Make Mine a Marine

by Julie Miller

  Swelling with pride, Sarah noted that the girls hadn't complained once about the heat or the pace. But glancing over at them, she couldn't help but notice their slumped shoulders, some of them heaving to catch their breath. Denise and Colleen had already stretched out with their heads resting on their packs.

  Whatever Hawk's grievance with her might be, he didn't need to take it out on the girls by pushing them so hard.

  "You guys stay together," she said, hoping to buy them some more rest time. "I'll find out what's going on."

  Tucking a bothersome curl behind her ear, Sarah stepped across a decaying fallen tree and started down the hill. At first she used the trunks and branches for handholds on her way down. But then the slope became rocky and dropped off sharply, and recent rains had turned the mud and crumpled greenery into a slick mock-up of an amusement park ride. She planted her boot against an exposed root, but slipped on the wet surface and plopped down hard on her bottom.

  Sarah lost her grip and went flying down Mother Nature's slide. She grabbed at handfuls of ferns and roots, but her momentum ripped them out of the earth and tilted her sideways.

  "Hawk!" She hollered his name, crashed into a tree root, tumbled head over heels and watched her world spin out of control. In one last effort to right herself, she stuck out her feet, planted her heels and straightened. She would have flipped over face-first into the mud, but she slammed into warm, solid man first.

  "Damn it, schoolmarm, what are you doing now?"

  For a few wonderful, sane seconds, Hawk held her as tightly as she’d latched on to him. He was the one thing in the jungle that wasn't spinning.

  Then he abruptly pushed her away, leaving Sarah to sway back and forth on her own two feet.

  "Are you all right?" His clipped tone revealed standard politeness rather than genuine concern.

  Sarah silently accounted the extent of her injuries. Other than the throbbing pain in her hip where she'd smacked into the tree, her ego seemed to be the only part of her that had suffered serious bruising. "I'll be fine."

  She rubbed at her hip and blinked to focus. She pushed her hair back from her face and saw Hawk circle back to a large, blocky shape hidden in the trees. Sarah followed. "Why did you leave? Wouldn't it be better if we stayed on the road? Or is this a shortcut?"

  "I told you to wait up there."

  His harsh voice cleared her dizziness faster than finding herself on relatively flat terrain again. "What is wrong with you? You're pushing the girls like you don't have a heart in you anymore. If you're mad at me, take it out on me! Not them."

  "This has nothing to do with you."

  He looked at her coldly, then pointed toward a clearing. Sarah followed the angle of his arm and gasped in shock at the twisted wreckage of one of Luis Salazar's trucks wrapped around a tree.

  "Oh, my God…" Her hand flew to her heart as her voice trailed away, her indignation forgotten.

  "I saw tracks running off the road up there. There were no signs of him hitting the brakes. It looks like he sped up and leaped the curve on purpose."

  Sarah stumbled over to the truck, touching the open tailgate as though needing tactile proof that the crash had really occurred. "Was Luis inside?"

  "No. Just the driver. Hernandez."

  "Is he…?" She stared into the shadowy void beneath the twisted frame and torn canvas at the back of the truck. She knew before Hawk nodded that Hernandez had died in the crash.

  Her moment of compassion was brief, her feeling of justice served short-lived. Suspicion set in, and she altered her stance by splaying both hands around her waist.

  "Where's the treasure that was inside?" she asked.

  "I spotted an extra set of tire tracks up top, and drag marks through the trees. I imagine they came back and unloaded whatever they could carry."

  This refresher course in the depravity of the criminal mind propelled her to the driver's side of the truck cab. She yanked the door open a moment before she heard Hawk swear and overtake her from behind.

  But in the split second before he jerked on her arm and smothered her against his chest, she caught a glimpse of the grisly corpse behind the wheel. Hawk's nylon canvas vest abraded her cheeks, but she clutched handfuls of it and buried her face in the warmth radiating from Hawk's body, willing his sheltering arms to drive the bloody image of the dead man from her mind.

  "They took time to unload their precious artifacts, but not to save their own man?"

