Summer Hawk

by Peggy Webb

  SUMMER HAWK

  Down from the Black Hills he came.

  Out of the caves where crystal spires gave off the light

  of a million stars.

  Into the mountains he flew, soaring on mighty wings.

  Hawk.

  Mysterious and powerful,

  Healer,

  Lover,

  Father,

  Friend.

  With wings outspread he covered his love, and up from her womb sprang his children:

  Strong sons and a daughter with eyes

  the color of the sky.

  PEGGY WEBB

  SUMMER HAWK

  Published by Silhouette Books

  America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  This one’s for you, Mama.

  Acknowledgments: Dr. Kirsten Patterson, for information on Arbo viruses.

  Books by Peggy Webb

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Summer Hawk #1300

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  13 Royal Street #447

  Silhouette Romance

  When Joanna Smiles #645

  A Gift for Tenderness #681

  Harvey’s Missing #712

  Venus DeMolly #735

  Tiger Lady #785

  Beloved Stranger #824

  Angel at Large #867

  PEGGY WEBB

  and her two chocolate labs live in a hundred-year-old house not far from the farm where she grew up. “A farm is a wonderful place for dreaming,” she says. “I used to sit in the hayloft and dream of being a writer.” Now, with two grown children and more than forty-five romance novels to her credit, the former English teacher confesses she’s still a hopeless romantic and loves to create the happy endings her readers love so well.

  When she isn’t writing, she can be found at her piano playing blues and jazz or in one of her gardens planting flowers. A believer in the idea that a person should never stand still, Peggy recently taught herself carpentry.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter One

  Callie came upon them unexpectedly, the two people sitting beside a sparkling stream just off a trail deep in the White Mountains. The woman sat with her arms linked around the man’s waist, her head resting on his shoulder, and he was looking down at her, his head slightly bent, the lines in his bronzed face softened and his eyes shining with love. Callie had to turn her face away to keep from crying.

  Her parents. Age sat like snow on their hair but had left untouched the most vital part of them—their spirits and their hearts.

  Drawing her Appaloosa to a halt behind a stand of white birches, Callie sat quietly, not spying but merely unwilling to intrude.

  “Remember when I first brought you to this mountain, Ellen?”

  In spite of his age, her father’s voice was strong and resonant, filled with the musical cadences of the Apache.

  “As if it were yesterday, Calder. When I first saw you on your white stallion I thought you were the most magnificent man I’d ever met. I still do.”

  When she smiled at her husband the years fell away, and Ellen was once more the impish young woman who breached all the defenses of a young Apache doctor caught between two worlds. The force of their passion made the very air around them shimmer. With something almost like reverence, Calder Red Cloud cupped his wife’s face.

  “And you are still my beautiful Yellow Star.”

  Callie dug the heels of her soft moccasins into the Appaloosa’s side and tangled her hands in his mane, guiding him with silent commands backward out of the trees and away from the bank of the stream. Her parents never even saw her.

  The wind caught her tears and threw them back in her face. By the time Callie got to the stables she was a weeping wreck.

  She gave her face an angry swipe with the back of her hand, then dismounted and groomed her horse, trying not to think about love so beautiful it made her weep, trying not to think about nights that were so lonely she couldn’t even dream, trying not to think about a virus so deadly it killed her best friend.

  Introspective by nature, analytical by training, Callie could no more turn off her mind than she could stop breathing. Jennifer was there, deep in the shadows, laughing as they prepared to go into Biolevel Four where the hot viruses were kept, laughing because she was getting too fat for her safety suit.

  Callie went inside her parents’ sunny kitchen to make herself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Food always helped restore her sense of equilibrium. Jennifer used to tease her about it.

  “How come you eat like a horse and I’m the one getting big as a barrel?” she’d say.

  Pushing the memory from her mind, Callie wandered into the den to check for telephone messages. The red light was blinking.

  “Callie, this is Ron. Call me. I’ll be at the center until I hear from you.”

  A specialist in virulent diseases, she didn’t have to wonder what the phone call meant. Her work with hot viruses was dangerous and stressful. Vacation was more than time away from the job: it was emotional and mental recovery. The director for the Center of Disease Control would never call her except in case of emergency.

  She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “How’s it going, kid?” Sixty-five, fatherly and jovial, Dr. Ron Messenger never failed to show his interest in and love for the intrepid team of scientists and doctors under his command.

  “Great.” Grinning Callie glanced down at her trademark white shirt and jeans, the only clothes she considered necessary for her life-style. “I’ve gone native since I got home. I’m dressed in war paint and feathers.”

  “Damn, I wish I wasn’t so old.” His laughter echoed over the line, then he sobered. “Hate to do this, kid, but pack your bag. You’re going to Houston.”

  “Research?”

