Saturday morning
Hawk could tell when he entered the living room that Miley was going to need those antibiotics Prim had called in the night before. Her cheeks and ears were flushed, and she looked miserable. The jagged cut on her arm must’ve gotten infected.
He wasn’t surprised, considering how dirty she’d been when he’d discovered her hiding in his workshop.
“I’ll head to the pharmacy,” he announced gruffly as he strode to the door in his sock feet. He stepped into the boots he’d left sitting there. “I should be back in less than an hour.”
“You’ll need my ID.” Miley produced her driver’s license and waved it at him.
He motioned for her to zing it his way, and she did.
She watched the effortless way he caught it and looked impressed. “Do you have any food besides cookies in this place?” She was standing at the bar with a fresh glass of water, swallowing more pain meds. The blanket he and Clint had covered her with last night was draped around her shoulders. The open lid of the cookie box told him she’d had the sense not to take her pain meds on an empty stomach. Good girl. Someone had raised her right.
He pointed at the pantry and fridge. “Yep, and anything you find is fair game.” He had a better idea, though. “Want me to bring you back a hot breakfast?”
Her feverish eyes widened. “I would kill for a breakfast burrito right now!”
He shook his head at her. “No offense, but you don’t look up to killing more than a gnat this morning.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I choose to be offended, anyway.”
Relief made him smirk. Despite her fever, her sense of humor remained intact.
Before leaving the cabin, he hauled out an electronic tablet he rarely used. It wasn’t even password protected. He set it on the bar in front of her. “We need a way of reaching each other, so pick an app.”
“Aww, you’re giving me internet privileges?” she mocked. “I feel twelve again.” She didn’t hesitate to tap out a URL address with one hand and pulled up a common messenger application. “If you try to slap any parental controls on my account, I’m outta here.”
It was an idle threat. They both knew it. To save her pride, he graced her words with a snort as he reached around her to type in his user name. “There. Now you can send me a friend request.”
“We have to be friends, too?” she whined, tapping out a friend request. “The next thing you know, you’ll be?—”
“Bringing you a breakfast burrito,” he interrupted, glaring at her as he pulled out his cell phone to accept her friend request and send her a text message. Fortunately, he already had the app installed. “It’s rough all over, kid. Welcome to adulthood.” Her rocky journey to her eighteenth birthday made his heart ache.
She read his message. “This is a test? That’s all you have to say to your newest, coolest friend?”
He sent her an emoji of a gnat as he headed for the door.
“That’s not funny,” she snarled.
Yeah, it is. He shut the door in her face and swung himself into his pickup parked out front. Someday, he was going to build a garage or a carport. Until then, his beater of a truck would remain out in the elements. It was an ancient black Chevy with rust around the edges and hail damage on the hood. Nothing anyone would envy or be overly anxious to steal, but it ran well. That’s all that really mattered to him.
He set his course for downtown Heart Lake, waving two fingers at the gate attendant as he exited the rez. The rez police department had finally hired a couple of security guys to help out at the front gate. He didn’t know how the council had scrounged up the funds, but it was about time. They didn’t have the manpower to do everything themselves.
The pharmacy Prim had called Miley’s prescription into had a drive-through window, so it didn’t take him long to get what he came for. It probably helped that he’d called ahead and told them he was coming.
His favorite local diner was The Hitching Post, and it didn’t have a drive-through. Since it was Saturday, the parking lot was jam-packed. He parked on the street and wove his way past the line waiting to be seated. The to-go counter had a much smaller line. He was able to place his order pretty quickly.
“Got a sick teenager at home.” Hoping the news would make them speed up his order, he raised his debit card to swipe it.
“Sorry to hear it.” The clerk sounded sympathetic. “Girl or boy?”
“Girl.” Hawk paused in mid-swipe, not sure what difference it made, but what did he know? The clerk didn’t look much older than Miley.
She smiled gleefully. “You’re gonna wanna add a frappe to your order. Trust me.”
“A what?” He stared blankly at her.
“A coffee shake.” She rolled her eyes at him like he was the dumbest person on the planet.
“Sure. Whatever.” He gestured at her to ring it up.
She hovered her finger over the appropriate button on her touch-screen. “What flavor?”
“Good question, er…” He blew out a breath. “She likes chocolate chip cookies.”
The clerk chuckled and punched a few buttons. “Chocolate it is. One of those never-fail flavors.”
If you say so. When Hawk finally swiped his debit card, he was aghast to note that the coffee shake had nearly doubled the price of his order.
“My daughter loves all those froo-froo drinks,” a husky female voice piped up near his elbow.
Hawk turned his startled gaze to the stranger seated at the bar. She was wearing a wrinkled uniform emblazoned with the logo of a dry cleaning company he didn’t recognize.
As their gazes clashed, he stood riveted. The woman was an older version of Miley. It was the only way to describe her. Her tousled blonde hair was tucked into the same ponytail, and loose strands dangled in front of the same shell-shaped ears. She had a similar sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and she was as painfully thin as her daughter.
“You have a daughter, too, huh?” Her hands were cupped around a mug of black coffee, and there was an agonized glint in her sapphire blue eyes that tore straight to his heart.
“Actually, she’s not mine.” Before he could say anything else, a waitress sauntered over to them and slid a to-go box in front of Miley’s mom.
