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

      His face turned hard, jaw jutting, shoulders braced in determination. She had seen that look before, but she had been too young and naive to recognize it for what it was.

      “Be my friend, Jewel,” he said. “Don’t tell me why I can’t do what I want to do. Just help me to do it.”

      She stared at him as though she had never seen him before. She knew now why Peter Macready had survived a form of cancer that killed most kids. Why he had become the best rookie receiver in the NFL, despite the fact he had never been the fastest athlete on the field. Mac didn’t give up. Mac didn’t see obstacles. He saw his goal and headed for it without worrying about whether it could be reached. And so he invariably reached it.

      Jewel wished she had half his confidence. She might be a married woman now with a baby in her arms.

      Maybe it wasn’t too late for her. Maybe she could learn from him how it was done. Maybe she could take advantage of Mac’s presence to give her the impetus to change her life. If Mac could recover from a shattered leg, why couldn’t she recover from a shattered life?

      The boys returned with two dish towels loaded with ice and fell all over each other arranging the cold compresses around Mac’s ankle. Jewel saw Mac wince when their overenthusiasm rocked his ankle, but instead of snapping at them, he launched into a story about how he had played a whole football game with a taped-up sprained ankle, thanks to an injection of painkiller.

      The teenage boys dropped to his feet in awe and admiration. Jewel started to leave, but Mac reached up and caught her hand. “Join us,” he said.

      “I have work—”

      “Just for a few minutes.”

      She figured maybe he didn’t want to be stuck alone with the boys. She would stay with him long enough to let them hear a story or two before shooing them away. She settled beside Mac on the worn leather couch—another donation from her grandfather’s house at Hawk’s Way. Mac’s arm slid around her as naturally as if he did it every day.

      She resisted the urge to lay her head on his shoulder. Putting his arm around her had been a friendly gesture, nothing more. But she was aware of the way his hand cupped her shoulder, massaging it as he regaled the three of them with stories of life in the pro football arena.

      As she sat listening to him, an insidious idea took root.

      What if she came to Mac tonight and explained her problem and asked him to help her out?

      She trusted Mac not to hurt her. She trusted him to go slow, to be patient. He didn’t love her, and she didn’t love him, so there wouldn’t be that particular pitfall complicating matters. It would be just one friend helping out another.

      She could even explain to him how she had gotten the idea. That she had seen his determination to play football again and been inspired to try to solve a problem that she had thought would never be resolved.

      All she wanted him to do was teach her how to arouse a man and satisfy him…and be satisfied by him.

      She tried to imagine how Mac might react to such a suggestion. He was obviously an experienced man of the world. Only…What if he wasn’t attracted to her that way?

      Her mind flashed back to the scene in the canyon earlier that afternoon, when she had felt Mac’s arousal. But he had apologized for that. Maybe when push came to shove, he wouldn’t want to get involved with her.

      Jewel didn’t hear much of what Mac said to Colt and Huck. She wasn’t even aware when he sent them away. She was lost deep in her own thoughts. And fears.

      She wished the idea hadn’t come to her so early in the day. Now she would be stuck thinking about it until dark, worrying it like a dog worried a bone.

      All she had to do was cross the hall tonight and knock on Mac’s door and…She didn’t let her imagination take her any farther than that. Oh, how she wished night were here already! It was so much easier to act on impulse than to do something like this with cold calculation.

      Of course, she was far from cold when she thought about Mac. Her whole body felt warm at the thought of having him touch her, having him kiss and caress her. She just wanted to get through the entire sexual act once without cringing or falling apart. That’s all she wanted Mac to do for her. Just get her through the moments of panic before he did it. Get in and get out, like a quick lube job on the truck.

      The absurdity of that comparison made her chuckle.

      “Are you going to let me in on the joke?” Mac said.

      “Maybe.” If she didn’t lose her nerve before nightfall.

      CHAPTER SIX

      MAC WAS LYING IN BED WONDERING what Jewel would do if he crossed the hall, knocked on her door and told her he wanted to make love to her. She would probably think he had lost his mind. He had to resist the urge to pursue her. Jewel didn’t need a fumbling, first-time lover. He, of all people, knew how much she needed a kind, considerate, knowledgeable bed partner. Which, of course, he wasn’t.

      She needed a slow hand, an easy touch—wasn’t that what the song said? He had a lot of pent-up passion, a lot of celibate years to make up for. He was afraid the first time for him was going to be fast and hard. Which might be fine for him. But not for her.

      Mac wished he didn’t have such vivid memories of what had happened to Jewel that day in July six years ago. Any man who had seen her after Harvey Barnes had attacked her…He made himself think the word. After Harvey Barnes had raped her…

      He had never wanted to kill a man before or since. He had been there to come to her rescue because he had seen Harvey drinking too much and worried about her, like a brother might worry about his sister. Jewel would have pounded him flat if she’d known he had followed her and Harvey when they slipped off into the trees down by the river.

      He had kept his distance, even considered turning around and heading back to the noise of the carnival rides at the picnic, which seemed a world away from the soothing rustle of leaves down by the river. He had heard her laugh and then…silence.

      He figured Harvey must be kissing her. He was standing at the edge of the river skipping stones, thinking he’d been an idiot to follow her, when he heard her cry out. Even then, he hadn’t been sure at first whether it was a cry of passion.

      The second cry had chilled his blood and started him running toward the sound. He could remember the feeling of terror as he searched frantically for her amid the thick laurel bushes and the tangle of wild ivy at the river’s edge, calling her name and getting no answer.

      There were no more cries. He saw why when he finally found them. Harvey had his hand pressed tight over Jewel’s mouth, and she was struggling vainly beneath him. He saw something white on the ground nearby and realized it was her underpants.

      He might have killed Harvey, if Jewel hadn’t stopped him. He hadn’t even been aware of his hands clenched in the flesh at Harvey’s throat. It was only Jewel’s anguished voice in his ear, pleading with him, that made him stop before he strangled the life out of the boy.

      Harvey was nearly unconscious by the time Mac finally let go and turned to Jewel. Seeing her torn, grass-stained dress and the trickle of blood coming from her lip enraged him all over again. Jewel whimpered with fear—of him, he realized suddenly—and the fight went out of him.

      He started toward her to hold her, to comfort her, but she clutched her arms tight around herself, turned her back to him and cried, “Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me!”

      His heart was thudding loudly in his chest. “Jewel,” he said. “You need to go to the hospital. Let me find your parents—”

      She whirled on him and rasped, “No! Please don’t tell anybody.”

      “But you’re hurt!”

      “My father will kill him,” she whispered.

      He