Seeing Stars (23 page)

She didn't suppose there was anyone she could tell who would understand. She wondered if she'd tell the child one day, and realized she would have to because what child would journey from infancy to adulthood without demanding to know the truth of his birth?

Mac pulled on goggles before he started the grinder, then set the spinning disk onto the metal socket which would later hold the foot of the mast. As he ground the base smooth, he tried to judge how things were going.

He'd always thought he understood women fairly well, but he was damned if he could make out Claire's reaction to his declaration this morning. He'd stopped short of saying the word love, and he wasn't sure now if that was because he'd sensed the time wasn't right, or simply his own nervousness. He'd probably had more practice than he should in seduction, although his sex life had been pretty tame the past few years. But when it came to practice in shifting relationships from sensual to—well, to
permanent—
he hadn't a clue.

If he were trying to change the path a boy's life was set on, he'd probably start out with the truth, unwelcome though it might be. He'd tell the kid the score, lay it out plain and stark, then leave the boy to decide for himself—hoping to hell the decision would be right. Not that he didn't interfere here and there, add a push or a temptation, like finding Claire for Jake, to tempt him with astronomy and fathomless blue eyes.

Tempt Jake. That was probably the joke of the century, he thought wryly, because although Jake hadn't been immune, Mac himself was the one who'd walked right into the trap, and even locked the door after himself.

OK, so he was here, well and truly trapped, in love with a woman he had until Friday morning to win. So he'd pushed a little this morning, trying to get himself more time, because Friday was too soon. But she'd reacted—well, she hadn't reacted the way he'd hoped, hadn't blushed and admitted she could steal an extra few days and yes, she'd love nothing more than to spend them with him.

If he was reading her right—and he was damned if he knew the answer to that one—she hadn't been pleased to learn that he wanted more time with her. She'd seemed alarmed.

Thoughtful, he amended. She'd been thoughtful, because alarmed wouldn't make any sense at all. Not after the last two days, not after she'd dressed for him last night in black lace and satin, in temptation and passion, making love with a hunger that, just thinking of it, made him harder than he could remember ever being before, even as a randy teenager.

Mac shifted uncomfortably and moved the grinder before he ground his way right through the base of the socket. It was a good thing Claire and the boys were inside the boat, because one look at his jeans...

He laughed at himself. What other choice did he have when he was thirty-four years old and his hormones were acting like a seventeen-year-old stud's? Then he took a few deep breaths and concentrated on the job at hand, and things settled down so that his jeans fit comfortably once again.

He was deep in the trance that came with rhythmic physical work when someone spoke behind him and jerked him back to the here and now. He turned his head, saw Grace standing behind him, and switched off the grinder.

"I didn't expect you," he said. Grace didn't like boats, an odd situation for a woman with a fisherman for a husband and a shipbuilder for a brother. She seldom turned up here at the shipyard.

He thought of the child she carried, of Gary a few hundred miles away, not returning until tomorrow. "You okay? The baby—?"

"I'm fine, Mac."

She didn't look it. She looked like someone on a mission. He set the grinder down and said, "Come outside, Grace. I want to talk to you."

"Outside? It's raining. We can talk here."

He settled it by walking to the door, opening it and gesturing her to precede him. From the hull he could hear the rhythmic sounds of sanding, and the muted sound of conversation.

Outside, he shut the door. She was right about the rain, so he gestured to the big launch sheltered under tarps and led her to the shelter. He'd have to get the boys to work on the launch this weekend. Once the sanding on
Lady Orion
was finished—Friday afternoon, he hoped—he'd vacuum the boat shed until it was immaculate, then give any dust in the air twelve hours to settle. Then, Saturday, he'd have to start the first coat of interior varnish, and he'd keep the boys outside and set them to work on
Jenna Lea,
the launch.

Saturday, Claire would be in San Francisco, in Pasadena on Sunday. If he worked hard, he should be able to have the varnish on in time to allow him to put the second coat on about, say, three Sunday morning. With luck, he could be in Pasadena by noon, though he'd have to look up flight connections. If he turned up at the symposium, surely she'd be willing to spring loose for at least a few hours.

The way he saw it, he needed every hour he could get with her.

"What?" said Grace, in the voice he remembered from her childhood. "What is it that we need to stand outside in the rain to talk about, Mac?"

"Grade, I want you to lay off Claire." From the way she stepped back from him, he must have spoken a lot more roughly than he intended.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

He made himself relax and leaned back against the self-standing ladder at the stern of
Jenna Lea.
"Sunday, at the barbecue, you told her I belonged with Lydia."

"She told you that?" She twisted and looked back at the door to the boat shed. "You... she's here? In there?"

"Claire, not 'she.' Yes, she's here, and I'm asking you to back off. If you can't say something to make her feel welcome in the family, then stay clear of her."

"The
family?
You can't be intending... I thought you and Lydia..."

He took his sister by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Grade, there is no me and Lydia. There hasn't been since high school."

"But she loves you, Mac. She's always loved you."

He sighed. "I don't think that's true, Grace. I think she's desperate right now, insecure. But even if she does, I'm sorry, because if it was going to be Lydia and me, it would have happened a long time ago."

