Seeing Stars

by Vanessa Grant

  He didn't bother telling himself that her presence—rather, her absence—didn't matter. Last night, watching her dance with Don Henley while jealousy ate at him, he'd realized that while Claire wanted to fulfill a high school fantasy, he wanted a hell of a lot more.

  It made no sense at all. In high school, she'd been a nerdy kid with fascinating big blue eyes, but if he'd had a sexual thought about her at all, it had been fleeting. He'd wondered, but not enough to keep her image at the forefront of his mind over the fifteen years since graduation.

  But now it was different. Maybe he was a different guy than he'd been fifteen years ago, and she'd certainly grown from a painfully shy girl into a vibrant, fascinating woman. Whatever the reason, last night he'd realized that whatever they managed to pack into these few days, it wasn't going to be enough.

  He knew, also, that more was impossible. He had a boatyard to run, Vicki's university and medical school fees to pay for several years to come, and the boys to look after. He was stuck to Port Townsend as thoroughly as barnacles to a neglected hull. He couldn't take trips, vacations, excursions to Arizona, any more than she could transport her mountaintop observatory to Port Townsend. Not that she was going to want to.

  The fact was, he hadn't even begun the affair, and he was already feeling torn up, as if she'd walked away and he were watching. And if she'd decided to bail, to pull out early and dodge the affair she'd asked for only two days ago—well, if he had any sense, he'd let her.

  He doubted he had that much sense.

  He put the last salmon onto the barbecue and managed to step aside in time to dodge Lydia's grip on his arm. He really didn't want to have to talk to Lydia about her pursuit of him, but if she didn't back off, he'd be forced to.

  He was in sad shape. The woman he wanted didn't show, and the one he didn't want wouldn't keep her hands off. He laughed and grabbed a beer from the cooler, then did a circuit to check on everybody. He saw a couple of the boys at the food table, decided to circle the other way to end up there, and maybe pass a few comments with Jake. At least Jake had turned up, and he'd come to the shipyard this morning. Things were looking up there.

  His sister Grace was talking to Don while sitting in a lawn chair to rest her back. She was eight months pregnant and seemed perpetually tired these days, although she looked happy too. Unlike Vicki and Bobby, Grace had never wanted anything but to stay in Port Townsend. She'd left for college at Mac's insistence, but had returned on her graduation, taken a job teaching preschool, and married Gary, her high school boyfriend. They had two kids now, would have three before summer ended, and Grace seemed to love every minute of motherhood.

  "Salad's ready," she announced when he reached her.

  "Thanks, Grace."

  "I had help. Lydia and Wendy did most of it."

  "Thanks, anyway," he said, and she smiled, her hand resting on her belly as if to touch the child within.

  He wondered what Claire would look like pregnant. She was tall and lean, and he suspected her body would conceal the growth of a child for several months, unlike Grace's.

  Forget it, he told himself, more disturbed by this fantasy than he cared to admit. It must be a phase-of-life thing, something that hit a guy when he was looking at thirty-five, that made him start fantasizing in directions he'd never looked before.

  Wrong time, wrong place, wrong woman. If there were one woman out there made just for him, she sure as hell wouldn't be someone he'd nothing more in common with than sexual hunger, a woman who would choose to spend her life on an isolated mountain thousands of miles away.

  Crazy or not, when the party wrapped up, he was going looking for her. The way he figured it they had maybe four days, plus or minus a few hours. He wasn't wasting a bunch of it wondering whether she'd look him up again, or whether she'd taken off and he'd never see her again.

  "Hey, Mac, where's the beer?"

  "Cooler's over there, behind the barbecue."

  "We brought steak," called out Janet Evanson, just coming around the corner of the house from the front. "Donny's allergic to salmon."

  "Throw it on the barbecue. There's lots of room."

  James and Mac had built the barbecue the year Mac went back to high school after a three-year absence, the same year James married Mac's mother and they all moved into this house.

