Night Hawk'S Bride (Tyler) (Harlequin Historical Series, No 558) (14 page)

What had the doctor told him? Marie felt her joy ebb with each step Henry took.
He knows.
Terror stripped away all rational thought. “Papa, I need to be alone right now.”

“Leaving you alone is what got you into this mess. You're pregnant, aren't you?” He said the word with such distaste that it sounded ugly. Dirty. Bitter.

Hadn't the doctor promised? “Papa, I'm not feeling well enough to fight about this.”

“And just whose fault is that?” Anger crept up his neck in a bright red flush and he fisted his hands. “Tell me who did this to you.
Tell me.
”

She met his fierce gaze. Gone was the caring, compassionate father she'd briefly known. This man had a hard, cold heart.

“Tell me, Marie.”
He grabbed her by the arm and shook her.

She cried out at the burning pain in her arm. “Papa, you're hurting me.”

As if shocked with himself, he released her. But the fury didn't ease from his rigid stance or his steely gaze.

“Ned Gerard didn't do this to you. He knows I'd make him pay for this. Pregnant.” He spit the word. “How could you do this to me? What were you thinking? That you had to prove me wrong?”

“I didn't fall in love with a man just to spite you.” She rubbed her arm where he'd hurt her. How could she make her father understand? “I'm in love, and he's a good person. I want his child more than anything.”

Henry's face turned purple and he breathed hard, spinning away to the window. He hauled open the glass and let the icy air wash over him. Snow tumbled through the opening to speckle the floor.

Marie shivered, but it wasn't from the cold wind.
What was he going to do now? Night Hawk by rights should be the first to know. She wished she had climbed out the window and raced Kammeo all the way to the lake. She could be in her lover's arms telling him her news. Imagine the joy that would light his handsome face. She knew exactly how tenderly he would make love to her in his big soft bed in his snug little cabin.

Somehow, she had to go to him. She couldn't stand Henry's fury. He hadn't welcomed the news of this beautiful new life. He'd seen it as an act of rebellion! Worse, he worried how it would reflect on his reputation.

Willing the room to stop spinning, she pushed back the covers and swung her feet over the edge of the mattress.

“Where do you think you're going?” He turned around, and Marie gasped.

She didn't recognize him. The tall, square-shouldered colonel she knew as her father was now stooped. He looked beaten, as if he'd aged ten years.

“Don't you see? I was doing my best for you.” He raked at his receding hair, and long shocks slumped forward over his brow, hanging limply in front of his eyes. “I could have given you comfort and class. A husband who was somebody, who would always have taken care of you.”

“Maybe I don't want a husband who works all the time and cares only about his next promotion and how he looks to others. Maybe I want to marry a farmer and live in a log cabin surrounded by ancient forests. It's what I want.”

“Is that what you think, foolish girl? That life is about getting what you want?” He shook his fist at her. “Fine. There's the door. Go to the man who loves you so much, and see if he wants you now.”

“I know he will, Papa. You don't have to worry. Your reputation won't be harmed. No one will know—”

“He won't marry you, you know.” Henry sneered, shaking his head as if he thought her the world's greatest fool. “How many times did you lie with him? And he didn't propose once, did he?”

No, her heart answered.

“Did he?” Henry said those words with such relish, as if he knew exactly how to hurt her. She wanted to lash out at him and make him stop. She wanted to shout the words that would defend Night Hawk.

But the truth was, he'd never mentioned marriage. He'd never taken her hand, bent down on one knee and asked her to be his wife.

But he would. She believed it with all her heart. Night Hawk loved her. And this child they'd made was a gift made from that love.

She refused to believe anything else.

“I thought you wanted a grandchild, Papa.” She stood on wobbly knees, clinging to her dreams. “Didn't I promise you that one day I would marry? Think of how wonderful this is going to be.”

“With a bastard child?”

She tried to forgive him his anger. He was hurt. He was losing his dreams. “No, Papa. I'll marry and the baby will be legitimate and no one will know. You
will be a proud grandfather and I'll be happily married to the man I love.”

