Volume Six
Hawk
Hawk
Ann B Harrison
Copyright 2015, Ann B Harrison
Chapter 1
“Hawk, is that you?” Geoff Hawkins turned and watched the petite blonde he’d been hoping to see sashay toward him along the boardwalk in her tourist operator’s uniform.
“Cassie. Great to see you.” He reached for her, intent on giving her a hug.
She lifted her hand and slapped him across the face, hard. “You lousy bastard! How dare you stand me up and never bother to call. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive or just in someone else’s bed.”
The sting should have shocked Hawk but in truth he was kind of expecting it. In his job there was always the risk of pissing off some poor unsuspecting female. No excuses, no goodbyes, and no postcards with a ‘thanks for the great time’.
He’d hoped for more from Cassie. They’d gotten on well since they were kids. She knew he was in the armed forces—just not what part of it exactly. Nobody knew that; not even his mother. Still, a slap across the face wasn’t what he wanted. No. Something a little more welcoming would have been nice. Not exactly a full-on parade to welcome him home after a long stint overseas but less palm action would have been preferable. He refused to rub the spot even though it burned like hell.
“Where were you?” Her eyes misted over and his stomach clenched.
Not the tears. Please don’t give me the tears. They always make me feel like a callous bastard. I’m not. Secretive—yes, callous—no. “I told you before, I can’t…”
“…tell me or you’ll have to kill me. Right, I got it.” She wiped a hand over her eyes; half turned away from him and gazed out over the ocean, the wind softly blowing the hair away from her tear-streaked face. “So why are you here then? Going to love me and leave me again?”
“You mean you’ll give me a chance?” He watched her eyes for any sign of impending violence, ready to take a step back or do a tuck and roll off the pathway.
“Tell me why I should. You promise me the moon, take me out, wine and dine me and take me to bed, love me like you mean it and then disappear. I’m not sure I can take any more of that treatment. Why would anybody in their right mind want crap like that?”
“Can we go somewhere and talk about this, please? I don’t need to share my secrets with the local tourists or your work colleagues?” He reached a hand out to her, inviting her to give him the chance.
“I don’t know if I want to go there again.” Cass wiped a finger under her eyelid, sniffed and looked him directly in the eyes. “You’ll sweet talk me, and after the last time, I promised myself not to get sucked in. I want more than a part time, roll-in-roll-out-of-bed boyfriend, Hawk. I want a man who can commit. That isn’t you, is it?”
He stepped closer, her smell triggering his body to react as it always did around her. Damned if he hadn’t almost talked himself into not coming back and trying to make it up to her. When the boss told them they had Christmas off this year, his well-laid plans to keep his distance had changed. It was the opportunity he’d looked for. He needed Cass as much as he needed the adrenaline buzz he got from his job. It was all he could do not to commandeer a chopper out to Fraser Island to see her. Common sense had won out and he’d shared the ferry trip across to the island resort where she worked with a load of wide-eyed visitors, dingoes and four wheel drives. “I have Christmas off this year. Can we spend it together? It might give us a chance to sort this out once and for all. I don’t want to lose you, Cass. Please say yes.”
* * *
The pleading look in his eyes almost did her in. She’d loved Geoff Hawkins ever since she was paired up with him for a science experiment in year eight. They’d become best friends and that was enough … until he’d started dating other girls. She’d been tempted to tell him how she felt but always chickened out at the last minute. Better to be his friend than be laughed at when he rejected her. Admittedly she wasn’t anything like the girls he normally went for. His type had always been the big-breasted, pouty-lipped airheads who spent more time fluffing up their makeup in front of the mirror than taking note of what went down in the classroom.
Cass had pined for him when he joined the armed forces, and waited eagerly for him to come home on leave, desperate to know he wasn’t a casualty of war. The whole time he was away, she wrote to him, emailed, and waited for him to return to her safely. She’d pasted all his letters in a scrapbook she still kept under her mattress to bring out when she missed him and needed comfort.
Watching him hanging out with other girls almost killed her. It wasn’t until last year he began to look at her differently. No longer the little kid he used to tease or treated like a best mate, he watched her and treated her like a woman, and she’d loved it thinking they were finally where she wanted to be. They spent time together on the island on her days off, lying in the white sand, swimming in the island’s many lakes, and lazing about together. Cass had imagined one thing would lead to another. She was wrong. He’d gone without a word, not coming back for five weeks. When she’d asked him about it, he’d shrugged his shoulders and told her
