Hawk: The Boys of Summer #4

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “Yeah . . . ” I’m tempted to tell Hawk everything, which is really unlike me or maybe it’s exactly who I am. I’m not really sure anymore. It’s not like I spend copious amounts of time with men and last night was the first real “non-date” I’ve been on since Greg walked out on me, so I definitely lack experience. Still, I remind myself that Hawk is a stranger, regardless of the way my mind thinks, and body feels, when I’m in his presence.

  “Do you want to talk about it? My mom says I’m a good listener.”

  He makes me smile. It’s a good feeling. “I’m afraid the drama with my ex would probably scare . . . ” I catch myself before I say something completely stupid. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll be okay.” I straighten a few things on my desk, doing whatever I can to avoid eye contact with him. “I’m assuming you’re here about that piece of land?”

  “Actually, I came in to see you.”

  My eyes dart up to find Hawk leaning toward my desk. If I were bold, I’d grab him by his shirt and pull him toward me because I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t thought about kissing him. He invaded my dreams last night and is the reason I took extra time doing my hair this morning. Karter was right in a roundabout way. I don’t have a date, but I hoped I’d see him before tonight.

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” he asks. His voice is quiet, husky and tinged with desire. I try to clear away the thoughts I’m having about him and me, our limbs tangled together with a sheen of sweat covering our skin.

  “You’re blushing.” He reaches across my desk and softly trails his fingers down my cheek. I want to hold his hand there, to feel the warmth of his palm pressed against my heated skin, but I’m afraid. I was rejected by the one man who vowed to love me until the end, tossed aside for a new model, and this man sitting across from me, making me feel emotions I haven’t felt in years, is leaving town. He’s not staying, no matter what I can offer him.

  I push my chair back, excuse myself and rush down the hall into the bathroom. The cold water I douse myself with does nothing to curb the pooling of desire in my belly. Could I be someone who indulges in a gorgeous man just for fun? Could I keep my heart out of it?

  My head rises and I look at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are red, my neck flushed, and my eyes — they seem dark with determination. I don’t want to trick Hawk into anything. I just want to take him to bed. And if I’m reading his body language right, he wants that as well.

  Seventeen

  Hawk

  I’ve never been what my friends call smooth when it comes to women. Sometimes I fumble over my words, get lost in my thoughts when I’m trying to figure out what to say, or as I’ve proven a few times now with Bellamy, say something completely inappropriate that clearly scares her enough to leave me alone. It’s times like now when I miss my friends the most. They get me, they understand my awkwardness. Hell, they even mock me for it, and I let them because it’s what bros do. Sure, I give back, but I mostly defer to Travis Kidd for his one-liners and follow what he says. Maybe that’s my issue: I’m a follower, and without my team here to support me, I’m lost in translation.

  When I see Bellamy walking down the hall, I stand up and try to convey how sorry I am for being a cad. She probably gets hit on all the time, and honestly, I’m surprised she’s single. “I’m sorry,” I say to her as she approaches her desk. “Sometimes, my filter doesn’t work so well.”

  “Hawk, you didn’t say anything inappropriate, I . . .” she pauses and looks directly at me. The force of her gaze is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It’s like the room is closing in on us, blocking us from the outside word. My tongue feels thick and my breathing is labored, yet I feel like I could run a mile without breaking a sweat . . . but only if she’s running alongside of me. I want to reach out and pull her toward me so I can feel what it’s like to have her pressed against my body, to know what it’s like to feel her skin against mine. Touching her face earlier was nothing more than a tease. I need the full experience.

  “Are we still on for dinner?” I ask and she nods.

  “I’ll text you my address.” Yes, she remembers that I gave her my number.

  “I’ll see you later, Bellamy.” The urge to kiss her goodbye is too great and I back up before I do something I shouldn’t. I should kiss her, at least on her cheek, to see how she’d react. This way, I’d know whether my instincts are right. But not right now. I continue to walk backward until I bump into the door and the chime rings outs. I wave, as if I’m in fifth grade again and Tamara Williams has just invited me to her birthday party. Damn, I remember that day clearly. She walked toward my desk with her crooked smile. When I saw the pink envelope, I knew. I didn’t care if the other boys teased me, I was going to her party — and I did. She was my first kiss, out back behind her big pine tree. Man, I thought I was hot shit back then. Our romance lasted until the end of the school year, although by today’s standards, it wasn’t much of a romance. I chased her around the playground, she and her friends would giggle when my friends and I would walk by, and we’d sit together when we went to the library or for an assembly. The one kiss we shared on her birthday never had a follow-up though, and once baseball season started, I had forgotten all about her.

  I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ve never been that guy, the one smitten by a pretty lady, and yet, here I am thinking about kissing a woman I’ve known for only twenty-four hours. It’s a damn good thing the guys aren’t here to witness any of this.

