Nightway Page 20

  When she met his eyes, Hawk noted the faint rise of color in her cheeks. She remembered. He’d wondered if she would. She had been drifting in and out of a dream world that knew only sensation. He was glad her memory of it hadn’t dimmed.

  “Where is Jake Sanchez? I understood he was meeting us.”

  The cool demand from Chad slid Hawk’s gaze to him. “At the ranch. I came in his place.”

  “Why?”

  A reckless smile curved Hawk’s mouth. It seemed to drop the temperature by several degrees. “You know I wouldn’t have missed this for anything, Chad.” Although his reply was softly spoken, it was in the way of a taunt—a cactus thorn burying itself in the tender nose of a bull.

  Untouched by Chad’s anger, Hawk let his gaze glide back to Lanna, who silently faced him. His senses vividly remembered everything about her. Nothing had dimmed, not the tantalizing fragrance of her perfume or the disturbed shallowness of her breathing. Both observations affected him now, stirring desire in his loins. Hawk had forgotten none of the discoveries he’d made about her. Catching the sandalwood scent of her cologne, he wondered if she had again applied it to the back of her knees, as well as behind her ears. There was a wild longing to carry her off somewhere and find out, but the civilized side of him subdued it.

  “How does it feel to be an heiress, Miss Marshall?” Hawk watched the interplay of emotions on her face. There was strength and pride in her features, two qualities that aroused his admiration. She was outgoing and quick to laugh or smile, unafraid to venture away from her home territory. He sensed a depth to her that had never been tapped.

  “It’s all been too hectic. I haven’t had time to think about it yet,” she admitted.

  Then she turned her head to look at Chad. Hawk observed the exchange of looks and the tightening of Chad’s hand on her waist. Hot-tongued jealousy flamed through him. It shocked Hawk with its force. He had possessed women before and had never been upset if another man held them. Yet his system was charged with this violently possessive emotion, irritating his nerves to a raw state.

  “Didn’t I tell you J. B. would repay you in his own way?” Hawk’s voice was sharp, deliberately antagonistic. He watched Lanna stiffen at the question, realizing that he had been right in assuming her friendship with J. B. would be rewarded monetarily. Hawk noted, with grudging admiration, how quickly pride surfaced in her expression to hide the hurt at the discovery.

  “What’s he talking about?” Chad demanded with a puzzled frown.

  “It’s just something we discussed.” With a shrug of her shoulders, Lanna belied its importance.

  Hesitating, Chad seemed inclined to pursue the subject and obtain a more satisfactory answer, then appeared to decide to leave it to another time—when he wasn’t there, Hawk guessed.

  “The luggage is in the trunk,” Chad stated as he pivoted toward the rear of the car and separated the trunk key from the others on the ring. “Let’s get it out to the plane so we can be on our way.” Hawk had no argument with that. Neither, it seemed, did Lanna.

  Hawk led the way to the plane, toting Lanna’s two new suitcases adorned with the monogram of their exclusive designer. Walking beside Chad, Lanna carried the smaller case of the set. She could feel both Chad’s tension and her own. And Hawk was the cause.

  She knew why she was upset, but she didn’t understand why Chad was. She had assumed the two men were close, considering the events that had taken place the night John died. The barely disguised antagonism between them had come as a surprise.

  Although she doubted Hawk had told Chad he’d slept with her, would he? She hadn’t been herself that night. Surely Hawk knew that. The memory of his lovemaking had returned with such vividness that Lanna wondered why it had ever been vague. The rawly passionate sensations of it licked through her veins each time Hawk’s gaze wandered to her. It was unsettling, mostly because she didn’t know what Hawk intended to do with his knowledge—a knowledge that was so intimate.

  Standing to one side, Lanna watched Hawk stow the suitcases in the luggage compartment of the sleek, twin-engine aircraft. When he turned to take the small case from her hand, his keen gaze read the uncertainty in her expression. An amused kind of satisfaction glimmered in his smile.

  “Have you ever flown before, Miss Marshall?” Hawk appeared to mock her with the formal mode of address.

  “Only on commercial jets,” she admitted. “Never in a private plane.”

