Chapter 17
Bear
I walk into that council meeting knowing that this is going to be the end of my time in Wood.
I don’t like it. I want to fight it. Scream and shout and yell about how unfair it is that I’ve spent my whole life loving this town like it’s built into my heart, and that they’re still so intent on hating me. But I won’t.
Because at the end of the day, the sad truth is that I understand why they can’t support me. Gunner was the first one born, and he’s who the town expected a Hawke boy to be. Strong. Steady. Solid. Always making the right choices and taking care of the people around him.
And I was never that person. I was artsy and flighty, always playing pranks and laughing too loudly for the adults around me.
I wanted to fly off the edges of cliffs and climb trees to admire the views around me, rather than cutting them down.
I wanted art and dreams and love, so I never managed to keep my feet on the ground.
And when it came to being solid or dependable for the people who were counting on me. ..
Well, we all know how that turned out. And this town never forgave me for running.
But I walk in with my shoulders straight and my chin up, the way I learned to do when I first ran to the Marines. My emotions are locked behind a mask, and I’ve got my most charming smile ready and waiting. I’m going to stand up for myself. I can’t do anything else.
And if they tell me I have to go anyhow...
Well, it won’t be the first time.
Ahead of me, I see a raised stage–this is the hall they also use for the school plays and any big banquets in town–and on that stage, a long table with five chairs behind it.
Someone has gathered a number of flags, from country to state to town, and those stand behind the chairs.
Each spot has a stack of files in front of it, like they’ve got multiple cases on trial, and the whole thing is very official.
Though I know it’s all been done just for me.
This is, after all, a meeting they’ve called specifically to tell me I’ve done something wrong.
Moments after I enter, five men file onto the stage, solemn and serious, and I watch them carefully, naming them as they enter. Four of them are good men, and I breathe a sigh of relief at that. They might not be allies, exactly, but they’re not enemies, either.
The fifth man, though, archie banker, is trouble.
Archie has been in this town longer than I’ve been alive, head of the local bank–I know, how convenient–and he’s old enough that I’m surprised he’s still doing community service.
The man has to be seventy if he’s a day, and I’ve never known him to be anything but mean.
He’s the man who yells at kids for riding bikes on the sidewalks and lectures parents about their kids needing to be more disciplined.
He’s never had kids of his own, but has always been too free with criticism for the ones who lived in town.
When we were young, my best friend and I used to spend our weekends planning pranks to pull on him. Hell, at one point I had a gang of five other kids who helped me harass Archie.
I wonder suddenly if he knows I did that, and when he looks at me like he’s trying to stab me with his eyes, I think he probably does.
Terrific.
I’m thirty-eight and going to pay the price for things my fourteen-year-old self did.
That’s some fucking karma for you.
“Bear Hawke,” Archie says harshly. “You’re here because we’ve been getting complaints about your services as sheriff, and we’re reviewing your suitability for the job.”
Wow.
Is this a job review or a fucking trial?
The proceedings move quickly from there, the men quickly agreeing on their reason for being here and moving on to the charges: Too much violence in town, evidently, and a question about whether I’m able to handle things.
Then they give me what they’ve come up with as a solution: Me no longer holding the position, obviously.
And in that moment, all the strength I thought I walked in here with starts to crumble.
Yes, I’ve been expecting this, and yes I know there’ve been fights in town lately, but Christ, I’ve been doing the best I can with a job that I never wanted in the first place and had shoved down my throat because my own brother won’t give me a position with his business.
I’ve just been released from the Marines with a discharge that restricts my possibilities, and I have so few choices right now that this job has actually been a God send.
It gives me a salary and lets me live in the house I already own, in a town that’s my birthright.
And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m here with family, and that means something.
Sure, they’re a couple of teenagers who can barely stand to look at me, but they’re still my family, and that means something, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
I pull it together for long enough to hear Archie listing the ‘evidence,’ which is made up of time stamp after time stamp of things going wrong in town–with guesses as to where I was when these things happened.
Too many of those guesses are right, and this makes me suddenly suspicious.
What were they doing, tracking my whereabouts 24/7?
Were they actually watching me? And if they were, why didn’t they let me know when something was going on that required my attention?
The system as it stands is that someone has to call a report into the sheriff’s office and then wait for me to get to the place where that report is sitting and waiting.
It can take a whole day before I can respond to something, and a lot of times, that’s not good enough.
If someone has been keeping their eye on the town as closely as those time stamps feel, why the fuck weren’t they including me in it?
Were they... gathering evidence against me rather than doing what was best for the townspeople?
What’s more, at least 75 percent of the reports have happened in the past two weeks, and involve outsiders. The tourists who are in town at the strangest time or that biker gang that’s been squatting in town.
Before they arrived, we didn’t have any problems.
And now that they’re here, I’m on some sort of crazy small-town trial run by a man whose house I once spray painted with dicks, because that was what he was.
This can’t be real. This must be some sort of alternate timeline. Or I’m in a dream and I’ll wake up any second.
