THE
HAZARD CHRONICLES
Forbidden
Lusts
Book 3
By
Becca Sinh
Smashwords Edition
Copyright
2012 Becca Sinh
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1) Runaway
2) A Long Time Coming
3) Homecoming
4) Emergency
5) Something In The Water
6) Spring Retreat
7) Three Men And A Babe
8) Ranger’s Lookout
9) Double Your Pleasure
Runaway
Whenever it was freezing cold out, Hawke made one last sweep of the barns to make sure his animals were safely bedded down for the night. He probably didn’t need to...the barns were all snug and sturdily built. It would take a vicious wind to force its way through the insulated doors and windowsills. The long oval valley of Hazard was protected from most of the icy blizzards that swept through Montana every winter...but still a sensible man took precautions.
And anyway, after fifty-two years--most of it spent alone--a man got used to doing things in a certain way. And if those ways worked well for him, then why change?
A biting wind was whistling in from the northwest. Grimly he pulled the flaps of his heavy-duty winter hat down over his ears, wrapped a thick woolen scarf around his throat, and pulled his fur parka over his double-knit seaman’s sweater. Thick gloves covered his rugged hands, and he prudently stretched the woven wristbands over his sleeves to ward off chilly needles of storm-driven ice.
His heavy boots left deep craters in this afternoon’s fresh snowfall as he clomped away from the house, and made his way to the first barn.
The new year was coming in like a lion...with its fangs bared, and roaring at the top of its lungs. Good thing all the grain bins had been recently filled, and the loft was packed with fragrant timothy hay. Now he only had to worry about the water pipes freezing. But most of the lines were sunk down in the permafrost, and securely wrapped. And the spigots emerged inside each of the barns, not outside where they were vulnerable to the harsh winter weather.
Animals inside the first three barns lowed, neighed, and whickered sleepily as he moved from stall to stall with his compact flashlight. None of them looked nervous or frightened. And the barns were snugly warm. They’d be fine throughout the night.
Something odd struck him, though, as he stomped his way toward the last barn. A shallow ridge was sunk between two drifts, and it seemed to lead right up to the big sliding double doors. It looked almost like...footprints? Had to be a while ago, though, because the brisk wind had almost filled in the tracks.
And there wasn’t as much snow mounded on top of the doors as there had been on the other three. Which meant that someone had slid the door open, and dislodged the drifts that had collected this afternoon.
Now who on earth would be sneaking into one of his barns on a night like this?
He was pretty sure that a couple of the neighboring teenagers used his barns on warm summer nights for purposes he did not want to confirm. Kids would be kids, after all, and a snug barn was a lot more comfortable than a mosquito-infested field, when you were eagerly trying to get your girlfriend to give it up. He was pretty sure he’d walked in on one such encounter last summer...but if there had been kids up in the hayloft, they’d shut up real fast, and he hadn’t gone looking for proof.
It might have been many years since he’d courted a pretty young girl on a lovely summer night, but he still remembered how a trace of danger heightened the excitement.
Well, let them have their fun. They’d only be young once.
In the dead of winter, though, with another storm brewing just beyond the canyon ridge... Anyone venturing out in this kind of weather, on foot, had to be either crazy, stupid, or just plain desperate. And a little wild they might be, but none of the kids in Hazard fell into any one of those other categories.
Slowly he pushed the door open, and wished he’d thought to bring along his rifle, or at least his .45. Times were tough here in the valley, and even harder out in the big world. It wasn’t likely that an escaped criminal had chosen remote little Hazard as a potential hideout, but you just couldn’t be too careful.
Still, he was a big man, solid as a rock, and he’d kept himself in top shape. Buff, the kids called it these days. In his day, that had meant naked, not muscular. But who could keep up with all the new fads and phrases that seemed to change every week?
Any way you sliced it, he figured--not without some justification--that he could handle himself against just about anyone. Including an unknown intruder hiding in his barn.
Yeah, someone had definitely come in here. Melted puddles glistened across the cold stone floor. He swung his flashlight back and forth, following the trail. Whoever it was, they were hiding in one of the stalls at the far end of the cavernous building.
Moving quietly for someone of his bulk, he tracked his quarry like the sharp-eyed raptor who’d been his namesake. The footprints stopped in front of an empty stall loaded with bulky bales of straw. Not the most comfortable resting place, because the thick stalks tended to poke out at odd angles.
Quietly he cleared his throat. “You can come on out now,” he said calmly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He thought he heard the faintest trace of an indrawn breath, and the soft rustle of someone shrinking back even deeper into the shadows.
