she didn’t want to ask any more. But first …

She steeled herself and then ducked from his arms, almost skipping to the door and bolting it from the inside. She then returned, an impish grin on her face.

An inviting grin.

A seductive grin.

He didn’t need it.

Heat had already enclosed them, wrapping them together as their mouths closed on each other frantically. The talk was gone now, the light teasing that hid so many currents underneath. Those currents had swollen, like those in a storm-tossed sea, and they rushed between them in ever-growing fury.

He picked her up, grabbing a blanket as he did so, and he carried her over to the floor, disregarding a stack of hay. He knew how bloody damned uncomfortable that was, and he didn’t want any diversion. Not now.

He managed to lay the blanket down while still holding her, and then set her down, falling next to her with a grace she’d come to expect. His hands were already busy unbuttoning his trousers.

She watched avidly as her interior seemed to vibrate with expectation, her blood like a boiling tide, her nerve ends twitching in need. He was so beautiful as he slipped off his boots and then trousers and kneeled next to her. His shirt still hung over his chest, and she longed to see him entirely naked as she had on the hill. But as his hands now busied themselves with her shirt and long skirt, she cared only for the feel of his hands against her skin. They could be so gentle. So efficient. So caressing.

It was the only time he gave her any of himself, when the glint in his eyes gentled and the sardonic twist of his lips changed into something fine and inviting.

She didn’t think what might happen if someone tried to enter. She didn’t care. She had been so alone without him, so afraid for him, so empty.

But now as he lowered himself on her, she felt her heart would explode with pleasure, just touching him, being with him, knowing he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

He nibbled. Nibbled everywhere, moving from her neck to her shoulder … down to her breast to where her nipple hardened and waves of feeling, of beautiful expectant torment washed through her, arching her body as his manhood pressed against her legs, teasing and taunting, ready for the exact moment to plunge inside.

“Oh, Rhys,” she whispered. Or was it a whimper? She only knew how vibrant and alive she felt, that every part of her body seemed to have been waiting for this.

His mouth came down on hers just as his body did, wiping from her mind every coherent thought. She just felt. She felt and she loved. With everything in her, she loved him.

Her body arched toward him as he plunged in, his hips bucking as her body closed around him. Her legs went around his, seeking to bring him deeper and deeper, to unify their bodies so completely he could never deny it. Pleasure, sheer exquisite widening circles of sensation, flooded her, making her even more responsive, her movements making music with his, a silent, sensuous song that was heard only in her heart. And his, she hoped. She prayed.

And his.

And then she didn’t think any more about music or sound because she was whirling in a world of ultimate feelings and emotions. Sublime and magnificent. And then when she thought she could stand no more, the world exploded in a burst of heat and shuddering reactions, each one bringing its own flavor of pleasure, its own unique quivering sensation, each one to be savored before the assault of the next one.

Motion and reactions slowed to ripples of satisfaction, and that was perhaps the most wonderful of all, because he lay there on her, connected in the most intimate way, each feeling the other’s tremors, the internal quivering that played against each other so pleasurably.

He rolled over so she was on top, his weight not bearing on her, and he held her close to him, closer than he ever had when they weren’t in the process of making love.

His eyes were not hooded now. They were virtually smoldering with passion. One could almost explode in fire looking at them, she thought.

And did. All over again.

The second time was slower, more creative. She hadn’t known how creative two people could be. She hoped he hadn’t either, but she knew that was a fool’s dream. He guided with unerring skill, his lips sucking at her breasts as she felt him grow hard again within her. And then his hands cradled her buttocks, settling her firmly on his hips, his hands rocking her until she understood, and then she was riding him, riding the shaft that filled her with a brimming ecstasy that was unlike any before. He was moving now too, his hips arching rhythmically, and she felt the oddest sense of power, as if she were the aggressor, a much desired aggressor. She felt her body take more and more of him. Dear heaven, how could anything feel so good, so … immensely wonderful.

Susannah looked down at him, at the smile that played around his lips, the most sensuously beautiful smile she’d ever seen. She put a finger to it, tracing it as if to hold it there forever. She swallowed at how much it lit his face, how much it changed it into something close to contentment, even to happiness.

