But when they got to her small cottage, the house they both grew up in, Von was surprised when they both got out.
So was Janita. He’d been holding her hand in that backseat of that SUV during the entire drive to her house. Now he had his hand on her lower back after they got out of the SUV. And it felt too good to Janita to give up. She didn’t object or even question it.
But Von did. “I’ll wait for you, sir,” he said to Hawk.
But Hawk wasn’t going anywhere soon. He needed to know why he was having such intense feelings for her. It couldn’t be just because she rescued him. He had intense feelings for her before that rescue. Or was it more because that rescue revealed her character? He wasn’t sure, but he liked the revelation. “You needn’t wait on me,” he said to Von. “I’ll get home.”
Von found it all strange and odd altogether, but his sister seemed okay with it. So he knew he had to be okay too. “I’m gonna go by the office and log in what happened today. The office is only a few blocks from here so call me when you’re ready. It’ll be nothing for me to come and get you.”
Hawk was about to object, to make it clear he knew how to get around, but Janita stepped in. She knew her baby brother. “That sounds good, Von,” she said.
Von knew Hawk didn’t like it, but too bad. He wanted to make sure that lover boy didn’t play with his sister’s emotions like all those other lover boys had. He wanted to keep tabs on that man.
“Drive carefully,” Janita admonished, Von said he always did, and then he drove away.
Hawk snorted. “He thinks I have ill-intent concerning his beloved sister.”
Janita looked at him.Well, do you? she wanted to ask. But she held her tongue and they made it up to her small front porch with the wooden planks for flooring, and into her small three-bedroom, two-bath home.
“This is right charming,” Hawk said when he saw all of the old-styled furnishings and the old fireplace. It reminded him of his maternal grandmother’s house when he was a little boy. “But why the plastic on the sofa and the chairs?”
“My parents put it on and I never took it off.”
“Oh.” Hawk was surprised. “Your parents live here?”
“No no. My mom died when I was eight years old and DeVontay was two. She had cancer.”
Hawk knew that had to be difficult. An eight-year-old girl losing her mother? It had to be. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“What about your father?”
“He never got over my mama’s death. He wasn’t the same anymore. He went to work every day. He provided for us. But he lost any connection to us. Then he had a heart attack when I was sixteen and . . . And that was the end of that.”
Hawk stared at her. “Who took care of you and your brother?”
“I did. In many ways, I took care of my father until he died too. I cooked, I cleaned, and I eventually worked at the factory at night to help make ends meet. And I stayed in school.”
Hawk was impressed. “Good for you.”
“A social worker came by the house after Daddy died, but I was so scared they were going to break up my brother and me that I told her my aunt was on her way from Michigan to take care of us. So the social worker said okay and left. She never came back. Probably had too many cases to be worrying about some sixteen-year-old and her ten-year-old brother. But that was fine by me.”
She said this and smiled, which warmed Hawk’s heart. She was from tougher stuff than most. He loved that about her.
“Von refused to live in the same house he was born in,” she continued talking, “so he got an apartment as soon as he turned eighteen. That left me here. But I’m never in this room anyway,” she added.
“Where do you hang out?”
“Back here,” she said as she led him across the living room, one step down, into a small den with wood paneling on the walls. It had two very old and dated recliners, a table in the middle with stacks of papers on it, and a large TV. “This is where I hang out.”
Hawk smiled at the old-fashioned room. “The seventies are calling,” he said.
She laughed. “I know.” She was nodding her head as she looked around too. “I know.”
Then the laughing died down and silence ensued as they looked at each other. Both were still dusty from their ordeal in that hole. “You need a bath,” she said to him with a grin on her face.
“Why don’t you run me a bath?” he asked her.
