by Christa Wick
A novelty-sized cowbell.
16
Ginny
My eyes threatened to spring leaks, but I met his glare with one of my own.
"You may remember John Dietrich. My son fired him a few weeks back."
I didn't answer, just stared straight through Harrison McKinley.
"Well, he had quite a story to tell me about a certain woman my son appears to be bedding." Reaching out a bony finger, he caressed the cow bell. "And that woman's friends had their own stories to tell, confirming my suspicions."
Friends? Cherry Thompson was anything but. She had probably told him every embarrassing truth and a truck load of lies.
"My suspicions about Hawk," Harrison prodded.
"What suspicions?" I shouldn't have taken the bait. Maybe I could have salvaged something with Hawk, if there was anything left to save. But I took Harrison's lure and held it close to my chest so I could hear every nuanced syllable the vile man spoke.
"Hawk wants to be CEO. Wants to change the very nature of the company…"
I nodded. Hawk didn't act like he wanted just my body. He wanted my brain and heart and had used me as a sounding board these last few weeks for many of his ideas. He didn't want to run a company that took and sold, but never gave. He planned cheaper and cleaner energy, with less gobbling up of smaller companies and more collaboration so that the project owners were on the ground and in the communities that their decisions affected. That was not the McKinley way as far as Harrison was concerned.
The old man's eyes narrowed as he studied the impact his words were having on me.
"He knows he's not getting the company until he's married. I keep control over his dead mother's shares until then. So his solution…" He stopped and made a broad gesture at me, his lip curling into a sneer before he continued. "Is to find the most unsuitable woman this godforsaken state has to offer. He threatened to do so before coming here and finding…you."
He stopped and gave the bell a little ring for malicious emphasis.
“I have to hand it to him, he did exactly as he said he would. You are definitely…unsuitable. I’m not trying to be unkind, but let’s face it, you’re a laughing stock in your own town, Ms. Kelly. The butt of an admittedly cruel joke, your peers are still talking about. Juvenile? Yes. But also very telling. You don’t have their respect. They disdain you, call you names behind your back and even to your face, I hear.” He tsked. “A fitting wife for a billionaire and future CEO, you are clearly not, my dear.”
He sighed like he was talking about an insolent child. "Don’t you see, my son is trying to beat me at a game where I set all the rules, but I can see straight through his little gambit. You're nothing like the women he's maintained relationships with—ones who actually look the part, if I may be so blunt. You and I both know you aren’t even in the same league as these other women, any of whom would make my son an excellent wife. That said, even I can see he’s a bit taken with you. No doubt you've shown him a good time in bed, what girl in your situation wouldn't?"
"You just stop right there, you vile, disgusting—"
With my voice assuredly carrying out to anyone in hearing distance now, suddenly, the outer door opened with a loud bang. And the forbidding tower of male protectiveness that came rushing in stopped me before I could finish telling Harrison McKinley just what kind of despicable creature he was.
Hawk stood at the threshold of the doorway, his expression drawing tight as he looked at the man sitting across the desk from me.
Harrison had a much older version of the face I’d come to love looking at every day—the nose a little broader than Hawk’s, and the eyes a little smaller and closer, but similar enough that I had to wonder a bit if the two men shared any other similarities beyond their looks.
My gaze dropped to the small cowbell in confusion, and I quickly reached down to hide it, doing my best not to let my humiliation show on my face.
That alone told Hawk everything he needed to know. I could see the barely contained rage now written across his handsome features as he glared at his father.
To Harrison’s credit, he didn’t even flinch or falter.
"Father." Hawk stepped the rest of the way inside, shutting the door behind him.
He looked between his father and me, no doubt feeling the tension, and glared even harder. "Sweet Tea, whatever he's said, it's all lies. That's all he's good for anymore."
A smirk lit the old man's face. Leaning closer to my desk, he lifted a knowing brow. “Go on and ask him if anything I said was a lie, Ms. Kelly.”
I hesitated to do it, not wanting to get sucked into this messed up game of chess between them.
“Don't feel bad about being taken in. Hawk is very good at this game, young lady."
Young lady—ha! He hadn't been treating me like a lady before his son walked in; he’d flat out called me a good-time whore.
I swiped at my cheek, ashamed of myself for letting a decaying bastard like Harrison McKinley get to me. I didn't give a possum's ass what the old man thought about me.
Lifting my chin, I stared straight into Hawk's eyes, desperately wanting to believe in him. "He said you want to take control of McKinley Oil, badly, but he won’t let you become CEO until you're married."
His only response was a faint nod, one I don't think he intended to make.
I continued on. "And he said that I'm nothing like the women you've…you've had relationships with in the past. He said I’m the first one that looks…t-the way that I do."
He blinked at me and frowned when he heard me stutter, his eyes grew so sorrowful then that I felt like he'd just ripped my heart from my chest and thrown it on the floor for his father to stomp on.
"He’s right, Ginny. You're nothing like them," he admitted.
