Hawk's Way Grooms by Joan Johnston

she gave him.
    â€œAll right,” she said. “But tell them you came in time. Tell them…nothing happened.”
    â€œWhat if…what if you’re pregnant?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t think…I don’t think…”
    He realized she was in too much shock to even contemplate the possibility.
    She shook her head, looking dazed and confused. “I don’t think…”
    He thought concealing the truth was a bad idea. She needed medical attention. She needed the comfort her mother and father could give her. “Jewel, let me tell your parents,” he pleaded quietly.
    She shook her head and began to shiver.
    â€œGive me your hand, Jewel,” he said, afraid to put his arms around her, afraid she might scream or faint or something equally terrifying.
    She kept her arms wrapped around herself and started walking in the opposite direction from the revelers at the picnic. “Take me home, Mac,” she said. “Please, just take me home.”
    He snatched up her underpants, stuffed them in his Levi’s pocket and followed her to his truck. But it was too much to hope they would escape unnoticed. Not with Jewel’s seven brothers and sisters at the picnic.
    It was Rolleen who caught them before they could escape. She insisted Mac find her parents, and he’d had no choice except to go hunting for Zach and Rebecca. He had found Zach first.
    The older man’s eyes had turned flinty as he listened to Mac’s abbreviated—and edited—version of what had happened.
    The dangerous, animal sound that erupted from Zach’s throat when he saw Jewel’s torn dress and her bruised face and swollen lip made Mac’s neck hairs stand upright. He realized suddenly that Jewel had known her father better than he had. Zach became a lethal predator. Only the lack of a quarry contained his killing rage.
    Jewel’s family surrounded her protectively, unconsciously shutting him out. He was forced to stand aside as they led her away. It wasn’t until he got back to his private room in the cottage he shared with a half-dozen boys aged eight to twelve and stripped off his jeans, that he realized he still had Jewel’s underwear in his pocket.
    The garment was white cotton, with a delicate lace trim. It was stained with blood.
    A painful lump rose in his throat, and his eyes burned with tears he was too grown up to shed. He fought the sobs that bunched like a fist in his chest, afraid one of the campers would return and hear him through the wall that separated his room from theirs. He pressed his mouth against a pillow in the bedroom and held it there until the ache eased, and he thought the danger was over.
    In the shower later, where no one could see or hear, he shed tears of frustration and rage and despair. He had known, even then, that Harvey Barnes had stolen something precious from him that day, as well.
    Mac learned later that Zach had found Harvey Barnes and horsewhipped him within an inch of his life. And Zach hadn’t even known the full extent of Harvey’s crime against his daughter. It seemed Jewel had been right not to tell her father the truth. Zach would have killed the boy for sure. Harvey’s parents had sent him away, and he hadn’t been seen since.
    Things weren’t the same between him and Jewel after that. She smiled and pretended everything was all right in front of him and her family. But the smile on her lips never reached her eyes.
    The end of the summer came too soon, before they had reconciled their friendship. He went to her the night before he left, seeking somehow to mend the breach between them, to say goodbye for the summer and to ask if she was all right.
    â€œHarvey Barnes is gone,” she said. “And tomorrow you will be, too. Then I can forget about what happened.”
    â€œI’ll be back next year,” he reminded her.
    She had been looking at her knotted hands when she said, “I hope