He was gorgeous and built, for starters.
But he exuded charisma, machismo and confidence to such an extent, it was almost palatable. Like you could smell it and even taste it.
He was not my kind of guy, mostly because he was very taken, very in love with his wife and all about the family they made, not to mention, from the beginning after I’d seen him and knew there was a possibility he could be mine, I’d been all about Boone.
But I was a heterosexual female, so on a variety of levels I enjoyed any run-in I had with Hawk Delgado (and Augustus Hero).
Except that one, with the way Hawk’s eyes lifted to mine the minute I hit the threshold and I saw the look of displeasure on his handsome face.
Yikes.
“Babe,” Boone muttered, tightening his hold on my hand.
I turned my gaze up to him.
He tipped his head down.
With some hesitance, I also looked down.
The body was covered.
Right.
Phew.
A brief reprieve.
“Ms. Jansen, we’ll make this really quick,” a cop standing outside on my deck offered.
“Awesome, thanks,” I mumbled.
The cop squatted.
I braced.
He pulled the sheet back from the face of a Caucasian man wearing a black knit cap even though it was late spring in Denver and it had to be over seventy degrees outside.
The good news was whatever killed him was not a head wound.
The bad news was his eyes were open.
The uncertain-to-this-scenario news was I’d never seen him in my life.
“I don’t know him,” I shared.
“You sure?” the cop asked.
I nodded and turned my attention to the officer. “I’m sure. I’ve never seen him before.”
The cop looked to Boone, down to the body, and made a movement that I knew meant he was flicking the sheet back over, but I didn’t look.
“You done?” Boone asked the guy.
“Yeah,” the officer answered.
Boone pulled me out of the door.
We traipsed through flour that I was relieved to see was mostly sucked up by the years of grease and muck that had made the carpet a veritable sponge.
I didn’t go on to realize how extremely gross this was mostly because there was a dead man with his eyes open on my back deck.
“Babe,” Boone called.
The threat has been neutralized.
“Ryn.”
Okay.
All right.
Nefarious people tried to break into a house during the day.
People worked during the day. It was a good chance some random bad guy had targeted my house thinking I was in some office somewhere, slaving away for the man, so my pad was open to take what he wished.
But that man dead on my back deck was not some random bad guy who had targeted my house.
Which meant he probably knew I was there.
I started shivering.
“Kathryn!” Boone clipped, squeezing my hand hard and cupping my jaw, turning my face up to his.
“Do you know that guy?” I asked.
“No,” Boone answered.
“Who was that guy?” I asked.
“He didn’t have ID on him,” Boone answered.
“Why was he here?” I asked.
“I don’t know, baby,” he said.
“I don’t have anything to do with any of this,” I told Boone something he knew.
His lips thinned.
That wasn’t a great response.
“Boone,” I whispered.
“They’re moving the body and clearing out.”
I had not been around him much, but I knew that was Hawk Delgado’s voice.
I had a sense my freak-out could no longer be held back, and it was alarming to understand even at its start that it was going to have multiple layers.
“Hang around. Think Ryn has a few things to say,” Boone said low.
I turned.
The brigade was there. Mo, Mag, Auggie and Axl.
As well as Hawk.
It was a lot for a girl to take in.
I barely noticed it.
“Ryn.”
Hawk said this in his deep voice. It was short. Curt. Authoritative.
My eyes went direct to his.
“You’re safe and you’re going to stay safe.”
A thousand years ago, knights embarking on quests made vows in voices that sounded like that.
Leaders of revolutions made speeches in voices that sounded like that.
Star-crossed lovers made promises in voices that sounded like that.
I relaxed.
“Get her some water, would you?” Boone asked the brigade at large, and Axl and Auggie nearly bumped into each other, they both moved so fast to get me a glass of water.
Okay, I knew by nature of the fact that these were Lottie’s boys, and Mo was the salt of the earth and treated Lottie like gold, and she’d set up Mag with my girl Evie and they were solid as a rock, that these guys were good guys.
But now, all of them descending in a time of tribulation, sticking to me like glue and bumping into each other to get me a glass of water, I was seeing that these guys were really, really good guys.
Boone and I had stopped in my dining room.
He led me to the living room where he pushed me down on my couch.
Hawk and Boone then peeled off to deal with the last of the police leaving while Mo and Mag hung with me and then Mo, Mag, Axl and Auggie hung with me like I needed moral support while I sipped water.