“You Have The Right To Remain Silent,” Seth Said Sensually.
He moved his hands down Hannah’s arms and circled her wrists with his fingers as if he’d handcuffed her. “If you give up that right,” he continued, “then anything you say can and will be used against you.” He lifted her arms over her head and gently pinned her to the sofa beneath him.
His lips touched hers; he nipped at the corner of her mouth, then her bottom lip. His lips teased endlessly. Sensation after sensation shimmered through her, each one more exquisite than the one before.
Impossible, she thought dimly. This is simply not happening. She was certain that she would wake from this erotic dream any second. Only, she didn’t want to.
She wanted to know, wanted to feel what would happen next….
In Blackhawk’s Bed
BARBARA MCCAULEY
Books by Barbara McCauley
Silhouette Desire
Woman Tamer #621
Man from Cougar Pass #698
Her Kind of Man #771
Whitehorn’s Woman #803
A Man Like Cade #832
Nightfire #875
*Texas Heat #917
*Texas Temptation #948
*Texas Pride #971
Midnight Bride #1028
The Nanny and the Reluctant Rancher #1066
Courtship in Granite Ridge #1128
Seduction of the Reluctant Bride #1144
†Blackhawk’s Sweet Revenge #1230
†Secret Baby Santos #1236
†Killian’s Passion #1242
†Callan’s Proposition #1290
†Reese’s Wild Wager #1360
Fortune’s Secret Daughter #1390
†Sinclair’s Surprise Baby #1402
†Taming Blackhawk #1437
†In Blackhawk’s Bed #1447
Silhouette Intimate Moments
†Gabriel’s Honor #1024
BARBARA MCCAULEY,
who has written more than twenty novels for Silhouette Books, lives in Southern California with her own handsome hero husband, Frank, who makes it easy to believe in and write about the magic of romance. Barbara’s stories have won and been nominated for numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA® Award from the Romance Writers of America, Best Desire of the Year from Romantic Times and Best Short Contemporary from the National Reader’s Choice Awards.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
One
WELCOME TO RIDGEWATER, TEXAS. POPULATION 3,546. HOME OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST FRUITCAKE!
Seth Granger stared at the twenty-foot billboard depicting a smiling family of four standing beside a Godzilla-sized fruitcake with bright red cherries on top.
Fruitcake?
After eight years as an Albuquerque undercover cop, Seth thought he’d seen it all. He stared up at the towering depiction of fruits and nuts.
Apparently, he hadn’t.
Shaking his head, he downshifted, then slowed his Harley to the respectable speed of twenty-five. The last thing he needed was a ticket in this one-fruitcake town. After six hours on the West Texas highway in the blistering late-summer sun, what Seth needed was a full tank of gas, the biggest, juiciest cheeseburger he could find and a great big glass of ice water. By tonight, he’d be in Sweetwater where he could find a motel, then the closest bar. He’d been itching for an icy mug of Corona all day, and he could already taste the crisp, amber brew sliding down his dust-dry throat.
Throw in a pepperoni pizza, a pretty waitress, and that was about as perfect as life got.
A middle-aged woman walking a little black terrier on the side of the highway stared at him as he approached. The dog yapped and tugged on its leash, then circled the woman’s legs, nearly tripping her. Seth glanced at her as he passed. The woman glared back.
So much for small-town hospitality, he thought.
But even he had to admit he was looking a little scruffy. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and his thick black hair was almost to his shoulders. He’d had to let it grow for his last assignment—infiltrating a meth-lab operation—and he hadn’t cut it yet. Top that off with a motorcycle and a pair of aviator glasses, and he looked like the front cover of Bad Ass Bikers.
The late-afternoon heat rippled in waves off the asphalt as he turned into the gas station and drew stares from the people gassing their cars. He rumbled to a stop in front of a pump and pulled his helmet off. While he filled his tank, Seth scanned the station. Everyone quickly looked away.
He wondered what the good people of Ridgewater would do if he yelled “Boo!” and started waving his arms around. Jump in their cars, most likely, and peel out of the station as if Satan himself was on their tail. The thought made him smile.
But he resisted the temptation to follow through. He had more pressing, important things to give brain space to than what the people of Ridgewater thought of him.
Like the letter in his backpack from Beddingham, Barnes and Stephens’s law office.
There’d been a mound of mail when Seth had finally come home after the fiasco of his last assignment. He hadn’t intended to read any of the tower of bills or advertising brochures that night. All he’d wanted was an ice pack for his aching hand and a bottle of José Cuervo.
But the letter had been on top of the pile, all those lawyers’ names staring at him like a neon sign, and Seth had picked it up. No doubt someone intended to sue him. Maybe a disgruntled drug dealer who hadn’t appreciated being arrested, Seth figured, or maybe that bastard in apartment 12-C who liked to beat up his wife had resented Seth’s interference a few weeks earlier. Jeez, the list could have gone on forever, he supposed and he’d dropped the letter back on the pile.
But as he’d filled a bag with ice, then poured himself a shot of tequila, he’d come back to the letter. That’s when he’d noticed the return address was Wolf River County, Texas.
