Seeing Stars (4 page)

"Yeah." He'd thought of her eyes? She wasn't sure she believed him, but she seemed to be taking on his speech mannerisms. "I really—"

"I do want to talk to you. I'm hoping you can help one of my kids."

He
was
married. Of course he was, though heaven knew where his wife could be. One thing was for sure, if he were married to her, Claire wouldn't send him off alone to a reunion where Lydia would be present.

Maybe Lydia
was
his wife.

"You want me to do something for one of your children?"

He guided her to the left. "Why don't we take my truck, go somewhere I can tell you about it? I'll drop you back here afterward." He opened the passenger door on a red pickup truck and held out a hand to help her in.

Why not?
 

Did she really imagine he would drive her somewhere and attack her? He wanted her to do something for one of his children. So he'd admitted to having kids, and any minute he'd start telling her about his wife. She was perfectly safe, and it wasn't as if she had pressing plans for what was left of the night. Orion wouldn't be clearly visible until the moon set.

She took his hand and stepped up into the truck.

He drove down the hill into the town, along the waterfront. She didn't know what to talk about, so she said nothing. At school, he'd ridden a motorcycle, generally with a girl tucked in behind him, usually Lydia. She wondered what it would be like to sit behind him on a motorcycle, clinging to his body with the highway whipping past underneath them.

Damn Jenn, she thought wryly. None of this would be happening if her friend hadn't arranged the condo, hadn't made those comments about having an affair with the town bad boy.

"Tell me about your wife," she forced herself to say, because this wasn't high school and he wasn't her big fantasy. She was a woman with a life she valued, and he was a man with ties, commitments, children. Whatever images her crazy imagination came up with, he'd told her clearly that he wasn't hitting on her.

And she didn't want him to. Of course she didn't.

He turned into a small parking lot and parked against an old brick building. "It'll be noisy inside," he said, "but if we can get one of the tables outside, we should be able to talk."

She got out of the truck quickly, because she didn't want him coming around to open the door, didn't want to slide down out of the truck with him standing so close. Jenn was right, it was past time for her to have an affair. Somehow, without knowing it, she'd let herself get to a state where she couldn't seem to think of anything but... men and women.

Sex
, she told herself bluntly.
It's only hormones, and you'd better get it under control right now.

He took her arm and led her toward the sound of music. She was too aware of his hand at her back as they followed the server into the crowded lounge, through an archway and out onto a wooden deck. The server showed them to a table at the edge of the deck, looking over the harbor and the reddening sky. Blake held a chair for her.

Clouds, she thought. The setting sun threw its warmth and color over cumulus puffs that hadn't been there an hour ago.

"You won't see any stars tonight," said Blake, sitting across from her.

"No," she agreed, surprised.

When a waiter appeared, she ordered wine. He ordered beer.

"What about food. Do you want something to eat?"

"No, thanks. The banquet was more than enough."

"I missed it. I need something." He ordered a large plate of nachos and when the waiter left them alone with only one other couple on far side of the patio, he leaned toward her, his arms on the table.

"It's too bad you missed dinner," she said nervously. "Rosemary chicken, rice, baby asparagus spears."

"Let's talk about something other than food. I haven't eaten since breakfast. Tell me about astronomy."

"I study the sky. There's nothing exciting I can tell you." She wished he'd stop watching her with such intensity. It did strange things to her insides.

The waiter appeared with her wine and she curled her fingers around the glass and sipped slowly, focusing on the sweet taste, willing her attention away from the lazy way his eyes narrowed as they studied her.

"Doesn't it excite you?" he asked.

She felt the heat in her face and blessed the fading daylight. He
couldn't
know her thoughts. "Doesn't what excite me?"

"Astronomy."

"Yes, of course, but—"

"Why?" He was still leaning forward, watching her, listening. It didn't make sense that he was interested, but she found herself answering.

"When the sun's gone, and there's no moon, I look up and the sky is filled with pinpoints of light. Filled with patterns, clusters, symbols. Humans have been watching the stars since the first man looked up, wondering what they are, what they mean. Wondering if heaven looked back through the darkness, or God. When we understood more, we began to wonder if there were other worlds like ours, other men—or beings who weren't men: ET, Klingons, Alpha Centaurians. Wherever you are in the world, if you go up on a mountaintop after dark and look up, the sky is filled with mystery. And the magic thing about it is that the more we learn, the more we explore with telescopes and space probes, and the more questions we answer—" She spread her hands. "The more we know, the more questions we have."

In the silence, she wished she'd said something more conventional, less revealing.

"How many of those questions have you answered, Claire?"

"Not many. I found a comet back in May."

"That must have been satisfying."

"Yes," she agreed, lifting her wine to sip it again. "If the sky were clear tonight, and if we drove away from the city lights, I could show it to you with a telescope."

"I don't have a telescope."

"I do, in the back of my car."

He laughed, and then he reached across to brush a wisp of hair back from her cheek. "Your eyes sparkle when you talk about your comet. More than satisfying. It was exciting, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was. What excites you, Blake?" 

Her face flamed when she realized what she'd said.

"Running my hands over a perfect piece of wood," he said. "Watching a boat I've built race through the water, sailing hard in a storm."

Her heart was beating too fast. He'd said he wasn't hitting on her, and she had to believe him because why would he? But her pulse—

"Sailing in a storm? Isn't that dangerous."

That smile curved his lips again. "Tell me more about your job. How did you get interested in astronomy? Did you watch stars when you were a kid in high school? You've got a telescope in your car. Do you always take it with you?"