Should he go in? No, probably not. If he was trying to hide from someone, and they came at him directly, he’d quite probably go into fighting mode to keep from being captured. He’d do better to wait for them to come out to him.
There was nowhere he had to be, and no one waiting on him. He could afford to be patient.
Casually he leaned against the next stall door, and rubbed the long nose of the mare who ambled over to greet him. “Chilly out, isn’t it, Locket?” he crooned, when she whiffled against him, searching for treats. “Good thing you’re all snug in here. It’s a bad night to be stuck outside.”
The next horse stuck its nose over the low gate and whickered, so he wandered over to rub its long ears.
They didn’t seem nervous about having a trespasser in the barn, and he’d long-ago learned to listen to their body language. So he wasn’t worried about turning his back on the bedding stall, and wandering along to greet and scratch each of the other horses.
The soft creak of a stealthily opening gate alerted him. He hesitated a moment longer, then whipped around just in time to see a scrawny little figure with straw-yellow hair bolt for the door.
“Easy, now, son,” he rumbled, closing the distance in a few quick steps. The kid’s winter coat was thin and patched, and his big hand closed around an arm so thin that it felt like a matchstick. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The one glance he’d had of the kid’s dirty face confirmed that it wasn’t a Hazard teenager. He hadn’t figured it was. All the local kids knew him, and would have sauntered out with an easy laugh to greet him. Then they would have invented some outrageously transparent lie about why they were sneaking around in his barn, and they’d have shared a good laugh before he’d have taken them into the house for some hot soup before driving them home. That’s just how things were done in Hazard.
This little kid was a stranger...and dirt-poor and half-starved, by the look of him.
“What’s your name?”
Silence, except for rapid panting as the boy stared frantically around, searching for some way to escape.
Hawke waited another moment, then tried again. “It’s a helluva bitter night to be hiding in someone’s barn. I was just about to head back in and warm up some stew, after I checked on my animals. I’d invite you to share a bowl, but it doesn’t seem right to feed someone who won’t even tell me his name.”
The kid gulped hard, and shuffled his feet. His shoes weren’t in much better shape than his coat. And his gloves had ragged holes in them. Poor little thing must be half-frozen!
“Billy.” When he finally rasped an answer, his voice was low and husky with fear.
Hawke slowly nodded his head. “You see now, that wasn’t so hard. They call me Hawke. You hungry, Billy?”
Another tense pause. Then his small head bobbed up and down. “Yessir.”
Okay, they were making progress. “If I turn you loose, are you gonna bolt again? Or will you stand still for a minute?”
Was every question he asked going to be preceded by a long wait?
This time, the kid hunched his shoulders, and tried to sink into the floor. Hawke took that for a ‘yes,’ and slowly opened his fingers. The kid stayed put. Good. He did have some sense.
A faded old horse blanket was tossed across one of the empty stall doors. It was a little scratchy, and smelled like the last horse who’d worn it. But it was reasonably clean, and definitely warmer than a hand-me-down coat that looked like a Salvation Army reject.
Billy jumped, and nearly shot off at high speed, when Hawke dropped it around his narrow shoulders. It completely enveloped him, and dragged on the ground. “Wrap it tight around yourself,” he advised, “and follow me.”
“Y-yessir.”
An icy breeze whipped through the barn when Hawke shoved the sliding door back on its well-oiled hinge. The kid tugged the blanket closer, and shivered violently.
“Hang on.” In one swift move, Hawke tugged his hat and scarf off. “Wrap up in these. They’ll keep you warm. Can’t do much about your shoes, but if you follow in my footsteps, you should stay pretty dry. Unless you want me to carry you.” He eyed Billy speculatively. “Wouldn’t take me a second--you don’t look more than about ninety pounds.”
The boy’s head shook so vigorously that the oversized hat nearly fell off. Quickly he tugged it further down over his head, and wrapped the long scarf several times around his thin throat.
“Well, your choice. Come on, then. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
He stepped out into the wind, and shouldered the door closed behind him. Then he led the way back to his comfortable old farmhouse, using each of the other barns as windbreaks.
Billy kept so close to his heels that he bumped into Hawke’s broad back when they reached the front door. “Sorry!” he gasped, and quickly backpedaled onto the edge of the blanket.
“Easy, son, or you’ll go flying!” Hawke grabbed Billy’s arm again before the lad could topple off the slippery porch. “In you go, now. And take your shoes off so you don’t track wet on my floors.”
By the time he’d finished stomping snow off his pants, and flipping his boots over on the mat to dry, Billy was standing barefoot in his warm kitchen, eagerly sniffing the fragrant air. He could hear the boy’s stomach growling from all the way across the room.
