Chapter 21

21

HAWK

W hile the twins were sporty and agile, five-year-old Sawyer reminded me a lot of my sister at that age. He was quiet, shy, and prone to big emotions he could barely handle.

Emery had discovered her love for sports later on, and I wasn’t the only one that seemed to remember that she’d needed some encouragement to get there. Sawyer was hanging back while Winnie and the twins raced up and down the beach playing some game they’d created. It involved chasing one another and throwing rocks into the water, but he seemed perfectly content to sit with us.

Between us on the picnic blanket, he watched them play with an almost longing expression on his face and Sutton leaned forward, giving him the same smile she’d had so many years ago when trying to encourage Sawyer’s mother.

“You should go join them,” she said gently. “I’m sure they’d stop for a bit to explain the game to you, or you could just make up your own rules. I think that’s what they’re all doing anyway.”

Those little blue eyes came up to mine. In the time I’d been in town, he and I had started bonding, but he simply wasn’t as open or exuberant about it as his brothers. “Do you think they’ll let me play?”

“Of course.” I reached out to ruffle his hair and grinned. “They’d better, or else I’m going to play with them and I’ll catch them all.”

I winked at him as I said it and he finally broke out a tiny smile, then stood up and motioned to the rocks instead. “I think I’ll just go build a castle with those. The others are too much faster than me.”

“They are also older, honey,” Sutton said, still smiling. “Suit yourself, though. I think building a castle with the rocks sounds pretty good too.”

His smile widened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Will you come call me when you’re done? I’d love to see it. Maybe we can take some pictures of it for your mommy.”

“Yes!” he exclaimed happily, even favoring her with a hug before he raced away.

“You’re good with kids,” I murmured, glad to finally have a moment alone with her.

Sutton looked beautiful in a pair of simple blue jeans and a black knitted cardigan, her feet bare with a little golden toe-ring sparkling on her middle toe. For some reason, the sight of it was getting me all hot and bothered, but I flexed my thighs, returning to all those old tricks I used to use to keep her from realizing the effect she had on me.

“So are you,” she said, flashing me an almost shy smile from behind her loose, dark blonde hair. Those gray eyes fixed on mine. “Do you think you’ll ever have any of your own?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

Not until recently, anyway.

“Is that why you haven’t settled down?” She glanced at me again before plucking a shell out of the sand and cleaning it off with her fingers. Her gaze lowered to the pearly white color she was revealing. “Or are you going to give me a real answer to my first question?”

I laughed. “I am giving you real answers. I’ve never really thought about settling down or having kids. Until now, I was too focused on work, and building the company, and where to take it next. I think I sort of lost track of everything else.”

“And now?” she asked. “Are you thinking about it now?”

I shrugged, watching the kids spray sand behind them as they sprinted around, and I smiled at their shrieks of laughter filling the air. My gaze moved to Sawyer, his features scrunched up in intense concentration as he planned his castle, trying many rocks before he finally put each one into place.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. “I love kids. I’d love to have a bunch of them, but it kind of feels like I’ve lost my shot.”

Sutton chuckled. “You’re only thirty-one. That’s hardly too old to have kids, especially for a man.”

“Maybe,” I agreed finally, looking at her again and wondering if she’d ever consider having more children. “What was Winnie like as a baby?”

“She was a dream,” Sutton said, her voice soft and the expression in her eyes suddenly faraway. “Honestly, I know people tend to say that, but in my case, it was true. She slept through the night as soon as I stopped waking her for feeds and I never had any issues with anything with her. She was just amazing.”

I wonder if our babies will also ? —

I stopped the thought in its tracks. “Do you think you’d ever consider having another baby?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me, laughter twinkling in her eyes. She shook her head. “I’m twenty-nine. That’s considered a geriatric pregnancy already, and given that I’m currently as single as the day is long, I doubt there are any more babies in my future.”

“Would you have liked more?”

She thought it over for a moment, still toying with that shell before she shrugged. “Sure. I would’ve loved more, but Calen left me pretty much by myself with the baby, which meant that by the time I came up for air, she was a toddler and he was already distancing himself from me. That’s not exactly baby-making time.”

Thank fuck.

“What about you?” she asked, turning the tables again. “Other than your four thousand feet of pure awesome , what’s your life like back in California?”

I groaned. “Do we really have to talk about this?”

Those eyes held mine for a beat before she nodded. “We keep having to talk about my life, so yes. We’re talking about yours now. What are you trying to hide, Brunson?”

“Nothing,” I protested with a laugh, then sighed and picked up an emotional support shell of my very own. “Okay, since you haven’t held back with me, I’ll be completely honest with you too, but you’re not allowed to feel sorry for me.”

She scoffed. “Trust me, I’m in no position to judge. Fire away. You won’t get any pity from me.”

I drew in a deep breath and then let loose, telling her things I hadn’t even admitted to myself until I’d gotten back here. “My first few years out there were incredible. I felt like I was Columbus who’d discovered a whole new world. No one knew me, no one gave a shit about whether I’d played hockey or where I’d come from, and I could just be me. Just Hawk.”