“You really believe that, don't you?” Henry pulled the chair from the desk and collapsed into it. He leaned his head in his hands like a broken man. “A bastard grandchild. A shamed daughter. How much worse could this be?”

He looked as if he'd lost everything. All the hopes he'd pinned his future on.

This was her father, and while she despised some of the things he'd said, he was still her papa. Still the man she wanted to love her unconditionally. Please understand, she silently pleaded as she padded across the room. Fighting nausea. Battling dizziness.

“You've ruined everything, Marie.”

She knelt beside him and laid her hand on his.

He jerked away from her as if her touch were poison. “You'll pack this morning, or I'll do it for you.”

“But everything is going to be fine. You'll see—”

“Now.”
He was the colonel again, hard as steel. “Every book, every dress, every scrap that will remind me of you. I want it packed and ready. I'm hauling you back to Ohio, true to my word.”

“You wouldn't! Papa, you said yourself that he was a good man. I heard you.” He didn't have the right to send her away. “Night Hawk—”

“Night Hawk!”
he boomed with more fury than a raging twister. His face flushed. A vein throbbed in his temple. He shot out of the chair like a bullet. “You were intimate with Night Hawk?”

Alarm raced through her. “Papa, sit down or you're going to have a stroke—”

“Night Hawk? I can't believe it.” More veins stood out in his neck. “You slept with
him?
”

“Papa!”
She didn't like the way he said that. “Night Hawk is a decent, honorable man—”

“How could you do such a thing?” Henry looked at her as if she were dirty. As if she were the worst, immoral woman he'd ever known. “And with an Indian, Marie.”

“But you're always saying—”

“That's policy. It makes sense for a community and a fort. Don't you see?” He shook his fists, and the cords in his neck strained like a man at the edge of control. “Public policy is one thing. Who sleeps with my daughter is another. How could you lower yourself like that?”

Confusion swirled around her. She took a wobbly step. “Papa, don't talk about him like that. Night Hawk is the man I love.”

“He won't marry you, Marie. Mark my words.” Henry slammed one fist against the wall, rattling the paintings in their frames. “Those people aren't like us. They don't always marry in church. If you're lucky, maybe he'll allow you to live with him. Be his squaw or some such nonsense. Is that what you want?”

“I can't listen to you.”
This
was her father? The man she'd adored her entire life? She'd worked to earn his love. She'd agonized over not being good enough. She even came here to teach English at his fort, just to make him proud of her.

And this man was so ugly beneath the uniform? He was no great colonel. He wasn't even a decent man.
Disgusted, she grabbed the bedpost for support. Hurt, disappointment and shock all melded together, forever ruining the joy she'd felt.

“This is not the end of the world, Papa.” She held her chin firm and willed her stomach not to flutter. “You'll see.”

“Walk out that door and you won't be welcome back. In this house or in my settlement.” He sounded as cold as a northern glacier, once again the colonel.
“Ever.”

“You don't mean that.” He couldn't. Somewhere deep inside, she'd always believed he loved her. Or had the capacity to love her. “You're hurt, and I understand—”

“Hurt?” he raged. “I'm disgusted. Go to him or not, I don't care. If you stay with him as his woman, or I haul you back to Ohio, you're out of my sight either way.”

His mouth twisted as if in distaste. Then he turned his back on her and simply walked away.

The room spun too fast and she dropped to her knees.

Had she heard him right? Had he just disowned her? He never wanted to see her again?

He's hurt. He's angry. That's all.
She tried to make excuses, tried to cling to a little girl's illusion. But the woman in her knew that Henry didn't love her. He would never love her. Nothing in the world would ever touch his heart.

His cold, cruel, uncaring heart.

He was wrong about Night Hawk. Dead wrong. She believed that with the depth of her being.

Then why was she crying, a little voice inside her asked. Why hadn't Night Hawk proposed to her before this? He'd had plenty of opportunity.

What if Henry was right?

