Page 74 of Restless Hawke

The older woman offers me a kind smile that brightens her eyes. “Your mother doesn’t cook for you anymore?”

I still with my fork halfway to my mouth, then swallow through the lump clogging my throat. “She passed away quite a while ago. And she was the only family I had left, so…”

Shrugging, I try to brush off the painful memories threatening to make thehappytears that formed only moments ago fall and give away far too much of a past I don’t want to relive.

Maybe if I act like none of it really matters, they’ll let it go.

Coen’s hand tightens on my knee, and Nana gives me a soft smile.

“Well”—she spreads her hands wide—“the Hawkes are very good at taking strays under our wings, aren’t we?”

Everyone raises their glasses in a silent toast, then takes a sip of whatever is in front of them.

There are so many people. So many faces. It’s hard to know what to say and to whom—or if I should keep my mouth shut and eat until I need to be rolled out of here in a wheelbarrow.

Coen’s parents sit to my left, and I catch them watching me as everyone keeps eating during a few moments of relative silence filled with clanking silverware, groans of approval, and more wine being poured.

Neither has said aword.

Not a greeting.

Not even a smile in my direction.

They’ve both justwatched.

From Stone, the cold, hard look is chilling. Nora’s is warm, though, and she gives me a tight smile, her gaze immediately darting to her youngest son.

Her worry has nothing to do with me.

It’s all abouthim.

That makes me feel a little better about them basically ignoring me since we sat down, but the silence is too good to last.

The man Coen described as a ruthless interrogator and cunning lawyer leans forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table. And I’m staring at what Coen will look like in thirty years. “So, where do you call home when you’re not out trying to beat my son at the tables?”

I bristle at his question and the barb attached to it, clearing my throat. “I have a place in New York.”

He nods slowly, and Luca’s dark brows rise at my confession.

I can already see the wheels turning in his head, like he plans to use that offered information somehow.

Coen’s mom offers me a kind smile now that her husband has broken the ice. “It was nice of you to come visit him. Have you been to New Orleans before?”

I shake my head. “Never. It was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment trip, actually.”

Definitely not planned.

Nor was any of what has happened since I got off that plane.

“Do you plan on staying long?”

Coen turns to me, waiting for me to answer with an anxious energy radiating from him, despite his best efforts to appear impassive.

I meet his gaze and see the hope filling it.

Shit.

“I…uh…haven’t decided yet.” I take a drink of my wine again, my cheeks heating under the assessment of almost everyone, save for Vivi and Charlotte, who have vacated their seats and run off giggling to the living room. “I do have other obligations.”