Jillian Hart - Night Hawk's Bride

But she’d been respectful. It’s a beautiful name. What does it mean? He could still hear the music of her voice and feel the bright light of her presence as he returned to the far pasture.

Trees shaded him as he lifted his ax and swung, taking his frustration out on trees that had fallen last winter.

Over the thud of the ax, he heard the squeak of the buggy’s wheels as it bounced along his rutted road. Dust lifted like fog in the air and larks playing in the grasses startled skyward.

Meka lifted his big head and howled a melancholy goodbye.

Night Hawk could feel Marie Lafayette’s gaze like a hot burning flame to his back. He worked until she’d driven past and then he stared into the cloud of dust in her wake.

Loneliness settled around him like the dust to the earth—a loneliness that ached and thrashed within the deepest places of his heart.

He had no family. No wife. No children. That was how he’d always feared his life would remain.

Maybe that was why he felt such an attraction to Marie Lafayette. That was all. Loneliness. A man’s natural yearning for a wife.

He felt warm velvet of a horse’s muzzle graze his knuckles. He hadn’t realized that he’d stopped splitting rails and was leaning against the wood fence. Kammeo, with her coat of red flame and spirit, lipped him quizzically as if asking where Marie had gone.

Kammeo. It meant one and only. It also meant soul mate. A man’s one and only love for all time.

Fate would not be so cruel, Night Hawk was certain, as to make his kammeo a white woman he was forbidden to love.

The wonder of Marie’s day remained even when the front door slammed open with the force of a bullet and rattled the windowpanes in the house.

“Marie Janelle, front and center this minute!” Henry’s voice filled the house like a cannon blast.

“No need to shout, Papa.” She laid the last sweater into place in the bureau draw and pushed it closed. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Now.”

“When I’m finished emptying this last trunk.”

She winced at the angry drum of his boots on the floor. Not even the thick wood ceiling between them could muffle it. There was no time like the present to start standing up to him and to change their relationship.

His footsteps punched up the stairs and knelled down the hallway. Marie took a deep breath and lifted the last of her sweaters from the bottom of her trunk.

“Good evening, Papa.” She crossed to the bevel-mirrored bureau. “It doesn’t sound as if you had a pleasant day.”

“Not when I discovered you coerced my sergeant into taking you from the settlement.”

“Coerced?” Marie saw her father’s reflection in the mirror behind her. Angry tension stiffened him like a well-seasoned board, and his face was ruddy. “I merely pointed out that I would find the way on foot if I had to. The stable master refused to allow me the use of a horse and buggy. Your instructions, he said.”

“I don’t want you running off, Marie. It’s unsafe.” Soldier-fierce, he clomped into the room, and yet when she looked again in the mirror, gray gathered at his temples and marked his beard. The fall of once jet-black hair over his brow had turned completely gray.

They’d lost so much time, she and Papa. So much time to be a family.

“Papa, I didn’t mean to be difficult.” She pushed in the drawer and faced him. “I know there’s a bear threatening settlers, but I had Sergeant James with me. He was armed—”

“A musket won’t always stop a raging bear. Everyone knows that.” Henry’s anger flared but beneath it lurked something else, something harder to discern.

Marie closed her trunk lid. “As you can see, nothing happened. You don’t need to be worried after the fact.”

“Worried?” Henry sounded surprised. “I’m furious that you’d disobeyed a direct order, Marie.”

“It wasn’t direct to me. I was furious because you broke another promise.”

“I’m a busy man.”

“You’re my father, not my commanding officer.” She yanked the empty trunk from her bed and set it with an angry thunk on the floor. “I bought my own horse today, so there’s no point in you rushing to find me the mare you promised.”

“My secretary was supposed to—”

She slid the trunk with force into place beneath the second window. Papa always had his excuses and she wouldn’t listen to them. She wanted more than excuses. She wanted more than his attempts to be her father—attempts lacking heart.

She settled the trunk into place with a final thud and straightened.

Henry merely looked angrier. “I brought you out here to help me with my work. There are children who need to learn. Both the settlers’ children and the Indian children have to be prepared for the changing world awaiting them. That is what I fight for every day. Bettering the lives of the civilians I defend.”

“That’s good and fine, and I admire your principles, Papa. I always have. But I came here because my father asked me to. My father.” She marched past him, losing her temper. “I’ll be downstairs.”

He followed her out into the hall. “Marie, Mrs. Olstad is putting supper on the table. You straighten up. I want you presentable in five minutes. Major Gerard is coming—”

Not wanting to hear more, Marie flew down the stairs and through the kitchen. Ignoring Mrs. Olstad’s disapproving frown, Marie dashed outside and shut the door behind her with enough force to echo up the stairwell. It wasn’t a slam, just a statement. She wasn’t going to settle for a colonel. Not when she wanted a father.

The evening was hot and humid when she stepped out onto the porch. Sunlight played through the tips of trees, casting long shadows. The wilderness outside the tall, stout fort walls beckoned her.

