Hawk opened his eyes but didn’t move. His hand was wrapped around his gun, so if there was someone in the room with him that would cause him harm, he was ready. Looking to his right, he saw his dad sleeping, and Mom was on the other side of the bed, knitting. He was glad to see that she was all right, but he wasn’t going to ask her. She looked upset to him.
“I do hope you know that you scared ten years off my life. Mackenzie tried to tell us it was nothing, but I know better. You’re my son and I know you were in pain.” He sat up a little, ignoring the pain for now. “I have it on good authority that you’re to take two weeks off. And I plan to make you, too.”
“You spoke to my boss?” She nodded and put down her knitting. “You do know that old ladies knit, don’t you? And you are far from that.”
“I’m having grandchildren by my other sons. And here you lie bleeding from a wound that you more than likely won’t tell me how you got.” He told her he was sorry. “I don’t want you to be sorry, Hawkins, I want you to be safe. How much longer are you going to be doing this?”
“I’m getting out.” She looked as shocked as he’d ever seen her. “Something came up and I’m leaving the service. At least as it pertains to me being out in the open all the time. I’ll have my twenty in two years from now, and I’ve made a bargain with the president to work those here from the States. He wants me to train some of the Secret Service on how to do their job.” Not all true, but he didn’t want to tell her that just yet.
“Does Lauren know?” He said not yet. He’d only just talked to the president yesterday. “Two days ago. You’ve been resting here for two days. Mackenzie said that you needed it, as she’d not given you anything to combat the pain.”
“I’d been working for five days when I got hurt. I was exhausted and not paying my usual attention. It was then that I realized that I’d had enough.” His mom moved closer to the bed and took his hand. “I have missed so much being away. And when I spoke to Dustin the other day, about the house that I ended up buying, I realized that it was exactly what I wanted. A home, like the one that you and Dad had for us. Family nearby in the event that I need them. And I know that they’d come, too.”
“Yes, even far away like you have been, we would have come to you immediately.” He kissed her hand and held it while he lay there. For having so much rest, he was still fighting sleep. “Hawkins, you’re all right, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m going to be all right. I’m not saying that It’s going to be easy, entering into this phase of my life, but I’m going to give it my best.” She told him that she loved him. “I love you as well, Mom. All of my family.”
He closed his eyes and felt his body begin to float into sleep. Hawkins knew that he needed it, more than most, but he also knew that he was safe. For the moment anyway. He was home and his family would protect him for a change. Sleep took him under.
When he woke, his guards had changed. Sitting in the big chair was Colin, and his dad was still in the other chair. But this time he was awake and quietly arguing with his brother. Clearing his throat had them both looking at him.
“He’s a stubborn butt. You all are, but this one is making me want to pick up something and hit him over the head. Several times, and very hard. Not that I think it would do much good…he’s hardheaded too.” Hawk asked his dad who he was referring to. “Your brother there. He thinks just because he’s gonna come work with us that he should pay for some of the equipment.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Colin grinned at Dad. “I’m not saying that I agree with you, Colin. I’m just wondering why Dad thinks you shouldn’t.”
“Dad needs a new truck.” Okay, Hawk could see that. He had noticed the last time he was home that it was rusty and falling apart. “And they could use a bigger air compressor. The one that they have now leaks like a sieve, and it only holds twenty pounds of air.”
“I’m guessing that there are bigger ones out there?” Colin nodded. “Can you afford to get these things? What I mean is, why is it you think they need these things? I don’t imagine that they can’t afford them if they really wanted them.”
“Dad drives the company truck and it needs brakes, a new windshield, as well as tires. The ones that he has on there now are showing cord.” Hawk looked at his dad as Colin continued. “The thing burns oil like it’s its job. The heat is on all the time, including the summer months, and the windows quit working on it about the time I was born.”
“It gets me to here and there, don’t it?” Hawk cocked a brow at his dad. “Okay, I could use a new truck. Mom rode with me the other day and told me that I should have warned her about the floor falling out. She nearly lost her purse. And it does get a might hot in there in the summer. But the other stuff, we’re making due.”
“You think that if you had a larger air compressor you could get more work done on the job site?” His dad said that they might, but they didn’t know. “I see. So, since you don’t know, then it’s more than likely a fact that you could. Dad? What is wrong with him helping out?”
