Mystery Man(79)

When my tears subsided, my eyes automatically searched for the face which would make everything better.

I turned my head and focused on Meredith.

“I know Maria’s making breakfast but can you make me homemade donuts?” I whispered.

“I’ll go get the biscuit dough and vegetable oil,” Dad announced instantly and I felt rather than saw him move because my eyes stuck to Meredith.

She had tears hovering in her eyes too but, still, she smiled at me.

Yep, everything felt better.

I smiled back as I pressed my cheek to Hawk’s chest and his arms got tight.

Then I shouted to my Dad, “Don’t forget the chocolate fudge frosting!”

“Gotcha,” Dad shouted back.

I felt something on my other side and I traded one cheek for the other in Hawk’s chest as I turned my head and looked up to see Gus there.

His eyes were on Hawk. “Good to know, even after a family drama, Gwen’s still hard at work on that great ass,” he noted.

“Gus!” Maria shouted.

I laughed.

So did Hawk, I didn’t hear it but I felt it up against me.

It felt really nice.

Hawk’s laughter faded and I missed it when it was gone until Maria muttered, “She might be dazzled but she’s not afraid of using a cleaver. I see good things,” and I got it back again.

* * * * *

Hawk was gone on an errand unexplained and night had fallen.

Earlier his family and my family ate eggs, toast, bacon and homemade donuts made from taking biscuit dough from a tube, punching a whole in the middle of it, deep frying it and then slathering it with frosting.

Homemade donuts were nearly as good as cookie dough for soothing trauma, not quite but they worked that morning mainly because Meredith made them.

Dad and Gus got on. Meredith and Maria got on. Von and Jury were both cool but attentive, very like their brother. But I spent most of my time after donut consumption playing hide and seek with Javier and Santo. There weren’t a lot of places to hide but there was a lot of room to seek. I made one mistake and that was tickling them when I first found them which they liked so they made me do all the seeking and then they made it easy to find them. In the end Javier tried to hide in plain sight. And he did this while giggling and calling “Nennie!” because he couldn’t quite say Gwen.

Finally, after Maria and Meredith did the dishes, everyone said their farewells and went away, Hawk came to me and explained he had “shit to do”. He didn’t go into detail and I didn’t demand it but he did kiss me before he left.

I unpacked my stuff and arranged it on my desk, booted up my computer and worked, making myself a sandwich when I got hungry, breaking the seal on the condiments to do so and trying not to think of Hawk, out with his commandos, causing mayhem and maybe getting hurt.

Now I’d swiveled my chair to face the dark windows, the haze of lights of Denver not far away. The fact was we were in Denver, just a lost, abandoned part of it that. Once the developers cottoned on, it would probably be made into lofts and trendy restaurants.

I had both my heels up on the seat of my chair, both my arms wrapped around my calves and I’d dropped my chin to my knees.

I stared out the windows realizing I had a foul-mouthed, gold digger Mom who didn’t care one bit about me. I had a shot up living room and a sister in serious trouble. I had a reputation as a sexual plaything. I was living with the man whose sexual plaything I had the reputation of being. I had a biker out there somewhere who had the way wrong idea about me. And, even with all that going down, it seemed I was living a daydream.

How the fuck did all that happen?

I heard a noise and turned my head to the door to see Hawk striding in, all masculine grace, body at his command.

Mm. Yum.

He walked, I watched and did a full body scan.

Well, today’s good news, Hawk was home and he wasn’t riddled with bullets, bleeding from stab wounds, scored by shrapnel or missing a limb due to an explosion.

“Hey,” he said when he made it to the kitchen and kept coming at me.

“Hey,” I replied, watching him coming at me, my chin to my knees, my brain processing that I was enjoying the show.

He rounded the desk and approached me from behind and he did this so he could bend in and touch his lips, then tongue, to the skin behind my ear.

Mm. Yum.

His mouth stayed there to say, “Baby, there a reason you’re in a protective ball again?”

“I sit like this a lot,” I told him.

“Yeah?” His lips went away and he swiveled my chair to face him as he crouched in front of me. “Why?”

“It’s comfortable.”

He studied me a second, his eyes scanning my face.

Then he asked, “So this doesn’t have to do with your Mom showin’ up outta the blue and causin’ a scene?”