"Hawk, you have a call." Lucy dropped her voice to a stage whisper. "I think it's long distance," she stage-whispered. The ancient gray corded phone on his desk was already ringing.
“Hi.” Diane’s voice had that hollow, open air sound. Hawk wanted to think it was because of the distance.
“Hi. How’s Maine?”
“I love it. Good to be back in New England again.”
“I know you always missed it when you were out here.” With me, he added silently.
“Yeah, I never realized how much I missed it til I came back.”
“Haven’t heard from you in a while. I miss you.”
“I know, I’ve been busy.”
“I’m sure. Getting used to a new place.”
“Yeah.”
“Right. So… have you been getting my messages?” He hated himself the second he said it.
“Yeah.” Diane sighed. “I’m living with someone, Hawk.”
A moment went by. “A roommate?” Hawk asked quietly.
“Yeah. And no. We’re… involved.”
“Involved... ?” He wanted to hear the explanation, and yet didn't.
“I’m with someone. Else.” Diane added the last word as if Hawk hadn’t already gotten the drift.
“I knew it.” Hawk had felt something ominous settling over him for weeks now. “I just had to hear you say it.”
“Of course you did. You know everything.”
Hawk considered this for a moment. “What does that mean?”
“You have the most highly developed conscience of anyone I’ve ever met. I think in a past life you died on a cross.”
“Who is he?” Hawk asked, digging the wound a bit deeper.
“An old friend. It just happened, Hawk. I didn’t come out here intending to do this.”
“You knew what you were doing when we went out for the last time, right before you left.” Hawk could feel her annoyance from down the line. “No one moves all the way across country, somewhere they’ve never been before, without already having a roommate lined up. I can tell when you’re lying, Diane. You’re awful at it.” Which is why you haven’t returned any of my messages before now, he thought.
“What do you want, an apology?”
Hawk made an incredulous noise. “You’re not sorry.”
“You know what? I guess I'm not. Yes, I found someone else, yes, it's over, and I shouldn’t have done it this way, but I cannot bring myself to feel a speck of regret for any of it. You should’ve known this is how we would end, Hawk.”
“What? How can you blame this on me?” Hawk could feel his blood rising, and Andy Brennan looked up from across the room.
"You ignore a woman long enough and she's going to find someone else."
"You're making excuses."
"Maybe. But let me ask you this: where were you on our five year anniversary?"
Hawk said nothing.
"Let me remind you. You were with the Bookhouse Boys, playing cops and robbers. Where were you for my sister's wedding?"
"That's not fair, Diane. I had to be somewhere else. It wasn't because I wanted to be."
"That's the thing, Hawk. You *always* had to be somewhere else. That was so sexy when I first met you, that you were always rushing off to save the day. But you know what? It was never my day you were trying to save. It was always someone else's."
"Maybe you could've mentioned this to me before moving to Maine to live with an old friend." Hawk's voice dripped acid.
Diane sighed. "Listen, this is what it boils down to. Six years together, no ring, no discussion of getting married, having children. I mean, do you not want those things at all, ever? Or did you just not want them with me?"
Hawk sputtered and began to form a response, but Diane had finally found her soapbox.
"No no no. Listen. You can't be with a woman, a living, breathing woman with normal biological desires, for six years and never discuss any of those things. Not if you're serious about her. Not if you're supposed to be her partner in life. Life includes those things. At least, I want mine to. I don't know about you."
"Again, something we could have talked about before you ran off with this hump!"
"But we didn't, did we? That's my point - if something like that doesn't come up naturally in conversation, there's a reason for it. And if we were ever going to talk about it, don't you think we would've done it when I was offered the position in Maine?"
Total silence ensued from both sides of the country. Hawk racked his brain trying to think of something that would change her mind, make her come back; but he knew, deep down, past the pain he felt like fire on the surface of his mind, that she'd already gone.
