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“Isn’t everyone these days?”
“True.” He retreated to the kitchen and returned with bagels. “Here. It’s simple, but it’ll do.”
I nodded in approval, digging into the bagel with cream cheese that he had prepared for me. I wondered if Ally had told him how I liked my bagel. Another reason that woman was a lifesaver.
“So your fella. Why let him go like that? I thought you loved him.” He went straight for the jugular, and I wasn’t ready for it. But something about him being a stranger made me want to open up to him.
“I did. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t what I wanted to do. But I think, in the end, it will be the best course of action. He doesn’t deserve to be caught up in all of this. I wanted him to be safe more than I wanted him to be with me.”
“Shouldn’t that have been his decision?”
“He wouldn’t have made the right decision. Terry wouldn’t have walked away, even if it meant losing his life. I can’t do that to him. He deserves better.”
“I think you’re trying to do the honorable thing for him. But in the end, you’re making choices for him that you should be making together. You need to let him have a say. Let him decide how much he can handle. Like my wife and me.” He took a swig of his coffee before continuing. “She knows I’m away on assignment. She knows that sometimes this life requires that. But at the end of the day, she knows I’m coming home to her. Maybe all you needed to do was let Terry decide if he wanted to come home to you.”
I sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“I do, but like I said before, you don’t have a lot of faith in us. Because we are going to get Chad.”
“Talk to me about something else,” I said, jumping in and interrupting whatever rant he was about to deliver that I had already heard. “I want to talk about something else. Something other than this situation, or how much you disagree with what I did with Terry.”
Hawkeye opened his mouth to say something but closed it.
“Please,” I pleaded with him—with my words and with my eyes—hoping he would just bring me a distraction.
“I’m not good at small talk,” he finally managed to say. I felt the hope that had risen up deflate.
“Me neither,” I admitted with a smile. “Guess we have that in common.”
He laughed and shook his head, sipping on coffee. “You remind me a lot of my wife. You remind me a lot of the woman she might have become had she not ended up with me.”
“What, stalked by some crazy ex-boyfriend?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
I did earn a chuckle from him, which pleased me.
“No, not stalked by some crazy ex. I just mean the way you’re driven. The way you created your own company. Paid your dues doing small, odd jobs and making sure you learned the business. It just seems like something she would have done if she weren’t saddled with me.”
“What makes you say she’s saddled with you?”
“With the work I do and having to take care of our son, she just doesn’t get to work out of the home the way I think she would like to.” He sighed and took a long drink of his coffee before continuing. “She was a teacher before we had our son, and then she quit so she could stay home with him. It’s hard on a child to have a working mother when their dad is always gone like I am. Or at least, that’s what she says.” He shrugged as if he was repeating back the words his wife had said to him many times.
He seemed like a good person. I genuinely liked the man who was taking the time away from his family to protect me and Jackson. Really, I was thankful for them all. I wish I had done a better job of showing it.
“I bet she doesn’t feel saddled by you,” I said, smiling warmly at him. I hoped he saw that I was extending an olive branch.
“I bet Terry wouldn’t have felt saddled by you either,” Hawkeye said.
We stared at each other for a bit until his ringing phone broke the silence.
“Saved by the bell,” he told me. Leaving our breakfast picnic, he headed toward the bedroom area to talk on the phone; to one of his guys, I assumed.
I strained to listen to what was being said but failed. He talked in hushed tones. On purpose, I was sure.
“All right, I’ll let her know,” he said, walking back toward where we had breakfast. “Talk to you soon.”
He hung up and sat down and began eating his bagel.
“Well, are you going to tell me? Is it good news or bad news?” I asked. I leaned forward on the sofa, hoping it would gain me some insight into what was happening. A lump formed in my throat. I wondered if it was something with Terry. Had he gone after Chad, and then something had happened to him?