  Speaking of my teammates — my phone dings with an alert from Travis Kidd. I tap the screen and pull up a video of him along with most of the guys. “Bro, we’re missing you big time. Hope your recovery is going well because we need you. Do you hear me, Hawk? We need you! Call you soon, man. Oh, and don’t be surprised if some of us show up after our West Coast swing.” I replay it a few more times, laughing and feeling a bit more homesick each time it plays. I miss the guys, the team, and the camaraderie. Don’t get me wrong, I love being home with my parents, but there’s something about spending all your time with a group of people who love the same sport you do and who all have the same goal in mind — winning. My mother gets it, but as far as the rest of my family — they just don’t understand.

  I open the group chat I have going with the guys and start to type out a message, except I don’t know what to say. Telling them I miss them seems cheesy, but it would be the truth. Instead, I forget about texting and opt to return the video message. I point the camera toward Main Street. “Alright, guys. I thought I’d show you what my small town looks like. As you can see, it’s a don’t blink or you’ll miss it type of place, but it’s still home.” I press the small icon on the screen and flip the camera around. “And as you can also see, I’m still a one-armed bandit, but hopefully I’ll finally be able to fully use my arm next week. I can’t wait to get back to throwing. Talk soon!” I don’t say anything about them coming to visit because if they can swing it, I know they will. Our manager, Wes Wilson, is all about family and if the team has a couple days off, he’ll encourage them to come visit.

  “Hawk?”

  I press send and turn to find Annie Miller — I mean Larsen — standing behind me, looking nervous. She’s clutching the strap to her purse and her eyes are darting every which way but in my direction. “Hey, Annie.” I go to hug her, but she takes a step back.

  She gives me a smile that’s weak at best. “We need to talk, Hawk.”

  “Okay?”

  “Not here.” She’s looking around nervously, fidgeting with the strap slung over her shoulder and biting her lower lip, doing everything she can to avoid eye contact with me.

  “My truck’s right there if you want to go somewhere.” I point behind me, but she shakes her head.

  “Do you remember where my grandparents lived?” I nod. “Okay, there’s a dirt road out by the property, meet me there.” Her eyes are still downcast. This is not the Annie I remember.

  “Okay.” I watch her walk away, her h
ead still on a swivel, looking for something. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say she’s looking for Brett, but why? It’s not like he doesn’t know we’re friends. As luck would have it, I’m still standing in front of the real estate office and when I glance inside, I swear Bellamy has me under surveillance. That’s an exaggeration, but every which way I look right now, people are staring. Great.

  I hop into my truck and head toward the end of town. The Millers used to run a successful cattle ranch back in the day and owned most of the land that surrounded Richfield. Old man Miller liked to gamble and lost everything they owned. He started selling off chunks of land, some even to my family, but once that ran out and their herd was gone, there wasn’t anything left. The bank took their house and the Millers moved in with Annie’s parents. It was our sophomore or junior year when all of this went down and the Millers passed away within months of this all happening. Annie’s family was embarrassed, to say the least. They were the talk of the town for a long time and I often thought that was why Annie stayed with Brett throughout high school. She needed him, not only for comfort but for status. The Larsens are well to do and with Annie dating Brett, it gave her family hope.

  Her grandparents also used to have the biggest barn in the area and now, as I drive toward it, I see it’s dilapidated with most of its roof missing, the doors are gone, and it has this eerie haunted look to it. The house doesn’t look much better, with broken windows and moss growing on the roof. “Damn,” I mutter as I pass by.

  The dirt road Annie wants to meet on leads into a thicket of woods. The road is bumpy as hell and by the time I approach to her car, my arm is killing me from being rocked back and forth so roughly. I park and get out, walk past Annie’s car to find her standing a few feet away with her back facing me.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on and why we’re meeting out in the middle of the woods?”

  She turns. Her arms are crossed over her chest. I can tell she’s been crying, but she also looks angry. “You need to leave.”

  “I’m sorry?” She just invited me here.

  “Hawk, listen to me. You need to go back to Boston and just forget about Richfield.” She steps toward me and that’s when I see a cut above her eye.

  “What happened to your eye?”

  Annie shies away. “Nothing.”

  “Annie, what’s going on? I haven’t seen you in years and you’re acting weird as hell. Can we go sit in my truck . . . or your car . . . and talk?”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “What’s not safe? Me? Jesus, Annie, I’m not going to try anything if that’s what you think. You’re married.”

  She scoffs.

  Okay, that’s enough to tell me she’s definitely not living in Paradise.

  “Look, as much as I’d love to sit on your tailgate with a can of beer, I can’t. Brett . . .”

  Ah, it’s all making sense now. The off the beaten path meeting place, the standoffish approach with wandering eyes. I take a few steps away and lean against one of the trees. Annie sighs loudly, clearly frustrated with me.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Resting and waiting for you to start talking.”

  “I don’t have anything to say, Hawk.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “You would.”

  I don’t know how long we stand there with me holding the tree up and her hugging herself, but it was long enough for her to sigh multiple times, for me to laugh, and for her to give me death looks.

  “You ready to talk yet?” I go to her and pull her into my arms. She doesn’t move her arms but does rest her head on my chest.

  “You’re trouble. You always have been.”

  I chuckle. “I’m the farthest thing from trouble.”

  “I should’ve gone with you, followed you to school.”

