was a photo in the back of the book, on the slick jacket, but it was of a woman with long hair and dark glasses wearing a hat with a big brim. It didn’t even look like their neighbor. But it was. Karie knew because Kurt had told her, with some pride, who his sister was. She was thrilled to know, even secondhand, a big-time mystery writer like Diane Woody. Her father was one of the biggest fans of the bestselling mystery author, but he wouldn’t recognize her from that book jacket. Maybe it was a good thing. Apparently she didn’t want to be recognized.
“Kurt’s nice,” she told her father. “He’s twelve. He likes people. He’s honest and kind. And Janine’s nice, too.”
His eyebrows lifted as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Janine?” he murmured, involuntarily liking the sound of the name on his lips.
“His…mother.”
“You learned all that about him in one day?”
She shrugged. “Actions speak louder than words, isn’t that what you always say?”
His face softened, just a little. He loved his daughter. “Just don’t go wandering off with him again, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And don’t go to his home,” he added through his teeth. “Because even if he can’t help what he’s got for a mother, I don’t want you associating with her. Is that clear?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
“Good. Get dressed. We don’t have much time.”
In the days that followed, Kurt and Karie were inseparable. Karie, as usual, agreed with whatever her father told her to do and then did what she pleased. He was so busy trying to regroup that he usually forgot his orders five minutes after he gave them, anyway.
So Karie and Kurt concocted their “sea serpent,” piece by painstaking piece, concealing it under the Rourke beach house for safety. Meanwhile, they watched World War III develop between their respective relatives.
The first salvo came suddenly and without warning. Kurt had gone out to play baseball with Karie. This was something new for him. His parents were studious and bookwormish, not athletic. And even though Janine was more than willing to share the occasional game of ball toss, she wasn’t a baseball fanatic. Kurt had grown to his present age without much tutoring in sports, except what he played at the private school where his parents sent him. And that was precious little, because the owners were too wary of lawsuits to let the children do much rough-and-tumble stuff.
Karie had no hang-ups at all about playing tackle football on the beach or smacking a hardball with her regulation bat. She gave the bat to Kurt and told him to do his best. Unfortunately, he did, on the very first try.
Canton Rourke came storming up onto the porch of the beach house and right onto the open patio without a knock. Janine, lost in the fifth chapter of her new book, was so foggy that she saw him without really seeing him. She was in the middle of a chase scene, locked into character and time and place, totally mindless and floating in the computer screen. She stared at him blankly.
He looked furious. The blue eyes under that jutting brow were blazing from his lean face. He had a hardball in one hand. He stuck it under her nose.
“It’s a baseball,” she said helpfully.
“I know what the damned thing is,” he said in a tone that would have affected her if she hadn’t been deep in concentration. “I just picked it up off my living-room floor. It went through the bay window.”
“You shouldn’t let the kids play baseball in the house,” she instructed.
“They weren’t playing in the damned house! Your son slammed it through the window!”
Her eyebrows rose. Things were beginning to focus in the real world. Her mind lost the last thread of connection with her plot. Before she lost her bearings too far, she saved the file before she swung her chair back to face her angry neighbor.
“Nonsense,” she said. “Kurt doesn’t have a baseball. Come to think of it, I don’t think he knows how to use a bat, either.”
He threw the ball up and caught it, deliberately.
“All right, what do you want me to do about it?” she asked wearily.
“I want you to teach him not to hit balls through people’s windows,” he said shortly. “It’s a damned nuisance trying to find a glass company down here, especially one that can get a repair done quickly.”
“Put some plastic over the hole with tape,” she suggested.
“Your son did the damage,” he continued with a mocking smile. “The repair is going to be up to you, not me.”
“Me?”
“You.” He put the ball down firmly on her desk, noticing the computer and printer for the first time. His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m writing a bestselling novel,” she said honestly.
He laughed without humor. “Sure.”
“It’s going to be great,” she continued with building anger. “It’s all about a—”
He held up a big, lean hand. “Spare me,” he said. “I don’t really want to hear the sordid details. No doubt you can draw plenty of material from your years in the commune.”
“Why, yes, I can,” she agreed with a vacant smile. “But I was going to say that this book is about a pompous businessman with delusions of grandeur.”
His eyebrows lifted. “How interesting.” He stuck his hands into his pockets and she fought a growing attraction to him. He really did have an extraordinary build for a man his age, which looked to be late thirties. He was lean and muscular and sensuous. He didn’t have a male-model sort of look, but there was something in the very set of his head, in the way he looked at her, that made her knees go weak.
His eye had been caught by an autographed photo peering out from under her mousepad. She’d hidden it there so that Kurt wouldn’t see it and tease her about her infatuation with her television hero. Sadly when she’d moved the mouse to save her file, she’d shifted the pad and revealed the photo.
His lean hand reached out and tugged at the corner. He didn’t wear jewelry of any kind, she noticed, and his fingernails were neatly trimmed and immaculate. He had beautiful hands, lightly tanned and strong.
“I like to watch the television series he’s in,” she said defensively, because he was staring intently at the photo.
His gaze lifted and he laughed softly. “Do you?” He handed it back and in the process, leaned close to her. “It’s one of my favorite shows, too,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, soft and deep and sensuous. “But this is the villain, you know, not the hero.”
She cleared her throat. He was close enough to make her uncomfortable. “So what?”
“He looks familiar, doesn’t he?” he murmured dryly.
She glared up at him. He really was far
