Page 45 of His for the Holiday

“Nothing.” I drew in a breath through my nostrils and stared out at the lights on the water. “There’s nothing to say. Either he’ll come or he won’t.”

“Fair enough,” she reasoned. “It won’t be easy on you either way. Have you told Winnie yet?”

“No, but please don’t say anything to her. She’ll be crushed if he ends up changing his mind and it’s Calen. His mind is constantly changing.”

The man had always been erratic in that way. He was a bundle of energy and laughs, but he couldn’t make a plan and stick to it to save his life.

Mom reached for my arm and gave me a reassuring squeeze. “Whatever happens, we’ll be here for you and don’t worry. We won’t tell Winnie.”

“Thank you,” I said softly. Sighing, I leaned back in the chair. “I just wish I could smack some sense into him so that he’ll remember that she might not be his shiny new baby, but she’s still his daughter and she misses the heck out of him. I’ll hate every minute that he’s here, but it would mean so much to Win if he comes to see her.”

“You’ve done everything you needed to do for her, honey. Calen’s actions are out of your control. As long as you don’t get her hopes up, let him do whatever he’s going to do. It’s the only thing you can do.”

“I know,” I said, but I was still hurt.

How easy all this has been for him.

It made me so mad I could hurl, and yet, in protecting my daughter from being hurt by him again, I was basically protecting him as well. If he disappointed her this time, she wouldn’t even know about it, so she wouldn’t be able to hold it against him.

Fucking asshole.

“You’ve been seeing a lot of Hawk lately,” Mom said a moment later and my heart skipped a couple beats at the mere mention of his name.

Thinking about him did things to my body, with my brain being the sole holdout at this point. Despite my best intentions, I definitely felt something for him again. Or maybe it was more that I’d never stopped.

Heaven knew, feelings as strong as I was having now didn’t just come out of nowhere. It honestly felt like I’d simply buried them all those years ago and now seeing him was like taking an excavator to all the dirt I’d shoved on top of them.

All those feelings were being unearthed too fast for me to keep up, and I debated telling my mom about them, but once again, my brain was my saving grace. I’d been trying real hard not to make a big deal out of what could very well be nothing, and talking to my mom about it would only make it real.

Finally, I settled on giving her a nonchalant shrug and took another sip. “Yeah, he’s been around. Don’t go getting too excited, though. We’re just friends and he’s leaving soon.”

“Uh huh.” She chuckled as she sipped her drink, her gaze sparkling with that knowing gleam moms got when they thought they knew something about you that you didn’t. “Just friends. Right. Have you spoken to him about what happened before?”

“With me and him, or with Calen?” I asked, then gave my head a quick shake. “Actually, it doesn’t matter. We’ve spoken a bit about both of those things. Why?”

She shrugged, but that gleam was still in her eyes. “I’m just curious. You two were so close. Now you’re back and he’s back, and who knows?”

“I do,” I said firmly. “I’m back. He’s visiting. There’s a difference.”

“Hmm.” She turned to watch the lights and blew out a soft exhale through her nostrils. “Did he explain himself?”

“For taking Hailey to prom?” I asked, looking out at the glittering water and the ships and remembering how often I’d sat right here with him, cuddled up on his lap and in his arms after my parents had gone to sleep. “He claims he was never ashamed of being with me and that he just wanted to keep what we had to himself.”

“Well, you might not want to hear this, but it does make a little bit of sense, honey,” she said. “For the longest time, you were his anchor. His stability. His mom was gone by the time they moved here and Henry worked pretty hard. Emery was younger and she needed more of their dad’s attention when he was around. Hawk had you.”

“And that means he couldn’t walk into a decorated gym with me?” I shot back at her. “I don’t know, Mom. It seems a little far-fetched.”

“Maybe, but teenage boys are not exactly known for their logical reasoning processes, Sutton. I know how much he hurt you when he asked her to go with him instead, but I think he was hurt as well when you cut all ties with him so abruptly. Both of you could’ve handled it better, but you were children. Just don’t let that stand in your way now, okay?”

“Dad wouldn’t like to hear you say that,” I teased rather than to question her more about her thoughts about the past. I got the general direction she was going in, and that gave me enough to think about as it was. “He doesn’t like Hawk anymore.”

Mom chuckled. “He doesn’t like that Hawk has spent all these years chasing money instead of being there for his family. Emery and Henry were okay on their own for years. By the time they needed him, he had more than enough money to come home and help, but he didn’t. Your father has always put his family first and so did his father before him. He doesn’t understand men who don’t.”

“Neither do I.” I finished my wine and got up. “Thanks for the chat. I should probably get to bed.”

“Good night, honey,” she murmured, a soft smile on her lips as her gaze met mine. “Remember what I said about Hawk. Don’t judge the man he’s become by the mistakes he made as a boy.”

I nodded, but I didn’t know the man he’d become well enough not to judge him by the boy I’d once known better than the back of my own hand. All I really knew was that he still seemed to have a good heart somewhere deep down inside, but he’d also turned his back on his family when they’d needed him and he now used phrases like “pure awesome.”