Chapter 6
DELILAH
Thursday morning the raid goes down at dawn.
It's over.
I sit at Hawk's kitchen table in his Henley with my ankle flat on the floor for the first time in a week and I listen to a sheriff tell me I'm safe.
I don't feel what I thought I'd feel.
I feel hollow.
Because if I'm safe, I'm leaving.
Hawk is at the counter pouring coffee like nothing in his body has changed. His jaw has the set it gets when he's not going to say the thing he's thinking. I've learned his jaw. I've learned a lot of things about him in eight days.
Parker's still on the line. "AG's office wants you in Reno by end of day. They've got a safe house. Sworn statement tomorrow. Grand jury in three weeks. After that you're a free woman, Ms. Reyes."
"Understood."
"I'll have a deputy up there by noon to drive you down."
"Thank you, Sheriff."
I set the phone on the table.
Hawk slides a mug in front of me. Doesn't sit.
"You want breakfast."
"Not really."
"Eat anyway."
He turns back to the stove. Cracks two eggs. Doesn't look at me.
I watch his shoulders. The way they're set. The way he's not letting himself turn around.
"Hawk."
"Yeah."
"Look at me."
He turns. His face is closed. I've never seen it closed before. Not at me. He's worn it for other people, for Parker on the phone, for the world that lives past his tree line. Not for me.
My stomach drops an inch.
"You were going to let me get in a truck at noon and drive away without saying anything."
"I was going to say plenty."
"Such as."
"Such as take care of yourself. Call if you need anything. Parker can reach me."
"Parker can reach you."
"Delilah."
"No."
I stand. Bad call on the ankle. I grip the table edge and hold my ground anyway.
"You are not going to do the thing you are about to do."
"What thing."
"The thing where you decide for both of us that I'm better off in a city with my notebook and my samples and a life that doesn't include a man who lives at the end of a fire road.
The thing where you tell yourself I was grateful, not in love.
The thing where you put your face the way you've got it right now and pretend the last eight days were a protection detail. "
His jaw works.
"They were a protection detail."
"Don't."
"That's what they started as."
"I'm aware of how they started, Hawk."
"You got stranded on a slope. You didn't choose this."
"I'm choosing it now."
"You think that. Right now. Standing in my kitchen with adrenaline still coming out of your body."
"Adrenaline."
"You've been here a week. You haven't seen your life in a week. You've seen me and this cabin and a dog that's decided you're his and you think that's something. In three weeks you'll be in a lab somewhere analyzing core samples and you'll look back at this and you'll be embarrassed."
"Embarrassed."
"Grateful, maybe. Mostly embarrassed."
My throat closes.
I don't know what I expected him to say. Not that.
Eight days ago he carried me up out of a ravine. Three nights ago he kissed me like he'd been saving it. Last night he had his mouth on the back of my neck while he was inside me from behind and he said my name like a prayer against my shoulder blades.
And this morning I'm a woman who's going to be embarrassed.
I've been dumped before. This is worse. This is someone handing me an exit and telling me to take it because it's for my own good.
I put my palm flat on the table to keep it from shaking.
"You don't get to decide that for me."
"I'm not deciding anything for you. I'm telling you what I see."
"You're telling me what you want to see. Because it's easier than telling me you're scared."
His jaw moves once.
"I'm not scared."
"Hawk."
"I'm a man who lives alone for reasons, Delilah. Those reasons didn't go away because a geologist with a broken ankle made me laugh at my kitchen table."
That lands.
Harder than I want it to.
I straighten. Let go of the table. Put weight on the ankle and let the pain steady me because it's the only clean sensation in my body right now.
"Fine."
"Delilah."
"No. You've said what you needed to say. Now I'm going to go pack my bag."
"Let me help."
"Absolutely not."
I hop to the bedroom. I close the door. I sit on the edge of the bed that smells like both of us and I press my palms into my eyes until I can breathe again.
I don't cry. I don't give him that.
Mostly because I know I'll fall apart the second I do and I have ninety minutes until a deputy pulls up in a county pickup and a lifetime of pride that says I'll be upright in the passenger seat.
I pack. His Henley goes on top of my folded clothes and I do not apologize to the universe about taking it.
I hop back out to the living room.
He's at the woodstove. Still not looking.
Ghost is at my feet within two seconds. Muzzle pressed into my hand. Old dog who decided day one that I was his. He knows. They always know.
"Good boy."
My voice almost holds.
I sit on the couch to wait.
Hawk comes and sits on the ottoman across from me like we're strangers again. Like he's a ranger debriefing a rescue. His hands are between his knees. His eyes are on the floor.
"I'll send your pack down behind the deputy."
"Okay."
"Your Pelican case is sealed. AG office has the chain of custody paperwork."
"Okay."
"You need anything."
"No."
Silence.
"Delilah."
"Don't."
"I want you to be okay."
"I will be."
I say it like it's true. I say it like I am a woman who drove off rigs in the Sonoran at twenty-four with a broken air conditioner and no spare tire and made it to Tucson by sundown, because I am. I have been okay in much worse than a heartbreak.
It still feels like glass in my chest.
The deputy's truck pulls up outside at 11:47.
Hawk carries my bag. Puts it in the bed of the truck. Helps me into the passenger seat, a hand at my elbow, a hand at the small of my back, and every place his fingers touch me wants to stay.
He shuts the door.
Steps back.
He looks at me through the window and his face is the ranger's face, the one the world gets, and I memorize it because I don't know what I'm going to do with any of this later and memorizing is what a scientist does when she can't do anything else.
The truck pulls away.
I don't look back.
I'm a liar. I look back once. He's standing at the end of the drive with his hands on his hips and Ghost pressed against his leg, and I watch until the pine curves and I can't see him anymore.
Reno is three hours. The deputy is kind. He offers me water. He tells me the safe house has a yard.
I give him the right answers.
Inside I am doing inventory.
Broken ankle healing. Ribs healing. Concussion resolved.
A hole under my sternum where a man used to put his forehead.
My notebook is in my lap. I flip to the back page where I started a list on day three because it made him ask what I was writing and I wouldn't tell him.
The list's title is Things Hawk Does That Ruin Me.
Seventeen entries.
I close the notebook.
I rest my forehead against the cold glass of the window.
And I watch the mountains get smaller in the side mirror, telling myself he was wrong, because I'm not embarrassed.
I'm in love with him.
And that's worse.