Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
HAWK
My body wakes at four like it always does, ready to spring out of bed. But for the first time in years, I tell it to rest.
The sky in the window is still charcoal. And there's a redhead asleep on my chest with her hand curled over my heart like she's holding it down so it can't get away.
I live alone on a mountain on purpose. I get one mug out at a time and sleep in a huge bed I've never once thought of as half empty. Now there's a dress over my chair and small high-heeled shoes by my door. The king bed feels like it was waiting for her all along, and I never noticed.
I should let her sleep. Watching the window go from charcoal to gray, my head is full of thoughts I’ve got no business having after only one night.
If she’d let me build her a closet for her stuff in this bedroom.
Install a bigger oven so we both can bake.
And how a man asks a woman to move up a mountain without scaring her senseless.
Taryn stirs against me somewhere past dawn.
She makes a small sound, burrows in closer, and her thigh slides over mine.
My cock goes from interested to rock hard and aching in about a second flat.
I keep still. This whirlwind of a girl cooked for most of the town and danced half the night away. She's earned her sleep.
Taryn tips her head back and looks at me with one eye open. “You're awake.”
“Usually am, this hour.”
She stretches against me, slow and deliberate, and there's nothing sleepy about the look she gives me when she's done. “I’m not working today.”
“I know.”
“So we're not in any hurry?” She rolls over, putting her back to my chest, and reaches behind her to guide my arm around her waist. Then she presses that soft round ass against me, right where I'm hardest, and sighs like she's settling in for more sleep.
“Sunshine.” My voice is gruff.
“Mm-hmm?”
“You're playing with fire.”
“I'm so cold,” she says, innocent as you please. “You run hot. I'm just being practical.”
I slide my hand down her belly and between her thighs. She's already wet, and the small sound she makes when my fingers reach her goes straight through me.
“Practical,” I whisper against her ear.
“Very.” Her breath hitches as I circle her clit, slow, the way I learned last night she likes best. “I'm a very... oh... practical woman.”
I take my time. Her body warms and loosens against mine while I work her with my fingers and kiss the back of her neck. She rocks into my hand, greedy, her fingers digging into my forearm, and when she comes it's with a long shaking sigh, her whole body melting back into me.
“Hawk.” She reaches back and hooks her hand around my hip. “Now. Just like this.”
I lift her top thigh over mine and slide into her from behind, both of us groaning. We settle into a long lazy rhythm in the morning light, her hand guiding mine back between her legs, my mouth on her shoulder.
“Still with me?” I ask.
“Yes.”
She comes again and the sweet clenching of her tight pussy pulls me right over after her. I come inside her with my arm locked around her waist, holding on.
“So that's what mornings are for,” she says, dazed, then giggles. “I always wondered.”
I make breakfast while she showers. Fried eggs and toast. She eats hungrily, with her whole attention focused on the food, and then she picks up her coffee mug and turns it in her hands. It's one of mine, glazed deep blue, a little lopsided at the lip.
“These are beautiful. Where'd you buy them?”
“Didn't. I made them.”
She looks from the mug to me, raising her eyebrows.
“Where?”
“My studio. Outside.”
Then she's on her feet. “Show me! Right now.”
I take her out to the shed.
I've never had another living soul inside it until now.
I unlock the padlock and pull the chain on the light, and Taryn walks in respectfully, the way you'd enter a church.
She takes in the wheel, the kiln, and the shelves of bowls and mugs nobody's ever seen.
She doesn't squeal or fuss. She picks things up carefully, one at a time, and turns them in the light.
At the workbench she stops in front of the epoxy board and goes quiet.
“Hawk. This is gorgeous.”
“It's not done yet.”
She trails one finger along the edge of it and I keep my face blank. That board has her name on it in every way, and she'll find that out when it's time.
She shakes her head. “The whole town's known you for years and nobody knows you at all, do they?”
“A few do.” I lean against the bench. “There's more, and you should hear all of it before this goes any further. Sit down, sunshine.”
She hops up onto the workbench stool and folds her hands, but her eyes are steady on me.
“My name's Caleb. Hawk's what the army hung on me at nineteen and it stuck.
Nobody's used the real one since my grandma died.
She raised me and my brother up here. Taught me pastry at that table you've been baking on at Marvin's, near enough.
Grandpa taught me the fiddle. Then I spent twelve years carrying a rifle in places I won't ruin a Sunday describing, and when I came home, the mountain was the only thing that still made sense. My brother’s back here too.
Lucky. He flies helicopters. You'll meet him.”
She doesn't say anything, just nods slowly.
“And there’s the club. The High Vale Outlaws. I'm a patched member, have been for eight years. Striker, Wrench, the lot of them. They're my brothers and I'd die for any one of them.”
Her eyebrows go up, but not far. “I wondered. At the party. You all seemed close.”
“Here's the part that matters. Nobody outside the club and a few friends knows it. Marvin knows. Viv. Now you.” I hold her gaze.
“The Rotmere Corporation bought the Lodge a few years back, and they're buying this valley one deed at a time.
Prez needed somebody inside who they'd never connect to the Outlaws.
I had the ranger job before they came. So I kept it, and I keep my mouth shut, and my cut lives in a locker at the clubhouse.
It's the only laundry I can't bring home.”
“You're a spy,” she says slowly. “Undercover.”
“I'm a man who watches a crooked company that's squeezing his town, and tells his brothers what he sees. That's the size of it. But it's a secret, and now it's yours too, and I need you to know I've never told anyone before.”
She gets down off the stool, walks over, and takes my face in both her hands.
“Caleb,” she says, trying it out. “Thank you. For trusting me.”
I'm bending down to kiss her when her phone buzzes.
She checks the screen and her face changes. “It's June's care home. They only call if…” She answers fast. “Hello? Yes, this is Taryn Denton.”
She grabs my forearm and squeezes, mouthing she's okay, she's good.
“That's wonderful,” she says into the phone. “No, that's... six weeks? No, of course. A discharge plan. An address, sure. I understand. Can I call you Tuesday? Thank you. Thank her for me. Tell her I love her.” She hangs up.
“June's ahead of schedule,” she says brightly. “Walking with a cane already. They're talking about discharge in six weeks. Isn't that wonderful?”
“It is.”
"It's wonderful," she says again, and smiles at me, but it’s not her real smile.
She folds the news away somewhere I can't see, kisses my cheek, and asks what a girl has to do to get a pottery lesson around here. I let her ruin two bowls and laugh till she's wheezing.
But all day, under everything, it’s like there’s a clock ticking.