 

She'd dropped to her knees twice on the way to the stable, waiting for the dizziness and nausea to subside.
I have to get to Night Hawk.
She repeated that thought over and over in her mind until the memory of his touch soothed her.

He had come to her at the dance. He'd twirled on the ice with her. His touch, his words, all told her of his love. He called her
shaylee,
his brightest star.

Papa's wrong. He loves me. I know he does.

Kammeo nickered a welcome. At the sight of the mare eager to greet her, Marie cried out. She needed a friend right now. She wrapped her arms around Kammeo's neck, and the mare pressed her nose to Marie's cheek as if in comfort. As if to say, of course everything will be all right. Night Hawk will want you. You'll see.

She had to believe it. Their love might be new, but it was true and it was strong. Every time they'd touched, it was like finding the perfect peace. The greatest happiness. They belonged together, and Night Hawk wasn't like Henry. Night Hawk wouldn't let her down.

He would welcome her in his arms and cradle her close. He would take her to his bed and love her until all the pain in her heart melted away. Until there was only the two of them, body to body, heart to heart, joined by their love. Their bright, precious love.

Holding that dream close, she found the strength to climb onto Kammeo's back. Still in the stall and without a bridle, Marie leaned forward and clutched the mare's fiery mane. “Take it easy on me, girl. Take me to Night Hawk.”

The mare nickered, well remembering the man who'd raised her. The mare seemed to understand her, ambled slowly through the stall door and into the aisle.

The dizziness had been bad before, but mounted on a moving horse made it ten times worse. The mare's rocking gait was like being awash at sea—up and down, up and down. Marie groaned and buried her face in the mare's neck.

Think of Night Hawk.
She pictured the joy that would soften his dear face when she told him their news. She imagined how he would cradle her in his arms. The thought of his strong, unyielding chest felt like an anchor in her topsy-turvy world.

“Marie!” Night Hawk's voice. Night Hawk's moccasins whispering across the straw-strewn floor. It was his familiar touch that hauled her off the mare's back. “What's wrong? You look ready to fall down.”

“It's really you. What are you doing here?”

“McGee asked me to show him how I shoe.” Night Hawk frowned as he studied her, then he hauled her against his chest. “You still look very ill. What are you doing out of bed?”

“I had to see you.” Her voice cracked with emotion, and she closed her eyes, afraid the tears balled in her throat would dissolve into endless pain. “Alone. I have to—”

“Shh.” A man's comfort. A man's love. “Come. I'll find us a private place.”

Marie felt the last of her energy leave her. She clutched his shirt with both hands. The buckskin was velvet soft beneath her fingertips, warmed by Night Hawk's heat. She leaned into his strength, not noticing what he said to the new captain. Only that his voice vibrated straight through her, as if they were one.

He loves me. I know he does.
Her heart felt near to breaking, that's how much love she had for him. For this man she could rely on when everything in her life had shattered into unrecognizable pieces. She'd lost her home, her father, her family and probably her job. But she had this man. This wonderful, amazing man.

“Hold on,
shaylee.
” He scooped her into his arms with ease and cradled her against his chest like a child. “There is no color at all to your skin. I should take you back to your bed.”

“
No.
Not to Papa.” She burrowed against the strong column of Night Hawk's neck. He was her anchor now, her home and her life. “Please, Night Hawk.”

“As you wish.” His lips grazed her brow with tenderness.

Her heart soared. His love was all she wanted. The only haven she'd ever known, and she needed him now more than she'd ever needed anyone.

She clung to him as he lifted her onto Kammeo's back, then mounted behind her. He drew her onto his lap, cradling her once again. Her mighty warrior who would never hurt her.

He guided Kammeo out the back door and down
the short path by the small gate. He unlocked it, never letting her go. She felt every ripple of his muscles as he moved. She loved the bunch and pull of power beneath her touch and the reliable beat of his heart at her ear.

Then they were alone, behind the gate, with the winter forest crisp and new around them. Snow struck like tiny bits of heaven, sweet and light. This was where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. In Night Hawk's arms. On these beautiful lands.