by Kay Hooper
He stopped at the door of her room and lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Your key?”
“It’s in my purse,” she informed him politely. “Which I trust you still have.”
“So I do. A bit awkward, though.” He looked up the hall as a door opened, then smiled as a red-jacketed young man emerged pushing a serving cart. “Mike,” he called out, “would you give us a hand here?”
“Of course, Mr. Madison.” Mike stopped the cart near them and chastely averted his eyes from Kendall’s bare feet, looking at his employer with a poker face that did credit to his control. “How can I help?”
“Miss James’s door key—would you get it out of the purse, please, and unlock the door?” Hawke looked at Kendall with belated, mocking concern. “You don’t mind, do you, honey?”
“Of course not.” Whether it was giddiness or sheer resignation, Kendall felt extremely detached from the moment. So what if her reputation was shot to hell? She hoped none of these people moved in the same circles as a mining engineer, so if she could whisk her father away quick enough, he need never know.
Mike located the key in Kendall’s purse and unlocked the door, then swung it open, replaced the key, and solemnly handed the purse to her. Kendall murmured an absurd thank-you, and wondered vaguely if Hawke had planned the whole damn scene.
“Thanks, Mike.” Hawke watched as the young man continued down the hall with his cart, then smiled down at Kendall. “It’s nice to have a helping hand now and then,” he commented.
“Are you dead to all shame?” she asked with the objective interest of someone searching for the answer to a somewhat puzzling question.
“Not at all.” He carried her into her room—leaving the door open—and set her gently on the foot of the bed, dropping the sandals at her feet. “Now … does madam require anything else?”
Kendall stared at him a little wildly. “A psychiatrist and a couch. I must be out of my mind.”
“My couch is vacant at the moment.” Somehow, he managed to leer with his eyebrows.
“Thanks—I’ll pass.” She could have added that having already experienced the effectiveness of his “couch,” she wasn’t eager to repeat the less-than-fun experience.
“Anything else I can do to help?” He looked ridiculously hopeful. “If you’d care to soak in a hot tub, I’ll be glad to wash your back for you. Or anything else—”
“Never mind,” she interrupted a little desperately. “I get the picture! Thanks, but no thanks.” She made a sudden grab at the top of her dress as it gave up the ghost and decided to obey the laws of gravity. “If you’d just leave—?”
Hawke grinned, interestedly watching her struggle with the dress. “Need any help with your zipper?” he asked innocently.
If Kendall hadn’t been afraid of losing the battle with her dress, she would have thrown her purse at him. “Just—leave!”
Hawke bowed with stilted dignity and backed toward the door, obviously intent on watching the unintended strip-scene for as long as possible. “If you need anything—anything at all—”
“I’ll whistle, shall I?” She glared at him, trying not to let the bubble of laughter in her throat escape.
“Or call room service—they’ll pass the message along.”
“Hawke!”
“See you in the morning, honey.” He laughed, then closed the door quietly behind him.
Kendall stared at the closed door for a moment, absently releasing the grip on her dress and allowing the material to find its own level. She thought of laughter and romance, of fragile ideals and cherished illusions. She thought of paradise, and knights riding by on white chargers and moonlight. She thought of a bruised and weary heart with too many good-byes engraved on it, and an optimism bruised from too many head-on collisions with reality.
She thought of charades and other games. Like this one—where romance was the key and the stakes were high—very high. And the joker was wild. Speaking to the man who could no longer hear her, she mused vaguely, “But in your game, Hawke … the game is wild.”
She glanced absently at the balcony door to see Gypsy emerge and favor her with a disapproving stare. “Gypsy, we are definitely in trouble!”
Muted thunder woke her up the next morning, and Kendall moaned sleepily and pulled the pillow around her ears to shut out the sound. It didn’t help, though, and she muttered irritably for someone to kill the noisy intruder. It was a moment before she identified the sound as someone pounding on her door.
