Seeing Stars Read online

  The kid shrugged and turned toward the parking lot. When he'd gone two steps, he stopped. "Where's the truck?"

  "No truck." Mac unclipped the spare helmet from the back of the bike. "You mind riding on the bike?"

  Jake caught the helmet. "Naw, I don't mind."

  A crack, thought Mac with a surge of victory. A crack in the kid's armor. He'd gotten the bike out this morning because of Claire, because he figured she'd want to back out of the deal she'd negotiated the night before, and he wanted to get under her skin.

  He should have tried the bike on Jake sooner. He'd tried every other thing, but it had been so long since he'd taken the bike for a spin, he hadn't even thought of it.

  At the second light on Water Street, the kid behind him, Mac said, "I could use some air. Mind if we take a spin out on the highway first?"

  "I don't mind," said the kid, doing a pretty good job of keeping his voice disinterested.

  Mac punched the accelerator as the light turned green, and set about hooking the kid on the pleasures of eating up the highway with a Harley between your legs.

  He wouldn't push it. He'd let the kid lead, but if Jake showed signs of motorcycle fever, there was Mac's old Honda taking up space in his garage. It needed major work. At the rate Jake would earn money working part-time after school, it could take more than a year to get the bike in shape.

  Good timing, thought Mac, because the kid wouldn't turn sixteen for about fourteen months, and there was nothing like motorcycle lust and a set of box wrenches to keep a kid out of trouble.

  Someone had injected a ball of fire under Claire's right shoulder blade. If she concentrated hard on the rhythmic motion of the sandpaper, the fire abated slightly.

  Just a little more, she thought, just this one piece of teak trim and she'd be finished. But somehow, between the push and the pull of the sandpaper's motion, the ball of fire exploded and she gasped.

  She had to straighten out now or she'd be crippled for life.

  She slithered out of the space she'd learned was called a pilot berth. Presumably it was designed for pilots to sleep in—or, more likely, according to Tim, the owner's two children.

  Her back protested as she straightened. On the other side of the salon, Tim had finished sanding the second pilot berth and was sanding the flat expanse of wall he called a bulkhead with an electric sander.

  They hadn't spoken more than three sentences to each other since Mac left, but the silence felt oddly companionable. If she'd encountered Tim on the street, she might have crossed to the other side, but here she hadn't felt even a twinge of danger in his presence.

  "You done?" asked Tim.

  "Taking a break."

  He put down the sander and ducked behind her to test the surfaces. "Not bad," he pronounced, and she felt ridiculously pleased.

  "I'm not done at the other end."

  He grinned, a motion that had an amazing softening effect on his tattooed visage. "Big Macs OK?"

  "Perfect. I could eat a horse. This is hard work."

  "Hits you right in the shoulders. I'll get the food when I finish this wall."

  She wanted to offer him money for the lunch, but she'd won the bet and he was paying up.

  When Blake returned half an hour later, Claire and Tim were eating big Macs. He stepped into the boathouse, followed by a painfully thin boy who mumbled something when Blake introduced Claire.

  The boy didn't meet her eyes and she wondered what Blake thought she could accomplish here.

  "It's nice to meet you, Jake," she said.

  Blake said, "I want to start painting preservative on the underwater hull of Lady Orion this afternoon. We should have time to get a coat on by midafternoon, then we'll knock off."

  "Shit," said Tim, "that stuff stinks."

  "Yeah, but it keeps the rot out. Tim, show Jake the brushes we use. And put coveralls on, guys."

  "I'll help," said Claire, and Jake snorted.

  Blake said, "You've done enough. I'll get the guys started, then I'll drive you back to Discovery Bay."

  "I have my own vehicle."

  From the other side of the boat, Tim called out, "The chick is up for it. She's a good worker. I lost the bet and had to buy her lunch."

  Claire said, "I don't mind a mess, if you've got extra coveralls."

  She's thought working with Blake and the boys might give her an opening to talk to Jake, but it didn't work.

  After two hours slopping the greenish preservative onto the boat, she felt painfully sore by the time Blake shouted that it was a wrap, but they'd succeeded in covering the boat from keel to deck.

