On Wings of Magic by Kay Hooper Page B

anything else. Her thoughts were distracted, though, when Rick began to speak.
    “You know, you’re not at all what I thought youwere,” he commented slowly, watching her. “When you came in the other day, I thought you were—well—” He made a vague gesture.
    “The phrase,” Kendall told him dryly, “is ‘dumb blonde.’ A little game I used to play.”
    “Did you enjoy the game?” His brown eyes gleamed cheerfully.
    “Immensely. I never had to carry my own luggage.”
    “Then why did you stop?” Rick smiled faintly. “Hawke?”
    Staring down at the fork in her hand, Kendall only then noticed that it was monogramed. Stamped into the silver was a tiny bird. It might have been an eagle. Or even a particularly handsome chicken. Except that it was a hawk. It was very discreet; she never would have noticed it except that the subject tended to prey on her mind.
    Looking up at Rick, she gave a shrug and asked in a defeated tone, “Can we please talk about something else?”
    Trying unsuccessfully to hide his grin, Rick obligingly changed the subject.
    The next two days were a somewhat trying test of Kendall’s composure. Hawke might not have been present in the flesh, but his spirit was slowly boxing her in. Reminders of him were everywhere. Hotel stationery stamped with a tiny hawk. The tennis racket she used to play tennis with Rick—again, stamped with a hawk. Small emblems on the clothing of the hotel staff.
    Escaping from the hotel on the second day, Kendall went to the orphanage and played with the children for a while, then walked back through thevillage. Stopping before the window of a gift shop, she stared wryly at two figurines of hawks. The first was a somewhat savage hawk clasping a thankfully unidentified victim in his talons. The second—shaking Kendall oddly—was a more sensitive scene. Two hawks hovering over a nest filled with their young.
    Turning hastily away, she came face-to-face with a sign hanging over the doorway of a nearby building. The Hawk’s Nest Tavern.
    It was enough to drive a woman crazy.
    And then there were the gifts. They were always waiting for her at the desk—although there were no more notes. On the first day there was one delivered to her by Rick as she was passing the desk on her way back from breakfast. It was a stained-glass sun-catcher, complete with a fine chain to hang it in a window. The workmanship was exquisite, and the scene was a rainbow—complete with a pot of gold. There was a tiny bird on the pot.
    On the second day there was another suncatcher—this time with a unicorn beneath the rainbow and prancing toward the pot of gold. After dinner she was given another silver-wrapped box. This one held a small brass paperweight bearing another unicorn.
    By the morning of the third day Kendall was wishing desperately for Hawke to come back just so she could strangle him. It wasn’t that she was angry. It would have been
impossible
to be angered by such wonderfully romantic gifts.
    Still, she wanted to strangle him. He’d begun this absurd courtship beneath the eyes of a hotel full of strangers, and everyone was interested in the outcome. And they were no longer strangers. She’d been approached by all of them at one time or another.Some just said hello, others told her soothingly that Mr. Madison would soon return. The men were a bit wary—apparently considering her staked out as private property—and the women were openly envious.
    Some, like Amanda Foster, offered advice on how to tether a hawk. Others merely smiled in an unusually friendly manner. It was like living in a very small town.
    So Kendall was feeling a bit desperate as she approached the desk in the lobby early on the third morning. With a calm expression belied by the frantic gleam in her blue-green eyes, she leaned against the desk and looked steadily at Rick.
    He reached beneath the desk and pulled out another package.
    Kendall propped both elbows on the desk and covered her face with her