H is for Hawk (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

“We should go check your truck,” I said.

“Why?” Hawk asked.

“You should just go check,” Malia said, trying to keep from falling into fits of laughter.

“Oh no,” he said, laughing.

When we got to the truck, we all broke into laughter. There were cans attached to the back with string and a giant bow on the front. It looked like the bow had been made of tied-together shower curtains. The back windshield had the words “Just Married” sprayed on it with shaving cream and giant hearts all over.

“Well, everyone’s going to know now,” I said.

“Good,” Hawk said. “Let the whole world know.”

25

HAWK

I had never been the kind of person to consider myself impulsive. If anything, I had been accused of being too methodical or slow to act. I wanted to think through every scenario and figure out what the best possible response would be before I acted. I considered myself thoughtful and cautious, both responsible traits that made me dependable.

Then I just flat out asked Dee to marry me out of nowhere while we were standing in a courthouse. Twenty-six years of building a reputation, happily tossed away for the girl of my dreams. I’d make that decision a million times over again.

Seeing the truck all decked out in the trappings of post-wedding celebration made my heart warm. I hadn’t expected it, and yet the second I saw them coming back, I had a feeling that they had done this. I figured seeing Malia and Gerry coming back wasn’t so odd; young lovers often escaped to be alone. But when I saw Wendy and Everett with them, it all started to come together. Pieces of the night rose to my mind and stuck there.

I wondered why Wendy was so adamant about getting out empty cans to “take to the trash for us.” It had seemed like a sweet gesture for our big day, but looking back on it, she was just being clever. I made a mental note to talk to her again before we left.

“You know,” I said, taking Dee’s hand as we walked back to the party, “we should have a reception with all our friends. And a honeymoon.”

“I would love that,” she said, wrapping herself around my arm and squeezing. “Where would we go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. We could go anywhere.”

She smiled and then reached up on her toes to kiss my cheek.

“I would be happy to honeymoon in a shoebox if it meant being there with you,” she said.

“That’d have to be an awfully big shoebox,” I laughed.

“At least a size twelve,” she giggled.

We made it back to the party and joined in full swing, the story of how the foursome snuck away to decorate my truck without us knowing becoming the focus of many on the back porch.

“So, we were thinking,” I said to Wendy a few minutes later, “we might like to have a reception. Something where we could invite everyone and celebrate rather than doing another wedding.”

“You absolutely should,” she said. “Finn, come here!”

Finn, who had been inside helping put away leftovers from the grill that Carter and Deacon had been manning all evening, came to the door.

“What’s up, babe?” he asked.

“Hawk said they might want to do a reception rather than a big wedding. Do you think you and Helen could do the food?” she asked.

“For sure,” he said. “Actually, Tony was just saying he wanted to do some baking. He might be the guy to put in charge of it.”

“What did I hear about Tony?” Helen said, coming into view from inside and walking past Finn.

Wendy filled her in on the idea, and Helen was nodding her head in agreement when I piped in.

“Who is Tony?” I asked.

“Oh, he comes to the bonfires occasionally,” she said. “But usually if Finn and I are both here, he’s running the diner. Really sweet guy.”

“Hell of a cook too,” Finn said.

“Actually, that gives me an idea,” Helen said. “What would you say we did the reception instead of a bonfire next week?”

“You mean interrupt the sacred bonfire schedule?” Finn asked, a grin on his face.

“I vote for it,” came a voice from the stairs. A head appeared over the railing, followed by the rest of the body of a grinning Carter, whose house we were currently occupying the yard of. “If you want to do it here, we can get this place looking real nice for you. I’ve been meaning to do some landscaping on my own place rather than someone else’s for once.”

“You would really be okay with that?” I asked. I hadn’t been hanging out with most of these people for very long, but I knew how important their weekly bonfire was to them. It was the center of their social calendar and had happened in rain or shine, snow or wind. They always found a way to be together and have a fire, even if it had to be lower-key and inside the fireplace.