Dad leaned back in his seat, but he wasn’t relaxed about it. He hated to lose an argument. And even though no one had lost anything, his dad would still grumble about it. This, Hawk decided, was what he had missed more than anything, and he fell back to sleep.
The next time he woke, he was thankfully alone in the room. Sitting up caused him a little pain, but nothing like he’d had before he came home. Staggering to the bathroom, he turned on the water, and while it was heating up the room, he looked at himself in the mirror.
“You are one ugly fucker.” He wiped at the beard that he’d grown while he’d been out. Deciding to shave once he finished his shower, he pulled the gauze off and gingerly touched the wound.
The pain was nearly gone, but the bruise wasn’t. He stepped into the water and let the heat of it wash over him. Then, as carefully as he could, he washed himself and the wound. It wasn’t the only place on him that was sore, so he had to be careful not to open other wounds that had scabbed over. After finishing up, he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped to the sink. By the time he was finished scraping the bristled beard off his face, he was exhausted. After brushing his teeth, he walked into the bedroom. His gun was on the lap of a man sitting in the chair.
“You do know that that is loaded, right? And that the bullets in it are silver and deadly to anyone?” Jarvis Wingate, President of the United States, nodded. “Just so long as you don’t shoot off something important. What are you doing here?”
“Lauren called me the first day, but it took me a bit to sneak out. Said you were here and recuperating. How are you feeling?” He showed him the wound. “You haven’t shifted yet, I take it.”
“Just woke up. What day of the week is this?” Jarvis laughed and told him. “Okay, it seems I’ve been here for about six days. How many have you been here?”
“I arrived late last night. Much to the exasperation of your newest sister-in-law. I have to tell you, she’s a little scarier than Lauren. And she didn’t stand on ceremony. Tore right into me about giving her notice and such. She is a hellcat, isn’t she?” He said that he hadn’t been on the best of terms with her yet. “Yes, she told me. Also told me that whatever you told me wasn’t nearly as horrific as you made it out to be when the two of you had your encounter. She’s still getting paid, by the way, and her pension has been reinstated. Did you know that she gave that up when she left? Or I should say, she was forced to give it up as a punishment. It’s taken care of, as I said.”
“Figured as much. And her loans? What about those?” Jarvis said they’d been taken care of as well. “Thank you. I don’t think she’s going to be any happier when she figures that out.”
“I’ll leave that to you.” Hawk sat down on the bed, ready to lay down and take another nap. “Does your family know the whole story, Hawkins? Or even why you’re here and not in the field?”
He knew that he was concerned about him. Hell, he was too. But to be called by his first name and not Hawk or McCullough made him wince a little. Hawk shook his head.
“They know only as little as I could tell them. And that is still more than they needed to know. I did tell them that I was getting out and working for you.” Jarvis nodded. “Just so you know, I think that Jon knows, and maybe Mac. I’ve been here for several days now, and I’m sure she figured something was up. Probably knows more about this than even you and I do. She’s that good.”
“No doubt she does. I’m impressed with her too. She’s done some outstanding things in the few weeks since joining this family. But about you…to have someone poison you, one of your own men, is terrifying. You’re very lucky that someone found your body when they did. Had they not…. Well, that’s not a phone call I ever want to make to your family. I don’t think I could do it.” Hawk nodded. “What now?”
“I take the rest of my medical and then I go to work for you.” He told him that was not what he meant and he knew it. “What happens to my life now? I mean, you know as well as I that I don’t have much longer to live. The doc said six months to a year.”
“Yes, I know that. It breaks me to know that too. I owe you and your family so much.” He nodded, not really wanting to think about his shortened life right now. “When are you going to tell them?”
“Tonight. If I can stay awake long enough.” Jarvis stood up. “You sticking around? Or you running off to that cushy job of yours?”
“Cushy? I think not. I’m still cleaning up the mess from my predecessor. You know as well as I do that he left more undone than he ever did to help the country. Anyway, I should get back. Sneaking out is hard enough without pissing people off.” Jarvis put out his hand to shake. “If you need me, all you have to do is call. And everything that you asked for, it’s taken care of as well.”
“Thanks.”
When he was alone, he continued to sit on the bed. He wasn’t feeling any better, but good enough to shift. However, he wasn’t ready for that yet. Soon, he promised himself.
