“What a horrific thought.” Frankie gave her a determined glance. “You’ll take it easy, or all of us will yell at you.”

All of them. Kit bit her lip. There were five houses at the Hermitage. One was empty. One house belonged to Frankie’s man, Bull. The giant restaurant owner was probably in his thirties.

One house held Rescue’s Chief of Police, Gabe, and his girlfriend, Audrey.

The nurse practitioner, Cazador, and his woman, JJ—a police officer, who worked for Gabe, lived in another.

The fifth was owned by Hawk, the man who’d killed her husband to save her life. Her memory was vague, blurred by pain and physical damage, but that moment was when she’d entrusted Hawk with her son.

Each time he dropped Aric off to visit her in the hospital or rehab, she’d questioned her judgment. Muscular, tattooed, scarred, and silent…the man was simply terrifying.

Yet, when he looked at her, his eyes didn’t hold death; they held a haunted kind of pain. And on the rare occasions he actually spoke to her, his deep rasping voice felt like a safety line in a stormy sea.

Maybe she was crazy to have trusted him, but he’d kept her son safe.

Turned out to be a pretty enough day, Hawk Calhoun decided, and damned colorful.

Rescue’s Main Street used to be filled with decrepit buildings with faded, peeling paint. Now, it was like someone had handed the store owners a box of crayons and told them to go wild. Thank fuck no one had discovered how to create paisley or plaids. The black and white striped trim against blue paint on the pizza place was gaudy enough.

Holding Aric’s hand, he stepped around one of the whiskey barrel planters on the sidewalk and smiled at the red and white blooms. Lillian and Audrey intended to add blue flowers to them for the Fourth of July.

Gardeners were a strange breed.

He and the kid passed four pot-bellied men wearing short-sleeved tropical shirts—in Alaska. No wonder Chevy and Knox kept talking about having Fish and Game declare an open season on tacky tourists.

Seeing Hawk, the garish group parted, giving him lots of room and wary stares. Like he’d whip out a knife and gut them or something.

Wanting to get past them, he lengthened his gait, then felt the tiny hand holding his tighten.

Dumbass. He’d been working to get Aric comfortable enough to walk beside him in town rather than being carried. A glance down showed the kid staring up at him in worry.

Ignoring the tourists on the sidewalk, Hawk went down on his haunches, putting him only a little taller than the four-year-old. “Sorry, kid.”

The small body was tensed up, and Aric’s grip on his hand hadn’t relaxed. Did he think Hawk had been trying to leave him behind?