“But if she had so many problems, why did he stick her way out here, so far away from everything and everyone?” Anger replaced his agitation. “It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.”
“Are you sure she’s your mother? Just because there’s a resemblance—”
“I’m sure,” Hawk said gruffly. “I wish I wasn’t. It would make this news a whole lot easier if I could make myself believe Deanna Payne wasn’t my mother. There’s not just a resemblance. The woman in that picture could be Cassie. It all fits. The address, the timing, the adoption. It all fits,” he said again.
Sheryl rested her head on Hawk’s arm and looked at the house at the end of the dirt drive. She wished she could make everything right for him. She wished she could offer him the answers he wanted on a silver platter…give him one final gift before he left town.
“Are we going inside?” she asked.
Hawk put the truck into gear and drove slowly closer. “Why not?”
Chapter 10
Hawk had never imagined that he and Cassie had been put up for adoption for such a sordid reason. In his youth, when he’d allowed himself to wonder about such things, he’d reached for the less painful possibilities. There were financial problems. Their mother had been unmarried and wanted a better life for her kids. Hell, he’d even imagined that maybe she just didn’t want children.
He’d always known there was a possibility that his mother was dead, but he had never come close to imagining that she’d been murdered by his father.
The house where she’d died was as neglected on the inside as it was on the outside. There were spiderwebs everywhere, years of water damage on the ceiling and the outer walls, and signs that rodents often nested here. And he hadn’t yet left the room he’d entered through the front door—what had once been the living room, he imagined.
Oddly enough, a few pieces of furniture remained. They were old, damaged pieces that no one would want, but they gave the room an odd look, as if it might’ve been lived in just yesterday. A landscape print, the glass cracked from one corner to the other, hung crookedly on one wall. A side table with three legs was positioned precariously beneath it.
Sheryl reached out and took his hand, her fingers gentle and firm and reassuring. For a moment he let her hold on, and then he shook her loose. She didn’t need to get any closer to him than she already had. He was a freak of nature, a damn animal psychic, and on top of all that his mother had been loony and his father was a murderer. Nice genetic icing on top of the other so-called gifts he’d been given.
“I’m sure it was much nicer when your mother lived here,” Sheryl said, a false note of confidence in her voice.
“I imagine she chased the rats and the spiders out now and then,” he said gruffly.
“She lived here a long time ago, before time and neglect took their toll. I’m sure it was a very pleasant home.” Sheryl’s eyes swept the room. “There was probably a pretty couch over there by the fireplace, and knickknacks on the mantel, and fresh flowers here and there.”
Hawk glared down at the woman who stood beside him. “Don’t,” he said softly.
“Don’t what?” she asked, turning sparkling blue eyes up to him. Great. He really did not need to know that she was holding back tears.
“Don’t try to make me feel better.”
“I thought maybe that’s why I was here,” she whispered.
Why had he gone by the clinic to fetch her before riding out to this farmhouse? She couldn’t help, she couldn’t make him feel better about the reality he’d uncovered. No one could. The truth of the matter was that in a moment of weakness he’d wanted her beside him when he walked into this house.
Weakness… Something he couldn’t afford now or ever.
He walked to the center of the living room, looking into every corner as if he expected to remember something. Anything. He tried to see what Sheryl had seen here. He tried to imagine what this place had been like twenty-eight years ago. But his imagination was not that potent. All he saw was decay and neglect. The floor beneath his feet creaked as if it could give way at any moment. Baby hung back, standing beside Sheryl and watching him warily, as if she expected an explosion at any moment.
“I don’t know why I even came here,” he said.
“I do,” Sheryl said softly.
“Please tell me.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “In a very basic way, this is where you come from, Hawk. This was once your home. Isn’t that what you wanted to find, maybe even as much as you want to find an answer for your sister? You have roots here.”
“Rotten roots,” he grumbled. More rotten than he had ever imagined.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sheryl whispered.
He looked her in the eye, challenging her because she was here and he could. “How can you say that?”
“You haven’t changed.” Again her eyes sparkled as if she was pushing back tears. “You’re still the same man. The same good, decent, fine man you were yesterday before you knew—”
He took a long step toward her, his boot heel thudding on rotting wooden floors. “Don’t go tossing around words like decent and good. You don’t know me, Doc. You’re a pretty girl, and you were convenient. I hadn’t been laid in a couple of months. You hadn’t been laid in a couple of years. We rocked each other’s world in bed and a couple other places a few times, but that doesn’t mean you know me. Maybe you convinced yourself that I’m decent and good because you needed a reason to justify the sex, but the truth of the matter is you know nothing about the man I am.”
He waited for her to run, but she didn’t. He waited for her to get angry, but she didn’t.
“I am your friend, Hawk.” Sheryl reached out to touch his face gently.
He couldn’t afford to believe that. Not now. Lover was easier than friend. It came with less demands, less expectations. “No, you’re not. You’re just a body. A tight, hard, willing body.”
Still she didn’t run. “Do you push everyone away when they get too close, or just me?”
