Shooter (Burnout) (13 page)

Doc and Hawk both sniffed their cookies then took a bite. “Damn,” Hawk said. “Viva la Mexico.”

“Why’s she making you cookies?” Tex asked pointedly.

“Because I mowed her lawn,” Chris replied.

Tex looked at Hawk and Doc and they all grinned.

Chris rolled his eyes. “With my lawn mower.”

“That’s what we’re calling it now?” Tex teased.

“Jesus. I mowed her lawn and then I took her to the store to get groceries and she made me lunch.” He finally managed to get the last cookie out of the box. “She’s gonna make me lunch next Sunday, too.”

“What happened to off limits?” Doc asked.

“It’s just lunch,” Chris insisted. “She doesn’t even like me before noon.”

“No one likes you before noon,” Hawk pointed out.

“And she’s not off limits to me,” Chris declared. “Even though it’s just lunch.”

“I don’t know,” Tex said. “Maybe I want the girl who can make Spicy Mexican Chocolate cookies.”

Chris crossed his arms in front of his chest. “She’s not your type. Plus, she reads romance novels.” Tex paused mid-chew. “By the
dozen
,” Chris added.

“I’ll take the cookies,” Tex announced. “You take the constant comparisons to Duke Poofy Pants.”

“Pirates,” Chris amended. “She likes Pirates. But I don’t have the hair. So it’s a good thing it’s just lunch.”

Hawk picked up a cold slice. “I have hair. I could be a pirate.”

“You can’t use a sword,” Tex pointed out. “And since when do pirates ride horses?”

“Forget it,” Chris snapped. “You wouldn’t want her,” he told Hawk. “She went to college to get her MRS.”

Hawk frowned. “What’s that?”

Tex and Doc laughed hysterically. “Man trap,” Doc said.

“Oh,” Hawk said. Then, “Ohhh. Mrs. I get it. Yikes. No woman’s cookies are
that
good. You marry her. I’ll snag some cookies on the side.”

“It’s just lunch!” Chris yelled, feeling a little like Slick in the checkout line.

************************

Hayley sat on her back deck with her dinner when she heard Chris’s sliding glass door open. “Hey,” came a voice. “Hey, Slick.”

“Leave her alone!” Chris called from the open door.

She turned to see Tex leaning against the railing of Chris’s deck. “Hey, you got any more of those Mexican chocolate cookies, honey?”

She smiled at Tex. “No, I gave the last of them to Chris.”

Tex’s face darkened. “Damn. All we got is day old pizza and we worked through lunch.”

He moved to go back inside and she called out, “Wait.” He turned back. “I have pie.”

Tex grinned. “Oh, sweet Jesus boys. The woman has pie!”

“Tell her to get her ass over here,” Hawk yelled.

Hayley carried a brown paper bag and a plastic sack up the steps of Chris’s back deck. Caleb saw her making her way to the door and opened it for her. “Thanks,” she said to him and he nodded at her. Hayley stared at the man sitting in front of her. Sure. She'd seen Hawk, and all the other guys, at Maria’s. And somehow, in that space, Hawk Red Cloud, while still standing out due to his size, had seemed to belong there. Where he did not belong was in someone's living room. Sitting at someone's dinner table, playing cards that were dwarfed in his large hands. Hawk Red Cloud didn't take up a lot of space. Hawk Red Cloud
was
the space.

The corner of his mouth almost quirked up as he notice her looking at him. "What?"

Hayley looked at Chris. "I'd have gone with Bear."

Everyone in the room laughed and the sound reverberated off the walls.

Tex grinned a lopsided grin, which might have seemed goofy if he didn't have all that slightly wavy blond hair and just-becoming-noticeable stubble on his jaw. "We didn't name him, darlin'," he informed her. "No, no. Hawk was Hawk from the moment I met him in basic. He didn't want his hair cut. He didn't want to be in the Army. And he for damn sure didn't want anyone calling him anything other than Hawk. And I may be a lot of things, darlin', but I'm not dumb enough to piss off a man built like a linebacker. So Hawk was Hawk, even if, behind his back I did call him a bunch of other choice names."

"You guys weren't friends?"

"Oh, hell no. When I say Hawk didn't want to be in the Army, I mean, Hawk...
did not want to be in the Army.
And he pretty much made it his mission in life to let everybody know from sun up to sun down. He was the biggest, whiniest, most foul tempered sonofabitch."

Hayley looked from Tex to Hawk. "If you didn't want to be in the Army, why'd you enlist?"

Hawk gave her a piercing look.
Maybe that's why he's called Hawk
, she thought to herself. Those eyes didn't seem to miss much. "It was suggested to me by a judge."

Hayley's eyes went wide. "Oh," she managed to squeak out. Under the weight of Hawk's menacing look, she almost shriveled.

Tex burst out laughing and pounded the table so hard the chips rattled. "Oh. Oh, Christ. He's messing with you, darlin'!"

Hayley looked to Chris who grinned and shrugged. She looked back to Tex. "Really?"

"Well, no, not really," Tex said through his laughter. "He was ordered by a judge to enlist or go to jail."

She looked at Hawk who was now glaring intently at Tex. "Shut it, Cowboy," he growled, which made Tex laugh even harder.

"Oh, Lord," Tex gasped. "He and his buddies spray painted all the road signs between here and the Rez. Hawk here was the only one who got busted and wouldn't squeal on his partners in crime. The judge was trying to strong arm him into talking, thinking that Hawk'd never go for enlisting. But Hawk showed up at the recruitment office the very next day."

She smiled at Hawk, who glared back at her. "Vandalism? You didn't knock over a liquor store or hot wire someone's truck?"

Hawk tried desperately to maintain his stolid composure. "I'm a bad, dangerous man, Slick. Trust that."

Tex guffawed.

Hayley grinned. "I'll keep it mind."

"See that you do."

Tex sighed his contentment at having outed Hawk's pink cotton candy center. "So he's Hawk, called Hawk by his Mama, for strange and mysterious reasons known only to people who smoke peace pipes and take peyote."

Hayley's mouth dropped open in shock, but neither Hawk nor Chris seemed to mind. When she looked at Chris he just smirked and shook his head, indicating that this was not quite the racist jab it appeared to be.

"And I'm Tex, 'cause I'm from West Texas. And apparently I had the misfortune of enlisting with some insecure and not terribly creative assholes who weren't man enough to highlight my other stunning attributes by christening me ‘Adonis’ or ‘Horsecock.’ ”

Hayley let out a surprised yelp of laughter. But Chris scowled. "Tex," he warned.

Tex threw up his hands. "I am just lamenting my lot in life. He's Hawk, you're Shooter, and Easy’s Easy. Doc is Doc for obvious reasons and I'm just Tex," he said, doing his best to sound forlorn.

"Who's Easy?" she asked. Tex and Hawk immediately looked down at their cards, not answering.

Chris caught her eye. "That's Jimmy."

"Oh."

Tex's head came up. "You told her about Jimmy?" Chris nodded and sipped his beer. Tex turned to look at Hayley. "Jimmy's a good guy. He’s Easy because he’s from New Orleans. Also uncreative. He's just taking extra time to get his shit together. He'll show up at Burnout here soon one of these days. And he'll pick up a wrench and that'll be that." Tex said it confidently, like he was making a prediction. Hayley smiled, but the look on Chris's face said he wasn't convinced.

In an effort to change the subject, Hayley said, “You’re a doctor, too?” to Caleb.

“Medic,” he replied.

“Why didn’t you stay in the medical field when you got out of the army?”

He shrugged. “Saw enough of it.”

Hayley thought about that and nodded. "And you're Shooter."

Chris's mouth twitched. "Because I shoot people at stoplights."

Hayley's face instantly turned red and she half-groaned. "Sorry about that. But Milo did go out of his way to make it sound like you were...." She waved her hand to indicate that he knew what she was saying.

Hawk grinned. "Milo's a joker. Always has been. Even when he lost his finger, he got a little box, cut a hole in the bottom and stuck his
middle
finger in it and showed Maria when he got out of the hospital. Guess that was his way of dealing with it. 'Course his
real
finger was so chewed up there were only little bits and pieces of it left and-"

"Hawk," Chris warned.

Hawk chuckled. "It was an awesome joke. Except not to Maria. She banned him from the bar for a whole month. But I suspect that had more to do with Milo's tendency to drink more when things don't go his way. Like when he got laid off at the cement plant all those years ago. Maria didn't want him going on a bender again and since Milo doesn't believe in drinking alone, it was best to just send him home to deal with it."

At Chris’ kitchen island, Hayley pulled two pies out of the paper bag. Chris leaned against the counter, smirking. “You made me two pies?”

She glared at him. “No. I made two pies. Neither for you. Tex asked for them.”

“But you made two,” Chris pointed out.

She sighed and rolled her eyes at him. “The peaches were on sale at a produce stand on the way home. By the dozen. You can’t make one pie with a dozen peaches, Chris. It’d never cook all the way through. I
had
to make two.” The men filtered into the kitchen as she reached into the plastic sack and pulled out a tupperware container.

“And you were gonna eat two whole pies by yourself before Sunday?” he asked.

She glared at him. “Yes. Totally.”

Chris looked at his watch. “Clearly the hot by noon wears off once the sun goes down,” he declared.

“What’s that?” Tex asked, rubbing his hands together.

Hayley looked up. “Homemade whipped cream. French Vanilla.”

“I don’t know,” Hawk said. “
French
Vanilla.”

“Then call it Freedom Vanilla!” Tex argued. “Who cares? Load me up a slice of pie with Freedom Vanilla, Slick. And don’t be stingy.”

Chris set down a stack of plates next to her and she dished out a slice of peach pie with the plastic server. She added a large dollop of cream and handed it to Tex along with a fork. He took a big bite and moaned loudly. “Oh, yeah,” Tex declared. “So much better than day old pizza.”

Chris filled his own plate, took a bite, and concurred that it was the best peach pie he’d ever eaten. Then he pointed his fork at Hayley. “This doesn’t count for Sunday. You’re still making me something else.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I told you. They’re not for you.”

“Don’t argue with her,” Tex demanded around a mouthful of peach pie. “If she likes us, she might bring us more next week.”

Hayley looked at Tex. “What’s next week?”