Mystery Man. Diana Palmer

¡Vaya!” he said obligingly.

      “That’s right. Vaya. Right now.”

      He nodded, grinned again and went back down the beach in the opposite direction.

      Janine watched him walk away. She had a nagging suspicion that he wasn’t hanging around here for his health.

      She went down the beach to where Karie was sitting, spellbound at the scene she’d just witnessed. “Karie, I want you to come and stay with Kurt and me today while your dad’s gone,” she said. “I don’t like the way that man was watching you.”

      “Neither do I,” Karie had to admit. She smiled ruefully. “Dad had a bodyguard back in Chicago. I never really got used to him. Down here it’s been quieter.”

      “You do have a bodyguard. Me.”

      Karie chuckled as she got up and shook out her towel. “I noticed. You weren’t scared of him at all, were you?”

      “Kurt and I studied martial arts for two years. I’m pretty good at it.” She’d didn’t add that she’d also worked as a private investigator.

      “Would you teach me?”

      “That might not be a bad idea,” she considered. “Tell you what, Kurt and I will give you lessons on the sly. You may not want to share that with your dad right now. He’s mad enough about the window at the moment.”

      “Dad isn’t mean,” Karie replied. “He’s pretty cool, most of the time. He has a terrible temper, of course.”

      “I noticed.”

      Karie smiled. “You have one, too. That man started backing up the minute you went toward him. You scared him.”

      “Why, so I did,” Janine mused. She grinned with pride. “How about that?”

      “I’m starved,” Karie said. “Maria went to the grocery store and she won’t be back for hours.”

      “We’ll make sandwiches. I’ve got cake, too, for dessert. Coconut.”

      “Wow! Radical!”

      Janine smiled. She led the way back to the beach house, where an amused Kurt was waiting.

      “Diane Woody to the rescue!” he chuckled.

      She made a face at him. “I’m reading too much of my own publicity,” she conceded. “But the man left, didn’t he?”

      “Left a jet trail behind him,” her brother agreed.

      “What are you working on…oh! It’s him!” Karie gasped, picking up the photo of the television star in makeup that Janine had left on the desk. “Isn’t he cool? It’s my favorite show. I like the captain best, but this guy isn’t so bad. He sort of looks like Dad, you know?”

      Janine didn’t say a word. But inside, she groaned.

      She was feeding the kids coconut cake from a local store, and milk when a familiar threatening presence came through the patio doors without knocking. She gave him a glare that he simply ignored.

      “Don’t you live at home anymore?” he asked his daughter irritably.

      “There’s no cake at our place,” Karie said matter-of-factly.

      “Where’s the housekeeper? I told her to stay with you.”

      “She went shopping and never came back,” Janine said shortly. “Your daughter was on the beach being watched by a very suspicious-looking man.”

      “Janine scared him off,” Karie offered, with a toothy grin. “She knows karate!”

      The arrogant look that Canton Rourke gave her was unsettling. “Karate, hmmm?”

      “I know a little,” she confessed.

      “She went right up to that man and told him to go away,” Karie continued, unabashed. “Then she took me home with her.” She glowered at him. “I could have been kidnapped!”

      He looked strange for a space of seconds, as if he couldn’t quite get his bearings.

      “You shouldn’t have been out there alone,” he said finally.

      “I was just lying on my beach towel.”

      “Well, from now on, lie on the deck,” he replied curtly. “No more adventures.”

      “Okay,” she said easily, and ate another chunk of cake.

      “It’s coconut cake,” Kurt volunteered. “That little grocery store has them. Janie gets them all the time for us. They’re great.”

      “I’d offer you a slice of cake, Mr. Rourke, but I’m sure you’re in a terrible hurry.”

      “I suppose I must be. Come on, Karie.”

      His daughter took a big swallow of milk and got up from the table. “Thanks, Janie!”

      “You’re very welcome.” She glanced at Canton. “Housekeepers don’t make very good bodyguards.”

      “I never meant her to be a watchdog, only a cook and housecleaner. Apparently I’d better look elsewhere.”

      “It might be wise.”

      His eyes slid down her long legs in worn jeans, down to her bare, pretty feet. He smiled in spite of himself. “Don’t like shoes, hmmm?”

      “Shoes wear out. Skin doesn’t.”

      He chuckled. “You sound like Einstein. I recall reading that he never wore socks, for the same reason.”

      Her eyes lifted to his face and slid over it with that same sense of stomach-rapping excitement that she experienced the first time she saw it. He did so closely resemble her favorite series TV character. It was uncanny, really.

      “Are you sure you don’t act?” she asked without meaning to.

      He gave her a wry look. “I’m sure. And I’m not about to start, at my age.”

      “There go your hopes, dashed for good,” Kurt murmured dryly. “He’s not an illegal alien trying to fit in with humans, Janie. Tough luck.”

      She flushed. “Will you shut up!”

      “What did you do with that autographed photo?” he asked as he passed the desk.

      “Oh, she never has it out when she’s working,” Kurt volunteered. “If she can see it, she just sits and sighs over it and never gets a word on the screen.”

      He scowled, interested. “What sort of work do you do?”

      “She’s a secretary,” Kurt said for her, gleefully improvising. “Her boss is a real slave driver, so even on vacation, she has to take the computer with her so that she can use the computer’s fax modem to send her work to the office.”

      He made an irritated sound. “Some boss.”

      “He pays well,” she said, warming to Kurt’s improvisation. She sighed. “You know how it is, living in a commune, you get so out of touch with reality.” She contrived to look dreamy-eyed. “But eventually, one has to return to the real world and earn a living. It really is so hard to get used to material things again.”

      His face closed up. He gave her a glare that could have stopped traffic and motioned to Karie to follow him. He stuck his hands into his pockets and walked out the door. He never looked back. It seemed to be a deep-seated characteristic.

      Karie grinned and waved, following obediently.

      When they were out of sight along the beach, Kurt joined her on the patio deck.

      “What if that man wasn’t watching Karie at all?” she wondered aloud, having had time to formulate a different theory. “What if he’s a lookout for the pothunters?”