“That’s sweet,” she whispered.

Dad cleared his throat.

I looked down at my plate and forked into my salad. I tried, I really did, to keep my eyes to my plate but even though I managed to keep my head bowed, my eyes lifted and I glanced at Hawk.

The minute I did, my eyes dropped back to my plate but my breath came out of me in a whoosh and the look on his face, even catching only a glimpse of it, was burned on my brain in a way I knew the scar of that burn would live there forever.

This was because when I looked at him Hawk didn’t look like Hawk or not the man I was growing to learn was Hawk.

Hawk looked like the Hawk of my daydreams. His face was gentle but his eyes were intense, heated and I felt them burning into me even then as I shoved salad into my mouth and looked anywhere but him.

“So… um… Hawk,” Dad said into the silence, “did you see any action when you served?”

I heard Hawk’s deep voice answer but I had decided to concentrate on shoveling food in my mouth, chewing and swallowing without getting tomato sauce on my tee, lettuce stuck in my teeth or strangling on an unchewed bite of garlic bread so, even though I wanted to know Hawk’s answer, I didn’t listen.

As if sensing my mood, Meredith quietly engaged me in conversation about the books I was editing while Dad and Hawk bonded over Army stories. Lucky for me, this took us to the end of dinner, which didn’t last long and also didn’t include me explaining things about Ginger.

Meredith was apologizing for not having made any dessert when we all stood and Hawk announced dinner tasted great but he had “shit to do”.

Then his eyes cut to me. “Babe, walk me to my car.”

I didn’t know if this was an order or a request and I really, really wanted to run to a closet and barricade myself in it because after I told that story, I really, really didn’t want to be alone with Hawk. But I couldn’t do that with Dad and Meredith watching so I nodded.

Farewells, thank yous and come agains were called as Hawk and I moved to the door. Then we were through it. Then the door closed firmly behind us, the latch making a definitive noise, Dad’s way of giving Hawk privacy, telling him he and Meredith were going to let Hawk and me walk to the car without spectators when I knew Dad and Meredith were so going to watch through the curtains (or at least Meredith was). But at this point I didn’t care. At this point I felt so self-conscious it was a burn emanating from deep inside me as another burn, the one in my brain, the one that carried that look I saw on his face, made its presence felt.

Therefore, I had no reaction when Hawk took my hand and walked me down my parents’ walk to his Camaro and I had no reaction when he used my hand to position me with my back to his car and I also had no reaction when he pinned me in with his big body and his hands settled on either side of my neck. I didn’t even have a reaction when his thumbs put gentle pressure on the undersides of my jaw and forced me to look up at him.

In the cold, February dark of a Colorado evening, I saw his black eyes lit by streetlamps and finally had a reaction. And that reaction was to instigate avoidance tactics without delay. And the avoidance tactics I decided on were picking a fight.

“I didn’t tell them about Ginger,” I stated hurriedly. “I need to set up my laptop and get in a few hours of work but because I didn’t do it at dinner, now I have to go in there and explain things about Ginger. That’s gonna suck. I had it all planned out. I was all psyched up. Now I’ve totally lost my mojo because of you. You ruined my plan by showing up.”

Clearly not feeling like fighting, Hawk took no umbrage and his thumb swept the curve of my jaw as he replied, “I briefed your Dad before dinner. You can go in and get right to work.”

I blinked up at him. “You briefed Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you say?”

Hawk answered an answer that was far from complete, “He knows more than you, you know more than your stepmom.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means your stepmom doesn’t need to know the shit swirling around your sister, or at least she’s not gonna hear it from me. You already know too much and aren’t gonna know any more. Your father needs to know it all so I told him and he agrees with me about you and your stepmom.”

I didn’t know where to start so I started in the middle.

“You told Dad everything?”

“He asked questions, I answered, so… yeah.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. What I was sure about was that I couldn’t turn back time so I had to let it go.

“How was he?”

His thumbs went away from my jaws as his hands slid down to rest where my neck met my shoulders.

“Not happy but not surprised,” he answered.

I knew how Dad felt because I felt the same way.

“How did you keep this from Meredith?”

“She was cookin’, I asked for some time, your Dad took me into his den and I closed the doors. We got out and she didn’t ask. Their conversation, if they have one, can be private. She’s his woman, that’s his call.”

I had no verbal response to this but I felt gratitude. Hawk was right, Dad would want to know and he wouldn’t be happy not knowing. Hawk was also right, Meredith shouldn’t know unless Dad felt she could handle it and he should tell her himself.

Even though I felt gratitude, I didn’t express it. Instead my eyes slid to the side.

“Babe,” Hawk called when they did and my eyes slid back. “What you said earlier –”

On no. We were not going to talk about earlier. I’d gladly walk barefoot on a bed of hot coals and at the end of that journey take a swan dive into the boiling lava at the mouth of a volcano before I talked about earlier.

Therefore instantly I tried to jerk my neck away and move out from in front of him but he moved faster, pushing in closer, pinning me to the car and his hands came up to cup my jaws, forcing my face tipped to him.

“Babe,” he repeated when my eyes stared at his ear.

Guess I had to talk about it.

“I was making it up,” I lied to his ear. “Meredith is a romantic. I couldn’t tell her how we really are. Not then with Dad there, not privately, not ever.”

“Babe,” he said yet again.

“It’s not a big deal or at least it isn’t now. When you disappear, it will be then. Meredith will be sad but I’ll handle it.”

“Sweet Pea, look at me,” he ordered quietly.