  He thought of James now, and of Edna, the first wife whom James had loved until the day she died in a hospital in Seattle. Mac had never met Edna, but he knew her well from things his sisters and brother had said, memories they'd shared. James had had two wives, first Edna, then Mac's own mother. He'd made happy homes with both.

  Mac wondered what James would say about Claire if he were still here. Probably something like, "Either go after her, or forget her. You want something, you can't expect to get it just sitting around waiting for it to fall into your hands."

  The boys seemed to have disappeared. He couldn't see Jake's red hair anymore, or Tim's shaven head. He'd spotted Joe earlier, the kid from next door, so maybe they'd all headed over to Joe's, which would be a lot better than Jake heading back down to the waterfront to bum around and get in trouble.

  Keeping Jake out of trouble until his court date was enough of a trick, but Mac would have to find a way to keep it up afterward, too. With Jake at the group home, he didn't know how long he could keep the kid together. Jake was simply the wrong sort of kid for communal living in a group home, and although Mac had thought of applying to take the kid on as a foster child himself, he wasn't sure it would be much better. He figured the authorities would probably decide that working long hours in the shipyard didn't leave Mac time to keep tabs on the kid. Hell, they'd be right.

  Jake would be best off in a good foster home, but nobody was beating on the door for the chance to foster fifteen-year-old kids with a history of suicide attempts.

  Someone started the CD player as Mac followed the sound of voices around the corner of the house, and the words of On Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman flowed out. Mac recalled the song as a number one hit sometime during the winter of his senior year. He heard laughter from inside the house, and figured some of the men had found the billiards table in the basement. Good.

  He heard Jake's voice up ahead and realized kids hadn't left after all. They must be on the front veranda, because the only person here was Kelly Stapling with her ten-year-old daughter.

  "Hi, Kelly. Go on back and find yourself something to drink. There's pop in the cooler for Trixie, and salmon on the barbecue."

  "Thanks, Mac."

  He heard Claire's voice as he reached the corner, the instant before he saw her. They were sprawled on the floor of the veranda, three teenage boys and the woman with her blond hair caught back in a long, thick braid. She had something in her hand—a pencil or pen—and was drawing.

  "What's this right here?" asked Jake, pointing.

  Mac heard the sound of paper rustling and decided they'd found something inside the house to draw on—or maybe Joe had gone home for the paper. It didn't matter, but his mind fixed on it because his body wouldn't move, and his eyes couldn't get free of the woman. She'd come, and it was a damned good thing he couldn't move, because otherwise he might walk right up and yank her into his arms, ruining everything, because right now she had Jake staring at her as if he'd found his first real case of hero worship.

  She was in profile, her face intent as she added something to the drawing. "Those are the tube bearings, Jake. You can make them by sawing a PVC coupling in half."

  "What about the plywood?" asked Tim. "Couldn't we use half-inch? It's going to be heavy if you make the box out of three-quarters, and it costs more."

  "They're plans," said Jake. "If you start changing stuff in the plans without knowing what you're doing, you're likely to mess up everything."

  "You need three-quarters for strength," said Claire. "There's a lot of stress on the tube box."

  Tim said, "We could, maybe, use the back corner of Mac's shipyard to build the scope. I bet Ma
c would let us use his tools, long as we did it after hours."

  "Cool," said Joe.

  "A telescope," said Jake wonderingly, his hand tracing something on the paper. "A real live, honest-to-goodness telescope. And it works? It really works?"

  "These are the plans I used to build the scope I've got in my car. If I had pencil, ruler, and compass, I could draw you a complete set of plans tomorrow—or even better, you can download plans from the Internet, print them out. One of you guys must be on the Net?"

  "Yeah," said Joe, "but our printer's toast."

  Jake looked up. "They've got a computer at the group ho—... at the place where I live. If I get the plans tonight, Claire, I could print out like a bunch of copies, one for everybody. Then could you look at them with us? Like tell us what we need to do?"

  "Of course I'll help. Tear off a piece of that paper and I'll write down the website address for you."

