Shotgun Bride

He deserved that shot.

“Why did you agree to do this?” Renee pressed.

“I’ve already answered that.”

“I guess I need to hear it again.” Questions filled her eyes. “I mean, it seems a rather big sacrifice to marry a woman you don’t love and had refused to do so earlier.”

The lady was asking questions of him that he’d wrestled with. Why was he doing this? “Aside from the baby, I owe Emory.” That was the argument he’d used with himself. He didn’t want to examine his motives too closely.

“Why do you owe him?”

He didn’t want to give her this part of him.

“Look at it this way, Hawk. I’m going to marry a man who wanted nothing to do with me until my new-found father asked him to do so. Now, I think I deserve to be told why you’re doing this thing for him, when marriage was so repellent to you before. Tell me, why can I count on you?”

If she’d ranted and raved or cried or demanded, he could’ve ignored her. Instead, she asked a reasonable question. One he couldn’t ignore.

“Did you know my dad worked for Emory?”

“No.”

“Dad was the groundskeeper.” Hawk took a deep breath. “I went to school alongside all the wealthy and privileged of Houston. When the kids started bragging about what their fathers did, I couldn’t say anything.” He glanced at her to see her reaction. So far she only had a questioning look.

“My attitude was rotten. My dad was an honest man, but when you’re eleven and can only say, You should see my dad’s azaleas, well—I wasn’t very proud of who he was. When my mother died of a heart attack, that was the beginning of the end between my dad and me. And I started acting up. To make a long story short, when I was fifteen, I stole a car and went joyriding. When I was caught, Emory got my sorry rear out of trouble. Instead of being sent to reform school, I was assigned to work for Emory. He worked my fingers to the bone and helped me get my head on straight.”

He glanced at Renee to see her reaction to his tale. There wasn’t any revulsion in her face, only concern.

“After my dad died, Emory encouraged me to go to college. I joined the police force and saw things that needed to be addressed, then thought about law school. Emory encouraged me to go. Lent me the money to cover the cost. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never asked for anything in return for his help until—”

“Now.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m sorry that it had to be so great a price.” She bit her bottom lip and closed the lid on the cookie tin.

Her words cut through him. He should tell her—what? He didn’t know how he felt about this marriage, the baby, their relationship. All he knew is that he had to protect her.

“I was glad to do this for Emory. After his son was kidnapped and killed he was never the same.” He paused, consumed by the memories of that dark time. Emory’s wife never recovered, and died within a year in the fire that also killed Emory’s brother and sister-in-law. “When you came to work for Emory, I noticed a difference in him.”

“Did he tell you about me?”

“No. I didn’t know you were his daughter until he dropped that bombshell last week. But I know you’ve made a difference for the old man. And that’s why I did what he asked.”

There was another reason, but he didn’t even want to admit that fact to himself, let alone her.

“Besides, I want to be part of my child’s life.”

She looked down at her abdomen. “I’m glad you want to be involved with this baby.”

He also wanted to reach out and draw her into his arms, but he knew she wouldn’t accept his actions. There was a chasm dividing them. At this point he didn’t see a way to bridge that divide.

“Good night, Hawk,” she whispered.

He remembered her saying that before, sweet and low in his ear. He shook off the memories. As she walked by him, he longed to gather her into his arms, feel the smoothness of her skin, the— He quashed the impulse. Desire wasn’t a good thing to have if he was going to make it through this marriage with his skin intact.

Renee stared at her closed bedroom door and remembered the first time she’d seen Hawk at the office. When she’d asked who he was, Jackie had told her that Hawk was like Emory’s adopted son. But she’d added that Hawk had a reputation of being a bad boy who broke hearts. Renee hadn’t asked about him again.

She’d been so shocked when Hawk had asked her to the Green Gala the Houston police put on that she’d felt like a girl on her first date, silly and nervous.

She’d fallen immediately in love with the handsome man. He was every woman’s fantasy, tall, strong with sparkling brown eyes and a wicked sense of humor. The time between St. Patrick’s Day and the Fourth of July was like a fairy tale. Lunches grabbed at little out-of-the-way restaurants, walks in the park, the wonderful trip to Astroworld where he bought her the stuffed gorilla she kept on her bed.

It had been too good to be true. She hadn’t questioned his closemouthed attitude about his past. What possible skeletons could a cop have? An ugly divorce for starters.

But now it was her past that had thrust them into this situation.

Well, she wouldn’t interfere with Hawk seeing his child, but she didn’t have to risk her heart again. He’d trampled over it once, and she wasn’t eager for it to happen again.

As she turned over, she was determined to protect herself.

She just hoped her body would cooperate.

Renee sat at the table and buttered her toast. Oddly enough, her middle-of-the-night snack had helped with her morning sickness today.

She heard the shower shut off. Hawk was in her bathroom—naked. She closed her eyes, wanting to shut out the thought of him. It didn’t work.

Opening her eyes, she tried to concentrate on the newspaper. The front page reported that a body had been found floating in Buffalo Bayou. That’s probably something that Hawk should know about.

“Mornin’,” he called out.

When she glanced up, he stood at the entrance to her kitchen, tucking his shirt in.

