Interesting.

“Babe,” he called.

My body jerked out of its amazement and I asked, “What?”

“You gonna do that?”

“What?”

“Sleep.”

No. No I was never going to get back to sleep. I’d got my second wind after standing in the cold when he left earlier and I’d managed to blow through a huge amount of work, staying awake and fresh until my concentration started waning around a quarter to midnight. I’d closed down and hit the sack feeling an exhaustion I knew would mean I’d sleep deep. The minute my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

Now I was wide awake.

“Yes,” I lied.

His head dropped and he did something new, something he’d never done except in the lead up to something else. And that was to lightly kiss the indention at the base of my throat in the middle of my collarbone.

Then he slid off me, turned me to my side, curved his body into mine, hitching one of my knees up with his so his heavy, warm thigh was resting on mine. His arm stayed tight around my belly, he leaned in and kissed the skin behind my ear then his head settled on the pillow.

Guess Cabe Delgado didn’t verbalize his goodnight, he acted it out.

Mm.

I laid there in the warm curve of his body under his arm, feeling his breath on my neck thinking, Holy shit, MM is spooning me!

Tracy would do cartwheels of pure joy for a mile if she knew this. Cam might have a heart attack.

I didn’t know what to do except let the feeling my body was communicating to my brain penetrate and that feeling was, I really, really like this.

My ex-husband Scott never spooned. I spooned his back but he never cuddled into me. Even after sex. He was a slam, bam, thank you ma’am type of guy. He took his orgasm, pulled out, rolled away, turned off the light and fell asleep.

And he snored.

He didn’t cuddle. He didn’t sweet talk. He didn’t do any of that. Not even in the hopes of priming me for round two. With Scott, there was never a round two. This was, I would discover later, because by the time he had sex with me, he was too exhausted to do it again because he’d already had sex with someone else that day. Or two someone elses. Maybe even three, who knew, that was how much of a horndog he was.

Hawk’s weight settled into me, his arm relaxed, his breathing evened and I knew he was asleep. Asleep spooning me.

What did I do with this? How did I make us be over when I liked this? And what he said outside by his car. And the fact he didn’t like the thought that me or my family might be targeted and he did something about it.

This was not a man who would crush Troy like a bug and boss me around. This was a man you’d make up in a daydream.

And this was what filled my head until it drifted through my head until my body started to relax into Hawk’s and then I fell asleep.

I could have been in dream world for awhile but it felt like seconds before I felt Hawk’s arm get so tight it nearly hurt, cutting off my breathing, my eyes opened and in that instant the heat of him was gone.

I rolled, seeing his shadow by the bed, he was pulling on his cargos.

I got up on an elbow and opened my mouth to say something when he moved again, his knee hit the bed, his finger rested lightly on my lips and I watched as his shadowy head shook in the negative once.

Uh-oh.

Then he was gone.

About a nanosecond later I heard a scuffle, some exerted gasps then a hard, loud thump as if someone’s body hit the wall.

Then I heard my sister Ginger’s unmistakable shriek, “What the fuck!”

I threw back the covers and leaped from the bed, seeing the lights going on in the hall.

“Ginger! Jesus!” I heard my Dad yell before I hit the hall to see Ginger pinned against the wall with Hawk’s hand in her chest, Hawk standing in cargoes with the top button undone, Dad in the hall wearing only pajama bottoms staring angrily at Ginger and Meredith joining late, like me, but unlike me she was wearing one of her long, lacy, satin negligees, what she always wore, even when I was a kid, though some of them were short, and I always thought she was quite, simply it because of her sexy nightwear.

“What are you doing here?” Dad asked Ginger, his eyes narrowed on her, apparently unsurprised and unconcerned that Hawk was standing in his hallway in the middle of the night, bare-chested and barefoot with the top button on his cargos undone.

For my part, I was unsurprised that Ginger was dressed like Darla had been yesterday except she was wearing a camisole laced up the front and it was at least one, maybe two sizes too small so the lacing gaped and it showed skin and a hint of boob. She also wasn’t wearing fishnets but tights that had big holes and runs in them everywhere. And she also really needed a refresh on her makeup since her mascara and eyeliner were giving her raccoon eyes. Lastly, her curly strawberry blonde hair was the definition of a rat’s nest.

My sister. Serious skankage.

“I grew up here,” Ginger snapped back and Hawk stepped back, dropping his arm and moving to me.

“Yeah, but the last time you were here I think I made myself clear you weren’t welcome back,” Dad returned and my eyes slid to Meredith to see she was standing there, both arms wrapped around her belly, her pixie-pretty face pale and her lip quivering.

Seeing that, my gaze moved back and I mentally speared my sister with imaginary giant, African tribal lances.

“Fuck, I just need a fuckin’ shower and somethin’ to eat. I’ve got some shit goin’ down, you can’t even let me have a fuckin’ shower?” Ginger shot back.

“Mouth, Ginger,” I warned because Meredith hated it when we cursed. She said ladies didn’t curse. Of course I cursed in my head and sometimes they came out of my mouth but I never did it in front of Meredith.

Ginger leaned toward me and hissed, “Fuck you, Gwennie.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Dad butted in to inform her.

Her head jerked toward Dad. “So fuckin’ what?” Ginger returned.

“Ginger, remember who you’re speaking to,” I snapped at her and her eyes shot to me.

“Fuck you again.” Her eyes swept me then she asked, “What’re you even doin’ here?”

“Escapin’ your shit which leaked to her house last night,” Hawk replied and Ginger’s eyes sliced to him then to me then to Hawk then to Dad and Meredith.