Still more than half asleep, she flung back the covers and pulled herself from the bed, feeling almost blindly around for her robe and slippers and finding neither. Deciding to hell with it, she made her way to the door, more by a terrific sense of direction than anything else, and flung it open. The glare on her face—sleepy though it was—should have curled somebody’s hair.
Except that it didn’t.
Hawke returned the glare as he leaned against the jamb, one hand holding an indignantly struggling Gypsy by the scruff of her neck. “It’s about time!” he snapped, obviously not in the best of moods.
Kendall focused on the rather odd scene in front of her, and grasped one important fact. “What are you doing with my cat?” she demanded with early-morning temper.
“It isn’t love of her company, believe me.” His voice was carefully restrained. “In fact, I’ve been tempted to drown her. I just fished her out of the couple next door’s bathtub. They are not happy. And since they requested the honeymoon suite because they understandably wanted privacy, I don’t blame them.”
“Gypsy likes water,” Kendall defended her pet, again grasping only the relevant fact.
“She also likes chewing on various parts of the human anatomy, as one very unhappy hotel employee can attest to. Either put her in a cage, Kendall, or make damn sure she doesn’t get out of your room at night. The last thing I need is a lawsuit!”
“I will not put Gypsy in a cage!” The logical part of Kendall’s mind realized that her cat must have loosened the leash and leapt from her balcony to the one next door. The same little compartment of her mind also noted that Hawke had apparently dressed in a hurry without taking the time to shave. But, having been rudely awakened after lying awake for most of the night, Kendall was in no mood to heed the logical voice warning her to be conciliatory.
“Then put a leash on her.” Hawke ignored the cat’s attempts to scratch him. His glare faded suddenly as his gray eyes dropped to take in her petite figure, clothed only in baby-doll pajamas so sheer that it hardly seemed worth the effort.
Unaware that his mood was rapidly changing, Kendall reached out to grab her pet. She held the cat against her breast securely, glaring at Hawke and totally unconscious of the fact that the wet animal was bringing her pajamas one step closer to invisibility. “I did leash her!” she snapped.
“Well … try to keep her in your room, then, and not on the balcony.” It was an almost absent request, delivered in a deepening voice as his eyes continued to rove almost hungrily over her. “Dammit, Kendall—do you own a single outfit that isn’t sexy?”
The sudden demand startled Kendall, and woke her up with a vengeance. Clutching her cat, she stared at him warily, remembering the bargain struck the night before. Dumb. Oh, she had been dumb! Trying to save a hopeless situation, she told him calmly, “My clothes are none of your business.”
It was damnably hard to be dignified when one was barefoot, wearing skimpy pajamas, and clutching a wet cat, but Kendall gave it her best shot. And Hawke, devil that he was, changed moods on her again.
With a sudden grin he said softly, “I loved the slippery dress last night, but this is even better.”
Kendall felt definitely hunted when an older woman passed by the doorway just in time to hear Hawke’s remark and tossed a startled, somewhat amused glance at Kendall. Resigned, Kendall recognized one of the women who had been by the pool the night before.
Did he plan these encounters, for God’s sake, or was she simply incredibly u
nlucky? Twenty-five years with a spotless reputation, and everything changed overnight. The thought roused a justifiable anger. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to bed,” she said stiffly, realizing too late that her word choice had not been the best.
“I don’t mind at all.” He took a step inside the room, gray eyes glittering with laughter and something else. “In fact, I’d say that it was a perfect way to start the day.”
For a panicky moment Kendall felt almost overwhelmed by the hypnotic gray eyes. And then Gypsy solved the problem by swiping angrily at Hawke with a set of very impressive claws.
Forced to step back again or be branded for life, Hawke stared at the cat a bit ominously. “You,” he informed the irritated feline, “ought to be shot.”
Unimpressed, Gypsy growled low in her throat and attempted another swipe. Smiling sweetly, Kendall closed the door gently in Hawke’s bemused face.
