The Guardian

Now the house was decaying around him. He stared up at the featureless sky. Man-made dwellings were fragile in this climate; they took constant maintenance. Hawkshaw decided he was not good at maintaining things, at least the things that were supposed to belong to him.

He turned and looked at the lone light that shone from the farthest window. The woman had left the bathroom light on for the kid, a gesture that touched him in spite of himself.

Don’t be touched, he warned himself. Don’t feel anything. Don’t get involved.

The woman and kid had come into his life suddenly, and with luck they’d disappear just as suddenly. Until then, he’d watch out for them because they were a legacy from Corbett, a favor to be returned and a debt to be paid.

But nothing personal. Hawkshaw would stay uninvolved.

He had made it his specialty.

A RAGGED SCREAM WOKE KATE. In panic she raised herself on her elbow, staring about the strange room.

The morning’s first light poured between the curtains. Charlie slept in the bed next to hers, his brown hair dark against the white pillowcase. His breathing was even and deep.

Maybelline slept beside him, her squat body curled up against his legs. She opened one bloodshot eye, limply raised one ear. She sighed a doggy sigh.

The scream rent the air again, and Kate’s heart pounded in confused dismay. But Maybelline closed her eye, lowered her ear. Her body relaxed, and in the fraction of a moment, she snored.

The scream sounded again, this time farther away, and Kate thought, A seagull. That’s all. Seagulls make an awful sound like that.

It came back to her in a surreal rush that she and Charlie were somewhere in the Florida Keys. The realization jarred her, and she sank back against the pillow. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.

She and Charlie had arrived in Florida last night, and now they were hidden away with a friend of Corbett’s. And that friend was a tall, lean unfriendly man named Hawkshaw....

Her muscles stiffened at the recollection of Hawkshaw. Like Corbett, he had been in the Secret Service, and that, in truth, was almost all she knew about him.

She raised herself again on her elbow. She barely even knew where she and Charlie were, for God’s sake. She had better find out, because she was going to have to explain it all to Charlie. And prepare him for Hawkshaw.

The room was musty, and she thought she could smell the ocean—or was it the Gulf? Or both? She also imagined the aroma of coffee in the sultry air. Squinting at her watch, she saw that it was just after six; with luck Charlie should sleep for another hour.

She slid from bed, opened her suitcase and snatched up her toiletry case and a change of clothes. The face that stared back at her from the mirror startled her. She looked pale and uncertain of herself. She hated that uncertainty; it had once been so foreign to her.

She clambered into jeans and a pale-green T-shirt, put on her old running shoes, then slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the door open in case Charlie awoke. She cast a last, worried glance back at him, the dog still snoring by his side.

She padded down the hall. The living room looked as cluttered and disheveled as it had last night. Almost everything in it seemed dated, as if the contents had come from an era older than Hawkshaw’s own.

The kitchen was overcrowded, but she found a freshly brewed pot of coffee warming on the counter and a clean mug. She filled it and stepped to the front door.

She eased open the screen door and looked up and down the deck for Hawkshaw. Her heartbeat quickened as she saw him, sitting on a bench, hunched over a weathered picnic table. He had a manila folder open in front of him and seemed to be deep in study.

He sat in profile to her, a forelock of hair falling over his eyes. He wore olive drab shorts and that was all. The rest of him was as naked as the day God made him.

The morning sun was still mellow, and it spilled over on his shoulders, gleamed on the muscles of his back. His arms and legs were sinewed and bronzed, and she could see the tracery of veins that etched his biceps.

The azure-blue of the sky framed the sharp angles of his profile. He looked at ease with himself, as much a part of nature as an eagle or a stag might.

He did not look up at her, and not even his slightest motion betrayed that he knew she was there. But he said, “Hello, Katherine. Bring out your coffee and sit down. We have things to talk about. By the way, your socks don’t match.”

She blinked in surprise and her gaze fell involuntarily to her feet. On one foot was a navy-blue sock, on the other a black one.

Almost reluctantly she came to his side. She sat down on the bench as far from him as she could. He sipped at his coffee, but he didn’t look at her.

“How did you know I was there?” she demanded. “How did you know I had coffee? How did you know my socks don’t match? You never even saw me.”

“I saw you,” he said in his soft growl. “It’s my business to notice things. Or it was.”

He had shaved. The lean planes of his face were clean, and the scent of something piney hovered about him.

“How long did you say you and Corbett worked together?” she asked uneasily.

“Fourteen years,” he said.

He raised his eyes to hers. They were keen eyes, and for the first time she realized they also seemed intensely intelligent.

“But you don’t want to talk about me,” he said. “You want to talk about where you are. Right?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Charlie’s already confused about everything. Somehow I have to explain this to him.”

“Right,” he said, turning his gaze from her. He set down his coffee mug. From a stack of papers on the table’s corner he drew out a map.

He unfolded it and set it between them. “This chain of islands is the Lower Keys.”

He picked up a red pen. She noticed the long, jagged scar on his right arm. With the precision of an artist or an engineer, he circled the last island in the chain. “That’s Key West, where you landed.”

She nodded mechanically. A breeze sprang up. From the corner of her eye, she saw how it fluttered the lock of hair that fell over his forehead.

“We came up the one main road,” he said, tracing a line. “We’re here, Cobia Key. We’re at the edge of the heron sanctuary. More or less surrounded by mangrove islands. Like I say, we’re isolated.”

His gaze met hers again, and it seemed to her that it held a strange mixture of coolness, distance, and unwilling hunger. Uneasy, she turned her face from his and stared out at the dark tangle of the mangroves. “You’re alone here?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said in a tone that implied, And that’s how I like it.

She heard gulls crying in the distance, but she realized that this place was oddly still, almost hushed. The landscape did not seem tropical or exotic. Instead it seemed brooding, the mangrove forests full of mystery.

She had imagined Florida abloom with flowers and bright with colorfully plumaged birds. She had not envisioned these thick, low woods, deep with secrets. It was an alien atmosphere, and she took a drink of coffee to steel herself against it.

“What is this place?” she asked, giving the worn deck a critical glance.

“It used to be a guide service. Mostly kayak tours. Not anymore.”

She looked at him questioningly. “You bought this when—when you retired from the service?”

“I inherited it,” he said. “When my father died.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, although she could detect no sorrow, no grieving in him.

“It’s getting ready to fall down,” he said from between his teeth. He tapped the map with the pen again. “But that’s where you are. What’s left of Hawkshaw’s Island Adventures. In Nowhere, Florida.”