  "I would have spared you that." Hawk whispered the words beside her ear. "The engine caught fire. He never had a chance. Sometimes you're too pigheaded for your own good."

  The critical words sounded oddly like a compliment. The strength they inspired allowed Sarah the freedom to vent her temper.

  "Those bastards!" She thumped her fists against him.

  "Sarah." Hawk pushed her away, gripping her by the shoulders and zeroing his gaze in on hers. "I don't think I like hearing you curse."

  "What would you call them?"

  "That and worse. But you're a lady. I don't expect that kind of language from you."

  "A lady?" A derisive laugh bubbled up in her throat at the misnomer. "If I hadn't been living my life out of my aunts' etiquette books, and had paid more attention to how the real world works, I'd never have gotten us into this mess in the first place."

  He seized her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped it up. His anger vibrated along with hers. "This isn't your fault."

  "Isn't it? If I'd listened to you and half of Marysville a month ago, we wouldn't be here."

  "Schoolmarm…" His voice dropped to a dangerous purr, and the darkness in his eyes flickered. "Guilt is a terrible load to bear. And yours is misplaced. You can only do what you think is best at any given time, and let your conscience guide you."

  "What do you know about guilt?" She jerked her chin away from his touch, heedless of the growing storm in his eyes. "You'd be out of here by now if it weren't for us. You'd never have come in the first place…"

  "I let a man die, Sarah."

  She shook her head, confused. The cool stoicism in his voice mocked his words. "What, Hernandez? He was alive? I thought you said the fire—"

  "No. My best friend. Five years ago, right here on Tenebrosa. I let him die."

  Chapter Nine

  "You let your best friend die?"

  Sarah pulled away and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. An uneasy chill permeated the humid air around her. Hawk was a rescuer, a soldier who defended his country, a leader who guided his community. He couldn't be capable of such a violation of trust.

  And yet the absolute blackness shadowing his eyes warned her to believe that he was.

  She hugged herself and stared at him, waiting for him to contradict the expression on his rugged features. He didn't.

  "I know all about guilt," he said. "I should have found the colonel and saved him. But I didn't."

  "But if his death was in the line of duty?" She wanted to find an acceptable explanation for his guilt.

  "My duty was to get him off this island. I didn't. I had to go back to Kansas City and tell his wife and baby girl he wouldn't be home for Christmas. That's guilt."

  Beneath the hushed anger in his voice, Sarah heard something else. A mournful plea. A heart breaking beneath the weight of so much condemnation. The soul of a man living in torment.

  Her own soul responded to that plea, and she reached out to him. "I'm sorry."

  Hawk's gaze burned holes in her peace offering. She curled her fingers into her palm and tucked her hand beneath her crossed arms.

  "Your girls are still alive. Salazar's the villain here, not you. Put your guilt aside and concentrate on how much your students look up to you. If you want something to worry about, you worry about me. About whether or not I can get you home."

  She lifted her gaze from the muddy tips of his black boots. "Is that why you're acting so strangely? I'm not worried about your abilities. I trust you."

  "Do you?" Somet
hing darker than the night flashed in his eyes. "I tried to strangle you in Meczaquatl's tomb, didn't I? Haven't you ended up pushing me away every time I kiss you? Is that a sign of trust?"

  "But that's not your fault. I—"

  "Go back to the others." He silenced her by refusing to listen. Angling sideways to avoid touching her, he slid up to the cab of the truck. "Tell Raul we'll set up camp in the road. Get a fire going. I'll be up as soon as I do what I can here."

  Stung by his dismissal, Sarah watched him pull the charred body from the cab and gently carry the smaller man to the bed of the truck, where he laid him down and unfolded a blanket. Was it guilt that made Hawk give such tender care to a man who had left him for dead? He tucked the blanket securely around the body, then went back to the cab to retrieve whatever was left of Hernandez's personal belongings.

  Was it guilt that made Hawk say such magical things to her, that he'd seen her in a vision, and credited her with a strength she didn't feel? Was it guilt that made him kiss her? Hold her? That made her feel desirable and powerful and cherished?

  Was it guilt that brought him into her life in the first place?