"She went away. If she'd stayed—"

"If she'd been that important to me, I would have gone after her."

That seemed to silence Grace. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her jacket, which she hadn't closed—probably couldn't close now, he thought, seeing the swelling of her pregnancy, which seemed even larger than it had a few days ago. He wondered what Claire would look like carrying his child. He saw Grace place her hand over her unborn child and imagined that gesture, just like that, on Claire.

"I like Lydia," said Grace sulkily.

"So do I, but that's not enough." Nothing would be enough, he realized, but Claire.

"I don't like Claire."

He felt a muscle jerk in his jaw and resisted the urge to tell Grace she was too old to be pulling childish sulks.

"You don't know her," he said with patience he didn't feel. "If you choose to dislike her, it will make things difficult between you and me."

"Me? You'd choose... you'd choose her? You want to marry her?"

He hadn't said the words, even in his mind, but they settled in now with a sense of rightness, soothing the fear that had been lying in the back of his mind ever since Claire left his house yesterday morning.

"Claire doesn't know it yet, but yes, I'm going to marry her."

What did it matter if she lived on a mountain and he was anchored at the side of the ocean? They'd find a way. Between them they would find a way.

Grace, for once, seemed to have been struck speechless. Mac touched her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. It wasn't the first time they'd come up against each other. After all, he'd been substitute for both mother and father from the time she was twelve. He figured she'd get over it in time, and this was no time to pull his punches.

"Don't get in my way, Grace," he warned softly. "That's my woman in there, the only woman I've ever wanted to marry, the only woman I can imagine spending the rest of my life with. I won't let you do anything to mess it up."

"I didn't know." She sounded subdued, but she tried a smile. "I didn't mean any harm, Mac. I just... I didn't know, and Lydia... Lydia's kind of like a big sister to me. I always thought it would be perfect if you and she—"

"It wouldn't," he assured her.

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

She sucked in a big breath and said, "I hope what I said to her... to Claire, didn't mess things up. Do you want me to talk to her?"

"Sometime, maybe. Not now."

"So I'll, uh... I guess I'll just go home."

"I guess, unless you want to say whatever it is you came down here to say first."

"I came down here to interfere in your love life." She leaned over her pregnancy and kissed his cheek. "I do love you, big brother. I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Yeah, me too."

He watched her get into her car, pleased that she did up her seat belt and took time for a shoulder check before reversing into the lane. He'd taught her to drive, and he figured he'd done a good job of it.

If he and Claire had kids, he'd teach them to drive too.

He wondered if she wanted children, or if she
would
want them once she got used to the idea that she wasn't destined to spend the rest of her life on a mountaintop alone. He wondered just what the job options were for a woman with a doctorate in astronomy, because one way or another she was going to have to come down off the mountain, and he didn't figure her for the sort of wife who would be content to stay home and have coffee with the neighbors.

The sort of wife...

Wife.

He straightened his shoulders and turned back to the boat shed. He'd made a mistake this morning, telling her only half the truth. The only way things had ever worked for him was straight-out, head-on, the way he'd just spoken to his sister, the way he dealt with the boys. The way James had always dealt with him back when he was a delinquent kid with no sense.

Claire deserved the truth, the
whole
truth. She'd been honest with him, from that first night. It couldn't have been easy for a reserved woman to stand on the steps of Manresa Castle and admit to a guy that she'd had a thing for him back in high school. Not easy, but she hadn't hesitated, and although she'd hesitated later, she'd had the courage to tell him exactly what she wanted: a week of romance, an affair.

She'd been honest every step of the way, wonderfully honest even in his arms, even in the sex act. That was one of the things he loved about Claire, that even naked, in his arms, once she'd had a little encouragement, she met his eyes and told him without subterfuge that she wanted him, that he made her feel something she'd never felt before.

She'd been honest with him, more than honest. He was the one who'd held back, telling her half-truths because he didn't want to ask her, straight-out, for what he wanted, then have to stand, staring into her eyes while she told him she didn't want that at all, didn't want
him
at all.

Except she did, she had to, although maybe she didn't know it yet.

The obstacles to a relationship were mountain-sized, but he figured he and Claire had no choice but to find a way. Tonight, he intended to stop pussyfooting around, to tell her exactly what he wanted. It might be too soon for her, but if she got to the stage of speculating about his feelings, she might just get it wrong. He wanted to make damned sure she knew exactly where this was headed. Then he'd give her time, if she needed it, but they would both know which road they were on—and it wasn't the road where ships passed in the night, never to see each other again.

He'd tell her after tonight's telescope-building session, when the boys were gone. Over dinner. No, better, on the dance floor, with Claire in his arms and a love song playing in the background.

Chapter Eleven

Mac figured the telescope-building session went pretty well. He'd ordered in pizza after they wrapped up work in the shipyard at four-thirty, then they'd set up in the corner area he cleared earlier in the day. By the time Claire instructed the boys to lay out the sheet of plywood and start measuring and marking it, he figured Jake was well and truly hooked.