This was her adventure. She’d come to Fort Tye for several reasons. Being with her father was only one of them. There were children to teach, a new world to explore. And maybe—just maybe—a love to discover.

Night Hawk. The thought of him made her bones melt. A thrilling, shivery feeling rippled through her. How angry he’d made her when she’d thought he was like so many men she’d met—all looking for a wife they could command around like her father did his soldiers.

But she’d been wrong. A woman and a horse should be treated with respect, he’d said in that voice as deep as winter. Oh, he’d been playing with her, all right, and her heart warmed with the memory.

“Miss Lafayette.” A polite baritone broke into her thoughts. Major Gerard, hat in hand, strolled down the stone path, watching her with a curious gaze. “You look lovely this evening.”

“Thank you, Major.” Marie tucked her thoughts of Night Hawk aside for later, when she was alone. Right now she had Major Gerard to deal with. “I know my father is expecting you.”

“He was good enough to invite me.” The major climbed up the steps and stopped awkwardly, holding his hat, looking uncertain. “My name is Ned. Please, may I call you Marie?”

“Of course.” There was a lot to like about the kind officer who seemed boyishly shy as he attempted a nervous smile.

“Please, come in. My father would want you to be comfortable.” Marie led the way into the parlor. “What do you drink?”

“Your housekeeper is known to have cold tea on hand for a few of us who don’t partake.” He hung his hat on the coat tree before she could offer. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m here so often. I report directly to your father. I oversee the training of the enlisted men.”

He was proud of his work and proud to work for her father. It was hard not to like him, but she didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. Likely as not, her father had already done enough of that. She offered Ned a seat before leaving him alone for the kitchen.

He thanked her and sat awkwardly in the upholstered wing chair near the front window.

Her temper was back, and she fought to stay calm. In the hot kitchen, she grabbed a glass from the hutch shelves. She’d come to change things between her and her father, not to have the same old battle over marrying her off.

“Marie! Leave that to Mrs. Olstad. Honestly.” Henry thundered into the kitchen. “I want you to make a good impression tonight. Ned Gerard is just the sort of man I want for you.”

“What sort is that?”

“A West Point graduate. Impeccable family name. You know I want only the best for my daughter.” Henry snatched a tomato wedge from Mrs. Olstad’s drain board. “I don’t want you to let this opportunity pass by. Living with your aunt has given you the idea that you can be happy as a spinster for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t want to be a spinster, Papa. Really.” She could be as stubborn as he could be. After all, she was his daughter.

Marie spotted a covered pitcher on the drain board and reached for it.

“Leave that to Mrs. Olstad, Marie. We can’t leave our guest waiting.”

“You go in alone, you old schemer.” Marie couldn’t summon up enough resentment to be truly angry. “I’m not going to marry him.”

“You don’t know that for certain. No one knows where love will take root. Or how it will grow.” Henry stole another tomato wedge from the worktable. “Don’t be long, Marie. For me.”

She began to protest but stopped at the sudden look of sadness in his eyes. It was a kind of sadness that she knew well. They hadn’t been close since she was a little girl. Could it be possible that he shared this same loneliness? This hurting ache for the bonds of family?

There was a limp to his step as he marched from the room. The sunlight slanting through the window burnished the gray in his hair.

Yes, it was time for a change between them. As long as he stopped trying to marry her to every West Point graduate he met.

A movement through the window caught her attention. A huge black dog slipped out of her sight on the other side of the picket fence. Night Hawk’s dog.

Night Hawk couldn’t be far. Her pulse soared. Her sadness drained away. Thinking of him and knowing he could be near sent a thrill through her that was brighter than the sun.

No one knows where love will take root. Or how it will grow, Henry had said. And he was right.

She dashed out the back door. The wind tangled her hair, and she wrestled it out of her eyes so she could see. Breathless with anticipation, she tripped down the steps and raced along the path to the gate.

But the lane was empty. There were no shadows, no dog and no dream man.

He had passed this way. She could feel it in a way she couldn’t explain. Seeing him again was only a matter of time.

Where was his will of steel? Night Hawk cursed himself as he drove the sickle through the waist-high grass. For the better part of two weeks, he’d thought of her. Every time he visited the fort to check on Devil’s injury. Each time Kammeo caught his gaze in the field. He hadn’t started working with the animal yet.

He was afraid that would make him dream of the woman more.

Fragrant stalks dropped to the mowed ground, and he swung again, taking down more grass. Sweat flew off his brow as he cut his way to the edge of the field. Winded, he leaned the blade against the fence and reached for the jug he’d left in the shade.

Cool water poured down his throat and he swallowed until it was gone. More sweat ran down his face and chest. He’d been up since three this morning making hay while the good weather held.

Meka’s low bark cut through the afternoon’s serenity. Night Hawk squinted into the sun and saw a figure crowning a low rise where earth and sun made illusion. There was a suggestion of a woman’s dark wavy hair and soft curves—Marie Lafayette.