  "It'll soak in," he told her when she stood back, looking at it doubtfully. "Without protection, the rot would be eating that hull within months of her being launched. We'll put two more coats on over the next few days, then she'll be ready for painting."

  She supposed he knew what he was doing, but it seemed a pity to mar such beautiful wood with this thin, smelly green substance.

  "I'll show you how to get the mess off." Blake took her to the back where Tim and Jake were scrubbing their arms with solvent. When she saw their greenish hands, she was glad Blake had insisted she wear gloves for the job.

  Tim turned to Jake when he'd finished. "You want a ride?"

  Jake shrugged, which Tim apparently translated as a yes.

  "Tomorrow at nine," said Blake. "The preservative needs forty-eight hours to dry, so we'll get in four hours on the interior tomorrow, then you two can have the rest of the day for yourselves."

  "Right," said Tim, but Jake just shrugged.

  When the boys were gone, Claire shucked her coveralls and hung them beside the others.

  "Thanks, Blake. It's been quite a day."

  "Teak dust and preservative. One hell of a first date."

  "An education, and I won lunch."

  He was dressed in stained coveralls, and the atmosphere could hardly be less romantic, but they were alone, the boys gone, and earlier he'd kissed her to within an inch of her life.

  "Is there a hot tub at that resort?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  "Get in it as soon as you get back. Have a good soak, then go to bed for a couple of hours. Another soak when you get up wouldn't hurt at all, and if they've got a masseuse, that wouldn't be a bad idea either."

  She picked up her jacket and purse. "You're afraid I'll be too crippled to dance? I'm not much of a dancer anyway."

  "Tonight you will be. I'll pick you up at seven."

  "What about you? Will you have a hot tub and a massage?" She flushed as she said the words, caught by an image of Blake face down on a massage table, completely naked.

  "I'm used to this. You're not."

  He might be used to it, but she realized that he wasn't comfortable about her pitching in this afternoon. He might be an expert at romance, but he didn't know everything about this particular woman.

  Chapter Five

  She called the resort office and succeeded in booking a massage with someone named Renee at four-thirty, then grabbed her bathing suit and a towel and headed for the hot tub. Two hours later, she figured she hadn't a bone left in her body, but she'd dozed on the massage table, and Renee's probing seemed to have released most of the tension.

  She might have wimped out of the reunion banquet last night, ducking out at the first opportunity, but today she'd impressed a tattooed teenage ruffian with her ability to do fine sanding, and she'd surprised Blake McKenzie.

  She figured they were almost even now. She didn't know how to cope with flirting and kisses, and he wasn't quite sure how to cope with a woman who picked up a sanding block and a paintbrush full of stinky green preservative.

  She knew a lot more about him than she had twenty-four hours ago. He had a passion for hard work, building fast boats, and tangling with tough kids. As for the kiss... well, he'd taken her by surprise. Next time she'd be prepared. She'd enjoy it, but she wouldn't lose her footing.

  The phone rang as she came back into the c
ondo after her massage. She picked it up, pleased to hear Jennifer's voice.

  "Did you go to the reunion thing last night?" Jenn demanded.

  "Yes, Mother, and tonight I'm going to the dance with that bad boy you suggested I have an affair with."

  Silence.

  "What's his name?"

  "Blake, but most people call him Mac."

  "You do have condoms in your purse?"

  "Jennifer! We're going to a dance. A public dance."

  Jenn snorted. "Do you know what they call a woman as naive as you?"

  Claire thought of the kiss, of the insane deal they'd made last night.

  "What do they call a naive woman?"

  "Pregnant."

  She laughed. "All right, Jenn. I'll be careful."

  "What do you know about this guy? I was joking when I... well, I wasn't exactly joking. You do need an affair, something to shake you out of you pleasant rut of stars and solitude, but be careful."

  "Jenn, he's a pillar of the community. He builds ships and works with delinquent boys, and he's nice to ex-girlfriends who try to cling to him after a divorce. There's nothing to worry about. I spent the day with him, tied up like a pretzel sanding the inside of a boat he's building."

