Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
She sighed.
“He talked to me a lot,” Ana said. “You know this. When you had to deal with the shop and he needed someone to take care of him, I was there. We’d talk for hours, and he was always so afraid you’d refuse to find someone else.”
“I’d refuse?” she asked.
“He knew how stubborn you were. He knew you were in love with him, and he also felt a little guilty.”
This made her frown. “What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t able to give you the children you always wanted, and I know that upset him a great deal. He loved you more than anything, and all he wanted to do was give you everything.”
Katie didn’t blame him. “He went through so much.”
“And so did you. Don’t lose this with Hawk out of guilt. If you love him, tell him. Don’t hold back because of your past, allow yourself to believe that you can’t miss a single moment of life. Our time here is so short, honey. So short.”
“Mom?”
She looked toward her mother and saw tears in her eyes.
“You know, it feels like yesterday when I met your father,” Ana said. “The time we’ve had has been so magical, you’re thirty-five years old, and we’ve been together forty years.” Ana laughed. “Forty amazing years.”
“Has something happened?”
“No, of course not, but I want you to realize that time goes by so fast. One moment, you’re a teenager and think you know everything and that older people suck. Your parents suck, because they don’t know everything, and you have all these memories. Good and bad.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to have any regrets, honey.”
Katie looked at her mother. “I won’t.”
“I love you.”
Her mother embraced her, and Katie held onto her, then Hawk walked through the door.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Hawk asked.
“No, not at all. I just came to see my daughter.”
“I could give you my lunch and get another one,” Hawk said.
“Don’t be silly. I’m going to go and meet up with Kyle. We already have plans. Enjoy your lunch, you two.”
And with that, her mother was gone.
Katie looked toward Hawk.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, just my mom doing mom things. She is worried about me.” She shrugged.
“Well, I nearly lost my life in line at the diner. They’re serving up those pumpkin pancake things, and yeah, people are going insane over them.”
Katie laughed, but she couldn’t help thinking about the fact she had skipped her period. She never missed one before now. This was not the time to say or do anything. It was probably nothing. Women missed them all the time. It was probably stress.
Only, she didn’t feel any stress.
Chapter Nine
“Do you want to talk about it?” Connor asked.
Hawk groaned, rubbing at his head, then he pulled himself out from under the truck. “Talk about what?”
“Whatever has you so distracted you hit your head on the underside of the truck. We’ve been working on this bad boy for a long time, you and I. You’re also my son, and I know when your head is not in the game. So talk.”
“There’s not a lot to talk about.”
Connor laughed. “You know, you were a terrible liar when you were eighteen and you’re just as bad of a liar now. Your ‘tells’ are all the same, son.”
Hawk sighed and he tapped on the edge of the truck and then looked toward his dad. “How soon do you think it is to know you’re in love?”
“Love?”
“Yeah, I mean, do you have to wait a couple of years, a few weeks, or is there an acceptable time limit?”
Connor started to laugh and Hawk looked at his father in confusion.
“I don’t know what love is like for everyone else, but I glanced at your mother, and I knew within a second she was going to be my wife.”
“A second?”
“Yeah.”
He frowned. “Don’t you think that is a little ... absurd? You didn’t even know the woman. You just looked at her, and was it because she was the prettiest girl in the room?” he asked.
Connor sighed. “No, it was in her eyes. I think you can have a woman look pretty or not, but the eyes, they’re the tell. They say they’re the key to the soul or something like that. Your mom had kind eyes and also, when I looked at her, she had this smile on her lips, and I just was smitten, because I knew no matter what, I wanted to see that smile for the rest of my life.”
This did not help. Hawk went back under the truck, and he was so confused he didn’t even know what he was looking at. Nothing made any sense to him.
He didn’t get to stay under the truck for long, as he was pulled out from under it, and then he looked up at his father.