Heart of the Hawk

by Sandra Marton

  She pushed his hand aside and clasped the blankets to her. 'Let me up, David. I want to get dressed.' He said nothing. His hand had reached her throat; she shut her eyes as it closed lightly around her neck. 'Don't,' she begged. 'Please, don't!'

  'Why not?' His voice was husky, the words softly blurred. He shifted position again until he was beside her, bent over her in the shadowed darkness. 'I know you want me, Rachel. Why pretend you don't?'

  'No,' she breathed, 'it's not true.'

  His hand slid to the back of her head and he drew her up from the pillow. 'Stop lying, damn you! Can't you be honest just once?'

  His voice was rough, his hands insistent. Rachel twisted her head to one side, but his fingers threaded into her hair and forced her face towards his. She saw his eyes burning with golden fire as he bent to her, then his mouth covered hers in a hard kiss. She struggled furiously, but his hand held her fast while his lips parted hers, his teeth sharp against the tender flesh just inside her lower lip, his tongue relentless in its pursuit of hers. Pain lanced through her heart, a pain far greater than that which David was inflicting on her mouth and body. How could she have thought she loved this man? How could she have believed he loved her? How...

  A low moan caught in her throat. Against all her wishes, her mouth was softening under his, her hands were reaching for him, sliding under his shirt to touch the familiar skin and muscle beneath. And even as Rachel cursed herself for having sunk to some sub-human depravity, her arms were sliding around David's neck, drawing him down to her, down into a darkness and a passion that would swallow them both.

  'No!' Rachel's cry pierced the silent darkness. Her hands fell from his shoulders and knotted into fists. She pounded against his chest with all her strength while tears of rage and frustration slid down her cheeks. 'Get away from me,' she gasped. 'Damn you, damn you!'

  'It's too late for that,' growled David. 'I told you that once before. You can't stop me, Rachel. And you can't stop yourself, either.'

  He caught her wrists in one hand and pinned her arms above her head. The other hand grasped the blanket; she gasped as he ripped it from her. He said her name again and then his head dipped to her throat, his lips hot and moist against her skin. She cried out as his hand cupped her breast and his fingers rolled across the engorged nipple. David's lips sought hers, silencing her cry, taking the desperate plea into his own mouth, mingling her breath with his, turning her desperate cries from fear to desire.

  'Rachel,' he whispered, drawing her to him, and she sobbed his name, caught in an all-consuming flame of passion she could no longer escape.

  Later, she lay unmoving beneath him, stunned into lethargy. How could she have done this? Whatever Cassie had been, she—Rachel—was worse. To want a man like this... She ran her tongue across her dry lips.

  'Get up,' she said. Her voice was unrecognisable to her, but then why wouldn't it be? The woman she had become was a stranger, a creature of lust and ugly passions. 'Get up,' she repeated.

  He rolled away from her and lay on his back, his arm thrown across his eyes.

  'I'm sorry, Rachel,' he said, his voice empty of all emotion. 'I shouldn't have done that.'

  She reached to the foot of the bed and grasped the bedspread, wrapping it tightly around herself as she got to her feet. 'It doesn't matter.'

  David swung his feet to the floor. In the flickering candlelight, his face was marked with rage.

  'Of course it matters!' he snarled. 'What kind of woman are you that you can reduce me to this? I've never forced myself on a woman before.'

  'No,' she said, 'that's not your style, is it? You prefer seduction.'

  'God, are we back to that? I never seduced a woman who didn't want to be seduced in my life. I...'

  'Look, spare me the details, all right?* Rachel grasped the ends of the spread between her breasts and reached for her clothes. 'If you'd call a cab for me, please.. /

  'Just like that?'

  'Just like that,' she said, pulling on her cords. Her voice grew muffled as she drew on her sweater. 'That's if the phone is working. If not, would you please ask Barton to... What do you think you're doing?' she demanded, gasping with shock as David's hands closed around her arms.

  'What a bitch you are,' he said in a voice so quiet it made her blood chill. His hands slid to her throat and closed around it. 'I could kill you, do you know that? No court in the world would convict me.'

