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Dance In My Heart

Chapter Twelve

Candice didn’t want to leave Minnesota. Her flight, scheduled to leave at six p.m., heralded an end to what had become a rich fantasy. She slipped out of Hawk’s bed and padded to the bathroom. Her head turned to the sound of Mozart in digitized chimes.

She dashed to her purse and quickly answered before the annoying ring woke Hawk.

“Lincoln, here,” she whispered as she slipped out the bedroom door and stood in the hallway wearing nothing but Hawk’s borrowed T-shirt. Thankfully, it hung nearly to her knees.

“Why are you whispering?” The dragon’s voice boomed in her ear.

She pulled the tiny phone away from her head and rolled her eyes. “I’m not whispering,” she stated in her normal voice. “I had a frog in my throat. What’s up, Mark?”

“Just checking your progress. I haven’t received an email with your rough yet.”

She cringed as she leaned against the hallway wall and lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “I ran into a snag. You’ll have something before I get on the plane and I’ll bring my photos with me to the office in the morning.”

“What kind of snag?”

From Mark’s tone of voice, she knew she skated on thin ice. All he needed was a reason to get rid of her. Her lack of ability to concentrate over the last couple of days hadn’t exactly been helping her cause with the overbearing editor.

She thought for a moment, then decided the best lies have a smattering of truth. “The guy I’m working with, the hoop dancer, is also the Social Worker here on the reservation. Once of the girls he works with, a child really, has come up pregnant and he’s been too busy to help much. But I have an appointment with him today at noon.”

“The reservation social worker knocked up some kid,” Mark’s astonished voice rang through her phone.

“No!” Candice replied sharply, then lowered her voice when she feared she’d awaken Hawk or Jake. “No. But it’s his job to council her. God, Mark, you’re sick, you know that?”

“Watch it, cupcake. So does that happen a lot? Teenage pregnancy, shit like that?”

“Yeah,” she croaked. “The unemployment rate is sky high, the pregnancy rate for unmarried girls is a close second. And the houses these people live in, Mark. It breaks your heart.”

Silence met her comments. She could hear Mark’s breath on the other end of the line, but he said nothing. Could it be possible the man has a heart to break? She never would have believed it a week ago.

“I have an idea,” Mark drolled. He sounded...

Sinister?

Dread shook through her mind. Nope. No heart.

“What?” Her stomach clenched. Afraid to hear his answer, she knew he’d tell her anyway.

“Why don’t you stick around for a little while longer? You’re visiting the reservation again today, you said? Take a cruise around and get some shots of the living conditions, talk to some of the natives about the messed up system, that sort of thing. I can see a serious in depth expose here.”

The words of the store clerk she’d met Monday echoed through her mind.

You’re going to write a nice article, right?

“Mark, I can’t do that. There really isn’t a story here.” She lied.

“Sure you can. You’re article about the cotton candy rocked. If you can do that, you can do this.”

She looked at the closed bedroom door beside her. No, she couldn’t.

“I just don’t think...”

Mark cut her off with a booming authority. “Listen, Lincoln. You write what you’re assigned. That’s how this thing works. If you want a job here when you hike your ass back to New York, you’ll do the investigation and write the damn article. And I want it juicy. And I want to know why this social worker fellow isn’t doing his goddamn job.”

The hollow sound indicating an open phone line disappeared. She gripped the phone in the palm of her hand and stared at it.

An expose. Her heart thumbed painfully in her chest. Some words in her profession boded ill for the subject of an article, no matter what the topic. Expose was one of them. Another was ‘investigation.’ ‘Juicy.’ Mark had used all three of them. She groaned.

How could she possibly conduct an investigation into the management of the reservation social affairs and programs, and to focus the attention on the Director of Social Services? On Hawk?

She pushed off the wall and squared her shoulders. She didn’t have a choice. She needed her job.

It’s business. Not personal.

She stole into the bedroom and gathered her clothing before slipping back into the hallway and dressing as quickly as she could. She glanced repeated at Jake’s door, praying he wouldn’t come out. He didn’t and she pulled the dress over her skimpy panties before shoving the stockings into her bag. Picking up her keys from the sideboard and snatching her shoes with two fingers hooked under the thin straps of leather, she left the house.

She felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Of course it was personal. It was Hawk’s whole life.

~* * *~

“Where are you?” Hawk’s head pounded as Candice picked up her cell-phone.