Securely latching the balcony door, Kendall released her pet and then tried to recapture sleep. It didn’t work, of course. She had shed the damp pajamas, thinking wrathfully that if anyone—unnamed—woke her up again, there would be a show. But sleep eluded her.
Giving up after half an hour, she rose once again and took a shower, then dressed in cutoff jeans and a short-sleeved cotton shirt, tied at her waist. Slipping her feet into a pair of thongs, she found her purse. Automatically checking her wallet, she dropped her room key inside. She had to get away from the hotel for a while.
It wasn’t so much a conscious decision as a need. Absently, she found Gypsy’s food and water dishes, filled one with water and the other with some of the dry food she’d bought in Nassau the day before, and placed both dishes by the locked balcony door.
A few moments later she was leaving the elevator in the lobby, and hoping that Hawke was nowhere around. Since it was fairly early for most of the guests, the lobby was silent, and Kendall hurried toward the doors.
“Miss James?”
She halted and turned to face Rick Evans. “Mr. Evans.” Her voice was resigned. “Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not.” He looked a little uncertain as he reached her, his smile tentative. “It’s just—Miss James, would you mind very much changing rooms?”
She looked surprised, and he hurried on to explain.
“There was a mixup in our reservations, and one of the guests who requested two rooms on your floor has only one. He’s arrived earlier than expected, and since he’s a regular guest…”
Kendall smiled faintly. “I don’t mind at all. Shall I move my things now, or—”
“The staff will move everything for you, if that’s all right. I can see you’re on your way out.” He grinned slightly. “I may have to roust Hawke to move the cat, but I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Thinking of Hawke grappling with Gypsy’s temperamental nature gave the news an added plus as far as Kendall was concerned. Smiling, she handed over her key and accepted the one held out to her.
“It’s a suite on the top floor,” the manager elaborated, “but there’s no extra charge. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Miss James.”
“No trouble,” she said politely. Dropping the key into her purse, she waved cheerily and then hastily made good her escape before Hawke could pop out of nowhere and create another embarrassing situation out of thin air.
Emerging into the early-morning sunlight, Kendall had no very clear idea of where she was going. She looked thoughtfully at the two cabs parked outside the hotel entrance and flipped a mental coin, then began walking.
The village was easy to locate, and she wandered down the shaded streets and window-shopped for an hour or so. Sometime later her steps slowed as she followed the path toward the dignified old church not far from the hotel. She could hear the laughter and shrieks of children at play, and the sound stopped her dead in her tracks.
She loved children and emotionally had adopted kids all over the world. It was always painful to leave them behind when her father was transferred and they moved on again.
Her father had warned her years before that she would tear herself apart over “her kids.” He had used it as an argument for settling down and having kids of her own, telling her that one day she would love a child too much, and be heartbroken at the inevitable parting.
It hadn’t worked out that way though—it had been the other way around. The child she had loved had left her, and Kendall was desperately afraid to become attached to another.
“May I help you?”
Startled, she focused on an elderly man whose gentle brown eyes and serene expression gave her a very good idea who he was. The collar helped. “Father Thomas?”
“Yes.” The eyes moved over her in an unexpectedly shrewd inspection. “You’re Miss James.”
“Kendall,” she corrected him automatically, her surprise obvious. “But how did you know?”
He smiled. “Hawke brought Robbie back from the hotel yesterday afternoon and explained what had happened. I have to thank you, Kendall. If it hadn’t been for you—”
“Please.” Kendall smiled a little shakily, thrown by this man’s friendship with Hawke, although she didn’t know why. “If I hadn’t been there, someone else would have helped,” Another happy shriek drew her eyes irresistibly to the square whitewashed building behind the church. “Father—if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some time with the children.”
“Of course, Kendall.” Smiling, he led the way to the surprisingly well-equipped playground between the church and the orphanage. Seeing Kendall’s expression, the priest explained, “Hawke provides a few extras for the children.”