  'That's right,' she said, fighting to sound calm, 'no court would do anything you didn't want it to do. Not with all your money.'

  'That's the second time you've mentioned money, Rachel. Are you leading up to something? Is the five thousand Vanessa gave you gone already?'

  'I threw her cheque away,' she snapped. David laughed and colour flooded her cheeks, 'Ask her, if you don't believe me. Ask her if I ever cashed her cheque.'

  His hands fell from her and he smiled. 'You never make a false move, do you? I can hardly ask her when I don't even know where she is.'

  Rachel's eyebrows rose. 'What do you mean, you don't know where she is? She's never ten feet from your side...'

  'She quit. The last I heard of her was a request for a letter of reference from some Congressman. So I can't very well ask her about the cheque you demanded, now can I?'

  'I demanded?' Rachel laughed softly. 'What kind of story did she tell you, David? I was in no condition to demand anything that night. It was a miracle I was able to walk.'

  'Look, just get your things together and get out of here, will you? I'll make up some story for Jamie. He'll cry—but he'll survive.'

  Rachel drew her shoulders back. 'I meant what I said before. I'm not giving him up, not this time. I don't know how I'll fight you, but I will. I...'

  'Listen, that speech may have impressed the hell out of Emma and the nurse, but it doesn't mean a damned thing to me,' snapped David. 'I know the truth, remember? Vanessa told me everything.'

  'You still haven't told me why she left you, David. Did you tell her you wouldn't make her the Governor's lady? Is that what happened?'

  The room was lightening as dawn spread over the Catskill foothills. In the paleness of the hour, David's face was a study in disbelief.

  'Are you crazy? Vanessa and me... ?' He shook his head and laughed unpleasantly. 'I'd as soon have made love to a cobra as make love to her! Oh, she was brilliant when it came to public relations, but she had a heart the size of a grain of sand!'

  Rachel looked at him in surprise. 'But she said...well, it doesn't matter. I'm just surprised she'd leave you just when you were about to get what you both wanted. I guess it's a foregone conclusion that you'll get your party's nomination and then win the election.'

  He shook his head again. 'Don't you read the papers, Rachel? I'm not seeking the nomination. I told the powers that be that I'd turn it down if they offered it.' He raked his fingers through his hair and his teeth showed in a quick smile. 'Which explains Vanessa,' he added. 'After I told her I'd rejected the nomination, she beat a quick retreat.'

  Rachel sank slowly into the chair. 'But I saw a headline. It said you'd be the next Governor.'

  David shrugged. 'Nobody believed I really wasn't interested. Hell, I can't blame them. But I'd made up my mind—long before that night at the Helmsley Palace, now that I think about it. But it all came together then and I decided to tell the Senator and Vanessa and...' His eyes met hers. 'Never mind,' he said gruffly. 'It's all water under the bridge, as your grandmother would have said. Just do me a favour, will you? I'll give you my attorney's name. Let him know where you are, so I can find you in case Jamie should ever..."

  Without realising what she was doing, Rachel put her hand to her heart.

  'The night at the Helmsley Palace,' she said slowly. 'Do you mean the night you took me there?'

  A muscle jumped in his cheek. 'What other night would I mean?' he asked harshly.

  She swallowed. 'You told them you wouldn't run that night?'

  David nodded. 'Yeah, damned right I did. I thou
ght the Senator would kill me, and Vanessa—well, Vanessa couldn't have really been surprised. She'd known what was coming. She was upset and angry and tried her damnedest to talk me out of it.' He walked to the window and stared out at the pale pink sky. 'It's almost sun-up,' he said softly. 'The snow's stopped.'

  'David?' He turned towards her and she took a breath.. 'David—did you make an announcement that night?'

  He frowned. 'An announcement? About not running, you mean? No, I'd never made one about wanting the nomination, so...'

  'No, not about that. About... about Jamie...'

