Chapter 32
Sammy
His face breaks into a smile at the question, and everything about him changes.
His shoulders come down and his hands relax.
The corners of his eyes crinkle with lines that tell me he smiles often, and I suddenly wonder what he smiles about.
Does he like jokes? What about riddles? What kind of movies does he watch, and who’s his favorite singer?
He probably likes classic rock, I think.
The kind with a lot of guitar. I bet he wears jeans and a leather jacket when he’s dressed down, though right now he’s wearing nice slacks and a sweater.
I discount the clothes because they don’t agree with the narrative I’m building.
A narrative that suddenly includes all the things I’ve been missing my whole life, starting from my first memory of my mother telling me I didn’t have a father because he hadn’t wanted to stay.
I was young at the time and didn’t know what it meant, but now that I’m looking at him, all smooth good looks and laugh lines, I wonder if he could have been that bad after all.
Maybe he just wanted to get away, or didn’t feel like he fit in Hawke’s Wood.
Maybe he thought there was a bigger world out there, and that he wanted to see it.
Maybe he never felt like he fit inside his own skin and had to go somewhere to figure out who he really was.
“You left us,” I say.
I immediately want to stuff my own fist in my mouth, because it’s a monumentally stupid thing to say to the man I’ve been wanting to meet my entire life, but it’s out of my mouth before I can stop it, and to my surprise, he’s actually smiling.
“I didn’t leave you, darling girl,” he almost purrs. “I didn’t even know you, yet.”
Technically that’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact that he left my mother. Before I was even born.
“But you left my mother, and you had to know I was coming,” I point out.
The smile on his face dims a little, like he’s somehow displeased that I’m arguing, and I start to like him a little less.
A moment later, the smile is back to full force.
“I left your mother before you arrived,” he agreed. “But it was nothing to do with you. Your mother had become violent, and I didn’t feel safe with her anymore.”
That’s a lie.
My mother was sad and mournful and sensitive to a fault.
She never would have hit anyone.
“So you left me with her?” I ask quietly, already picking apart his story.
And there it is again, that flash of displeasure at me talking back to him.
“I wanted to come back for you. I asked her again and again if I could. I wanted to see you, but she never let me.”
I don’t believe that either, though I don’t have any way to argue with him about it. I asked about my father sometimes, but not often, and when I did, my mom said she hadn’t heard from h him since the day he left. I don’t know if she was lying or not, of course. She could have been.
But when it comes to the two of them, I find that I believe her more than the man I know left both of us.
“She had to marry someone else to find someone who’d help take care of me,” I say quietly.
And now his face goes dark with thunder and sour in a way I’ve never seen before. “Barrett Hawke,” he snarls. “And that brat of his. Cameron.”
I’m so shocked that I actually jerk, because what the fuck is that reaction? Sure, it could be jealousy, but I don’t think so.
Not when he’s including Cameron in his ire.
“Obviously you’ve never met Cam,” I say, choosing the easiest augment. “No one in the history of the world has ever called him a brat. He calls me one often enough, though.”
It’s a throwaway joke, meant to lighten the mood, and I’m surprised when his face goes even darker.
“Of course he does. Because he and Bear have been misusing you from the start. Abusing you, no doubt. Getting into your head and telling you you’re not worth anything. Selling you out to the first person who came along.”
Okay, now this is getting weird.
“What?” I ask, my voice tense. “They never did anything like that.”
“Of course they did,” he says, his own voice cold. “Barrett Hawke doesn’t know how to take care of anyone but himself. And that kid of his is no better.” His eyes come to mine, now dark and fathomless. No longer friendly.
No longer smiling.
“He’s sheriff now, right? Allowed to carry a gun and everything. Supposed to protect the people. But I bet that’s not going well for him. Has to go into the office every day and plan how he’s going to watch over other people.”
I don’t think that requires an answer, so I keep my mouth shut–partially because I don’t even know what I’d say, and partially because I’m finished being enamored with this man who may or may not be my father.
This guy doesn’t sound like someone who came back to town to try to get to know me. Christ, he doesn’t even sound like he came back because he missed Wood or the forests or the mountain air.
He sounds like he came back because he hates Bear and is thinking about finding him. He also sounds fucking insane.
“You know he was in the Marines, right?” he asks suddenly. “There for some pretty important missions, actually. Commander of a special ops team. Got to run all the best missions because his supervisors thought he was so smart. Thought he was so responsible.”
I swallow heavily, my suspicions confirmed, and let my eyes travel around the room again.
This guy is here for something other than me, and I don’t know why he grabbed me or what he wants with me, but I’m starting to think it’s nothing good.
He sounds like he’s obsessed with Bear and definitely has some sort of vendetta against the man, and that’s not normal.
It’s also not safe.
His next question is abrupt. “Did you know he left men behind?”
