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Hawk shook his head. “A house. I bought it last year. Haven’t met the neighbours yet.”
“You’ve lived there for a year, and you haven’t met the neighbours?”
“I don’t spend much time at home.”
“So you might actually have a Margaret, and you just don’t know it?”
“I guess it’s possible.”
At least it wasn’t only me he didn’t speak to. The thought made me feel a little better. A cat and a cactus—today, I’d learned something about Hawk other than his favourite sex position. Which was against the wall with my legs wrapped around his waist, by the way. If I was wearing heels, so much the better. Hmm… Perhaps I shouldn’t have left all of my fancy pumps behind? Yes, I was still mad at Hawk, but if he was in my bed for the next four nights, then I definitely planned to take advantage of him.
I wasn’t a saint, okay?
“You want to drive the next stint?” he asked. “Or are you still tired?”
“I’ll take a turn.”
When he paid for our food, I noticed he didn’t try to claim the veterans’ discount. An oversight? Or was he trying to forget his past? Whatever, I wasn’t going to mention it. No, I was going to climb behind the wheel of his big-ass truck, drive to Maine, and hope this weekend didn’t turn out to be as painful as I feared.
7
AGATHA
I’d been to Steppen Island once before, not for a wedding but to scatter the ashes of my grandfather. He used to fish there when he was a boy, travelling over on the ferry from his home on the mainland. The old house had long since been redeveloped, but he’d reminisced about those trips until the day he died, even after Alzheimer’s stole most of his mind.
The ferry still ran every half hour, and judging by the age of it, my grandfather might have taken the very same boat.
“What time does the hotel stop serving dinner?” Hawk asked.
He was in the driver’s seat again, his piercing eyes ever vigilant as we chugged across the bay. We’d covered the basics on the journey north, nothing deep and meaningful, but at least if someone asked me what kind of music he liked, I knew the answer was rock and not heavy metal. He currently had four motorcycles, one of which was in pieces, and his house was a three-bedroom ranch on the outskirts of Rybridge. A surprisingly nice area, although he’d picked the place up cheap after one of the previous occupants died in the bathroom. A lovers’ tiff that turned tragic, the press reports said. Of course I’d googled the details on my phone.
“Did you at least replace the tub?” I’d asked him.
“Yeah, but the dead don’t bother me. It’s the living you need to watch out for.”
Wasn’t that the truth?
I already knew his mom had died when he was a teenager—from pancreatic cancer—but he grudgingly filled in a few more details. His had been an unconventional upbringing, but not an unpleasant one. He missed his mom, and he wished his dad had spent more time with him, but he understood the pull of the open road. And I told him more about my family, the stories liberally sprinkled with warnings about what to expect this weekend.
“Clarice, my older sister, is perfect. Seriously, she never puts a foot wrong, in my parents’ eyes at least. She married Buckley twelve years ago, right after they finished in the peace corps.”
“Buckley?”
“Yup, and he looks exactly how you’d expect a Buckley to look.” Slicked-back hair, chinos, polo shirt buttoned up to his chin. “Now they live in suburban utopia with their two kids, Charity and Chastity.”
“Chastity? Poor kid.”
“I know, right? She shortens it to Chas. They both behave impeccably, but I swear, someday that kid’s gonna get sick of acting like a Stepford child and rebel.” Chas was fond of getting muddy in the yard, she hated dolls, and at nine years old, she still had an imaginary friend. “Charity’s a clone of Clarice, but Chas has a mulish streak.”
“Like you?”
I flashed him a smile. “Maybe. When I left the FBI, Mom told me how relieved she and Dad were that I’d finally come to my senses, and she honestly expected me to move back to Lewiston and start popping out babies. A woman’s place is in the home, don’t you know? Expect plenty of questions about your ability to provide for me.”
Hawk’s lips twitched. “So I shouldn’t tell them I’m a feminist?”
“Don’t you dare. Odette took some of the pressure off when she got engaged to Stu, but once she has a ring on her finger, Mom will start dropping hints again. Oh, whatever you do, don’t mention golf in front of Stu—he’ll never, ever stop talking.”
“How about Buckley? Any topics to avoid?”
