Chapter 115

5 years later....

Cabe Delgado waited while the garage door opened then he pulled his Camaro in beside Sam’s Mustang. He parked, grabbed his workout bag from the seat beside him and folded out of the car.

He walked in front of the Mustang and saw the Expedition sitting on the other side of the ‘Stang. Sam called it the “station wagon” and hated driving it because it was so huge. However Hawk had a rule. She had their boys in the car with her, she was in the Expedition. She was off on her own, she could take the Mustang.

She gave him lip, told him he was too damned bossy but only because that was what she did. She knew the Expedition was safer and Sam would do anything to keep her boys safe.

He walked in front of the Expedition, through the door that led into the house and dumped his bag in the utility room on his way to the huge, open plan kitchen. She’d left the under the counter lights on for him. He moved through the space and turned off the lights, heading to the wide, carpeted staircase that had a nightlight lit in an outlet halfway up. He didn’t need her to light his way but she did it anyway partially because, if one of the boys got up, she wanted them to have light and partially because, when her man got home she wanted him to know she was thinking about him.

He’d lied to Sam although he didn’t know it at the time. He needed space. Or, more accurately, he needed a Hawk and Sam zone, he needed to give his boys their zones and they all needed a family zone. So he’d moved his family from Sam’s farmhouse to this five bedroom, three car garage “monstrosity” as Sam called it.

She only allowed the move because it came with Janine cleaning it.

She said she had a life rule and that rule was that she refused to live in a house that it took longer than two hours to clean. Now she lived in a house that took longer than two hours to clean, Hawk just made it so she didn’t have to clean it.

He silently climbed the staircase, turned right and moved through the large open space at the top, one of the many family zones. He didn’t see the pictures but he knew they were there. Sam decorated in photos. She wasn’t a knick knack sort of woman, thank fuck.

Hawk liked the way his wife decorated. There were pictures everywhere, on every surface, on all the walls, hell, you could barely see the fridge for the photos tacked to it. There were pictures of her, of him, of their two boys, their families, their friends – alone, in pairs, in huddles, all candid, nothing posed, nearly every photo everyone was smiling.

Or laughing.

And there were pictures of Simone and Sophie. Sam had conspired with his mother and made certain Simone and Sophie had their places amongst her décor and his woman decorated in family.

It took awhile to get used to this, it took awhile for the pain of seeing them every day to dull. Then it dulled. Then he saw what was in the photos instead of felt the loss of it. And what was in the photos were memories. Those memories were bittersweet but, with time, and with Sam’s guidance, the sweet outweighed the bitter.

Hawk turned right again at the first door.

He walked in and saw Asher asleep in his bed on his belly wearing loose shorts and a t-shirt, his black hair a mess, his limbs splayed, taking up more space than any four year old kid should in a double bed. The covers had been kicked off. Even as a baby, he’d kicked off his covers. Ash liked to be free. No restraints. Even in sleep. Hawk’s Mom said he’d done the same thing and Hawk learned not to be surprised at this.

Asher was his boy in more ways than one. Ash was intense, always had been from nearly the instant he left Sam's womb. And if Hawk was home, Asher was with him. From the second he could crawl, when Hawk opened the door to the house, Asher would be sitting on his ass, staring at the door, waiting for his Dad to walk in.

It wasn’t clingy. Even as an infant, Asher had been able to entertain himself.

He just liked to do it close to his Dad.

Hawk walked to him and bent, doing what he did frequently, in fact every night he got home when his boys were asleep. He rested his hand light on the heat of his son’s back and felt him breathe.

Once his son’s life communicated itself through Hawk’s hand, he lifted that hand and slid it over Asher’s thick hair. Then he left the room, crossed the hall and entered another door.

Bruno was on his back, one arm thrown wide, one knee up and dropped, the other leg straight, hand on his belly. Covers half-on, half-off. The stuffed bear with an ill-fitting Broncos t-shirt had fallen from his outstretched hand.

Bruno sat quietly on his Granddad’s lap during every Broncos home game. It was fucking uncanny but Hawk could swear his two year old son’s study of the game was more intense than Bax’s.

Even if a game was on TV, Bruno would stop, sit his ass down and stare at it. If he was awake, he was wearing a football helmet and if Hawk or Sam tried to take it off him, the kid pitched one helluva fit. So they let him wear it everywhere but to the dinner table and to bed. This was a good call considering when Bruno wasn’t eating, watching football on television or wrestling with his brother, he was tackling shit.

Hawk bent, his hand going to Bruno’s chest, resting lightly and his eyes roamed his son’s face as his hand felt his son’s heartbeat.

Both his boys looked like him, black hair, black eyes. Bruno got his dimples and Sam praised the Lord loudly, and hilariously, that he did and she did this often. Nearly every time she saw them which was a lot. Bruno, like his Mom, liked to laugh and, like his Mom, he did it often.

At that memory, Hawk smiled at his son.

His wife liked her husband’s dimples. Hawk just liked his son’s.

He walked out of the room and his cell went. He headed to the master suite pulling it out of a pocket of his cargoes. He turned the display to face him and his brows knit.

It said “Sam Calling”.

He didn’t answer as his eyes went to their door, seeing weak light coming from under it.

She was awake. This was surprising. It was late.

Fuck.

She was nearly nine months pregnant with their, what Sam decreed, final child. She’d decreed this because the ultrasound showed it was a boy. She was done. Giving up the ghost. She had a lifetime ahead of her of fights, blood, drunkenness, puke and pregnancy scares. She wasn’t going to make it worse.

This was why he let her name their kids. Deacon was gestating in her belly. Hawk didn’t like the name Asher until Asher made it into the world. He really didn’t like the name Bruno until he met Bruno.

And he seriously didn’t like the name Deacon but he reckoned he’d grow to like it.

His mother had a hand in these names but Hawk didn’t complain. He saw the signs with Asher’s intensity and Bruno tackling everything. Sam was fucked.

He shoved the still ringing phone in his pocket as he twisted the knob and opened one of the double doors to the master suite.

Hawk walked through and stopped dead.

The bedside light on Sam’s side was on. The covers thrown back. The bed empty. A pool of blood was in the bed, a trail of it leading to the bathroom.

“Cabe, honey, you get this, go to the hospital.” He heard his wife’s voice, jerked out of his freeze and ran to the bathroom.

“Something’s wrong. I’m calling…” She stopped talking when he hit the bathroom and her head came up to look at him. She was sitting in her nightshirt on the floor, one arm around her swollen belly, one shapely leg straight, the other bent under her, her long, thick, blonde hair down and tousled, her blue eyes pained, her gorgeous face ashen, blood pooling around her on the black and white tiles.

The minute they hit him, her eyes filled with tears, she dropped her hand and it fell limply to her lap while she whispered, “Baby.”

Less than five minutes later, Cabe “Hawk” Delgado had his wife strapped into the Expedition, his sons safely secured in the back, his phone ringing to Bax at his ear and he was backing out of the garage on his way to the hospital.