Heart of the Hawk by Justine Dare Justine Davis

given name, he’d never used hers before. It made her feel decidedly odd. She didn’t know what the feeling was, and hastened to speak before he realized something was wrong with her.
    “I’m hardly the type to wear ribbons, Mr.—Josh.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why?”
    His dark brows furrowed. “I thought females liked things like ribbons, to make them feel . . . female.”
    “If such things suit them,” Kate said with a half shrug.
    “And they don’t suit you?”
    She sighed. “If you try to fancy up a mesquite tree, it’s still a mesquite tree. It only looks plainer next to the frills. And foolish.”
    Josh dropped the ribbon on the counter. Kate thought he would go away now, but instead he reached out and tilted her head back with a gentle finger under her chin. Shock rippled through her at his touch, and she stared at him, lips parted as she tried to remember how to breathe.
    “Mesquite,” he said slowly, “is a fine thing. The beans can be used for food. The root makes good fuel in barren country. The wood can be used to build. It doesn’t need to be fancy.”
    Kate heard herself audibly gulp for air. She knew she must look a fool, staring at him like this, when all he’d been doing was talking about . . . trees. And agreeing she wasn’t the frills-and-ribbons type of woman.
    “I . . . have to go start supper,” she said desperately, even though she knew it was a good hour early.
    For a long moment he didn’t move, didn’t pull his hand back, and she felt the heat of his touch on her skin like the flare of a fire when a log broke. Something flickered in his eyes, something hot and intense that she’d never seen before. Then at last he drew back. Kate turned and darted away, barely remembering to pull the roller shade on the door to indicate Dixon’s was closed.
    She raced to the back of the store, through the storeroom, pulled open the door to the kitchen, and hurried inside. She closed the door behind her and leaned on it, breathing heavily, feeling as if she’d run from here to the Notch and back.
    And she knew what she looked like. Exactly what she’d looked like.
    She’d looked like Reverend Babcock, terrified and scrambling to get away from The Hawk.

Chapter 5
    “WHAT’S WRONG with Miss Kate?”
    “How the hell would I know?” Josh growled as he lifted the keg of gunpowder from the floor to the counter.
    His head was aching this morning from a restless, sleepless night spent staring at a book that couldn’t exist, a book that made him feel strangely warm and comforted every time he touched it, a fact that made him very nervous.
    And thinking about the fact that when he’d touched Kate Dixon yesterday, he’d been nearly swamped with a rush of unexpected and unwanted physical need, hardening his body with a speed that had left him breathless. And he didn’t know which seemed more impossible.
    Or, he admitted now, which bothered him more.
    He glanced at Luke, realizing he’d been sharp with the boy for no reason other than he wasn’t very happy about the way his thoughts had been running him in circles all night.
    “Sorry,” he muttered. And it wasn’t until then that what the boy had said truly registered in his mind. Something was wrong with Kate?
    He frowned. He knew she’d been startled when he’d touched her; she’d looked back at him like a wild doe frozen with fear. But surely she couldn’t still be upset over that, he thought. Could she?
    Why not? You are.
    The answer came back at him as if from that small voice inside his head that warned him when he was headed into trouble. That small voice he’d learned to listen to.
    He didn’t understand it. It wasn’t as if he’d kissed her; he’d barely touched her. And she was hardly the kind of woman who usually caught his eye. But, he supposed, if a man went without a woman long enough, even a touch on the cheek could have an arousing effect. Even if the woman wasn’t . . . beautiful.
    An arousing effect.