Linda Turner - Nighthawk's Child

“That we get married.”

The words just seemed to pop out of their own accord and hang in the air between them like a blinking neon sign. And too late, Summer realized just how forward they sounded. Horrified, she hurriedly said, “Don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying that I’m in love with you! How could I be? We hardly know each other. Any marriage between us would be one strictly of convenience.”

“Of course. I never expected anything else.”

At his dry tone, she blushed to the roots of her hair. “This isn’t about sex,” she said stiffly. “It’s about helping you.”

“Which you seemed determined to do, and I can’t for the life of me understand why.” Frowning, he studied her with puzzled eyes. “What’s in this for you?”

Not surprised that he’d so quickly reduced things to the bottom line, she didn’t insult his intelligence by pretending she was a saint sacrificing herself just for the sake of helping him. “Your help in my clinic on the reservation for one year,” she said bluntly.

“In exchange for marriage?”

She nodded. “Also for one year. You know I’m not the type to flaunt my family connections, but you have to admit that marriage to a Kincaid can’t do anything but bolster your standing in the community. And that just might help clear your name. Once the trial’s over and you’re vindicated, my family connections will help when you go back to court to regain custody of Alyssa.”

She made it all sound so simple. All he had to do was marry a Kincaid, and his life would magically return to normal. His name would be cleared, people would look at him in a different light, and he could go on with his life as if Christina’s death and the subsequent murder charges leveled against him had never happened. And the price of a ticket to this fairy tale was only a one-year marriage of convenience to a woman who didn’t love him any more than he loved her. And his help at her clinic, he reminded himself. After all, it was only fair that she get something out of the arrangement, too.

Stunned, he should have laughed in her face. That was what any sane man would have done. He was already in enough trouble—he didn’t need to take on more by agreeing to a marriage that by its very nature was doomed to failure. And what would it really accomplish, anyway? True, the Kincaids were a powerful family in Whitehorn, but it wasn’t the family that was on trial. It was him, and few people seemed inclined to cut “that Indian boy from the wrong side of the tracks” any slack. He didn’t think marriage to a Kincaid would change that.

But can you be sure of that? a voice in his head wondered. Summer Kincaid is well liked and respected. If she pretended to be in love with you and married you, people just might start to wonder what she saw in you and if they might have misjudged you. Granted, it’s a long shot, but at this point, it’s the only chance you’ve got. You’d be a fool to turn your back on the only person who’s helped you from the very beginning. Thanks to her intervention, her uncle hired Elizabeth Gardener to represent you, and now she wants to help you again. Why are you hesitating?

That was a good question. Aside from himself, he also had to think of Alyssa and how this might benefit her. If, through some miracle, he was able to actually clear his name, he still might have to fight to get his daughter back. He’d have a much better chance of winning that fight if he had a wife the likes of Summer Kincaid by his side to act as Alyssa’s mother. And he wasn’t losing his daughter, damn it!

Considering all that, he should have jumped at her offer like a drowning man being thrown a lifeline. But if the events of the past year had taught him anything, it was to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not everyone who appeared to have his best interests at heart did.

“I’ll think about it,” he said stiffly, “and get back to you.”

She nodded. “Just don’t take too long. For this to work, we’ve got to convince people that we’re really in love, and we can’t do that overnight. With your trial only a few weeks away, we don’t have a lot of time.”

No one was more aware of that than he. Ever since the trial date had been announced, he’d felt as though there was a guillotine over his head, waiting to fall. And it scared the hell out of him. “I should have an answer by morning.”

That was the best he could do, and she had no choice but to accept it. “Then I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said stiffly. “You can reach me at the hospital until two, then I’ll be at my clinic.”

She walked out without another word, leaving Gavin staring after her with a frown. He’d thought he’d known who and what Summer Kincaid was, but now he wasn’t so sure. Why was she going out of her way to help him? What did she really want from him? Would she really go to such lengths to get help at her clinic or was that just an excuse to get involved in his life? Until he had some answers, he wasn’t making a decision about anything.

Self-doubt didn’t hit Summer until later that night when she was getting ready for bed and had nothing to distract her from her own thoughts. She’d actually asked Gavin to marry her. Dear God, what had possessed her? He must think she was desperate, or out of her mind, or both, when nothing could have been further from the truth. When she’d made the suggestion, she hadn’t thought of anything beyond helping him out of the awful bind he was in. But now she had to wonder what she was going to do if he actually agreed to marry her. She’d made it clear that there would be no sex, but they would still have to live together, still have to act the happily married couple. She’d never been an actress, never had much use for pretense. How in the world was she going to pull this off if he said yes?

He wouldn’t, she assured herself quickly. His back was already to the wall—if he’d thought marrying her would help him, he would have said yes in a heartbeat. Probably he was trying to find a way to let her down easy and spare her feelings. He’d call in a few days, thank her for the offer, and politely tell her he didn’t think it would work. And that would be the end of that.

She’d done everything she could to help him, she told herself as she pulled on her pajamas and turned back the covers to her bed. If he insisted on going through this all alone, there was nothing she could do.

Resigned to the fact that she would, in all likelihood, watch him be escorted off to prison, she was about to crawl into bed when her doorbell rang. At nine-thirty at night she seldom had visitors. Unless it was someone who didn’t have a phone coming from the reservation with a medical emergency.

Concerned, she hurriedly pulled on a robe and rushed to the front of her small, two-bedroom house, flipping on lights as she went. She hoped it wasn’t Hannah Eagle. Six months’ pregnant, she’d had three other pregnancies that had ended in miscarriages. It would kill Hannah if this one did, too.

But when Summer quickly unlocked her front door and pulled it open, it wasn’t Hannah’s husband John standing on her porch. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with the last man she expected to seek her out at that hour of the night. Gavin Nighthawk.

“Gavin! What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said huskily. “I apologize for showing up without calling, but I was driving around and somehow just ended up here.” His eyes dropped to the thin material of her gown and robe. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

She was respectably covered—there was no reason for her to be embarrassed—but in the harsh glare of the porch light, she could feel a painful blush climb into her cheeks. Instinctively, before she realized just how telling the gesture was, she started to reach for the overlapping neckline of her robe to check to see how low it was. But his gaze followed the movement and with a silent curse, she dropped her hand and forced herself to not fidget.