She waited for the doctor to leave before she asked Hawk. “What was that about? What promise?”
“Our promise. That we wouldn’t leave each other alone. From the second I found you, until right now, except for a few minutes to update Lincoln, I haven’t left your side. I was in the ER with you, took you up to the operating room, where I watched thesurgery from an observation room, then to recovery, and now this room.” When he promised something, he delivered.
She appreciated his dedication. “The hospital let you do that?”
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Lincoln supplied with a prideful grin. “One thing about my brother…he means what he says.”
“You must be tired of being here, staring at me. You should go home. Get something to eat. Sleep. Whatever. I’m fine.”
Hawk shook his head. “First, you’re not fine. Second, Lincoln brought me breakfast an hour ago. And last, there’s nothing I like more than being with you.”
“Man, you have it bad.” Lincoln teased his brother.
“Get used to it.”
She didn’t know if Hawk meant that statement for her or his brother.
“Lucky.” Jase leaned against the end of her bed and stared her down. “You need to tell me everything you remember. Even a small detail could help. Please. I know you don’t trust me, but I am here to help.”
She huffed out a breath. “The last thing I really remember is being at the bar with Desiree. Girls’ night. I didn’t really want to be there.”
“Why?” Hawk asked.
If he liked honesty as much as he lived by it, then she owed him the truth. “Because you might be there.”
He raised a brow. “You didn’t want to see me.”
She shook her head and winced at the pain in her neck and shoulders.
He brushed his hand down her arm. “Be still. Take things slow.”
Good advice. So she sucked it up and did the hard thing and admitted. “I really like you.” The blazing blush was back. “And we have this thing between us.”
“Yeah,” he encouraged.
“But it’s been at a distance and I didn’t know if you kept it that way for a reason. Like that’s how you wanted it. I didn’t want to go to the bar and mess things up by making you think I was crossing a line.”
Hawk glanced at their spectators, then back to her. “Maybe I did because in the beginning, I was really fucked up. I still struggle sometimes, but I’ve worked really hard the last couple years to heal and rein in my emotions and deal with the things I can’t control.”
Lincoln pat her arm. “It’s true. He used to just grunt a lot and go off unhinged in a rage. Even worse, he’d disappear, or just be silent for days. He’d get lost in a flashback and no one could pull him out until it was over. Now, he talks about what’s bothering him. He has coping mechanisms so things don’t go so bad.”
Hawk patted her hand. “And I have you to remind me that there are good things in my life. You didn’t have to do what you did the past two years for someone you didn’t even know, but still you somehow saw me clearer than anyone else did.” Hawk shrugged. “Well, maybe except for my psychiatrist.”
She glanced at Jase, then back to him. “Maybe I understand because I’ve had some bad things happen to me, too, and I’ve not always handled it very well on my own. So I wanted you to know you weren’t alone.”
“You wanted me to know that it was possible to overcome my trauma and live again.” He kissed her fingertips. “Every book you left me had a happy ending, even when things seemed dire for a while.”
“Things change. We can change them.”
His warm gaze made her insides mush. “You really believe that.”
“I have to.” Or why try at all?
Hawk nodded. “Me, too. And we’re going to talk more about all that later. But first, answer Jase’s questions. I need to know what happened and who did this to you.”
She tried not to fidget when she looked Jase in the eye again. “He’s out. You know that.”
Jase wasn’t part of the investigation of her family’s death. He joined the sheriff’s department years later and took on Lucky’s many harassment cases. But he knew everything about the murders and how missing evidence kept Neil from serving time for the murders and her getting justice for her family.
