Night Hawk's Bride. Jillian Hart

      And he could say that with sincerity in his voice and integrity warming his eyes? She said, “You’ve finally convinced me. I don’t want to do business with you.”

      How could she have been so wrong about him? Marie marched through the grasses, disappointment whipping through her.

      “I’ve changed my mind, too,” he called out. “I will sell you one of my mares.”

      “One of your old, obedient, submissive mares?”

      “If that’s what you wish.”

      “You have no notion of what I wish for.” Now she was really mad. He mocked her? Or was he amused by her? And what of the man with the gentle hands and iron strength she’d seen last night? Who tended wounded horses with care and made her feel alive? “I know what I don’t want, and that’s a horse from you.”

      “Too late. One has already chosen you.” Night Hawk gestured toward the field.

      A mare walked on the other side of the fence, her ears pricked and her mane and tail dancing in the wind. Her big brown eyes held a shining question.

      “I told you, I’m no longer interested.”

      “She’s interested in you.”

      “The sergeant will take me somewhere else. Somewhere I won’t have to be insulted.”

      Night Hawk’s gait whispered behind her, and the mare’s hooves clomped on the hard-packed ground alongside her.

      Don’t look at either of them, Marie commanded herself.

      “It’s said it’s best when the horse chooses her master.” Night Hawk caught up with Marie, adjusting his long-legged stride to match hers. “When one heart searches for another and finds its match. Look at her.”

      Marie tingled at his words and at the depth of them. “I’m not looking for a submissive horse. I’m looking for spirit.”

      “You misunderstood me.” His hand curled around her elbow, branding-iron hot and iron solid. “I meant what I said. A woman and a horse should be treated the same—with respect. I will only sell a horse to a rider who understands that.”

      “Is that why you wouldn’t sell me a mare earlier?”

      “No.” He released her and stepped away. “Look at the mare.”

      She was beautiful. The mare’s red coat gleamed like fire beneath the sun’s touch, and a narrow stripe of white delicately marked her well-shaped nose.

      A spark of affection flickered to life in Marie’s heart, just like that.

      The sorrel reached above the rail. Marie laid her fingers on the mare’s nose. She would never want any other horse.

      “I can’t believe it.” The sorrel caught a bit of lace on Marie’s sleeve with her teeth. “She’s mine. My very own horse!”

      “She’s not broken to ride.”

      “She seems gentle. Could you train her for me?” Laughing, the sweetest trill of music and delight, Marie extricated her sleeve from the mare’s teeth. “I’m in love with her already.”

      No, his conscience warned him.

      Yes, his heart answered. “I could train her to a buggy in no time.”

      “No, I don’t want to drive her. I want to ride on her back and race the winds.”

      Night Hawk was enchanted. The colonel’s daughter burned with the light of a thousand suns, this quiet softly shaped woman with a will as strong as oak. A longing burst inside him so fierce it left him weak. Far too weak.

      “Please, don’t tell my father. He has very rigid ideas of how women should behave, but I’m not his little girl anymore. I make my own choices.”

      No. That should be his answer. “It will be our secret.”

      Her smile made her too beautiful to gaze upon.

      Night Hawk broke away from this woman he could never have and stared hard at the mare. “I will contact you when she’s fully trained. We’ll agree on a price then, with your father’s approval.”

      “Papa had his chance. He could have chosen an old plodding mare for me to learn to ride on, but he didn’t. So I figure he doesn’t have the right to complain about whatever horse I purchase with my own savings.”

      “I don’t want to anger the colonel. He’s been good to me and my people.”

      “Don’t worry.” An ember of mischief glimmered within her. “I can manage my father.”

      Longing speared him. It’s loneliness, he told himself. He’d been without a woman’s company for more years than he could count. All he had to do was say goodbye. Then Marie Lafayette would climb back into the buggy and drive out of his life.

      “I will leave word with Sergeant James when your mare is ready,” he promised. “Good day.”

      He spun on his heel. Every step he took put welcome distance between him and the colonel’s daughter.

      Dainty feet padded against the dusty earth behind him. “Night Hawk.”

      He should have kept walking, but he turned.

      She looked like a dream with her long brown hair waving in the wind as she ran. The sky-blue fabric hugged her soft woman’s curves.

      Marie smiled with the innocence of a woman who didn’t know the power she possessed over a man. “Does the mare have a name?”

      He watched her slim, long-fingered hand caress over the sorrel’s white blaze with a woman’s tenderness.

      The heat in his veins burned.

      “I call her Kammeo.” His words sounded strangled to his own ears, yet it was the best he could do. Want swept over him like a wildfire, and he couldn’t control it.

      “It’s a beautiful name. What does it mean in your language?”

      There was no trace of prejudice. Only a bright curiosity and a quiet interest that left him speechless.

      He couldn’t deny his attraction to her. To a woman too fine and genteel for the likes of him. He’d bet his land and every last horse he owned that Colonel Henry Lafayette wouldn’t want his precious daughter alone with a man like him.

      Night Hawk hardened his heart, turned his back on her and walked away without answering her.

      If she had shown abhorrence for his culture or disdain at his people’s ways, it would have been easier. So much easier to keep his back turned. To put distance between them.

      But she’d been respectful. It’s a beautiful name. What does it mean? He could still hear the music of her voice and feel the bright light of her presence as he returned to the far pasture.

      Trees shaded him as he lifted his ax and swung, taking his frustration out on trees that had fallen last winter.

      Over the thud of the ax, he heard the squeak of the buggy’s wheels as it bounced along his rutted road. Dust lifted like fog in the air and larks playing in the grasses startled skyward.

      Meka lifted his big head and howled a melancholy goodbye.

      Night Hawk could feel Marie Lafayette’s gaze like a hot burning flame to his back. He worked until she’d driven past and then he stared into the cloud of dust in her wake.

      Loneliness settled around him like the dust to the earth—a loneliness that ached and thrashed within the deepest places of his heart.

      He had no family. No wife. No children. That was how he’d always feared his life would remain.

      Maybe that was why he felt such an attraction to Marie Lafayette. That was all. Loneliness. A man’s natural yearning for a wife.

      He