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“For all the gossip—”
“Sordid gossip,” she reminded him.
“So noted. But for all the digging the reporter did, I took a few things away beyond the story of your mother’s life.”
“Such as?”
Hawk had read the article so many times he nearly had it memorized. And while the first few reads had given him the direction he needed to work the Krupids’ case, making the connection between Livia, Claudia and Annalise, it had been the later rereads of the article that had stuck with him.
Livia’s six children were a unit. Even as the story had painted them—born of different fathers—there was still a sense about the siblings. A closeness. A bond.
Heck, it might have even been the simplicity of shared battle scars growing up under Livia’s influence.
Regardless of the reason, he’d walked away from that article convinced there was a vibrant, well-tended support system that was a by-product of the lives Livia had created, quite likely beyond her intentions.
“You and your siblings are tight. I got that sense.”
“We are.”
“You’re also close with Thorne’s father, Mac.”
She smiled at that, a genuine smile that filled her face, softening the slightly wary edges. “Mac has been a surrogate father to me, too. To my siblings as well, but especially me and my younger sister. He took us in after my mother went to prison. He’s an amazing man and he’s been all the father I’ve ever needed.”
“From all I can see, he’s done a damn fine job.”
“He’s perfect on all counts.” A small frown marred her lips. “Except his willingness to ask Evelyn out.”
“Your store assistant?”
“One and the same. They’re perfect for each other and both are stubbornly resistant to being fixed up.”
He couldn’t hold back the low bark of laughter, or the subtle delight at the clear grimace on her face. “Think you know best for them both?”
“On this I do. They’re bright, wonderful, vibrant people. And there are clear sparks between them on the rare occasion I can manage to get them in the same room. It’s a match. I’m sure of it.”
“Most people like to decide that for themselves.”
“Most people aren’t as stubborn as Mac and Evelyn.”
“Pot? Kettle?” The words fell from his lips, light and easy.
But it was the answering smile that touched something inside of him, lighting a spark of its own.
“Or maybe just the unwavering hopefulness two people I think the world of can find each other and live happily ever after.”
The easy camaraderie faded, her words a swift, harsh reminder that there was no happy ending. No blissful fade into the sunset. He’d believed it once. Hell, he’d had it once. Happy ever after.
Jennifer had even placed a small wooden plaque prominently on their kitchen counter, proclaiming they’d live the rest of their lives that way.
And it had all been shattered in the course of one horrific, haunting evening.
* * *
Claudia knew it the moment she’d overstepped, yet had no idea why. Although she was curious about the photograph Hawk had showed her in the car, she wanted a few moments of equilibrium.
A few quiet moments to process the information that had whirled into her morning, along with an attractive, virile man who tugged at something inside of her she’d believed buried.
Or, at minimum, on hold for a while.
The conversation about her family and the easy shift to Mac and Evelyn had flowed, a fun discussion in a quiet coffeehouse. Yes, it had been a distraction, delaying the inevitable discussion about her mother, but it had been fun. Light.
Sweet, even.
And then he’d seemed to crash.
If it were just the mood change she might have shrugged it off and moved on, but it was the utter bleakness that seemed to cover him. A blizzard-like whiteout of anger and sadness and grief.
“Is something wrong?”
“Of course not.”
“Since I believe you about as much as I believe the caramel in this latte isn’t fattening, you might as well tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
His tone was sharp—pointed—yet she didn’t feel threatened. She’d faced that with Ben, especially in the last few months they were together. The change in conversation and the lightning-quick shifts in mood.
She’d learned to fear those moments.
Hawk continued on before she could say anything. “Sorry. I’m sorry. And it’s not nothing, either. I lost my wife a few years ago. There are moments—” He broke off, hesitated. “There are still moments that rear up and remind me. Of her.” A sign he was even less like Ben.
Claudia quickly cycled through their conversation before landing on the moment. “The happily-ever-after part?”
“Yes.”
The images she’d carried all morning—the first few moments in the shop, her impulsive decision to drive him in her car, even the light teasing over coffee—cycled through her mind, as well. Each had combined, leaving an impression of a capable man who was on a determined mission to find her history and heritage.
But it was this man—the vulnerable one with grief and scars and pain—who spoke to her the loudest.
Losing a loved one was always hard, but to lose one’s spouse—their love—and at such a young age... She’d already placed him in his early thirties. The news that he’d lost someone so young was a terrible shock.
“I’m so sorry.” She reached over before she could check the impulse, laying a hand over his. “How long since your wife died?”
“About four years.”
Claudia added the time to her age assessment before nodding. “I am truly sorry.”
