Page 80 of His for the Holiday

37

HAWK

The day after Thanksgiving was ice cold, the bite in the air slicing to the bone as Dad and I raced from his truck into his office. We were spending the morning at the port together, and with the world still white and everything quiet and calm outside, I was looking forward to spending this time with him before I left for LA tomorrow.

“Whew,” Dad said, rubbing his hands together and blowing warm air onto them as he shut the door against the wind outside. “It’s freezing out there. I guess winter is finally here, huh?”

“Yep.” I rubbed my arms and strode over to the coffeemaker standing on a rickety old table in the corner, turning it on and hoping it was faster than it looked. “Winnie will be happy. Apparently, it’s not normal for the weather to still be fine this time of year.”

Dad chuckled. “It’s going to take her some time to adjust, that’s for sure. She will, though. Kids are resilient.”

“Yeah, I know.” I exhaled, staring at the boats anchored to the docks outside the window as I waited for the machine to do its thing. “I just hope she’s ready to adjust to more than just the weather.”

“You and Sutton are finally doing this thing, huh?”

“We are,” I said, glancing at him over my shoulder to see his reaction to the news. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Dad grinned at me, eyes glittering with what I hoped were happy tears as he nodded slowly. “As long as you treat her better than you did last time, I think you’ll be fine.”

“I never meant to hurt her,” I said, turning back to the docks and wondering what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t asked Hailey to prom. If I could just un-ask that one stupid question, this might’ve been my view all along. “If I could go back, I’d do things differently from the beginning. I would’ve stayed here, piloting your boats, and I would’ve married her. I just wish I could really do it, go back and fix the mistakes I’ve made.”

“If it had happened that way, you wouldn’t have Winnie,” Dad said, reminding me of what it always came back to and he was right.

Sutton’s little girl had already climbed deep into my heart. I’d always loved kids, but that one specifically had triggered my instincts to nurture and protect. I didn’t know if it was because she looked so much like her mother used to, or how it’d happened so fast, but already, I felt like she’d always been destined to be in my life. I wanted to give her the world and then some, and I was going to do it.

That didn’t completely erase my desire to redo the past, though. I would always want Winnie. I just wished it could’ve been my DNA that ran through her veins. I closed my eyes. “I know things happened for a reason, but I fucking hate that Calen is always going to have the power to hurt her. He’s always going to be connected to her in a way I could never be.”

“If you go for it with Sutton, you’ll have the power to protect her from that hurt. That’s more important,” he pointed out. “She may have his blood, but there’s a lot more to life than that.”

I sighed. “Yeah, but only to a certain extent. Biologically, she’s not mine and never will be.”

“Biology only goes so far, son. That’s what I was trying to say,” Dad said. “What matters to a child isn’t blood so much as it is that they’re there for her day in and day out. Who loves her the way she deserves to be loved and who raises her like she’s his own. If you do that, she’ll be yours in all the ways that matter.”

“Do you think Calen will ever come back here?” I asked.

Dad shrugged. “Probably not for a while. Asshole didn’t even ask us to say goodbye to Winnie for him. He just kept muttering about how much he hates America and then told us to fuck off after we dropped him at the airport.”

“He’s a charmer, alright.”

Dad chuckled, but then his features turned serious again. “Before you leave, you need to make sure that little girl knows you’ll be back, and once you’re gone, you need to keep in touch with her, Hawk. She’s been abandoned by one father. Don’t make her feel left behind by another.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, so I haven’t said anything yet, but I should be home shortly before Christmas, and if everything goes well, I’ll be able to stay from then on.”

“There’s no rush,” he said, gratefully accepting the mug and wrapping his thin fingers around it. “Everyone will still be here when you’re ready to come home.”

“The problem is more that I don’t really want to leave.” I blew out a breath and tried to ignore the pulsating pain deep within my being at the thought of getting on that plane in the morning. “Hey, do you want to take the tug out for old times’ sake before I go? I know you haven’t been behind the wheel in a while, but I keep my license up. It could be nice to go for a cruise.”

Dad blinked at me and grinned. “Are you serious? Of course, I want to. Grab the thermos and let’s go.”

As I worked on transferring our coffee, he lifted a coat off the hook on the wall and slid it on. Then he handed me his spare. I put it on, gripping our thermos as we headed out onto the water. We worked together seamlessly, falling into routines we’d had for most of my life without skipping a beat.

I worked on the ropes while Dad headed to the wheelhouse, turning over the engines before he eased us away from the dock.

Once I joined him, I watched him run the gamut of emotions being back behind the wheel. From joy to despair, love of the water to loathing of the situation that had been keeping him off of it.

He’d climbed onto the boat confidently, immediately looking and acting more like the man I’d grown up with. His shoulders had squared and his features had been smooth as he went through the motions of getting us underway

Once we were gliding away from the dock, he grinned, his chest broad and puffed out until tears appeared in his eyes. Deep sorrow became etched into the lines of his face, his gaze forlorn as he looked around like he thought this might be the last time he’d get to be out here like this.