Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  see the sun, and when she dragged in a painful breath it was air that burned her throat, not water. She was still alive. The tears started as much in shame as in gratitude.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  She laid a hand on the arm around her. “I wiped out,” she managed.

  There was a chuckle, quick and a little breathless. “Big time. But, man, you had a hell of a ride first.”

  Yes, she had, she realized, and concentrated on not humiliating herself further by being sick. Then there was sand, hot and rough on her skin. She let her rescuer lay her down, but the first faces she saw were of her bodyguards. Too weak to speak, she sent them a furious look. It didn’t make them back off, but it kept them from coming closer.

  “Don’t try to stand up for a few minutes.”

  Emma turned her head, coughed up some seawater. There was music—the Eagles, she thought groggily. “Hotel California.” There had been music before, in the dark, but she couldn’t remember the words now, or the melody. She coughed again, blinked against the dazzle of sunlight then focused on her savior.

  The boy in the navy trunks, she thought and managed a weak smile. Water was dripping from his dark hair. His eyes were dark too, rich deep gray, as clear as lake water.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” He settled down beside her, feeling awkward in the role of white knight. The guys would razz him for weeks. But he couldn’t bring himself to just leave her there. She was only a kid, after all. A great-looking kid, he thought—then felt still more awkward. He gave her shoulder a brotherly pat and thought she had the biggest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

  “I guess I lost my board.”

  He shielded his eyes with the flat of his hand as he looked out to sea. “No. Fred’s bringing it in. It’s a nice board.”

  “I know. I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you around.” He glanced back down at her. She’d risen up on her elbows and her wet curls tumbled down her back. Her voice was pretty, he thought, sort of soothing and musical. “You English or something?”

  “Irish. For the most part. We’ll be here only a few more days.” She sighed as the boy named Fred dragged in her board. “Thanks.” Not knowing what else to say, she concentrated on rubbing the wet sand from her knee.

  The boy in the navy trunks gave Fred and the others who had gathered around a friendly wave that sent them about their business.

  “When my father hears about this, he’ll never let me surf again.”

  “Why does he have to hear about it?”

  “He always does.” She made a concentrated effort not to look at her bodyguards.

  “Everybody wipes out.” Beautiful eyes, he thought again, then looked deliberately out to sea. “You were doing pretty good.”

  “Really.” She colored a bit. “You’re wonderful. I’ve watched you.”

  “Thanks.” He grinned and showed a chipped tooth.

  Emma stared at him as memory came flooding back. “You’re Michael.”

  “Yeah.” His grin widened. “How’d you know?”

  “You don’t remember me.” She pushed herself up to sit. “I met you, well, it was a long time ago. I’m Emma. Emma McAvoy. Your father brought you to the rehearsal hall one afternoon.”

  “McAvoy?” Michael dragged a hand through his dripping hair. “Brian McAvoy?” As he said the name he saw Emma take a quick look round to see if anyone had heard him. “I remember you. You sent me a picture. I’ve still got it.” His eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder. “So that’s what they’re doing here,” he murmured, studying the guards. “I thought they were narcs or something.”

  “Bodyguards,” she said dully, then shrugged it off. “My father worries.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” He remembered, clearly, the police photograph of a little boy. It left him with nothing else to say.

  “I remember your father.” She began to draw idle circles in the sand. “He came to the hospital to see me after we lost my brother.”

  “He’s a captain now,” Michael said for lack of anything else.

  “That’s nice.” She’d been raised to be polite under any circumstances. “You’ll tell him I said hello, won’t you?”

  “Sure.” They ran out of things to say so that the whoosh of the waves filled the gaps. “Ah, listen, do you want a Coke or something?”

  She looked up, dazzled to be asked. It was the first time in her life she had had more than a five-minute conversation with a boy. Men, certainly. Her life had been full of men. But being asked to have a Coke with a boy only a few years her senior was a wonderful, and heady, experience. She nearly agreed before she remembered the guards. She couldn’t bear them watching.

  “Thanks, but I’d better go. Da was going to pick me up in a couple of hours, but I don’t think I’m up to any more surfing today. I’ll have to call him.”

  “I could take you.” He made a restless movement with his shoulders. It was stupid to feel so tongue-tied with a kid. But he couldn’t remember being more nervous since he’d asked Nancy Brimmer to the ninth-grade Valentine’s Dance. “Give you a ride home,” he continued as Emma stared at him. “If you want.”

  “You probably have something you want to do.”

  “No. Not really.”

  He wanted to meet her father again, Emma decided after one ecstatic moment. A boy like him—why, he must have been at least eighteen—wouldn’t be interested in her. But the daughter of Brian McAvoy was different. She drummed up another smile as she got to her feet. He had saved her life. If seeing her father was the only payment she could make, then she would make it.