The hand beneath hers was warm and solid, exactly what she’d expected when she’d given him the surreptitious glances in the car. When his gaze drifted over that same place, she began to pull her hand back, aware of how quickly she’d leaped to such intimacy.
But as he laid his other hand over hers, she sensed his need for the simple connection.
“Thank you. I don’t talk about my wife much but I usually don’t freeze in the middle of a conversation, either.”
“You’re welcome.”
She debated her next step, but knew the time for the personal had passed. Even if she was curious about his wife and how the woman had died, they weren’t there to explore his past.
Nor did she need that added wrinkle of awareness that whispered across her senses, reminding her Hawk Huntley was single.
“Since you didn’t accompany me here to drink lattes and while away the morning, why don’t we discuss what’s really going on. Namely this family you’re working for.”
“The Krupids.”
“Yes.”
“They’re from Russia but live here now?”
He nodded, the lines that grooved around his eyes fading at the shift in topic. “They do now. They did eventually manage to emigrate from Russia. It was several years after Annalise had vanished, but they’ve never given up hope or the desire to find her.”
“And you’ve not told them what you suspect? About me?”
“No, not yet. They know I’m following leads on their behalf but have given me carte blanche to manage the investigation as I see fit.”
“And you found me because of a blog article?”
That damned article was responsible for more pain than anyone could have imagined. From the initial hurt and damage it caused her sister Leonor, to the broader family embarrassment they’d all suffered because of the exposé on Livia, she’d be happy if she never heard mention of the internet or its contents again.
But what if it was the pathway to your own personal truth?
The question whispered through her mind, more tantalizing than she wanted to admit.
She loved her sisters, brothers and Mac without bounds, but even their love for each other had never been able to assuage that pervasive sense of never belonging. The idea that there was an answer for that—one that went beyond basic embarrassment she’d come from a woman who thought the rules of life simply did not apply to her—was heady.
And far too enticing.
“The blog article was the missing link. I’d had several leads, all centering on sex trafficking, but couldn’t get that last piece.”
“The baby piece?”
“Yes.” He nodded, pulling out his phone and opening up a note-taking app she loved. “Here’s the trail I’ve followed. You can scroll through, but you can see the basic path.”
Claudia took the extended phone, surprised by this facet of his personality, as well. Mobile phones were such personal devices, yet he’d surrendered his as if it was nothing.
“Start at the top?”
“You’re welcome to read all of it, but if you begin at the notation after she left Russia, you can work through the high points.”
The heat of his body was still imprinted on the phone and Claudia did her best to ignore it. Instead, she read the carefully detailed entries, a picture forming in her mind of a young woman, suffering and alone. To have gone from Russia and the only home she’d ever known, essentially kidnapped and moved through the world like a piece of property...
Add on a pregnancy and the loss of her support system and Claudia couldn’t hold back the rising anger.
Or that continued sadness that refused to abate when she thought about all her mother’s bad behavior and all the myriad ways she’d ruined lives. A hundred lifetimes in jail could never fix or repair what she’d damaged.
No, Claudia amended to herself. What she’d broken.
The entries at an end, the photo from the blog his last entry on the screen, she handed back the phone. “You make a convincing argument, I’ll give you that. But it still doesn’t explain why my mother would take on the responsibility for a baby.”
“It can’t be that hard to figure out.”
“What do you mean?”
“All we have to do is ask people if they remember her pregnancy or her behavior at that time.”
“It’s not a secret my mother met my father, Claude, in a whirlwind rush while visiting Europe.”
Hawk persisted. “Yes, but did she completely abandon the young children she had here? I know they’re not close, but would Mac remember?”
“I could ask him.”
“Could you do it now?”
For all she loved Mac, the man didn’t handle surprises well. That went triple when the surprise had anything to do with Livia. She’d worry him unnecessarily if he couldn’t see her face when she asked the question.
“We can go see him, but I’m not calling him with that.”
“Why not? It’s a simple question.”
“Nothing about Mac or his relationship to my mother is simple.”
“I guess I can see that.”
Hawk reached for his coffee, impatience telegraphing off him in waves.
“You want to go this morning?”
A wry, sheepish expression crossed his features. “Can we?”
“Can I finish the errands I came here for?”
“Of course.”
“We’ll swing by his ranch on the way back into Shadow Creek.”
An image of bringing a man home to meet her surrogate father filled her mind’s eye.
And somehow, despite all the surprises they’d suffered over the past few months since her mother’s escape from jail, Claudia figured Hawk’s suspicions were one surprise Mac had never seen coming.
Hell, she had to admit to herself, neither had she.
