My stomach clutched, my heart stopped beating and I stared.

Then I whispered, “What?”

“My daughter’s name was Sophie.”

His daughter. His daughter. His f**king daughter.

Was.

He said was.

He kept talking. “She had a brother, Simone did, and he was just like Ginger. But there was a reason he was a total f**kin’ piece of trash shithead. Their parents were nightmares. Made your Mom a candidate for Mother of the Year. Simone, she was smart, she got out from under that shit as soon as she could. But for good reasons, but reasons that made her make f**ked up decisions, she was tight with her brother. Too tight. And they stayed tight. I told her, unless she was with me, she didn’t go visit him. But his woman was pregnant, I was away on assignment and he called because his woman was in labor. Simone, she loved kids, she loved her brother, she loved his woman, she was so f**kin’ excited to be an aunt. So she went to their place and took Sophie with her. He walked out of the house, his woman walked out and Simone was walking with Sophie up to the house to meet them. He had some of his boys with him. They were all out on the lawn. Easy targets. Simone didn’t know he was in the middle of a war and died not knowin’ it. Doesn’t matter, that entire neighborhood was a warzone and she knew it because she grew up in it. The enemy took their shot and did their drive-by and didn’t hesitate to add collateral damage to their play. Simone went down, Sophie went down, Julian, Simone’s brother went down and his woman went down. She died before she gave birth but they saved the baby. That kid was the only one who survived that massacre.”

I was listening at the same time trembling and I wondered if my ears were bleeding but I knew my heart was or at least it felt like it.

“Hawk,” I whispered.

“I can’t go there again. I can’t do it again. Trust me, babe, I promised you I’d handle you with care and when I say I’m doin’ it, I’m not lyin’. This ends now before you get too deep.”

I stared up at him and it hit me.

He was so full of shit.

Therefore I informed him of that fact. “You are so full of shit.”

His face went hard, his hand left my chest and went to his cargos. He pulled out a wallet, his thumb sifting through it until he yanked out a folded bit of paper. He opened it and held it in front of my eyes. In it was a younger Hawk wearing fatigues, smiling at the camera while holding two girls. One, in the curve of his arm, an extremely beautiful dark-haired woman who was also smiling at the camera, resting her head on Hawk’s shoulder, her arm around his back, her other hand on his abs. The other, held up against his side, was a two or three year old extremely beautiful little girl, her face in profile a perfect blend of everything that was beautiful about her Mom and her Dad. She was wearing an adorable outfit. Pink. Her little hand was resting on Hawk’s throat. She wasn’t smiling at the camera. She looked like she was giggling and her eyes were on her father.

Yes, my heart was definitely bleeding.

He was still full of shit.

He pulled the picture from my face, folded it, shoved it in his wallet and shoved his wallet in his cargoes saying, “That was the day I was shipping out and that was the last time I saw them.”

“I caught my husband f**king my sister,” I reminded him.

His eyes locked to mine. “Yeah, babe, that sucks but you need to wake up and get over it.”

Was he insane?

“You’re unbelievable,” I hissed.

“My wife and kid were murdered in a drive-by, Gwen, when I was thousands of miles away. What happened to you sucked but do not stand there and throw that shit in my face when it in no way, in no f**kin’ way, compares.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. Absolutely. It doesn’t. That doesn’t mean what you said to me doesn’t hold true.”

“And what’d I say to you, babe?”

“You said to me, I didn’t take the risk in giving myself to you that meant I was saying you weren’t worth the risk. And that holds true the other way around. What happened sucked, Hawk, beyond sucked. I’m pissed at you and my heart still bleeds for your loss. But even so, you’re standing right there saying I’m not worth the risk.”

I knew my point was made when I watched as his face freeze into a blank mask and I took that opportunity to walk right around him, go back to my bags and heft them up. Then I stomped to the door.

At the door I turned to see his eyes on me, his face still frozen in that mask.

“Tack’s boys’ll be in here to get the rest and don’t stop them. You want this to end, you release all of me.”

His face unfroze and it did this in order to gentle and watching his beautiful face gentling was like a punch in the gut.

Jerk!

“Gwen –” he started.

I shook my head. “No, you said what you had to say. And you proved my point. I have no f**king clue how to live my life. I’m not special to you no matter what my instincts and those butterflies I got in my stomach every time I saw you before we became us, but mostly after, told me. And you’re not special either, precisely because you made me feel like shit, again, and I listened to my heart, followed my instincts and allowed it to happen. The decisions I make are whacked. Point made. Lesson learned. I can’t trust my gut so I’m going to live in my head. Lucky for you, we’re over and you don’t have to watch me doing it.”

Then I turned, dropped a suitcase, grabbed the knob, opened the door an inch, picked up my suitcase and kicked the door open further then I struggled through it carrying my suitcases and leaving Cabe “Hawk” Delgado behind.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Disappointed in You

“It’s safe to say, Tack, I’m a little freaked out,” I announced from behind my blindfold.

“Just a little longer, peaches,” Tack replied.

I was in an SUV. Tack didn’t only have a Harley, he had a big Ford Expedition. About five minutes ago, when we left the highway coming from his house and hit Denver, he pulled over and talked me into wearing a blindfold. He had a surprise for me and he’d been so nice the last week, I accepted the blindfold even though it freaked me out.

The last week at Tack’s had been like being on a mini-vacation. It might make me selfish, and an idiot, but when you needed time to get your head together after you’d had your heart broken by a commando, hanging at a mountain hideaway with a biker was a good way to heal.

During my mini-vacation I also took a timeout from Dad, Meredith, Cam, Tracy and Leo. I explained this briefly and they retreated, albeit unhappily. Troy called and I didn’t take the call. I knew either Cam or Tracy had informed him of the state of play and I knew he was feeling for me but I couldn’t face that. Elvira called too, several times, and I didn’t take those either for reasons that didn’t need to be explained.