Seeing Stars (8 page)

"Where's the kid?" asked Tim. "I could use some help."

"I'll help," said Claire.

He looked at her with something approaching horror, and she laughed and said, "Show me."

"It's precise," said Tim.

"I can see that. I've never sanded a boat, so I'll need instructions, but I've done precision work, grinding telescope lenses, making my own telescopes. I'll bet you the cost of lunch that I'll pick it up pretty quickly."

"You've built telescopes?"

"Yes."

"Lunch?"

"Lunch," she agreed.

"What do you think, Mac? Should I give your chick a try?"

Blake had his hands in his pockets. She couldn't read the look on his face, but it wasn't a smile.

"Try her out on the starboard pilot berth. She can afford to buy you lunch, but make sure you can afford to buy hers if you lose."

"Right," said Tim, grinning now. "I'll get more sandpaper."

For a big kid, he was amazingly graceful as he ducked past them and climbed the stairs, leaving her alone with Blake's frown.

"It's harder work than you think. You'll get your hands roughed up, and your shoulders are going to be sore as hell by the time you've spent half an hour upside down in that pilot berth, sanding overhead."

"They're
my
shoulders. How do you expect I'll get Jake to listen if I just stand around like a
chick,
watching the macho action? It's easier to talk to someone you're working with than someone who's just hanging around and obviously doesn't belong."

"This isn't Jake.

"I know that."

"All right, but don't overdo it. Will you be OK here with Tim if I go out for a bit?"

Looking for Jake, she thought. "I'm fine. I'd rather not have any more witnesses than necessary if I do lose this bet.

He smiled then. "You'll ruin your manicure."

"I'm not soft, Mac, whatever you think." It was the first time she'd called him Mac, but she thought it suited him here, where he acted tough while devoting himself to straightening out delinquent kids. "If the state of my manicure bothers you, you'd better think twice about tonight's dance."

She didn't expect his laughter, didn't expect him to jerk her into his arms with a hard motion before he covered her lips with a searing kiss, but she gripped his arms hard and the wild surge of energy flooded her body just as he let her go.

"What was that about?" she gasped.

He didn't answer, just brushed her lips again and turned away to grasp the rail beside the stairs. "I'll be back," he said, and she had no idea whether he meant it as a promise or a warning.

Mac knew any woman with eyes like hers was bound to be more complicated than she looked. He'd expected her hesitance, her thoughtfulness—it fit with the eyes. He figured those eyes might have an effect on a kid like Jake, but he sure as hell hadn't expected her to bond with a tough case like Tim, having a pissing contest about precision, for Christ's sake, and coming out with a draw.

He hadn't expected a woman who could innocently wear a slippery blue dress as if it were seduction itself to turn around and suddenly cloak herself in battered denims and offer to sand his boat. 

She'd never worn jeans back in high school.

Building telescopes. Sanding one of his boats.

The way it was looking, he wasn't going to get her together with Jake any time soon and this low-risk affair was beginning to look more like a high-yield explosive.

A wild streak's a fine thing, so long as you know the price before you commit, and you 're prepared to pay. Do you know the price here, Mac?

Mac figured that's what James would have said if the Cessna hadn't crashed. It was James who had taught Mac to count the cost, James who'd talked a seventeen-year-old punk into going back to school, James who was responsible for his being a shipwright instead of a career criminal.

Yeah, he knew the price. She'd thrown him with that business with Tim, but it made no difference that she had more spirit than he'd expected. The lady wanted a week of romance—even after her morning case of nerves. He didn't mind admitting that the idea of dragging Claire behind the bleachers and kissing that tempting mouth of hers senseless had a lot of appeal.

As for the risks: He had condoms in his wallet, and neither he nor Claire was signing on for more than seven days. The risks were negligible, so long as he remembered the agenda.

He found Ellie baking bread in the kitchen at the group home. 

"Jake's not here," she told him. "He didn't show up last night, and if he doesn't show up by noon, I'll have to notify Don."

"Shit. Any ideas?"

Ellie shook her head. "He doesn't hang out with the other boys from the group home. I don't think he's been into drugs again since the overdose, but I'm not sure. He won't talk to me."

"Me either. Call my cell phone if he shows up, okay?"

"Absolutely."

After he left the group home, he checked a couple of the downtown places where he hoped he
wouldn't
find the kid, then finally spotted a familiar head of shaggy red hair in a parking lot. The boy's shoulders were drooping as he stared out over the rough water.

Eleven-thirty. 

Mac pulled out his cell phone first and dialed Ellie. "Don't sound the alarm. I found him."

Ellie wouldn't call Don, but it was going to take more than that to get a favorable result at Jake's next hearing. Mac approached the kid slowly, tamping down his irritation and the urge to shake Jake.

The wind whipped Mac's jacket as he stopped at the edge of the water beside Jake. 

"Anything worth seeing out there?" 

"Whad'ya want?"

Mac turned his head and managed to pin the kid's eyes. "Do you want a ride to the shipyard?"

Jake's shoulders hunched up against his ears. "Sawdust and stinky varnish. I got better things to do."

"Like letting
friends
shoot you up with enough smack to kill you?"

"I'm not stupid. I'm clean."

Count the cost,
Mac thought, but hadn't a clue whether his words would shake sense into the kid, or send him running.

"Listen, Jake, you've got about one more chance here. Nobody wants to send you into juvenile detention, but if you don't give them a reason to give you a break, it's going to happen."

No eye contact.

"The system doesn't give a damn," muttered Jake. 

"You're right. But I give a damn, and Don Henley does, and so does Ellie. The fact is, it doesn't matter what we do when you're so damned busy proving to the
system
that nothing we do can make a difference.

"The power's yours, Jake. The power to dump yourself in juvenile detention where you can get a good head start on a criminal career, or take control and make something of yourself."

"What the fuck am I supposed to make of myself?" The kid looked as if he might be about to cry.

"What do you want to make of yourself?"

Jake shrugged and looked away. Mac hadn't a clue if he'd lost him or stirred him to thought. At moments like this he respected the hell out of his stepfather, James Denver, for asking questions like that and having the courage to sit and wait when no answer came.

He waited it out, watching the back of Jake's head as he stared out to sea, trying to measure the immeasurable.

When the kid kicked at a rock on the ground, Mac figured it was time to break silence.

"You want that ride?"

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."