Seeing Stars (24 page)

Later, after she pronounced one of Jake's measurements not precise enough, the kid became so finicky Mac figured he could start teaching him cabinetmaking on boat interiors by next summer.

Joe flagged after about an hour. By that time, Jake had started cutting out the first of the plywood pieces, closely supervised by Claire, and Tim had been set to work polishing the concrete forming tube with fine steel wool.

"I promised my dad I'd be home early," Joe said, heading for the door.

"He won't be back," predicted Tim when the door banged closed behind Joe.

Mac figured the kid had it right. Joe was a nice kid, but he tended to duck the hard work.

"His parents will probably buy him his own scope," said Jake bitterly.

"If they do," Claire said calmly, "it won't be as good as this one."

Jake sat back on his heels, a tape measure in one hand and a carpenter's pencil in the other. "Yeah? For real?"

"For real. The eight-inch scope you're building is the same as mine, and it can run rings around those three-hundred-dollar department store jobs."

"Right," said Jake, happily returning to measure the cut he was about to do for the third time.

"Tim," said Claire, "you need to go over the inside of that tube again with the steel wool. You have to get all the wax off before we can paint it. Otherwise the paint will peel off."

"You're as bad as Mac," Tim grumbled, but Mac could tell the kid didn't mind, and Claire seemed to realize it too.

"How many days do you think it will take us?" asked Jake, who'd just finished making a very careful plywood cut with the jigsaw under Mac's supervision. "If we work three hours every night... there's two of us if Joe doesn't help, so that's six hours a night, and maybe sometimes Mac will help."

Claire said, "If both work ten hours a week, you might finish in a month. Certainly by the time school starts."

"Ten hours is nothing," said Jake, and Tim nodded.

Mac just hoped Jake would get through his court hearing next Tuesday without ending up in juvenile detention. The chances were excellent, so long as the kid kept his head for the next week. Mac had talked to Don yesterday. What with Jake's voluntary—if pressured—service of helping to paint the kitchen in the group home, his attendance at the shipyard and his new interest in the telescope, Mac figured they'd be OK. Any judge who looked at everything Jake was involved in and failed to see a kid on the road to rehabilitation didn't deserve his office. Mac would be at the hearing himself, and he'd make sure Ellie was there to testify to the kitchen paint job, and as for the telescope...

Mac ducked into the back cupboards and grabbed the camera he used to take pictures of boats that came in for repairs, documenting damage for insurance companies and such. He also used it to take pictures of the completed ships, and these he framed and put up on the back wall, by his office. He figured the pictures had made more than one sale.

He caught all three of them—the boys and Claire—intent on their tasks. He clicked several quick pictures, one with Claire's head raised, looking toward him, startled by the flash, her hand caught in the act of sweeping back her hair.

He adjusted the zoom control and snapped another, of Claire with her lips parted and her eyes wide and vulnerable. Then he lowered the camera slowly, and they just stared at each other. He didn't think she could look away any more than he could, and in that moment he knew it was going to be all right, that she wouldn't be able to walk away without looking back, any more than he could let her go.

Jake called out, "Hey, you guys?"

Mac didn't want to be the first to look away, and answered absently.

Jake said, "Could one of you check this joint? I think it's tight."

Claire bent her head, her hair sliding down to conceal her face.

Mac said, "I'll take a look."

This woman of his packed a punch. He wondered what it would be like after, say, ten years or so, whether he'd ever get used to the way Claire affected him.

At eight-thirty, he called a halt. "Three hours is enough," he told Jake when the kid protested. "You guys worked all day on the sailboat, and you know better than to be working with power tools when you're getting tired."

"I'm not tired," said Jake, but Claire stretched and yawned.

"I am," she said. "Blake's right."

"Blake?" echoed Tim.

"I mean Mac," said Claire.

"It's my name," said Mac, giving Tim a friendly punch in the shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

"OK," agreed Tim, giving Claire a speculative glance.