He was going to die. There was something so final about that. Hawk had worked in the most dangerous places in the world, doing jobs that no one he knew would want to do, and hadn’t been anything more than hurt. Now, because he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he’d contracted a deadly poison. And had it not been for the fact that he was a shifter, he would have died there instead of coming home to deal with it.
~~~
Mac wasn’t sure how to talk to the big man. He’d come down the stairs not an hour ago, and had been dozing off and on since then. Sitting in the chair across from him, she waited for him to open his eyes again before she spoke.
“I ran tests.” He said he’d figured she would. “Does anyone else know? I mean, other than the person that hit you with that?”
“The president. You and me.” He asked her who she’d told. Before she could reply, he answered himself. “If you had told anyone, they would be here now. So, I’m assuming that you’ve kept it to yourself.”
“I didn’t even tell Dustin.” He nodded and sat up on the couch a little higher. “I can fix you. I mean, I can make it so it doesn’t kill you. I know how.”
“No, they said it was in my bloodstream and that I won’t be able to even get a transfusion to take care of it.” Mac handed him the journal that she’d found for him. It had a part of her work in it. “What’s this?”
“I was where you were, remember? I know what you were given and how to combat it. This article, I wrote it when my research was only in the infant stages. I have it figured out now.” Hawk studied her, but said nothing. “You can’t work for several weeks after I’m done. I mean, you could, but it would be harder on you than the drug currently is on your body. I can start as soon as you tell your family. I’ll need them. All of them.”
“Why?” Mac got up to pace and she knew that he was watching her. “Is this payback for what I did to you over there?”
She hadn’t meant to slap him. It hadn’t been in her mind to cause him any more pain than he was in now, but as soon as she did it, he told her how sorry he was. And that he knew better.
“I should hope so. I need you to tell your family because they have the blood that I need should Jon’s blood not do the trick. It takes a village to raise a child, and a family to hold it together. I heard that when I was working on this project, and I think it’s fitting. A transfusion won’t work, as you know. I’ll need to completely drain your body of all your blood and force fresh blood, your family’s blood, into you. And that of a few others, like Jon and Victoria. Who both know, by the way. I didn’t tell them; Jon knew and Victoria was here when I took your blood to run a few tests. She…well, she told me that she smelled it.”
“And this force of family blood, how does it work?” She didn’t want to tell him, but knew that if he didn’t have all the details, he’d not do it. What she was hoping for was that Jon would be able to save the day so that this secondary plan didn’t have to be put into place. “Mac? What is it you’re trying very hard not to say?”
“Everyone will be weak, of course. Giving blood will do that to anyone, but when you’re getting this done, you’ll basically be dead. Your heart will stop beating, because I’m going to make sure that it does, but your brain will be fine. There is a slight possibility that you might have some side effects.” He asked her what sort. “Well, I don’t know what the vampire blood or Jon’s will do to you. So I sort of...I took some of his and it affected me.”
“How?” Stopping her pacing, she put out her hands and let them shift, just her hands, into different animals. “You can do that to your whole body?”
“Yes, just as Jon and Reese can.” He nodded and sat up more. “You’d have a good deal more of their blood so...I was thinking that I could just use a bit of Jon’s first to see if that would do the trick, but that would be up to you. He’s scary powerful, and so is his blood. But as I said, that would be entirely up to you.”
“And how does this work?” She explained to him about the equipment that she’d use and how it worked. But told him that she’d only tasted Jon’s blood and it had worked this well. “When can we do this? And how long does it take?”
“You mean just using Jon’s or all of it?” He told her Jon’s. “An hour. Maybe less…I don’t know for sure on that. How much you’ll need is the variable too. You’re a lot bigger than I am. And your muscle mass should be considered as well. There are just too many variables to tell you how much or how long for a certainty.”
She paced again. There was so much that could go wrong, and it might not even work on him. He was not only a bit bigger than her test subject had been, but he was also a shifter. Mac told him that as she moved back and forth across the room.
“And why is it that I need to tell my family? I mean, other than I might need their blood if this doesn’t work?” She told him. “So you think that if I shouldn’t come out of this, that they’ll blame you. They won’t. Not any of them. But I’ll tell them. I was going to tell them anyway. I like this better, because there might be a better outcome thanks to you. Something more positive to look forward to than my impending death.”