  “I’d like a ride, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No big deal.” He caught himself before he shifted his feet in the sand. She probably thought he was a jerk.

  “I’ll just be a minute.” She rushed off in the direction of the guards, snatching up her beach wrap and bag on the way. “My friend is giving me a ride home,” she said in her most dismissive tone.

  “Miss McAvoy.” The guard named Masters cleared his throat. “It would be better if you called your father.”

  “There’s no need to bother him.”

  The second guard, Sweeney, mopped his sweaty forehead. “Your father wouldn’t like you taking rides from strangers.”

  “Michael’s not a stranger.” The haughty tone made her feel nasty inside, but she would not, could not, be humiliated in front of Michael. “I know him, and so does my father. Michael’s father is a captain on the police force here.” She pulled the long, rainbow-colored T-shirt over her suit. “You’ll be following behind us, so what does it matter?” She turned, and keeping her head up, walked back to where Michael waited with their boards.

  “Hold it.” Sweeney put a hand on Masters’s shoulder. “Let’s give the kid a break. She don’t get many.”

  Michael’s gas gauge was hovering dangerously close to empty when he pulled up at the high iron gates in Beverly Hills. He saw the faint surprise on the guard’s face before the switch was thrown and the gates swung inward. He was sorry as he drove down the tree-lined drive that he had nothing but scruffy sandals and his old track jersey to wear with his bathing trunks.

  The house was all pink stone and white marble, four towering stories of it that took up more than an acre of the trim green lawn. Double arched doors of etched glass stood at the entrance. He wasn’t sure if he should be amused or impressed by the peacock that strutted across the grass.

  “Nice place.”

  “It’s P.M.’s really. Or P.M.’s wife’s.” Emma found herself faintly embarrassed by the life-sized marble lions that flanked the entrance. “It used to belong to someone in the cinema—I can never remember who—but Angie did it all over. Anyway, she’s in Europe filming so we’re staying a few weeks. Have you got time to come in?”

  “Ah, yeah, I got time.” He frowned down at the sand clinging to his feet. “If you’re sure it’s okay.”

  �
��Of course it is.” She stepped out of the car, the same ’68 Chevelle that Lou had once driven to the rehearsal hall. She waited for Michael to unstrap her board from the roof, then started up the steps. “I’ll have to tell Da what happened. The guards will anyhow. I hope you don’t mind if I, well, make it sound minor. You know?”

  “Sure.” He grinned at her again, making her young heart flutter. “Parents always overreact. I guess they can’t help it.”

  He heard the music the moment she opened the door. A piano, a series of thunderous chords, then an experimental noodling of notes, and the chords again. Emma took her board from him to prop it against the wall.

  “They’re back here.” After a moment’s hesitation, she took Michael’s hand and led him down the wide white hallway.

  He’d never seen a house like it, though he was too embarrassed to say so. Arched doorways opened on room after room where abstract paintings were slashes of frantic color against white walls. Even the floors were white so that Michael was unable to shake the feeling he was walking through some kind of temple.

  Then he saw the goddess, the portrait of the goddess above a fireplace of white stone. She was blond and sulky-mouthed, wearing a white sequined dress that skimmed dangerously over the globes of her lush breasts.

  “Wow.”

  “That’s Angie,” Emma told him. Her nose wrinkled quickly, automatically. “She’s married to P.M.”

  “Yeah.” He had the oddest feeling that the portrait’s eyes were alive and fixed on him hungrily. “I, ah, saw her last movie.” He didn’t add that after he had, he’d experienced fascinating and uncomfortably erotic dreams. “Man, she’s something.”

  “Yes, she is.” And even at not-quite thirteen, Emma was aware what that something was. She gave Michael’s hand an impatient tug, then continued on.

  It was the only room Emma felt at ease in—the only room in the mausoleum of a house where she imagined P.M. had been given a chance to express his own taste. There was color here, a mix-match of blues and reds and sunny yellows. Music awards lined the mantel; gold records dotted the wails. There were a couple of thriving plants near the window. A pair of lemon trees that Emma knew P.M. had started from seed.

  Her father was seated at a beautiful old baby grand that had been in a movie whose tide always escaped Emma. Johnno sat beside him, smoking his habitual French cigarettes. There was a litter of papers on the floor, a big pitcher of lemonade sprinkled with condensation on the coffee table. The glasses, ice melting lazily inside them, were already leaving a duo of rings on the wood.

  “We’ll keep it moving through the bridge,” Brian was saying as he pounded out chords. “Keep it fast, overlap the strings and horns, but keep the guitar the dominant force.”

  “Fine, but it’s still the wrong beat.” Johnno brushed Brian’s hands aside. His diamonds winked on each pinky as he moved them over the keys.

  Brian took out a cigarette, flipping it through his fingers. “I hate you when you’re right.”

  “Da.”