But then his movements grew more fevered and so did hers, and all she knew was a soaring flight upward, a thrust that blinded her to everything but the most exquisite fulfillment which rushed through her body and sapped any power to reason.

They lay there sated for several moments. Susannah knew she should be thoroughly ashamed of herself. She had just acted like the—the most wanton of women.

But she couldn’t be ashamed. Not with him. She didn’t think she would ever be ashamed of being with him.

What if there was a child?

The thought wriggled seductively inside her. She wouldn’t regret that, either. There was something to be said about ostracism, she thought with a smile. You could then do almost anything you wanted. It was probably worse, right now in Texas, to be a Yankee sympathizer than a husbandless mother.

A boy with raven black hair and ebony eyes, but one who smiled. Who chuckled and laughed. Who loved without reservation.

Suddenly, the thought exploded back on her.

“Susannah?”

She forced a smile.

“Oh, Susannah,” he said with a defeated sigh. “You make me want to have principles, and then you destroy them.”

He looked so disgusted with himself that her smile turned real.

“I make you want to have principles?”

“Bloody hell, I’m afraid so,” he said, chagrined. “I’m not very experienced with them. My first was not to seduce you. You can see how successful I am.”

She leaned down and kissed him. “I think I like you just as you are.”

Rhys grinned wickedly. “So much then for principles. But I do think we ought to consider … discretion.”

“I don’t think we’re very good at that, either,” she said.

He looked around the barn, and thought of the men outside. And winced.

He lifted her off him. Reluctantly, she thought. Very, very reluctantly. She wanted to say something, something possessive, something he would loathe. So she satisfied herself with a mere, “I’m glad you’re back.”

He grumped.

She watched him pull on his trousers, then his boots. His linen shirt was wrinkled and stuck to his skin.

Susannah felt too lazy to do anything. And she didn’t want him to go. No matter what anyone thought.

He returned to her side and shook his head. Her dark hair had escaped the bow and had settled around her shoulders in tumbling curls. Her face was flushed and her lips ripe and swollen. Her violet eyes would light the sky all by themselves.

She was infinitely kissable. And other things. And he’d never wanted anything so much in his life—to keep. The thought shocked him. Horrified him. The last thing in the world she needed was someone like him.

Why had he come back?

Because he couldn’t stay away. He’d tried, bloody hell, how he’d tried. He’d had the Diaz ranch from which to operate, but he told himself he needed more information, the kind of information he could get only here.

Lie. And he didn’t usually lie to himself. His whole body tensed. Because he’d been thinking of her, he’d allowed himself to be taken the other day. Because of his bloody carelessness. And now, he was lying to himself.

He wished like hell she didn’t look at him like that, with that wistful fulfillment on her face, that bloody determination. He leaned down and handed her her clothes, and she took them reluctantly. She took her time, and every moment was seductive to him. He wanted to take her to bed for the next ten years. The problem was he wanted to wake up with her, too. And there was no bloody solution to that one.

“Are you going out again,” she said, “as the hawk?”

He shrugged.

“There’s a meeting tomorrow night … to discuss him, and Mr. MacDougal’s murder.”

He grinned, the old half grin that said nothing. “You can find out what they say?”

She nodded. “Erin will tell us.”

“I wonder if the Martins know about it,” he said.

Susannah looked at him quizzically. “Why?”

“If they do I’ll give you odds they’ll be up to some mischief of their own. To prove a point.”

She frowned. “They might be expecting you, now.”

“They might.”

“Rhys …?”

She was completely dressed now, and he took a finger and pulled a stray piece of hay from her hair. His hand hesitated just a moment before moving away. “Yes?” he replied, his attention still occupied with how fine her hair felt, how silky and soft. How lovely she smelled.

She hesitated. “You will be careful?”

It felt strange being worried about. It also felt … very good. He nodded, but he felt a nerve jerking in his face. He didn’t want to go. “I’ll go on out before you.”

She nodded. She wanted more.

He pulled on his broadcloth coat, ran a finger through his dark hair and, without another word, left.