Hawk’s Hope (Hurricane Heat MC #4)

Hawk

I’ve had my nose busted more times than I can count, teeth knocked out, and been shot once. All that pales in comparison to the pain I’m in right now.

“Sweet fucking—” I stagger back from the bathroom door. “What the shit is that?”

The two teenage girls getting ready for school look at me with horror on their faces.

Daisy turns sheet-white. “Did I burn you? I was just trying to curl my hair. I…”

“Ice.” Holly shoves past me and runs barefoot down the stairs, apparently on the hunt for first aid. “I’m on it.”

I scrub a hand across my face and stifle another round of curses. I didn’t sign up for this babysitting—scratch that, teenage-sitting—gig. I got volunteered against my will.

The president of the Hurricane Heat, Phantom, and his wife, Poppy, took their son Jax on the road for a couple days for some sports bullshit. They took their baby with them, but Holly and Daisy, their teenage daughters, had too much going on at the high school to go on the road and miss class.

Stella, the barmaid from the club, is on afternoon duty and will stay overnight here if she can, picking up the girls after school and driving them home, but shit’s been dicey the last few months.

The club is making good money, and that means making some seriously bad enemies. Phantom didn’t feel safe leaving town and leaving the two girls home alone—or worse, home alone with someone who wasn’t six feet, five inches of fuck around and find out.

That’s where I come in.

I’m supposed to be security. The muscle. A presence around the house to make sure the girls stay safe and things run smoothly.

I’m the road captain for one of the most feared motorcycle clubs in the Southeast. I’ve made grown adults piss their pants without uttering a syllable. Playing driver to two teenagers for a couple of nights while Stella does the heavy lifting?

I expected a lot of perfume and makeup. I haven’t been around a woman under the age of twenty-one since I was a teenager myself. But despite my best efforts to stay under the radar and out of their hair, I’m in the doorway of their bathroom reluctantly playing parent.

“I’m soooo sorry.” Daisy’s eyes bug wide, and I notice a sparkle on her lids.

“Is that makeup?” I growl, glaring at her, the sting on my arm sizzling to a bearable but uncomfortable bite.

“Didn’t your parents say no makeup?” I try to go through the long list of dos and don’ts Poppy left the girls with.

All I cared about was no boys and no drugs. My mind kind of shut off after that.

But something about this little girl looking like she’s dolling up for dollar-shots has the alpha in me clenching my fists.

Daisy snorts. “It’s shimmer moisturizer, Uncle Hawk. Not makeup. Big difference.” She rolls those eyes at me as if I’ve just accused her of an actual crime.

The attitude is thick with this one, but she’s also so damned sweet.

I can see how she has Phantom wrapped around her little finger.

She lifts a brow that is also sparkly with whatever she put on her face, and then she screws up her face as she gives the curling iron a look. “Did you leave any skin on this?”

I’m about to yank the cord from the wall and pitch that devil of a device into the trash when she turns back to the mirror. “Sorry, I’ve got to finish curling my hair. We’re going to be late for school.”

Frustration crawls up my throat, and I stifle a cough.

“That’s exactly what I came in here to say before you burned off a strip of my arm.

” I check the phone in my back pocket and curse again, this time out loud.

“Why are you curling your hair when we’re supposed to be in the truck in two minutes?

And how hot do those damn things get anyway? Are you old enough to be using that?”

She huffs a loud sigh and gives me another amused and slightly sarcastic death stare just as Holly pounds back up the stairs with something in her hand.

Holly smashes a vinyl sleeve that’s shaped like a bright yellow duck right against my burned arm, and I can’t help gasping like a little bitch when the cold hits my skin.

Holly continues undeterred, holding the freezing thing in place.

“When we were little, Mom just called these colds. The name stuck, but it’s really an ice pack for teething pain or whatever. ”

I want to say, “Fuck this duck,” but the damn thing actually starts to take some of the sting away.

I refuse to think of myself as an irritable toddler with tooth pain, but I take over holding the duck against my own burn.

I hover in the hallway while the girls make their final adjustments in the large bathroom mirror, trying not to snap at them to hurry up.

It’s my first morning on drop-off duty, and I do not want to let Phantom down.

That being said, they have a fucking warehouse of colorful and probably flammable shit on the bathroom vanity, and they keep putting that curling iron down on what I can only visualize as a ground zero of some future disaster.

