Chapter 11
ELEVEN
HAWK
“I was wrong.”
At the sound of the fretful feminine voice, I looked up from where I was working on assembling a bookshelf.
Joyce was standing there. And if nothing else, she looked sad, her expression matching part of what I felt inside. Extreme sadness. For me, that was mixed with the constant need to pace or be busy because I felt so conflicted.
My mind was about to wander at the mere thought of what had me feeling so mixed up inside, but I quickly stopped myself.
I wouldn’t do it again. Couldn’t do it. I’d been perfectly miserable for three days now, replaying in my mind what happened in that cake shop. I didn’t think I’d survive recalling it even one more time.
My focus needed to be on something else. So, I put all my attention on Joyce and asked, “Wrong about what?”
She didn’t hesitate. “You.”
I winced, even if I was unsure where this was heading. There was no question that Joyce caught sight of my reaction.
“I can see you’ve misinterpreted my words,” she said, her voice soft as she moved toward me. “Why do you do that, Hawk? You’re only hurting yourself when you assume the worst about every situation.”
“I don’t know, Joyce.” I shrugged. “It’s kind of hard to be disappointed if I accept that most people think the worst of me.”
“Most. Not all.” Her voice had grown firm, her stare unwavering. “And I’d think, at the very least, you’d know me well enough to know I’d never be thinking whatever it is you’ve got mixed up in your head.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” And I was because she had a point. Joyce, Dale, and the rest of the family my sister had married into had been nothing but welcoming toward me. “Can I ask what you did mean?”
She sighed. “Well, if we’re talking about flaws here, I should own up to mine. I need to confess to being a nosy old woman with a bit too much time on her hands when I’m here sometimes.”
I tipped my head to the side and assessed her, waiting for an explanation as to what this was about. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for some kind of life story, but the last thing I wanted was to appear ungrateful or hassled. Joyce and her husband had been great to me.
The problem was that I thought I’d experienced the worst of rebuilding my life years ago when nobody would hire me. Now, I knew differently. And I just needed to focus on my work so I could keep myself distracted.
“I saw you outside a couple of weeks ago on your lunch break,” she revealed.
An overwhelming sense of doom took hold of me at the realization of where this conversation was heading.
“I saw you having lunch with Chloe Cunningham, and I have to tell you that I was absolutely ecstatic. That girl is just about the sweetest there is in this town.”
Joyce wouldn’t get an argument from me on that. I’d been on the receiving end of that sweetness, even when I didn’t think I deserved it. “Yes, we had lunch together a few weeks ago.”
She jerked her chin down. “Right. Well, it seems my glee over it was all for naught. I don’t know what happened that day, but I know it wasn’t good.
It changed you, Hawk. You became even more of a shell of yourself afterward.
I wanted to ask you about it, see what I could do to help, but I didn’t think you’d respond well to that.
Then, three days ago, you ducked out of here early.
I’m not proud to admit I watched you walk down the block when you left.
I thought you were going to rectify whatever the situation was between you and Chloe. ”
“You say that like you don’t believe that’s what happened.”
Joyce sent me a disbelieving look. “Don’t insult my intelligence, young man.
You walked down to that cake shop with the weight of the world on your shoulders.
It doesn’t require a doctorate degree to see what’s staring me in the face.
For the last three days, there’s a heaviness that’s just crushing you.
You’re worse off than you were before you went. ”
I didn’t quite know what to say to her.
Of course, I was worse now than I’d been before I went there.
And for all the determination I had not to think about that day, it seemed I wasn’t going to be that lucky.
Nothing had gone as I’d expected it would. I’d anticipated arriving, sharing the truth, and being told never to step foot in that cake shop again. I’d believed she was going to ask me never to speak to her again.
It would’ve been so much easier if that had happened. I was accustomed to that reaction. I knew how to handle it, even if she was the only person who it really would’ve killed to hear it from.
Unfortunately, she didn’t respond like I thought. She did the very opposite—telling me that what happened was okay, that she understood, and that she didn’t see me as the monster that everyone else did.
Her words alone, the tenderness in her tone, had been both comforting and terrifying.
Obviously, I wanted her to see me as a good guy.
But since I hadn’t had anyone besides my sister, her husband, and her in-laws willing to give me a chance for the last twelve years of my life, I didn’t know what to do with the reaction I received in that cake shop.
I grew even more conflicted about what to do when she wrapped her arms around me and held on.
Years.
God, whole years of never having anyone but my sister hug me like that.
It was overwhelming and wonderful and dreadful all at the same time.
I slipped up, caught up in how good it felt, and I experienced a moment of weakness when I gave in, engulfed her in my arms, and allowed myself to imagine what it’d be like to have that, with her, every day for the rest of my life.
Warmth. Comfort. Peace.
