Page 34 of Torn In Two

I could have melted into a puddle with all the feelings those three words sent through me. If seeing her in his arms wasn’t enough to defrost the ice that had formed around my heart with Hawk’s lies, those words would have done it.

He went to the door next to his, hand resting on the knob. “This isn’t finished, but I’ve been working on it for a while. The cabin only had one bedroom, and even if she slept down there with you, I wanted her to have a room of her own up here…”

He’d picked the room closest to his.

My heart squeezed painfully as he opened the door to reveal pale-pink walls and a white iron-frame bed covered with a pretty quilt. There was a small wardrobe filled with Hayley-Jade-sized clothes, and a shelf full of books and toys. A couple of Barbie dolls lay abandoned on a thick rug that covered the scuffed-up floorboards beneath, evidence she’d already been playing in here earlier in the day. All the rooms here had their own bathrooms, and Hayley Jade’s had a fluffy pink bathmat with matching towels hanging from the rails.

Hawk knelt beside the bed to lower my tired child to her pillow. He tucked her blankets around her. Her dark eyes watched him intently.

“Time for bed, Hay Jay.” He leaned over and switched on a nightlight sitting on the bedside table.

Hayley Jade shook her head stubbornly.

He stared at her for a second, something silently passing between them. Then he sighed, as if he’d understood whatever it was she’d been saying with her eyes. “Seriously? Again?”

I frowned, not sure what he meant by that, but a wide smile split her angel face, and she nodded.

He glanced over at me and then squinted at the little girl. “Your mama is going to laugh at me if I do that.”

Hayley Jade turned her eyes to me.

I stepped forward, perching on the edge of her bed and put my hand over my heart. “I promise. Whatever it is. I will not laugh.”

I meant it. Whatever was going on here was clearly important to her, and if it was important to Hayley Jade, then it was important to me too.

Hawk groaned. “Fine. Fine. But you two tell anyone else…”

I gave Hayley Jade a wink and drew my fingers across my lips, miming the closing of a zipper.

She giggled.

Hawk started singing beneath his breath.

I glanced over at him, surprised, and he just shook his head, continuing on with the song I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t one of the church songs I’d been taught as a kid, and I had a very limited knowledge of popular music from my time on the outside, but it wasn’t a song I recognized from then either.

But I didn’t need to know the words to enjoy the deep, husky sound of Hawk’s voice.

He was singing to my daughter, and clearly not for the first time. Her small body relaxed into the soft mattress, and her dark lashes fluttered closed while Hawk sang the strange song about shimmering lights and Heaven or Hell.

I listened to every word, and when he finished, Hayley Jade was out, her breathing soft and regular, sung to sleep by a biker who everyone thought was heartless.

But I knew better. I knew his heart. The true essence of who he was. Even if he didn’t show it to anyone else, he’d shown me. And he’d shown my girl.

He rocked back on his heels and stood, jerking his head toward the door. We both tiptoed out, and he closed it behind me with a soft snick.

“What was that song?” I asked him. “A lullaby?” I knew what that was, but I was unfamiliar with them. If my parents had sung to me or my sisters as babies, I didn’t remember.

He cleared his throat and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh. Not exactly. I don’t know any of those. It was ‘Hotel California’ by The Eagles.”

That didn’t mean anything to me, but Aloha overheard and snorted on his laughter.

Hawk shot him a look that promised death by a thousand tiny cuts if he didn’t shut up, but Aloha ignored him and started up his own warbled version of the song.

Hawk just steered me to the door between Hayley Jade’s and Hayden’s. “This is yours.”

I gasped when he opened the door to reveal a clean, simple space. The bedding from the cabin had been brought up and covered the large bed. My clothes hung in the closet, and the en suite had some sort of sweet-smelling reed diffuser sitting on the bathroom counter, next to a fluffy towel and my toiletries.

“This was Gunner’s room…” I stared at Hawk wide-eyed. “I can’t just take it from him.”

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