Mary White Hawk
Beloved Daughter of My Soul
The other’s wording was weathered and gray. Older.
Martha White Hawk Armstrong
Beloved Daughter of My Heart
“My mother,” Taylor said simply. He’d expected to feel something, but nothing surfaced like with the pictures. No ghost. No friendly spirit. No motherly manifestation.
“Yes, and Mary,” Luke stated.
Taylor let go of Gracie’s hand, which she seemed not to notice. She dropped to her knees at Martha’s grave and began pulling the few weeds encroached at the base of the headstone. A memory tugged at the back of his mind. Martha and Mary. The peculiar choice of names in his family dawned on him. “Biblical names?”
“Yes,” Luke answered. “Us White Hawks were named for the men and women closest to Christ when he walked the earth.”
Interesting concept. Taylor just didn’t remember anywhere in the Bible where the friends or disciples of the Lord were cold-blooded murderers and kidnappers. All except for Judas Iscariot. The liar. The betrayer.
“Your middle name is the same as your father’s,” Luke continued, “but he didn’t choose it for you. Martha gave you that name.”
Taylor cocked his head and waited for the rest of the story.
Luke stared at Martha’s headstone while he spoke. “I think she already knew how driven your father was to succeed by the time you were born. Maybe his need for recognition and power destroyed their love for each other, I can’t say. Do you know anything about his childhood?”
“Only that his parents died when he was a teenager.” Heartfelt father and son discussions were as unnecessary and rare as Santa Claus.
“Yes. They were killed in an automobile accident. Your father went into a state foster home after that. That may help you understand why he’s the way he is. Anyway, Martha named you after the Archangel, not your father. She wanted to make sure you’d always be protected. That’s why you wear his medal around your neck.”
“No. You’re wrong. My mother gave it to me. I mean, Mum, my stepmother.” He lifted the medal from beneath his shirt, needing to touch it to be sure. It was the only thing he had from her that meant something.
Gracie rose to her feet and pulled a similar silver medal up from the inside of her blouse. “No, Taylor. Martha gave it to you. It’s exactly like mine. See?”
He stepped over to where she stood by Martha’s grave, needing to see to believe. Damned if she wasn’t telling the truth. The medals were identical down to the chains.
“But why would my mother, I mean my stepmother—” Shit. He raked a hand over his head in aggravation, not sure who was who anymore. His whole life consisted of lies and half-truths. His middle name wasn’t his father’s. Of course he’d never associated his middle name with his father anyway, but now the medal he’d always believed was the one sure sign of Judith’s love—was not?
“Why would Mum say it was from her then?” He shifted his stance, daring Gracie or Luke to explain it away.
“Perhaps she thought your father would let you keep it then,” Gracie offered. “I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted you to have something from the White Hawks. She does love you, you know.”
“But she had it in one of those fancy gift boxes like it was brand new,” Taylor murmured, his medal warm beneath his fingertips.
Like the mind reader she seemed to be, Gracie had just pegged Judith accurately. She would’ve never risked telling him about the medal, especially not if it came from Martha. Judith parked her thoughts and opinions at the curb the minute she’d married. From that moment on, she’d agreed with whatever came out of the General’s mouth, right or wrong. Taylor used to think she’d done it to keep the peace. Now it just seemed—weak.
“My mother told me about the day she and Martha bought these medals for us,” Gracie continued. “It was right before Martha passed away. It’s funny really. She wasn’t even sick then, but it was as if she already knew she was going to die. When your father took you, my mother said it was my link to you, that the Archangel would protect you through all of your battles even when Martha and Peter couldn’t. That he’d bring you home.”
Shit! Taylor bit his tongue to keep from cursing out loud. The one thing connecting him to Judith was yet another fraud. He jerked it away from his neck, intending to break the chain and toss the lie.
Gracie caught his wrist. “Don’t. Both your mothers wanted you to have it. They needed you to be safe. Don’t throw their love away.”
Taylor didn’t know what or who to believe. Every time he turned around, another secret slapped him in the face.
“You have two mothers who love you,” Gracie kept trying. “And the Archangel did bring you home.”
