Page 60 of Leading Conviction
“Let’s head up there. I don’t want to miss twilight if I can help it.”
Hannah poured a red Solo cup of water and carried both the water and her mason jar of tea toward the stairs. Hawk took his own glass and joined her as she entered the stairwell and climbed the stairs to the roof.
“What’s this third floor going to be?” Hannah asked on their way. “I peeked in and it looked totally empty? No rooms or anything, just one long warehouse floor.”
“We bought this place hoping we could grow into it one day. We all lived out of duffel bags for so long, we were itching to plant our roots together and make lives for ourselves.”
“I get that,” Hannah replied once they arrived at the top of the stairs. Nestling her cups in the crook of her arm, she carefully gathered some of the supplies she’d stored on the landing. Hawk collected the rest of her materials and balanced his own glass with his elbow before opening the door to the roof. “I would love to make something stable for Tommy. We’ve been on the run for too long.”
His heart twisted in his chest. “Even a day on the run is twenty-four hours too long.”
She nodded and tilted her head toward the roof. “Come on.”
“Oh, there’s no way I’m not following you now.” He chuckled and opened the door. Her full, dark-rose lips ticked up at his flirting, making his cock twitch in his jeans.
Once they stepped out onto the rooftop, the summer morning air filtered through the long sleeves of his black Henley. Hawk’s eyes scanned his surroundings, making sure all was well. He saw nothing but the spherical turbine vents, their rolling toolbox, and the grill, and no one jumped out from behind the large tool shed when he extracted a folding chair for himself.
Farther down the roof, the helicopter stood austere and untouched in the dawn. Behind it, the sky was a navy hue fading into a lighter blue, promising an end to the night even though stars still twinkled above. There was already the barest hint of red, orange, and pink kissing the tree line.
They padded across the dark roof, her in her bare feet and him in his sneakers, until she brought them to the edge. The guard wall was at neck level for her so she could still see the view over the concrete railing. She set the paints on the ground and Hawk extended the portable aluminum easel he’d bought. Once everything was ready, she picked up the canvas she’d been working on and placed it on the easel.
He could already see the makings of the sunrise that must’ve inspired her the day before. The red, orange, yellow, purples, and blues were a blended blur, as if he was squinting at a real sunrise.
“I’m not finished yet, obviously,” she muttered sheepishly. “This is mostly the color-tone base I’m working off of and then adding the colors on top.”
“You don’t just paint the view straight on the canvas?” he asked.
“Sometimes I do. But it provides a more rich background if there’s a different tint underlying it. And if you leave it off-white, everything that color still looks unfinished and you have to paint over them anyway.”
“Ah, gotcha. Well, it’s already gorgeous. If you stopped right here, I’d still put this on any wall in the building.”
A small smile ghosted her lips before she peered around the canvas and studied the sunrise.
“I got here a little too late for twilight yesterday and I’ve thought about coming back ever since. I didn’t even need an alarm this morning. My body was that excited to see it.” She shook her head, a look of awe relaxing her features. “It’s perfect.”
The breeze fluttered her dark-blonde baby hairs out of her braid. Her rounded cheeks glowed from the brightening sky and the reddish-pink shade sparkled in her brown eyes.
“It is,” he breathed, letting her see that all his attention was on her before he looked back at the sky. “Tu cielo.”
She startled, and he felt her eyes on his skin as tangible as a touch.
“My sky,” she breathed, making her breasts rise and fall underneath her blue T-shirt.
The moment grew thick between them, drawing Hawk into her like a magnet. She shook her head and cleared her throat before gathering paints for her palette.
“I should, um, get started.”
“Just pretend I’m not here,” he murmured as he set out the game day folding chair behind her in order to watch her work.
At first, the muscles in her shoulders were tense as she mixed paints and glanced periodically between him, the easel, and the view. He almost teased her about being nervous around him, but he was too excited to see her get lost in her passion. Soon enough, her entire demeanor relaxed as her muscle memory and love for the art settled her into a rhythm.
“The blue mountains create a totally different tint to the sky. The navy mixes so well with the purple here, then transforms into red, orange, yellow, a true rainbow of cool to warm colors blending down to the ground,” she murmured to herself. “It’s gorgeous. I haven’t seen an Appalachian sunrise in ages.”
Hawk sat and watched her in silence, taking in her shapely legs shifting from one foot to the other as she worked, her quick hands flicking paint here and there before fanning out the colors to blend them. After several brush strokes on the canvas, she’d finally seemed to have found her groove.
“How was throwing the ball with Tommy yesterday?” she asked, her voice slightly monotone from focusing.
“The little man tried to warn me off yesterday,” he joked.