  “Containment…if God smiles on us.”

  “In Houston, Texas?” The consequences of failure were mind-boggling. “My god. What happened?”

  “A Sudanese, working one of the oil tankers that came into port.” Adrenaline pumped through Callie’s body as Ron briefly outlined the situation. “There’s no time to lose, Callie.”

  “I understand.”

  “Peg Cummings will be prepared to leave the minute you get to Atlanta. You’ll be joined in Houston by Dr. Joseph Swift of the National Institute of Virology.”

  “I’d rather work with the devil himself. Can we request somebody else?”

  “It’s not like you to listen to gossip, Callie.”

  Callie knew all the stories, some of them true, some of them pure fabrication—tales of Joseph Swift’s legendary temper, his icy demeanor, his lone-wolf ways, his ancestry. But it wasn’t the stories that bothered her—it was the man himself. Dr. Joseph Swift was actually Joseph Swift Hawk, a man who denied his Sioux heritage, a man who never used his Sioux name. For that Callie could not forgive him.

  “This is personal, Ron.
”

  “Have you two been lovers?”

  “I’ve never even met the man.”

  “Good. I won’t worry about you, then. Sorry about the trip, kid.”

  “That’s okay, Ron. I’ll be on the next plane.”

  “Good. Peg’s husband is worried about this being her first field trip. I told him you’d look after her.”

  “Peg’s good, Ron. She doesn’t need looking after.”

  “I know that. But it made him feel better.”

  “Husbands.”

  “Yeah, kid. Be glad you don’t have one.”

  Most times she was. But there were times, such as the moment beside the stream observing her parents, when Callie felt a great aching void that threatened to swallow her.

  After she hung up she picked up her sandwich, but she’d lost her taste for peanut butter.

  “Callie?”

  “In here, Mom.”

  Ellen came through the door, her face flushed and shining, twigs clinging to her clothes and a leaf tangled in her hair. Callie’s heart hurt.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Gone to the clinic. Said he didn’t trust those two young doctors he’d hired.”

  Ellen gave her daughter a speculative look, but Callie refused to get into that old argument. When she got her medical degree everyone in the family, including her brother Steve, expected her to come home and go into practice with her father. Not that they would ever try to tell her what to do. Still, from time to time Ellen pressed the daughter she called her wild child to come home and work so Calder could retire with peace of mind.

  “He’ll be seventy-five next month, you know,” Ellen added.

  “I know.”

  “I thought I’d throw a big party for him, put up a tent, hire a band, invite all the Mississippi relatives. You can help me plan it after dinner.”

  “Mom, I won’t be here for dinner. The center called.”

  Ellen’s hands shook as she tucked a stray curl into her French twist.

  “You’ll be back for Calder’s birthday, won’t you, Callie?”

  Callie knew what waited for her in Houston for she’d been there before…something so far removed from birthdays and garden parties that thinking about it sometimes gave her nightmares.

  She didn’t know when she would come back, or even if she would come back. But she wasn’t about to say that to her mother.

  “I’ll try, Mom. I really will.”

  Everything about Houston was large in scale, from the stadium to the Galleria to the glass-and-concrete high-rises that competed with planes for space in the sky.

  Joseph sat in a stiff chair at Gate 22 in the airport trying to block out the noise—the din of endless chatter from the river of travelers flowing down the hallways, the drone of planes, the blaring of the loudspeaker. After years of working in remote parts of the world, mostly Africa, he was much more at home with the sounds from the rain forest, the scuffle and chatter of colobus monkeys, the constant drone of insects, the occasional trumpet of a lone elephant, rare now with the noose of civilization slowly strangling its habitat.

  The plane was twenty minutes late, and every minute was crucial. Somewhere in the bowels of Houston lurked a disease so deadly it could wipe out the entire city.

  If news of what he was doing in Houston got out, panic would spread like wildfire. Only the mayor and the hospital directors knew. So far he’d been able to keep the news media at bay.

  “Yes, a small section of the city is quarantined,” he’d told a reporter for last night’s interview. “It’s merely a precautionary measure.”

  With the area tightly cordoned and police keeping twenty-four hour watch to see that no one entered and no one exited, how long would it be before somebody started probing? How long before somebody leaked the truth?

  The last thing he needed was to be wasting time in an airport.

  Suddenly there was a flurry as the plane taxied in and family and friends rushed toward the gate.

  Joseph didn’t join the rush. Long ago he’d abandoned the habit of haste. Living as he did surrounded by the most deadly viruses in the world, he’d learned the beauty of savoring…moments, music, good food, good wine and sweet women.

  Callie Red Cloud was the first to emerge from the plane. She could be no other. Her cheekbones and the golden hue of her skin spoke of her Apache heritage. But it was the danger in her that spoke directly to Joseph Swift. Danger was in the sparkle of her eyes, the fetching disarray of her long black hair, the outward thrust of her chin. Callie the Unattainable, his colleagues called her.

