Jillian Hart - Night Hawk's Bride

“Go on up to your room and get some sleep, Marie.” He sounded gruff, just short of harsh, but he sounded strangely affectionate, too.

“I’ll choose my own bedtime, thank you. The night is beautiful and there are so many things I want to say to you.”

“Not tonight, daughter.” Embers glowed at the tip of his cigar as he inhaled. “I’ve had a tough day.”

“I see.” So, he would dismiss her. His daughter. She pushed away from the porch.

“Mrs. Olstad will have breakfast on the table at six hundred sharp. I’ll see you then.”

“Yes, Papa. Good night.” She fled before he could answer, turning her back on the lonely night and the canyon of distance between them.

She hurried up the staircase and down the dark hallway, trying not to turn their first not-so-warm encounter into a disaster. He was tired. She was disappointed. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

Her room was dark, just as she had left it. The white curtains lashed at the open window as if beckoning her. It was still early and she wasn’t a bit tired, so she knelt on the soft cushions of the window seat and let the wind breeze across her face.

It was a night made for dreaming, with stars so bright and the wide horizon brimming with possibilities. A hawk’s cry snared her attention and she watched the noble hunter cut the sky with silent wings.

Marie breathed in the fresh air and listened to the call of a coyote. The swirling emotions inside her began to ease.

A movement in the shadows caught her eye—a broad-shouldered man, lithe and powerful. Night Hawk. Mounted, he rode tall and proud, his long brave’s hair dancing with the wind.

Her heart soared just like the hawk overhead. The strange floating, shivering sensation she’d experienced in his presence returned.

She’d never felt so alive and the feeling remained long after he’d ridden from her sight.

Night Hawk saw the young hawk circling overhead in an ever-widening spiral away from the fort. Other creatures filled the night sky—the hoot owls, the mosquito-eating bats and a mature male eagle hunting the fields for food for his young.

It was likely that only the young hawk had no mate to fly with and no young to hunt for. A solitary life was no comfort for a bird.

Or a man.

The wind gusted, stirring a woman’s scent clinging to his shirt where he and Marie Lafayette had briefly touched.

The colonel’s daughter.

A cold weight settled in his gut, and Night Hawk urged Shadow into an easy lope. Even to notice the smallest detail about the colonel’s daughter was trouble.

In truth, he hadn’t noticed her. He’d memorized her wavy, dark brown hair and how she smelled fresh as morning sun on a spring meadow. The oval cut of her face was soft and so beautiful it hurt to look at her.

You’ve been without a woman too long, he told himself. But even as he thought the words, they rang false. It wasn’t lust he felt. It was something greater, like the sky without horizon, like time without end.

Who did he think he was? Marie was too young, too pretty and too white. She was the colonel’s daughter. She was out of his reach like the stars above.

He halted his stallion in the shadow of his home where there were no windows lit and no woman waiting.

If loneliness battered him, he refused to feel it.

He dropped the pack he carried on the front steps and made a vow never to think about the colonel’s daughter again.

“You’re late.”

Marie pulled out the wooden chair and eased onto the tapestried cushion. “I had trouble finding all my clothes. Only one of my trunks arrived.”

“Then I’ll have Sergeant James see to it.” Henry’s stern demeanor softened. “Did you sleep well?”

“I tried.” Marie couldn’t contain her excitement. “I’ve never heard so many strange sounds in one place. Coyotes howling, owls hooting and creatures moving in the forest outside the fort walls.”

“We’ll see if you’re of the same opinion next week.” The colonel sounded harsh, but his dark eyes twinkled.

There was hope, Marie decided as she grabbed a slice of crispy bacon. For the first time in her life, she was alone with her father over a meal. It was a time to talk, to bond and share opinions and experiences like other families.

Where did she start? “Papa, I’d love to see the new schoolhouse. I—”

But Henry wasn’t listening. He’d turned toward the opened front door, just visible through the parlor, where footsteps pounded across the porch.

“Excellent!” he boomed. “Come right on in, Major. Do you have the report?”

“I do, sir.” The screen door whispered on its hinges as a man entered. He marched across the parlor with a painfully straight posture and wearing a spotless blue uniform. “This is the latest report from the field.”

“Give it here, Major. I have decisions to make.” The colonel snatched pages of parchment from the lesser officer’s fist. Paper snapped as he flipped through the pages, skimming. “Yes, it looks complete. Major, you must meet my daughter. Ned Gerard, this is my only daughter, Marie. Marie, say hello.”

“I know how to speak without your instructions, Papa,” she reminded him gently. Really. Hadn’t he looked at her enough to notice she was no longer a child needing instructions? He was embarrassing her.

But the newcomer, Major Gerard, struggled not to chuckle as if he knew Henry all too well. He was a pleasant-looking man.

“I’m pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Miss Lafayette. Your father has spoken often of your teaching achievements.”

“Achievements?” Leave it to her father to make teaching English sound like she’d negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. “I’m not the best teacher there is, but I am lucky to be here.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful aid to your father’s work.” The major bowed slightly.