Then Mac turned around and saw the kid, Jake, quietly putting tools away. Son of a bitch, he thought, and he just stood there, watching and enjoying it. Tim leaned the plywood against the wall while Jake piled the cut out pieces in one corner, then they both reached for the shop broom at the same time, to clear away the sawdust.

Tim won custody of the broom, and Jake grabbed the dust pan.

"They're amazing," murmured Claire. "You didn't even have to tell them to clean up."

"Yeah," said Mac, as proud as if they really were his kids. Hell, they
were
his kids.

He locked the shed up and saw Jake eyeing the motorcycle.

"We'll take it for a spin on the weekend," he promised, figuring Friday night, after he'd finished varnishing.

"OK," said Jake, looking as if he'd just gotten a present he wasn't expecting. Then he climbed into the passenger seat of Tim's old beater, and the car reversed out of the drive somewhat slower than Tim's usual pace.

"Tell me about Tim," said Claire, behind him.

He turned to her, smiling, thinking that it would always be like this. Standing together in the quiet of the evening, talking about the kids... maybe even about their own kids, one day.

"Sure," he said slowly, closing the space between them, "but how about later? Right now, let's find somewhere to rinse the sawdust off. I seem to remember promising you dinner and dancing."

She stretched again and he figured she had no idea what that lazy cat stretch did to a man's heartbeat. When he got her somewhere with a bed, he'd show her exactly what it did.

She sighed and said, "I don't think I'm capable of dancing. My muscles hurt where I never dreamed I had muscles. It didn't bother me this much after that first day, sanding."

"Hmm," he said, unfastening the helmets and handing one to her. "I think maybe we need a change of plans. Are you hungry?"

"The pizza filled me up."

"Then let's head out to the resort and hit that Jacuzzi you mentioned. Will it be open this time of night?"

"Until ten."

"Right then, let's go."

She climbed on the bike behind him, and with her body snug against his back, he wondered if a hot tub wasn't as good a place as any to tell a woman you loved her, and that when you said one week wasn't enough, you meant that you wanted it all.

He stopped at his place to pick up a bathing suit and towel. She shook her head when he asked her if she wanted to come in, and he figured it was just as well, because if she did, they might never make it to that hot tub before it closed for the night.

After they left his place, he kept the speed down, savoring the feel of her against his back. She seemed so relaxed, snuggled against him as if she knew she belonged there, that when he stopped at the junction to 101, he turned his head and said softly, "Don't fall asleep back there."

"I won't," she murmured, and he heard the sleepiness in her voice.

When he pulled out on 101 and put the bike through its gears, he covered her hands where they clasped around his belly with one of his own, and felt her hold him tighter in response. He wondered how a man could go almost thirty-five years, never dreaming there was a woman out there who could walk into his life and make this happen.

He'd seen James fall in love with his own mother, but he hadn't known, hadn't realized. He'd been looking at it with a kid's eyes, and in his arrogance he'd never really wondered how it was for them.

He wondered if it was like this for Grace with Gary, and it was sad, but he didn't think so. He was sure his sister and her husband cared about each other, but not like this. He wondered if anyone else ever had, or ever would.

How could he have known Claire in that casual way one knows anyone in the same school, without having a clue?

He released her hands to gear down, then turned onto the side road that led to the resort, gearing down again as he neared the turnoff. When he parked in front of her unit, she didn't move for a minute, then she sighed, a sound that made him think she'd enjoyed the ride too, and climbed off.

"Why don't you go on over to the pool," she said. She gave him instructions, telling him where the showers were, and the control for the Jacuzzi jets. "I'll get my suit and join you."

He took her face in his hands. It had been hours since he'd touched her lips and he was hungry for her, but he allowed himself only the briefest of kisses.

"You won't be long?" He traced the curve of her smile with his thumb.

"I won't be long," she whispered.

"Good, because waiting for you is one of the hardest things I've ever done."

She laughed, and he vowed that later he'd make sure she understood exactly how much he meant those words.

