“He’s dead.”
“That doesn’t change anything. I promised him as he died.” His mouth twisted at her words, making her add, “With your mother’s name on his lips.”
She brushed past him and headed for the door. She was a little surprised when he followed her outside.
“Is that supposed to make me feel for him?”
She’d known the moment she’d said it that she would regret wavering from her vow to keep this conversation purely business.
“No,” she said, unlocking her car door. “I doubt if anything could change how you feel about Aaron.”
He gave her a speculative look. “And you? Could anything change the way you feel about him?”
She returned his steady gaze for a long moment, thinking. She didn’t believe anything she said would change his feelings. Neither had Aaron. He’d assumed the son he’d never known wouldn’t harbor any tender feelings for his absent father, no matter the reason. But perhaps she could make Jason understand. She reached down and released the door locks.
“Come with me,” she said. “I’m going to his office.”
He drew back a little, dark brows swiftly lowering; he clearly wasn’t impressed by either the offer or the destination.
“Aren’t you even a little curious?”
Still he hesitated. But after a moment he nodded. She went back and locked the room door, and by the time she got back to the car he was already inside.
She waited until they were on the road to speak. “I met Aaron when I was nineteen. I was in my second year of college.”
She heard him move, but didn’t look. “You said you’d worked for him since you got out of college.”
“Yes. But I met him three years earlier. I was driving home from work late one night, and I found Aaron staggering along the road. He’d been attacked, and his car stolen. There was a hospital just down the road, so I took him there.”
“Dangerous, for a woman alone late at night.”
“He was hurt. And alone.”
“It could have been a setup.”
She gave him a sideways glance, then sighed. “I suppose it could have been. But it wasn’t.” She noticed him glancing behind them, but he said nothing and she went on. “I stayed with him until the police and doctors were done and released him.”
“Why?”
“I told you, he was alone.”
His mouth quirked, and she waited for some sarcastic observation, but he only asked, “What happened?”
She smiled in rueful memory. “I didn’t know who he was. I just knew the robbers had taken his wallet, so he had no money or identification. So I offered to help him pay the hospital bill, and he could pay me back later.”
“You offered to pay Aaron Hawk’s bill?”
He sounded so amused she couldn’t help looking at him. “Even if I’d heard his name, I wouldn’t have known it. I didn’t have time to keep up with the who’s who of the business world.”
“I’ll bet he got a laugh out of that.”
“No. He never laughed at all. He thanked me. And started asking me questions.”
He looked through the rear window again. “Questions?”
“About school. What I was taking, what my plans were, when I would graduate, that kind of thing. We talked for hours.”
He looked back at her. “And you never knew he owned one of the bigger conglomerates in the state?”
“No,” Kendall said. “My first clue was when a private limo arrived to pick him up. I was pretty embarrassed.”
“I’ll bet.”
For once, there was no sarcasm in his tone, only what sounded like genuine amusement. It was amazing, what a difference it made, to hear his voice without that underlying cynicism that she’d begun to think was always there.
“He told me when I graduated to come see him.”
Jason rolled his eyes. As quickly as that the scoffing tone was back, along with the cynical glint in his eyes. “Don’t tell me. You graduated, appeared on his doorstep, and he took you in.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I thought this was going to be a bad movie.” He looked behind them again, his forehead creasing, and continued to look out the rear window as he asked, “You mean he didn’t generously put you through school?”
“I put myself through school. It took me five and a half years to get my degree, because I was working the whole time. And I . . . got sick one year, and lost some time. And more paying the bills.”
“Sick?”
“It doesn’t matter now. But when—”
“Sick with what?”
She studied him for a moment, wondering why he was persisting, why he wanted to know. “Nothing that’s still contagious,” she said dryly. “You’re safe.”
She nearly jumped when he chuckled; it sounded almost as genuine as his earlier amusement had. It changed his entire appearance, and made her very wary for a reason she didn’t quite understand. And when he repeated his question, again the caustic undertone was missing.
“Sick with what?”
“I . . . the hospital said it was exhaustion and dehydration.”
He stared at her. “Hospital? You were pushing that hard?”
“I didn’t want to spend my life in some dead-end job, with no hope of really making something of myself. Like the other kids I saw growing up.”
“Other foster kids?” His tone was, amazingly, almost gentle.
She nodded. “So many of them wound up that way. With no hope. I thought school was the way out.”
“And it was?” He glanced in the mirror again, then back at her. “With some help from the illustrious Aaron Hawk, after your Good Samaritan act?”
She nodded. “Now will you tell me what you keep looking for?”
He seemed embarrassed. “I . . . Nothing.”
Her mouth quirked. “I think you have a reason for everything. Even looking over your shoulder every mile.”
“Never mind,” he said. “Tell me what happened when you graduated.”
“Aaron showed up. Offering me the kind of job you only dream about right out of college.”