“I’ll get the stew warmed up. You go take a nice hot shower,” he instructed. “Third door on your left. And use as much hot water as you want. I’ve got solar and powered water heaters, in series, so I never run out.
“There’s some clean clothes in the second bedroom on the right. They belong to my nephew when he’s visiting. They’ll probably hang on you a little, but they’ll be clean and dry and warm.
“Well, what’re you waiting for? An engraved invitation?” He deliberately bared his teeth in a mock-feral growl, and waved one big hand toward the shadowed hallway. “G’wan, git!”
He’d have sworn he heard a high-pitched giggle as Billy scurried off, dragging the snow-dampened blanket behind him. Bemused, he shook his head. Poor little kid couldn’t be over twelve, if his voice hadn’t even started changing yet. What the hell was he doing out here in the boonies on a night like this? Where were his folks? Was he a runaway? And if so, why?
“Helluva way to start the new year,” he sighed, and turned toward the stove to get dinner ready.
* * * * *
By the time Billy returned, shuffling nervously into the doorway, he’d not only gotten the leftover stew piping hot, he’d also warmed up some garlic bread and ladled up big stoneware mugs of vegetable soup.
Hawke had decided, early on in life, that there were some skills a man had to learn if he was going to survive...and cooking ranked high among them. He was no cordon bleu chef, but neither had he fallen into the trap of getting married just because he couldn’t stand his own cooking.
“Well, don’t just stand there, come on it,” he invited, glancing over his shoulder.
Then he whipped around, and the butter plate nearly fell from his hand. He hadn’t rescued a runty little boy. ‘Billy’ was a slender young girl.
The shock on his face made her gulp and twist her hands. “It smells awfully good,” she whispered, forcing her lips to curve in a tremulous smile.
Hawke set the plate down with undue force, and took a careful step back. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “And what were you doing in my barn?”
The anger in his voice made her pale. “My name’s Billie Jean,” she quavered. “And please, don’t ask me that. I don’t wanta have to lie to you, after you’ve been so nice to me.”
There was a cold knot in the pit of his stomach. “You’re a runaway. Why shouldn’t I insist on the truth?”
She stared down at her bare feet to avoid his accusing glare. “It’s not like you think,” she finally whispered. “I had to get away! And I can’t go back. I won’t!”
She was shaking so hard that he thought she might fly apart at the seams. She was clearly terrified, and pale as a ghost.
“You’re about to fall over, and I’m not far behind you,” he grumbled. “Sit down and eat.”
When he waved a hand toward the table, she flinched. And a little light dawned.
If someone had tried to hurt her, she wouldn’t want him too close. So he carefully chose the chair furthest away from her.
He wasn’t going to ask a lot of nosy questions, at least right now. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in maybe a couple of days. And the snow was kicking up again outside. Neither of them were going anywhere for a little while yet. He had plenty of time to learn all he could about her, and how she’d turned up on his farm.
Her eyes narrowed a little when he leaned forward to light the candles sitting in the middle of his oval table. “Power can go out unexpectedly when there’s a storm,” he explained, canting his head toward the window. “The generator will kick in, but I always like to have a little candlelight going, just in case.”
She accepted that with a nervous gulp, and watched his hands until he was seated again. Yeah, someone had definitely tried to hit her, he thought with a frown. Or maybe worse.
He ladled up a hearty helping, then pushed the stew pot in her direction. “If you’ve missed a meal or two recently, you’ll want to eat light right now. Stuff yourself, and you’ll just end up losing it. And that’s no fun. There’s plenty more if you get hungry again later.”
She politely waited until he’d taken the first bite, even though he could still hear her stomach rumbling. Kid had good manners, he thought. Didn’t wolf down her food even though he knew she must be ravenous.
When she’d polished off her bowl, and a second chunk of aromatic garlic bread, he leaned back in his chair. “Not too darned bad, if I do say so myself,” he commented, and patted his flat belly. “Don’t you like buttermilk?” She’d barely touched her glass.
“It’s...well, it tastes different from what I’m used to,” she admitted with an embarrassed flush.
City kid, then. And her low voice held the faintest trace of a southern drawl. No wonder her clothes were so thin.
He lifted one shoulder in an idle shrug. “Pass it over, and I’ll drink it. No use letting it go to waste. You like iced tea?”
Her eyes brightened a little. “Yessir.”
“My name’s Hawke, not sir. Glasses are in the cupboard over there.”
He watched while she edged away from the table, and stretched on her bare toes to reach a glass. He’d been right--she couldn’t weigh much more than ninety pounds. Her hair wasn’t straw-yellow, either. Freshly washed, it looked more like newly minted gold. Someone had hacked it boyishly short, but the unusual style emphasized rather than hid her big eyes and pixie-like face.