That was all I felt. And it was the single best experience of my life over the last twelve years.
Until it wasn’t.
Until I realized what a mistake I was making.
Until I recognized that I was only making things harder for both of us by succumbing to that sweetness.
So, I did what I had to do to put a stop to it, to end it. And when those tears pooled in her eyes, I knew I had to get out of there. If she broke down, I wouldn’t be able to leave her.
Leaving her like that, telling her I wasn’t interested, and suggesting she forget she ever knew me was easily the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
As Joyce had clearly noticed, it had destroyed me to do that to her. And I was now a shell of a man who couldn’t stop thinking about that day.
Returning my attention to Joyce, I said, “It’s complicated.”
“Is it?” she countered. “I think it’s only complicated if you allow it to be. From where I’m standing and what I can only guess is going on between you and Chloe, there’s a very simple solution.”
I shook my head. “There isn’t. Trust me.”
“Hawk, there is. It’s attraction, happiness, and peace. And you’re doing neither of you any favors by rejecting what your heart wants most.”
Struggling to swallow, to breathe, I looked away and attempted to rein in my emotions. “If I even think about giving in, I’ll destroy her. She doesn’t understand that her entire livelihood is at stake. How can you expect me to take that from her?”
“You don’t know that anything of the sort would happen,” Joyce argued.
“She deserves far better than me.”
“Who says?”
After everything I’d been through, all that I’d done, I really was lucky to have gotten my freedom back and my sister in my life again. That I’d gotten my nephew, my brother-in-law, his parents and sister, and Joyce and Dale was far more than I ever thought I’d have in my life.
They’d all been good to me. And I was grateful.
So, as I stood here with Joyce, listening to her fight for something for me that I knew I couldn’t have, I understood I was lucky.
That’s why I offered a smile. “You know it’s true.
You know that if I decide to be selfish and start something with her, people will eventually find out.
And when they do, it could damage the life she’s built. I won’t ruin that for her.”
Joyce pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.
I was certainly doing a great job of agitating her.
“The problem here is that you think there’s something wrong with you, Hawk.
There isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with you.
If people can’t see what you did twelve years ago as a tragic accident resulting from fierce love for the sister you practically raised, that’s their problem.
You did what you did. You can’t go back and change it, and you served your time. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
I bowed my head slightly. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Joyce. Really, I do. Unfortunately, I see the looks when I’m just walking down the street. Six months of trying to find a job when I got out and having nobody willing to hire me tells me that I haven’t quite done all my time yet.”
“But Chloe doesn’t look at you like that,” Joyce reasoned. When I said nothing in response, she sighed. “I saw enough when she had lunch with you outside a few weeks ago. Chloe looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars.”
My throat grew unbearably tight. I knew the look Joyce was referring to. In another life, I’d have done anything to have a woman look at me like that. Things were so very different now, though.
“I wish you could see the harm you’re doing to both of you.” The forcefulness was out of her tone. It had been replaced by resignation.
“I’m giving her what I can, Joyce. I’m giving her peace.”
“You’re robbing her.”
My body jerked back. “What?”
She narrowed her eyes on me, and if I didn’t know better, she was the picture-perfect image of a woman scorned. “You’re robbing Chloe of the opportunity to know a loving, caring, hardworking, and protective man.”
At the mention of me being protective, my mind flashed to that scene outside the cake shop three days ago. What if I hadn’t shown up when I did? What might that man have done to her?
In broad daylight, too. Would she have suffered a similar fate to my sister?
Knowing it wouldn’t help my mood, I shook off the thoughts. “I understand what you’re trying to do here, Joyce, but I—”
“You’re robbing yourself, too,” she barked, pointing her finger at me.
“You’re robbing yourself of the privilege of having a good woman in your life.
You’re refusing to open your eyes to the possibility of being looked after in the ways that matter.
The things that woman could do to your heart, Hawk…
You don’t know what you’re giving up. If you took a gamble, if you gave Chloe and yourself the chance to explore something, I know you’d both find something extraordinary. ”
What was I supposed to say to that?
Of course, it sounded wonderful. I’d have loved nothing more than to have the chance to find something extraordinary. But it wasn’t as easy as Joyce was making it seem.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “I’ve had my mind made up for years.”
Her features softened. “I know you have. But you’re allowed to change your mind.
There’s no arguing that your life has been filled with a lot of darkness.
But think about it, Hawk. Think about Chloe.
That woman… That woman is as bright as the sun.
And I think you could use a little light in your life. ”
With those words, Joyce smiled, turned, and walked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a bookshelf that needed to be built.
I’d done enough thinking for a lifetime, so I faced that bookshelf and got to work. Unsurprisingly, as I did, thoughts of getting a bit of sunshine crept into mind.