The Guardian. Bethany Campbell

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      The boy climbed back into bed and struggled, frowning, to get between the sheets.

      “Do you want your pajamas?”

      “No,” he yawned. “Let me sleep.”

      He fell back against the pillow, his eyes already closed.

      Hawkshaw came in the door, carrying their few pieces of luggage. He set them down near the doorway. The fat basset hound, Maybelline, waddled behind him, her eyes wells of sorrow over what she had suffered.

      Maybelline gave sadly accusing looks to both Kate and Hawkshaw. Then huffing and straining, she managed to clamber onto Charlie’s bed. She shot the two adults another aggrieved glance, then turned around several times and, with a grunt, plopped down beside Charlie.

      “I hope you don’t mind,” Kate said. “The dog always sleeps with him. He’ll feel more at home if she—”

      “No problem,” Hawkshaw said, cutting her off. He turned and left, closing the door behind him as if he was glad to have a barrier between them.

      Kate sighed and sat on her own bed. She stared at the shut door and suddenly felt as if she were in prison.

      If Hawkshaw found it so damned disagreeable to have them here, why on earth had he said they could come? He might be a fine bodyguard, a protector par excellence, but did he have to be so silent and surly and turbulent?

      On top of it all, he had some weird sexiness, and he knew it. As if she, of all people, was going to go for the dangerous, mysterious type. No, thank you. If she ever got mixed up with another man, she hoped it was a mildmannered teddy bear of a fellow who gave off an aura of danger no greater than a marshmallow.

      Oh, hell, she thought wearily. Why was she criticizing Hawkshaw? He might be edgy and rude, but he’d been good enough to take them in, hadn’t he? Perhaps she should no more blame him for his prickly coldness than she should blame an attack dog for being vicious.

      She sighed, rose, and got ready for bed. She wouldn’t let this man get her spirits down. She simply would not allow it.

      She left the bathroom light on and the door partly open, in case Charlie awoke. She turned out the overhead light and settled into the bed, which was surprisingly cool and soft.

      From beneath the closed bedroom door came a wedge of yellow light, and there was the sound of music somewhere, muted and rather haunting. Hawkshaw must still be up.

      She was stricken with a sudden, piercing memory of his sea-green eyes. No, my girl, none of that, she told herself firmly. She would not think that way.

      The stalker had stolen a few small items from her—possessions that she had left near the doorstep or on her patio—nothing that seemed of great consequence.

      But, in truth, he had stolen far larger things: her job, her home, her peace of mind. He had stripped trust from her life, especially trust of men. And along with it, he had thieved away desire.

      

      

      HAWKSHAW SAT AT HIS father’s battered desk in the living room, going over the Kanaday woman’s file again. Now that he had met her and the kid, the case no longer seemed an abstraction, nor did they. They were flesh and blood.

      Yes, he thought, and the reality of her was distracting, because all he wanted to think of was Sandra, who was marrying someone else and would never be his again.

       Sandra, he thought hopelessly. The memory of her was always like a knife in the heart. He forced himself not to think of her sensual blondness. He made himself look instead at the fuzzy reproductions of the snapshots that Corbett had sent of Kate Kanaday. There were only three.

      The first showed her and the kid sitting before a towering Christmas tree. The picture was dated two years ago. The kid, Charlie, was on Kate’s lap, mugging for the camera, and she was smiling with what seemed like real joy.

      The camera didn’t love her, he told himself. Not the way it had loved and flattered Sandra.

      But the smile—Kate Kanaday’s smile was nice, and it was full of the love of life. He wondered if she would ever smile that way again. He set the photos aside, face down.

      He scanned the file again, looked at one of the notes from the stalker. The man had written:

      I WANT TO TOUCH YOU EVERYWHERE. TO KISS YOU EVERYWHERE. TO EXPLORE EVERY INCH OF YOUR BODY. YOU WILL OPEN YOURSELF TO ME, AND CRY OUT WITH UNBEARABLE PLEASURE AT THE JOY MY BURNING THRUSTS WILL BRING YOU...

      Hawkshaw shook his head in disgust. He knew what the police had probably told her, that guys who wrote such muck seldom acted on it. They got their jollies through the words and didn’t have to do the deeds.

      But Hawkshaw knew this was not always true. He closed the file, pushed away from the old desk. He got to his feet and took another beer from the fridge. He went outside, to the deck.

      The boards creaked beneath his feet. The deck was sagging and in disrepair like the rest of the property. He would have to make up his mind sooner or later: either fix up the house or tear it down for good.

      He sipped the beer and stared off into the velvety darkness. This point of land was surrounded by tidal streams and mangrove islands. He heard the splash of a fish, perhaps even a dolphin, for dolphins sometimes came into the waters.

      He inhaled deeply of the salt, humid air. He had spent much of his youth here, in this very house.

      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.

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