The Guardian

Here in Key West the drizzle was light. The moon was masked by clouds. Beyond the airport’s chain-link fence, Kate saw palm trees mistily gilded by the parking lot lights. The air was sultry and pungent.

Charlie stirred against her shoulder. “What’s that smell?” he asked crankily.

“It’s the ocean,” she told him, although the scent was as new to her as it was to him.

He yawned and relaxed, snuggling his face into her neck. She held him more tightly and made her way inside the terminal’s glass doors. The boy was growing heavy, and their carry-on bag was sliding awkwardly from her shoulder. She paused, trying to hoist it more firmly into place. She glanced about.

Even at this hour the terminal was lively. She heard Jamaican accents mingling with those of Brooklyn; she saw a Muslim woman in a black veil and a Sikh man in an azure turban.

College students crowded elbow to elbow with retirees, and a young Asian couple, looking tired, carried sleeping twin infants. There seemed to be almost every sort of person—but nowhere did Kate see anyone who might be looking for her and Charlie.

Her clothing was purposefully nondescript: faded jeans and a heather-gray T-shirt. Sunglasses hid her brown eyes, and a scarf covered her red-gold hair.

She had done everything in her power not to be attractive or have an ounce of sex appeal. She did not want to be noticed or remembered.

She shifted Charlie in her arms and took off the scarf. She took off the sunglasses, too, which seemed silly so late at night, and stuffed both into her carry-on.

She shook her head to clear it and gazed at the crowd around her. No one seemed to take the slightest notice of her or her child.

She eyed the crowd again, unsure for whom she searched. Charlie sighed again and buried his face against her neck, as if wearily begging her to make everything normal again.

Normal. The word mocked her. Normal.

Her arms tightened around her son with fierce protectiveness. A now-familiar anger swept through her, and she welcomed it; it was her friend and it kept her going.

But Lord, she was tired. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the fatigue away, marshaling her strength. She took a deep breath, then another. Suddenly, a voice spoke her name. It was a male voice, gravelly, yet oddly soft.

“Katherine Kanaday?”

Her eyes flew open. As if by magic, a tall man had materialized in front of her. His lean face filled her vision, and she blinked, disconcerted.

Her gaze met his, which was an intense blue-green, and unreadable. Her chin jerked up, and she eyed him with the suspicion that had become second nature to her.

She had pictured a bland-faced older man much like Corbett. But this man must be only in his early forties, and he looked anything but bland.

Corbett’s words came flashing back to her. You can depend on him.

But Kate’s breath stuck in her chest because this stranger didn’t seem like someone to depend on. He looked more like a man who created danger than safety.

He towered over her, all height and hard muscle. A wide-brimmed Aussie hat hid his hair and shadowed his eyes. He had an angular jaw and a cleft chin. His cheekbones were high and prominent, and he was deeply bronzed by the sun. He had not shaved for several days.

His khaki shirt looked weathered, and Kate could see a triangle of brown chest. Around his neck was a leather thong from which dangled some sort of small stone fetish.

He said, “If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.”

If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me. It was the strange sentence Corbett had picked to serve as a password, and only he and she and this man knew it. The knots in her nerves untied themselves, and she almost smiled.

He didn’t. His face remained impassive. But he took off the hat. His brown hair was thick and streaked by the sun. The sideburns showed the faintest glint of silver.

“W.W. Hawkshaw. I’m a friend of Corbett’s.”

He offered her his hand, and she took it. A small, unwanted tingle of sexual awareness swarmed through her nerves.

Guiltily, she drew her hand away. Sex wasn’t to be trusted. It was what had gotten her and Charlie into this insanity in the first place.

Charlie clutched her more tightly and burrowed his face against her. He muttered something nearly incoherent about going home.

“Shhh,” she whispered. She no longer knew where home was.

Once again resentment warred with her fatigue. But before she could sort out her feelings, before she could even try, Hawkshaw had jammed on the hat again, pulling the brim back to its stem angle. He was ready to get moving.

“Allow me, ma’am,” he ordered, reaching for Charlie.

“I can handle—” she began, but he ignored her. Somehow, he had the boy out of her grasp and expertly cradled in his right arm. Charlie stirred, but didn’t waken.

Kate stared at the hard-looking man, but he only nodded toward her carry-on bag. “That, too, ma’am,” he demanded.

“It’s not that heavy.”

But he stripped it from her, slung it over his own free shoulder.

She stood, feeling half-naked without her burdens, and oddly nettled to be so efficiently relieved of them. He was a high-handed man, and she didn’t like it.

“You have other luggage?” he asked.

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “The most important’s the dog—I hope they haven’t lost her.”

“Dog,” he repeated, completely without enthusiasm.

He made Kate feel awkward, and she resented it. “Corbett said it was all right to bring the dog. He said he asked you about it, and—”

“It’s fine,” Hawkshaw said, holding up his hand as if to silence her. “Don’t mention it.”

He started toward the baggage pickup area. “This way.”

Kate had no choice but to follow him. Why was he so damned preemptory? Because they were late? Maybe he’d been waiting for hours, and it had soured his mood. Well, it was good of him to have waited at all, and she supposed she should apologize, just to be polite.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” she offered, hurrying to keep up with him. “Our plane was delayed in Miami a long time—”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m aware of that,” Hawkshaw said.

“I know it was an inconvenience. Thank you for—”

“Don’t bother,” he said curtly.

“I just want to apologize for any—”

“Don’t bother,” he repeated and looked away pointedly, as if he found her irksome.