CHAPTER NINETEEN
HAWK STOOD by the garage as his daughter drove her car inside. He’d always prided himself on being in control but he’d never had to struggle so hard to keep it all together. Relief battled with anger. He wanted to hold Brittany close to prove to himself that she was all right, then he wanted to lock her in her room for the next hundred and fifty years. She’d scared the hell out of him.
She climbed out of her car and walked toward him. Her expression was wary, as if she wasn’t sure how mad he was going to be. Indecision pulled at her mouth. No doubt she was trying to figure out the best way to play him.
Nicole had been right about him taking the easy way out with Brittany. He hadn’t wanted to hear that truth and he’d taken a lot of his temper out on the messenger, but he’d been unable to escape reality. Somewhere in the past few years, Brittany had turned into a spoiled brat.
“Oh, Daddy, I’m so happy to see you,” she said, rushing toward him. “I missed you, Daddy. I missed you so much.”
So she’d decided to play the loving daughter game. He accepted her hug, patted her back, then led the way into the house. When they were in the kitchen, she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda.
“I feel really bad about worrying you,” she said as she popped the top. “I should have called sooner. Raoul and I hadn’t planned to run away. It just sort of happened. We were talking and then we were packing and then we were gone.”
She paused and smiled, blinking her eyes. “It was very immature of me.”
Did she really think he was that stupid? Hawk shook his head. He already knew the answer to that. Of course she did or she wouldn’t be working the program so hard.
“It was a spontaneous decision to run off?” he asked.
She sipped. “Uh-huh.”
“You just happened to have a fake ID in your back pocket?”
Her eyes widened. “Um, no. It was just lying around.”
“A fake ID in your name with your picture on it.”
“I don’t know where that came from.”
Better to play innocent than come up with a crappy lie, he thought.
“Either you got it or Raoul got it,” he continued. “I’m guessing it has to be Raoul. You’d never do anything like that, would you?”
Her eyes widened even more. “No, Daddy.” Her smile trembled a little at the corners.
“It’s illegal. Getting a minor a fake ID. The police know about it. I should probably warn Nicole they’ll be by to arrest him. Damn. We’re going into the play-offs, too. If Raoul has to miss games because he’s in jail, we’ll never win. It’s his senior year, too. If he doesn’t play, the colleges are going to forget about him. But hey, he earned it, right? He screwed up and now he has to face the consequences.”
Brittany’s face crumbled. She put her soda on the counter and reached out for him. “Daddy, no. Don’t talk like that. Raoul can’t go to jail.”
“Sorry, Brittany. He has to learn his lesson.”
“No. That’s not fair.”
The tears fell faster. Normally Hawk would do anything to make her stop crying, but not this time. He felt oddly detached from the moment. She was his daughter and he would always love her, but he was tired of her calling the shots.
He turned to walk out of the kitchen. Brittany followed him, then grabbed his arm. “It was me,” she said, sobbing and gasping for breath. “It was me. I got the fake ID. It was my idea to use it so we could get married. Raoul didn’t want to. He’s really sweet, Daddy. He worships you. He would never do anything to hurt you or me.”
Hawk did his best not to think about Raoul sleeping with his daughter. While he would consider that crossing the line, Raoul and Brittany wouldn’t see it that way.
“You lied to me,” he said, his voice low.
“I know. I know. I’m so sorry. I just thought…I wanted to get married. I wanted to start my life with Raoul. I wanted us to be happy and a family. Just like you and Mom.”
He put his arm around his daughter and led her into the family room. When she was settled on the sofa, he sat on the coffee table in front of her and took one of her hands in his.
“I loved your mom more than anything,” he said slowly. “I still remember the first time I saw her. She was laughing and the sound cut through me. I knew she was the one, that we would always be together, that I would marry her. There was never a question. She knew, too.”
Brittany wiped away her tears. “Just like me and Raoul.”
He ignored that. “We got together and fell in love. We had plans. Then she turned up pregnant.”
“I know this part.”
“No, you don’t. You know what we told you. Your mom and I were worried that if you knew the truth, you’d feel you weren’t wanted, weren’t loved. I don’t know if it was the right decision, but it’s the one we made. You’ve only heard half the story, Brittany. There’s more I need to tell you.”
“Like what?”
“Like how your mom cried every night for six months because her parents turned their backs on her. How after we were married, we hardly ever saw each other. We were living in my room at my mom’s house, both working two jobs to save as much money as possible because once I went to Oklahoma and started playing football, there wouldn’t be any time for me to work.”
Brittany shifted in her seat. “But that was only for a few weeks. Then you were together.”
“Then I was at practice or in class. Your mom was alone in a strange city where she didn’t know anyone. She was given a job as a receptionist, but she was the youngest person there. She had nothing in common with the other women who were single and going out all the time. She went home to an empty house and waited for me to come home. She spent four years waiting.”
“But then she had me.”
“Yeah, she had a baby. So now she was alone and responsible for an infant. She had no friends, no one to call. Her own mother didn’t speak to her for over a year.”
“But what about the alumni? You said they helped.”
“They did. They brought casseroles and sometimes babysat. They gave us names of doctors and helped with the bills. They made it possible, but it was never easy. There were times your mom and I fought so much we made you cry. There were weeks we hated each other and if we’d had the money, we would have gotten divorced a hundred times over.”
Tears filled Brittany’s eyes again. “Daddy, no.”
He squeezed her fingers. “We worked it out. We realized we loved each other and we were going to have to try harder. Then I signed with the NFL and we were able to move back here. Life got easier. You started school and Serena and I could finally spend some time together. We made it, but just barely.”
“I thought it was different. I thought it was a fairy tale.”
“I know. Maybe that was a mistake.”
Nicole had been right. He and Serena had paved the way to this disaster. They’d practically illustrated a manual on how to screw up a life.
“There’s no baby,” Brittany whispered. “I was sad before, but maybe it’s a good thing. I guess I should go on birth control, Dad.”
Not a conversation he wanted to have.
“You’ll have plenty of time to think about how you want to handle that,” he said. “You already have an appointment with your doctor in two weeks.”
She pulled back her hand. “Dad! That’s so embarrassing.”
“So’s getting pregnant at seventeen. Not that I see that happening again anytime soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t be going out with Raoul for a while.”
She glared at him. “You can’t make me break up with him. He’s my boyfriend and I love him.”