  “We’ll be flying over some wild and beautiful country. You’re welcome to sit in the seat to my right. You’ll have a broader view of the landscape from the cockpit than from a passenger’s window.” On the surface, his invitation appeared merely polite, but Lanna knew it was in answer to her unspoken need to see him alone.

  Still she hesitated, glancing at Chad, not wanting to arouse his suspicion if it turned out there was no cause. “Do you mind?” she queried, requesting Chad’s permission. “I’ve never been in the cockpit of a plane before. It would be quite an experience to see what goes on and have a bird’s-eye view of the country, instead of being five miles up.” Lanna schooled her expression, as if her only thought concerned the novelty of having a new experience.

  Chad took a second to search her face and appeared satisfied with what he saw. “I don’t mind.” He smiled with the benevolence of a man granting her a treat. “As a matter of fact, I have some reports I need to study. I’ll do them on the flight. That way I can be free to show you around when we reach the ranch.”

  “Wonderful.” Lanna returned his smile and felt like a hypocrite.

  Entering the plane, she walked all the way to the front and maneuvered herself into the co-pilot’s seat. As she buckled her seat belt, her gaze wandered over the confusing array of dials and gauges. Then Hawk was joining her, folding his long frame into the pilot’s seat. The brown Stetson was tossed onto a rear passenger’s seat, while a hand combed the flatness out of his thick, black hair.

  “Are you all buckled in?” His sidelong glance barely touched her, staying just long enough to see her affirmative nod. “Sit back and enjoy the ride. Just remember to keep your hands off the controls. I wouldn’t want to bruise that lovely jaw to make you let go of them.”

  The set of his features warned her it wasn’t an idle threat as he reached for a pair of dark glasses atop the control panel. Lanna clasped her hands tightly in her lap while Hawk began a pre-flight check of the instruments.

  The blazing sun beat down on the plane, turning its interior into an oven. Lanna was engulfed by the heat. The only fresh air came from an opened window on Hawk’s side, and it was hot. The left engine turned over and caught in a deafening roar, but it generated a breeze that at least moved the stifling air around. The engine on the right took hold and added its loud vibrations to the first. Then Hawk was on the radio, requesting taxi and runway instructions from ground control. None of the answers made sense to Lanna, and Hawk didn’t explain.

  The co-pilot’s seat might have been empty for all the attention he paid to her while he taxied to the designated runway and prepared for takeoff. The side window was closed, shutting the intense heat inside the plane. When clearance for takeoff came from the tower, Hawk half-turned his head to direct his voice at Chad, seated a row behind them. “We’re rolling.”

  Lanna felt the surge of power as the full thrust of the engines sent the plane racing down the runway, gathering speed. When they lifted off and began a steady climp to the east, a cooling blast of air whooshed through the vents. Lanna turned her hot face to the freshness of its cool spray and breathed in deeply.

  On the horizon, the ragged peaks of a mountain loomed. “The Superstititons,” Hawk identified, drawing Lanna’s glance to him.

  The mirrored finish of his sunglasses reflected only her image, and she turned to look out the window. Their flight path took them directly over the forbidding range of mountains. It was a labyrinth of barren mesas and jagged summits interspersed with a maze of arroyos and canyons that held its secret o
f lost gold. The twisted, tortured land of volcanic debris was studded with cactus and carpeted with dry brush.

  As the plane banked to the north, the sunlight glimmered on a body of water. A lake sat in the middle of the raw mountain desert, laughing at the parched terrain that surrounded it. A concrete dam acted the role of Tantalus, holding the water out of reach of the arid wasteland while taunting it with the promise of life. The plane seemed to be barely moving, but Lanna watched its shadow race across the jumble of rocky crags and the tangled desolation of the flatlands.

  “How’s your knowledge of the Old West?” Hawk asked.

  Lanna turned away from the window to answer. “Sketchy.” She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses, but she knew he was looking at her.

  “That’s Tonto Basin just ahead. We’re coming up on the Mogollon Rim, roughly a two-hundred-mile-long cliff. The area has been immortalized by nearly every writer of Westerns, including Zane Grey,” he told her.

