Kristen Ashley - Mystery Man

Tack had a bevy of badass bikers at his command and a mountain hideaway.

So I picked Tack.

While he was gone I called and left a message with Dad telling him where I was so he wouldn’t worry and telling him I’d explain later. I also told him the dinner Elvira and I sorted out with Hawk, Gus and Maria was off and I’d explain that later too. I didn’t call Meredith because she could take calls at work and I wasn’t ready to go there. I did call Cam and Tracy. Cam ranted about Hawk saying how she knew, she just knew, Hawk was a motherfucking asshole. Tracy sounded exactly as heartbroken as I felt.

I didn’t call Troy. He wouldn’t gloat, I knew that, he’d be kind. He’d also offer me a place to stay and Troy was a great guy but he didn’t have a bevy of badass bikers at his command and a mountain hideaway. He had a condo and his male friends were mostly bankers.

I was sitting on Tack’s huge, slouchy, comfortable, tan couch that faced the view, my mind filled with unhappy thoughts at the same time considering a nap which I hoped would last around fifty years, when I saw Tack on his bike roaring up the drive. He was alone and his Harley was not laden with suitcases.

Shit.

I got up and met him at the front door.

He looked unhappy.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No,” he answered, moved to a door off the entry area, opened it and pulled out a leather biker jacket. He turned, tossed it to me and I caught it. “Put that on, peaches. I hate to break this to you but Hawk’s bein’ a dick. He won’t release your shit unless he sees you. My boys are in a standoff with his boys at his warehouse and to get your shit without unnecessary hassle which could mean anything from minor injuries to bloodshed to hospital stays, I need you to show your face.”

My body had locked but my mouth moved to form the word, “What?”

Tack invaded my space and one hand went to my waist, the other hand curled around my neck. “Darlin’, he’s demandin’ to see you. So,” his hands gave me a squeeze, “we gotta let him see you. He’ll see you, I’m at your back, then we take off and my boys go in and get your shit.”

“He’s holding my stuff for ransom until he sees me?” I whispered.

“Yep,” Tack answered.

“Why?” I was still whispering.

“Fuck if I know,” Tack replied.

I stood there, his hands on me, staring into his eyes.

Then I lost my mind.

I stepped back and yanked on his jacket. “That fucking dick!” I shouted. “God! What was I thinking! I must have lost my mind, getting involved with him. Temporarily insane!”

Then I freed my hair from the collar, stomped straight out the door and toward his bike only to be pulled up short with an arm at my belly, my foot just about ready to take the step off the decking at the side of the house and onto the gravel drive.

Tack lifted me clean off my feet, turned and put me down.

I pulled away, whirled on him then he said, “Babe, boots.”

I looked down at my feet in socks. Then I tipped my head back to look at Tack to see his mouth twitching.

Then I stomped into his house to get my boots.

* * *

Tack was right.

When we made it to Hawk’s warehouse there was definitely a standoff. A big black van was surrounded by about a dozen bikes and a dozen bikers were facing off against an equal number of commandos. Hawk had pulled in what looked like the entirety of his workforce.

He was amongst them.

Tack drove his Harley between the battle lines, stopped in front of Hawk and put down a foot.

“You see her, now let my boys in,” Tack growled.

Hawk looked at me. Luckily I’d spent the entire ride down the mountain nursing my snit, stoking it up so I was good and freaking angry so seeing him didn’t make me dissolve into tears or anything else equally humiliating.

“Inside,” Hawk clipped at me.

“No fuckin’ way,” Tack clipped back.

Hawk didn’t take his eyes off me. “Inside,” he repeated.

Tack pushed down the bike stand and I knew he was losing it too so I hopped off.

“Gwen –” Tack started.

I whipped my head around so fast my hair flew over my shoulder.

“It’s cool, I’m fine, I’ll be out in a minute,” I assured him.

“Peaches –”

“I’m fine, Tack, honestly, I’ll be out in a minute.”

Then I didn’t wait for his response, I skirted Hawk, pushed through his line of commandos, or, more accurately, between Fang and Jorge, and stomped into the warehouse.

When I got to the area just beyond the space under the bed platform I saw that rumor and Tack were right. When Hawk was done, he was done. I knew this because my two suitcases were there, my desk, my disconnected computer and my box of desk shit.

Why he wanted me there, I didn’t know. Maybe because he was an asshole. But then, most men were.

I grabbed my suitcases, lugged them up, turned and ran smack into Hawk.

My head tipped back. “Get out of my way,” I snapped.

He bent, pulled the suitcases out of my hands then his hands were on me. I barely got the chance to struggle before I was up against the paneled room under the platform and I was held there with his hand at my chest.

“Now, babe, you’re gonna let me explain.”

“Take your hand off me.”

“Her name was Simone,” he stated bizarrely.

“Who, your new toy?” I shot back.

“No, my dead wife.”

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 fucking 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 fuckin’ 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 fucked 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 fuckin’ 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 fucking 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 fuckin’ 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 fucking 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.

“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.

Tack’s boys took my desk and desk shit to my house but my computer and suitcases to his. They set up my computer in his office. I spent my days working and tidying his office. Then I cleaned his house. On day two Tack took me to the grocery store, we stocked up with a mountain of food for his mountain hideaway and I started to cook fantastic meals for when he got home that took ages to prepare. This included desserts and lots of them.