Her petite body was trim, if altogether too thin, and her curves were subtle but definitely not boyish, even in his nephew’s hand-me-down clothes.
All in all, she was awfully damned cute.
And she’s young enough to be your granddaughter, he chastised himself as a long-dormant interest began to flicker awake. So keep your mind out of the gutter, you dirty old lecher.
He waited until she’d poured a glass of tea, and settled back down at the table to drink it. Then he leaned forward again, and idly toyed with her empty buttermilk glass. “Helluva night to be wandering around lost,” he commented, glancing toward the window again. The snow was coming down heavier, and the wind was picking up. “You’d have gotten mighty hungry by morning.”
Another pretty blush warmed her pale cheeks. “I borrowed a couple of bites of grain from the horse in the next stall,” she admitted. “It didn’t seem to mind me reaching in.”
She’d been eating raw oats? Hawke was appalled, and it showed on his rugged face.
She shrank back a little. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I was hungry, and there was nothing else!”
“What? No!” Quickly he shook his head. “I don’t care about that. It’s just... Jesus, Billie Jean! Horse food!”
She blinked a little, then relaxed when she saw that he really wasn’t mad about her minor theft. “Well, thank you for dinner. I don’t know how I can pay you back, but...I could at least do the dishes for you.”
He waved that aside for the moment. “You don’t owe me anything. Hazard folks look out for each other. And that extends to hungry little runaways who turn up unexpectedly on New Year’s Eve.”
“Is it?” She looked startled. “I guess I kinda lost track of the date.”
“Just how long have you been on the run?” he demanded. He wanted to scowl with outrage. But he carefully kept his face blank so that he wouldn’t scare her again.
The faint flush of color drained away. “For a couple of weeks. What state am I in?”
She didn’t even know that? “You’re right in the heart of Montana,” he told her. “About a million miles from nowhere.”
“Yeah?” That made her brighten again. “ Good! He’ll never think to look for me here.”
He wasn’t going to ask who ‘he’ was. Or why she’d run away. But there was one question he just had to ask. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
She answered so promptly that he couldn’t tell whether it was the truth, or a well-rehearsed lie. And who could say? Kids matured so early these days! Half the teens in Hazard were already married and breeding by the time they reached their majority. And in the big cities, sometimes they started even younger than that!
She bit her lip for a second, and looked a whole lot younger. Then she seemed to gather up her courage. “Back in the barn, you said, ‘They call me Hawke.’ Isn’t that your real name?”
She was sharp. Had to be, he supposed, to trek halfway across the country without being caught or molested by some hot-blooded perp.
“No, I was named after a Blackfoot Indian chief, on account of my maternal grandmother was Blackfoot,” he explained. “But I never liked the name. It was hard to pronounce, and even harder to spell.
“I spent some time on the reservation as a kid, because I was curious about that side of my heritage.” A reminiscent smile curved his lips. “I wasn’t as fast as the other kids, so I couldn’t win the foot races. But my eyesight has always been keen, so they called me Hawk. Later one of my teachers added the ‘e’ to the end so that I could use it as a formal name.”
“Cool.” Interest made her eyes seem to glow in the flickering candlelight. They were such a light hazel that they looked almost golden.
“And why do they call you Billie Jean?” he asked, so casually that the denial was already on her lips before she realized how he’d played her.
A reluctant admiring smile made her small face shine. “Okay, you got me. My real name is Amber,” she admitted. “And that’s the truth this time. My mom named me that because of my eyes.”
If she was lying again, he couldn’t detect it. “It suits you a lot better than Billie Jean,” he grinned. “Do you have a last name to go with it?”
“No.” The animation fled, and she hunched her shoulders protectively.
“Okay.” He wasn’t going to push her. “Come on, you can help me with the dishes.”
Amber stared after him in confusion. She’d expected a fight. But he wasn’t doing anything that she’d expected. Baffled, she slowly rose, and edged over to help him.
“I’ve never seen it snow like that,” she said a while later, while they were drying the glasses. “I mean, I’ve seen it snow,” she added hastily. “But never that thickly. The flakes are huge!”
“They won’t stay that way for long. Blizzard’s moving in.” He scowled out at the slate-gray night sky. “We don’t get many here in the valley, but they’re nasty. By this time tomorrow, it’ll all be sleet and ice, and the roads will be impassable for the better part of a week.”
She didn’t look terribly upset by that. Well, she was warm, dry, and full of hot tasty food. The prospect of enjoying that for a few more days probably looked pretty good to her.
He wished she didn’t look so good to him!
