Lady Moonlight (5 page)

Now all she had to do was convince him.

Kara opened the blessedly quiet door the next morning at exactly eleven. She stepped aside as Dane came in.

"Planning to rebuild from the ground up?" she asked, eyeing a tool box roughly the size of her coffee table.

"No. But I use more than a shoe heel and a nail file when I work." He gave her a long, appreciative look before he dropped the box at her feet and knelt by it.

He was dressed casually in jeans and a green knit shirt. Curly dark brown hair poked out of the open neck and covered his muscular arms. He was even bigger than she remembered.

"You look like you're getting ready for surgery," she said, as he neatly laid out a drill, chisel and assortment of other tools. "Call me when you're through."

She walked to the kitchen, jeans-covered hips sway ing pertly. A grin tilted his mustache as he watched.

"Do you want some coffee?" she asked, turning.

"Not now, thanks. Maybe when I'm done."

"What should I bring for the picnic? Somehow," she said, forcing a casual tone, "we never got around to talking about food last night."

"Nothing. My idea, my food."

"I won't argue about that. Next item," she said, as if checking off a list. "How much do I owe you for the locks?"

"Nothing." His tone was absent.

"Stop where you are," she commanded. Returning, she dropped down on the sofa and waited until he looked up at her. "That's not the way we do things here. I pay for anything that goes in my house. You do the labor for a meal, remember?"

"I told you last night that I don't want your food." His voice was level. "I was also pretty specific about what I do want."

"Then pack up your bag. No deal."

His hands didn't falter as he measured the door.

"You need these locks. No strings attached this time. Compliments of the local handyman. Once I know you're safe, we'll settle the rest."

The silence stretched out. "At least tell me how much the locks cost."

He sighed in exasperation. "Fifteen dollars," he said, naming a fraction of the price.

Without a blink, she wrote a check and leaned over to lay it on the floor near the toolbox. Dane looked at the gleaming locks, the finest and most expensive on the market. Someday he'd have to visit her shop. It obviously wasn't a hardware store.

Two locks, more disconnected wiring and a hung picture later, they were in the big brown pickup, edging around Sunday tourists on La Jolla Boulevard.

Kara gave directions automatically, her mind flying ahead to the small frame house that faced the ocean.

Maybe her aunt would be wearing one of her less wildly exotic outfits, she thought optimistically. Acknowledging once again how fiercely protective she was, she leaned back and tried to relax.

Tillie was one of Kara's favorite people, but there was no doubt about it, she was different. She was small, wiry and spry. Her conversation, when it mattered most, was a disconnected series of starts, stops and unfinished sentences. What there was of it tended to be rambling and, to those who understood, filled with gentle warnings. The warnings resulted from what Kara's father irreverently referred to as "Tillie's trances."

Kara pressed her finger to a bell beside the freshly painted door. It was fire-engine red.

"Your aunt likes color," Dane observed, glancing around at hanging baskets of fuchsias and large pots of impatiens.

Kara nodded. "She changes the door to suit her mood. Give that thing a couple of whacks," she suggested, nodding at an imposing door knocker. It was a brass lion's head with a large ring in its open mouth.

Dane obligingly whacked and watched with resignation as a screw dropped to the ground and the ring stayed in his hand. The door flew open, and he looked down into the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen.

Above them were peaked, silvery-gray brows and a mop of curly hair the same color, cut short in an optimistic attempt to subdue it. Below were firm, flushed cheeks that denied the years and a full mouth quirked with humor.

Kara performed introductions as he tried not to stare at the small woman's garb. She was swathed in something crocheted-possibly a tablecloth-that was secured at her tiny waist by means of a hot-pink cummerbund. Bright orange canvas espadrilles completed the outfit.

"You can call her 'Aunt' or 'Tillie,"' Kara concluded.

"Tillie," he decided, entranced, stretching out his hand to meet hers. "And I'm Dane."

"Of course you are," she assured him. As if, he thought, he had doubted the matter. "You're late," she continued cheerfully. "I expected you last week. No matter. Just close the door and we'll go out on the patio. Oh, dear," she said, noting that the door knob had now detached itself and was resting in Dane's palm. "Annoying, but not entirely unexpected. Just drop it over there."

Dane walked over to a large wicker basket festooned with a plaid ribbon. Gazing down, he realized that his booty would be joining a basketful of household items that, apparently, had already fallen off something else.

"It's all right," Tillie assured him. "That's what it's for. I just collect all the bits and pieces that come loose, and every few weeks Kara, or one of her friends comes by to reattach them."

Kara interpreted his raised-brow look correctly.

"I'm not totally incompetent, you know."

"Then why is there always a full basket? You go ahead to the patio," he directed, "I'll take care of this." Turning, he fiddled with the knockerless door, opened it, and reappeared with his toolbox.

Ignoring the two women, who had dropped down into nearby chairs to watch, he replaced the knocker and knob on the door. "You'll have to show me where the rest of this stuff goes."

Tillie led the way at a trot. The dining room was the first stop. "The sconce goes there." She pointed to the wall, where a faint outline of the fixture could be seen against the painted surface. Patting Dane's arm in approval, she turned to Kara. "He's much nicer than the one with webbed feet."

Kara bit back a grin as he stiffened. He could think about that one for a while.

"I had a chat with Walter last night," Tillie said.

"Oh?"

"Have you had lunch?"

"Yes. What about Walter?"

"Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Thanks, but no. What'd Walter have to say?"

"He said would you like to spend the night?"

"Uncle Walter asked if I wanted to stay with him?"

