Chapter 4

4

SUTTON

I stared at the man I’d first thought I’d been hallucinating, but it was definitely him.

Hawk Brunson. My childhood confidant. My one-time best friend. My first, albeit secret, boyfriend.

As I looked at him and he looked at me, so many memories flooded my mind that it was like a tidal wave washing in and I had no way of stopping it. A seven-year-old version of him with a boyish face and laughter in his eyes trying to convince me to gut my own fish. Hawk at eleven, his features already maturing a little bit, frustrated that he couldn’t get his math homework done in ten minutes or less anymore.

And then there had been him at seventeen, with his thick dark hair hanging ever so slightly over his forehead as he leaned in to kiss me one day on his boat.

That thick dark hair was longer now but still shot through with those black and caramel streaks that made it look so much thicker. He was still handsome as hell, but his features had lost that youthful appearance and had become strong and sharp, befitting of the man he had become.

God, he’s beautiful. Or maybe ruggedly handsome is the correct term. Hawk had grown up on his father’s tugboats. He’d always been rugged, gruff, strong, and capable, and it looked like he still was.

At six and a half feet tall, he was just naturally pure muscle, and even now, his frame filled out his jeans and T-shirt in a way that told me his body was just as ripped as it’d always been. Butterflies burst to life in my stomach, my own body reacting to his, but I pursed my lips, refusing to acknowledge it any more than I already had.

As I stared at him with all those thoughts racing through my mind, he stared right back at me. Even across the distance separating us, I felt an undeniable draw to him, like the very molecules of air between us had formed an invisible chain that connected me to him.

I blinked, expecting him to disappear, but he was definitely there. I’d thought I’d seen him earlier, but I’d turned my back, and when I looked again, the man was not only still there, but he’d somehow found Winnie before I had.

Winnie, who suddenly started screaming her head off while clutching a little boy’s hand as if for dear life. “Help! Help! Somebody! We need a grownup! This man is trying to steal him!”

My eyebrows shot up and I kicked into a higher gear, shaking off this unexpected reunion to find out what the hell was going on. Racing over to them, I put myself between Hawk and the kids and arched an eyebrow at him, wishing like hell that I was looking at anything other than those cornflower blue eyes that had haunted my damn dreams for so long.

“Are you trying to steal this boy?” I asked, though I was quite sure I knew the answer.

In fact, from my run-in yesterday with Emery, I had a pretty good idea who these boys were, but these days, one couldn’t be too sure. As he held my gaze and realized I was being serious, he scoffed.

“Of course I’m not trying to steal him. He’s my nephew. He’s just too young to remember me. Emery had to take my dad to the—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “She had to be somewhere, so I came to pick them up. Seriously, Sutton? You think I’ve grown up to become a kidnapper?”

I shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

My heart was hammering as I broke eye contact with him, turning to smile at Winnie. “It’s okay, my Win. Mam knows this man. He’s not stealing your wee friend here. He’s their uncle. He’s come to take them home.”

She frowned at me. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said confidently, motioning to the playground. “Why don’t you take him to play for a minute and we can call his mam if we need to, okay?”

Winnie held my gaze before she shrugged, but the little boy refused to move. “I’m not going with him.”

I sighed, my gaze on the boy’s wide eyes and trembling shoulders. Clearly, he was shaken by the encounter. Since I knew both his mom and his uncle—who was supposedly trying to steal him—as well as his Grandpa, I felt something of an obligation to help.

Henry, Hawk’s dad, was one of my dad’s closest friends. I hadn’t met Emery’s kids yet, so they had no reason to trust me any more than they did him, but the boy reached for Winnie, obviously having decided to trust her , if not us.

It should’ve been an easy decision, but it wasn’t. I hadn’t spoken to Hawk since that night he’d come to my house to tell me he was taking Hailey James to prom even though we were supposed to have been dating at the time, and then he’d graduated in the spring.

I’d spent most of my last year of high school avoiding any mention of him. Once I had thrown my own tasseled cap into the air, I’d left Portsmouth and never looked back. Hawk was still a scar on my heart, though. He’d broken it and my trust, and seeing him again stung way worse than I thought it would.

“Mam,” Winnie said, taking the boy’s hand and then taking mine in the other. “He says he’s not going with this man.”

I inhaled a deep breath, glancing back at Hawk and realizing I could still read his face as well as if it hadn’t even been a day since I’d last seen him. He was slightly desperate and he felt guilty about it, and though his features were nothing like those of the boy I used to know, I knew he had no clue what to do about this.

Unfortunately, I did.

“Right,” I said decisively, drawing in a breath through my nostrils before I smiled at the little one. “What’s your name, lad? I mean, what’s your name, kiddo?”

I was still very much getting used to the American way of speaking, but I doubted the boy would’ve known what I was talking about had I called him lad . Maybe he would’ve. I had no idea, but kiddo seemed more familiar to me.

