“Yes…”
“Remember how we came to be here?”
She frowned.
“Lord Douglas, this is touching, really,” Brad Dillman said impatiently, “but unless you want to watch her blood flow quickly, it’s time to move.”
“Yes, move into the cabin,” Hawk said.
“I’m not going!” Sabrina repeated stubbornly.
Skylar kept looking at Hawk. How they had come to be here that day…
An Indian attack. He had dressed up. With Willow, Ice Raven, and Blade…
Willow!
Was he out there somewhere? Did Hawk know it? Had he heard the call of a dove in the air and known that it was not a dove?
Perhaps she didn’t understand him quickly enough. Sloan did. He strode for Sabrina and dragged her down from Macy’s mount. “We’re going in.”
“I’m not, I?—”
“Keep quiet!” Sloan insisted, his arms about her waist, Sabrina hanging from his hip as he strode for the cabin door, throwing it open.
“Let me go, you oaf! Skylar!”
As if Skylar could help her in any way!
“The damned army is doing us in, Skylar!” Sabrina shrieked.
Hawk ignored the frantic cries Sabrina let out. He stared up at Dillman. “I’ll walk to the cabin door. Then I want Skylar released to me. Understood?”
“I can’t see any harm in you fools dying in one another’s arms,” Dillman said pleasantly.
Hawk started for the cabin. Skylar saw that Macy and George were keeping their guns trained on her and the others while Dillman’s “aides” were getting ready to light arrows on fire and shoot them into the cabin.
Hawk stepped through the cabin door. He turned to face them, standing in the doorway.
“Let Skylar go!”
Dillman shoved her. Prepared for his action, Skylar clung to the horse’s neck as she fell downward, keeping herself from plummeting to the ground. She had a strange feeling that this was all or nothing now. If she had a chance to live, she wouldn’t be able to make the most of it with a sprained ankle or a broken wrist.
She started walking toward the cabin. Macy remained right behind her, a gun trained on her back. Skylar kept her eyeson Hawk’s. He met hers in return, the green fire in them encouraging her all the way.
She reached him. He put his hands on her shoulders, drew her very close against him, cradling her head. He might have been whispering love words.
“When I let you go now, get down. Flat on the ground, understand?”
“But they’ll shoot you?—”
“Skylar, love, honor, and obey right now, please? I love you, Skylar.”
“Oh, God—I love you. I love you so much. I—” He started to twist her around. He did so with such speed and energy that it hadn’t really been necessary for him to tell her to get down; she all but fell on the floor. And in those few seconds, he had gone for a knife. A knife sheathed in buckskin against the boots at his calf.
It flew with staggering speed and landed straight in Macy’s heart. For a few seconds, the giant of a killer stood there, about to reach for the knife, absolutely stunned to realize that he was mortally injured.
And even as he fell, Hawk let out a tremolo before jumping before the fallen man, going flat himself to grasp Macy’s weapon, a repeating rifle, before rolling into the brush.