“I’m gonna stay up and watch the Times Square ball drop.” Usually he didn’t bother, but he probably wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep tonight anyway. So he might as well ring in the new year with some style for a change. “You’re welcome to join me, or you can go get some sleep in my nephew’s room.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She looked a little nervous about that. But it was that or the barn...and he was damned if he’d let her go back out there under any circumstances, and especially not in the teeth of a blizzard. “You aren’t married. Are you?”
“No.” Now it was his turn to withdraw, and turn away. “I was, once. A long time ago. But she was killed in an accident. Horse spooked at a rattler, and reared and threw her, about six months after we...” Even after all this time, it still hurt. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, then briskly shook his head. “Ancient history. I’ve lived by myself ever since then, and it’s worked well enough for me.”
“I’m sorry, Hawke,” she whispered, and dared to lightly touch his arm. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
He surprised her by laying his fingers over hers. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known.”
She held perfectly still, barely breathing, until he patted her hand and released her. Then he turned to put the glasses away, and the air exploded from her lungs in a quick rush. Her skin felt shivery, all the way from her fingertips up her arm and down into her belly. Even her bare feet tingled, and not because she was standing on a cool wood floor.
He didn’t seem to notice her taking a nervous step back. Or another. But she didn’t relax until she’d put the sturdy table between them. “I, ah, wasn’t sure where to put your horse blanket,” she stammered once she was far enough away. “So I left it in your nephew’s bedroom. Where would you like me to put it?”
“Fold it up and put it in the laundry room.” His voice was husky, and he gruffly cleared his throat. “It’ll be fine there until I can take it back out to the barn.”
“Okay.” She took another cautious step away, then turned and hurried down the hallway.
Hawke waited until she was gone, then turned the water to icy cold and splashed it across his sweating face. Touching her had been a big mistake. A huge mistake. Now he was going to be hard all night, and he hadn’t suffered that particular malady in too many years to count.
He’d have to take care of the problem himself, in the privacy of his own bedroom, because for sure he couldn’t turn to her for comfort. Someone had abused that poor little kid, and he wasn’t about to compound it by forcing himself on her. No matter how desperately he ached to do just that.
The pots and pans could wait. If he didn’t take care of this little...check that, big...problem right away, he was likely to do something he shouldn’t.
His legs were a little unsteady as he hurried back to his bedroom, and that was something he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time, either. Who could have guessed that, at his age, he could feel as horny as a teenage boy lusting after his first soft tit again?
Never should have turned yourself into a hermit, he thought once his door was securely closed, and he could unzip his worn jeans with a soft moan of relief. You’re too old for seduction, and too young for a second childhood. So where does that leave you?
Panting in his room like an eager virgin, as he wrapped his callused fingers around the big chunk of meat that had made his Anna Maria sigh with blissful pleasure. Helluva time it had picked to rise from the dead!
Beating off really was like riding a bike, though, he realized as familiar pleasure began to spiral through his veins. Once you learned, it didn’t matter how old you were. You never truly forgot.
Heat rose in a shocking tidal wave. He gasped in surprise, then groaned as slick moisture began to wet his fast-moving fingers. Why on earth had he ever stopped doing this? Why had he denied himself the amazing pleasure of physical release, as if masturbation was something inherently evil?
Had it been this intense the last time he’d touched himself...oh, it had to be nearly twenty years ago now! Maybe, like cheese or a fine wine, age had sharpened each exquisite sensation, until his nerves were on fire and he...
A long, strangled moan rumbled in his chest as he came hard, and thick spurts gushed against his curved palm. Gasping, he fell back on his bed and kept stroking, slower, until he’d milked the last slippery drop from his rigid length.
Wearily he closed his eyes, and laid there savoring the sweet aftershocks.
This was what he’d needed.
But it wasn’t Anna Maria’s exotic face that had flared before his dilated eyes just before he’d erupted. And he wondered, as he breathlessly waited for his thundering heart to slow, how he was going to survive having a sexy young girl in the house for the next several days.
* * * * *
Amber was curled up in the living room with a book when he finally mustered the strength to leave his overheated bedroom. She jumped up the moment he entered the room, and guiltily put the book aside. “Sorry,” she gulped. “It looked like a good story, so...”
Man, she was skittish! “Relax,” he advised, and sprawled out on his beloved lounger. “Mi casa, and all that. If you see something interesting, go for it. God knows there won’t be much else to do for the next few days.”
He seemed...a little different, she decided as she gingerly settled back on the couch. Was it possible to be more relaxed and more stressed at the same time? “I love to read,” she confessed with a hesitant smile. “I’d spend weeks at the library, if I could.”