  Jenn sighed dramatically. "I knew it. You've signed on as slave labor. For goodness sakes, Claire, you're on vacation. Have some fun."

  "I enjoyed it. A lot." The feel of the satin-smooth teak under her hands, the smell of oil from the wood, the reluctant surprise on Tim's face, and the discomfort on Blake's. Add the motorcycle ride this morning, and she'd had more fun in the last twenty-four hours than she'd had in a long time. As for the kiss...

  It was the kiss she remembered as she showered away the massage oil, replacing it afterward with body lotion. Tonight, he would kiss her again.

  Blake rang her bell at three minutes to seven. When she opened the door to him, she found the sight of him dressed in a silk shirt and dress slacks oddly disconcerting. She'd become comfortable with the man in coveralls and preservative this afternoon, hadn't been prepared to feel so self-consciously uncertain in the presence of the formal version.

  "Come in. I'll get my purse."

  When he stepped inside, the sound of the door clicking closed shivered over her nerves. She made herself ignore the disconcerting sensation and hurried into the bedroom for her purse.

  Actually, it was Jennifer's purse, a small silver bag that matched the trim on the dress. The dress was Jenn's too, and more revealing than she'd realized when she'd tried it on back in Arizona. The thin straps and low back made it impossible to wear a bra under it—something that hadn't seemed a problem back on the mountain because the dress itself provided quite a bit of support. But the lack of foundation garments was suddenly an issue now.

  Walking down the stairs to join Blake, who'd waited in the foyer, she saw his eyes take in every detail, and she figured he knew exactly how much she had on under the dress.

  She swallowed nervousness and kept her movements steady down the stairs, although she knew she was also showing quite a bit more leg than she was accustomed to. Lydia would probably think of this as a modest dress, but Lydia wasn't sitting in Claire's skin.

  "Will I do?"

  "Oh, yeah." His low voice that made her even more self-conscious, then he took her arm and opened the door. "We'd better get out of here now if you want to get to the dance."

  She was glad he wasn't looking at her now or she'd show her inexperience in the flaming heat of her face.

  Outside, she stopped in confusion. She had wondered if he would bring the bike, had wondered how she could sit on a motorcycle without this skirt riding all the way up to her hips. But there was no bike... no truck either.

  "Where—"

  He opened the passenger door of a low sports car and gestured her in. "I thought this was more suited to the occasion."

  When she stepped close to the car, he touched her face and she froze. She stared into his eyes and couldn't tell what he intended, what he wanted.

  "I'm a bit nervous."

  "Yeah." He brushed her cheek with his thumb, but didn't give her the kiss she half-expected. "Me too. It's been a while since I've done this, but I figure I'll just hang on and hope the storm doesn't turn out to be a hurricane."

  She couldn't stop a smile. "What are you talking about?"

  "Nonsense," he said lightly, brushing her lips with his. "Climb in, Cinderella. We're going dancing, and some time this evening I'll pull you into the shadows and kiss you as if I couldn't get enough of you."

  Inside the car she busied herself with the seat belt and tried not to watch the way he walked around the front of the car... like a dangerous animal, graceful and rippling with powerful muscles.

  A storm... perhaps a hurricane. Kissing Blake McKenzie was a wild, breathless experience. Making love with him... what would it be like?

  She'd never been out in a real storm. Until now, she'd watched, safely inside, just as she watched the heavens through glass. On a scale of one to ten, if riding a motorcycle with Blake was, say, an eight... what would it be like to hang on, riding passion's storm with him?

  When he slid into the car and fastened his seat belt, she felt as if her thoughts were lying exposed for anyone to see... for him to see.

  "How many vehicles do you have?"

  "You've seen the lot now."

  "This is nice." She touched the soft leather of her seat, and breathed in the subtle scent of expensive leather, mixed with the musky scent of his aftershave.

  His mouth curved in a half smile. "This is a classic Corvette, a '54. Nice is far too tame a word for this baby."

