“Ooooh, purple.” She held it up.
“Uh-huh. Cuz purple’s your fav’rite.” The most adorable child in the world gave her a sweet smile. “Godmuvver.”
In the mountain range, Kit stretched her feet toward the fire. “I’m glad we have a fire—and that you’re so careful with it.”
The campfire Hawk had made was downstream of a tiny waterfall in an area of patchy grass. After digging a fire pit, he’d lined the edge with river stones.
He was seated on a low canvas camp chair—another treasure from his helicopter. “If it hadn’t been a wet summer, we’d be using the camp stove now.”
“I guess that means the fire won’t burn all night to keep the bears away?”
“No fire.” He pointed to an open area across the creek and uphill. “We’ll sleep away from the creek and the smell of food.”
She sipped her hot chocolate, savoring the hazelnut taste from the Frangelico Liqueur he’d added. Rather than a horrendous survival experience, this felt more like a mini-vacation.
“Want another?” he asked.
“No, I’m good.” She grinned to herself and caught his raised eyebrows. “Frankie teases me about being a lightweight since more than two drinks makes me sick. And she can outdrink a lot of guys.”
“Yep. Seen that.” His smile faded. “I’m sorry I can’t get you home to Aric.”
“Fog is hardly your fault, and I think you know how much I love flying.” She sighed. “Aric’s getting better. Even his counselor is pleased with his progress.”
“Counselors.” Making an irritated noise, Hawk ran his finger over the tattoos on his arm as if tracing memories.
She laughed. “The visits leave me frazzled for a while afterward, but I’m really grateful to have help for me and Aric. And the group sessions are…” She couldn’t find the right word.
“Helpful?”
“In a different way, yes.” She tipped her head back. The fog was so thick she couldn’t even see the dark sky. “It helps to hear others talking about the same problems I have and that the way I react is, kind of, just part of dealing with the aftermath.”
“What about one-on-one?”
“I’m done for now. She said to return if anything came up.” Kit poked a stick in the fire. Seeing how much she enjoyed feeding the fire, Hawk had assigned her the job, then crushed her hopes by refusing to let her build a six-foot blaze. Darn it. “Have you ever seen a therapist? I mean, soldiers do, right?”
“We should. I didn’t till this year.” A corner of his mouth tilted up. “Got the same guy the sarge saw.”
“That’d be strange. Does it bother you?”
Hawk shook his head. “Mako got better. Was even seeing a woman.”
“Someone in town?”
“Lillian.”
“Whoa. You mean seeing, like the in bed kind of seeing?”
Hawk’s raspy voice held amusement. “Yep.”
“Huh.” From what she’d heard, the sarge had been a hard-ass military lifer, tough as nails, and paranoid as all get out. How’d he win the elegant British actress? Then again, Lillian obviously liked rugged men, since she lived with Dante, also a veteran. “From the stories, your sarge must have been scary when you were a child.”
“Yeah, some.” Hawk took a sip of his drink. “We were lucky he found us.”
She snorted. “Found you? That sounds like he tripped over you on a walk or something.”
“Pretty much.”
Seriously? He wasn’t going to explain? She gave him a “use-your-words” look.
Making a grumbling sound, he continued, “We were in foster care. In California. The guy in charge had a thing for boys.”
Kit’s eyes widened. “Like a pedophile?”
At the memory, Hawk felt his jaw clench, his gut twist. “He grabbed me.” Pinned face down on the bed. Screaming, fighting, biting, doing everything he could to keep his pants from being ripped off. “I fought back.”
He’d been losing.
Kit made a horrified sound.
“Gabe, Bull, and Caz jumped in.” Gabe first. Bursting through the door and charging Phillip—who knocked him to the floor. Hawk scrambling up, diving at the man. Hearing the screaming, Bull and Caz ran in—and attacked.
The boys weren’t his friends or anything—Hawk hadn’t had friends—and they were street-smart enough to know no one could win against a foster parent. Yet they’d come to his rescue.
The wonder of that moment had never left him.
And despite the mess, there’d been high points. “Caz nailed the pervert with a baseball bat to the crotch.”
Kit burst out laughing. “Good for him.”
Yeah, he knew he liked her. She might not like violence, but she didn’t hide her head in the sand.
Even better, she hadn’t dissolved into a bunch of uncomfortable sympathy over his story either. Which meant he could continue.
“Mako was visiting next door. Heard the yelling”—shrieking was more like it—“and walked in.” Like Hawk’s brothers, the sarge had that protective gene. “He brought us here.”
“To Alaska from California?” Kit blinked. “A single father from another state? That must have taken months to get the paperwork done. Did the social workers at least move you to a safer— You’re laughing. Why are you laughing?”
“He stuffed us in his car, and we left.”
“That’s kidnapping!”
Hawk shook his head. “He asked us first.”
“Oh, my heavens, that’s so wrong.” She stared at him. “What about here? Suddenly a guy has four children. Didn’t anyone question that?”
“We lived in an off-the-grid cabin deep in the forest. Alaskans don’t ask questions.”
Her outraged expression was adorable. “How old were you?”
“Nine.” And really fucked up in the head. But she didn’t need to know that, did she? She’d already figured out he’d had a shit childhood.
And, fuck him, but he needed to remember he wasn’t the right man for her. Not for serious. They were friends. She hadn’t asked for more. He couldn’t allow himself to want more, even if he did, damn him for a fool.
He liked being her friend. Best he keep his ambitions confined to that.
“If you were in foster care, were your parents—”
Not going there.
“What about yours?” he interrupted. “Are they alive?”
“No.” She swirled her hot chocolate in the mug. “They died in a car crash. I was ten when I went to live with my mom’s sister and her husband.”
Hawk studied the way her body had closed in on itself. The animation had left her face. “Assholes?”
“Not…exactly.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Some. Counseling showed me how thoroughly they messed up my thinking.”
“Yeah?”
When she didn’t speak, he gave her the same raised-brows, head-tilt shit she used on him when he wasn’t spitting out the words.
She laughed, and there was the resilient woman he knew. The one willing to tackle problems head on.