“He says y-you threatened to find the most unsuitable woman to marry if he p-put that stipulation on you becoming CEO.”
Hawk tightened his jaw, and returned with two clipped words in response, as his anger-laced expression swung back to focus on his father. “I did.”
"So it's all been a lie. You and me." My words were ice, cold enough to freeze Hawk where he stood.
He didn’t respond; he didn’t move. He just stood there partially reaching for me while partially holding back, the equal forces leaving him stuck in limbo.
I got up, grabbed my purse and wrenched the office key off the ring.
"Ginny, stop. Just let me explain. What I’d said to my father back then--"
He reached toward me again, but stopped, his legs not moving to close the distance between us. So, that was it. This is how it was going to end between us.
I stormed off for the door.
"Ginny, you can't leave—"
"Oh, I can. I am!"
I walked past Hawk, pushing him out of my path. Before the door swung shut behind me, I looked at father and son one last time.
"You can both go to hell!"
17
Hawk
Rage cemented me to the floor.
Ginny removed the office key from her chain and tossed it onto the desk. I managed to choke out her name. My hands curled into fists, I forced them to relax but could only maintain that state for half a second.
I wanted to grab hold of Ginny and lock her in my office while I had it out with Harrison. I didn't want her to see me lose control, didn't want to lay a finger on her when I was on the verge of violence.
"You can't leave," I bit out again as a deeper hurt etched its way across her sweet, beautiful face. “Not like this. Not until you’ve given me a chance to explain.”
She needed me to move, needed me to gently wrap a hand around her wrist, to look at her with all the love filling my chest and none of the fear I felt that I was going to lose her forever.
When I still couldn't move, Ginny blew past me like the funnel cloud that had first brought us together.
“I can, I am. Now GO TO HELL!”
The door slammed shut. The glass plate rattled within the fram
e.
My gaze slid toward my father.
"That was an uncommon display of self-control on your part," Harrison chuckled. "Afraid of her seeing the McKinley dark side?"
I glared at him, my arms and hands still shaking.
Harrison stood up, pulled the edges of his jacket apart to reveal the dress shirt that covered his torso.
"Want to take a punch?"
Damn straight, I wanted to.
I had certainly taken enough punches from the old man. Can't be a CEO without getting your nose bloodied a time or two, Harrison had warned. Need the wind knocked out of you, need to know what it's like to be taken down a peg or ten.
"You are finished." I ground the words around before spitting them at him. "Your time as CEO is over."
Harrison shook his head, his smirk unfaltering. "You'll never have the votes to oust me."
"Then I will burn the company's reputation to the ground," I warned. "There will be nothing to be CEO of. And you know what, I won’t care. The only thing I care about right now is that woman who you just tortured for no good reason knows that I'm marrying her because I love her."
Real worry flickered across my father's face, the look as unfamiliar to me as it was fleeting.
"You're bluffing, boy. You wouldn’t do that. Not to the company you’ve been wanting to run and make changes in the world with. You won't blow it all for her."
Gripping the push bar on the door, I smiled at the old man one last time.
"Watch me."
18
Ginny
I thought long and hard about whether I should start the classes at Midland that Hawk had already paid for. Mostly, I thought about how I had earned them—on my back—and what it said about me if I used the tuition money.
I couldn't come to a good answer, so I registered. No sense biting my nose off to spite my face.
I got another job, too, really quickly, in fact. It was part-time and in Midland. Red helped me get it. He knew something had happened to make me quit like I did, but he didn’t pry, and I was thankful to him for that.
There were only three people who had any idea of what had went on in that office that day—me and the two McKinley men, and I was sure they were just as unwilling to discuss it as I was.
Beyond my call of thanks to Red, I didn’t want anything more to do with that company.
Days turned to weeks, and I was almost at a point where I could get through a day without thinking about Hawk.
By the third week of September, however, that all changed.
Things started to come out in the news. The local paper picked up coverage of how Hawk had ousted his father as CEO, getting enough of the non-family shareholders in McKinley to back him.
That article led to Cherry Thompson trying to get her five minutes of fame by contacting any media person who would listen to her. She told them about the investigator from New York Harrison had hired who’d been hanging around Roy’s asking about me. She of course slipped in how ‘everyone’ knew me since I’d had a mean little prank played on me back in high school that involved a cowbell. The story, she told in detail, while conveniently leaving out the part she’d played in it of course.
Then June Johnson, the busybody who runs Tupperville's only knick-knack store, put two-and-two together about how a man looking like Harrison McKinley had come into her place and purchased a little cowbell and nothing else, before telling her he was headed to come talk to me.
It was all stupid, to be honest, and when the little small town story hit the big city social media networks, there were honestly more people defending me and attacking my bullies over anything else, which was nice.
Still, that all just poured kerosene on the fire.
Not about me and my past, but rather, about me being Hawk’s country bumpkin plaything on the side in his life away from New York. A plaything that clearly, his own father didn’t approve of, if he was going out of his way to torture with a cowbell and all.