  I step back and look at her. “And what, not marry the love of your life?”

  A single tear falls from her eye.

  “Annie, tell me what’s going on.”

  She moves away and goes back to hugging herself. “I’m serious when I say you need to leave. Brett . . . he’s not the same as he was in high school. In many ways, he’s worse. And you being here is bringing out a side of him I haven’t seen in ten years. He blames you for a lot.”

  “It’s not my fault he punched the wall and busted up his hand.”

  “Isn’t it?” she asks. “The things we did?”

  “You’d been broken up for months, Annie. You were allowed to move on. Hell, how many times did he cheat on you in high school and you kept going back?”

  She shakes her head, either unwilling to answer or she lost count of his many times other girls would come to her and tell her about their night with Brett. He would deny it all, even though everyone knew it was true.

  “If you ever cared about me, you’ll leave, Hawk.”

  “Is he hurting you because I’m here?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She looks at me, stone faced. “Since you came back, he hasn’t been himself. He is constantly muttering your name, he’s angry and coming home later and later, drunk as a skunk. Matty and I are walking on eggshells and it would just be easier if you left.”

  I go to her. “Annie, I do care about you so if he’s hurting you or your daughter, you need to tell me so I can help you.”

  “Just leave,” she pleads.

  “I can’t. I won’t.” I contemplate telling her that I plan to be in Brett’s face every chance I get, but I don’t. “I’m sorry, Annie.”

  I leave her standing there and head toward my truck. As much as I’d love to appease her, I’m not running out of town because her husband is throwing a hissy fit.

  Eighteen

  Bellamy

  Today is turning out to be a total wash thanks to Mr. Longwood and his ever changing mind. He was willing to sell his property earlier this morning but can’t seem to give me a solid answer on how much he wants to list his land for. He keeps going on and on about having multiple assessments done, perk tests, and thinks he might want to subdivide, which is well within his rights, but I can’t help thinking that someone is chirping in his ear right now. Of course, I’m the bad guy when I tell him he’ll need to put a buffer between a residential lot and the business lot, which angers him. After an hour of back and forth, I finally hand him over to Owen and suggest he finish the deal because I get the sense that Mr. Longwood doesn’t like taking advice from a woman. It’s fine, I’m used to the old boy’s club mentality this town has. Add all this to the fact that earlier, Mr. Hawk Sinclair, the stupidly sexy baseball player who is hell bent on making me fall for his wily charms, stood out front of my office and chatted with Annie Larsen, the woman who accused me of having an affair with her husband. Ugh!

  I know I’m reading into everything. The way he talks and looks at me . . . I’m certain that’s his personality, and the only reason he came in this morning is to ask about the land and to remind me that he invited himself over to my house for dinner. I should’ve told him tonight wouldn’t work, but nope, I volunteered to text him my address because he has my mind swirling in a million different directions. When he’s around me, I need to figure out how to keep my wits about myself and not get involved emotionally with him.

  As reluctant as I am to text Hawk, I do it. I don’t want to come off as someone who doesn’t keep their word. Although, I do type out a few sentences explaining why tonight or any night hereafter won’t work for me, only to erase everything and not only give him my address but provide directions as well. Then I finally do the right thing and toss my phone in my bag because looking at the screen, waiting to see if he’s responding or is the type to have his read receipts on is a form of desperate I don’t want to be right now. I decide I desperately need to walk away and get some coffee so I head over to our kitchen area, running into Karter on my way.

  “You knew he was coming in to see you today, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Lies,” she says
, laughing and bumping her shoulder with mine. “He’s a cutie. Always has been.”

  “It’s funny that I don’t really remember him.”

  “That’s because you’re so much older than he is. Hopefully he likes older women.”

  “Oh, my God, will you stop?!” I push her gently, in a teasing way. “Five years isn’t anything these days.”

  She laughs. “You’re right. These days, men Hawk’s age date teens and older men date women our age. I don’t get it . . . or maybe I do.”

  “Are you and Zach having problems?”

  Karter looks at me in complete shock and surprise. “What? No.” She waves me off, but something doesn’t feel right. I’m about to prod, to push for a little more but the office phone rings and she goes to answer it while I make a fresh pot of coffee.

  “It’s for you,” she says when she comes back into the room. “Adrienne Hubbard.”

  Shit. I forgot to call her back yesterday.

  “When this is done, let me know?” I point toward the coffee maker.

  “I’ll bring you a cup because we are not done talking about Mr. Hottie.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head at her as I pass by. It’s times like now when I wish I had a designated office so I could close the door and have this conversation in private. I sit down and take a deep breath before picking up the phone.

  “Hi, Adrienne, sorry I didn’t call you back yesterday. I’m a little surprised you’re calling me at work. What’s up?”

  “Geez, ramble much?”

  Only when I’m nervous. “I’ve been a terrible friend, lately. I’m sorry. How are you? How’s Robbie?”

  “We’re good, missing Montana. Arizona is dry, brown and hot. I miss the snow.”

  “Ha, you say that now, but it’s almost May and we still have mounds of it trying to melt.”

  “Better than watching the exterminator spray your house for scorpions.”