Chapter 5

5

HAWK

S itting around the dinner table that night, Logan and Duncan were telling Emery about our afternoon. They sat side by side, effortlessly finishing each other’s sentences with big, goofy grins on their faces.

“Can you believe it?” Logan said.

“Sawyer thought Uncle Hawk was there to kidnap him,” Duncan supplied.

“It was so funny, Mom,” Logan chimed in.

“Hilarious,” Duncan agreed. “This little girl just started screaming.”

“And then her mom ran over to help,” Logan added. “She even asked Uncle Hawk if he was there to kidnap Sawyer.”

“I said no,” I volunteered, giving Sawyer, now happily sitting between his mom and his grandpa, a friendly smile. “We’re okay now though, right, bud?”

He dipped his chin in a nod but didn’t say anything, evidently still shy of me. That was okay, though. I would work on it.

Emery reached out to ruffle his hair and sent me a bit of a glare. “It serves you right since you haven’t been back to visit in so long that he has no idea who you even are.”

I inhaled a deep breath through my nostrils. “I’m here now. Let’s just leave it at that.”

She rolled her eyes, still not particularly pleased about having me home despite having begged me to come, but I also really didn’t blame her. Having spent some time with the boys around the house this afternoon, I’d learned that she not only took care of all of them and ran our father’s business, but she also did all the maintenance on the property by herself, did all the cooking, cleaning, and household admin, and had even fixed the roof last month.

Later, she and I would talk about why she hadn’t called when it had needed fixing. Or when any of the other maintenance had to be done. She knew damn well I would have paid someone to come do it for her, but this wasn’t the time or place for that conversation.

“I’m glad that little girl stood up for you,” Emery was saying to Sawyer when I refocused on their conversation. “Is she your friend?”

The boy shrugged before he nodded. “She’s a new friend. Her name is Winnie.”

“Her mommy said she knows you,” Duncan told her, his head tilting slightly. “She also said her daddy is friends with Grandpa.”

“Oh?” Emery frowned. “What’s her name?”

“Sutton,” Logan said, and immediately, my sister shot me a look that made me want to leave the table.

Of course, Emery knew all about Sutton and me. All through our childhood, we’d been best friends, but our relationship had changed in high school. I still couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment I’d realized that she was a girl, and a hot one at that, but it hadn’t taken me long to start seeing her as a lot more than just a friend.

It turned out that she had developed those same feelings for me, and our friendship had quickly become a secret relationship. Or a not-so-secret one since Emery had caught us kissing a time or two.

As she looked at me now, I knew she was wondering what had happened in the end. I’d never told her why Sutton had stopped speaking to me, but I didn’t intend on telling her now either. Emery was pissed enough at me as it was. I wasn’t about to give her even more ammunition.

“Sutton, huh?” she finally said, giving me one final warning of a look before smiling at her boys. “Uncle Hawk and I both know her. We grew up with her. She used to live right down the street. I think she’s living there again now.”

As she shared some of our antics from back in the day with her boys, I finished the meal she’d prepared, then waited for the rest of them to finish as well before I started collecting the dishes. Emery rose to help me, but I shook my head at her.

“Sit,” I insisted. “I’ll do it.”

She arched an eyebrow at me, but then a grateful smile spread on her lips and she settled back in. After dinner though, it was like all hell broke loose in the house for an hour. The sudden burst of activity confused me at first while I did the dishes, but then I realized this was normal for them at this time of day.

“I want everyone’s shoes in their bedrooms,” Emery yelled as the boys thundered upstairs. “I’m not spending twenty minutes tomorrow morning looking for them. Also, Dunc! It’s Logan’s turn in the shower first tonight.”

Laughter filtered down the stairs, but I could still hear them running around up there, their footsteps as hard as if a herd of wild buffalo had been released into our home. “Sawyer, remember that you’ve got music at school tomorrow, so Mommy’s only going to pick you up after that. Duncan, it’s baseball day. Please remember your bat this time. And Dad?”

Our father didn’t answer and I heard Emery sigh. “Daddy?”

“Yes?” he finally called from his study.

“You need to approve the Mecer Cruising quote tomorrow, okay?” she said. “Oh, and before I forget, Logan?”

“Yeah!”

“Put the permission slip for next week’s class trip in your bag. Now, please. It’s in the kitchen. I signed it for you.”