“Sawyer,” he said reluctantly, tears glistening in his eyes as they held mine. “My brothers are Logan and Duncan. My mommy is Emery Brunson-Marty and I really want to go home.”

“Of course.” I held out my hand for him to shake. “Well, I’m Sutton Megill, but I was born an Ashbury and this is Winnie. My daddy is David Ashbury. He’s a friend of your grandfather’s. Do you know him?”

“Yes.” The boy sniffed. “He lets me borrow books from his store sometimes.”

“That’s good to know,” I said. “I’m working at that store now too, so perhaps you and I will get to see a lot more of each other, huh? You like reading?”

He dipped his chin in a nod. “I’m learning how to, but I like the pictures.”

“That’s as good a start as any, laddie.” It slipped out before I could stop it and I sighed, but then held my free hand out to him. “I tell you what. Why don’t we all walk home together? Winnie and I live on the same street as your grandpa. Where do you live?”

“With my grandpa,” he said, eyeing me for another beat before he nodded and slid his hand into mine.

Deliberately ignoring Hawk and my rapidly pounding heart, I glanced at Emery’s other two boys. Twins, it appeared. “Are you with us?”

“We’ll get ice cream,” Winnie promised and I laughed but I didn’t contradict her.

The kids fell in line and Hawk and I walked in awkward silence, but when we got closer to downtown and Winnie started riling them up about ice cream, he suddenly spoke up. “I have to take the boys from here. Emery said they couldn’t have ice cream until they clean their rooms or something. She said she’s asked them, like, a million times.”

I chuckled before I could stop it, then averted my gaze and nodded, pulling Winnie a little closer to my side. “Say goodbye to your friends, Win. Their uncle will take them from here.”

Sawyer still seemed hesitant, but he went with his brothers, reluctantly waving goodbye to Winnie as we parted ways. As we were crossing the street, I glanced back at them to make sure Sawyer was still okay, but what I saw instead was that Hawk was looking at me. And despite my intentions of checking on his nephew, I was looking at him too, but I quickly turned away.

Gosh, for a woman who just got her heart stomped on, I sure am eager to insist it happens again. I groaned.

Hawk Brunson could be trusted for only two things, and that was hurt and disappointment. As much history as we shared and as many good times as we’d had, none of it could erase how it’d all ended. The man he’d been growing into, even back then, hadn’t been as good as the boy he’d once been. I had no more room for bad guys in my life.

Winnie, however, my fiery and observant child, was quick to point out the obvious. “Why are your cheeks so red, Mam? Who was the grumpy man who tried to kidnap Sawyer? You said you know him, but I’ve never met him. He never came to visit us in Stonehaven.”

“No, honey. He didn’t,” I conceded. “He went to school with me and he’s Emery’s brother. You’ll meet her soon. She’s Sawyer’s mom.”

“Is that like my little brother?” she asked. “The grumpy man is Sawyer’s mom’s little brother?”

“It’s similar,” I said, gutted but trying to put on a brave face. “Hawk is Emery’s older brother, though.”

Winnie had never even met her little brother, whom her father had conceived with my best friend back in Stonehaven. While still being married to me and before we’d even been separated.

It stung to even hear Winnie refer to the baby as her little brother, but I supposed that was what he was. Calen had told her about him and she was far too young to understand the complexities of the situation.

Thankfully, we got to the bookstore soon after, stopping next door to grab Winnie’s ice cream. She went off to read in the garden while I helped my dad for the rest of the afternoon. I got right back into inventorying the new stock and carefully arranging it on the shelves, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Hawk.

Eventually, when my dad came up to check out the new display, I glanced at him and the question just burst out of me. “Did you know Hawk Brunson is back in town?”

Dad paused. “No, but I’m not surprised. It’s about damn time that kid pulled his head out of his ass and came to help Henry.”

“Henry?” I frowned. “What’s wrong with him?”

Dad’s features tightened with pain. “He’s in pretty rough shape. Parkinson’s, according to Emery. He’s never talked about it to me. He’s still determined to work and all that, but it’s getting worse.”

Sorrow filled me at the thought of the man who had always been so strong, capable, and independent suffering such a crippling disease. Obviously, I didn’t know how bad it was, but I felt awful for Emery, who I assumed had been taking care of their dad alone considering my father had said that it’d been about time for Hawk to come.

I even felt a little bit bad for Hawk himself. Back in the day, he and his dad had been peas in a pod. Instead of going to college, Hawk had stayed behind to help his dad with their tugboat business, and eventually, he’d become a second captain.

The way I’d heard it, word had gotten out about his exceptional skill and he’d been recruited by a company out in California. After that, I was pretty sure I’d heard a rumor that he’d started his own shipping company and that he’d done really well.

I had no idea how much of that was true, but I didn’t plan on finding out. Hawk was probably only in town for a few days, and all I needed to do was stay the hell out of his way.