  "Apologize to her for me," she said with a grin, feeling more comfortable now, although she knew it was an illusion. The man liked fast cars, fast bikes, fast boats. He might claim to a recent lack of experience, but he had once liked fast women, too.

  He liked speed, and his kisses stirred a storm of sensation she didn't know what to do with. A woman who wanted her life under her own control, a woman who liked things exactly as they were, would be crazy to let herself get blown out to sea in a hurricane with a man like this.

  Tonight, she promised herself, she would enjoy his kisses, but she'd keep both feet on the ground. Then, tomorrow, she'd buy a package of condoms as Jennifer had so sensibly suggested. In a week's time, whether the package had been used or not, she would drive to San Francisco for her second interview with the CTIO people, then on to Pasadena for the professional astronomers' research symposium—two big steps on her way back to her own tame life, her mountaintop, and her stars.

  As long as she didn't let herself get hooked—addicted—to the hurricane, there was no reason she couldn't sign on for the ride.

  Back in the early eighties, when James Denver fought the battle of wills with a punk named Blake McKenzie, telling Mac some home truths he'd never forgotten, James should have covered a bit more territory.

  James's advice about women had been confined to a few tough lectures on the consequences of a man failing to prepare before he let lust take hold.

  But nowhere in the lectures had James said a word about quiet women with blue eyes as deep as a hot July sky. Nowhere had he warned Mac about the way a woman could look so innocent that it grabbed a man right in the gut when she opened her door to him, wearing a dress that would make any sane man embrace madness.

  The scary thing was, Mac knew damned well Claire's dress wouldn't have stirred more than a ritual, instinctive response if Lydia wore it, or any other woman. But on Claire...

  Logically, he had known she would have long legs. After all, she was almost as tall as he was, but he hadn't realized what long legs meant until she walked toward him, all legs and blond hair, lean and supple with a willowy femininity he hadn't realized could make his mouth water.

  Staring at her, his throat painfully dry, his brain must have turned to mush on the spot. Other parts of him were painfully hard, and he was damned if he could remember how a guy got through a w
hole evening dancing with a woman who had him throbbing so badly he couldn't think.

  He wasn't sure he'd ever had it this bad. It wasn't the sex. Sex was easy, but he'd been around long enough to know it was seldom simple. If it were simple, he'd take Lydia up on the offer she'd been radiating since the divorce, and he would have started an affair with Dawna, his accountant, a couple of years back. But whether Lydia knew it or not, she wanted more than sex, and he knew damned well he'd be playing unfair games if he got involved with a single mom like Dawna Fairchild, who needed a man prepared to play permanent house.

  The truth was, Blake didn't have room in his life for that sort of commitment. He was still working overtime, taking on more jobs than a man could reasonably handle, to pay his youngest sister's university tuition. He'd stretched himself to the limit with the shipyard, the boys, and his family, but he'd always had the sense to avoid more complications by picking the kind of woman who was strictly temporary.

  The trouble was, the older he got, the more he realized that when a woman agreed to temporary, she wasn't always telling the truth. Not that he thought Claire was lying, but this thing was starting to feel damned complicated for a no-strings week of flirtation and romance. He wanted her badly enough that he didn't trust his own judgment, and it was one thing to take a boat out in a storm, but another to knowingly set out in hurricane force winds when you didn't trust your own reactions.

  Mac had always had the sense not to pilot a vessel drunk, and this wasn't much different. Maybe it had been too long since he had a woman, or maybe it was something about Claire herself, some high-potency charge he hadn't realized went with the eyes and the legs. Whatever the reason, watching her in that dress, feeling his own out-of-proportion reaction, he knew it was time to get some air before he found himself in deeper than he'd bargained for.

  Any guy who liked speed as much as Mac did, and wanted to live, knew how to listen to his intuition on the rare occasion when it told him to slow down.

  If anyone knew how to cool it with a woman, it was Mac. The dance would offer a perfect opportunity. The guys would be lining up to dance with Claire when she walked in with those legs and that hair. It would be hard enough to get time alone with her if he was looking for it, and easy to simply step back.