  Lanna looked where he pointed and saw the escarpment that dramatically marked the edge of a high plateau. Erosion had laid bare layers of rock, allowing it to rise abruptly from the desert floor. The walls’ color was shaded from white to gray to cream, depending on the rock exposed. Crowning the rim was a forest of pine and fir, dotted with aspen, a few maple, and oak. The rim was an impressive sight, its line stretching as far as Lanna could see, broken only rarely by a yawning canyon. Civilization had snaked roads in and around it, but nothing had tamed the wildness of the land.

  “It’s spectacular, isn’t it?” Lanna mused as the plane’s shadow climbed the walls to skim over the treetops of its mesa. When there was no response from Hawk, she turned to look at him. He faced her, yet she couldn’t tell if he was watching her or looking beyond her out the window at the disappearing line of the rim.

  “Yes,” he agreed with her comment in a tone of disinterest. “You discovered for yourself that Chad is good at comforting grieving women, didn’t you?” The dry remark made Lanna dart a glance behind her to Chad. He was bent over some papers, his briefcase cradled on his lap. “Don’t worry,” Hawk said, reading her mind. “He can’t hear us unless you shout.”

  “Chad has been very helpful,” she replied cautiously, very careful not to raise her voice.

  “I’ll bet he has.” A thread of contemptuous laughter weaved into Hawk’s response.

  But the conversation had brought the topic around to one Lanna wanted to clarify. “That night—” she began.

  “If you’re concerned that I’m going to talk, don’t be,” Hawk interrupted. “Chad’s the one who brags about his conquests. No one is going to hear about that night from me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to imply that you would spread it around. It’s just that I don’t normally—” She attempted to defend her behavior that night but wasn’t permitted to finish.

  “Look, we each satisfied a mutual need. Let’s leave it at that.” To ensure that the topic was dropped, he directed her attention to the front again. “We’re crossing the south boundary of the ranch.”

  Instead of feeling relieved and reassured, Lanna experienced a twinge of disappointment. She hadn’t expected Hawk to treat the incident with such an attitude of insignificance.

  Forested mountain slopes gave way to a long valley corridor that steadily widened. The plane began its descent. It wasn’t long before Lanna spied the private airstrip lined up directly ahead of them. A collection of ranch buildings was nestled in a grove of trees not far from the strip. Lanna had a glimpse of the buildings before the plane swooped in to land.

  Hawk taxied the plane to the metal hangar where a station wagon was parked. Chad’s wife, Carol, was standing beside the car. The willowy blonde waved at the plane stopping at the hangar but waited beside the car. A cowboy dashed out to slide chocks behind the wheels as soon as the engines were turned off.

  The buckle of her seat belt stuck, resisting Lanna’s efforts to unfasten it. Finished with shutting down the plane, Hawk turned and saw the difficulty she was having. He reached over and deftly released the catch. His hands made only brief contact with her waist, but it was sufficient to cause a fluttering response in her stomach. Lanna tensed self-consciously. Hawk didn’t notice her reaction, or else he ignored it.

  She departed from the plane ahead of Hawk. Chad was waiting outside to help her alight. The sunglasses were gone when Hawk joined them, the dusty brown hat again on his head. His blue gaze barely paid any notice to Lanna at all as he unlocked the baggage compartment and began unloading their luggage. The cowboy came forward to help with the suitcases, relieving Chad of the need to carry his own.

  “Hello.” Carol came forward to greet them. “Did you have a good flight?”

  “Of course.” Chad leaned down to kiss her cheek. “It was Lanna’s first flight in a private plane.”

  “How are you feeling?” Carol’s smiling face was turned to her. That air of friendliness seemed to come naturally to the blonde, although sometimes Lanna glimpsed a silent yearning in her green eyes. She had wondered about it, just as she had wondered about the absence of any affectionate display between Carol and Chad. They didn’t appear to have an unhappy marriage, yet it seemed to be lacking something.

  “Much better, thank you,” Lanna insisted. Her gaze strayed to Hawk, who was stacking the suitcases in the rear of the station wagon.

  “You must be anxious to reach the house and relax a little,” Carol stated and glanced at her husband. “Do you want to drive, Chad?”