“Who is he?” she asked curiously, glancing between me and her shell. “Hawk, I mean. Who is he when no one knows him and no one gives a shit about where he’s come from?”

“Well, it turns out he’s a bit of a dick.” I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Business-wise, he gets a little competitive?—”

She laughed. “Just business-wise? Alright, if you say so.”

I tossed a couple grains of sand at her and narrowed my eyes playfully. “Fine, so I’m competitive. The problem is that when you own a company and you give in to that side of your nature, you end up being cutthroat sometimes. A little bit ruthless. You get a little bit lost to the competition and you kind of forget about everything else.”

“Is that why you haven’t been home for so long?” she asked. “You lost yourself in the competitive world of business.”

I shrugged. “It’s a shitty excuse, but yeah. To a certain extent, that’s exactly what happened. I got one contract, and then I started focusing on getting the second, then the third. Bigger every time. It sucked me in. It felt like I couldn’t leave my office for even an hour or someone else would get the work I could’ve gotten.”

Her nose wrinkled. “That sounds awful.”

“It was pretty exciting actually. Addicting, even. It took me a long time to realize how lonely it was even though there were always people around me.”

Surprise flickered in the depths of those eyes. “You’re lonely? What about all those parties you mentioned before?”

“At first, that scene was great.” I glanced at the bay, recognizing how much I’d missed this view. “The thing is that having people around doesn’t make a person any less lonely if they’re not his people. I know it sounds weird, but?—”

“No, I get it,” she said, and from the understanding in her voice, I knew she really did. “I felt the exact same way for a long time. That’s why I came back here instead of staying in Scotland. I just wasn’t expecting to hear that you felt it too.”

“Neither was I,” I confessed. “I’ve known for a while now that something was missing. That something felt off. I just couldn’t put my finger on it until I got back here, but yeah. Suffice it to say that I should’ve come home a lot sooner. I regret that I didn’t and I’m willing to do anything to make it up to my family.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Sutton about my idea for the port, though. Doing that would be coming to terms with the fact that she’d be here too and I wasn’t ready to admit that part of the reason I wanted to move home was because she was here.

All these growing feelings for her were confusing the shit out of me, and I refused to base any major life decisions on them. I’d done that once before, when I’d chosen to pursue the trades right here in Portsmouth rather than to apply to college. At the time, that had also been what I’d wanted, but I couldn’t deny that Sutton still having to finish her senior year had had at least something to do with it.

Her phone beeped and she winced before she’d even looked at it. Then she gingerly scooped it up, cringing away from it like she was almost afraid of what she’d find, but her entire expression changed when she saw what it was. “Winnie! Win, come ‘ere. I just got an email from the school. It’s about the play!”

Winnie stopped the game immediately and turned so fast that sand sprayed out behind her as she raced over to us. My own breath caught as anticipation zinged through me. “Well, what’s it say? Did she get it?”

“You got it,” Sutton yelled. Her entire face smiled as she jumped to her feet and tossed her arms around her daughter. “The lead, baby. You got the lead in the Thanksgiving play!”

“That’s amazing news, Win.” I stood up, waiting for my turn to hug her. “How about I get some ice cream for everyone to celebrate?”

The twins cheered and practically tackled Winnie to the ground as they congratulated her, and I was about to head to the ice cream parlor when Winnie finally spoke up behind me. “Do you think Daddy will be happy about me getting the part? Do you think he’ll finally want to see me again?”

My heart sank and then crashed to the floor of my chest. My gaze shot to Sutton’s. Watching in horror as she held on to any restraint she had for dear life, I wished I could answer for her. Tell Winnie that her father is a fucking dickless asshole for making her feel like she has to get a role in a play for him to speak to her.

I’d known things between Sutton and Calen were bad, but I hadn’t thought very much about how the move and the divorce might’ve affected Winnie. Sure, Sutton had asked me the other day if I thought she’d made a mistake, but I honestly didn’t think she had made one.

I’d never considered Winnie’s feelings about it.

“We’ll get the ice cream,” I said, giving them a moment to talk. I motioned for the twins to come with me.

Sawyer was still happily building his castle, which meant Sutton and Winnie would be able to talk privately even if he stayed. Logan and Duncan came to buy the ice cream with me, chattering excitedly about how awesome it was that Winnie had gotten the role.

I agreed, but I hated that a seven-year-old thought she needed something like that to earn her father’s attention. It was fucked up.

After we got back to the beach, we ate our ice cream, but the mood was much less jovial than it had been before. Eventually, Sutton and Winnie took off, but before they left, I leaned down to whisper into Sutton’s ear as her daughter ran off to greet the boys.

Standing so close that my chest grazed hers on every exhale, my heart raced and squeezed at her proximity, once again alerting me to the fact that she was way more than just an old friend. I didn’t let that deter me, though “Will you meet me tonight? I want to see you again. Just to talk. Please say you’ll meet up with me tonight.”

As I waited for her response, my lungs seized and I knew then that I was in trouble. Sutton Ashbury had done it again. She’d completely ensnared me and I knew from experience that there was no quick and easy way out. I was in this thing with her all over again, and I had no way of knowing whether it could actually go the distance this time—or if she was ready to even try.