  He looked up. The smile came first, then faded as he focused on Michael. “Emma. You were supposed to ring if you wanted to come back early.”

  “I know, but I met Michael.” Her lips curved, charmingly, so that her dimple flashed. “I wiped out, and he helped me get my board.” Because she wanted to leave it at that, she hurried on. “And I thought you’d like to meet him again.”

  There was something enormously disturbing about seeing his girl, his little girl, standing with her hand in the hand of a boy who was nearly a man. “Again?”

  “Don’t you remember? His father brought him to a rehearsal. His father, the policeman.”

  “Kesselring.” The muscles in Brian’s stomach clenched. “You’re Michael Kesselring?”

  “Yes, sir.” He wasn’t sure if it was proper to extend his hand for a shake with a music giant, so stood, rubbing his palms on his sandy trunks. “I was like eleven when I met you before. It was great.”

  He was too used to being onstage, under the lights, to let the ache show. He looked at Michael, tall, dark, sturdy, and saw not Lou Kesselring’s son, but the potential of his own lost little boy. But he smiled as he stood up from the piano.

  “It’s nice to see you again. You remember Michael, Johnno?”

  “Sure. Ever talk your old man into that electric guitar?”

  “Yeah.” Michael grinned, flattered to be remembered. “I took lessons awhile, but they gave me up as hopeless. I play the harmonica some, though.”

  “Why don’t you get Michael a Coke, Emma?” Brian dropped to the arm of a chair, gesturing to the couch. The glint of his wedding ring caught a sliver of light. “Have a seat.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt your work.”

  “We live to be interrupted,” Johnno told him, mellowing the sarcasm with a smile. “What’d you think of the song?”

  “It was great. Everything you do is great.”

  Johnno’s brow lifted not so much in sarcasm now as amusement. “Here’s a smart boy, Bri. Maybe we should keep him.”

  Michael grinned, unsure if he should be embarrassed. “No, really. I like all your stuff.”

  “Not into disco?”

  “Disco sucks.”

  “A very smart boy,” Johnno decided. “So how’d you come to meet our Emma on the beach?” He continued talking, knowing Brian needed another moment to adjust.

  “She had a little trouble with a wave and I helped her out.” He breezed over the incident with the skill of a teenager used to outwitting adults. “She’s got pretty good form, Mr. McAvoy. Just needs more practice.”

  Brian managed another smile and toyed with his warm lemonade. “You surf a lot?”

  “Every chance I get.”

  “How’s your father?”

  “He’s cool. He’s a captain now.”

  “I’d heard. You must be out of high school by now.”

  “Yes, sir. I graduated in June.”

  “Going on?”

  “Well, yeah. I thought I’d give college a shot. My father’s counting on it.”

  Johnno pulled out his cigarettes, carelessly offering one to Michael. He took it, and the first pull of the strong, exotic smoke had his stomach bouncing. “So,” Johnno asked, mildly amused, “do you plan to follow in your father’s flat feet? Isn’t that what they call cops?” he continued. “Flat foots?”

  “Oh.” Michael tried another small, experimental puff on the Gauloise. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a cop. Dad, he’s great at it. Patient, you know. Like with your son’s case. He worked on that for years, even after the department closed the files.” He caught himself, appalled that he’d brought it up. “He’s like, dedicated,” he finished weakly.

  “Yes, he is.” More at ease, Brian smiled the charming, heartwarming smile that made his fans love him. He wished he’d added rum to the lemonade. “You’ll give him my best, won’t you?”

  “Sure.” It was with great relief that Michael saw Emma bringing in cold drinks on a tray.

  An hour later, Emma walked him back to his car. “I want to thank you for not telling Da how stupid I was today.”

  “No big deal.”

  “Yes, it was. He gets … upset.” She gazed out to the high stone walls that surrounded the estate. Wherever she went there were walls. “I think he’d put me in a bubble if he could.”

  The urge to touch her hair was so strong, so unexpected, that he’d lifted his hand before he caught himself and brushed it through his own. “It must be tough, with what happened to your brother and everything.”

  “He’s always afraid, afraid someone will try to take me, too.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No. I don’t think so. The guards are always there, so I’ve never had a chance to be, really.”

  He hesitated, one hand on the door handle. It wasn’t like he was stuck on her or anything, he told himself. She was just a kid. “Maybe I’ll see you at the beach tomorrow.”

  A woman’s heart
fluttered in her young chest. “Maybe.”

  “I could give you some pointers on the board—you know, help you with your form.”

  “That would be great.”

  He got in, fiddling with the keys before starting the engine. “Thanks for the Coke and everything. It was really far out getting to meet your dad again and all.”

  “Any time. Goodbye, Michael.”

  “Yeah, See you.” He drove down the tree-lined drive, nearly steering onto the lawn because he was watching her in the rear-view mirror.