I hadn’t even realized I’d been staring until Hawke’s arm shifted, blocking my view. But he was only reaching up to swipe away at some of the foam that had started to streak down his face as it began to break down.

“They’re just for me,” he murmured as his eyes once again met mine in the mirror.

I knew he was talking about the words that started on his chest just above his left nipple and went all the way down his side because he’d dropped his gaze to study them as he’d spoken.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, humiliation burning in my gut as I turned away. But then I felt his hand close around my wrist. Hawke didn’t say anything as he pulled me closer to him. He didn’t kiss me or hold me, he merely maneuvered me so that I was standing next to his right side.

“Revay used to write songs.”

I swallowed hard in the hopes that I could find my own voice. “She was a singer?”

Hawke nodded. “She liked to sing, but her dream was to be a lyricist. She wanted to hear other people singing what she wrote.”

“Was she successful?”

“She sold some songs, but mostly to local bands. To really pursue it, she would have had to move to some place like L.A.”

“Why didn’t she?” I asked, wishing like hell I could wrap my arms around Hawke because I could tell every word was costing him.

“She knew it would mean spending more time apart. I was Special Forces so I was deployed a lot on missions and sometimes I was only home for days at a time. I needed to be near wherever I was stationed so it wouldn’t have been easy for me to fly to some place like L.A. or New York.”

“She chose to be with you instead,” I said in understanding.

Hawke nodded. “She gave up her dream so I could live mine.” Hawke dropped his eyes to study the few puffs of foam that lingered in the sink. “I put in my papers just before my last mission. I was going to encourage her to pursue her dream and I’d be the one to follow her wherever she needed to go to make it happen.”

“But she found out she was pregnant,” I ventured.

Hawke lifted his eyes to meet mine in surprise.

“I overheard you and Ronan talking that day in the gym,” I admitted.

Hawke studied me for a moment, but didn’t comment on my revelation. “We’d been trying for a few years and had finally decided to go see a specialist when we got the news. We were floored,” Hawke said with an uneven chuckle. “Revay had inherited the house in Wyoming from her parents after they died in a car accident so we decided to build a new life there.”

“Is that where you guys were from?”

“Yeah. Revay grew up in that house. My uncle’s property bordered her parents’ ranch.”

The more Hawke revealed, the more questions I had, but I held my tongue in the hopes that he would continue.

“We were living near the base I was stationed at in Texas. The night she was attacked was the night I got home from my last mission. The guys in my team wanted to take me out for a celebratory drink so I was late getting home. In the hour that I was drinking shots and celebrating impending fatherhood, Revay was being raped. By the time I got home, the house was already on fire.”

My gut clenched as the ugly reminder of the true nature of the connection I shared with Hawke raised its ugly head.

“I found her on the floor of our bedroom. She was naked and bleeding and the area rug she’d been lying on was on fire and had started to burn her. I was only able to get her as far as the front door before I was overcome with smoke.”

My eyes shifted to the burn scars on Hawke’s side. I couldn’t stop myself from running my hand over the damaged skin. Hawke trembled beneath my seeking fingers, but he didn’t move away from me or ask me to stop.

“Luckily the firefighters showed up right after that and got us both out. Ronan was working in the ER when we arrived. He saved Revay’s life. She woke up long enough to tell me that it had been two men who’d assaulted her and that one of them had referred to the other as ‘Pops’ and then she told me she loved me. They had to intubate her right after that.”

I stilled in my exploration of Hawk’s scars and closed my eyes. So that was how he’d figured out that it was a father/son duo that had hurt his wife.

“I’m so sorry, Hawke,” I whispered as I shook my head.

Hawke’s touch on my chin as he lifted it was brief, but it was enough to see that he held no censure in his gaze. His eyes fell to the tattoo.

Tags: Sloane Kennedy The Protectors M-M Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net