Hawk’s mouth got tight.
“Tyra’s friend,” I whispered then louder, “And?”
“The bad guys found them. Early this morning, Elliott Belova got dead and his woman is in surgery, not lookin’ good.”
My body locked.
Oh my God.
Oh my God!
“Hawk,” I breathed.
“Keep that shit to yourself for now, Sweet Pea. Serious. Do not call Tyra. Let me find out what the f**k’s goin’ on.”
I nodded.
“Now I gotta go.”
I kept nodding.
“Kiss me, babe.”
I rolled up on my toes and kissed him.
Hawk kissed me back, hard but brief.
When he lifted his head, he whispered, “Love you, babe.”
“Love you too, Hawk,” I whispered back.
Then he let me go and poof! Vanished.
I stood frozen at the sink.
Then I whispered, “Oh my God,” my breath hitched as a very bad feeling stole through me, “Tack.”
* * * * *
Tess
Fifteen minutes later, Brock and Tessa Lucas’s house, Washington Park, Denver…
“Martha,” I said into my cell phone, standing in my kitchen, “I advise against a sit down dinner.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you have five hundred guests coming to your wedding. First, that’s going to cost a fortune. Second, it’ll cost a fortune.”
As Martha replied, “Tess, I’ve waited over four decades for this shindig. And I want it to be the… frigging… best… of everything,” I watched as Joel wandered in and stole a cupcake from the array of them on the island.
“Hang on a second,” I said to Martha then I said to Joel, “Honey, those are for the party.”
“There’re, like, a hundred of them,” Joel replied, eyeing the island covered in cupcakes.
This was true with a slight exaggeration and only half of them were for the party since, when I made them, I doubled the number because I knew this exact thing would happen.
“Right, then, it’s still morning,” I told him.