Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(2)

I was never even on a f*cking ship.

I don't want to think about where I've been, only where I'm going.

For four years I was basically off the grid. No social media of any kind, I didn't even email. Just an angry loner, but everybody loves a corpsman so no one cared. Doc is everybody's best friend, except when I was giving out vaccinations. The dryer runs and bugs swarm around a dying yellow light. It smells like ozone now. The storm is getting closer. The laundry is under an overhang in a gap between two halves of the motel. When I walk out, I feel the first soft touches of rain on my head, run my fingers over my hair.

I can grow it back out again, I guess. At least for now. Alex always liked to play with my hair. It was a shaggy mop, I only cut it when I was made to, maybe twice a year.

Back in the room, I fold everything, lay out clothes for tomorrow on the other bed and rip the cheap polyester comforter back on mine. The air conditioner still sounds like someone dumped a bucket of gravel inside, but it's gone cold enough to make the room bearable. It'll be a hot one tomorrow if this storm breaks overnight. If not it'll be rainy and everyone's Fourth of July will be ruined.

Of course it doesn't matter. I'm here to rain on their parade either way.

I smile to myself a little at that one. Alex would laugh at it, even if it is unbearably cheesy.

A reality show drones on the television and rain starts drumming on the metal shell of the air conditioner. I see a flash but don't hear the thunder.

It feels like a minute has passed when a thunderclap wakes me. It rattles the windows and shakes the floor. It must be close, maybe even struck something in town. Another flash and I can't count one before thunder hammers the windows and rattles the door. Hell of a storm. I've slept through worse.

Then it's morning, and the storm has passed. The window is still streaky but sunlight cuts through, slicing a bright hot line down the middle of the room until I throw the curtains open all the way. Paradise Falls has a certain feel after a summer storm, the air looks heavy. It's going to be a hot one today. I can taste it.

Before I leave, I make sure my duffel is packed and ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice.

Then I start walking.

It's a long walk to town from out here. Like most small to mid sized towns out here, there's an older core of hundred year old houses and shops and a second town that springs up, all sprawl and shopping centers. All of that is confined over here, to the west of town across the river. The bridge connects the two halves, old and new. There's broad walking paths on either side, and as I walk across, a few cars zip by, throwing blasts of hot air at their passing. Over the river, the humidity is unbearable. The river is running high from the rain and mists rise up to swallow the bridge before falling back down, carried by the wind.

Alex used to run with me from one side to the other. On the right days when the wind would blow just right we'd both end up soaked on the other side, the sticky humid summer air leaving all the sweat slick on our bodies. Alex would stop at the end and lean on her knees, panting, then stand up, laugh, and bolt for the other side, leaving me to catch up. She could outrun the devil, run faster than anyone I've ever known.

By the time I reach the far side, I'm sweating through my shirt, but I don't really care. Everyone else will be sweltering in this heat, too. In the distance I hear music and the faint sounds of a crowd. Over the rooftops I can see hints of a carnival; the top of a Ferris Wheel, the end of the big swinging pirate ship popping up over the roof line here, then there as it swings almost vertical before falling back. The carnival comes to the grounds of the Lutheran church every year for the Fourth of July.

Alex is sitting at one of the picnic tables eating a funnel cake, frosting and powdered sugar smeared all over her face as she tries to lick her fingers clean and make sit worse. When I laugh at her, she grabs a great steaming hot chunk of the funnel cake and rams it in my mouth, sneering at me. I end up eating it out of her hand and licking her fingers clean. It only makes them stickier.

Closer, now. I can see the sawhorses and Paradise Falls cops standing around in their goofy dress uniforms, sweating like pigs. They pay me no mind as I walk past, into the crowd.

Commerce Street, the main road through Paradise Falls, runs from one end of town to the other where it stops in a cul-de-sac surrounded by the old city hall and municipal buildings. Shops used to line both sides of the street. When I left, two-thirds of those were closed and now it looks worse. Bunting and posters cover the empty black windows, like a poor attempt at covering for missing teeth. Most of the town must be here, mingling. With the road closed off, they stand and mill around right in the middle of the street. Kids are getting their faces painted, cotton candy bobs in a dozen hands all around me.

All around are signs touting that this has all been paid for by Friends of Thomas Richardson.

That'd be my father.

Curious, I walk further up, glancing at all the signs. Friends?

That sounds like a political campaign, doesn't it?

Then I stop, freeze, and stare. There's a pair of hot dog carts on the sidewalk, the chrome shining in the brilliant, cloudless sunlight. Atop each cart is a sign advertising FREE HOT DOGS with a smaller Provided by Richardson for Mayor underneath, and two girls, one manning each of the carts. It takes me a moment of dull staring to recognize Alexis.

She looks just like she did the day I left. Deep tan, honey brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, her sharp brown eyes quick and perceptive, focused on the teenage boy taking a hot dog from her hands. Alexis is wearing a Richardson for Mayor T-shirt, big white block letters on blue stretched across her chest. She's filled out a little, I can see now. Broader hips, fuller chest, but her arms are still corded with smooth, feminine muscle, her shoulders still powerful. Her expression sets something off. So flat and lifeless, like a mask, but her eyes are still oh so sharp.