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Especially since I knew his mother worked long hours at the local law firm and often didn’t get home until well after six in the evening.

Since Tony had just turned thirteen, leaving him to his own devices after school wasn’t technically illegal, but I still hated that he had to fend for himself all the time.

Today, though, I saw at once that his explosive arrival had very little to do with eagerness to help me unbox the latest shipment of Science Diet products or enthusiasm about cleaning the fish tanks.

No, he held a large, gray-brown bundle of feathers in his arms, one that let out a sad little keening sound.

His cargo was a Cooper’s hawk.

I immediately hurried over, even as Benjamin Sanders frowned, expression turning to one of concern as he seemed to realize what Tony was carrying. “What happened?”

“I saw him on my way home from school,” Tony replied. “His wing was caught in a chain-link fence.”

Oh, no. While chain-link wasn’t a common building material in Silver Hollow, not when most people here did their best to make sure the town looked picture-perfect at all times, there were still a few places where it had been installed.

One of which was the car repair shop at the end of Daly Street, right on the route from the town’s combination middle/high school to my store.

“Bring him over to the counter,” I told Tony.

Ben Sanders continued to watch, something about his stance telling me he was ready to go fetch help if I asked.

Maybe we’d have to reach out to Hope Hayakawa, our local vet, for assistance, but honestly, I probably had more experience working with wild animals than she did.

“Then lay him down as gently as you can.”

Dark eyes anxious, the boy did as I instructed, placing the wounded hawk on the countertop next to the cash register. At once, it thrashed, knocking over the can of assorted pens I kept there for people to sign their sales receipts, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

Especially since I noticed that Benjamin Sanders knelt to pick them up without me even having to ask.

Then I passed a hand over the panicked bird’s head, and immediately it quieted, its worried thrashing subsiding as it seemed to realize I was someone who might be able to help.

The cause of the problem was clear enough.

One of its pinion feathers had gotten twisted when it was caught in the fence, and I immediately brushed my hand over it, smoothing the feather until it lay flat.

Once again, the hawk let out a keening sound, although this time there was almost a questioning note to the vocalization, as if it thought it might be all right now but couldn’t be entirely sure.

“He’ll be fine,” I told Tony, who’d watched me work with worried eyes. “I think he panicked when he got caught in the fence, but he didn’t do any permanent damage to his feathers.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Let’s take him outside and see if he’s ready to fly or whether he’d rather perch on the bench out front for a bit while he gets settled down.”

I held out an arm, and the hawk immediately hopped onto it.

To be honest, I hadn’t been sure whether it would even know what to do, since it was a wild animal and not a bird trained to come to a falconer’s fist, but it must have understood my intentions well enough.

In fact, it rode quietly on my forearm as I went outside to the little wooden bench that my grandmother had placed there years ago, thinking it would be a good spot for people to linger with their dogs for a while or just take a break and watch passersby come and go.

No one sat there now, though, and as soon as I extended my arm, the hawk hopped off and settled on the bench.

It tilted its head and looked at me and then at the sky before it gave an experimental stretch of its wings.

That one movement seemed to be all it needed to realize that no permanent damage had been done, because a moment later it launched, flying strong and free toward the forest.

“That was so cool,” Tony said, eyes shining with admiration, but I only shrugged.

“All in a day’s work,” I replied. “Do you think you could feed the fish for me now?”

“Sure,” he said at once, just as I’d known he would.

He was a good kid.

We went back inside, where Benjamin Sanders was still waiting sort of awkwardly by the cash register. Although the transaction had gone through, Tony’s crisis with the hawk had interrupted us before I’d been able to pull the receipt for my customer to sign, let alone bag his purchases.

“Sorry about that,” I said as I hurried behind the counter, but Benjamin Sanders only smiled.

“No worries,” he said. Then he added, “That was amazing. Are you a vet or something?”

“Or something,” I agreed as I bent to pull a bag out from under the counter. “Almost vet, I guess. I made it to my residency, but then — ”

I stopped myself, realizing it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell him how my mother and grandmother had disappeared in the woods, not when he’d just been asking Eliza the day before…only half jokingly, according to her…whether there had been any Bigfoot sightings in the area.

My customer waited, gaze questioning, but it seemed clear to me that he wasn’t going to probe, not when doing so might make our exchange even more awkward.

“Then I had to come home and take over the store,” I finished.

Something in his expression told me he’d already guessed there was a whole lot more I wasn’t letting on, but he only gave a sympathetic nod.

“It’s tough when life interferes with our plans,” he said. “I hope you’ll be able to go back and finish your degree at some point.”

That was a hope I’d held in the back of my mind as well, but with every day that passed, it grew dimmer and dimmer.

Some people might have said it was entirely possible that my mother and grandmother would reappear just as precipitously as they’d vanished, and yet I wasn’t sure whether I could allow myself even that faint hope.

Also, even though unicorns were magical creatures and could communicate in their own way, that didn’t mean they could talk. Whatever information the one I’d seen the day before might possess, I doubted he would be able to express it in a manner I could fully understand.

“Maybe,” I said, about the only response I could offer. “Do you want your receipt in the bag, Mr. Sanders?”

“Ben,” he said immediately, with another one of those smiles that did uncomfortable things to my midsection. “And in the bag is fine.”

I slipped the receipt in with his binoculars and bird book, then handed over the bag. “Have a wonderful rest of your day.”

The standard thing I said to almost all my customers, but Ben didn’t appear to look at the comment that way. “I plan to. Thank you for all your help…?”

His words trailed off, and he gave me an inquisitive look.

“Sidney,” I supplied. “Sidney Lowell.”

“Then thanks, Sidney. I’m sure the book and binoculars will come in very useful on my hikes.”

He lifted his free hand as if to say goodbye before heading out the door. As it closed behind him, I couldn’t help shaking my head.

I didn’t know for sure what he was looking for out there, but I knew damn well that it wasn’t birds.