Chapter Fourteen

He went back to the cabin and flung himself back into his routine, as if hoping that sheer hard work would burn off the dregs of the poison in his body. Elena noticed him wincing one afternoon as he put away a set of weights. "Hold still," she said, and squeezed his trapezius muscle hard. He let out a yelp.

"That's what I thought," she said with satisfaction. "You've got knots like golf balls in those muscles. I think I need to do something about that. You go get undressed and lie down upstairs."

One eyebrow shot up. "Is this a proposition?"

"Don't overestimate your charms, Mr. Hawke," she said austerely. "Up you go. I'll be there in a minute."

He went, looking down at her warily from the staircase. She smiled to herself, and rummaged in her belongings for what she wanted. Finally finding her travel-sized bottle of baby oil, she went upstairs to find him obediently unclothed and lying face down on the bed, chin resting on crossed forearms, with a very large bath towel draped modestly across his hips. She smiled again at the sight, wondering if she dared ask him if he thought there was any part of his anatomy she hadn't seen before, but decided he wouldn't appreciate the remark. She spread a bit of the baby oil on her hands and got to work.

Gradually he began to relax. "I didn't know you had magic fingers."

"I used to do this at the clinic sometimes. It really seemed to help some people." She rubbed and kneaded for a while, working her way across his shoulders and upper arms. She needed to talk to him and this wasn't really the best time, but on the other hand, he was usually so busy moving from one self-imposed task to the next that it was hard to initiate a real conversation. "String, I was wondering . . . "

"Hmm?"

"I really love it here, but I've been sponging off you for nearly a month now, and I really think it's time I started looking for my own place. And a job. You can't keep putting me up indefinitely."

He sighed. "You don't think you're earning your keep here?"

"I think I've helped you, and that's what I want. But you don't really need me any more, and I should either go back to New Hampshire or start looking for a place here."

"You're making me feel wonderful and then you say you should leave?" he grumbled.

Her fingers found a knot in the muscle and began to work at it deftly. "Ouch!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. There, is that better?"

"Wait a minute." He rolled over onto his side. She noticed with amusement that he made sure the towel didn't shift by so much as an inch. "I owe you an apology. I know that being my housekeeper and masseuse and motivator ‒ "

"Nag, you mean."

"I do not. Shut up and let me make my speech. ‒ isn't the most fun job in the world. All I can say is, the working conditions are better than they were at the clinic."

"Pay's worse," she said cheerfully.

"And I thought I was the mercenary."

She didn't know quite what that meant, and wondered if it was an allusion to something else in his past. "String, if you really needed me ‒ if you were back in that wheelchair, or bedridden, heaven forbid ‒ I'd gladly stay and look after you for nothing, for as long as you wanted. But you don't need me. It's been a wonderful vacation here, but I need to get my life back in gear again. And I'm sure you want to have this place to yourself again." He'd never so much as hinted at that, but the cabin was clearly meant to be lived in by just one person.

"I understand." He didn't make any attempt to change her mind. Instead, he grinned. "Do I get the rest of the massage first?"

"Mr. Hawke, if you plan to continue damaging yourself like this, I'm prepared to offer you lifetime massage and TLC at special rates, with free prayers every thousand miles or six months, whichever comes first. Now roll over and hold still. I can feel another knot here."

"Ouch!"

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He decided it was high time to return to Santini Air and see what he could do to help Dom out, even if he couldn't do any flying. After all, he hadn't exactly been pulling his weight around there for the better part of a year. Elena came back to the city with him, to stay at Caitlin's place again while she job-hunted. Dom was delighted, and welcomed him back with a jumbo-sized coffee and a stack of invoices dating back weeks that had to be sorted out.

Hawke blinked at the size of the pile. "Jeez, Dom, you ever thought of hiring a secretary?"

"Who needs a secretary? I just got a little behind, is all. We seem to have been short-handed for a few months for some reason." Dom always had been heavy-handed with the sarcasm. "You get that bunch sorted out and we'll be fine. Oh, and see if you can find if we got a new fuel pump in for the Hughes, will ya? I thought I ordered one, but I'm damned if I can find it anywhere."

"Right." Hawke sat down at Dominic's desk and took several gulps of coffee. "A little behind" looked like a vast understatement, even by Santini Air standards. And if the older man's filing systems were still in their usual state of semi-disaster, he'd be lucky to track down that fuel pump before they were hit for non-payment of the supplier's account.

He was surprised, and rather pleased, by the number of people from around the airfield who dropped by during the day to welcome him back. Most of them wanted to know where he'd been all this time, to which his stock answer was that he'd decided to spend some time back East. Most of the well-wishers, knowing Hawke's reputation for taciturnity, weren't surprised at such a close-mouthed response; the few who pressed for more details were met either by feigned deafness or a look that told them to mind their own business.

At least Dom got a chuckle out of it. "Y'know, probably most of those guys figure you've been doing time in jail for something."

"Fine. Maybe they'll be less likely to bug me that way."

He plugged away at the pile and had the bills paid and the orders sorted out by the end of the day. Dom wasn't exactly effusive in his thanks. "Always knew you were good for something, String. Maybe tomorrow I'll let you loose on the inventory."

"Gee, now there's an exciting prospect."

"Oh, and did I mention that the coffee maker's bust? You could maybe try fixing it."

"You could maybe try buying a new one."

"You got a big mouth for someone who spent the last six months or so sitting on his butt while other people did all the work."