“What makes you think you’re close?” Hawk knew he was near to losing control when Baby cowered, as if she were hiding. Hiding from him.
Go.
Baby jumped up and gratefully ran through the open front door.
“Where’s she going?” Sheryl asked, alarmed at seeing Baby move so quickly and so suddenly.
“To chase some squirrels,” Hawk said, running his fingers through his hair and reaching for the control that always, always ruled his life. Who was he kidding? He’d lost control the moment he’d walked into Sheryl’s clinic and seen her standing there.
“How do you know that?”
“I just know.”
She didn’t question that answer, not this time, but reached out and laid her hand on his chest. “Hawk—”
“If you want to help, if you really want to make me feel better, take off your clothes.”
Sheryl glanced around the room, and from the way her eyes widened he knew she saw this awful place for what it was, not what it might’ve been at one time. “Here?”
“That’s what I thought,” he growled. “Not such a pretty place now, is it?”
Sheryl hesitated for a moment, then tilted her head back to look him boldly in the eye. For a little thing she had guts. She had heart. Nothing scared her, not even him.
She began to unbutton her blouse. Slowly, without trembling fingers or those tears in her eyes, she unfastened the tiny buttons from neckline to hem of her plain beige blouse. With a shrug of her shoulders she sent the blouse to the floor. She reached behind to unhook the satiny white bra that contained her breasts, and it, too, fell to the floor. Each move was elegant and seductive, and made without haste or fear or anger, even though he had done his best to take his rage out on her.
Hawk didn’t budge. He watched. He became mesmerized by the way Sheryl moved as she stripped. Why didn’t she run? Why didn’t she tell him he was a son of a bitch and take off?
Shery
l unsnapped and unzipped her trousers while she kicked off her shoes. Moving slowly, but without a hint of uncertainty, she pushed the trousers down and stepped out of them. Moments after he’d angrily ordered her to take off her clothes, she stood before him completely, gloriously naked.
How could he look at her and still be angry? How could he keep his mind in the past, when the present was right here before him, and it was so damned good?
“If sex is all we have,” she said, stepping to him and lifting her arms to wrap them around his neck, “then we might as well make the best of it.” She rose up on her toes and kissed him, lips parted and tongue teasing. Her bare body rested against him as if it belonged there.
Sheryl was pale and soft, fragile and strong. One kiss, and he couldn’t think of anything but losing himself in her.
Hawk closed his eyes and pushed everything but Sheryl out of his mind. He wanted to forget the ugliness he’d found here, and she gave him that. She took him to another place. He touched her while they kissed, his hands gentler than his mouth as they brushed over silky flesh. Her response was genuine and immediate.
The way her body pressed against him, the way her tongue moved and her lips tasted…it was sweet and harsh and beautiful, and dammit he needed her now.
His blood boiled; his mind raged. His body responded to hers until there was nothing but the urgent and relentless need to be inside her. He freed himself, lifted Sheryl off her feet and filled her in one long, hard thrust.
She gasped and shuddered and tossed her head back. Holding on tight with her arms and her legs, she was wrapped around him in more ways than one. When her body and her mind had adjusted to the sudden joining, when she found her breath again, she began to ride him. Slowly. Eyes closed, heart racing, skin like fire, she swayed and rocked and ground against him until the room spun and faded and there was nothing but the feel of their bodies coming together.
Hawk didn’t move. He stood there, feet planted, and held Sheryl in his arms while she made love to him.
They had always had heat, they had always had passion, but this…this was primitive. It went beyond the body, beyond the flesh. There was more here than he could fathom. There was comfort, pleasure, spirit.
She lowered herself and then rose up again, and suddenly Hawk felt the blood in Sheryl’s veins as if it was his own. Her heartbeat was his, the breath in her lungs was his. He was inside her in more ways than he had known possible, and he experienced the depths of her pleasure and her need and her love.
Love. She’d tried to hide it, not only from him but from herself. She didn’t want love any more than he did, but it had found her, anyway. It filled her heart and her mind and her dreams; it made her reach for him when he tried to push her away.
It brought her here, to this place and this time.
She tried to be so tough, so independent, but deep in her heart she wanted this as much as he did. To love and to be loved. To have someone to catch her when she fell. To do the catching when the time came to return the favor. Most of all, she wanted not to be alone.
When Sheryl came, he felt it shuddering all through the length of his body. He came with her, pumping inside her as the final spasms of her orgasm squeezed and caressed him. The physical wiped away everything else for a moment. He didn’t remember why he was here; he didn’t see or feel or remember anything but Sheryl. She moaned softly and moved one last time.
And then they were still again, spent and sweating. Feeling out of time and out of place. Her heart beat against his, her breath felt warm and real and right upon his neck. Her arms held him tight, and he held her the same way. Close. Closer than any other had ever been. He didn’t want to let her go. Ever.
Hawk slowly lowered Sheryl to the floor, uncertain as to what had just happened.
No, he knew what had happened, but it was impossible. He didn’t connect with people. Ever.
Love.