She’d taken a step toward him, but no. His screwed-up life kept getting in the way. He dropped the medal inside his shirt and waved her off. Irritation edged up his spine. Did she really believe all that Archangel crap? He used to, only now—
“And soon Peter will lie here with Martha and Mary?” he asked bluntly, just to set her straight. He didn’t belong here, either. Too much. Too soon. Wanting something to be true did not make it so. His life sucked. Didn’t matter who his mother was. Or his grandfather. He was still Michael Armstrong’s son. Damn it.
“Oh, no,” she said softly. “He’ll lie with his wife, Maggie.”
“Let me guess. Magdalene?” He didn’t mean for his question to sound so cynical, but who else would it be? Wasn’t she one of Jesus’ closest friends, too?
Gracie looked at him cautiously. “Yes. After Mary Magdalene.”
Taylor stifled a growl. He had a very strange family, and right now they were all getting on his last nerve, even the deceased. Blood hunt and revenge mixed together with stalkers, liars, saints and angels. His headache came back with a vengeance. It was time to get the hell out of there.
“Are you up for another ride?” Luke asked.
“Yeah. Sure. Might as well. Where to, chief?”
Disappointment shifted over Gracie’s face as she climbed up into the cab, but Luke caught the jab. “Maybe we should go back to Gracie’s instead. I don’t think you’re—”
“Oh, no. By all means.” Taylor hoisted himself into the pickup and slammed the door extra hard to prove his point. “Let’s go for a ride. I’ve got nothing better to do. I’ve got no boots, no phone, and no freaking life.” And you guys are wearing me out. I’m too damned beat up to escape.
The mood in the truck cab chilled. Gracie’s close proximity didn’t cause the rush of heat it had before.
“Where now?” Taylor asked in a phony cheerful voice, angry he wasn’t as sharp as he should’ve been. Top sniper, nothing. His reflexes were nil, his determination flagging.
Luke took his place behind the steering wheel and pulled the rumbling vehicle onto the gravel road. “Back to Gracie’s. You’re too full of anger. You’re not ready.”
“Listen. I get it. You’ve got all this great news to share about my mother, and I’m glad to know it. Don’t get me wrong. That’s been good to know, but—”
“I understand. You can’t forgive me for what I’ve done.”
“Well, yeah. I know you’re my uncle, and I get that you loved your sisters, but you damned near killed me, and all this White Hawk mumbo jumbo—”
“But it’s true,” Gracie protested. “We’ve explained everything to you, and we’ve—”
“No, Gracie. Don’t argue. He’s right.” Luke rested his palm on her knee. “I’ve committed a grievous sin. It’s mine to carry, not his.”
“But, Luke—”
“It’s all good. I understand why he can’t forgive me.”
“Damn straight,” Taylor muttered.
As if in response to the chill in the cab, a sprinkle of a spring shower speckled the windshield. Just freaking great. He rolled his neck onto his injured shoulder. It ached. Hell, there wasn’t one part of him that didn’t. He was mentally and physically worn out from all
this White Hawk bullshit. And truth.
Damn it, his father should’ve had the guts to warn him about his mother and her crazy family years ago. Judith shouldn’t have been such a spineless woman. She should’ve stood up to the General once in awhile. Maybe none of this would’ve happened if someone in his life had the guts to man up.
Gracie sat subdued between the two men. She’d leaned away from him, another slap in the face Taylor didn’t need but knew he deserved. Why should she want to get any closer to him? No one else did. Hell, he didn’t even like himself.
“I’ll change your bandage when we get home,” she said quietly. The light had gone out of her eyes the same as it went out of the day, but he couldn’t let that kind comment slide, either.
“Your home. Not mine.”
She huffed a breath through her nostrils and turned away.
Gracie could still remember the day.
Four-year-olds, she and Taylor kept themselves busy playing trucks and cars on his Granma and Granpa’s bed. They weren’t supposed to be in the bedroom, but the patchwork quilt was too tempting to resist. Pieced with zigzagging red and black squares and rectangles from many different fabrics, it made perfect highways and roads with nice pointy sharp turns and corners.