Kendall didn’t want to hear that. Not that she wanted to deprive the children, but everything she heard about Hawke seemed to produce yet another bond between them, and that was the last thing she needed. She didn’t have time to worry over it, though, because she was surrounded by laughing children a moment later.
As always, Kendall lost track of time as she played with the kids. When lunchtime came, Father Thomas invited her to stay, and she did. But she almost regretted it when the priest spent the whole time talking about Hawke. Interested, and yet troubled by the certainty that she was becoming involved with Hawke in spite of herself, Kendall listened.
Father Thomas spoke of his younger friend with great affection and respect. He told Kendall that Hawke had been decorated several times in Vietnam—something the priest had learned through a mutual friend, since Hawke didn’t talk about it—and wounded once while evacuating children from a small hospital under enemy fire. He told her about Hawke’s intelligence, his sensitivity, his concern for the people around him.
Kendall listened, her first impression of Hawke as a hard man fading away. And that, she knew, was dangerous. Knowing it did nothing to change it. Father Thomas drew a vivid picture of a man who felt more than he showed, who had seen—like Kendall—too much to be innocent. A man with chinks in his armor.
It was late in the afternoon when Kendall left the orphanage, thanking Father Thomas and receiving his assurances that she was welcome anytime.
Instead of walking directly back to the hotel, Kendall wandered slowly along a path until she came to the rocky cliffs on the north end of the island. She picked her way carefully, recognizing the area from her brief flight over the island in the small plane that had brought her from Nassau. Moving south, she reached a point where she could see the hotel in the distance, and look down from the cliffs to the beginnings of the sandy beach she and Hawke had walked the night before.
Kendall sat down a foot from the edge, deciding vaguely to watch the sunset. But her thoughts occupied her, thoughts she had pushed aside after lunch with Father Thomas.
Hugging her knees, she listened to the roar of the surf and her thoughts. She had enjoyed the past fifteen years, the good times far outweighing the bad. But she felt … so weary. Not a physical weariness, but an emotional one. She had never known roots. The most stable thing in her life was her father’s love, and she ha
d always lived with the knowledge that her father could be killed without warning.
It had made each moment precious, perhaps explaining her need to travel with him. But she couldn’t cling to her father forever. She was independent physically and mentally—but emotionally, the child inside her had not yet learned to trust other relationships. The child clung to its father as the only solid thing in a painful world.
Kendall knew herself. And she knew that it was time for her to let go of her father. His life was not hers. Her life was … what? Undiscovered, as yet.
It was a peculiar moment. She felt almost reborn. And scared. So scared. But several things were clear to her. She would no longer pretend—with anyone. The useful and easily assumed dumb blonde was gone forever. Hawke had been right; she was cheating herself, and others, by presenting a bland appearance to the world.
It was astonishingly clear to her. She wasn’t quite sure why. But instinct told her that it had a great deal to do with Hawke. It was one subject she wanted to shy away from, but Kendall forced herself to face it.
Because that was clear too. Hawke was important in her life. A man she had known just over twenty-four hours. She still intended to fight any physical relationship, but her reasons were different now. Before, she had wanted to avoid any relationship. Cut and dried. But now she knew that that was impossible. She was drawn to him mentally as well as physically. The relationship—however it could be defined—existed.
But Kendall would not commit herself. Not yet. If she had seen too much to be innocent, then she had also seen how brief and uncertain life really was. It was not a pessimistic thought, but a calm understanding. If she gave her body, she would give her heart. And she would be very, very sure. Love was too precious to waste.
All at once she was vividly aware of the roar of the surf, the sun hanging low in a burning sky, the smell of the salty sea crashing against the rocks below her. And a new sense told her that he was coming. She wondered dimly at the sensation and what it indicated.
“Kendall?” His voice was quiet, almost hushed, as though the weight of her thoughts had touched him. He sat down beside her. “I was worried about you.”