“Where was he when your hospital bill needed paying?” Amazingly, he sounded almost angry.
“Watching,” she said.
Jason blinked. “What?”
“Watching. To see what I’d do, if I really had the gumption to keep going, to not give up.”
He raised a brow at her. “Kind of cold-blooded, wasn’t it?”
“I know you think I’m some kind of naive fool, but I assure you, Jason, I knew exactly what kind of man your father was. There wasn’t an ounce of pity or sympathy in him. He neither gave nor accepted either, right up to the end. He was a Hawk, and Hawks aren’t soft, he used to say.”
She looked at him then. “And apparently,” she said, looking at him steadily, “Hawks also breed true.”
As with Alton, he again didn’t react to the comparison. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but somehow more ominous because of it.
“Are they gullible, Kendall?”
She thought of the book and knew what he meant. She really hadn’t made any progress at all, she thought tiredly. He didn’t believe any of it. She turned her eyes back to the road.
“No,” she finally answered. “But Aaron grew up with centuries of family history. Stories told by his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather.”
“And he believed them.”
“I don’t know if he really did, or if at the end it was just hope.”
“But you believe it.”
“Who was it who said that once you’ve eliminated the impossible, what remains is the truth, no matter how improbable it might be?”
“More fairy tales,” Jason said with a grimace. “Well, I haven’t eliminated anything yet. But I’m about to. That book is a joke, doling out little scraps of supposed fact in whatever order suits the purpose. A little here, a little there, just to nudge me in the right direction, because that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? And there’s going to be a way to prove it. And trust me, Kendall, I’ll find that way.”
She slowed the car and pulled over to the curb. Jason looked at her, then out the window. “I have to go to the bank,” she said, a little abruptly. “And maybe it’s not such a good idea that you go to Aaron’s office. You’re still too angry.”
He didn’t deny it. “I don’t know what the truth is here, yet. Whether you’re in cahoots with the old lady, figuring you’ll scare me off with that threat of jail, whether you really think you can get your hands on that money through me, or whether you’re up to something else. But I’ll find out.”
“You left out a possibility. That I’m telling the truth.”
He laughed. “Lady, that’s so far down on the possibility scale it doesn’t even register.”
“Thank you,” she said sarcastically, beyond hiding her weary annoyance now. “I appreciate your faith and trust.”
“You want something to appreciate? How about a little advice?” He lifted the book again. “If you plan on trying to make this little fabrication about our future together come true, you might want to change your approach.”
“My approach?”
“You would have gotten a lot farther in that direction if you’d joined me last night.”
Joined him? It hit her then. Joined him in bed, he meant. For the first time in a long time, Kendall had to fight very hard to keep from blushing. The images that flashed through her mind astonished her. Her experience was, at best, limited, but somehow she was picturing things she’d never thought of doing, let alone ever done. And at a time when she should be angry, not having lewd fantasies about a man who was making her life so difficult. Her effort at control made her voice very cool as she gathered her scattered poise around her and made herself meet his eyes.
“If that’s all it would take to change your mind, then perhaps I was hasty in saying Hawks breed true,” she said. “I doubt if there’s ever been one who was controlled by his libido.”
“Well,” he said, his voice silky soft, “if you want to talk about control . . .”
He leaned over to her, not suddenly but so unexpectedly she didn’t have time to react. And the moment he touched her, his fingers sliding around to the back of her neck, she wasn’t sure she could have. For an instant, one terrifying instant as she looked up into his eyes, she wondered if she’d been wrong—lethally wrong—about his potential for violence. But then his thumbs came up under her chin to tilt her head back, and she realized the storm she’d seen in the blue depths had an entirely different source.
His mouth came down on hers, hard and fierce. She put her hands up to push against his chest, but after the first effort suppressed the attempt to struggle. He was so much bigger, so much stronger than she, that she knew it was useless. The best she could do was give him no reaction at all.
She managed it, until suddenly his lips gentled on hers, until he turned from aggression to urging, from fierceness to suggestiveness, from overpowering to invitation. She didn’t know why he’d changed, knew only that she was responding before she could help herself, that her resistance turned to surprise, then shock as heat rippled through her as he moved his mouth coaxingly on hers. Her eyes closed seemingly of their own will, as if her body wanted to concentrate solely on the new, amazing things it was feeling. He was kissing her like the man she’d had glimpses of just now, the man who had laughed genuinely, the man who had gently prompted her to continue her story.
His fingers threaded through her hair, tugging it free from the scarf. She felt the faint brush of his tongue over her lips, tempting, luring. Through the odd haze that seemed to be enveloping her, she knew she should pull away, but instead she found herself parting her lips for him, accepting the stroking caress. Welcoming it. And, with a bit of boldness that astounded her even as she did it, returning the caress, meeting his tongue with her own, craving the contact in a way that she’d never craved anything before.