“Sorry, ma’am. We don’t have any openings right now, but my boss said your breakfast is on us.”
It sounded like she was job hunting. Admiration for her welled inside Hawk. He leaned her way to draw her attention back to him, hoping to erase some of the pain in her eyes with what he said next. “The kid I’m bringing breakfast to is an eighteen-year-old spitfire I found hiding in my workshop yesterday.” Without dropping her gaze, he pointed toward the rez on the south side of town. “On the rez a few miles down the road.”
The woman’s eyes glazed over, and she swayed on her stool.
“You must be Annalee Gilbert.” He placed a steadying hand beneath her elbow.
Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “You found my daughter, didn’t you?”
She looked ready to implode on herself. In the midst of her crumbling, however, a sheen of steel pushed through. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Take me to her!” It was a command, not a request.
Her show of strength amazed him. Not only did someone want her dead, she was a woman who’d recently awakened from a coma. She was far from full strength. However, her only concern was for her daughter.
“Don’t make me beg,” she rasped.
“I won’t.” Fearing she was about to fall off her stool, he kept his hand beneath her elbow. “Just hang tight until her breakfast burrito arrives.” He quickly filled her in about the cut on Miley’s arm that had gotten infected. “She’s been properly stitched up,” he assured, “and our P.A. on the rez called in a prescription for antibiotics. I just finished picking them up from the pharmacy.”
Annalee’s lips parted on a whimper of gratitude. “I-I’ll pay you back,” she blurted. “For everything. Just as soon as?—”
“I’m sure you will.” He waved away the rest of her words, unsure if she had a penny to her name at the moment. His food arrived shortly afterward.
On the short drive to his cabin, Annalee recounted the hit-and-run accident she’d been involved in as best she could, though the details surrounding it sounded like they were still fuzzy. “I was in a coma for a few weeks, but I called my daughter as soon as I woke up. A stranger answered her cell phone, claiming she’d taken my life as a ransom. Isn’t that the weirdest thing you’ve ever heard?”
Though it wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d ever heard, it was close. Working for a security firm meant he got to see weird things nearly every day.
Annalee’s eyes grew damp as he drove them through the checkpoint. “My late husband still has family here,” she murmured brokenly. “His dad’s brother, if he’s still alive.”
“He is.” Hawk was happy to affirm that bit of information for her. “Miley told me about him. He was the one she was looking for when she hitchhiked her way here.”
“Hitchhiked?” Annalee gaped at him. Then she dissolved into damp laughter. “What a stinker!”
“Like mother, like daughter.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m assuming you arrived the same way?”
“Yep. In the passenger seat of a cattle transport trailer. Go ahead.” She made a rueful sound. “Tell me I’m an awful parent.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” He found her reckless bravery nothing short of impressive. But like he’d done with her daughter, he resorted to humor to lighten the tone of their conversation. “I have two very resourceful ladies on my hands. I’m starting to feel outnumbered.”
Annalee drew a shuddery breath. “Fair warning. What you’ve seen so far is nothing. Miley is a force to be reckoned with when she’s not sick or injured.”
He could easily believe that since the kid was a force to be reckoned with while she was sick and injured.
“She has her stepdad to thank for her resilience.” Annalee sniffled damply. “May he rest in peace.”
Her grief sounded much fresher than Hawk had been expecting. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept silent as he drove up to his cabin and parked on the grass in front of his porch.
“Stay behind me,” he instructed as he led her to the front door. He balanced the to-go boxes and bag of meds with one arm as he unlocked it. Then he reached for the frappe.
Annalee silently handed it to him before he stepped across the threshold. The only thing she was left holding was the Styrofoam cup containing her to-go coffee.
Miley sent him a blurry-eyed look from the sofa. As her gaze landed on the frappe, she straightened beneath the blanket she was huddled under.
“You’re my hero.” Her whole face lit up as she greedily reached for it.
He decided on the spot that it was the best money he’d ever spent. Blocking her view of her mother with his shoulders, he deposited the to-go boxes beside her wallet on the end table. “You’re cold.” He glanced worriedly around the room for another spare blanket, but there wasn’t one in sight. Since it was June, he’d folded away most of his winter stuff on the top shelf in his bedroom closet. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let that teenybopper clerk talk me into a coffee shake after all.”
“Are you kidding?” Miley lifted the straw to her mouth. “This is the best medicine ever! It’ll lower my fever from the inside out.” She took her first sip, and another shiver worked its way through her.
With a grunt of concern, he dropped the bag holding her prescription in her lap. “Your driver’s license is in the bag.” Before he loped off to fetch another blanket, he neatly swiped her frappe out of her hands.
She made a grab for it. “What are you—?” Her words froze in her mouth as he stepped aside, revealing the woman who’d been standing silently behind him. “Mom?” A guttural sob tore out of her.
If Hawk hadn’t caught Annalee’s cup of coffee, it would’ve splatted on his floor. Watching the two women collapse into each other’s arms was one of the most satisfying things he’d ever witnessed.
He felt richly blessed for the small part he’d played in their reunion. They still had an uphill battle to get the justice they deserved, but at least they were together again. It was a fight they would face shoulder to shoulder.
All three of us.
It felt like Annalee and Miley had crossed his path for a reason — like God Himself had put them there. He couldn’t have explained it to anyone if he’d tried, but it didn’t make it any less true.