Hawk's Way Grooms: Hawk's Way: The Virgin Groom. Joan Johnston

large and luscious as peaches, and her long, slim legs wrapped around his waist, remained as vivid as ever.

      “Are you all right?” Jewel asked.

      “Fine. Let’s go.”

      She chattered the whole way to the canyon, but he would have been hard-pressed to remember a word of what she had said or his own responses.

      Everything was different. Something was missing. And something had been added.

      He wanted their old relationship back. He was determined to quench any desire he might feel for her, so things could get back to an even footing. He figured the best way to start was to bring the subject out into the open and deal with it. On the walk back to the house, he did.

      “About what happened last night…It shouldn’t have happened.” His comment was vague, but he knew she understood exactly what he meant when pink roses blossomed on her cheekbones.

      She shrugged. “I was just a woman in a skimpy nightgown.”

      “Jewel, I—”

      She stopped and turned to him, looking into his eyes, her gaze earnest. “Please, Mac. Can we pretend it never happened?”

      He gave a relieved sigh. “That’s exactly what I’d like to do. It was an accident. I never intended for it to happen. I wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but—” He shot her a chagrined look. “I’ll be sure you’re never embarrassed again. Am I forgiven?”

      “There’s no need—”

      “Just say yes,” he said.

      “Yes.”

      She turned abruptly and started walking again, and he followed after her.

      “I’m glad that’s over with,” he said. “I can’t afford to lose a friend as good as you, Jewel.”

      “And I can’t afford to lose a friend like you, Mac.”

      Jewel’s eyes were as brown and sad as a motherless calf. Mac wished she had told him why she was crying last night. He wished she had let him comfort her. If she ever gave him another chance, he was going to do it right. He wasn’t going to let his hormones get in the way of their friendship.

      When they got back to the house, she hurried up the back steps ahead of him. “I get the shower first!”

      “We could always share,” he teased. He could have bitten his tongue out. That sort of sexual innuendo had to cease.

      To his relief, Jewel gave him a wide smile and said, “In your dreams, Mac! I’ll try to save you a little hot water.”

      Then she was gone.

      Mac settled on the back stoop and rubbed the calf muscles of his injured leg. It was getting easier to walk. Practice was helping. And it would get easier to treat Jewel as merely a friend. All he had needed was a little more practice at that, too.

      AFTER HE HAD SHOWERED, MAC MADE a point of seeking Jewel out, determined to work on reestablishing their friendship. He found her in the barn, cleaning stalls and shoveling in new hay for the dozen or so ponies Camp LittleHawk kept available for horseback rides. “Can I help?” he said.

      “There’s another pitchfork over by the door. Be my guest.”

      Mac noticed she didn’t even look up from her work. Not a very promising sign. He grabbed the pitchfork and went to work in the stall next to the one she was working in. “I thought your mom usually hired someone to do this kind of heavy labor.”

      “I don’t have anything better to do with my time,” Jewel said.

      “Why not?” Mac asked. “Pretty girl like you ought to be out enjoying herself.”

      Jewel stuck her pitchfork into the hay and turned to stare at him. “I enjoy my work.”

      “I’m sure you do,” he said, throwing a pitchfork of manure into the nearby wheelbarrow. “But there’s a time for work and a time for play. I don’t see you doing enough playing.”

      “I’m a grown-up woman, Mac. Playing is for kids.”

      “You’re never too old to play, Jewel.” Mac filled his pitchfork with clean straw and threw it up over the stall so it landed on Jewel’s head.

      She came out of her stall sputtering and picking straw out of her mouth, mad as a peeled rattler. She confronted him, hands on hips and said, “That wasn’t funny!”

      He set his pitchfork against the stall and laughed. “I think you look darned cute with straw sticking out of your hair every whichaway.” He headed toward her to help pull out some of the straw.

      When he got close enough, she gave him a shove that sent him onto his behind. Only the straw Mac landed in wasn’t clean. He gave a howl of outrage and struggled up out of the muck, glaring at the stain on the back of his jeans. “What’d you do that for?”

      She grinned. “I think you look darned cute, all covered with muck.”

      “You know this means war.”

      “No, Mac. We’re even now. Don’t—”

      He lunged toward her, caught her by the waist and threw her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

      “Watch out for your leg!” Jewel cried. “You’re going to hurt yourself carrying me like this.”

      “My leg is fine,” Mac growled. “Good enough to get you where I want you.”

      Mac headed for the short stack of hay at one end of the barn and when he got there, dropped Jewel into it. When she tried to jump free, he came down on top of her and pinned her hands on either side of her.

      “Mac,” she said breathlessly, laughing. “Get up.”

      “I want to play some more, Emerald, my dear,” he said sprinkling her hair with hay.

      “You’re more green than I am,” she taunted.

      Mac took a look at the back of his jeans. “Yes, and I think you should pay a forfeit for that.”

      “You can have the shower first,” she said with a bubbly laugh. “You need it!”

      His laugh was cut off when he realized that what he really wanted was a kiss. He stared at her curving mouth, at the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed, at the teasing sparkle in her brown eyes. “I think I’ll take something now.”

      He watched her face sober when she realized what he intended. He knew she must be able to feel his arousal, cradled as he was between her jean-clad thighs. He waited for her to tell him to let go, that the game was over. She stared up at him with luminous eyes and slicked her tongue quickly, nervously over her lips. But she didn’t say get up or get off. And she didn’t say no.

      Friends, Mac. Not lovers. Friends.

      Mac made himself kiss her eyelids closed before he kissed each cheek and then her nose and then…her forehead.

      He rose abruptly and pulled her to her feet. She was dizzy, because her eyes had been closed, so he was forced to hold her in his arms until she was steady. She felt so good there, so very right. And so very wrong.

      “I’m sorry, Jewel,” he said. “That was totally out of line.”

      She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, I suppose it was. I think it’s your turn to pay a forfeit, Mac.”

      He tensed. “What did you have in mind?”

      She reached out, and for a moment he thought she was going to lay her hand on his chest and give him another shove. Instead, she grasped a nearby pitchfork and held it out to him. “You get to finish what I started. I’m going to get another shower and wash off all this itchy straw.”

      “Hey! That’s not fair,” he protested.

      But