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.
Oh, to hell with him, she thought tiredly. If he’s a boor, he’s a boor. I didn’t come down here for a friendly guy. I came for a tough one.
He stopped before the luggage carousel. He didn’t say, “How was your trip?” He didn’t say, “How’s my old friend Corbett?” He didn’t say anything.
She didn’t, either. Suddenly all she wanted was a bed and eight hours of sleep. She’d deal with Mr. Charm, here, in the morning, when she’d got her strength back.
She studied him furtively, taking his measure. His eyes had permanent creases at the outer edges. They gave him the look of a man who had spent his life watching the world around him and watching it carefully.
He didn’t look at her. She had the impression he was purposefully ignoring her. But then, almost against his will, it seemed, he gazed down at Charlie. His craggy face didn’t mellow.
“So this is Charlie?” he said.
Kate looked at her son, so young, so innocent of what was happening to him, lying so trustingly against this stranger’s chest. A rush of tenderness swept away her other emotions, and she felt a lump like a fist in her throat.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s Charlie.”
HAWKSHAW HAD WAITED for the plane with deep misgivings. He was a private man about to surrender his privacy, and he had already damned himself for it a thousand times.
And his mood was frankly rotten. Right before he’d left for Key West airport, his ex-wife had called from Hawaii. She had an engagement singing in the lounge of a very upscale hotel on Waikiki Beach. “I’m in love,” she’d announced. “I’m finally over you. I think I’m going to get married.”
Suddenly Hawkshaw had remembered everything he’d worked to forget: the loss, the guilt, the failure, the incredible emptiness.
He’d forced cheer into his voice and congratulated her with all the heartiness he could muster. He didn’t ask her the details. He didn’t want to hear them.
She deserved to be happy, God knew. But basically what Hawkshaw had wanted to do was get drunk and stay that way for about a week. Maybe put his fist through a wall or two, that sort of thing.
But instead of mourning for the woman he wanted, he was stuck baby-sitting for one he didn’t want in the least. The Kanaday woman was prettier than he’d expected, and for some obscure reason, this annoyed him.
Certainly Corbett’s fuzzy photos had given no hint of her attractiveness. She’d looked thin and uninteresting in the pictures.
In the flesh, she was slender, not skinny, and her features, although not perfect, were good enough, and the red-gold of her hair was stunning.
Hell, he’d thought, no wonder somebody’s after her. And then he’d thought, Dammit, Corbett. What have you done to me now?
CHAPTER TWO
HAWKSHAW RECOVERED HIMSELF, more or less.
This woman was one last assignment—and there was a rigid rule about assignments: Do Not Get Emotionally Involved.