  Mac wondered if Jake knew Claire would be leaving in a few days, wondered if he'd made a mistake setting the kid up to get hooked on someone who was bound to disappear on him.

  While Claire wrote, Joe suddenly scrambled to his feet. "Let's go over to my place. We can find the site and we can see it, even if we can't print it."

  "Grab a can of pop, first," said Tim.

  Claire handed the paper to Jake. "While you're on the Net, do a search on 'how to build a telescope.' You'll find tons of information."

  "Hey Mac!" said Tim, spotting him at last.

  "What are you up to?" asked Mac, swinging up onto the porch.

  "Telescopes," said Jake. "We're gonna build a telescope, and tonight when it gets dark, Claire is going to show us hers. We're gonna look at the stars."

  Tonight, thought Mac. So she wasn't planning on staying after the party was over.

  Claire was smiling, looking up at him, but he saw uncertainty in her eyes. She said, "I think we can get a pretty good look at the night sky from here if you'll turn out your lights."

  He let himself come closer, looked down at the drawing, saw a long tube, a box, some calculations written in one corner.

  "This looks like quite a project."

  "We need some place to build it," said Jake.

  "We thought maybe the back corner of the shipyard," put in Tim.

  She'd be gone, of course. By the time they had the wood rounded up, she'd be back on her mountaintop.

  "Yeah," he said, wondering exactly who she figured would help them with the inevitable problems of building a telescope once she'd left. "There's room, and you can probably scrounge up the wood you need from my cuttings. What do you use for the tube? Metal pipe?"

  "Most people use Sonotube," said Claire, but she was frowning now. "That's the cardboard tube that's used for forming concrete columns. It's lighter than metal, and strong."

  Jake was frowning too, and despite his growing anger Mac heard himself say, "We'll find some. Probably one of the building supply stores."

  Tim announced, "We're gonna grab a couple of cans of pop and head over to Joe's to check out the Internet."

  Mac nodded and they left in a clatter of limbs and feet. Tim and Jake ran down the stairs from the veranda while Joe took the rail in a graceful leap and hit the ground running.

  "Energy," said Claire. "They've got so much energy."

  "How do you figure these kids are going to build a telescope?" He shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned down at her drawings. "Seems to me you're setting them up for failure."

  She picked up the paper and began folding it. "This is what you said you wanted. Get Jake interested in astronomy, you said, because he needs something."

  Her reasonable tones made him want to shake her.

  "And how exactly are they going to complete this project? They're kids."

  She held the folded paper in two hands, in front of her. "Jake's a year older than I was when I built my first telescope. The others are older."

  "You had your father to help. Who's their expert? Who will they consult when they've got problems?"

  He saw her fingers clench on the paper and he said, "From what I saw just now, they're going to expect you to be here for them, to help them, but you're not going to be here. You're starting something you can't follow through on."

  "This is what you wanted, Blake, but you're talking as if I've done something wrong. They're not children, they're almost young men. And they've got you, for heaven's sake! It's a telescope, not rocket science. If you can build a boat, you can certainly build a telescope. It's just a matter of following instructions, being precise."

  "What about the lens?"

  "The mirrors—lenses—are available from Coulter or Orion."

  He prowled the veranda. "How the hell are they going to pay for them?"

  "I'm going to pay," she snapped. "That's my part of the deal. I told them when they get the box done, I'll send the lens. I'll order it before I leave."

  "You can't just give them things and make everything right. They need to work for what they get."

  "They are working, for heaven's sake!" she exploded. She put the folded paper down on the rail with a snap. "They're working for you, and they're willing to work extra hours for the privilege of using a bit of your damned shipyard to build their scope, and they'll have to work to build the tube box and the rocker box, then there's—"

  Claire broke off as the screen door to the house swung open.

  Grace stood in the doorway, holding the door in her hand, eyeing Claire and Mac uneasily. "Mac? Is everything OK?"

