She’s writing a book about them!”
“A book?” Jeff felt a hillock of sand give way beneath his step, filling his shoe with grit. He cursed mildly under his breath. “I thought we were looking for a youngster.”
“We are.” The glance she flashed him was ripe with mystery. Then she, too, stumbled in the cascade of loose sand. Her big, clown feet splayed in opposite directions, and she went down hard on her padded rump.
Caught between gallantry and amusement, Jeff stretched out a hand. She reached up tentatively, then withdrew, shaking her shaggy, purple mane. “It’s no use! I can’t climb sand dunes in these idiot shoes. I’ll have to get rid of them and catch up with you—go on.”
“Go on? And leave a lady in distress? I’d never live it down. Here…” Jeff slid to the sand at her feet and began tugging at her tightly knotted shoelaces. She sank back against the dune in tacit consent, resting, but far from relaxed.
“Are you sure you should be out here alone with me?” she ventured. “Your mother was upset enough when our daughters disappeared together. If her son vanishes, too…” She broke off, her small, even teeth pressing her lower lip as if she’d said too much.
“I’m a big boy. Even my mother knows that.” Jeff tugged off one of the platter-sized shoes and the thick cotton sweat sock she wore underneath. Her narrow-boned foot was as pink and innocent as a child’s. For a heartbeat, he cradled it like a captive seabird in his big, brown hand, feeling the warmth of her skin against his palm. A subtle electric pulse trickled up his arm, awakening his whole body to a quivering awareness of—
No, this was not a good idea.
“I realize she comes on a little stridently,” he said, reaching for the other shoe, “but don’t misjudge my mother. She never expected to be raising another child at the age of sixty. She does her best, and I know how much she cares for Ellen, but I daresay it hasn’t been an easy adjustment for either of them. Sometimes that shows.”
Her blue-green eyes studied him from their painted circles, their expression as unreadable as a cat’s. Seconds ticked by before she spoke.
“Do you mind my asking what happened to Ellen’s mother?”
“She died over a year ago—in an automobile accident.” Jeff tugged at the stubbornly knotted shoelace. No use going into the ugly details—Meredith’s drinking, her affair with one of his clients, the bitter divorce that would have become final six days after she crashed her Mercedes into an oncoming truck….
“I’m sorry,” said the clown.
“We—were all sorry?” Jeff jerked the knot loose and twisted off the other shoe. The sock came with it. “Come on,” he muttered. “We’d better get moving if we want to find our daughters.”
He gave her a hand up, surprised at the power in her thin fingers. Then he waited while she knotted the ends of her shoelaces and flung the shoes over her shoulder. Her bare feet gripped the sand as they mounted the dune.
Kathryn. Kate. Kate Valera. The name had a nice ring to it. Almost as nice as her voice. And her eyes.
But what was he thinking? He wasn’t ready for another woman in his life, let alone a free-spirited throwback to the seventies, who made pottery, masqueraded as a clown and, for all he knew, could look like a basset hound under that greasepaint.
Oh, sooner or later he planned to remarry—to provide a mother for Ellen, if nothing else. But the few dates he’d tried in recent months had been disasters, underscoring the fact that he was still too raw, too angry for a new relationship.
But why was he being so damned analytical? He had no intention of dating this woman. He was making polite conversation with her, that was all. They would find their little girls, go their separate ways, and if he passed her on the street later, without that crazy clown paint, the odds were he would not even recognize her.
“What about you?” he asked. “You said you were alone.”
“Flannery’s father—he, uh, we separated before she was born.”
“Flannery?” he asked, bringing her back. “As in Flannery O’Connor?”
“Uh-huh. She’s my favorite author. Have you read her?”
“My freshman English professor assigned us a couple of her stories.” Jeff could not remember the titles or what the stories had been about. Now he found himself wishing he’d paid them more attention.
“So your Flannery’s an author, too.”
“Absolutely. She’s already filled up four spiral note-books. Who knows? We may have a bestseller on our hands, in which case, Jo-Jo can retire, and Flannery can put me through college!”
“But mermaids! Lord, why doesn’t she write about something sensible, or at least real?”
Blue lightning sparked in her eyes. “Watch it, mister! Flannery happens to be the world’s foremost authority on mermaids!”
“Then I can’t imagine that she and Ellen would have much in common. Ellen has been raised the way my parents raised me—in the world of truth and reality. No talking teapots. No animals with human personalities. No dragons, no fairy princesses—”
“And only anatomically correct teddy bears, I suppose! Good grief, that poor child—”
“Excuse me.” Jeff had gone rigid. “Are you presuming to tell me how to raise my daughter?”
She turned on him at the top of the dune, the sea wind ruffling her wild, purple hair. “I’m not presuming to tell you anything, you stuffy, pompous—”
“You watch it, lady!”
She faced him. almost toe-to-toe, undaunted by his size and his anger. “You wouldn’t listen if I did tell you! But then, why should I have to tell you anything? Just look at your little girl! Look how unhappy she is—”
“And you’re suggesting that a dose of fantasy will cure that?” He thrust his own steel into her intense blue-green gaze. “Answer me this, then, Kate Valera, or Jo-Jo the Clown, or whoever you think you are! Will fantasy bring back Ellen’s mother? Will fantasy give her a real family again?”
Her eyes held steady, but her lips had begun to tremble in the center of her painted clown smile. “I don’t know how to answer that,” she whispered, “except to say that I—I feel sorry for you!”
She spun away from him and stalked off along the crest of the dune. Jeff glared after the slight, lumpy figure, his mind still hearing the little catch in her voice. If it had been tears, then the woman was an emotional fool, he told himself. The last thing he and Ellen needed was pity, especially from someone who knew so little about her.
Mermaids indeed! No, Ellen didn’t need that kind of nonsense either! According to the therapist, what she needed was to accept the reality of. her mother’s loss, not escape from it. If he could just make that mule-headed little clown person understand—
“Wait up!” he called after her. “You’re not getting away without hearing my side of—”
“I
