by Kay Hooper
Kendall moaned raggedly when the wave reached its peak, calling out his name mindlessly and hearing her own name torn from his throat with a shuddering groan.
And then the wave burst on the shore, leaving them spent and very nearly numb, damp bodies tangled together.
The air-conditioned room felt almost cold to her heated body, but Kendall felt too pleasantly exhausted to move. As a matter of fact, if somebody had yelled fire, she wouldn’t even have opened her eyes. Apparently, Hawke felt the same.
Stirring slightly beside her, Hawke murmured, “Do you always sleep in an icebox?”
“It’s your hotel,” she pointed out, rousing herself enough to snuggle closer to him.
“It’s your room. What’s the thermostat set on?”
“What strange things you find to talk about … and at such strange moments.” She sighed sleepily. “I don’t know what the thermostat’s set on.”
“I like my creature comforts. And it’s like the fringes of Siberia in here.” He began to run his fingers through her hair. “You’re better than a cat though.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He chuckled softly. “Well, your cat’s been sharing my bed, you know. Almost as good as an electric blanket. But you’re better.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He raised his head suddenly, looking down toward the foot of the bed. “Hell. No wonder I’m freezing. What did you do with the covers, you brazen hussy?”
Kendall giggled, nuzzling her face into his neck. “I didn’t do anything with them. An impatient male foot kicked them away.”
“Liar.”
“I swear.”
“I don’t remember that.”
With another sleepy giggle, she told him, “I’m not surprised. You had other things on your mind. It’s really very flattering. To me, I mean.”
“Get the covers.”
“Get them yourself.”
Hawke sighed. “Didn’t you hear the voice of your lord and master?”
“Lincoln freed the slaves.”
“You’re going to let me freeze on a technicality?”
“No, you’ll freeze on a bed.”
“Cute. That’s cute.”
Kendall delicately bit the side of his neck. “It’ll teach you not to make dumb conversation with a woman you just seduced.”
“I seduced? Who rang the bell?”
“What bell?”
Hawke released a sighing laugh. “Are you going to get the covers?”
“No.”
“You should be whipped.”
“Feeling energetic?”
He chuckled softly and managed somehow to pull the covers up around them without dislodging Kendall. “Maybe later.”
“I can hardly wait.” She smothered a yawn against his neck, feeling herself drift and letting sleep come.
Chapter 9
When the phone began ringing early the next morning, Kendall’s first thought was a disgusted I can never sleep late in this damn place! Eyes firmly shut, she reached out a hand and fumbled on the night-stand for the phone. Lifting the receiver, she suddenly became aware of an unaccustomed weight across her waist.
Still holding the receiver inches from her ear, she opened one eye and stared at the male arm lying possessively over her stomach. Kendall opened the other eye and turned her head slowly, gazing at Hawke’s relaxed, sleeping face.
Absently, she brought the phone to her ear, murmuring, “Hello?” in a bemused voice.
“Kendall?” It was Rick, obviously hesitant and more than a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry for disturbing you so early, but—uh—you wouldn’t happen to know where Hawke is, would you?”
She felt an absurd desire to giggle, and hastily choked it back. Oh, well. The hotel staff and guests already considered her a fallen woman. This only confirmed it. Sighing, she said ruefully, “Hang on a minute, Rick.”
“Sure.” There was a definite laugh in his voice.
Kendall covered the mouthpiece with her fingers and poked her companion gently with an elbow. “Hawke? Hawke—wake up.”
Gray eyes opened with obvious reluctance and stared at her sleepily. There was a puzzled expression at first, and then a sudden light flared deep in the smoky depths. “Good morning,” he said huskily. Apparently, he didn’t notice the phone.
“Good morning.” She smiled as he rose on an elbow to stare down at her, his arm tightening across her middle. He bent his head, kissing her gently.
Kendall lifted her free hand to touch his cheek lightly, feeling his morning beard scratch her fingers sensuously.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Dawn, I think.”
A purely male grin tugged at his lips. “Just couldn’t wait any longer, huh?”
“Right.” She prodded the middle of his chest with the phone. “But first—you have a call. Rick.”
“Oh.” He looked absurdly disappointed. “Hell. What does he want?”
“I didn’t ask,” Kendall told him politely.
Hawke sighed and took the receiver from her. “What is it, Rick? And it damn well better be important, or I’ll send you back to Florida the hard way.” His voice wasn’t very clear, because he was pressing tiny kisses against Kendall’s fingers one at a time.
She watched him, still bemused, thinking how nice it was to wake up beside the man she loved, to see his eyes light up when he saw her. She tuned out the conversation between Hawke and his manager, just staring at his face and feeling very alive and very awake in spite of her lack of sleep.
Hawke hung up the phone finally, resting a bit more of his weight on her as he leaned over to reach the nightstand. Without bothering to prop himself back up, he stared down at her wryly. “I guess you heard.”
Kendall blinked at him. “No. I … wasn’t listening.”
He smiled crookedly. “As much as I hate it—and you’ll never know how much I hate it—I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you. There’s a domestic crisis going on in the kitchen, and Rick claims he can’t handle it.” Hawke reflected for a moment. “And if I find out that he could have handled it, I just may kill him.”
