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Garrett merely shrugged. “I guess.”
Immediately, Tildy was sorry she’d asked. It was none of her business. “I’m sorry. I-”
“Nah. It’s fine,” he replied. His gait was stiff though, and his manner was gruff, none of it matching the words he was saying. “Hard to find the time. He’s at work; I’m at work.” His eyes scanned the parking lot. Tildy noticed that, while he wasn’t that much older than Hawk, the hard lines of his mouth and eyes were deep-set. He was smaller than Hawk and not nearly as muscled. “We were always together,” he said, almost absent mindedly, as they reached her car.
“I’m sorry,” Tildy repeated for lack of anything more helpful to say.
As she reached out to open her car door, Garrett’s hand came down on her shoulder, and he gave her a slight push, guiding her farther from the building.
“Not sure why you’re sorry,” he told her. “Or that I believe you.”
Tildy balked a little, but he kept herding her past the next row of cars.
“I- I think maybe if the two of you sit down and talk, really talk, you can-”
“He won’t listen,” Garrett said firmly.
Tildy craned her neck to look at him and was surprised at the coldness she saw in his dark eyes. He stopped them, and she turned her head back to see what she’d missed minutes earlier. She’d been so busy looking at Garrett that she hadn’t noticed he was driving a gunmetal gray truck. It would look black in the dark.
“No,” she protested, but it came out soft, more of a whisper or a passing of breath. She tensed, bracing for a scream to attract attention. No one was in the parking lot, but there were a few people on the sidewalk across the street.
Garrett clamped down on her neck with one hand and with the other he opened the passenger side door. Tildy felt herself propelled forward- fast, too fast. The door was swinging toward her. Her forehead connected with the frame of the window with a sickening smack. Pain burst behind her eyes. She felt her knees give way. Her head swam through an encroaching blackness.
“That time I did mean to scare you.”
Chapter 33
Hawk glanced at his watch and compared the time to the clock on the wall, hoping it was fast. It wasn’t, and Tildy would still be waiting. He picked up a spark plug. The Cowboy and Easy had already clocked out. Shooter was still in the office and Hawk wasn’t sure there was actually anything in there, especially not past 5 o’clock on a Saturday, except not go home. Trouble on the home front was a near daily thing lately.
The office door opened, and Shooter emerged. He looked a bit tired this evening as he tossed a few stray tools into a box.
“I don’t think there’s much left,” Hawk said cautiously.
Shooter glanced up at him, his frown deepening. “Do I seem like a coward?” he asked, half-joking.
Hawk grinned. “Nah. Just tired.”
“The end is nigh, my friend,” Shooter replied rather ominously.
Hawk’s eyebrow quirked up. “Oh, yeah?”
“I don’t think I can get it up anymore. There. I said it out loud. Satan’s lacing up his ice skates.” He smiled, only a tab bit ruefully.
Hawk laughed deep in his chest.
“I’m serious!” the older man half-whined. “Twice a day. Sometimes at lunch, too.”
Hawk held up a hand. “I do not need to know what happens on that couch,” he intoned, jerking his chin toward the open office door and the leather couch that lay beyond.
Undeterred, Shooter said, “Even the French maid costume isn’t doing it for me anymore.”
“You could always go for another weekend in Vegas,” Hawk suggested.
This time the smile was genuine. “We might actually get arrested,” Shooter muttered. “Obsessed.” Hawk assumed he was referring to Slick.
“Excited,” Hawk countered.
“Desperate,” Shooter said quietly. “She takes her temperature like every day.”
Hawk grinned. “Where do you stick the thermometer?”
Shooter snorted. “Jesus. I’m not Tex.” He glanced away, wistfully. “I’ll get her a puppy.”
“Shooter, you can’t keep giving your woman pets to fix her problems. And anyway, she’s going to notice it’s not a baby.”
His boss groaned loudly.
“It’ll happen,” Hawk promised. “When things calm down, get back to normal… bam.” He laid a rag over his worktable. “I gotta go get Tildy. I’m late.”
Shooter smiled. “For a very important date?”
“It’s not a date.”
“You gonna give her a ride on your bike?”
“Still not a date.”
“True. It’s only a date if you let her ride something else.”
Hawk twitched a little as he remembered saying the exact same thing to Tildy. “We’re just friends,” he insisted heading for the door.
“You want all my extra condoms?” Shooter called after him. “Since I’m not using them anymore?”
Hawk flipped him off without looking back.
He wove through traffic and parked his bike next to Tildy’s Mercedes. There weren’t very many other cars left in the lot, and he cursed himself for being this late. He couldn’t have blown Garrett off though. He killed the Harley’s engine and swung down to the pavement. It was hot outside and the heat coming off the pavement was making it worse. As he opened the door to the Community Center and stepped in, he noticed the building didn’t have air conditioning.
