Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(57)

My father could yell at me for hours because I pulled a C in this or that class and I didn't care, but one look of stern disappointment from Alexis and I was yearning to learn. She was the same way, dismissive of anything soft-science and math she loved, English or social studies not so much. When she was working the math stuff, she'd go quiet as a mouse, sit there with this look of furious concentration on her face, her pencil scratching across the notebook page so fast I couldn't understand how she was keeping all of those numbers and symbols straight.

In our last couple of years, she advanced so far past me that helping me with my homework was trivial. She was doing advanced calculus stuff, equations so complex I couldn't even figure out what they were for, stuff that's still beyond me even now.

Funny. If it weren't for Alexis, I'd never have placed so highly on my tests and been chosen for corps school.

Running through Paradise Falls is so strange. I feel like I've never been here before. Commerce Street is just depressing-it was mostly empty when I left, but now it seems like only every third store front is filled.

As I draw nearer to the river I hear a voice call, "On your left!"

I glance to my side then shift on the sidewalk, and Jacob Kane surges past me, running full-tilt. He barely spares me a glance until he stops at the corner and takes a deep breath. By the time I've caught up, he starts running again. I pace myself to match him.

"Funny meeting you here," I shout, panting.

"Small world, isn't it?"

Lungs burning, I slow. He matches my pace.

"Summers off," he says, grinning. "Best part of the job. Almost."

"I saw your wife last night."

"I know. You've been busy since you came back town, huh?"

"Not busy enough."

He nods.

Ahead, the foot path crosses the bridge, running along either side. The sound of the falls drowns out any hope of conversation until we reach the other side. At that point I'm winded, and slow to walk to let myself catch up before I break into a run an head back.

"How are things with you and the girl?"

"Complicated. I can't read her anymore."

"I know that feeling."

"All that matters is that she's safe. I can't stand…" I trail off.

"What?"

"She's alone with my father right now."

"She volunteered."

I stop completely and stare at him. "I don't f*cking care. That sick bastard put her in a f*cking mental hospital, threatened to kill her and has been making her play secretary and-"

"And?"

"And it's my fault!" I bellow at him. "Mine. The way I felt about her," I clutch my chest, "Feel about her, and I just let her go."

"You're being too hard on yourself, kid. You didn't have a choice."

"I always had a choice-"

"What did he tell you when he made you leave town?"

I pace the footpath. We're at the base of the hill now, the memorial isn't far. I don't want to go up there today.

"If you could go back, what would you do?"

"Fight."

"You'd lose," he says, flatly. "What were you, eighteen, right? Just graduated high school."

"Yeah but-"

"But you were one person. Against many."

"It was a trick." I lean on the concrete and look down into the river. "He wanted me gone so he could marry her mother and play this sick f*ck game, trying to brainwash her or something."

"You didn't know that."

"I could’ve lived with it, you know. If she moved away from here, found somebody else, made her own life. I could live with that."

"Could you?"

The river rushes below, the water frothing over rocks as it cascades away from town.

"No. I'd lose my mind over that, too. Every day was a struggle. When I was in the service, every minute I had to stop myself from going absent without leave and running back here. I knew if I came back, he'd make good on this threat. If I checked up on her, somehow he'd know. I thought he was using her against me as leverage to keep my mouth shut about my mother, but that wasn't it at all."

"She insists on helping us," Jacob says. "If it was up to me, we'd already have you in a safehouse and move against your father on our own."

"Dude," I blurt out, "who the hell are you?"

"Me? I'm a math teacher."

"My ass."

"Hey, I teach at the school. I'm there 192 days a year with in service time. Check for yourself."

I walk most of the way across the bridge, and take a straighter path home. By the time I get back, I've been gone over three hours, I'm covered in sweat and my legs are like overstretched rubber bands. It's not my legs that make me trudge up the back steps, it's the invisible weight on my back. It feels like a dead elephant now.

This bullshit with the computer better work, or we're leaving. I'm taking Alexis and May and we're running and we won't stop. Maybe Canada. There must be someplace my father and his friends won't be able to reach us.

As I step into the kitchen, my father emerges from his office.

Speak of the devil.