  He shook his head. 'What kind of announcement would I make about Jamie, Rachel? Hell, I'd told Vanessa a dozen times how proud I was of him, how I wanted to tell the world he was my son, but I couldn't think of a way to do it without letting everybody know he'd been illegitimate. Not that it mattered a damn to me—but I wasn't sure you could handle it. And then there was Cassie and how much she'd meant to you. Besides, I was afraid something like that might hurt the boy in later years...' A strangled sob escaped from Rachel, and David took a step forward. 'What is it?' he asked slowly. She shook her head and put her hands to her face. 'Come on, Rachel, what's wrong?'

  'Vanessa told me—that night, Vanessa told me you were going to tell everybody all about Jamie, about your affair with Cassie and how you were his father...'

  David's head shot up. 'What? Why the hell would I do that?'

  'She said... Vanessa said it was because you and she had decided to soften your image. She said there'd been a problem with getting voters to stop thinking of you as the Hawk... She said that had been your plan all along, that you'd never really wanted Jamie until you realised it made political sense...'

  His breath hissed through his teeth. 'And you believed her?' he asked, his voice ominously soft.

  'I... I didn't know what to believe, David. You were so strange that night, nervous and.,. You said you'd have to introduce me, that the reporters might want to talk to me... When Vanessa said it was about Jamie— well, it made a terrible kind of sense.'

  David's eyes met hers. 'It had nothing to do with Jamie,' he said. 'When I told the Senator I didn't want the nomination, he wanted to know what could be more important than public office, and I told him.' He gave a short bark of laughter. 'Funny, isn't it?'

  Rachel shook her head. 'I don't understand,' she whispered.

  David made an impatient gesture. 'Come on, stop playing innocent! I wanted a life with you, not the Governor's mansion. I wanted a home and children and... hell, what's the difference? All I knew was that I hadn't told you a thing about the nomination because I was unsure about it myself, and I didn't know how you'd feel about it. It never occurred to me that there'd be no keeping things quiet once you walked into that ballroom until I saw the Senator's reaction. So I tried to warn you, tried to explain...'

  Rachel swayed under the shock of his words. 'You mean—you were trying to tell me that the reporters would ask about our relationship?'

  He nodded. 'The reporters, the Senator—yeah, I figured they'd ask you our plans, and I didn't want you to think you had to answer any questions you didn't want to answer.'

  Vanessa had lied. It had all been lies, vicious lies...

  Suddenly David's hands shot out and grasped her shoulders. She gasped with pain as he pulled her from the chair. 'But, you had me so convinced! I thought— I thought you felt the same way. I never dreamed you'd... How in hell could you have done that to me, Rachel? Pretending to love me, to want me, when all the time, all the time you were just waiting for the right minute to humiliate me.'

  His hands were hurting her, his fingers bruising her skin, cutting into her flesh, but the pain in her heart was far worse. He'd loved her, he'd loved her—and she had hurt him—oh God, she had wounded him and left him without a word, and all because she'd been willing to believe Vanessa, all because she'd still not admitted to herself that Cassie had never been any good, never, not even when they were children...

  What was he saying now? Vanessa had told him lies within lies; she had told David that Rachel despised him, that she had only been waiting for the best moment to avenge her stepsister.

  'Was it the sight of those reporters? Was that what made you decide to put your plan into action, Rachel? Was that why you picked that moment to leave me?'

  Rachel shook her head. 'No,' she whispered.

  'Don't lie to me,' he growled. 'Vanessa told me how you made veiled threats to tell the world I was the reason Cassie had turned to drugs and died. She told me about the cheque she wrote you, the clothes she bought you in the hotel...'

  'David, please,' she begged, reaching out to him, 'David, my darling, my love.. '

  'Five thousand dollars and a goddamned dress,' he said brokenly, 'that was all it took to buy you off and send you away. God, Rachel, wasn't what we had worth more than that? Wasn't Jamie's love worth more than a stupid act of vengeance?' His fingers bit deep; she winced with pain as he shook her. 'I loved you more than I'd ever dreamed a man could love a woman. Nothing mattered but you and Jamie! I realised I didn't want to be Governor. I didn't want anything that would take me from you, Rachel. And all the time, all the time you were scheming and planning...'