Her lips twitched. “And lose a good manager? You wouldn’t.”
“I’d rather have you than that bum any day.”
“How flattering.”
Hawke grinned. “One of these days,” he said ruefully, “you’re going to realize that I never say anything I don’t mean. You seem determined to take everything I say as a joke.”
“It’s safer that way,” she told him solemnly.
“There you go again.” He shook his head despairingly. “What do I have to do to convince you I’m serious?”
“Well, you might look a little more dignified with your clothes on.”
He lifted a quizzical brow. “But naked people have very few secrets. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“And very little dignity.”
Firmly, he told her, “The world would be much better off if we all went naked.”
“Very sunburned too.”
“Dammit, will you be serious for just a minute!”
Kendall eyed him consideringly. “You mean you really think we should all go naked? I’m not sure that’s a rational fantasy.”
“Rational fantasy is a contradiction in terms.”
“Thank you, Professor Madison.”
Hawke dropped his head suddenly, burying his face between her breasts. “Oh, God,” he groaned, “how do we get into these ridiculous conversations?”
Kendall raked her fingers through his dark hair and giggled in spite of herself. “It must be lack of sleep. Or exhaustion.” She felt giddy and happy, and didn’t want to think about anything important.
It was amazing to her that she felt so comfortable lying in bed with a man she’d known for an embarrassingly short time. She thought back suddenly to the deal they’d made the first night, and realized that Hawke had kept his end of it. He hadn’t forced her into anything. And n
ot once had she been forced to say no to him. In fact, she’d never even wanted to.
He was sighing against her flesh. “I’ll go along with that,” he said in a muffled voice. “And I could shoot Rick for waking us up.”
“Speaking of Rick—”
“I know.” He lifted his head, gazing down at her with restless eyes. “But I don’t want to leave you. I have this awful feeling that I dreamed last night.”
The wry statement touched Kendall oddly, and she raised her head from the pillow to kiss him lightly. “Just how important is that crisis?” she murmured invitingly.
“Very, if we want to eat.” The words were light, but his gray eyes had taken on a look she recognized from the previous night. “The cook’s threatening to quit. He’s French, and very excitable.”
“All the best ones are,” she said.
Hawke groaned and abruptly rolled away from her. “I’m getting out of here before we get into another one of those absurd conversations. God only knows where we’d end up this time!”
Kendall laughed and watched him, absently drawing the covers up over her breasts.
“Where’s my robe? I could have sworn—”
“It’s on the floor. There, by the—” She choked suddenly and began to laugh. For the very first time, she got a good look at his scar. It was on his hip, just below the tanned line indicating where he wore his bathing suit. He’d have to back up to a mirror to see it clearly himself.
A very neat, even, double row of teeth marks.
No wonder her question had embarrassed him! Kendall couldn’t stop laughing, and Hawke’s wry expression wasn’t helping any.
He pulled on his robe and tied the belt securely. “I don’t see what’s so funny,” he muttered, obviously lying.
“Hawke—” She finally managed to get control of herself. “How did you get that scar? Or is that a dumb question?”
“How I got it is obvious.”
Kendall made an effort to straighten out her face. “Did you make somebody mad at you?” she asked innocently.
He sank down on the foot of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he groaned.
“Hawke—what happened?”
He raised his head and stared at her, a faint tinge of red creeping up his lean cheeks. “I don’t remember,” he told her flatly.
“What? Come on, now!”
“I swear.” He sighed and gestured to the tattoo on his forearm. “It happened the same night I got this. That’s all I know.”
“The night your buddies got you drunk?” When he nodded, Kendall said gravely, “So you woke up the next morning with a terrific hangover, lying on silken cushions in Madame Wong’s Whoopie Parlor?”
He gave her a startled look. “There weren’t any silken cushions,” he muttered, tacitly admitting the rest.
Biting the inside of her lip to keep from bursting out laughing again, she asked, “Wasn’t Rick one of those buddies? Can’t he tell you what happened that night?”
“Judging by the way he snickers from time to time,” Hawke said disgustedly, “I’m sure he could. But he won’t. He’s kept that damn story to himself for nearly fifteen years. I’ve tried threats, pleading, bribery—nothing works. I’ll go to my grave wondering.”
Before Kendall could respond, the phone rang demandingly, and she reached for the receiver. “He’s coming, Rick,” she said cheerfully into the mouthpiece.
“Well, tell him to hurry, will you?” The manager sounded harassed, angry voices rising in the background. “With all due respect to your love life, we have to eat—and Jean’s packing his suitcase!”
Kendall winced as a crash of china erupted from Rick’s end, then hung up the phone with a laugh when the line went dead. “Jean’s packing,” she informed Hawke. “And somebody’s throwing dishes around. You’d better get down there.”
Hawke sighed and got to his feet. He looked down at her for a moment, and Kendall could have sworn that his face was a bit strained. Lightly, he said, “I hope you’re not planning to catch the first banana boat out of here the moment my back’s turned.”