"I won't call you again." She paused. "I really am sorry for how I did this, Tommy." Diane hung up, and Hawk stared at the receiver for a few seconds before putting it down.
"Hawk? Are you alright?" Andy peered at Hawk from across the room, and Lucy tiptoed in. "You look sad." Andy was known for his perception of the obvious.
Hawk pulled his gun out of the holster at his hip, and Lucy gave a little gasp. He reloaded his weapon with a box of bullets out of a desk drawer. He started to put the box back in the drawer, but curled his fist around it instead. "I'll be downstairs," he said, referring to the small, but professional, shooting range set up in the basement of the sheriff's station.
After he'd stalked out of the room, Lucy sighed and looked at Andy. "I guess it's over with him and Diane," Andy said, rubbing Lucy's stomach.
"I didn't like her, anyway," Lucy said. Her lip curled a little.
"Hey! I know what we can do," Andy said after a moment of belly-rubbing. Belly-rubbing always seemed to clear his mind. "Let's invite that girl Hawk took to see the Log Lady. Let's invite her to the wedding!"
The Moran-Brennan wedding was only a short while in the making, but Lucy took pleasure in knowing that no one would ever say it looked thrown together. She had been planning her wedding practically since birth, not to mention she'd planned her sister Gwen's wedding five years ago. Since then, she had numbers for caterers, florists, photographers, disc jockeys, and makeup and hair stylists on the station's speed-dial, a fact she hid from Sheriff Truman. The only fly in Lucy's ointment was the fact that she was swiftly becoming hugely pregnant, which grievously limited her choice of wedding gowns.
"That's a good idea, Andy!" she exclaimed in her bubbly tone. "Since she's an honorary deputy and all, we can say we wanted to extend an invitation to her. And I know where she lives, so I can send her an invitation and everything! Although I don't know if she checks her mail at that address, maybe she's got a PO box or something in town, but that's not something you can ask someone when you're trying to invite them to your wedding to cheer up the groom's best man." Lucy tapped her pencil on her chin. "I know, we can just mail it to her at the animal shelter! I'll go address one to her now so it can go out in today's mail."
"Or I can take it by there on my way home, maybe," Andy quickly added. Lucy liked it when he was helpful. Her lip curled again, however.
"Andy, wedding invitations have to go through the mail," she said in a firm voice. Wedding etiquette was not something Lucy Moran compromised on.
"But punky, there's only two weeks until the wedding, and Casey might need to go buy a dress or shoes, and she might feel obligated to get us a present even though we're inviting her last minute and she doesn't know us real well. I know my momma always needed lots of time to get ready to go to a wedding, and I bet Casey is the same way. If I take it to her today when I leave, then she'll have it first thing in the morning."
"That's true. I guess you can do that. I'll have to make sure I write really fancy on the envelope, then." Lucy took a calligraphy class when Gwen got married, and writing out her own invitations gave her the opportunity to use her expensive black markers with the curvy tops.
Andy pulled her into his lap. "Then I'll take it over right when you're done with it, punky," he replied, nuzzling her shoulders.
"Hey you two, get a room or get back to work." Sheriff Harry Truman stood in the doorway, perpetual cup of coffee in hand, smiling to take away the sting of his reproach. He was glad for Andy and Lucy, but he sure would be happy when the honeymooning was over. "Where'd Hawk go?"
"He's downstairs. He got a call from Diane." Harry got the hint. He found Hawk emptying round after round into the paper target, creating a neat little circle in the middle of the chest. The paper zoomed back, and he tossed it on the ground, where a pile had already accumulated. He felt, rather than saw, Harry watching him from the stairs.
"Hawk."
He reloaded his weapon again and clipped a new target up. The sheriff went upstairs, but came back down again with a bottle of scotch and two rocks glasses filled with ice. He poured Hawk a double and handed it to him. Hawk drained it and handed it back.
"She was supposed to be mine," he said in a strangled voice.
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