Hawk's Way: Carter & Falcon. Joan Johnston

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      “Look, lady, if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”

      Desiree responded to the harsh voice with a shiver that she chose to blame on the cold. Plainly the cowboy wasn’t going to stand there much longer. It was now or never.

      Desiree spoke quickly, her breath creating a cloud of white around her. “My name is Desiree Parrish. I know from having spoken to your grandmother before the pageant this evening that you’re looking for a place to set down some roots.”

      His scowl became a frown, but she hurried on without stopping. “I have a proposition to make to you.”

      She opened her mouth and then couldn’t speak. What was she doing? Maybe this was only going to make things worse, not better. After all, what did she really know about Carter Prescott? The grown man standing before her was a stranger. She wondered whether he remembered the one time they had met. His eyes hadn’t revealed whether he recognized her name when she had spoken it. But, maybe he had never known her name. After all, they had only spent fifteen minutes together twenty-three years ago, when she was a child of five and he was a lanky boy of ten.

      It was spring, and Carter Prescott had come from King’s Castle with his father to visit the Rimrock Ranch, since the two properties bordered each other. She would never even have met him if her kitten hadn’t gotten stuck in a tree.

      She had been trying to coax Boots down by talking to her, but the kitten had been afraid to move. The ten-year-old boy had heard Desiree’s pleading cries and come to investigate. She thought now of all the reactions Carter could have had to the situation. He might have ignored her. Or come to see the problem but left her to solve it herself. He might have made fun of her or taunted her about the kitten’s plight. After all, she was just a kid, and a girl at that.

      Carter Prescott had done none of those things. He had patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and promised to get Boots down from the tree. He had climbed up into the willow and reached for the kitten. But Boots evaded his reach. He had finally lurched for the kitten and caught her, but cat and boy had come tumbling down in a heap on the ground.

      Desiree had screamed in fright and hurried over to make sure Boots was all right. She found her kitten carefully cushioned in the boy’s arms.

      He had handed Boots to her with a grim smile. “Here’s your cat.”

      She was too busy fussing over Boots to notice Carter’s attempts to rise. It was his gasp of pain that caused her to look at him again. That was when she saw the bloody bone sticking out through his jeans above the knee.

      Her second panicked scream brought their fathers on the run. Her father picked her up and hugged her tight, grateful she was all right. She babbled the problem out to him, her voice too hysterical at first for him to realize what had happened.

      Carter’s father bent down on one knee to his son. His lips had tightened ominously before he said, “Your mother will give me hell for this.”

      Carter hadn’t made a sound when his father picked him up and carried him toward their pickup. His face had been white, his teeth clamped on his lips to stop any sound from escaping. Desiree had tried to follow him but her father had held her back.

      “Let the boy be, Desiree,” he’d said. “He won’t want to cry in front of you.”

      “But Daddy, I have to see how he is,” she protested. “He saved Boots.”

      Her father relented, and she ran after Carter and his father.

      “I’m sorry,” Desiree called up to Carter, her tiny legs rushing to keep pace.

      “You ought to be,” Carter’s father said.

      Stunned at the meanness in his voice, Desiree stopped in her tracks. But Carter turned to face her over his father’s shoulder. He nodded and tried to smile, and she knew he had forgiven her.

      But she and Carter had never crossed paths again. When she asked about him several days later, her father had told her that Carter had been visiting Wyoming for only a few days. His parents were divorced and Carter lived in Texas with his mother. He wouldn’t be coming back.

      Desiree had never seen Carter again, until he showed up at the Christmas pageant in Casper tonight. Was she willing to gamble her future on a man she had known for barely fifteen minutes twenty-three years ago? It seemed idiotic in the extreme.

      Desiree wasn’t an idiot. But she was in urgent need of a husband. Carter might not be the same person now as he had been then. But she remembered vividly how he had cradled the kitten to keep it from harm at the expense of his own welfare. Surely he could not have grown up a cruel man. She was staking her life on it.

      Carter was already turning to walk away, when she laid a slender hand on his arm. She tensed when she felt the steely muscle tighten even through the sheepskin coat.

      “I need a husband,” she said in a breathless voice.

      Carter’s head snapped back around. His icy blue eyes focused intently on her face.

      “I’m willing to sign over half the Rimrock Ranch to you if you’ll agree to marry me. Of course,” she added hastily, “it would be a marriage in name only.”

      His eyes narrowed, and she found herself racing to get everything out before she lost her nerve. “The Rimrock is the second largest outfit in the area, nearly as big as King’s Castle, your father’s place. It’s got good water and lots of grass. The house was built by my great-great-grandfather. You’d be getting a good bargain. What do you say?”

      Desiree gripped his arm tighter, as though she could hold him there until he responded in the way she wished him to answer. She chanced a look into his eyes and was surprised by the humor she saw there. His lips twisted in a mocking smile.

      “Surely you could get a husband in a little more conventional way, Miss Parrish,” he replied.

      This wasn’t a laughing matter. The sooner Carter Prescott realized that, the better. Desiree reached up and pulled aside the heavy wool scarf that was wrapped around her face.

      “You’re mistaken, Mr. Prescott.” She angled her face so he could see the vivid scar that slanted across her right cheek from chin to temple. “No man would willingly choose me for a bride.”

      She raised wary brown eyes to the man before her and shuddered at the cold, hard look on his face. Her shoulders slumped. She should have known better. She should have known even the promise of the Rimrock wasn’t enough to entice a man to face her over the breakfast table for the rest of his life.

      Desiree hurriedly wrapped the scarf back around her face to hide the scar. “This was a stupid idea,” she muttered. “Forget I mentioned it.”

      Desiree quickly stumbled away, embarrassed by the stinging tears that had sprung to her eyes. It would have been humiliating enough to have him refuse her offer. She didn’t want him to see how devastated she was by his reaction to the scar on her face. It had been so long since she had exposed herself to someone for the first time that she had forgotten the inevitable horror it caused.

      She would have to find another way to save herself. But merciful Lord in heaven, what was she going to do?

      Meanwhile, Carter had been so stunned by the entire incident that СКАЧАТЬ