No, I didn’t know anything like that. I knew he’d been in the Middle East with the Marines because Cam’s his son, and so got communications from the Marines themselves, and sometimes Bear. But we didn’t exactly track him, and we certainly didn’t ask for details on his missions.
If he was head of a special ops team, I’m not sure we would have been told what he was doing... or if he left men behind when he did it.
And if we didn’t know, why the hell does this man claiming to be my father have that sort of information?
His face changes again the blink of any eye, going from cold and terrifying to warm and sort of squishy, and I’m not sure which is worse, but I know I don’t trust either of them.
“That’s why I wanted to come get you. I heard he had my daughter and knew I couldn’t leave you with him. You’ll just get hurt.”
This man is insane.
Worse than insane, probably, if that’s even possible.
“He’s not hurting me,” I say quietly. “And Cameron’s my best friend.”
And I’d sell every last piece of my soul to have either one of them here right now, protecting me from the guy sitting next to me on the couch. I want Bear here standing between me and this guy, and Cameron holding my hand and telling me it’s going to be okay.
And instead, I’m here by myself because I was stupid enough to think this was just another adventure.
I tense my muscles, ready to get up and actually start running, but before I can move the guy who calls himself my father slides a stack of photos across the coffee table toward me. He meets my eye and leans back, looking like he’s delivering the fucking world or something.
“That’s him and his men in the Middle East,” he says smoothly. “Look at them.”
I look down, not sure what else to do, and see a younger, less weathered version of Bear. He’s wearing camo and some sort of harness, and his hair is much shorter than it is now. But it’s clearly him.
And given the smiles of the men around him, and how some of them are looking at him, he’s amongst friends. Men who like and trust him and look to him as their leader.
What’s this guy doing with pictures of Bear with his troops?
“They look like a solid team,” I say hesitantly.
He scoffs. “He got half of them killed.”
The statement is sharp and blunt, and whether it’s true or not, no one other than the people who were with Bear should know about that. I know nothing about the Marines and even I realize that no one should have that sort of information.
Much less be passing it around to girls they’re trying to claim as their daughter, and who they should be trying to protect.
“What are you, one of his soldiers? Did you come here for me at all? Or is this about Bear Hawke? Who are you?”
Instead of answering, he leans forward and separates one photograph from the stack in front of me, pulling it out and laying it on top with a gentle, very creepy motion. When his hand moves, I know why his action felt so intense.
So dangerous.
This isn’t a picture of Bear and his company.
It’s a picture of him leaning toward me in his patrol car, his lips close to my ear and my eyes on something in my lap. I know exactly what the photo has frozen: I was looking at a map and he was pointing something out while we tried to figure out which call to take next.
But that’s not what it looks like to anyone who wasn’t in that car with us. Anyone else would look and see him leaning toward me in an intimate and very unacceptable motion while I looked down and pretended it wasn’t happening.
It looks obscene. Abusive. Socially wrong.
And I’ve seen this picture before, when Gunner slid it across a table in the diner toward me and Cameron, saying that the council gave it to him and it proved that Bear wasn’t out of the woods yet. He’d said it came from a traffic cam, but I’d taken one look at it and thought differently.
I still do.
This is a shot that came from someone’s camera. And that means someone was watching us, taking pictures, and passing them to the council and the man in front of me.
A man who’s now asking questions about Bear’s schedule and who seems to have very strong opinions about the time Bear spent in the Middle East and what he did there.
What in the actual fuck is going on here?
“I’m Duane Price, and I’m your father. All I’m saying is he’s not who you think he is,” he says softly. “He’s not a good man. And I’m not going to let him keep you any longer, because you’re not safe as long as you’re with him.”
For a moment, I’m so shocked that I can’t move.
Christ, I can hardly think for the confusion spreading through my brain.
This man has come here, kidnapped me, and brought me to his home, but he’s more interested in talking about Bear than me.
He’s got photos of Bear from when he was in the Marines and has evidently had someone watching me–us?
–in town for an unknown period of time. He’s sent photos to the council to get Bear in trouble and is sitting here telling me that Bear is abusive and I’m not safe with him.
When the truth is this guy in front of me is the unsafe one.
I mean Bear never kidnapped me.
This guy did.
And though this man might be my father, I suddenly know that I don’t want him. I never actually wanted him.
I want the family I’ve chosen, and they’re not here. They’re in Wood, possibly still asleep, and with no fucking idea where I am or that I’m even in trouble.
Unless I tell them.
I’m up and running before the thought clears my brain, my eyes on the door and my feet pumping so fast I can hardly believe it.
I shoot through the living room and into the entry way, and then I’m bursting through the door and sprinting for the forest beyond the driveway.
I need to get to a place where I can pause for a moment and try to figure things out.
I need to find a spot where my phone gets enough coverage to get a signal.
Because Cam and Bear might not know where I am.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell them.