Only I don’t. Instead of waking up, I keep listening to the list of accusations and watching the men on the stage, waiting for one of them to come to his senses and realize how crazy this is.
Instead of that, though, Archie turns to me and says bluntly, “In short, Hawke, things have been worse in this town since you’ve been made sheriff.
I realize you’re part of an important family and that you have a history in this town, but you’ve spent much of your life running away from the people who depended on you here.
You’ve been an embarrassment as a citizen and as a sheriff, and it’s this council’s recommendation that you be fired from the position.
We’ll take it to the public aspect of this meeting, of course, but I have to say that I doubt even your family will stand up for you on this account. ”
The statement actually takes me breath away.
It’s so pointed, so blatantly cruel, that even if I wanted to respond, I don’t think I’d have the words to do it.
And it’s all so horribly, so cruelly familiar.
The building falls silent, and I suddenly realize that the building is full. I’m standing in front of the stage and hadn’t been paying attention, but now that I am, I can feel all the people behind me. I clock their stares on my backs and feel the suspense of the moment.
Christ, I can hear them barely breathing as they wait to see what’s going to happen.
And I know that none of them is going to speak up for me, because the people who were my friends aren’t here anymore, and Gunner has dictated that the family isn’t going to stand up for me.
I haven’t done enough to interact with the people in town since I got back, too afraid of their judgement, and those who might have spoken out for me have been told not to.
Then a voice echoes through the horrible silence, bright and clear and shining like the moon on a soft, rounded cheek.
“If you’re looking for someone to speak up for him, you’re looking for me.”
The statement sucks all the air from the room and I turn, my heart in my throat and my skin buzzing.
Because I recognize that voice.
And when I come to a stop, staring at the people seated in the back of the room, I see Sammy Price standing on a chair in the back of the room so she’s tall enough to see over the heads of the people in front of her.
And next to her, holding her hand, is Cameron.
My fucking son. And my stepdaughter.
“What?” Archie barks out from the stage.
Sammy lifts her brows and shoots him a look that, by rights, should strike him dead on the spot.
“This man grew up here. He’s part of the town.
Hell, he’s been here so long I don’t even know if the town will survive without him.
His family started this town, and he knows every single person in here.
And you’re just going to kick him out? You think you have any reason for that? You think you have the right?”
“Listen, girl–”
“Archie!”
Cameron’s voice is a whiplash, a warning. A thunderclap of sound that silences Archie immediately, and I’m shocked. I’ve never heard Cameron speak in anything more than an evenhanded, rational tone of voice, but the anger behind that one word is enough to stop anyone in their tracks.
“You’ll speak to her with respect, old man,” he continues. “She has something to say, and she’s got a right to say it.”
“And you’ll speak to me with respect,” Archie snaps back. “I’m a fucking elder in this town!”
Right, that’s enough of this.
“And he’s my fucking son, old man,” I say coldly. “He’s a Hawke. So, you’ll treat him with the respect he deserves.”
If I thought the room was quiet before, I didn’t have a fucking clue. The place is a vacuum of sound now, a breath held by everyone here, and I’m surprised any of us can still breathe.
They didn’t expect me to claim Cam as my own.
I didn’t fucking expect Sammy and Cam to stand up and claim me as theirs.
One of the other men on stage takes over, now, and says quietly, “Sammy, continue please.”
She nods once, like the little queen she is, and looks around at the audience.
“I’ve lived here my entire life, and this town means more to me than anything else in the world.
I would die before I let anything bad happen here.
So, you can believe when I say that I’ll make sure he’s treating this town right.
I’ll make sure he has our best interests at heart.
You can trust him. I know you can. But if you don’t believe that, you can put it on me. I’ll watch him.”
“And me,” Cameron adds. “For the times when Sammy stops paying attention.”This brings a murmur of laughter to the people, who evidently know Sammy as well as Cameron does, and I breathe out some of the breath I’ve been holding.
But Archie isn’t done yet. “Sammy, he deserted you and Cameron when you were young,” he says. “I don’t see why you’d stand up for him now, after everything he’s done.”
She stares at the man like he’s a bug under her shoe, her tiny frame drawn up to her full height and her hand clasped in Cameron’s, and for the first time, I see how fucking strong that girl is.
Five foot nothing and flighty as the wind in the trees, she’s suddenly all fire and solid rock, her jaw set and her eyes flashing.
“Because he’s ours,” she says simply.
Ours.
Ours.
My knees almost collapse at that, because it’s so unexpected. A bright, shining sun in a dark sky I’ve spent my life trying not to look at.
Ours.
When her eyes come to mine, glowing silver lights in the night, my heart is suddenly too big for my body. And when I see Cameron standing with her, supporting her in this despite everything, it grows even bigger.
I don’t understand why they’re supporting me right now. I don’t know what’s going through their minds or how they’ve explained this to me after everything I’ve done.
But I swear to God, in that moment, that I’ll spend the rest of my life thanking them for it. The rest of my life proving to them that I am who they think I am.
I’ll be better than I’ve ever been.
Because Sammy and Cameron are my family, and they just told the world that they believe in me.