About this book
Whether she’s writing about a BDSM club in Florida or a tiny town in Alaska, Cherise Sinclair is always magic.
~ Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews
She survived.
Kit survived her abusive husband. Survived imprisonment and beatings from the Patriot Zealots. Now free and healing, she can make a new life for herself and her son…except he has attached himself to a terrifying, scarred, tattooed ex-mercenary.
Women take one look at him and flee.
An ugly childhood and combat left Hawk with scars, a rasping voice, and an aversion to talking. So, why in hell does the four-year-old stick to him like glue?
The kid’s pretty mother is smarter. There’s fear in her eyes when she looks at Hawk. That hurts. The sweet woman is everything he’s ever wanted--loving, affectionate, and patient. But after what she’s been through, she sure won’t want to be around men—especially the one who killed her husband.
He’d saved her.
Kit agrees with her son. Being near Hawk is the safest place on earth. Beneath the menacing appearance, he’s protective…and kind. The better she gets to know him, the more she sees him as a man--a very sexy man. But, considering what had happened to her, she knows--
No man would want her now.
Soar High
Sons of the Survivalist: 4
Cherise Sinclair
VanScoy Publishing Group
To Kathleen Cole, the Alaska Ice Lady, who fought long and hard. I’m going to miss you so much. Your joy in life was an inspiration to us all.
Soar high, my friend.
Soar High
Copyright © 2021 by Cherise Sinclair
ISBN: 978-1-947219-37-3
Published by VanScoy Publishing Group
Cover Art: I'm No Angel Designs
Edited by Red Quill Editing, LLC
Content Editor: Bianca Sommerland
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, business establishments, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this eBook only. No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews as permitted by law.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Acknowledgments
Hugs and so much gratitude goes to my psychology consultants, Ruth Reid and AnnaMaria Boullion. Y’all have the biggest hearts.
I’m so very blessed with my critique partners, Fiona Archer and Monette Michaels. Thank you!
My editors simply rock, what can I say? Content editor: Bianca Sommerland, and copy-editing/proofing from Red Quill Editing with Ekatarina Sayanova, Tracy Damron-Roelle, and Rebecca Cartee.
Many hugs and thanks go to Lisa White, Barb Jack, and Marian Shulman for the amazing beta reading. Y’all have saved me much embarrassment!
My Alaska experts went above and beyond the call of duty with ideas and corrections. Thank you, JJ Foster and Kathleen Cole. Any errors that slipped in are my very own.
Finally, thank you all, my readers, for going on this trip to Alaska with me. *muah!*
Prologue
When everything seems to be against you, remember that an airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. ~ Henry Ford.
“Keep up, boy.”
The sarge’s firm command jerked Hawk’s attention from where he trudged along the steep trail behind the other three kids. Kinda like he was in the army. In a lot of soldier movies, the badass sergeant was always yelling at some poor bastard. Mako didn’t yell much, but his voice was as big as he was.
Hawk didn’t speed up. He didn’t want to get up all close with his foster-brothers.
Nah, he shouldn’t call them that. The sarge wasn’t running a foster home, and he sure wasn’t their father. He was just the guy who’d taken—rescued—the four of them from a California foster home and brought them to Alaska.
Because the foster father in LA had been a pervert.
Hawk scowled and fell even farther behind. He could still feel the guy’s hands touching him, ripping his shirt. The knee pinning him down to the bed.
Sometimes those memories got mixed up with the beatings his real father had dished out. Sometimes he kinda got caught, like in that steel trap the sarge had showed them. Mako’d been pissed off, cuz the trap was all steel teeth that’d dig into some poor animal.
The shit Hawk’d been through had left behind big holes.
Turning, Gabe gave him a worried look. The kid was ten, a year older than Hawk. He was okay, but kinda like one of those weird dogs that rounded up sheep. Gabe got antsy, like, if he couldn’t keep track of the other boys, they might get hurt or something.
Hawk looked away. Nobody needed to worry about him; nobody ever had before.
“Caz, where’s the closest water?” Mako kept moving up the trail. It wasn’t right. He was old, maybe even fifty or something, but he wasn’t even breathing hard.
The rest of them were panting like dogs in L.A. during the summer.
“Water. It is…” Caz looked around. He was a year younger than Hawk and Bull—and Hawk liked to call him the baby to piss him off an’ make him swear. Not that Hawk usually understood what Cazador said; the baby still dropped into Spanish when he got mad.
Caz’s shoulders hunched. “No sé.”
Hawk didn’t know either.
“Listen,” Mako said. “You got two ears; use them. All of you.”
They stopped to listen. And yeah, Hawk could hear water running. A creek or something. Keeping one hand on the rock wall, he turned his head to try to pinpoint it. It was somewhere way, way, way down the scary-as-shit slope part on the other side of the trail.
Why’re we walking up the side of a mountain, anyway?
They all pointed toward the creek.
“Good. Next time, find it before I ask,” Mako said. “Which way is home?”
Home.
Hawk scowled. Guess he’d lived in the log cabin like a month now, so okay, maybe it might kinda be almost home. In the loft, he had a bed and even a box for his stuff. Nobody bothered the shit he found—the eagle feathers, the tiny nest, an eggshell littler than a grape.
Suddenly there was a rattle of stones from behind him. A baby elk darted out and dodged past him, heading up the trail past the others.
Jesus, it was cute.
“Move,” the sarge roared and pointed at something behind Hawk.