She heard a sound from him, a low groan that held a note of protest, as if he were fighting some battle of his own. It sent a shiver through her, one she couldn’t suppress, and she heard him make the sound again. Again she shivered, this time in reaction to the thrill that raced through her, especially when he pulled her closer with a jerky motion she sensed was rife with that same inner protest. Gone was the feeling of being overwhelmed, her sense of the sheer power inherent in his size and strength. Left behind was the echo of that low sound, that protest she had wrenched from him, as if it were she who had the power, and it could bring him to his knees.
He wrenched his mouth away. Kendall heard a tiny sound, and realized it had come from her, that bereft little moan of loss. When she opened her eyes to look up at him, there was an instant when she thought she saw confusion in his face. But it was quickly gone, and she focused on his eyes in time to see the heat that had burned there fading, in time to see the satisfied glint that replaced it, and she knew that whatever sense of power she’d had had been an illusion. A fanciful delusion she should have known better than to succumb to.
He released her and sat back, appearing completely calm and at ease, in stark contrast to her own heart-hammering dishevelment.
“Care to discuss control some more?” he drawled.
She grabbed her keys, her purse, and the scarf that had slid down to the now tangled ends of her hair. It took every bit of self-command she had learned at Aaron’s side, but she managed to give him a level look.
“You don’t discuss anything. You assume, you arbitrarily decide, and you ignore the truth when it’s in front of you.” She shoved open the car door, then looked back at him. He looked insufferably smug as he sat there, arms crossed, leaning against the other door nonchalantly. “And,” she added, “apparently you enjoy kissing unwilling women.”
“Unwilling?” he asked softly.
She couldn’t stop the blush this time. And she could think of nothing to say. They both knew that however it had started, she had become an enthusiastic participant before the kiss had ended. She got out of the car, slamming the door shut with a fierceness that betrayed her agitation. She heard the passenger door open, and knew he was getting out as well. She didn’t look at him, even when she heard the other door close, much more gently than her own.
“Kendall?”
She stopped, knowing he was going to make it worse, knowing he was going to taunt her with her own response to his unexpected kiss. She couldn’t look at him.
“What?” she muttered, her fingers tightening around her keys until they dug into her flesh.
“Don’t start anything.”
Astonishment flooded her, and her head snapped around. She stared at him across the roof of the car. “Start anything? Me? You’re the one who swooped down on me like your feathered namesake, Jason Hawk.”
His eyes widened, as if she had surprised him. Then his mouth quirked, and she sensed he was suppressing an amused smile.
“I meant about the will.”
It was her turn to be surprised. And chagrined. She should have known that the kiss that had shaken her to her soul had had little effect on him.
“Oh,” she said, feeling more awkward—and foolish—than she could ever remember. Then, suspiciously, “Why? You don’t even believe me about it.”
He shrugged. “Let’s just say I like to keep my options open, at least for the moment. That’s hard to do from a jail cell.”
“Fine.” The word was short, clipped. She didn’t care.
“I’ll see you later. I think I’ll . . . take a walk.”
“Fine,” she repeated. She started toward the heavy wooden front doors of the bank, then turned back once more. “Jason?”
He lifted a brow in query.
“Make it a hike,” she said.
She closed the bank door on his laughter. And tried to ignore the strange feeling she had, a prickling at the back of her neck, as if she was being watched.
She mocked herself as the sensation lingered as she kept going. Jason might be intimidating, he might be full of surprises, he might have rattled her more with that unexpected—and unexpectedly arousing—kiss than she’d ever been rattled in her life, but he couldn’t be watching her.
Even Hawks couldn’t see through walls.
Chapter Twelve
JASON LAUGHED inwardly at the irony of it, him, in the Aaron Hawk wing of the Sunridge library, searching out information to prove Aaron Hawk was crazy.
Not that it was going to take much. It was obvious that the old man hadn’t just been interested in his family history, he’d been obsessed by it; the size of the collection of donated books here, taking up nearly an entire set of four-foot-wide shelves, was proof of that. The presence of the Hawks in Sunridge was chronicled continuously, going back nearly a hundred years. If there was even the slightest mention of a Hawk anywhere, the document was here.
It had been a long time since he’d been in a library. Odd, he supposed, considering he had practically lived in them as a kid. For years he’d almost daily spent the hours between the end of school and his mother’s arrival home from work amid bookshelves very much like these. He’d started going there because it seemed safe, there were people around, and he’d liked it better than the lonely, echoing apartments they had lived in. But soon he’d become fascinated by what he discovered there, other places, other people, other worlds.
At first he had just read magazines, about boats, cars, fishing, whatever caught his eye. But he’d soon worked through all those, and begun on the books. And later, he’d had another cause, a reason to track down everything he could find on a particular subject. By the time he was fifteen he’d read more than he could keep track of.
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