I don’t see how they get anything done and, worse, how they don’t set fire to the whole damn place.

“Spray,” Holly sings, holding up a large bottle while Daisy frames her eyes with her hands.

Holly then aims a lung-clogging amount of shit toward a blue-dyed stripe of Daisy’s hair.

The hallway fills up with aerosol that smells like a strawberry fucked a can of gas, and now I’m sure the whole place is going up in flames.

I ain’t gonna be the one to let Phantom’s house blow up.

I reach for the outlet on the wall and point to them. “We’re done with the lethal weapons. Can we please leave for school now?”

The girls rush past me, now realizing the time is winding down, yelling, “Thanks, Uncle Hawk. We have to go!”

Right. Like I said…

They thunder past me in a cloud of berry smells and bouncing curls, while I look for anything else that could result in massive property damage while we’re gone for the day. I drop the frozen duckie on the counter and whip out my phone.

Upstairs bathroom’s shot. SOS

I fire off a text to Stella so she knows what to expect when she gets back here with the girls this afternoon. Right about now, she’s probably sleeping off a hangover or making coffee at the clubhouse. She surprises me by replying right back.

Noted. They’ll clean up after themselves after school. They’re great kids. I’ve done this drill before on past trips. You’ll survive, newbie. The mornings are chaos, but they’ve got this. YOU’VE got this.

I shake my head. I know they’re great kids, but I wouldn’t say I’ve “got” anything more than a possible second-degree burn.

“Uncle Hawk, we’re gonna be late.”

I scan the perimeter of the bathroom to assess any other threats to the house. Unless lip gloss and hair products can spontaneously explode, it all looks good. I grudgingly pick up the duck-shaped “cold” and smash it against my forearm with a growl, then head down the stairs.

“Made you a coffee to go, just like you like it. I’m so sorry I burned you, Uncle Hawk.

It was a total accident.” Daisy bats her glittery eyelids at me, the bright-blue stripe in her hair perfectly coiled and sprayed into place.

She holds out a travel mug of coffee and extends her hand.

“I’ll put the cold back in the freezer,” she offers.

I growl, taking the coffee in one hand and shaking my head.

“Thanks.” I give her a glare. “But I’m keeping the duck.

” I wink at her, and she throws an arm around my waist, hugging me hard.

I freeze at the contact, but she releases me fast, and then she and Holly are racing out of the house toward my truck.

I shove aside the latch on the complicated tumbler thing she handed me and take a sip of the coffee. It is perfect—not too sweet and loaded with cream, just like I like it.

The girls may be a riot of smells and beauty products, but they are pretty damn good kids.

The coffee and the fact that we’re finally heading out do a lot to settle my mood.

Although, whatever happened to driving with a mug of coffee like a real man?

I’ve never seen Phantom use one of these thermal things.

I’m going to have to finish the coffee long before I get back to the compound.

I punch in the security code on the wall console with one finger, gripping my coffee in that hand and trying to keep the duck flush against my burn all at the same time.

The kids have opened the exterior garage door, and on this otherwise quiet morning, I notice a maroon SUV pull away from the curb.

I cock my head and squint, trying to make out the model or plate number. I walk quickly toward the open door without alerting the girls. The vehicle is already down at the end of Phantom’s semi-private street.

Fuck.

Phantom’s gone one day, and there may already be eyes on his place. I turn around fast, thinking I need to set this coffee down and put this damned duck someplace, when I hear a squeal and a splash.

“Uncle Hawk, you have to twist that cap closed or it stays open.” Holly is standing in front of me, shock registering on her face as she looks down at the shit-brown stain on the front of her jeans. “Now I have to change.”

Before I realize I’ve spilled coffee on her, Holly is yanking the duck from my hand and pressing it to the top of her thigh.

“Holy fuck. Are you burned? Hurt?” I set the tumbler down on a rolling tool chest, my heart thundering so hard I almost lose my breath. I’d rather die by a thousand curling iron burns than cause even the slightest pain to these girls.

“Nah. I’m fine.” Holly shrugs. “There was a lot of creamer in there. It’s not hot enough to really hurt. But I do have to change.” She takes off running for the house, duck in hand, and Daisy explodes out of the back seat.

“I’m going with!” she yells.

Before I can stop them, both girls are back inside the house.