Sheryl leaned against him and sighed, one arm drifting around his waist. He could still feel her heart thudding against her chest. Pounding hard, it raced as she fought to catch her breath.
Hawk took her by the shoulders and gently forced her away from him. She was so beautiful, so perfect, especially here, surrounded on all sides by decay and ugliness.
His decay and ugliness.
“Get dressed,” he said as he swept past her, headed for the door and zipped up his pants. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”
This had not been an afternoon filled with wise decisions, and that was possibly the understatement of her life. She’d had unprotected sex with a man who now refused to talk to her, a man she liked more than she should, a man who was determined to push her away. For good this time.
And there was nothing she could do. She wouldn’t beg him to stay. She would never plead with any man for anything. Not even Hawk. Had she really been so stupid as to think sex would take away his pain?
She stood on her front porch and watched while he tossed the last unopened box of his damned files into the back of his truck. Most of the documents from the fertility clinic were still stored in the spare bedroom, but he’d taken a few others, along with the final box.
Hawk was leaving, and she would never see him again. Never. He’d mentioned a trip to Texas last night, but now there was nothing. No invitation, not even a hint that there might be more for them. Just cold, detached silence.
“Good luck,” she said as he closed the tailgate.
His response was a grunt of some kind. Of course, she had never wanted or expected glib, meaningless conversation from Hawk Donovan. He opened the door to the truck, and Sheryl held her breath. This was it—the goodbye she’d been dreading since the first kiss. But Hawk didn’t leave. He reached into the back seat and came back toward her with a crumpled plastic bag grasped in his hand.
“I bought this for you,” he said hoarsely, tossing the bag to her.
She caught it easily and reached inside to discover…some yarn thing. “Thank you. What is it?”
“A toaster cozy, whatever the hell that is.”
“Oh.” She dropped it back in the bag. “Thanks.”
He turned away and walked toward the truck, and Baby followed, sparing only a quick glance back to the new friends he was leaving behind. The kiddies were all sitting on the porch at Sheryl’s feet. All but Bruce, who had been relegated to his cage after chasing Laverne all over the house and scaring poor Bogie into a corner.
“Hawk?” Sheryl called as he reached the truck and opened the passenger door for Baby.
He looked back at her but remained silent. This was the man who’d walked into her clinic days ago. Dark. Determined. Different in a way she could not explain. He was walking away from her, and he would never look back. A few months, maybe even a few weeks from now, he’d probably have to struggle to remember her name. How could he throw away everything they’d discovered?
No matter how she tried, she couldn’t be angry with him.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
He didn’t say a word but slammed the passenger door and rounded the truck.
Sheryl didn’t stand on the front porch to watch Hawk leave, but herded the animals into the house and closed the door with a loud, final-sounding thud. She stood there for a moment, though, and listened as the engine fired and the truck pulled away.
As she walked past the living room, toaster cover in hand, Bruce squawked. “He hurts.”
There had been a time when she would have been completely taken aback by such an astute observation from a bird. But not today. Maybe not ever again.
“I know,” she replied.
Benedict sat in a folding chair outside the door to his motor home. His positioning had two purposes: to enjoy the September evening air and to make sure Janet was not disturbed.
“This Dr. Eldanis, she’s a veterinarian,” Ricky Driggs said, his British accent horribly out of place. And the way he said veterinarian got on Benedict’s last nerve. The Englishman always insisted
on pronouncing each and every letter of a word.
“Why would a vet be interested in Agnes and Oliver’s work?” Benedict snapped. “It makes no sense.”
Ricky was not yet thirty, and he took care with his appearance. He was fond of blue jeans and T-shirts, but the jeans were always pressed and the shirts were never faded or wrinkled. His blond hair was always perfectly groomed, and some women might find him attractive, if they didn’t mind the pale skin and the longish nose. “Her clinic is located where your sister and her partner once operated. Perhaps she discovered something.”
A chill ran down Benedict’s spine. Could his late sister have left something of importance behind? Apparently she hadn’t been the smart one after all. “Search the clinic first. I know Agnes used to store old files down in the basement. I suppose you could start there.”
“I thought of that myself,” Ricky said as if he had half a brain. “I could have gone in last night, before you arrived, but I decided to wait. Since the clinic is closed tomorrow, the break-in won’t be discovered until Monday.”
“If you find nothing there, you’ll have to pay the vet a visit at her home,” Benedict said in a lowered voice. There was no one else around to overhear the conversation. There were other RVs in the park, most of them in the more desirable positions near the river. He had chosen this spot because it was so far away from the others. As they’d arrived, the other campers had eyed his large motor home with interest, of course, but no one came near. Benedict made it clear that he and his “wife” were looking for solitude, and the campers gave it to them.
“I know where she lives,” Ricky said proudly. “I even got a look at her this morning. Quite a looker, for a veterinarian. I was rather expecting an older woman with gray hair and combat boots, but Dr. Eldanis is quite dishy. She won’t be a problem, I promise you that.” Ricky gave Benedict a telling wink. “Before I’m done with her she’ll tell me everything.”
A Touch of the Beast Page 13