  “Watch out for her, Joe,” Benjamin Dunn had told him before he left for Houston. “She’ll get under your skin quicker than an arbo virus. But I dare you to try to do anything about it. The lady always says no.”

  “You have to ask first, Ben. I don’t plan to ask.”

  Joseph never mixed business with pleasure. A pity. Callie Red Cloud might turn out to be a woman worth breaking the rules for.

  He knew there was another member of the team, Peg Cummings, but she was nothing more than a vague shadow, blond and petite, bringing up the rear. He only had eyes for Callie.

  She was slender, impossibly long legged, incredibly luscious. There was nothing subtle about her beauty. Her body was gorgeous and ripe, her waist slender, hardly more than a handspan.

  She stopped in front of him, placing her suitcase and medical bag at her feet, her hands on her hips. Quietly he finished his perusal. She’d didn’t move, didn’t blink, but matched him stare for stare.

  “Dr. Swift, I presume?”

  There was something unnerving about the cold formal manner she delivered her greeting, something totally at odds with the woman herself, with the way she dressed, the way she looked. Joseph knew his reputation as a cold fish was widespread, but he hardly thought it deserved such contempt.

  “You must be Callie.”

  “You may call me Dr. Red Cloud.” She challenged him with a look. “Those are the rules.”

  “I live by one set of rules, Callie. My own.”

  Her chin tilted upward. Blue eyes clashed with black.

  “If we are to work together, Dr. Swift—”

  “Joseph. And you’ve just defined our relationship, Dr. Red Cloud. Strictly business.”

  He bent to pick up her suitcase, but she was too fast for him.

  “Stop,” she said, capturing him with one look from her startling blue eyes. “I always take care of myself.”

  That a single glance could wield such power took him by surprise. He’d thought he was immune. In fact, he’d taken all precaution to ensure immunity. And now this incredibly lovely Apache witch had breached years of defenses. Late at night when he was alone in his narrow cot he would ponder how such a thing was possible.

  “See that you do, Callie. You’re too valuable to lose.”

  Of course he’d meant “too valuable to lose as a doctor,” but under her intense scrutiny, his words took on an entirely different meaning.

  The arrival of Dr. Peg Cummings saved them from themselves. That’s how Joseph viewed the situation. Callie displayed the same relief that he felt.

  “Peg, what took you so long?” Callie said.

  “Short legs and an out-of-shape body.” She extended her hand to her colleague. “Hi, you must be Dr. Swift. I’m Peg Cummings.”

  “A pleasure.” He bent over her hand and kissed it.

  “Hey…” She giggled. “Wait till I tell my husband I’m stranded in Houston with a charmer.”

  “Will he be jealous?”

  Joseph’s curiosity was both intellectual and personal. He never ceased to be amazed at the complexity of something that looked so simple: the male-female relationship. There always seemed to be a treachery or deceit going on. What he’d once had didn’t fit the pattern.

  “Mike? Jealous? He’ll think I’m making the whole thing up just to get a rise out of him. Literally.”

  Her laughter was infectious, and a perfect antidote
for what lay waiting for them.

  “I’ll show you to the car.” He took Peg’s arm. “Watch your step, Callie,” he called over his shoulder. “These airports can be treacherous.”

  “Save your concern for somebody else, Dr. Swift. I’ve been known to take scalps. I come from hardy Native American stock.”

  “Apache, to be exact.”

  She was startled he knew that much about her, but recovered quickly.

  “Curiosity or research?”

  He turned around. “Neither. Survival. I even know the kind of toothpaste you use.”

  Callie nodded, her instant understanding confirmation of what he already knew: she was keenly intelligent, the most brilliant virologist Atlanta had to offer. They both knew the enemy they were facing took no prisoners. Their only weapons against a hot agent were knowledge and the colleagues on their teams.

  “I will never let you down,” she said.

  When she lifted her shining eyes to his, Joseph knew that what lay in their depths was far more dangerous than anything that awaited him in the quarantined area. Unable to resist, he caught her hand. It was small boned and beautifully shaped, but he could feel her strength just beneath the surface of the golden skin.

  Turning her hand over he studied the crisscrossing of veins. Up close she smelled like exotic flowers.

  “Nor I, you,” he said.

  For one brief electric moment their eyes locked and held, then he released her and charged toward the car.

  Chapter Two

  Callie stared after the retreating figure of Dr. Joseph Swift. When she was nine years old she and her brother had sneaked out one evening to ride their horses against their parents’ orders. A sudden storm had flooded the river separating them from home, and she and Eric had been trapped overnight. They took refuge in a cave until Calder rescued them the next day.