  Walter had been kind to her, had said pretty things She'd been naive and slow to learn, but eventually she’d figured out that Walter's interest had been based purely on financial opportunity. Her naïveté then had resulted in the humiliating destruction of her heart and ego.

  Her fragile sense of self had been slow to heal. But with Hawk—his spirit, his touch, his words—she found herself making a miraculous, if hard-fought, recovery. Had she foolishly fallen for another man who saw her only as a means to an end? A man who was using her to make retribution for the perceived sins of his past?

  Was she a poor student who never learned from her mistakes? She'd either chosen the wrong man a second time, or she was letting a last chance at love slip through her fingers because she was too much of a coward to fight for it.

  No matter what the answer might be, she'd lose.

  "Damn it, schoolmarm, quit looking at me like that and get the hell out of here."

  Snared in the endless night of his eyes, Sarah realized she'd been staring. Her eyes burned with the need to blink, as if she'd been afraid that looking away would make something she wanted disappear.

  But Hawk could never really be hers.

  She forced her eyes to close and turned away. She could hear the quiet, efficient sounds of him returning to his work behind her. She'd walked away from her heart before.

  Walter's patronizing voice intruded on her thoughts. She trampled through the underbrush, blazing her own path up the hill, trying to drown out the painful scene unfolding in her memory

  "I'm warning you, Sarah. Nobody's lined up at your door waiting for you. You throw this away and you'll have nothing. I'm as good for you as you are for me."

  "But what about love, Walter?"

  "I love you, sweetie, you know that."

  "Do you love Wendy, too?"

  He smiled at her with that boyish little tilt of the mouth that usually turned her knees to mush and made her forget the common sense drilled into her since childhood. "Wendy's not the woman I plan to marry."

  "But she's the woman you sleep with." Sarah went to the sink and plunged her hands into the sudsy water. If she didn't keep them busy, she'd be wringing Walter's neck.

  "I told you, you misunderstood. We work for the same company. It's inevitable that we'll have meetings together when I'm out on the road." He moved behind her and wrapped his dish towel around her waist, pulling her back against him in a cutesy maneuver that made her feel imprisoned instead of embraced. "Don't worry, sweetie. I have the utmost respect for you. I want to have kids. I promise to show you all about having sex after we're married."

  Sarah shifted out of his grasp and moved away, dripping water over the counter as she reached for the skillet on the stove. "I don't think it's respect that keeps you from making love to me before the wedding."

  "It's true you have a lot to learn, but you'll do fine once you learn to relax and enjoy letting a man touch you."

  "Maybe I would if it was a man I trusted."

  Sarah stopped in her tracks so suddenly that she had to grab a nearby tree to keep her balance. "A man I trust," she murmured out loud.

  Hawk had kindled a fire in her by simply touching his thumb to her lips. Walter's lengthy courtship hadn't made her feel any more desirable than a brief glance from Hawk did. Walter's kisses made her feel clumsy and naive. Hawk's kisses made her feel womanly and whole.

  He didn't need to believe in her trust.

  She did.

  "Hawk?" The heavy weight of the air absorbed the breathy substance of her plea.

  She'd stumbled down this hill with the petty goal of finding out what made him so moody. And now she was slinking away, knowing she had contributed to his justified silence, even if she wasn't the direct cause, knowing she could help him if she cared enough to stay.

  Walter might have robbed her of her confidence. But he hadn't taken away her ability to care.

  Sarah had no idea what to say to Hawk, but she knew that running away wouldn't help her find the words.

  She slid down the slope on her feet, praying for divine inspiration to tell her what to say or do. But then she hit the clearing and saw that she'd been saying the wrong prayers.

  Hawk stood at the rear of the truck, holding a shiny gold object in his hands. The late afternoon sunlight glinted halo-like off the burnished artifact. He stared down at it, transfixed by its lustrous beauty.

  Sarah stared too, caught by the mesmerizing glow that soaked the atmosphere around it. The air above Hawk's hands quivered, as though distorted by rising heat. His glassy eyes seemed to absorb the unnatural distortion, hypnotizing him.

