Free Dark Warrior: To Tame a Wild Hawk (Dark Cloth) by Lenore Wolfe Page A

movements, he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the sensitive flesh of her palm.
    She swayed.
    “I want you to tell me why you came back when you fight the destiny between us? And I want you to tell me of your dreams.”
    Mandy sidestepped the mention of the dreams and focused on his first question. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I tried, but I couldn’t go.”
    Hawk let his head fall back and sighed. “You have no idea the man that I am. I need to be clear. When this is over, I have to go.” He leaned forward and kissed the palm of her hand, then sighed again, lying back against the pillows once more. “I cannot see how even the Grandmothers could know why.”
    Mandy stared at him for a long moment. She took a long, shuddering breath. “I don't know why you do to me what you do.” She shrugged. “And I don't understand my visions. I don't know why you did what you did in the store, or why you must leave me once this is done. I don't know why, if that is so, I don’t just go ahead and marry McCandle,” her voice rose with growing intensity. “But I do know this; I need you to help me. I must not lose my land. I can’t let McCandle win. He murdered my father, and he has to pay.” She narrowed her eyes in agitation. “I will do everything I can to get you to stay,” she added, “but if I can’t, I will avenge my father my own way, even if I have to marry that vile man and kill him in his sleep.”
    ***
    Hearing this, Hawk half sat up, wincing from the pain it cost him. “ The hell you will.” He couldn’t think why she would say this when she knew their path. He didn’t care that this new thought contradicted everything he’d just told her about having to leave. His grip on her hand tightened.
    Everything about her caused him to challenge everything he thought he knew. He’d think one thing and do another. She was making him crazy with want. She was all he thought about, night and day.
    “If you don’t help me, that’s one of only two plans I have left.”
    No. She couldn’t know why he must leave. And she would hate him when she knew. But in spite of that, this was their path, their destiny, and there was no other way. They would have to find a way to work through it. Why did she fight him? “He killed your pa!” He could not believe she’d even suggest it.
    “Yes.”
    Stubbornness made him ask, “And you’d let him touch you? The way I touched you ?”
    Mandy closed her eyes and lied, “If I have to.”
    “Open your eyes, Mandy,” he commanded. “Look me in the eyes when you say that.”
    Mandy sighed in defeat.
    “Why do you fight us?” Hawk’s voice was gentle now. “There is more to us than killing McCandle. There is more than either of us know at this moment. You’ll have to decide something one day.” He touched her cheek. “But we will win.”
    Mandy pulled back, glaring at him. “If you’re suggesting, by your use of the word us , we let him get away with killing my father and hand over the very ranch he murdered my father for,” she pulled farther out of his reach in anger, “I will never agree. Never!”
    Hawk frowned. He’d never suggested such a thing. What was she really afraid of? But that wasn’t the thing that held his attention at the moment. It was the idea of Mandy and Ashley. “Then, you would let him touch you?” He still needed to hear her answer, in spite of himself. He couldn’t get past the idea she would let McCandle touch her.
    “If that was the only way I had left to me . . . ,” she whispered.
    “Say it.’
    “Then, yes!” She nearly yelled. “I would do whatever it takes.”
    “You’re still not saying it, Mandy,” he whispered through clenched teeth.
    He saw her sigh; saw her fight to keep him from seeing her tears.
    “It’s not in me to give up, Hawk. I cannot walk away and accept what he did.”
    “No,” Hawk went still as a mountain lion. “I can see you cannot.”
    ***
    Hawk slept through the evening meal and right