“I see, I’m your daughter, I got shit goin’ down and I can’t even have any of your precious water to take a fuckin’ shower but Gwennie, sweet, wonderful, perfect Gwennie¸ she can crash here with her fuck buddy,” Ginger said to them and I sucked in breath as I felt Hawk’s body get tight beside mine.

Meredith snapped, “Ginger!”

“What?” Ginger snapped back. “You’re givin’ me shit about bein’ here in the middle of the night but Gwen, perfect Gwen, she can play with her fuck toy right next door and you don’t give a shit?” Ginger asked.

I sucked in another breath as fury radiated in a swell from Hawk, Dad’s face got so red I feared he’d have a heart attack but Meredith, she moved. She walked right up to Ginger and slapped her hard across the face, snapping Ginger’s head to the side.

Everyone moved then because Ginger lunged to attack Meredith. Dad pulled Meredith safe and Hawk pinned Ginger against the wall again with his hand at the same time he held me back from getting in a hair-pulling, bitch-slapping fight with my sister, doing this with his other hand in my belly.

I stopped pushing against him when Ginger fought him, kicking out at his legs with her feet (and not connecting) and tearing at his forearm with her tatty, peeling black painted nails (which I feared would inflict some damage) but he held her against the wall with one hand, his face set and tight, his jaw so hard it looked like it would shatter.

“Get your hand off me!” she shrieked.

“Calm the fuck down,” Hawk returned.

“I said get your fuckin’ hand off me!” Ginger repeated on a screech.

Then we heard it. Glass shattering. Everyone went still and stayed still except Hawk who, after his preliminary freeze, sprinted to the stairs. That was when we heard two more noises, glass breaking much quieter then two identical whooshes followed by two muted booms.

Then we saw the unmistakable dance of firelight from the stairs.

“Hawk!” I screamed, not thinking and dashing to the stairs.

Dad caught me around the belly with a strong arm and pulled me back. He tossed me behind him, lifted a finger in my face and ordered, “Stay here!”

Then he raced down the stairs.

“Bax!” Meredith cried but I moved.

I turned to her and yelled, “Go! Put on some shoes and a jacket. Get some for Dad.” When Meredith didn’t move, I screamed, “Go, go, go!”

Meredith turned and ran to her room and I turned to Ginger.

“Be smart,” I snapped. “Stay here.”

She glared at me and returned, “Bite me.”

I didn’t have time for Ginger so I didn’t give her any. I ran to the guest bedroom, pulled on my boots and grabbed Hawk’s boots and tee. I was lifting up when I collided with something and that something was Hawk. He had a blanket and he threw it around me, wrapping me up before I could twitch then I was lifted into his arms and we were moving.

I smelled smoke and felt heat and then I smelled fresh air and felt cold. I was put down on my feet and Hawk’s arms left me. I struggled with the blanket, still carrying his tee and boots and got my head clear just in time to see him race back into the house, barefoot and bare-chested. I shrugged off the blanket, dropped his boots and tee in the yard and rushed to the side of house, down the incline and jumped down the short wall to the walkway to Mrs. Mayhew’s apartment. I banged on her door and shouted because sometimes she didn’t hear too well and I kept doing it until the outside light went on and her door opened.

Peering up at me from her old lady height, her blue hair looking like it normally looked not like she’d been sleeping on it, she breathed, “Gwendolyn, what on –?”

I cut her off. “No time, Mrs. M, get a jacket, put on a pair of shoes. Quick, quick, quick! There’s a fire upstairs.”

I didn’t wait for her to obey. I ran into her house, shooing cats out and darted to her bedroom. I had her fleecy, old lady robe in my hands by the time she got to me and I threw it at her then rushed to the closet. I pulled out a pair of fur-lined snow boots, hooked her arm with mine and scuttled her out the door.

When we were outside she stopped and held on to me to keep herself steady while she tugged on her boots and by the time we made it to the front of the house, Meredith was there, a cell to her ear, her body wrapped in a blanket. But I stopped and stared when I saw Dog, of all freaking people, with Dad’s front garden hose going full throttle, aiming it at flames coming out of the front window of the house.

“Where’s Dad and Hawk?” I shouted at Meredith and she took the phone from her ear and replied, “They’re in there. Bax got the fire extinguishers.”

Shit!

My father had been a volunteer firefighter for ten years. He had fire extinguishers everywhere. He and Hawk were so totally the kind of macho idiots who would try to battle a blaze with fucking fire extinguishers.

I sucked in breath, told myself panic wouldn’t help anyone, nor would a screaming hissy fit, both of which I wanted very badly to do.

Then I pulled a quaking Mrs. Mayhew closer to my side and asked Meredith, “Ginger?”

Meredith shook her head and her eyes slid to the side of the house where the tree that Ginger used regularly to sneak out of the house was planted. Dad had threatened to cut down that tree down a million times but since there was another one on the other side of the house, Meredith refused to allow it, said the house would look wonky.

Now, even though my sister was a complete and total bitch, I was glad he didn’t because I knew she escaped down that tree.

This clashed with my thoughts that she took off and left her mother and me up there and didn’t say a word or think of another person in her family. Especially after my childhood home was firebombed because of her fucking shit.

I held Mrs. Mayhew closer and stared at the house, willing Dad and Hawk to come out as Dog kept the hose aimed in the window.

The sirens could be heard and the firemen came and it took them approximately a millisecond to get their shit sorted and start battling the blaze. Dad came out wearing a coat and boots but Hawk emerged from the dancing flames still bare-chested and barefoot.