Page 5 of Hawk's Secret
"How long do we watch before we do something about it?" Razor asked. Flat, direct.
"Until I say otherwise," Angel said. "Eyes on the roads, ears open. Hawk, I want the compound routes tightened. If someone's riding through our territory, I want to know about it before they hit Main Street."
I nodded. The Jackals had been a low hum of irritation for months, never quite loud enough to demand action, never quite quiet enough to ignore. Angel's instincts were worth trusting. If he said watch, I watched.
Church ended. The brothers scattered. I went back through to the bar, because Bree was still closing up and someone needed to make sure the place was locked down. That was the reason. The only reason, and still I was lying to myself.
Bree was finishing behind the counter. Wiping things down, stacking glasses, the last of the closing routine. Marcy had left an hour ago, trusting her to handle it, which said something about how fast she'd earned that trust. The bar was empty now, just the two of us and the low hum of the fridge and the smell of spilled beer and old timber.
She looked up when I came through the door. Her face was flushed from the shift, her hair coming loose from whatever she'd tied it back with. She looked tired and alive, and I wanted to turn around and keep walking until whatever I was feeling wore off.
"Good first night," I said. Because I had to say something and that was the safest option.
"Yeah?" She smiled. Not the performance smile, the one she'd been wearing all night for the customers. This one was smaller, warmer, aimed just at me. "Marcy didn't fire me, so I'm counting it as a win."
"Marcy doesn't fire anyone. She just stops putting them on the rota and lets them figure it out."
She laughed. The sound hit me somewhere behind my sternum, a thud I felt all the way down.
"Thanks for getting me in," she said. "I know Lena asked, but you didn't have to."
"It's nothing."
"It's not nothing. Not to me."
She held my gaze for a second too long. I could see it there, the thing she'd been carrying since she was sixteen, the thing I'd been pretending didn't exist because acknowledging it meant doing something about it and I had never been able to figure out what that something should be. She was looking at me the way she'd always looked at me, open, unguarded, fifteen years of wanting sitting right there on her face where anyone could see it.
I should have said goodnight. I should have grabbed my jacket and walked out.
"Lock up when you're done," I said. "I'll be outside."
I went out to the porch. Leaned against the railing. The night air was cold, sharp with pine and the first bite of mountain autumn. My bike was parked with the others along the side of the building. I lit a cigarette I didn't really want and waited.
Ten minutes later, the lights inside went off. The front door opened. Bree stepped out, bag over her shoulder, keys in her hand.
"You waited," she said.
"Making sure you got to your car safe."
She looked at me. Then at her car, parked twenty feet away in a gravel lot on a compound full of armed ex-military men dotted around behind us.
"Right," she said. "Because I'm in so much danger here."
She was laughing at me. I could hear it, the warmth of it, the affection underneath the teasing, and I wanted to close my hand around the sound and keep it somewhere safe.
"Goodnight, Bree."
"Goodnight, Hawk."
She walked to her car. Got in. The engine turned over, the headlights came on, and she pulled out onto the private road that led back to the highway. I watched the taillights all the way down the gravel, through the trees, until the darkness swallowed them.
I finished the cigarette. Ground it under my boot. Went back inside, through the corridor, up the stairs to my room.
I told myself this was what I'd do for anyone. Any friend of Lena's, any woman closing up alone. I'd have waited. I'd have watched.
The lie followed me all the way to bed.
THREE