Mama was in the kitchen with Taylor’s Granma and Granpa, some stranger in funny green pants and another guy in a black suit. The sheriff was there. The strangers scared Gracie. Granpa scared her, too. His eyebrows were extra crinkly that day.
Mama said to be quiet, so they were. Kind of.
Err, err, err-r-r-r,” Taylor’s tractor said when it turned a big corner so fast it wrinkled the quilt.
Taylor was Gracie’s boyfriend. She couldn’t remember a day without him in it, not since Mama explained how his mama went to heaven, and that made him the most special boy in the whole world. Almost like a brother. Taylor was very brave, and Gracie had to be brave, too.
Sometimes his long hair fell into his eyes and he had to blow it out of his face, and when he did, he kinda spit at her, but that was okay. He wore jeans that day and a medal just like hers on his neck. Granpa said they looked like twins.
“Err-r-r. Err-r-r. Erk-k-k!”
Oh, no! The tractor tipped back onto its giant rear wheels. A crash. Taylor’s long hair shielded his face from view, but Gracie didn’t have to see him to know what would happen next. Sure enough, he rolled onto his back like the tractor, whining “A weck! A weck! I hurt, Gwacie. My twacter wecked! I hurt!”
She jumped to her hands and knees and played along. “You not reawy hurt,” she’d said on her way to save the day. That’s what best friends did. They didn’t mind spit and they always saved the day.
“Yes, I is-s-zzz.” He drew out an extra long whine just to prove it. “I need hewp. Horry up. Come hewp me!”
“I comin’.” She’d crawled on all fours across the quilt to her very best friend. Helping somebody in a tractor accident was serious work cuz tractors were big. Everybody knew that.
“Ha, ha. Foowd you!” he shrieked the minute she was within grabbing range, and the match was on. Tickling and giggling ensue, the accident forgotten in a flurry of giggles, arms and legs.
They rolled together like a couple of puppies until they came to rest in the middle of the big bed. He wrapped both of his arms around her and made a huge groan, squeezing as hard as he could. She squeezed him back, but it was kind of hard to get a good grip because Taylor was bigger and really strong. He almost squeezed all the air right out of her.
“I not reawy hurt,” he confessed, his breath warm on her cheek.
“I know.”
It didn’t matter if he was hurt or not. It was Gracie’s job to always stay close to Taylor and take care of him because he didn’t have his mama to help him anymore, but he did have her. He’d always have her.
Like he’d done a gazillion times before, Taylor placed one of his extra special kisses in the center of her forehead. She closed her eyes just before he did it, cuz that’s what Mama did when Daddy kissed her.
“I wub you, Gwacie.”
“I wub you more,” she’d promised him back, mimicking his baby words. Pesky L words. ‘Love’ turned into ‘wub’ when he said it, so she spoke his language cuz that’s what girlfriends did. They made their boyfriend feel extra special, and they were always on his side. Mama said so.
But then the world changed with one sadly spoken word from his Granpa. “Taylor.”
Oh, oh. Caught. Gracie and Taylor scrambled to the edge of the bed. He grabbed her hand and she grabbed his in case they were in trouble.
Granpa knelt on one knee in front of Taylor and took hold of him, right under both his knees
“I reawy sawry, Granpa.” Taylor offered his best sad voice, but he kept squeezing Gracie’s fingers like he knew something was wrong.
She was getting scared, too. Mama and Granma were standing behind Granpa, and they were both crying. Gracie wiped a tear. She clenched Taylor’s sweaty little hand in hers.
“No, Baby Bear,” Granpa said in a sad growly voice. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”
He wrapped his arms around Taylor and said something into his ear.
Taylor said, “No, Granpa. I don’t wanna.” He started to cry.
Everyone was crying except those mean guys. The one in green pants stood outside Granpa and Granma’s bedroom with his arms crossed. He kept looking at the ceiling like he didn’t want to be there. Like he didn’t like anyone and nobody. And he was mean to Granpa.
“Step on it, White Hawk. I don’t have all day,” he said.
Gracie held onto Taylor’s hand as tight as she could. She didn’t let go until Granpa pushed off the floor and took Taylor with him.