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Getting back into the routine of work helped to promote the illusion that things were back to normal, even though he was being little more than a glorified secretary. He managed to track down the fuel pump for the Hughes, stuffed in a storage cupboard, but apparently the only way Dom trusted him to install it was with himself breathing down the back of Hawke's neck to check his work. Hawke kept his temper under control, and later, his feet up on the desk when Caitlin came back from a charter flight and mentioned an odd vibration she'd noticed in the Jet Ranger during flight.

"Up and down or side to side?" asked Dom.

"Side to side."

"Huh. You checked the blades before you took her up, didn't you?"

Caitlin rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dom, I checked the blades before I took her up."

"Just asking," he said hastily. Then he growled at Hawke, "Hey, do ya think you could fit it into your appointment book to give us a hand with this?"

"I'm just the receptionist around here, remember?" said Hawke, without moving. Both Dom and Cait glared at him. "But I'll be happy to get you both some coffee while you work."

"You get your skinny butt over here and bring that ladder with you or you'll be walking back to your cabin, 'cause I ain't gonna be your chauffeur with that attitude."

Grinning, he went.

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He moved into Dominic's spare bedroom temporarily. It wasn't fair for the other man to spend so much time and fuel flying him back and forth to the lake. Besides, Hawke knew it kept Dominic happy to have him somewhere he could keep an eye on him. Dom was still uneasy about Hawke being on his own up at the cabin under the circumstances, and Hawke occasionally wondered if he might be right. After all, it was fine to say that he would find Horn by letting the other man come to him, but that presupposed having some sort of plan for stopping him once he got there, and at the moment Hawke was distinctly short on plans of any but the most nebulous variety. The best he'd been able to come up with so far was taking Michael up on his offer of sending in Zebra Squad if Hawke yelled for help. That might be the most effective solution, but it just didn't offer the satisfaction that he had to admit he craved.

The third night he was there Dom's phone rang just before four in the morning. It was a security guard from Van Nuys calling to let him know there had just been a break-in at the hangar. Hawke drove them to the airport at record speed.

"Doesn't look like anything's been taken, or damaged," said Dominic, after a quick inspection. The interior of the hangar looked exactly as it had when they'd left the evening before. "And you didn't see anybody around?"

The guard shrugged. "By the time I got here they were gone."

"I bet." Dominic's look made it obvious just how quickly he figured the guard had responded to the alarm. The man glared back at him. "Hey, do you think I ‒ "

Hawke had been taking a close look at the forced lock on the door. "Anybody else have a problem?" he cut in.

"Not that I know about. Not everybody's got an alarm system, though."

The guard left. "Maybe we should think about getting a couple of security cameras installed around here," said Hawke thoughtfully.

"Oh yeah? And who's gonna pay for those?"

"Archangel might."

"You think this has something to do with the Lady?"

"I don't know, Dom. It might. Or it could have something to do with Horn. Or it could be we're paranoid and it's just a common garden-variety thief looking for whatever he figured he could get, who got scared off when the alarm sounded."

Dominic scratched at his head. He looked rumpled and unshaven and tired, which was exactly how Hawke felt. "Well, we've had those before. What's that lock look like?"

"Like someone just smashed at it till it broke."

"Great. There go my insurance premiums again. Well, we better take a closer look around. Hey, Charlie should be open soon ‒ let's get some coffee first."

"Too bad whoever it was didn't steal the coffee maker," said Hawke, following him out the door. "Then maybe the insurance would've paid for a new one."

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Two other nearby businesses reported break-ins in the morning. One had had several boxes of tools and parts stolen, the other had been like Santini Air, the lock broken but nothing taken. Hawke knew the police were going to write it off as yet another case of vandalism and minor theft. There was a lot of grumbling about the lack of security around the airfield; nearly everyone there had experienced that kind of problem at some point.

Later in the day Hawke said, "Dom, I need to ask you a favour."

"Sure, kid. What is it?"

"Come with me to check on the Lady."

Dom stared at him. "Now?"

"No, not now. Maybe tomorrow night."

Dom looked at him closely. "So you do think there's a problem."

"No, I don't. I just think – I want to see her, that's all. Make sure everything's okay."

"With Airwolf? Or with you?"

Hawke didn't answer.

"You weren't planning on flying her, were you? I thought the doctors said – "

"Dom, right at the moment I don't even know if I can fly her. For all I know, I may take one look at her and turn and run away screaming. Or try to put a bullet through the windshield again. I need to find out. It's the one thing I'm not sure about yet, and I need to be sure. You understand?"

The older man heaved a huge, gusty sigh. He came over to lean on the same tool bench Hawke was parked against, and the two of them stood side by side looking out the open hangar doors. "You know, String, if we ever meet up with Horn again, and if for whatever reason you can't stuff Airwolf down his throat . . . then I'll do it for you."

"Thanks, Dom. But like I said before, this is personal."

"Oh? And you don't think it's personal for me too? God, String, I just hate the thought of you being in that place. I've had a nightmare or two about it myself. And all that time we had no idea, we were looking so damn hard for you, not knowing if you were still even alive . . . " His voice faltered. "Hell, I'm getting mushy in my old age. Don't mind me. But I don't want to hear any more about personal."

Hawke put an arm around the older man's shoulders. "I tried to tell Cait the other day to let go of whatever she had against Ann. I don't think it worked with her and God knows it hasn't worked with me. I'm not even gonna bother trying it with you. Will you go out to the Lair with me?"

"Sure I will. But you don't mind leaving your gun at home, do you?"