On Wings of Magic Read Free Page B

little boys. “Robbie—the one who ran into you in the lobby.”
    Looking back at the children, Kendall noted silently that Robbie hadn’t, apparently, been scolded or forbidden the pool for nearly knocking down a guest. A little thing, perhaps, but it told Kendall a great deal. Hawke liked kids. She was vaguely irritated with herself for finding something they had in common.
    “Excuse me, Hawke.” A fair-haired man with an easy smile was gazing down at them both apologetically. “You confirmed some of these reservations personally, and I need to know—”
    “Of course, Rick,” Hawke interrupted calmly,reaching for the sheaf of papers in the other man’s hand. “Kendall, this is my manager, Rick Evans. Rick—Kendall James,” he said absently as his eyes scanned the papers.
    Kendall smiled at the manager. “Mr. Evans. It’s nice to meet you.”
    “Miss James.” His cheerful brown eyes swept her bikini-clad figure with pure masculine appreciation, even as they laughed in familiarity. “My pleasure—believe me!”
    Wishing vaguely that Rick’s boss could be as uncomplicated as he was, Kendall listened as they began going over the reservations list. A few minutes later she absently pushed her sunglasses up to rest on top of her head, her gaze fixed on the children in the pool as she tuned out the conversation going on beside her. She watched the kids splashing happily and, unbidden, her mind wondered how some children could have so much and others so little. Did any of these happy, healthy kids know what it meant to barely have enough, water to drink and none to wash in? Surrounded by what most people would call paradise, did they know that there were children in the world who lived on a heartbeat, hungry and cold and scared in war-torn lands?
    A tiny face, pinched from too many years of an empty belly, swam before her inner eye. A face with a smile like sunshine and brown eyes sweet enough to melt a stone statue, eyes innocent and loving in spite of the cruelties they had seen…
    Kendall winced and gently pushed the face and the memory back into the dark corner of her mind once again. She wasn’t ready to face that. Not yet.
    “What’s wrong, honey?”
    Startled, she surfaced from an inescapable past into an equally inescapable present. The manager had gone; she and Hawke were alone. And his gray eyes were filled with concern. “N-nothing.” She corrected the stammer immediately, astonished that her lifelong control was slipping rapidly, inexplicably from her grasp. “What could be wrong?”
    “I don’t know.” His deep voice was serious. “You looked so sad. And there was something … old in your eyes.”
    “Old?” Kendall laughed lightly, more shaken than she wanted to admit—even to herself. Deliberately misunderstanding him, she went on sweetly. “I’m only twenty-five, Hawke—my eyes can’t possibly be any older than that.”
    For a moment she thought that he was going to press her for a reasonable answer to his question. But then heavy lids dropped to veil his strange eyes. “My mistake,” he murmured with an almost imperceptible hint of dryness in his tone. “It must have been sunlight glinting off the water. Or something.”
    A wise little voice inside Kendall warned that she could land herself in a hell of a lot of trouble by playing too dumb with this man. For the first time in many years, Kendall ignored the voice. Her motivation for the decision wasn’t very rational, and the little voice sneered at her.
    She was afraid of Hawke Madison. Not physically. She was afraid because her body was sending strange signals to her brain, because his eyes were making wordless promises. She was afraid because he saw too much and sensed even more, because he was damnably attractive. Because he was an “alpha” male, and she didn’t know how to cope with him. She wasafraid because the desire she saw in his eyes was echoed by nameless yearnings in herself, and that had