Five minutes later, leaning back in the Jacuzzi with a warm jet pounding on the base of his spine, he decided maybe he'd give in to Vicki's pressure and put a hot tub under the old oak tree at his place. Not that Vicki spent much time at home these days. She had come home from college for Christmas and Easter and had complained loudly both times about the absence of a hot tub, a luxury she'd become addicted to in Seattle. She'd been lucky enough to rent a basement suite in a house complete with a hot tub on the back deck, and the owner apparently didn't mind Vicki and her roommate using it.

Mac had resisted Vicki's complaints. He'd grown a thick shell when it came to expensive requests during his years shepherding his half-siblings through adolescence and into adulthood. There wasn't much point building a hot tub for Vicki, who would be home less and less, especially if she followed her plan of going on to medical school, or for Bobby, who was presently flying helicopters in Saudi Arabia and would probably be spending most of his time in places on the other side of the world for the next few years. Wanderlust had bitten Mac's kid brother pretty hard. As for Grace... well, she had her own home, and if she wanted a hot tub, she could hit Gary up for one the next time he came in from the fishing grounds with a good catch.

It didn't make sense to put in the tub just for himself, although he had to admit it felt good, the hot water massaging places that ached pleasantly. What felt even better was watching Claire come through the door and walk across the concrete deck, wearing nothing but a plain black bathing suit and a towel. She dropped the towel on a white plastic chair and stepped down into the water, gasping as she made contact with the heat.

"Hot," she breathed. "It wasn't so hot the other day."

"It's cooler outside tonight, more of a contrast."

She eased herself in, one step at a time, and he allowed himself the purely masculine pleasure of leaning his head back and watching her, noting the curve of her hip, the swelling of her breasts through the suit.

She settled on the seat across from him. He'd wanted her here, beside him, where he could touch, but he decided this was better, because he could watch her, savoring the knowledge of what would come later. Besides, he had things to tell her, things she needed to know, and if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that if he wanted to keep his head, he'd better keep his hands off.

He watched her relax into the heat by degrees, saw her eyes close in pleasure and decided he'd order his own hot tub next week. He would put it in himself, except for the electric circuit, which he'd probably contract out to Billy Jones.

He was glad they had the place to themselves, and suspected it was unusual to find the pool and Jacuzzi both empty on an evening in the middle of July. From the collection of wet footprints on the deck, there'd been a crowd in here earlier.

"You know what I like best about you?" he asked.

Her eyes opened and she shook her head.

"Your honesty, the way you don't try to pretend with me, with the kids."

She ducked her head to push her hair back, almost as if she were embarrassed. "You were going to tell me about Tim," she said, her voice husky and muted by the sound of the jets.

"That's a long way from what was on my mind. I've been enjoying watching you, thinking of all the things I like about being with you, and wondering what you'd say if I asked you to slip your top off." It wasn't exactly true, but he wanted to see her face flush.

"Someone would see," she said, her voice a wonderful confusion, one hand covering the breasts he'd asked to see.

He turned his head, studying the window and the empty parking lot. "Not unless they come across that parking lot, and we'd see them in time." He'd forgotten now that it was only teasing, and he said, "I'll tell you about Tim if you do."

She had to know he wasn't serious. Not completely, but she gasped. "That's blackmail."

"No, it's lust."

She laughed, then the laughter stopped and he saw her eyes across the width of the hot tub and knew she was going to do it, and it didn't make sense that his heart stopped, because he'd seen her breasts, he
knew
them, but he felt as if he were poised on the edge of a high cliff as she reached up and slid first one strap down, then the other. Then she pushed her suit down, under the surface of the water, and he heard a strangled sound from his own throat.

He knew this wasn't the moment to tell her how much he loved her. She'd never believe it, not when she had to know how hard she'd just made him, and he couldn't seem to get his eyes to look away from the movement of her breasts, the way the boiling water lifted them, as if offering them to him.

"Claire, you're beautiful."

She was more, far more than that, but he hadn't the words, and if he crossed the space between them, they were both likely to be embarrassed, because she was right. It was a public place, even if there wasn't anyone but them in it at the moment.