He froze.
Wolf River?
He’d tossed back the drink in his hand, then reached for the envelope and ripped it open.
And now, standing here in this Ridgewater, Texas, gas station, Seth remembered every word of that letter. But no words more clearly than the second paragraph, third line…
…Rand Zacharias Blackhawk and Elizabeth Marie Blackhawk, son and daughter of Jonathan and Norah Blackhawk of Wolf River County, Texas, were not killed in the car accident that claimed the lives of their parents…
There’d been more, of course. The name of the lawyer to call at the office, a phone number, something about an estate, though from what little Seth remembered of his childhood, the small ranch his parents had owned certainly couldn’t have been worth much.
But Seth didn’t give a damn about that, anyway. All he could think about was the fact that Rand and Lizzie hadn’t died.
That they were alive.
Alive.
His first thought was that it was a mistake, a huge mistake. Or even worse, some kind of sick joke. But no one knew anything about his past. No one knew that for the first seven years of his life, until he’d been adopted by Ben and Susan Granger, Seth’s last name had been Blackhawk. Seth himself barely remembered.
Seth stared at the numbers flashing by on the gas pump. He’d only been seven then. Rand, his older brother, had been nine. Elizabeth—Lizzie, they’d all called her—she’d just turned two.
The letter had felt like a two-by-four slamming against his chest. The air had literally been sucked from his lungs. To fin
d out, after twenty-three years, that the brother and sister he’d thought had died were still alive, was absolutely and completely staggering.
He couldn’t remember how long he’d sat there in the dark, on the edge of the sofa in his apartment, and stared at that letter. But when the light had begun to seep through the dusty blinds in his living room, Seth had finally dialed the lawyer’s office and left a message. Then he’d sat back down, with the phone in his lap, and waited.
It was true. The lawyer confirmed it when he’d finally called back. Rand and Lizzie hadn’t died. Rand had been found, but they were still looking for Lizzie, somewhere back east, or in the south.
Can he come to Wolf River? the lawyer had asked.
Could he come?
Hell, yes, he’d come, Seth had told the lawyer.
His heart racing, his hand shaking, Seth had hung up the phone, still sat there staring at the receiver for a full fifteen minutes. After that, he’d slept for the next sixteen hours straight.
The fact that he’d been suspended from the force for six weeks had made it easy to throw a few clothes and necessities into a bag and head out. It wasn’t as if he had anything to keep him in Albuquerque. No wife. No kids. No commitments.
Which was exactly the way he’d wanted it. He’d tried living with Julie, his last girlfriend, but the life of an undercover cop was hardly what anyone would consider a stable relationship. He never knew when he’d be home, or even if he’d be home. He’d warned Julie about his lifestyle, but she’d sworn she understood and could adjust to his erratic schedules.
So she’d cheerfully moved in, adding those little feminine touches around the apartment: sunflower coasters, a hand-knitted throw on the sofa, scented candles in the bathroom. Framed photos of the two of them everywhere.
But after six months, with more than half that time spent alone, Julie’s understanding had been stretched like a rubber band. When she finally snapped, she’d moved out in a dramatic display—a ritualistic burning of every photo of the two of them together, the pictures all tossed into a metal trash can that she’d placed in the middle of his living room. For good measure she’d thrown in the knitted throw, too, which had created so much smoke the fire department had shown up, along with a patrol car.
For weeks after that, he’d been the brunt of countless jokes at the station. A key chain fire extinguisher, smoke detectors, a fireman’s hat.
No more live-ins, he’d firmly decided after all that. He didn’t want that kind of complication in his life, and he wasn’t so foolish as not to know that once a woman invaded a man’s space, she immediately started thinking rings and weddings and babies. All those things were fine for a nine-to-five kind of guy, but he simply didn’t fit that profile.
He’d seen the agony on his adopted mother’s face the night his father’s best friends from the force had knocked on the front door, their faces solemn and heads bowed. Al Mott and Bob Davis had been Uncle Al and Uncle Bob to Seth for the past ten years. After the funeral, they’d both told Seth not to join the department. Go to college and be an accountant or an architect, they’d said. Seth’s mother cried the day he’d joined the Albuquerque Police Department, but she’d hugged him and given her blessing.
That had been ten years ago. Two years as a rookie, then straight to undercover. There were days, too many of late, that Seth thought Al and Bob had been right. Pushing a pencil and sitting in a cushy office chair was sounding more appealing all the time.
Especially after this last job, he thought with a sigh.
When the gas pump clicked off, Seth topped the Harley’s tank with another shot from the nozzle, tugged his helmet back on, then climbed back on his motorcycle. At the pump on the other side of the island, a gray-haired woman filling her white Taurus with gas stared at him. Seth slipped his sunglasses down and winked at her. Appalled, the woman quickly turned away.
Smiling to himself, Seth roared out of the gas station, knowing full well that every eye in the place was watching him leave.
He’d be out of this town and back on the road within the hour, he told himself. If he was lucky, sooner.