  Just like in the tomb.

  "Hawk!"

  Sarah screamed his name. Startled by the sound, a flock of brightly colored birds screeched and took wing. He never so much as blinked. She moved a step closer and called to him again.

  Another storm was building high in the sky. The churning pocket of low pressure dropped the temperature below ninety degrees. But the chill that shivered down Sarah's spine wasn't forged by Mother Nature. It emanated from the circle in Hawk's hands, luring his shaman powers and the essence of the man who owned them down into its frozen depths.

  "Hawk?" She reached up and touched his cheek. The chiseled angles felt as cold as the copper granite they resembled. She molded her palm against the beloved planes. "Can you hear me?"

  A tremor vibrated along his jaw.

  "How can I help you?" she asked.

  A sickening familiarity was reflected in the shadowy hollows of his eyes. "Get away from here," he said in a raspy voice.

  The chill where she touched him ran along her fingertips and down her arm. Sensing the helplessness of his paralyzing stupor, Sarah shook her head. "I'm not leaving without you."

  "He's so angry." His voice broke on a desperate plea. "He doesn't want us here."

  "Who?"

  Guided by an instinct beyond her conscious thought, Sarah wrapped her fingers around the gold artifact and gently pried it from his grasp.

  "Mecza…"

  Still holding his cheek in her right hand, she slowly set the small tiara-like object on the bumper of the truck. "Meczaquatl?"

  The void in his eyes brightened and he forced his gaze up to hers. "Gave it to her…"

  Sarah nodded, pretending she understood. She backed away, pulling Hawk along with her. "Come with me."

  "So angry…" His first step jerked.

  "That's it." She clutched his hand and stroked his cheek. "Just another step."

  "Didn't honor…" He worked his mouth and swallowed, as though battling a parched throat. "He… killed… sacrifice."

  "Please. Don't talk now." Sarah begged him to listen. She coaxed him along to the foot of the hill, and he followed her like a wary panther on a leash made of sweet words and tender touches.

  Partway up the hill, H
awk's resistance weakened. His stealthy grace returned, and she quickened their pace. She remembered the wild run they'd had escaping from the tomb and figured the more distance they put between Hawk and the wreck, the safer they'd be.

  "Just a bit farther." She wished she knew his given name or had the right to use an endearment, some special word that would have more significance than any other. A word that would wake him from this trance and bring him back to her.

  With her back to the slope behind her, Sarah stepped on a moss-covered rock face of smooth black basalt. Her boot slipped. Her feet flew out from under her, and she and Hawk went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Their combined weight acted like an anchor, but they slid a few feet until friction stopped them on a damp bed of ferns and fronds.

  In a swift spasm of reaction, Hawk levered himself onto his elbows above her. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Trapped flat on the ground beneath him, Sarah had no choice but to watch the tortured constriction of muscles across his face as man battled demon. His eyes snapped open, dark and compelling as ever, but without the shadowy dullness that had polluted them down by the truck. The man had won.

  Exhaling an aching sigh of relief, Sarah brushed the midnight waterfall of hair behind his ear and trailed her fingertips along his stubborn jaw. "Welcome back."

  "Did he hurt you? Did I hurt you?" Propelled by a sudden impulse, Hawk shifted onto his side and ran his hands up and down her body. With rough, tender, protective touches, he checked her face, arms, legs, stomach and neck.

  Each brush of his fingers, every probing pressure woke a part of her body. As if her senses had been asleep, her blood rushed to each pulse point, overriding her fear for his safety. With Hawk's body pressed to her side, his strong hand at her hip, he felt as solid and vital as the earth itself. Sarah melted into him, like the rain that sinks into the dust. She caught her breath and drank in the green smell of the damp trees and Hawk's own earthy scent. A whirlwind of sensations built up inside her, as natural as the elements, and as powerful as the gathering storm.

  But before the clouds burst open and she embarrassed herself with an inappropriate response, she folded his hand between both of hers and pressed it close to her heart. "We fell. I lost my footing, and with you off balance, too, I couldn't recover. I'll have a few bumps and bruises. But that's from my own klutziness, not you."