Dream of Me/Believe in Me

them for a moment but caught on quickly. When he was sure she was seated securely, Hawk called for his own mount. The gray stallion was led out prancing and snorting, causing the mare to shy. Instinctively, Krysta reached down and patted her side, murmuring to her reassuringly. Beneath her touch, the mare quieted. Pleased, not to say surprised, Krysta laughed. All night she had tossed and turned, worrying about how she would manage to ride with Hawk. Not for the world would she have attempted to refuse but she had dreaded making a fool of herself. Now, it seemed, she would not.
    Near giddy with relief, she beamed him a smile so beguiling as to rob him of breath. They rode out past the high walls of the fortress, down the path that led behind the hill and away from the town. He kept the pace slow at first but picked it up as she gained confidence. They were trotting when they came up out of the wood onto the broad cliff above the sea. Gulls whirled overhead and sunlight sparkled off the water. The tang of salt mingled with the perfumes of wild grasses and flowers. Although the day was still young, the air was already warm.
    Hawk turned his horse in a half-circle and looked back toward the town. When Krysta did the same, she gasped. They were on the other side of the bay with all of Hawkforte spread out before them, from the busy town clustered at the water's edge to the proud fortress on the hill above. She could see boats moving in and out of the harbor, and could even make out carts movingalong the docks. When she squinted, she thought she glimpsed the guards on patrol along the walls.
    “It's beautiful,” she said softly, seeing the town for what it truly was, a place of hard-won peace and prosperity.
    Hawk nodded. “It is that.”
    She looked into his rugged features, the skin drawn tautly over bone and sinew, and had to fight the urge to reach out to him. “Edvard told me it used to be very different.”
    “It was a charnel house,” Hawk said bluntly. “Burned fields, burned homes, and burned hopes.” He gestured toward the line of trees closest to the town. “Do you see there, how those trees are younger than the ones farther out? The Danes even burned the forest, at least that part of it they didn't cut down and haul away to their shipyards. When they realized they weren't going to be able to hold this place, they tried to lay waste to it. Even the wells were poisoned.”
    “It must have taken great courage and determination to remain here and rebuild,” Krysta said softly.
    “It took desperation. There was nowhere else for those left alive to go. So many people had fled farther west that the land there couldn't support them and they faced starvation.” He leaned forward in the saddle, his arms folded over the pommel, and looked out toward the town. “I vowed there would be peace here. At the time, I had no idea how I would fulfill that vow but I knew I would give my life to it.”
    Krysta said what was in her heart. “Your people are fortunate to have you as their leader.”
    He shook his head. “We are all fortunate to have Alfred of Wessex. Without him, we would have been a few lone men trying to hold off the Danes.” He raised his hand, the sun-burnished fingers splayed wide.
    “Separately we could not have accomplished anything except more death.” He folded his hand into a mighty fist. “Together we were able to change everything.”
    Hawk shook himself abruptly. “I did not mean to speak of such things. This is supposed to be a day for relaxation.”
    “I would rather it be a day for getting to know each other,” Krysta said.
    He laughed a little, as though that thought still made him uncomfortable. “It should also be a day for you to learn to ride. Come.”
    She followed him down a path that led from the cliff-side by easy stages to the beach below. Even so, Krysta held her breath a time or two as the mare picked her way daintily in the stallion's wake. When they reached the sand, she let out a sigh of relief so heartfelt that it prompted a grin from Hawk.
    “There, that wasn't so bad, was it?” he asked as he helped her from the saddle.
    More aware of his strength and nearness than of her fast-fading fear, Krysta shook her head. “It was fine.”
    She was lying and he knew it but her spirit pleased him so he let the small untruth go by. Besides, he was preoccupied with the way her slim waist fitted between his hands, hands he had only to raise slightly to caress the swell of