She reached behind her head to plump up her pillow, murmuring evasively, “I promised my father that I’d wait here for him.”
Something flickered in Hawke’s eyes and then was gone. “So I have that much time.”
“To do what?” Kendall wasn’t sure she wanted an answer, but Hawke gave her one.
“Convince you to stay here. I was hoping that last night had done that, but I see I was wrong. You’re still running, aren’t you, honey?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. You’re not hiding behind that dumb-blonde act anymore, but you’re still running. You’re scared stiff of committing yourself, afraid of being hurt. So you’re running from me, from yourself, and from what we feel.”
Kendall felt a flicker of resentment. He was ruining things by injecting reality into last night’s dream, and she didn’t want to think about that. “You’d better go take care of your crisis.”
He took a step closer to her side and stared down at her unreadable expression. Then, with a certain deliberation, he said casually, “Just remember—you’ve got responsibilities now.” He bent down and patted her blanket-covered belly lightly, briefly. “There may well be a little bird in the nest right now.” He turned and left the room before he could see her shock.
Kendall stared after him, his careless words bringing home to her the enormity of what she had done.
A baby?
She closed her eyes tightly, seeing in her mind the thousands of children she had met all over the world. Children she had loved—however briefly. She wanted a child of her own, a child who would never know hunger or cold. A child who would never dance laughingly over a mine in the middle of a war…
A dark-haired boy with gray eyes. Or a little girl with her father’s smile. A houseful of kids, surrounded by love and laughter.
Shoving the image fiercely from her mind, Kendall pulled herself from the bed and headed for the shower. It was highly unlikely that she could be pregnant after one night. Highly unlikely. Hawke had no right to imply that she could be, just to upset her.
But had that been his intention? Somehow, she didn’t think so. There had been a satisfied gleam in his gray eyes, that gleam that she’d already learned to be wary of. He had left that thought in her mind deliberately.
Kendall took her shower, allowing herself to dream a bit about an unborn child that might never be. She washed her hair, then got out and dried herself with a fluffy towel before going into her bedroom to find her hair dryer.
Half an hour later she was dressed in shorts and a knit pullover and, after checking Gypsy’s food and water dishes and thinking wryly that at least her cat was sleeping late, left her suite. She needed to think, and pacing around in her room wasn’t going to help her do that. Maybe fresh air would.
It was very early; none of the guests seemed to be up and about. The lobby was deserted except for Rick, who was behind the desk, on the phone, and looking as harassed as he’d sounded earlier. And from the looks of his rumpled blond hair, he’d been clutching it in despair.
Kendall leaned against the desk and watched him, unabashedly listening to his end of the conversation. Apparently, it was from the other hotel, which seemed to be having a domestic crisis of its own. Rick was trying to explain that Hawke wasn’t available at the moment, and obviously wasn’t getting through to the party on the other end of the line. He finally hung up the phone with a faint bang and glared across the desk at Kendall.
“Job getting you down?” she inquired with mock sympathy.
The glare contained a faintly desperate, despairing glitter. “Why don’t you and Hawke just feed me to the sharks and be done with it?” he demanded irritably. “He’s ready to cut my throat with a blunt knife for disturbing you two; God only knows what he’ll do when he finds out that his other manager’s about to walk out because
he can’t deal with his cook either. Go ahead—feed me to the sharks! I’d welcome peaceful oblivion.”
Kendall widened her eyes innocently. “Did I say anything?”
“I read minds,” he muttered. “It’s a new ability, acquired out of sheer desperation. Is it my fault that this just happens to be one of those days when everything goes wrong? Is it my fault that Jean decided to decorate the kitchen with broken china? Is it my fault that I can’t speak French, and didn’t understand a word he was screaming?”
“Of course not,” Kendall murmured soothingly.
Rick leaned an elbow on the desk and propped his chin in his hand. Sighing, he said wryly, “So put in a good word for me with Hawke, will you? I’ll apologize on bended knees if it’ll help.”
She looked amused. “For everything going wrong?”
“No. For disturbing you two.”
At this point Kendall was beyond being embarrassed by anything. She smiled sweetly at Rick. “I know a way you can make it up to both of us.”
“Anything. ”
“Tell me how Hawke got that scar.”
“Anything except that.” Rick grinned suddenly. “I love to watch his face when I chuckle over that story.”
“Hawke called it a snicker.”
“He would.”
Kendall sighed. “I hope he fires you. But first, we’ll boil you in oil. It’s cruel not to tell him.”
Rick looked at her with bright, laughing eyes. “Of course it is. And it was cruel of you to keep the poor guy on tenterhooks all this week. I assume everything’s settled now?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Everything?” A flush rose in her face in spite of all her efforts, and she shrugged. “There’s nothing to settle.”
His grin faded. “I’m sorry, Kendall,” he said hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that the entire hotel—myself included—has been watching the romance. I know it can’t have been easy for you, being courted in a goldfish bowl. But I was hoping things had worked out for you two.” He paused for a moment, then added softly, “Because you love him.”
Kendall stared at him for a moment, then squared her shoulders. “I need some air,” she muttered revealingly. Without another word to him she turned and left the lobby.