As the boys grabbed their showers and Emery helped Sawyer in the bath, I was more in awe of my sister than ever. I’d thought my life was busy, but this was ridiculous.

A little while later, the whirlwind was over and the boys—and Dad—were in bed. I grabbed one of the beers I’d bought earlier, taking it out on the porch with me and sitting down on Dad’s chair outside.

Emery joined me, exhaling deeply as she sat down with a beer of her own in hand. My sister’s blue eyes were red-rimmed and tired, her hair sticking up a little and droplets of sweat on her brow after the exertion of their nighttime routine.

“Is it always like this?” I asked, leaning back in the chair and looking out at our immaculately kept front lawn and the quiet street beyond.

I really had no idea when my sister even had time for gardening, but clearly, she didn’t need sleep.

Emery chuckled. “Tonight was a good night. You should see the bad ones. I’m pretty sure you’ll change your mind about the hotel if you do.”

I laughed, my head shaking, and sipped my beer. Our porch overlooked the port a couple blocks away. As I watched the lights of the ships on the water, I finally decided to just ask her. “Are you okay? You seem really angry at me.”

“I am,” she admitted, but then she sighed. “Not at you, really. Life took you away from here and that’s okay. I think I’m just jealous that you get to leave this little shit show of ours behind at the end of your visit.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I promised her. “You didn’t tell me it was this bad.”

“It’s not,” she said finally. “Really. It’s not as bad as it seems. We’re all happy generally. These last couple weeks have just been crazy. Did you get to talk to Sutton today?”

I sighed. “Smooth transition, but no. Not really. She kind of just took off with her kid and completely ignored that I was even there.”

Emery nodded slowly, blowing out a deep breath before taking a sip of her beer. “Well, she’s been through a lot. Maybe dealing with you on top of everything else was just too much for her.”

“What do you mean?” I frowned as I glanced at her. “What has she been through, and what’s she doing here anyway? I thought she was in the United Kingdom.”

“She was,” Emery said, her voice softening with sympathy. “I don’t know the whole story, but we had coffee together at the bookstore yesterday. It turns out she recently got divorced.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “It sounds like her ex-husband basically abandoned her and their daughter when the woman he was having an affair with got pregnant.”

“What?” My eyebrows shot up. I knew I sounded like a broken record, but damn. “He had an affair?”

She nodded. “With her best friend over there. Sutton’s ex and this woman had their baby and he chose his new family over them.”

Horrified didn’t even begin to describe it. My heart slammed against my ribs as an irrational stab of rage shot through me. “What the fuck was he thinking?”

Emery shrugged. “I don’t know that he was. I suppose all men use the heads in their pants more often than the ones on their shoulders.”

I scoffed. “Thanks.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Are you really telling me that you don’t?”

I sighed. “I didn’t get rich using my dick, but go ahead and keep generalizing. Besides, we weren’t talking about me. Do you think Sutton means to stay in Portsmouth?”

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t imagine her stuck in her parents’ house, raising a child alone. I’d always pictured her living overseas, working as an archaeologist or something and traveling around the beautiful Scottish countryside with her perfect husband and child in tow.

This was not that.

“I think she is going to stay here, but give her some space, will you?” my sister asked, interrupting my thoughts. “I mean it, Hawk. Just stay away from her, okay?”

“Why would you think I wouldn’t give her space? It’s not like I’m still interested in her or anything like that. It’s been years.”

“Yeah, but a connection like yours doesn’t just go away. I’m sure it’s still there. I always thought you two were soulmates. I was obviously wrong, but still. She really doesn’t need anything else piled onto her right now.”

Hearing that my sister had thought that Sutton was my soulmate did something to me. As an eternal bachelor, the concept of soulmates hadn’t been on my radar for a long, long time, but as I sipped my beer and watched the boats moving in and out of the port, I wondered about it.

A tugboat pulled a cargo ship out to sea, and I thought about how close I’d been to going in that direction for work. I missed it sometimes. To this day, being a second pilot—AKA a captain—was in my blood. Between that and the concept of a soulmate at the fore of my mind, I couldn’t help wondering what my life would’ve been like if I’d made different decisions.

I was living the high life in Los Angeles, but being back here living the slow seaside life and drinking a beer on the porch with my sister was messing with my head. Any other night, I would have been in some club, even though it had been getting stale, but I was surprisingly content right now, and that wasn’t something I had been expecting to feel.