Marie noticed her father’s face was hidden mostly by the papers he was studying. But his brows knit together as if he were smiling.

Smiling! Marie grabbed her plate and stood, working hard to contain her anger. “You gentlemen appear to have business to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Marie,” Henry warned. “You’ll stay and finish your meal at the table. This is the frontier, but that doesn’t mean we can give up any—”

“Goodbye, Papa.” Marie tapped across the room, refusing to give in. “Pleasant meeting you, Major.”

“And you, ma’am.”

She could feel Henry’s fury all the way into the kitchen. Too bad. He wasn’t going to do this to her. She absolutely refused to allow it.

Introducing her to the major. Next it would be an invitation to supper. Then her father would be pressuring her to marry the major. She hadn’t come here to let her father run her life, that was for sure.

She marched down the kitchen steps and into the backyard.

A three-foot-high split-rail fence walled in a well-tended vegetable garden and a cool patch of mowed grass. Ancient sugar maples cast long morning shadows across the yard. She spotted a log bench beneath them. It was the perfect place to enjoy her meal.

She ate in solitude, if not exactly silence. Outside the small haven, she could hear the sounds of the soldiers beginning their busy day. Voices rang. Doors slammed. Someone—perhaps a new recruit—raced past, hidden by a row of bushes, muttering to himself that he was late again.

A rabbit darted out from behind a clump of beets to nibble on delicate carrot greens. He lifted his chocolate-brown head, wrinkled his nose while he studied her and then returned to his breakfast.

Marie finished hers. This strange new land wasn’t home yet. Last night she had missed her comfortable bed—the familiar feel of it, the sound of Aunt Gertrude rising to prepare breakfast, and the regular routine of their days together.

Here in Fort Tye, there were no lending libraries, no ladies clubs and no supper theater. But Marie watched a finch light on a limb of the sweet-leafed sugar maple, and a sense of rightness filled her like heaven’s touch.

Happiness was awaiting her. She could feel it.

Night Hawk’s entire body screamed with exhaustion as he hauled fresh water from the well. The two huge buckets felt like boulders as he emptied first one and then the other into the trough.

The bay mare in the corral with him nickered softly to her newborn foal and gratefully dipped her nose into the water. It had been a long night and a tough morning, but Joy had brought forth a strong foal. The tiny filly walked at her dam’s flank, her knobby knees threatening to buckle. Her bristle-brush mane ruffled in the wind as she nursed.

The big black dog napping in the shade of the house let out a single woof and climbed to his feet. Tilting his big head, he listened to the faint clip-clop of a newly shod horse.

Night Hawk dropped the buckets. It wasn’t his friend, Josh Ingalls, riding over the crest of the hill. Judging by the faint jingling of a harness and the rattle of wheels, it was a buggy from the settlement. The dog wasn’t used to many visitors. Night Hawk ordered Meka to stay.

He wasn’t surprised when one of the fort horses crested the rise, pulling the colonel’s buggy. He tried not to curse the Fates tempting him when he saw a spray of blue fabric ruffling in the wind—the hem of a woman’s fine dress. Sunlight gleamed on a lock of wavy dark hair, and his blood fired.

The colonel’s daughter.

He gritted his teeth, but the images of the night returned in a fiery rush—her porcelain face in the lantern light, the summer-breeze scent of her skin and the feel of her next to him like something lost finally found.

She was the colonel’s daughter, he reminded himself and forced the images from his mind.

The sergeant at Miss Lafayette’s side reined in the thick-legged army horse a good distance from where Meka sat on his haunches warily watching the newcomers.

“Night Hawk.” Humphrey James climbed down from the buggy and offered his hand to the woman. “We’ve come to look at your horses. Miss Lafayette would like to purchase a mount. Something gentle and easy to handle. An older mare, I should think.”

“Sergeant, I’m capable of speaking for myself.” In a graceful sweep of blue silk, Marie Lafayette stepped out of the shadowed buggy and into the dappled sunlight. “Night Hawk. I asked around the settlement this morning and everyone agreed that you had the best horses.”

She spun in a half circle, her full skirts and dark locks swirling as she quickly scanned the pastures and corrals of grazing horses. “Looks to me that they were right.”

“They were wrong. I have no mares to sell you.”

“What? You have plenty of horses.” She flipped one silken lock behind her ear, and a look of wonder flashed across her gentle features as she noticed the corral. “You have a new baby.”

“She was born this morning.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice, or the way his gaze kept straying to the colonel’s daughter.

“She’s beautiful.” Marie knelt outside the wooden corral where dam and foal were alone. “How old is she?”

“Four hours.”

“Look how well she walks. And her legs are so long.”

She curled her delicate hands around the wooden rails. “I’ve never seen such knobby knees.”

“That only means she’ll grow up to run fast and far.” He itched to step closer. Just close enough to smell the sweet scent of Marie’s skin and the wildflowers in her hair.

The foal wobbled away from her dam’s side and stretched her skinny neck toward the fence and Marie’s fingers.