She felt dizzy, and she was beginning to believe the punch at the banquet had been spiked. She put the glass down carefully. She needed to get out of here.

"Why are we sitting here drinking and talking about astronomy? You and I aren't exactly a natural pairing. We don't have anything in common. You build ships to sail the ocean and I work on a mountaintop in Arizona, studying the sky. You like fast cars and girls and parties, and I like solitude. There are at least thirty people back at Manresa Castle who have more in common with you than I do. What are we doing here?"

"I'm trying to soften you up so you'll agree to work with a delinquent kid, talk to him about astronomy."

"What?" Sometime in the last few minutes he seemed to have covered her hand with his, and she pulled hers away now, pulled herself back. He'd said he wanted help with a child, but then he'd started asking her about the stars and she'd forgotten. "I don't know anything about children."

"You know about the stars. You're an astronomer, and I've got a delinquent kid with an excess of brainpower and a shortage of sense. I need a way to hook him."

"Hook him? A delinquent...?" She sipped the wine again. "Your son? He can't be more than fourteen, even if..."

Even if the mother got pregnant back on graduation night.

Graduation night. Claire had only been at the dance because her father insisted. She'd worn a white dress with a full skirt, and she'd felt embarrassed because all the other girls had partners. She'd crowded back into a hidden corner of the gymnasium where the dance was being held, trying to hide. Instead, she'd stumbled on Blake McKenzie and Lydia, their mouths entangled in passion and Blake's hand caressing Lydia's full breast.

Lydia had moaned.

Claire couldn't meet Blake's too-intent eyes, not with that scene still vivid. The way she'd fled, stumbling in her hurry to get away. The way she'd dreamed, later, alone in her narrow bed with the stars shining through her open window.

She lifted her glass again, sipped the wine, which was almost gone now. "I don't know anything about teenagers. Maybe a social worker—"

"Jake's had social workers up the wazoo. He needs you."

"You can't know that. You don't know me. The only kid I've ever had close contact with is my neighbor's five-month-old baby." She picked up her glass again although it was empty. She needed something to do with her hands. "Your son doesn't know me, and I wouldn't have a clue what to say to him."

He set his beer aside and put his elbows on the table. "Jake isn't my son. I'm not married, don't have kids." His grin flashed. "Despite what you might have seen back in high school, I don't spend all my time making out with women. All I'm asking for is a few hours of your time."

She opened her mouth with no idea what she planned to say, then the waiter delivered a massive plate of nachos covered with melted cheese and poured her a second glass of wine she hadn't ordered.

"Back in our senior year, it seemed every time I saw you, you had your arms around a girl."

"I've slowed down in the last fifteen years."

"And haven't married? I used to think you and Lydia would marry."

"Lydia went to Europe, a graduation present from her parents. She married a Swiss ski instructor, and I soon had more important things on my mind than marriage."

"What things?"

"My mother and stepfather died in a private plane crash in '98. I came back from UW to be with my brother and sisters."

"I'm sorry." She hadn't known he had siblings. Hadn't known his mother had remarried, that he'd gone to college. She supposed she'd pictured him perpetually nineteen, romancing Lydia.

She really knew nothing of this man.

"It was a long time ago." He covered her hand with his, warm fingers curled over hers. "Claire, what can I do to persuade you to help Jake?"

She hadn't enough breath. Fifteen years—wasn't that long enough to get rid of a stupid, adolescent crush? She didn't know him, had never known him. It was just hormones, perhaps pheromones.

"Blake, I can't—"

"What can it hurt? A couple of hours with a surly kid, then you can go back to Arizona knowing you did your bit for troubled youth."

She wanted to clear her throat, and knew she should pull her hand away. She stared at their linked hands, addressed her words to them. "I'm not good with kids."

"Maybe you need practice." His voice was as sober as hers, though she thought she saw amusement in the shadows around his eyes.

"You brought me here, left the reunion, for Jake. He means a lot to you."

"Jake matters, but it's not a hardship sitting across the table enjoying those impossible eyes of yours."

She pulled her hand away. "You're flirting."

"It's not a crime, Claire."

"No." She felt ridiculously uncomfortable sitting across from him, her imagination feeding fantasies she'd thought long dead, while the darkening eastern sky pulsed with the flush of the reflected sun. 

She said, "You should eat those nachos." She thought her voice would come out strangled, but it sounded husky to her own ears. 

Flirting with her. Did that mean that if she...

He picked up one of the nachos and held it out to her. Her lips parted and she bit into the salty treat, her mouth closing over the tang of melted cheese.

Find the town bad boy and have a flaming affair.
 

She lifted her wine glass to her mouth. Of course she wasn't tempted, but...
a flaming affair.
 

Kevin, her only lover, had been tame, certainly not dangerous. But Blake... He'd taken on the magnitude of an archetype in her teenage world. The tempting boy who would never want
her
because she didn't belong to the world of groping in back seats and shadowy corners. She'd been a serious student, a good girl.

"Will you think about Jake, Claire?"

She took a long, cool sip of the wine when what she really needed was a heavy dose of fresh air … andcourage for the words.

"Can we go for a walk?" she asked.

Chapter Three

He drove half a mile and parked at the foot of Benedict Street. She climbed out of the truck just as the last light left the sky. The government floats displayed a maze of sailboats and powerboats to her left. Shadowy shipyards loomed behind a takeout coffee bar to her right.

"Where's your shipyard?"