"Of course not. I asked that. He just ....is the traffic heavy today?"

"Not too bad for a Sunday," Kara answered patiently. "Is Walter worried about anything?"

"Which bathroom does this go in?" Dane held up a shiny faucet handle.

"This way." Tillie whisked down the hall, but before Kara could follow, Dane's arm barred the way.

"Webbed feet? Who were you dating, a duck?"

"I'll explain later. I promise. Right now, I have to pin Aunt Tillie down. Come on."

Dane bent over the sink, trying to make sense of the conversation. Interrogation was more appropriate, he decided after a moment.

The two women were perched on the edge of the bathtub. "Now," Kara said firmly. "Uncle Walter."

Tillie looked out the door and down the hall. "He just said it would be a shame to dent that nice brown truck. ."

Kara frowned at Dane as he jerked to attention.

"Exactly what is he upset about?" she prompted.

"There are always so many cars on Torrey Pines Road," she murmured. "There must be another way you could . . . If not, it won't be . . . There's no real . . . He said at the most it'll just be inconvenient. "

At the end of two hours they had visited almost every room in the house as Dane nailed on something here and screwed back something there. Kara had given up all hope of eliciting a rational statement from her aunt. When they circled back to the front door, Tillie rested her hand on Dane's arm.

"Thank you. That basket's been full ever since I moved here. No, let's not say good-bye," she said, as Dane opened his mouth. "I'll see you again soon. Very soon. Don't wait for Kara to bring you back. You're welcome any time."

"This one is nice, but stubborn," she said, turning to her niece. "He won't be as easy to lose as the others."

Kara rolled her eyes imploringly to heaven, kissed her aunt on the cheek and waved as the truck moved slowly away from the curb.

"Now, about the duck." Dane's tone was uncompromising.

"A perfectly ordinary man," Kara protested with a gurgle of amusement. "No, not ordinary," she corrected herself. "Brilliant. A marine biologist from Scripps." She nodded in the direction of the famous institute of oceanography. "But Aunt Tillie took an instant dislike to him. We were going snorkeling one day; for some reason he tried on his flippers at her house, she saw him waddling down the walk and that was it. If, after your baptism today, you ever go back, you'll learn that she says exactly what appears in her mind. There's no winnowing process. I never took him back to see her."

"Good for Aunt Tillie! What about Walter? Who's he?"

"Aunt Tillie's husband."

"Where is he?"

"Dead. For the last ten years."

"I'm going to hate myself for asking," Dane said, "but how does she talk to him?"

"God only knows," Kara said literally.

"She really thinks she does?"

"So she says." If his brows lifted any higher, Kara noted, they'd slide into his hairline. "Do we have to go this way?" she asked as he turned onto Torrey Pines Road.

"It's the only way to get where we're going."

"Exactly where are we going?" she asked, momentarily distracted.

"My house. If you don't mind. A weekend picnic around here is like being in the middle of the zoo. I thought a barbecue would give us more privacy."

Exactly what we don't need, she thought, then shelved the topic for a more immediate one.

"I don't know if you made any sense of what Aunt Tillie was saying, if you were even listening, but Walter's warnings are not to be taken lightly."

"Were we being warned?" She wasn't surprised at the amusement in his voice.

"We were. And now we're on the street he said to avoid, in the nice brown truck that is, unfortunately, going to get dent ..."

"Watch out!"

Dane's warning stopped her flow of words. The big truck barely moved under the assault of the red convertible. The thud and the grinding crunch sounded much worse than they actually were, she assured herself.

Dane was no longer amused. If his language was any indication, he was about to throttle a joy-riding teenager who had just lost control of his car.

"The damned idiot didn't even stop! He swung out of that side street without even looking! You okay?"

At her nod, he ordered, "Stay here. I'll take care of it. "

Ten minutes later he slammed the door and turned the key in the ignition. "Could be worse. At least he had insurance. Most of the damage was to his car. My fender's dent.."

He almost choked on the word. "No," he said firmly. "It's a coincidence. That's all it could be."

Kara preserved a noncommittal silence.

"Damn it, I don't believe in psychics, clairvoyants or any other kind of so-called spiritualists. It's just not logical."

And that, thought Kara, was apparently that.

"Well? Aren't you going to say anything?"

"What can I say? All my life Aunt Tillie has known when things were going to happen. She hated to talk about it, but she'd practically lock me in the house when the forecast was gloom and doom. That it would happen was never debatable. The only real question was, would the occurrence be major or minor? Now she's got even that part down to a science."

He winced. "Please. Dont use that expression. Nothing could be less scientific. How did Walter get into the act?"

"When he died, he became a convenient scapegoat. Aunt Tillie no longer had the unpleasant task of convincing people that she had heard or seen something. She shifted all the blame to Walter. Now he's the bearer of all the bad news."

Dane snorted. There was no other word for it, Kara decided in amusement. It was definitely a snort.

"I suppose you'll tell me next that she consults a Ouija board when she's troubled."

"Never would I say such a thing." Her eyes darkened with humor. "There's no need. You see, when Uncle Walter isn't warning, he's advising."

"Oh, my God," he said in utter disgust as he turned into a long driveway.

"What are we doing here?" They had stopped at one of the magnificent homes dotting the shoreline or rather, the bluffs above it. "I'm not dressed to visit anyone."

"Who's visiting? I live here."

Who on earth was this man? Kara wondered. Dane Logan, he said. But who and what was Dane Logan?

No ordinary contractor could afford this house. Not even an extraordinary one. In this area seaside property cost a fortune, and that was before an architect even came out to look at the site.