Taylor squirmed all the way around in Granpa’s arms and reached both hands out to her. “No. I don’t wanna go. Gwacie! I want Gwacie!”
The panic in his brave voice frightened her. She jumped off the bed and scrambled after him. “Taywer! I comin’. I hewp you.”
By then Taylor was making the sad rounds from Granpa to Granma’s arms and then to his uncles’. Gracie got lost in the forest of big people’s legs. She tipped her head back and cried, “Taywer! I can’t see Taywer. He lost!”
It was Aunt Mary who’d scooped Gracie into her arms so she could see Taylor again. Mary was always nice. “There you go. See him now, Little Bird?”
But Gracie could barely see him through the tears in her eyes. Everywhere she looked, Taylor’s family was crying. All except Granpa. His eyes were extra black, like scary thunderclouds that were broken and didn’t remember how to rain anymore.
At last, Uncle Matthew handed Taylor back to Granpa. Taylor snuggled into his arms and Gracie calmed. Granpa would never let anything happen to his Baby Bear. Everything would be okay. She wiped her face and took a deep breath.
But Granpa walked out of his bedroom then, and he did something really scary. He hugged Taylor so tight, and he made a terrible sound deep in his body like a growly groan, and he—he gave Taylor to the mean man. “Taylor, this is your father. Be brave. Be very brave.”
Gracie blinked. Taylor has a daddy?
Everyone got really quiet. Even Taylor. He’d leaned backward in that grumpy man’s arms and folded his own arms across his chest.
The man’s nose twitched like he smelled something bad or like maybe Taylor was dirty, but he wasn’t. He smelled like baby powder, the outdoors and little boy, just perfect to Gracie.
Taylor’s father’s lip lifted on one side of his mean face. “We leave for Norfolk in the morning, White Hawk. You have no rights to my son. If you try to see him, I’ll destroy you.”
Granpa didn’t say a word. Not even one. He just stood there, his arms crossed and his feet spread like he was mad at the world.
It wasn’t until the sheriff opened the door to leave that Gracie understood what was really going on. The mean man was taking Taylor.
“No,” she’d shrieked, but she couldn’t get out of Mary’s arms.
Po
or Taylor let out a bloodcurdling scream from the front yard, kicking and thrashing to get away. “Gwacie! I hurt! I reawy hurt. He hurtin’ me! Hewp!”
Gracie lifted her heart into her own voice and answered, “Taywer! I comin’! Taywer! Taywer!”
But she never stood a chance. Aunt Mary wouldn’t let her down. The mean guy opened his car door and—Taylor was gone.
Gracie shivered at the childhood memory of the first wretched day of her life, the scared look in that little boy’s eyes that morning, only by then, they’d looked like Peter’s. Big. Black. Angry.
She’d had nightmares for months after, afraid Taylor’s father would come back and steal her, too. Or bad dreams of Taylor screaming in the dark. Of him alone and hurt, crying for her and Granpa.
Michael Armstrong made the simple act of taking his son so much worse than it needed to be. Not once had he said one word of comfort. Not one. Just wrenched the heart out of Taylor and drove away.
Despite her efforts and good intentions, Taylor was as lost to her as the day his father took him. Only now he knew the sad story of his family. It just didn’t seem to matter to him.
That he flip-flopped between optimism and pessimism told her he struggled with the abrupt direction his life had taken. Showing him family pictures last night seemed to help, but today he was as angry as ever. She didn’t blame him. The White Hawk family history was a lot to take in.
Her mother’s sweet counsel came back to her. Be patient, Gracie. He’s Martha’s son, too. He’ll come back to us. You’ll see.
Gracie drew in a deep breath and steeled her resolve. Not one second had passed these last years that her own heart had not cried out to him with an answering, Taywer. I comin’.
She could wait.
Chapter Fifteen
The ride back to Gracie’s home seemed bumpier and longer. Taylor stared out the window, confused at the rampaging feelings that accepted and denied his family at the same time. And the fact that he’d lost sight of his plan to escape. He’d never felt so at odds with himself. His training faltered when he’d needed it most. Well, no more.
Taylor Page 14