  Rachel shook her head. 'No,' she whispered, 'it's not true. I didn't do any of those things, David. I was so in love with you that I forgot there was another world out there.'

  'What? What did you just say?'

  Her eyes met his and searched for understanding. 'I loved you, David. I loved you with all my heart.'

  'But... then how could you have believed Vanessa's lies? How could you have believed I'd hurt you?'

  Her eyes filled with tears. 'I...I don't know. Maybe it was because it had been hard for me to believe that someone like you could love someone like me. Maybe it was because Cassie's ghost still haunted us. Whatever it was, I beg you to forgive me, David.' Tears spilled down her cheeks. 'I know it's too late for us—I know I've destroyed everything—but you must forgive me. I should never have believed Vanessa.'

  'I'm as guilty as you are,' he said slowly. 'She made fools of us both.' His hands spread across her shoulders and drew her forward. 'The world is full of fools,' he said softly. 'And the greatest fools are those who refuse to forgive and forget.'

  Rachel smiled through her tears. 'That sounds like something my grandmother would have said!'

  David laughed softly. 'I told you I would have liked that old lady.' He smiled into her eyes. 'I forgive you, Rachel,' he whispered.

  'And I forgive you, David.'

  'See how easy that was?' He bent his head and kissed her tear-stained eyes. 'This past month has been such hell...'

  Rachel shook her head and put her hand across his mouth. 'I don't even want to talk about it,' she murmured.

  David smiled. 'All right, we won't. Let's talk about the future. Our future.' His hands cupped her face and he tilted it up to his. 'I love you,' he said softly.

  'Yes,' she sighed, 'and I love you, David.'

  'Will you marry me, Rachel?'

  Her arms curled around his neck. 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'yes!'

  His arms closed around her and he drew her against him. 'We'll turn this house into a home, darling, a home for you and me and Jamie...'

  Rachel shook her head. 'No,' she whispered.

  David drew back and stared at her. 'No?'

  'No,' she repeated, then she laughed softly. 'Why are you limiting it to the three of us? I want at least two more boys and two girls.'

  He laughed. 'Have you no shame? What am I going to do with you?'

  Rachel sighed and brought his head down to hers. 'I'll show you,' she whispered, 'right after we say good morning to our son.'

  EPILOGUE

  THE HAWK soared high over the green meadow, its shadow skimming darkly across the summer grass.

  'Look, Mama,' the little boy said, tugging at his mother's hand. 'See how high up he is!'

  The dark-haired woman shaded her eyes with her hand and looked u
p into the cloudless sky.

  'I see him, Jamie,' she said, squeezing his hand lightly in hers. 'Isn't he beautiful?'

  The boy glanced up at the handsome man beside him. 'Are you sure he'll come back, Daddy?' Anxiety sharpened his four-year-old voice.

  The man smiled and ruffled the child's hair. 'I'm sure, son. Just be patient.'

  The man's arm closed around the woman's shoulders and she looked up at him and gave him a radiant smile. Suddenly the child standing between them danced with excitement.

  'Look,' he said breathlessly, 'look, the hawk! He's coming back!'

  The man smiled as the dark speck appeared in the sky again. 'Sure,' he said confidently. 'Didn't I tell you? He'd rather be captive than free.' His glance strayed to the woman. 'That's how it is, if you're lucky,' he said softly.

  'Very lucky,' Rachel agreed.

  David smiled and laid his hand possessively across the gentle swelling of her belly.

  'I love you, Rachel,' he said, as their unborn child kicked against his palm.

  'I love you, David,' she murmured, covering his hand with hers.

  Jamie tugged at his father's leg. 'Everybody loves everybody,' he said with childish exasperation. 'Now, could we please get our hawk and have our picnic? I'm hungry!'

  David and Rachel laughed, and David raised his gloved fist to the sky. High above him, the hawk cried out its pleasure and hurried earthward.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE