Page 8 of Burn for the Dragon
Looking out the window, Everly watched Hawke stride across the parking lot. Her eyes narrowed when he didn’t head to the sidewalk as one would expect or pull out his phone to call someone for a ride, but rather veered to the left, where the lot ended and some actually decent-sized trees and scrub brush encroached. Between one blink and the next he was gone.
Just a normal person, my ass.
She may be deaf, but her eyesight was better than most people’s, as was her sense of smell. Perhaps to overcompensate for the loss of hearing. She also had a spot-on memory, and she could’ve kicked herself for allowing him to make her doubt herself. Now that he was gone, and she could think straight again, she knew she’d been right about what she’d seen. Both last night at the club and just now.
Hawke was no ordinary man.
Chapter 4
Three hours later, Hawke finally got the chance to speak to Kohl alone. Hunting him down at his lakeside property, he wandered through the construction site until he found him talking to the lead builder on the far side of the partially constructed house.
The reporter hadn’t come back, and he was both happy he’d gotten his message across and impatient with himself for wasting the last three hours hanging around in the club watching the door for a glimpse of red curls. He had no idea what her beef was with a company like Parasupe, but their conversation had him on edge.
Kohl showed no sign of surprise when he appeared around a partially finished wall. Most likely he’d heard and smelled him long before Hawke was close enough for him to see. Waiting patiently off to the side while Kohl finished his conversation, he nodded politely to the human male as he walked away, rolling up the blue prints for the house.
“They probably hate you, you know. Making them work all night instead of during the day, just so you can be here all up in their business.”
Kohl grinned. “I pay them very well to work all night. And he thinks I have a sun allergy. Plus, I even help out.”
“I’m sure they love that, too.” Hawke fought to keep from laughing, but there was no hope for the sarcasm he couldn’t suppress.
Kohl gave him a withering look. “I just want this place done, and I want it done right. So Devon and I have a place of our own to call home. She doesn’t say anything, but I know she feels uprooted right now, staying in the hideout under the restaurant. And besides”—he took off his hardhat and ran a hand through his short, dark hair before tossing it to the floor—“I feel like I’m putting Margaret and her family out having us there all the time.”
“That’s a crock of shit, and you know it. They love it when we’re there. It gives them somebody to fuss over.”
“Ha! The only one she fusses over is Devon. She has Margaret and her brother wrapped right around her finger. All of that Irish food is plumping her right up.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Hell, no!” Kohl grinned at his friend. “I like a woman I can sink my fangs into.”
Hawke started wandering away from the noise of the construction. “Speaking of Devon, I saw her at The Caves earlier.”
Taking the hint, Kohl grabbed his water bottle and followed him across the newly shorn grass that would soon be the front yard. “Yeah. She and Frank are having a girls’ night out.”
“So, you hiss at me whenever I have the gall to pay her the slightest compliment, but that throwback Richard Gere wannabe can hump all over her on the dance floor and you don’t care?”
“Exactly.”
Hawke did laugh this time as they reached the water’s edge. The night air was crisp and cool, with just a hint of the humidity that would soon come with summer. He glanced up at the moon where it hung just above the horizon. It was full enough to diminish the brightness of the stars, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Dropping his chin, he stared out at the ripples of moonlight playing across the surface of the water and got around to what was really bothering him. “That reporter came back tonight. She was dancing with them when I came up from the caverns. The redhead.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d that go? Did you find out anything new?”
“She remembered me.” He felt Kohl stiffen beside him. “She remembered everything from last night.”
Kohl became very still. “How?”
With a slight shake of his head, Hawke said, “I don’t know.”
“I thought you wiped her memory.”
“I thought I did, too.”
Kohl was silent as he swapped his water bottle from hand to hand, his expression carefully blank. And Hawke knew exactly what he was thinking.
“She’s not like you.”
“Is it the same? When you try to read her,” he clarified. “Is it the same?”