Tall elm trees and old Victorian homes lined the main road into town. Several of the houses had business signs out front: an antique shop, a law office, a doctor. On the lower left corner of every sign was the painted picture of a fruitcake. Seth shook his head at the absurdity of it, thankful he didn’t live here. He couldn’t imagine telling people he was from the land of giant fruitcakes.
Correction, fruit cake.
He was nearly at the end of the shady street when he spotted a child inside the white picket fence surrounding the large front yard of one of the homes. The child, a little girl with shiny blond curls, stood under an elm tree, waving her arms frantically. Seth slowed his motorcycle, then felt his heart stop at the sight of another little girl in the tree, dangling in midair ten feet off the ground, her bright blue pants obviously caught on the branch. A look of sheer terror on her face, the child’s eyes were squeezed tightly closed.
There were times when a person didn’t think, they simply acted.
Seth jumped the curb and crashed through the picket fence. His bike went down on the wet grass as he leapt off, yanking his helmet off as he rushed the tree, then scrambled up the main trunk to the branch where the little girl still held on.
“Hang on, honey,” Seth yelled to the youngster.
Eyes wide, the child turned her head toward him as he climbed out on the tree branch. The little girl dropped down another three inches as her pants ripped.
Dammit, dammit, dammit!
“Be still,” Seth told the child. “Don’t even breathe.”
The child obeyed, but kept her eyes on him as he made his way across the branch.
“Maddie!”
Seth ignored the sound of a woman’s scream from the ground below. Inching his way out toward the child, he reached down and grabbed her by her waist.
“I’ve got you,” Seth reassured the child as he yanked her up. The woman who’d screamed, a blonde with a mass of wild curls on top of her head, stood in the V of the tree trunk, her arms outstretched as she reached for the child. Seth sat on the branch, then handed the little girl over to the woman.
“Mommy!” the child threw her arms around her mother’s neck.
Seth let loose the breath he’d been holding. That had been close, he thought with a sigh of relief. Too close. That little girl could have been seriously—
The branch underneath him cracked loudly.
Uh-oh.
Seth did his best to scramble backward, but the branch cracked again and went down, taking him along. The ground rushed up to meet him and everything went black.
Hannah Michaels watched in horror as the man and the tree branch crashed and fell to the ground. With Maddie still clutching her neck, Hannah slid down the tree trunk and rushed to kneel beside the unconscious man. He lay on his back, absolutely still, his long legs sprawled, his arms spread wide. She wasn’t even certain he was breathing.
Oh dear Lord, Hannah thought frantically. They’d killed him.
She pressed a hand to his chest, felt the heavy thud of his heart. A wave of relief washed over her. Thank God. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. He was alive.
“Madeline Nicole,” Hannah said sternly as she unwrapped her daughter’s arms from her neck. “You stand beside your sister and don’t move one inch. Do you understand me?”
Lip quivering, Maddie joined Missy, who stood several feet away, her eyes wide and fearful. The twins clasped hands and leaned into each other.
“Hannah Michaels, what in tarnation is going on over there?” Mrs. Peterson, Hannah’s next-door neighbor called out from her front porch. “Is that a motorcycle on your front lawn?”
“Could you please call Dr. Lansky over here?” Hannah said over her shoulder. “Tell him it’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Mrs. Peterson craned her neck. “What kind of emergency?”
“Ple
ase, Mrs. Peterson,” Hannah said more firmly. “Someone’s been hurt.”
“Hurt? Dear me, I better call right away then. Though it is Tuesday. He might be at the clinic, or he might have taken that grandson of his fishing over at Brightman Lake. He does that sometimes and—”
“Mrs. Peterson, please.”
“Oh, yes, dear. Of course, I’ll ring him right away.” The elderly woman spun on her orthopedic heels and hurried back into her house.
Hannah touched the man’s cheek, thankful that it was warm and not cold or clammy. His long, black hair fell over half his face and Hannah gently brushed it aside with her fingers. His features were sculpted, a rugged display of sharp, masculine angles that suggested to Hannah a native American heritage. A gash over his left eye oozed blood, and a lump was already swelling on his forehead. He moaned again.
“Lie still,” she whispered. “The doctor will be here in a minute.”
He answered her with another moan. His heavy eyelids fluttered, but did not open. Hannah ran her hands carefully over his shoulders, was amazed at the rock-hard feel of muscles under her fingers. His black T-shirt was torn from the collar to the arm, but she didn’t see any wounds there other than a deep scratch. She continued her exploration down his arms, praying she wouldn’t find anything broken. He seemed just as solid everywhere her hands moved: his chest, his thighs, his legs. Though every ounce of the man appeared to be solid muscle and he certainly appeared fit and in shape, she realized that didn’t mean he didn’t have internal injuries, a concussion or broken bones.
Moving back up to his face, Hannah winced at the sight of the nasty gash over his eye. She could only imagine the headache this man was going to have when he did finally wake up.
She reached into the pocket of her jeans for a tissue, realized she’d already used it earlier to wipe grape jelly off Maddie’s face. She glanced down at the pink T-shirt she had on, then took hold of the hem and leaned over the man to dab at the trail of blood sliding down his face.
In Blackhawk's Bed Page 1