“I left you some scrambled eggs.” She nodded toward the stove.

He didn’t need to be told where things were kept in the kitchen. He knew. After dishing out the eggs, he joined her at the table.

“Sorry there’s no coffee—”

Holding up his hand, he said, “That’s okay. I’ll get a cup at work.”

“Hawk, I can drive myself to the office.”

He put down his fork and looked at the gauze at her temple. “Humor me, Renee, for a while. Until we get a feel for what’s going on here, let’s err on the side of safety. Yours and the baby’s.”

“What’s everyone going to say at work if you follow me around?”

“It will give credence to our marriage on Saturday if people see us together this week.”

His point was reinforced forty minutes later when he escorted her into her office. They passed Stacy in the hall.

“Hawk, what are you doing here at this time of the morning?” Stacy asked. Her eyes went from Hawk to Renee.

“I brought Renee to work.”

“Why, was her car not working? I could’ve picked her up on the way in.”

Hawk slipped his arm around Renee’s waist. “It wasn’t any trouble, was it, Renee?” The intimate look he gave her shouted that he’d spent the night.

Renee’s cheeks reddened. “No.”

Stacy’s eyes narrowed.

“Are we having a party and I don’t know about it?” Todd asked, stopping beside Stacy.

“Why not ask Hawk?” Stacy grumbled. With a final glare, she turned and stormed back into her office.

Renee closed her eyes. It was not a good beginning to her business day.

Hawk finished writing his recommendations about how to proceed with a case that had come back to the department. Closing the file folder, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You look like hell, Hawk,” Ash commented as he strolled into Hawk’s office. Ash slumped down into the chair across the desk and tossed a video tape toward him.

Hawk’s brow shot up. “Since when are you worried about how I look?”

“Since you told me you’re going to get married. You okay?”

Leaning back in his chair, Hawk ran his hands through his hair. “Damn, I wish I knew. After my divorce, I swore I’d never make that mistake again.”

“Have you thought about hiring a bodyguard?”

“Yeah, but Emory wouldn’t buy that. He was worried that whoever kidnapped David would try again with Renee. He’s set it up—if anything happens to her, I’d inherit.”

Ash shook his head. “So how’s Renee taking it?”

“She agreed, after the shooting.”

“It took a shooting to convince her to tie the knot?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t too thrilled with the idea at first.”

“She turned you down? The stud of HPD? She had the nerve to say no?”

Hawk glared at Ash. “You know how women are. She wanted romance.”

“Females are like that. In those psych classes they made us take, we heard about women wanting home and hearth—a nesting instinct.”

Hawk threw his pen on the desk. “It’s like walking on cut glass. No matter how carefully you step, you’re going to get sliced to ribbons.”

“So her pregnancy was a surprise to you?” Ash asked.

“It was, but it shouldn’t have been. Of course, I think the baby was the only reason Renee agreed to marry me.”

Ash snorted. “Don’t believe that. I saw you two together, remember. Also, I recall, she was as smitten with you as you were with her. We could’ve powered the northern suburbs on all the electricity y’all were generating.”

Hawk could’ve done without the reminder. The wattage hadn’t gone down since they’d separated. It had only gone up. Being close to Renee only added to his misery. “After the danger to Renee is over, I’m not going to be able to walk away from her and the baby.”

“And the problem is?”

“She agreed to the marriage as long as it was in name only.”

Ash’s eyes were wide, and he sat up straight in the chair. “No sex?”

He didn’t want to admit it. “Yeah.”

“Hawk, you’re smarter than that. Why are you surrendering? If you want the lady, work it out. Listen, as clever as you are, put your brain in gear.”

Hawk took a deep breath. Ash was right. He needed to find a way out of this maze. “What’s the video?” he asked, nodding to the tape on his desk.

“That’s the surveillance tape from the garage in Emory’s building.”

“Anything on it?” Hawk asked.

“Yeah. A man. It’s a side shot, but I thought you’d like to see it.”

Hawk took the tape and shoved it into the VCR setup that was built into the bookcases in his office. In the low lighting, he could see movement in the bushes. A dark shape appeared out of the darkness—a man aiming his gun. He pulled the trigger twice, turned and disappeared into the foliage.

Hawk stopped the tape and rewound it until the man’s profile appeared again. He froze the motion. “So that’s our shooter. Looks to me as if he was waiting for Renee.”

“I agree. I’ve got stills of this, plan to pass it out to the patrol officers to be on the lookout for this guy. I’ll get you a copy to post at Texas Chic.”

“Why don’t we get that copy now? I want to take it with me so Renee can see this jerk. She needs to be aware of him.”

“Let’s go.”

He took a deep breath. “We need to find who’s behind this, because whoever did this will try again. And I’m not going to let it happen.”

Renee pulled the purchase order from the file and glanced over the figures.

“Well, well, who would’ve guessed that Little Red Riding Hood was sleeping with the Big Bad Wolf?” Stacy’s voice rang out, silencing the other people in the file room. “He’s likely to eat you for breakfast.”

Closing the file, Renee turned to face Stacy, who stood at the entrance. The secretaries beyond the door silently watched. “Is there a point to your comment?” Renee asked.

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