Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HAWK
“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
~ Elizabeth Bennet
Hiding in plain sight had always been my superpower.
“Where’s Hawk? We’re going to be late for the vote!” Uncle Drew turned in place and nearly knocked over the enormous planter of autumn flowers beside the back steps. “Hawk!”
Em shrugged on her denim jacket over a white dress as she clattered down the steps to the driveway. “Dunno. Maybe he’s riding with Jack.”
Marco nudged her out of the way to claim the front passenger seat of Drew’s SUV. “We’re in charge of bringing Hawk! Jack’s already there. Remember?” The look he gave her was pointed, and it made me feel like I was missing something.
I cleared my throat from the driver’s seat, making Marco jump and grab his chest. “Jesus, Hawk. Warn a guy.”
Webb came flying out of the house, pulling Luke along by the hand like a recalcitrant child. “Coming! Coming! Oh shit. Aiden…” He turned to look behind him while Aiden’s sigh came from the third-row seat behind me. He and I exchanged an eye roll in the rearview mirror.
“Seriously, Dad?” he muttered. The kid was acting more and more like an adult every day, and it was safe to say that I enjoyed this far more than Webb did.
“He’s here,” I called out the open window. “And so am I, FYI. If you’ll recall, I’m the one who said ‘load up’ fifteen full minutes ago. And Knox and Gage are going in Knox’s car. And Porter’s already there. The dogs are fed, and the stove is off, and can you all get in the car, please?”
Marco patted my leg. “Doesn’t matter if we’re a few minutes late.
You know Ernie York always needs to start with his ‘call to order’ nonsense.
It’ll be like skipping the coming attractions at the movie theater.
” He dug a half-eaten package of Thin Mints out of his glove box and thrust them at me. “Have a cookie. Don’t let Drew see.”
I jammed a cookie in my mouth as nerves jittered under my skin. I hated being late, and of all nights to leave my arrival up to my scattered family, this wasn’t the one. Jack was waiting for me at town hall.
“Everybody ready?” I demanded when Webb and Luke had climbed into the back seat. “You coming, Uncle Drew?”
Drew swallowed. “Maybe you should let me drive.”
That definitely wasn’t happening. He drove like a drunken elderly snail on his best day. “Oooh, how about no? I bet you don’t even know where your keys are,” I said pointedly.
Drew’s eyes widened in panic, and he glanced back toward the house again.
This time, I sighed. “I have your keys, Uncle Drew. Get in.”
Drew opened the back door and froze. “Wait, where’s Reed?”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
The third-oldest Sunday brother had driven all the way up from DC a few days ago since he was somehow technically still registered to vote in the Hollow.
It was a very sweet gesture of support from my absentee brother, and it meant a lot to me, especially since I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him much about the Save Fogg Peak campaign…
But if Reed was the one who made us late, I was going to disown him entirely and erase him from our family tree.
Half a minute later, Reed came racing out of the house with his dark curls ruthlessly slicked down, pulling a strange jacket that looked like an old-fashioned tuxedo coat over his broad shoulders.
I opened my mouth and shut it again. For all I knew, this was how people dressed in DC.
In any case, I didn’t have time to question his fashion choices.
“Now are we ready?” I demanded. “Any other brothers, nephews, uncles, or in-laws I might have forgotten? No? Good.” I pulled carefully out of the drive and pointed us toward town.
“Hawklet’s gotten sassy since last time I was home,” Reed remarked to no one in particular. “I like it.”
So did I.
It had been two months since the confrontation with Simon on Fogg Peak.
Two months of watching Evola meet our every demand.
Two months of outdoor enthusiasts streaming into town to help raise money to rebuild the bridge, thanks to Gracie’s work on the social media accounts.
And two months of dating bliss with Jack Wyatt, spending every night in his arms and every day working alongside him in the diner, creating our happily ever after over and over again.
Tonight was the rescheduled vote to see whether or not Evola’s revised plan, the one in which they kept the development off the high-mountain recreation areas, passed approval by the citizens of Little Pippin Hollow.
With a stamp of approval from the Environmental Committee, Mayor York, and all of the other major players in town, I felt confident the resort plans would sail through tonight’s vote.
“Slow down,” Drew warned. “My brakes aren’t all that great.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him since he’d just gotten new brakes a month ago, but then I closed my mouth. If he said his brakes weren’t great, who was I to argue? I drove more carefully down the road.