  He realized that his body was coiled, his jaw and fists clenched. Grace the peacemaker, he thought, and forced the muscles to relax.

  "Everything's fine, Grace. We're having a healthy disagreement." He smiled and his sister returned the smile, although she eyed Claire warily. "This is Claire Welland. Claire—Grace, my sister."

  Claire said something he couldn't hear, and the two women exchanged very cool smiles, then Grace said, "Don says the salmon's done, but I can't find the lemons. They're not in the fridge."

  What the hell had he done with the damned lemons?

  "The pantry," he said finally, remembering. "The fridge was full. A paper bag in the pantry, second shelf."

  "Can I help?" asked Claire.

  "No, thanks," said Grace sweetly, backing into the house. "Mac, they need you at the barbecue."

  Somehow, with Grace gone, there seemed nothing to say. He stared at Claire, wondering where the hell his anger had come from, figuring he probably owed her an apology, but unwilling to give it.

  "She doesn't like me."

  "She's partisan. I'm her brother, and it was obvious we were fighting. She'll get over it."

  "I should leave." She reached for the paper. "Will you tell the boys?"

  "You promised you'd show them stars." And he'd been jealous again, he realized, because he'd wanted her for himself, because she'd come to his home, but not to him.

  She brushed a strand of hair aside and, for just a moment, looked like the long-ago girl who'd stumbled into his arms in the entrance to the chemistry lab.

  "I want you to stay, Claire."

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it. "Maybe it's better if I don't. This whole thing... I don't think it's a good idea."

  "What's not a good idea? You and the kids talking telescopes? Or you and I?"

  "I don't think I'm the sort of person who can do this."

  "Do what? Attend a salmon barbecue?"

  "You know that's not what I mean."

  "Yes," he agreed, and somehow the anger had drained away. He held out his hand. "Let's put that paper, the drawing, inside where it won't blow away. Then you can come out back with me and hand salmon around."

  She didn't return his smile. "And later?"

  "Later, the others will go home and we'll get your telescope out of your car and I'll turn out the lights. Then you'll show the boys some stars." He wished he could change the order of things, wished he could reschedule the boys and the stars, but any
fool looking at the sky could see that by tomorrow there'd be overcast skies and high winds. For stargazing this week, tonight was the only sure bet.

  "And then?" she asked, coolness around the edges of her voice.

  "Later..." He held her hand and stepped closer, bent slowly toward her motionless lips and allowed himself one leisurely taste. He could have sworn her lips stirred under his as he said softly, "Later, we'll do whatever you want."

  Chapter Seven

  Claire couldn't believe forty-three people could eat so many large barbecued salmon. She seemed to be passing out plates forever, unexpectedly enjoying herself. By the time the last of them had their first load of salmon, some were coming back for seconds.

  Finally, Blake set another helping of salmon on yet another paper plate, smiled at her and asked, "Hungry?"

  "Famished."

  "I'll find someone to take over here." He dished salmon onto a second plate. "You take these two plates, load up some veggies and find us a couple of chairs by the oak tree. It's not so crowded over there."

  "I don't know what you like. Salad? Potatoes?"

  "Anything." He grabbed her and kissed her, hard and quick. She couldn't do anything—either protest or respond—because her hands were filled with two paper plates loaded with salmon.

  When he released her, her lips felt swollen and hungry. Then she realized uncomfortably that several people nearby were staring.

  She wasn't sure why she cared, perhaps because it was a lie, because he was acting as if she were the only woman in his world, when it was really only a game, a price she'd asked for, part of an agreement between them that seemed to have fallen apart, but wouldn't go away.

  Obviously he felt desire, chemistry, but when he kissed her it felt like so much more. He was too good at this, she thought as she took the plates to the big picnic table, dished up salad and mashed potatoes, baby carrots and cauliflower for both of them. When he kissed her like that, he probably knew exactly what it did to a woman, knew it and...

  It shouldn't matter to her, because wasn't it a game for her, too?