Read Online A Mating of Hawks by Jeanne Williams - Free Book Online Page A

armoire, she quickly got ready for bed.
    As she settled gratefully between the cool sheets, a vagrant memory of Shea crossed her mind. Now that she thought of it, his pickup had been missing the almost universal gun rack. Maybe he hid his firearms. Or maybe he didn’t agree with Judd.
    Whatever his views on guns, he was one standoffish character! Far from offering to take her around, as Judd had hospitably done, Shea had as good as told her he didn’t want her at El Charco.
    Why? And why should it sting? She stretched, feeling her stomach muscles tighten sensuously, and smiled a bit vindictively in the knowledge that though, for reasons unknown, Shea seemed to be a woman-hater, he had most certainly responded to her physically—and she hoped he was thinking about her now and repenting his surliness!
    What eyes he had! Like a summer thunderstorm charged with lightning. She sighed as her thoughts moved to Patrick. Let him be sleeping, forgetful of his troubles! At least, she could lighten his dreary confinement a little bit. And it was good to be home, back in her childhood bed. Hugging a pillow to her, Tracy drifted into sleep.
    When she went up to Patrick next morning, a cranky Vashti was preparing to bathe and shave him. “He should have a nurse,” she complained to Tracy as if the blind man couldn’t hear. “But he’s run off everyone we’ve coaxed into coming out here.”
    â€œA bunch of ninnies,” Patrick grouched. “That last old hatchet-face should’ve been thrilled to get a slap on the fanny!”
    â€œStrangely enough, she wasn’t,” Vashti snapped. “Really, Patrick, it’s not fair that all this falls on me because you shock and intimidate the people I hire!”
    Patrick chortled. “And what kind of nurses are they if a blind cripple can fluster ’em? Dammit, woman, I’ve told you to get one of the vaqueros up here. Any man of them would be glad to do it.”
    Vashti’s lips compressed. “It’s bad enough for Chuey Sanchez to track in manure once or twice a week. Why he can’t just report to Judd—”
    â€œChuey knows I’m still the boss.” The spunk faded from Patrick’s voice and he sounded very tired. “You don’t have to shave me, Vashti. Judd will, or hell, I’ll grow whiskers!”
    â€œI’ve always wanted to be a lady barber,” Tracy said, laughing as she took the razor from the older woman. “You’d look ravishing with sideburns, Patrick! Why don’t we start some?”
    â€œWhy not?” he chuckled, relaxing.
    Vashti, crisp in beige linen, paused in the door. “Don’t spoil him too outrageously,” she warned. “I have a new nurse coming and if she doesn’t stay, I’m going to be extremely vexed!”
    Patrick made a rude sound and grinned up at Tracy. “Thanks, honey. Try not to cut my throat.”
    â€œKeep still, then,” she begged nervously.
    The shave didn’t take long. She bathed Patrick’s face and torso but he refused to let her do more. “I wouldn’t mind a she-nurse if she was pretty and fun,” he grumbled. “But the ones Vashti hires are skinny as snakes or broad as hippos and talk like they broke a thermometer in their mouth!”
    â€œNow, Patrick, how do you know they’re not gorgeous?”
    â€œI can hear even if I can’t see,” he rumbled, then grinned wickedly. “I can feel, too. And believe me, honey, those old girls were tough as rawhide or soggy as a wet sponge!”
    â€œPatrick!”
    He gave his good shoulder a truculent hitch. “I’m only half dead, Tracy, not all the way. Now listen, you get over to the Sanchezes’ today and see them and the vaqueros.”
    â€œIs my singing that bad?”
    â€œYou can sing when you get back.” He winked his live eye. “Get along with you now! I’ve got to save up my strength