Page 24 of Hawkeye

The heat in his green eyes emboldened me. “Take me home with you.”

There was no missing his quiet satisfaction at my reply, which made me feel even more comfortable about my decision.

10

HAWKEYE

Iclosed the front door behind Josie and turned the deadbolt while she stood a few feet inside, taking in the part of my life nobody entered without a reason. The house sat on several acres above the dry foothills east of Escondido, cedar and stone built into the slope with long windows facing the ridges. I had chosen it for the sightlines and privacy, but the worn leather furniture, scarred kitchen table, crowded bookshelves, and framed maps kept it from looking like another Black Castle safe house.

Josie moved farther into the living room, her gaze touching the field guides stacked near one chair and the topographic maps hanging beside the fireplace. Watching her soft presence move through rooms no woman had ever shared with me made the pressure behind my zipper a fucking constant.

I rested one hand at her lower back and guided her toward the kitchen, enjoying the immediate way she leaned into the contact. “You can inspect the rest after dinner, baby doll. I haven’t eaten since lunch, and you worked through most of the evening.”

“I ate half a sandwich.”

“That explains why you’re still upright. It doesn’t qualify as dinner.”

Josie giggled, and I kissed her temple before walking to the refrigerator. She followed, settling near the end of the scarred wooden table while I pulled out two steaks, potatoes, and carrots. Something was deeply satisfying about hearing her bangles slide over her wrist in my kitchen, as though the house had been waiting for sounds I had never noticed were missing.

While I prepared the food, Josie got up and wandered toward the photographs arranged on the wall beside the breakfast nook. Most were old enough that I rarely stopped to look at them anymore, but she studied each one with the same attention she gave the things on her restoration table. Her fingertips hovered near a photograph of my father and me standing on a rocky ridge, careful not to touch the glass even in my house.

“You were little.” She studied the boy beside my father. “Maybe eight?”

“Nine. That was the first time he took me past the marked trails for a search and rescue.”

She glanced toward me. “Search and rescue?”

“Yeah, he volunteered with the county team. A teenager had separated from his family during a storm, and Dad brought me along after the ground crews found him.” With the sides done and the skillet heated, I laid the steaks in the hot pan, the sharp hiss cutting through the kitchen. “We went back the following morning so he could show me the signs everyone had missed.”

Josie’s brows lifted. “At nine?”

“He thought children paid better attention before adults taught them what was supposedly important.” I carried the warmed potatoes to the table. “He’d make me tell him where the wind had shifted, which branches had been disturbed, and whether a track was entering or leaving the ground.”

“There’s a difference between a track and a footprint?” she asked.

“A footprint is one mark. A track is the whole story around it—weight, pace, direction, what changed because someone passed through. Dad didn’t care that I could see a boot impression if I missed everything the person did before and after making it.”

Her expression softened with understanding. “That sounds very much like you.”

“It should. He spent years making damn sure I learned it.”

I switched off the burner and transferred the steaks to plates.

She moved back to the table, and I set her plate down and took the chair beside hers instead of sitting across from her. Josie angled toward me while she ate, asking about the wildfire command-post photograph next, and I told her my father had moved into wildfire response full-time after too many rescue calls began with somebody underestimating dry terrain. He taught me to read smoke before it thickened, wind before it changed direction, and ground before I trusted it beneath my boots.

Josie listened without filling every pause, her food forgotten for several seconds whenever I gave her another piece of the past. The concentration on her face felt different when it was turned toward me rather than an artifact. She wasn’t cataloging facts or satisfying idle curiosity. She wanted to know what had shaped me, and I discovered I liked being studied by her almost as much as I enjoyed watching every emotion cross her face.

“So your father taught you to wait,” she mused. “Not because you were uncertain. Because moving before you understood the ground could make everything worse.”

“Patience isn’t hesitation.” I rested my forearm along the table and watched her plush lips close around the fork. “It’s making sure the first move solves the problem instead of creating three more.”

Her gaze lingered on mine. “That explains a lot.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“Probably.” Josie smiled, her dimple deepening. “But I’m still deciding which parts.”

I had no trouble imagining several parts of me she could examine upstairs. My gaze dropped to the pulse fluttering in her throat before moving lower to the soft breasts pressing against her neckline.