Luke shifted in his seat and met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I still don’t get why Evola would have canceled the original vote.
I know everyone said they were worried after the bad PR from the social media campaign, but why not take their chances and then come back with an alternate plan if the original plan was voted down? ”
Gracie, Jack, and I had agreed not to tell anyone the details of what happened on the mountain that night until after the new plans were approved and set in stone. We didn’t dare risk our agreement failing because of loose lips.
Presumably, after tonight, we could at least tell our closest family members.
Em spoke up. “Gracie heard that Evola realized if the town rebuilt the historic footbridge and added an education piece about our local connection to a famous artist, the social media exposure alone could help make the mountain an even more popular destination for visitors, which would help the resort. I guess they decided to leave the wilderness as part of the attraction.” She shrugged.
I bit my tongue against the instinct to disallow Evola even that much benign interest in our wilderness area.
“Pull over,” Drew said suddenly.
“What?” I asked, glancing back at him in the middle row with a frown. “Why?”
“Because… because I said so,” he said firmly. “And old folks don’t need reasons. It’s the only silver lining to this aging business.”
“Smooth,” Webb murmured, shaking his head.
My phone buzzed, but Marco grabbed it from the cup holder before I could. “Ah, ah, ah. No texting and driving, Hawk Sunday.”
I pulled the SUV onto a small side road, tested the brakes carefully before coming to a complete stop, and threw it into Park.
“Now what?” I demanded.
“I… I left my glasses at the house,” Drew said after a minute. “We need to go back.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. “They’re on your head, Uncle Drew.”
He reached up and felt the glasses in surprise. “Not this pair. This is my everyday pair. I need my lucky ones.”
“I’m not missing this vote. Marco can read anything you—”
“Dammit, Hawk. Stop arguing with me and go back to the house. We could have gotten them faster than it’s taking you to argue with me right now. There’s such a thing as too sassy, you know.”
I clenched my teeth and turned us around to head back to the house.
Once we got there, Drew took his sweet time finding his keys to unlock the door and an additional ten thousand years inside the house looking for his glasses.
Meanwhile, everyone in the car waited in perfect silence, apart from the squeaking of my teeth as they ground together.
Eventually, Em, Webb, Luke, and Marco’s phones all buzzed at the same time.
Something was up.
“If we missed the vote, I will literally murder all of you in your beds tonight,” I said between clenched teeth.
“I’m sure it’s fine!” Em called. “Gracie said we’re fine.”
Drew came racing out of the house, waving his phone in the air. “They’re preparing to vote! Let’s get going.”
I stared at him, my heart suddenly racing with the fear of missing it. Several deep breaths didn’t help. “If we miss this…” I snapped. Deep breaths be damned.
“Gracie said everyone’s already saying it’s going to pass without a problem. Stop stressing.” Em said, reading from her phone.
I reached for my phone to see if I’d gotten a similar message from Jack, but Marco slapped my hand away. “What did I say? Eyes on the road, Hawklet.”
Once we turned onto the road again, Drew reached up and plucked his lucky glasses from Marco’s shirt pocket.
“What the fuck?” I asked. “You had them this whole time?”
Marco simply shrugged.
By the time we got to town, I was annoyed as hell and selfishly grateful last night had been my official final night living at the farmhouse.
Starting tonight, Jack and I were officially living together, meaning change of address forms for me and all-new hiding places for my Girl Scout cookies.
I couldn’t wait. And I hoped he’d be willing to cut out from the post-vote party early so we could have our own little celebration because I knew just how I wanted to celebrate.
Jack and I had made good on our plan to have sex in every room and closet of his (our!) big yellow Victorian, save one—the little room he’d added onto the back of the house last spring, the one we’d jokingly called the “ravishing room.”
Somehow, in a feat of carpentry only die-hard DIYers like my beloved and I could accomplish, when Jack had installed the door, he’d done it so the knob only opened from the inside, panic-room style.
It had been stuck firmly shut ever since.
But earlier today, Jack had texted that in a burst of nervous, pre-vote energy, he’d finally replaced the whole doorframe, and we could finally get inside, which felt symbolic somehow.
I couldn’t wait to decorate the space. But first… there would be ravishing.
“Park here,” Drew barked, shocking me out of my sultry daydream. “There won’t be room any closer now that we’re late.”