Hawk's Woman

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Synopsis

After his wife and parents were killed by outlaws, John Walking Hawk sought the help of local law enforcement, only to be rebuffed because he's half-Sioux, so he decided to take the law into his own hands, seeking vengeance against the gang who murdered them. For two years, he's been hunting them down, one by one, until the sheriff caught up to him and he was about to face the hangman's noose. John managed to escape but was shot in the process, and stumbled onto the grounds of a convent. He awakens to find a young woman with the face of an angel hovering over him. Giving her the false name of Clay Walker, he asks for her help and she provides it, but the longer he stays there, the more he starts to fall for Hallie. He still has one man left to find, though, and knows he can't take her with him, but when she follows him on her own, his honor won't allow him to do anything else but look out for her well-being. Clay would love to make Hallie his woman, but with untold dangers still lurking, he isn't sure if it's wise.

Hallie MacIntyre's father abandoned her and her mother when she was a young girl, and after the deaths of her mother and grandmother, she was raised by the sisters at a nearby convent. Now a novice, she has every intention of taking her vows soon, until a handsome wounded man turns up in the convent gardens one night. Clay asks her not to tell anyone he's there, so against her better judgment, she hides him in the barn, nursing him back to health. Soon he proves to be a temptation that's hard for Hallie to resist, so when he decides it's time to leave, she follows after him. Together, they face danger and adventure as Clay searches for the final man responsible for killing his family, accidentally finds Hallie's long-lost father, and spends time at the camp of his mother's people. But Hallie's homesickness could lead them straight into a trap if they go back to civilization.

Review

Hawk's Woman is a stand-alone, historical, western romance. John Walking Hawk who has taken on the fictitious name of Clay Walker is on the run from the law after seeking revenge against the men who murdered his wife and parents. After being shot, he awakens in the garden of a convent with a lovely young woman hovering over him. Having grown up at the convent, Hallie is a postulant and getting close to taking her vows. When she finds Clay wounded, she can hardly just leave him there, so when he asks her not to tell anyone of his presence, she hides him in the barn and tends to his wounds. As he's beginning to recover, the Reverend Mother discovers him and to save Hallie from getting into trouble, he claims to just be looking for work. The head nun hires him to do odd jobs in exchange for food and a place to sleep, during which time, he and Hallie begin to fall for one another. But when Clay decides it's time for him to move on, seeking the last man on his list before going to get his daughter back from her Sioux grandparents, Hallie can't allow him to go it alone and follows him. Together, they travel to the town where the outlaw was last seen, leading to a bit of excitement when Hallie finds her long-lost father and the man Clay was seeking comes looking for him. Hallie's influence convinces Clay to give up the vendetta that hasn't really brought him any peace, so they travel to Sioux country to reconnect with Clay's daughter, Anna, and spend some time with his people. When Hallie grows homesick, though, they face grave danger from the one man Clay was never able to catch.

Clay (aka John) is the son of a white man and a Sioux woman. He grew up among the People, married Summer Rain, a Sioux maiden with whom he was madly in love, and had a daughter, Anna. When rumors of war between the whites and Indians began to grow, they decided to move away for safety, nearer to a white town for a few years. One day, Clay went to town and returned to find his wife had been raped and murdered by a gang, his cabin burned to the ground, and his parents killed, too. Anna was the only survivor. Ravaged with grief, he begged the local sheriff to help, but was brushed off. So he took Anna to live with her Sioux grandparents and set out to find the men himself. For two years, he's been tracking them and had killed all but one when the law finally caught up to him. Jailed and facing hanging, he managed to escape but was shot in the attempt and ends up in the convent garden unconscious, where Hallie finds him. She kindly tends to his wounds and hides him until the other nuns are alerted to his presence. The Reverend Mother generously offers to hire him to do odd jobs, and although he knows he shouldn't, he can't seem to start falling for Hallie. Her sweetness brings more solace than he's felt in years, and when she follows him when he leaves, she begins to convince him that seeking out the final man isn't going to bring the peace he desires. The only problem is that the law is still looking for him and the one man who got away may not let him rest. Deep down, Clay was a good man who was placed in a bad situation. When the law denied him justice, he took matters into his own hands, but it didn't really fill the hole in his life. Although he doesn't think he's good enough for her, Hallie helps him find the peace he's been searching for and sets him on a path to a brighter future.

Hallie's father was an outlaw who left for a job one day and never came back. Not long after, her mother died, leaving her to be raised by her grandmother, but when the grandmother also died, Hallie was placed in the care of the nuns at a nearby convent. She's lived there ever since, and eventually started training to become a nun herself. It was a path she hadn't really questioned until Clay shows up in the convent garden, shot and in need of help. He swears her to secrecy about his presence, so she hides him in the barn where the other sisters rarely go, since Hallie is in charge of the animals. As she nurses him back to health and continues to see him as he works for the nuns for a while, she starts to become more and more aware of all she'd be giving up to become a nun, and she realizes that she very much wants to be a wife and mother. She falls madly in love with Clay, enough so that she decides to follow him when he leaves. Having her in tow begins to put a damper on his plans to complete his revenge and her sweet spirit eventually leads him away from that destructive path. They spend months together as Hallie chances to find her long-lost father and slowly reconnects with him, they get married, and then travel to Sioux lands, where they stay for a while as Clay tries to earn his daughter's forgiveness for leaving her. But a trip back to civilization when Hallie becomes homesick could lead to disaster when the last man standing from the gang who killed Clay's wife comes after them. Hallie is a sweetheart who loves Clay unconditionally. She sees the good man behind the choices he's made and helps him to come to terms with all of it, then generously welcomes his daughter into their lives.

I've had mixed results with the other Madeline Baker stories I've read in the past. Some were good while other were just so-so. I'd chalk Hawk's Woman up in the pretty good column. I really liked both Clay and Hallie and thought they were a good match for each other. However, I'll admit that the story didn't engender a strong desire to get back to it whenever I had to put it down. Since there wasn't anything that I really disliked about it, it took me a while to figure out why. I think that the issue I was having is that the plot seemed to lack a certain degree of focus and the conflict was minimal. In most romances I've read, there are either internal conflicts keeping the hero and heroine apart and/or external forces that are doing the same, leaving a sense of uncertainty as to how, or if, they're going to overcome the problem to find their HEA. With this story, a small amount of conflict pops up, but then it's resolved pretty quickly before moving on to something else. This left me with the feeling that Clay and Hallie were merely going from one thing to the next without a great deal of depth being explored on any of the plot points. The ending was good, though, finally giving me a little more of the excitement I was craving, while also clearing the way for Clay and Hallie to get a genuine HEA that wouldn't mean them constantly looking over their shoulders and wondering if the law might be coming for Clay. So between that and me liking the characters, I thought it was worth four stars.

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Madeline Baker

Themes

Babies & Children
Tortured Heroes