The Guardian

“I see,” said the tall man, rising to his feet. He was so tall his head seemed to almost touch the ceiling. He kept hold of Charlie’s hand and led him to the cluttered sink.

“Wow,” Charlie breathed, looking up at him. “Maybe I’ll have a big, massive scar.”

“Maybe,” said the man, running cold water on the stinging thumb. “You should have minded your mother.”

Charlie ignored the advice. He also ignored his mother, who stood by with an oddly disapproving look on her face. He would fix her for bringing him to this old Florida. He’d fix her by liking the tall man better than he liked her—so there.

“Who are you?” Charlie asked. “How come you don’t got no shirt?”

“Don’t have any shirt,” his mother corrected, but he hardly noticed.

“My name’s Hawkshaw,” said the man. “I don’t have a shirt because I don’t need one. This is the Florida Keys. It’s warm all year.”

“Then why do you have a hat?” Charlie asked.

“To keep the sun out of my eyes,” said the man, picking up the antiseptic. “Hold still. This is going to hurt.”

“I won’t cry,” Charlie vowed, but the smarting of the medicine made him dance in place.

“Charlie,” his mother asked, “do you need a bandage on your thumb?”

Charlie didn’t answer. He just gazed up, up, up at Hawkshaw. Hawkshaw, it was a good name, he thought. Like Batman. Or Rambo. Or Han Solo.

Hawkshaw’s cap was black with white letters. “What’s your hat say?” he demanded.

“I don’t think he needs a Band-Aid,” Hawkshaw told Mama. To Charlie he said, “It says United States Secret Service.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “Secret Service? Like the guys who guard the president?”

“Yeah,” Hawkshaw said in the purr-growl of his lion’s voice. “Like that.”

Charlie was swept up by excitement. “Are you in the Secret Service?”

“I was,” Hawkshaw said easily. “What say we take this dog out? She’s standing cross-legged, she has to pee so bad.”

Charlie saw his mother leading the dog outside, but the fact hardly registered. He was too rapt with admiration. “Did you have a gun and everything?”

“A gun and everything,” Hawkshaw said. “Come on. Your mother’s doing all the work.” He headed for the door and Charlie followed as if fastened to him by a string.

“Did you ever guard the president?” Charlie asked in awe.

“Sometimes,” Hawkshaw said. “Mostly I guarded other people.”

“Did you ever shoot anybody?” Charlie asked hopefully. “Did anybody ever shoot you?”

Hawkshaw’s lean face seemed to grow leaner, starker and sterner. “Outside, kid,” he ordered, holding the door.

And Charlie, dutiful as a page in training to a great knight, obeyed.

IN THE YARD, next to a cluster of flowering shrubs, Maybelline squatted modestly. Kate stared off in the opposite direction, trying to seem too dignified to notice.

She saw Hawkshaw come out on the deck. He tilted back the bill of his cap and stared down at her.

Self-conscious, Kate tried to ignore him. She was a mess, of course. She was pale with a Northerner’s pallor, and she hadn’t fastened her hair back, done anything to it except brush it.

Her jeans were baggy, her shirt mannish, and Hawkshaw probably wondered why anyone, least of all a stalker, would want her.

His gaze seemed to settle on the slight thrust of her breasts under the shirt, and, in embarrassment, she looked away. She was imagining things, she told herself. And if she wasn’t, the last thing she needed was anybody’s sexual interest. She’d had enough for a lifetime.

Her son was chattering a mile a minute to the man, and Hawkshaw answered with grunts and nods. But when she stole a glimpse at him, she saw his eyes were still on her.

Maybelline plodded a few steps into the shade and sat down among the deep-red phlox. Delicately, she began to gnaw at her haunch, as if besieging a flea.

Kate knelt beside her, slipping her arm around the dog affectionately. She nuzzled one of the velvety ears. Maybelline kept pursuing the flea.

Kate raised her eyes and stared toward the patch of sea that showed between the trees. The sun beat on her face, and she thought of Charlie, who was as fair-skinned as she. The both of them would need hats and sunscreen, or they’d be burned and blistered.

She turned to look at Charlie again and saw Hawkshaw take off his own cap and adjust it to make it tighter. “Here, kid,” he said, setting it on Charlie’s head. “You want to wear this?”

“Wow,” Charlie breathed, reverently fingering the bill. “You’ll let me?”

“Sure,” said Hawkshaw.

The boy smiled more widely than Kate had seen him smile in weeks. She swallowed.

He was a nice-looking boy, she thought, handsome, even. He had his father’s straight brown hair and angular, masculine features. But his eyes were the same color brown as hers, and in them shone a lively intelligence, a bright imagination.

But sometimes, because of his attention deficit, Charlie’s liveliness was too unfettered; it needed taming.

It seemed profoundly unfair to her that the boy had faced so many problems. The loss of his father, the insanity of her being stalked, his own disability—some—times her feelings of protectiveness for him almost overwhelmed her.

Hawkshaw turned his attention back to Kate. She dropped her gaze to the dog and started to unfasten the leash.

“Wait,” Hawkshaw ordered. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

She looked up, surprise mingled with resentment. His tone had been abrupt, even imperious.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

He made his way down the narrow stairs, Charlie tagging behind him like a puppy.

“I just wouldn’t let her off yet,” Hawkshaw said. “The Keys aren’t like the city. Nature gets a little snarky down here.”

“Snarky?” she asked dubiously. It seemed an unlikely word for him to use.

“Dangerous,” he amended. “Come on. Let’s walk her around the yard. I’ll explain what I mean.”

“Look at me, Mama,” Charlie said, fairly dancing before her, adjusting the oversize cap on his head. “I’m a Secret Service man—I guard people.”