Mystery Man. Diana Palmer

on the hips of the newcomer.

      “May I ask what you’re doing on my beach?” he asked in a voice like raspy velvet.

      She stood up, a little clumsy. How odd, that a total stranger should make her knees weak.

      “I’m tracking my…” she began.

      “Tracking?” he scoffed, as if he thought she were lying. His blue eyes narrowed. He looked oddly dangerous, as if he never smiled, as if he could move like lightning and would at the least provocation.

      Her heart was racing. “His name is Kurt and he’s only twelve,” she said. “He’s redheaded and so high.” She made a mark in the air with her flat hand.

      “That one,” he murmured coolly. “Yes, I’ve seen him prowling around. Where’s my daughter?”

      Her eyebrows rose. “You have a daughter? Imagine that! Is she carved out of stone, too?”

      His firm, square chin lifted and he looked even more threatening. “She’s missing. I told her not to leave the house.”

      “If she’s with Kurt, she’s perfectly safe,” she began, about to mention that he’d been stranded once in the middle of Paris by their forgetful parents, and had found his way home to their hotel on the west bank. Not only had he maneuvered around a foreign city, but he’d also sold some of the science fiction cards he always carried with him to earn cab fare, and he’d arrived with twenty dollars in his pocket. Kurt was resourceful.

      But long before she could manage any of that, the man moved a step closer and cocked his head. “Do you know where they are?”

      “No, but I’m sure…”

      “You may let your son run loose like a delinquent, but my daughter knows better,” he said contemptuously. His eyes ran over her working attire with something less than admiration. She had on torn, raveled cutoffs that came almost to her knee. With them she was wearing old, worn-out sandals and a torn shirt that didn’t even hint at the lovely curves beneath it. Her short hair was windblown. She wasn’t even wearing makeup. She could imagine how she looked. What had he said—her son?

      “Now, just wait a minute here,” she began.

      “Where’s your husband?” he demanded.

      Her eyes blazed. “I’m not married!”

      Those eyebrows were really expressive now.

      She flushed. “My private life is none of your business,” she said haughtily. His assumptions, added to his obvious contempt, made her furious. An idea flashed into her mind and, inwardly, she chuckled. She struck a pose, prepared to live right down to his image of her. “But just for the record,” she added in purring tones, “my son was born in a commune. I’m not really sure who his father is, of course…”

      The expression on his face was unforgettable. She wished with all her heart for a camera, so that she could relive the moment again and again.

      “A commune? Is that where you learned to track?” he asked pointedly.

      “Oh, no.” She searched for other outlandish things to tell him. He was obviously anxious to learn any dreadful aspect of her past. “I learned that from a Frenchman that I lived with up in the northern stretches of Canada. He taught me how to track and make coats from the fur of animals.” She smiled helpfully. “I can shoot, too.”

      “Wonderful news for the ammunition industry, no doubt,” he said with a mocking smile.

      She put her own hands on her hips and glared back. It was a long way up, although she was medium height. “It’s getting dark.”

      “Better track fast, hadn’t you?” he added. He lifted a hand and motioned to a man coming down toward the beach. “¿Sabe donde estñaan?” he shot at the man in fluent Spanish.

      “No, lo siento, señtnor. ¡Nadie los han visto!” the smaller man called back.

       “Llame a la policñaia.”

       “Sñai, señtnor!”

      Police sounded the same in any language and her pulse jumped. “You said police. You’re going to call the police?” she groaned. That was all she needed, to have to explain to a police officer that she’d forgotten the time and let her little brother get lost.

      “You speak Spanish?” he asked with some disbelief.

      “No, but police sounds the same in most languages, I guess.”

      “Have you got a better idea?”

      She sighed. “No, I guess not. It’s just that…”

      “Dad!”

      They both whirled as Karie and Kurt came running along the beach with an armload of souvenirs between them, wearing sombreros.

      “Gosh, Dad, I’m sorry, we forgot the time!” Karie warbled to her father. “We went to the mercado in town and bought all this neat stuff. Look at my hat! It’s called a sombrero, and I got it for a dollar!”

      “Yeah, and look what I got, S—mmmmffg.” Kurt’s “Sis” was cut off in midstream by Janine’s hand across his mouth.

      She grinned at him. “That’s fine, son,” she emphasized, her eyes daring him to contradict her. “You know, you shouldn’t really scare your poor old mother this way,” she added, in case he hadn’t gotten the point.

      Kurt was intrigued. Obviously his big sister wanted this rather formidable-looking man to think he was her son. Okay. He could go along with a gag. Just in case, he stared at Karie until she got the idea, too, and nodded to let him know that she understood.

      “I’m sorry…Mom,” Kurt added with an apologetic smile. “But Karie and I were having so much fun, we just forgot the time. And then when we tried to get back, neither of us knew any Spanish, so we couldn’t call a cab. We had to find someone who spoke English to get us a cab.”

      “All the cabdrivers speak enough English to get by,” Karie’s father said coldly.

      “We didn’t know that, Dad,” Karie defended. “This is my friend Kurt. He lives next door.”

      Karie’s dad didn’t seem very impressed with Kurt, either. He stared at his daughter. “I have to stop Josñae before he gets the police out here on a wild-goose chase. And then we have to leave,” he told her. “We’re having dinner with the Elligers and their daughter.”

      “Oh, gosh, not them again,” she groaned. “Missy wants to marry you.”

      “Karie,” he said warningly.

      She sighed. “Oh, all right. Kurt, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

      “Sure thing, Karie.”

      “Maybe we can find that garden hose,” she added in a conspiratorial tone.

      He brightened. “Great idea!”

      “What the hell do you want with a hose?” Karie’s father asked as they walked back up the beach, totally ignoring the two people he’d just left.

      “Whew!” Kurt huffed. “Gosh, he’s scary!”

      “No, he isn’t,” Janine said irritably. “He’s just pompous and irritating! And he thinks he’s an emperor or something. I told him we lived in a commune and you’re my son and I don’t know who your father is. Don’t you tell him any differently,” she added when he tried to speak. “I want to live down to his image of me!”

      He chuckled. “Boy, are you mad,” he said. “You don’t have fights with anybody.”

      “Wait,” she promised, glaring after the man.

      “He reminds me of somebody,” he said.

      “Probably