  “Yes. You can ride in the front with me, Lanna,” he stated.

  “No, I’ll ride in back,” she insisted, not wanting to usurp Carol’s position. “Carol can sit with you.”

  “No, I insist,” said the blonde, adding her voice to Chad’s. “How can I properly supervise Chad’s driving if I’m not sitting in the back seat?” she laughed.

  Against her better judgment, Lanna allowed herself to be helped into the front passenger’s seat while Carol climbed in the back. As Chad was sliding behind the wheel, Hawk crossed in front of the car and walked toward the parked airplane where the cowboy was fastening the tiedowns. He didn’t even glance in the direction of the car when Chad reversed it onto the graded road leading toward the ranch buildings.

  “You’ll like the house, Lanna. It’s old, but it was built to last for generations,” Carol stated, then kept up a steady flow of conversation during the drive.

  When Chad stopped the car in front of a large, sprawling house, Lanna understood what Carol had meant. Built of stucco and rough wooden beams, it was a solid structure in keeping with the rustic surroundings.

  Chad walked around the car to open Lanna’s door and help her out—then Carol’s door. The blonde started to lead the way to the covered entrance, but Lanna hesitated.

  “What about our luggage?” she asked Chad.

  “One of the hands will carry it in,” he said and slipped a hand under her elbow to guide her to the thick oak door.

  The thick walls of the house kept the interior cool. The change in temperature was the first thing Lanna noticed when she stepped into the tiled foyer. White walls added to the spacious feeling, and archways led to the two rooms and a hallway that branched off from the foyer. The room was sparsely furnished; a Navaho blanket splashed color on one wall, while a polished walnut table held an urn of dried flowers and seeds. Lanna guessed that this subtle blend of nature and Indian culture set the atmosphere carried throughout the house.

  “Katheryn!” Carol called. “Chad has arrived with Lanna.” She started into the room off the left archway. The pressure of Chad’s hand on her elbow indicated to Lanna that they would follow.

  The living room was dominated by a large fireplace of tawny stone. A grand piano stood near a set of veranda doors. The elegance of the room was not lessened by the odd pieces of Indian pottery that decorated the polished wood side tables, along with bronze sculptures of wildlife.

  Lanna’s attention was diverted when the slimly regal figure rose
to greet her. An aloof smile curved Katheryn Faulkner’s mouth. Since their first meeting, there had always been that air of reserve about the woman. Lanna had never been entirely certain that John’s wife believed she and her husband were just friends, and no more. Lanna was uncomfortable in the woman’s presence. She had strong second thoughts about her decision to accept Chad’s invitation to visit the ranch to rest and recuperate from her recent illness.

  “I hope you both had a good trip. Would you like some coffee or tea?” Katheryn inquired.

  “No, I don’t care for any, thank you,” Lanna refused and continued to stand. She was conscious of her awkward position as John’s friend in his widow’s home.

  “I think I’d like some coffee, Mother,” Chad said, accepting the offer.

  “I’ll get it for you,” Carol volunteered.

  “Have a seat, Lanna.” Chad motioned in the direction of the cinnamon-colored armchairs.

  “Would you like me to show you to your room?” Katheryn inserted when Lanna hesitated a fraction of a second. “You would probably like to freshen up after your trip.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Lanna agreed quickly.

  “This way.” Katheryn walked through another archway and followed a wide corridor.

  There seemed to be a maze of interconnecting hallways and rooms branching out from them. Lanna was certain she would become lost on her own. Finally, Katheryn stopped and pushed open a door.

  “This is the master bedroom, which has its own private bath and doors to the veranda,” Katheryn explained as she led the way inside the room. “I hope it’s satisfactory.”

  “It’s beautiful.” The room was nearly as large as the living room in Lanna’s apartment. Besides the heavy bedroom furniture, there was a matching loveseat and chair, and a secretary’s desk. “I hope you don’t object to my coming here.” Lanna still felt guilty and wanted to make amends. “I’m sure you don’t feel like entertaining guests while you’re in mourning, so please don’t feel obligated to make any special effort on my behalf.”