“Thank you.” He nodded and asked if he could talk to her. “Yes, but if it’s about what happened over there, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But I do. I need to tell you how sorry I am. And ask that you forgive me for being such an asshole. I’m not usually like that.” She only stared at him. “Okay, I am like that all the time, but not to women. Not usually.”
Mac sat down. She supposed now was as good a time as any to clear the air. And as much as she didn’t want to think about it, she knew there was a chance that he might not make it. Mac knew that her not telling him that she had forgiven him might haunt her for the rest of her life.
“I’ve talked to his mom.” He told her that he knew that. “She had always expected that one day she’d be the one to see him like that. Mary told me that is why she never reads the information that comes on the crates. She doesn’t want to know if it’s someone else’s son that she might know.”
“She told me that too. That she doesn’t want to know a name any more than she wanted to find her son like that. But she said, to have made you do what I wanted you to do would have been even harder on her.” Mac asked why. “She said that the way he came to her was what had happened and it finalized his death. To have seen him like he’d only gone for a nap, it would have been difficult for her to comprehend. This way, she said, while hard, was how he died. Not a pretty version, but real.”
“Had I known, or had an idea that.... Well, I’m not sure that I would have done it then either. There were others that needed me, and helping him wasn’t going to keep them alive.” Hawk said he knew that now. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
“As am I. What I did was wrong. And if you could forgive me, I’d honestly sleep better at night.” She put out her hand and he took it, making her feel better than she had in years. “You and I are going to be good friends, I know it, Mackenzie McCullough.”
Leaving him after talking for another hour, she set things up. Hawk was going to ask to have dinner with his family, and she set that up too. She was just coming out of the kitchen when Dustin came in. He kissed her soundly and she told him that she loved him.
“I have to talk to you about something. We’re having dinner at your parents’ house too. That’s where Hawk will tell you what is going on.” He kissed her again. “I love you. With all that I am.”
“I love you too. Now, are you willing to tell me what is going on?” She did. All of it. “Well, for all the things I thought you were going to say, that wasn’t even close to it.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you and break his confidence in me.” Dustin said that he understood. “He is going to talk to your family tonight. And tell them what we’re going to do to try and fix this.”
“Mom is going to have a cow. Not at you, but because he didn’t tell her right off.” Mac said she understood that. “And my dad.... He’s not going to take it well either. Just to let you know. For all his toughness, he’s a big old kitten. I fell when I was about ten and broke my leg. He cried for an hour. And it wasn’t even that bad.”
“He loves you. Your entire family loves with all that they have. I think that’s why I love them too.” She let him hold her as she finished what she was going to do. Jon was going to be playing a huge role in this, and she hoped that his parents would be all right with it. “Are you kidding? I think they’d lay down their life for Hawkins. Jon is just a boy, yes, but even if they didn’t want him to do it, he’d feel it was his duty to do so. He loves his new family.”
“Still, I want him to get their permission for this. I don’t want anyone backing out at the last minute. It could mean Hawk’s life.” Dustin said that he’d make sure they were all onboard, and if not, then she’d know who wasn’t going to. “I don’t think anyone will say no, but we have to make sure.”
“You’re right. And we’ll figure it out.” Hawkins joined them in the dining room and Dustin hugged his older brother. “I love you, man.”
They held each other for several minutes, neither of them saying anything. Mac felt her eyes fill with tears; it was such a wonderful sight to see love like this, especially between brothers. When they were finished, Hawk pulled her into his arms and held her too. Tears fell down her cheeks when he told her that he loved her too.
Moving away from them, she told them she had to go and see her own brother. Erwin was asking for her. Going out to the car, she had to sit for several minutes to gather her thoughts. Love. She’d never in all her life remembered having such profound love for someone. She loved her brother, yes, but not as this family did one another. She was looking forward to many years with this family and their togetherness.
The jail where he had been taken had transferred him to another place, one that was better prepared to take care of his needs. She headed there now, hoping that this time when she saw him, he’d be able to tell her what Walton had said to him. Stopping by the store first, she picked him up some magazines, as well as some treats. Erwin loved trail mix with the tiny candies in it.
Pulling up in front of the place, she smiled at the setting. It looked like something from a fairy tale. Gingerbread working around the eves, flowers along the gate, and a sidewalk leading to the door, with a welcome sign on the front door. She could also see a garden in the back and several people working in it. One of them was her brother.