Read Online Badland Bride (Book 2 - Dakota Hearts) by Lisa Mondello - Free Book Online

that.
    “What are you looking at?”
    His smile widened. “You. I like looking at you.”
    She put down her fork. “I can see that. What I can’t understand is why?”
    “You have little hook nose. Did you know that? And there is one little cluster of freckles that are bunched up high on one of your cheeks.”
    Her hand immediately went to the place he spoke of. Usually she spent time to cover up that spot. It had plagued her when she was a teenager. But she was so busy these days she hardly noticed it.
    Keith leaned over and pulled her hand away. “I like it.”
    She giggled. “And you’re strange, Keith McKinnon.”
    “And I like very much the way you say my name.”
    * * *
    She was blushing again. It amazed Hawk how easily he could get Regis to blush about the simplest things. The woman loved to put up a tough front, but inside she was as smooth as silk. She had a big heart and he wanted so much to know that heart in every way.
    “Why doesn’t anyone but your nephew call you Keith? Even your mother called you Hawk.”
    “There’s no real mystery really.”
    “Then tell me the story. Why does everyone call you Hawk?”
    “It goes way back,” he said. “I was on a scouts camping trip with my brother Wade. I must have been six or seven at the time. My dad was one of the scout leaders back then. Anyway, we’d gone on what seemed like a long hike down in the Black Hills. When we got back up to base camp, the other scout leader noticed he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. Anyway, we all looked around the ground at camp for about an hour and no one could find it. But I’d remembered seeing something when we were hiking so I decided to investigate.”
    “You all went back out on the trail after being there all day?”
    “No. Just me.”
    “At six or seven? On your own?”
    “Seemed like a good plan at the time. Anyway, I hiked down the trail and went back to the place where I’d seen the sun was hitting this shiny thing below and sure enough, it was a wedding ring. I felt like I’d struck a vein of gold. I didn’t realize they’d sent a search team out to find me. And when we all got back to base camp, my father was ripping mad. But I told my story about how I’d seen the ring up from high on the trail. Then I proudly pulled the ring out of my pocket and gave it to the scout leader.”
    “Aw, he must have been so happy to get his ring back.”
    Hawk couldn’t help but laugh. “It wasn’t his.”
    “What?”
    “It was someone else’s wedding ring. We found out when we got home that the other scout leader found his ring at home on his nightstand.”
    “He’d never even lost his ring?”
    Keith shook his head as he thought of how Wade tried to defend him. “Wade used to tell the story about how I had eyes like a hawk to find that little wedding ring from high up on the trail and if anyone was missing anything, they should come to me first because I’d find it. The nickname stuck with my friends and eventually with my family. I think my mom just gave up calling me Keith because it was easier to get me to answer to Hawk. Not even my teachers called me Keith. It was usually, ‘Mr. McKinnon’ in response to something I was getting in trouble for. I’m surprised I ever made it out of high school. Even my patients call me Hawk since most of them have known me my entire life. And if they haven’t, they call me Doc.”
    “And with your nephew?”
    His chest filled with pride. “Well, that’s special between the two of us.”
    She shifted in place and shrugged. “I didn’t realize I was treading on sacred ground.”
    “But I like the way you say my name,” he said. “Your eyes sparkle when you say it.”
    Her mouth dropped open. “They do not.”
    “And your voice changes.” A tiny voice in the back of Hawk’s mind wondered what it would be like to hear Regis say his name when they were making love. And the two of them making love was something he’d thought a whole lot about ever since