He’d woken to find her gone and felt...

Hell, he didn’t know how he felt, except lonely. Of course, he’d done the same to her, but that was before he really knew her. Before she knew him. It was different now. Right?

“I’m sorry, Hawk,” she cooed. “I called my boss and arranged for a couple of more days out here. Like a little vacation. Sort of. So I came back to my hotel for some clothes and my work stuff. I’m actually only about an hour from you right now, on my way back.”

Relief coursed through him like blood. How badly he needed her right now amazed him. And terrified him. He’d never needed anyone before. He’d spent last night making love to her for what he thought would be last time, again. But the gods seemed to have something else planned, for once again, he had been spared the agony of saying goodbye.

He couldn’t think of a single thing in his life he’d done to deserve the pure grace of this woman.

“Cool. So how long will be here?”

Did he sound needy? He hated people who clung and whined their way through life. Bootstraps. He preferred the ‘pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps’ kind of people. The kind he used to be before he realized if he didn’t’ hold her soon, he’d die.

“As long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes?”

She cleared her throat. “For me to relax. I’ve been working too hard lately. Spending time with you has shown me that.”

He smiled. “I think we both work too hard. I have to work today, but how about I take tomorrow off and we see the sights?”

“Sure. It sounds nice.”

“Is something wrong, you don’t sound yourself?”

“I’m fine.”

Hawk relaxed as he heard her smile through the phone. “I’m just tired. I’ll hang out and wait for you to get off work. We can have a quiet night in, tonight.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’m heading to the office now. I’ll see you tonight.”

Hawk placed the kitchen phone receiver back into the cradle and looked at his brother. Jake spooned a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch and lifted his eyebrows.

“Well?” he asked around the spoon.

“She went to get a few things, that’s all. She’s coming back now.”

“I have to go out of town again, so I’ll probably miss her. Unless she’s spending the night?”

“She probably will,” Hawk answered. He knew she would. Even though he should really cut bait with her. He needed to focus all of his energy on fixing the lives of his people. Chasing after some white woman in a short skirt wasn’t going to help anyone.

Making his way to his motorcycle to head into the office, several hours late, he knew he lied. Having Candice in his life did one person a world of good.

Me.

~* * *~

Candice pulled her car off the side of the road and parked behind a large truck when she saw Hawk steer his motorcycle into his office parking lot. She hated lying to him. Assuming he’d want to take today off, however, she’d thought to buy herself an hour to shoot pictures around the res.

Turns out she hadn’t needed to, since she now had the entire day to skulk around like the lowest form of tabloid journalist. She rested her head on the steering wheel as she watched Hawk’s limber frame climb off the bike and saunter into his building. Even from this distance, more than fifty yards away, she could make out the sinewy flesh of his strong neck, the play of light in his black hair.

Or maybe she just remembered those things. Making love to him had become a necessary thing. She might have been lonely before she met him, but she hadn’t been miserable. She knew without a doubt, the moment he read the article Mark forced her to write, he’d never speak to her again.

Much less, hold her in his arms and whisper, in his erotic, thick, native language, words meant to woo her heart. She closed her eyes when she no longer saw him.

If she couldn’t see him, sight seemed pointless.

The deep breath she drew did nothing to soothe the hints of predicted regret strumming through her. She teetered on the edge of full blown deception and the dizziness from looking into the black abyss haunted her.

Her cell-phone rang out, shattering the dismal illusion.

“Lincoln, here.”

“I didn’t get my check yesterday.”

Of course he didn’t. Fred, her ex-husband, only called her when he didn’t get his check, or he’d heard she got a raise, or he wanted something from her, usually a romp in the sack.

“I have it on an automatic deduction. If it wasn’t sent out, it’s not my fault. I’ll call accounting and find out what happened.”

“You know, I put up with a lot of shit from you for a long time. I deserve that money. The judge said so. Fifteen hundred a month. Until I get married again or die. And I ain’t getting married.”

She didn’t care if he got married again or not. In her present mood, she’d prefer the other option anyway. “I don’t have time for this, Fred. I’m working.”

She hung up the phone and tossed it into the passenger seat. Running a hand through her hair, she heaved a weary sigh.

With a promise of tears burning behind her eyes, she put the car in gear and drove to what could only be the beginning of the end.

Of Hawk.

~* * *~

 

©2006 Romance at Heart Magazine.

Book ©2003 by Margorie Jones.

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