Joan Johnston - Hawk's Way Grooms - Hawk's Way - The Virgin Groom

She felt his lips against her hair, soothing, comforting, and then his hands on either side of her face as he raised it to kiss her tear-wet eyelids. He kissed her nose and her cheeks and finally her mouth. His lips were firm, yet gentle, against her own. She yielded to the insistent pressure of his mouth, her lips soft and damp beneath his. He kissed her again, his lips brushing across hers and sending a surprising frisson of desire skittering down her spine. Oh, Mac…

She pressed her lips back against his and heard a sharp intake of breath. She froze, then stepped back and stared up at him in confusion.

He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again, obviously upset and looking for a way to explain what had happened between them. She wondered if he had felt it, too, the wondrous stirring inside, the need to merge into one another. What if he did? Oh, God. It would ruin everything. She couldn’t…and he would never…She took another step back from him.

“Wait, Jewel. Don’t go,” he said, reaching out a hand to her. “We have to talk about this.”

“What is there to say?”

He took a step closer, and it took all her willpower not to run from him. She felt an equally driving need to press herself against him, which she resisted just as fiercely.

“I don’t want what just happened to spoil things between us,” he said, his voice anguished. “I could see you needed comfort, and I…I got a little carried away.”

“All right, Mac. If that’s the way you want it.” She would ruin everything if she pressed for more. He obviously wanted things to stay the same between them. He wanted them to be friends. That was probably for the best. What if she tried loving him and failed, as she had with Jerry? She would lose everything. She couldn’t bear that.

“What’s wrong, Jewel?”

She mentally and physically squared her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have fallen apart like that. I’ve spent a lot of time in counseling putting what happened six years ago behind me.”

“Have you?”

“I’m as over it as I’m ever going to get,” she conceded with a rueful twist of her mouth. “It doesn’t matter, Mac, really. I have the kids at camp. I have friends. I have a full life.”

“Without a man in it,” he said flatly. “Or children.”

She arched a brow. “Who says a woman needs a man in her life? And there are lots of children at Camp LittleHawk who need me.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “You win. I’m not going to argue the point.”

Jewel released a breath that became a sigh, glad the subject was closed. “We’d better get back to the house.”

He looked as though he wanted to continue the discussion, but she knew that wouldn’t help the situation. She decided levity was what was needed. “I hope you saved some energy, because I know for a fact Colt will be waiting for you when you get back to the house.”

Mac groaned. “I forgot. He’s going to throw me some passes.”

“I can always send him away.”

“I suppose I can catch a few passes and keep him happy.”

“And keep who happy?”

Mac grinned. “So I’m looking forward to it. Think what that’ll mean to you.”

She gave him a quizzical look. If Mac was up to catching passes, it meant he was getting well. If he was getting well, it meant he would be leaving soon. She wanted to hear him say it. Maybe then she could stop fantasizing about him. “What will it mean to me?” she asked.

Twin dimples appeared in his cheeks. “You get the shower first.”

Jewel laughed. It beat the heck out of crying.

IF THERE WAS ONE THING COLT WHITELAW wanted more than he wanted to fly jets someday, it was to have Jennifer Wright look at him the way she looked at his best friend, Huckleberry Duncan. Jenny didn’t even care that Huck had a stupid name. When Huck was around, Jenny wouldn’t have noticed if Colt dropped dead at her feet. She only had eyes for Huck.

Which meant Colt got to spend a lot of time watching her when she wasn’t looking. Jenny wasn’t what most guys would have called pretty. She was short and skinny, her nose was too long and her teeth were slightly crooked. But she had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen. Jenny’s eyes were about the bluest blue eyes could get.

It wasn’t just the color of them that he found attractive. When he looked into Jenny’s eyes he saw the pledge of warmth, the promise of humor and depths of wisdom far beyond what a fourteen-year-old girl ought to possess.

Jenny might be the same age as him and Huck, but it seemed she had grown up faster—in more ways than one. For a couple of years she’d been taller than Huck. This past year Huck had caught up and passed her. Colt had always been taller than Jenny. Not that she’d noticed.

This past year something else had happened to Jenny. She had started becoming a woman. Colt felt like walloping Huck when Huck kidded her about the bumps she was sprouting up front, but when she bent over laughing and her shirt fell away, he had sneaked a peek at them. They were pure white and pink-tipped. He had turned away pretty quick because the whole time he was looking, he couldn’t seem to breathe.

His body did strange things these days whenever she was around. His stomach turned upside down and his heart started to race and his body embarrassed him by doing other things that were still pretty new and felt amazingly good and grown-up. He had it bad for Jenny Wright. Not that he’d ever let her or Huck know about it. Because Huck felt about Jenny the way Jenny felt about Huck. It was true love both ways. When they got old enough, Colt figured they’d marry for sure.

He kept his feelings to himself. He liked Huck too much to give him up as a friend. And it would have killed him to stop seeing Jenny. Even if she was always going to be Huck’s girl.

“Hey, Colt. I thought you were going to throw me some passes,” Huck said, giving him a friendly chuck on the shoulder.

Colt watched as Jenny climbed up onto the top rail of the corral near the new counselors’ cottages and shoved her long blond ponytail back over her shoulder. “You gonna be all right up there?” he asked.

She laughed. “I’m not one of your mom’s campers, Colt. I’m healthy as a horse. I’ll be fine.”

Colt couldn’t help it if he worried about her. He didn’t want her to fall and get hurt. Not that she appreciated his concern. He turned the football in his hands, finding the laces and placing his hands where he knew they needed to be.

“Go long!” he shouted to Huck, who had already started to run over the uneven terrain, which was dotted with clumps of buffalo grass and an occasional prickly pear cactus.

Colt threw the ball with ease and watched it fall perfectly, gently into Huck’s outstretched hands. Huck did a victory dance and spiked the ball.

“We are the greatest!” Huck shouted, holding his pointed fingers upward on either side of him in the referee’s signal for a touchdown.

They made a pretty good team, Colt conceded. About the best in the state. Both of them would likely be offered athletic scholarships to college. Huck was so rich—his father was a U.S. senator from Texas—he didn’t need a scholarship to pay for college. Colt’s family could easily afford to send him to college, too, but he kept playing football because he had heard it might help him get into the Air Force Academy.

If Huck had wanted to go to the Academy, his dad, the senator, could write a letter and get him appointed. Colt didn’t have that advantage. He would never presume on his friendship with Huck to ask for that kind of favor from Senator Duncan. So he had to find another way to make sure he got in.

Huck retrieved the ball and started walking back toward Colt and Jenny. Colt took advantage of the opportunity to have Jenny’s full attention. “He’s pretty good,” he said, knowing Huck was the one thing Jenny was always willing to discuss.