The story didn’t have a whole lot of meat, and it ended up dying pretty quickly, who knew why. But it didn’t matter. Beau quit McKinley as soon as he found out about Harrison and the cowbell, even though Red and I begged him not to.
Really, the only good thing during that time was Daddy’s recovery. He was up and on his feet, not for long periods, but he was his own man again. He also got everything coming to him from his worker's comp claim.
I tried to focus on that bright spot. I avoided town, bought my gas in Midland and divided my time solely between school and work in Midland or being locked up tight at home with my parents.
My life went back to being wholly uneventful.
That is, until the day I came home from work in early October to find a beat-up truck parked in the drive.
I didn't think much of it. People around Tupperville are always getting a new-to-them junker. With Daddy able to tinker a bit, they had started bringing the vehicles to him for little things that needed fixing. Sometimes they stayed to gab, which Daddy welcomed so long as they didn't try to gab about me.
This time, Hawk McKinley sat across from Daddy's recliner with a cold glass of sweet tea in his hand.
Keeping my gaze off Hawk, I looked at Daddy to try and figure out what the heck was going on.
Amazingly, he seemed relaxed, too relaxed for a man who had heard all the rumors about me and the man sitting next to him. And he didn’t have his shotgun in sight.
"Hey, baby girl. Me and Hawk were just talking about things."
I nodded, still refusing to look at Hawk. Daddy is very particular about using a person's first name. Doesn't matter how low or high up in the world the person is, Daddy won't use a first name unless he has been invited to do so and, more importantly, he respects the person.
Even more confused than ever now, I quickly mumbled, ”I’m going to get the stew ready for dinner,” before I fled into the kitchen.
Gathering and rinsing vegetables and potatoes, I kept my back to the doorway. I didn't want to see when Hawk left and, if he was stupid enough to think he could come in here and try to charm me the way he'd obviously charmed Daddy, all he would get from me was the back of my head. If there was anything left to save and he wanted to, he'd already had weeks to try.
I grabbed a chopping knife from the block and started attacking the celery. The chops came faster, my vision blurring but my brain refusing to communicate with my hands. My breathing sped up, my heart rate running ahead of it as the blade moved closer to my fingers.
A hand curled around my wrist, another around my shoulder.
"I get you don't want to talk to me but you don't need to lose a finger to prove it, Sweet Tea."
I tried to shake him off but he held fast. "I don't know what you're doing here, Hawk McKinley—"
"Sure you do, Ginny." He took the knife away and placed it in the kitchen sink before recapturing my wrist. "Otherwise you would’ve given me a cold smile or two, and told me straight out that I had no business even being here—"
“I still might!” I tossed back as I sidled away from him.
He wrapped both arms around me in a gentle hug before I could get too far though.
“Don’t start running from me again.” He pressed his lips to my ear, the gesture forcing my eyes shut. “Because we both know I’ll just end up chasing you, love.”
I sucked a huge breath in over hearing him call me that once again, instinct fighting instinct within me.
I knew I had to keep my guard up, but it was a struggle. I wanted to turn into his embrace. I wanted to hear what he had to say. But most of all, I wanted to start shedding the tears I never let loose throughout all these past weeks.
Then he went and changed tactics on me. “I forgive you, Ginny.”
Blasting my eyes open, I glared and gaped at him, unable to even formulate a response to that.
His hands gently rubbed at the muscles knotting under my skin while I just stood there, incredulous.
I was shaking my head at him without even k
nowing it, which led to him countering with a nod in argument. “Yes, I do, Sweet Tea. I forgive you.”
I couldn't help it—I shouted back at him in reply, "You-you forgive me?!"
Of all the…
19
Ginny
"That's right, Sweet Tea,” he said, cutting off the string of choice words I had running through my head.
Hawk forced me to turn and look at him—glare at him, really—his hands cupping my face as he stared down at me, his eyes crystal clear windows to his soul.
I stared back at him and tried to concentrate on listening to his words, even as I saw so much more than what he was saying reflected in his eyes.
"I forgive you for believing the terrible things my father said." He kissed my forehead. "About me."
He kissed my cheek. "And about you."
He kissed my other cheek. "I forgive you for not trusting me."
He kissed my lips. "For not believing in yourself or me and for walking out on me. On us.”
Finally, my anger resurfaced a bit.
I pushed at his chest before I could surrender fully to his mouth. "Weeks!"
It was all I could get out and I was pretty damned surprised I had managed that much.
My body had started to react with a need that didn't include punching him. He drew me close again, our lower torsos melding together as if they had never been separated.
"Yes, love. Weeks. Weeks of us both being hurt and obstinate. I forgive you for all of it, because I love you." He went back to kissing me, starting at my neck and jawline only to quickly close in on the perimeter of my mouth. "What I’m here to find out is if you forgive me for all of it because you love me, too."
Tears started to flow freely from me as I processed all he was saying.
He took a step back, his eyes searching mine. "Do you, Ginny? Do you forgi—"