LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      “So how long have you been, uh, clowning around?” Jeff realized the question was inane as soon as he’d asked it. First sarcasm, now lame wordplays. Thank goodness he wasn’t trying to impress this lady.

      “Doing Jo-Jo, you mean?” She had a cute nose without that silly rubber ball. Small and pert—and was that a tiny freckle on the end, where the paint had rubbed off? He found himself itching for a closer look.

      “Uh-huh. I saw your juggling act from the window. Pretty impressive.”

      “My grandfather taught me how to juggle when I was ten.” She marched along beside him, picking up each clumsy shoe and putting it down flat to keep from stumbling in the long sea grass. “As for the rest of the act, about five years ago, I sent off for a video course in clowning. After a few months’ practice, I made the costume, bought the wig and makeup, and voilà! Jo-Jo was born!”

      She paused to work her way around a thick clump of sedge. Jeff slowed his pace to wait for her, savoring the uneasy truce that had settled between them. Whatever she might look like under that clown getup, she struck him as a plucky little woman, smart and down to earth. And sexy, he conceded—which was damned strange, considering he’d never seen her face, let alone her figure.

      “Jo-Jo’s been a good sideline,” she continued, “at least in the summer. If you count church fund-raisers and passing out cheese dip samples at Piggly Wiggly, I do two or three appearances a week. But I lied to you about one thing earlier this afternoon.”

      “About my being smug, arrogant and self-satisfied?”

      “Hardly.” Her eyes flashed danger.

      Jeff faked an indifferent shrug. “All right. I’m waiting to hear your confession.”

      “I lied about the money I earn as Jo-Jo. It doesn’t go to pay bills. I put every cent of it into my daughter’s college fund.”

      “And you lied about that—for shame! What could have possessed you?” He studied the stubborn outline of her profile, thinking it was extraordinary of her, going through this idiot clown charade for her child’s future. He would have liked to tell her so, but something held him back. This woman was proud, he sensed—too proud to welcome such a compliment.

      “It just came out,” she said. “But I don’t like lying. Not even to you.”

      “Oh, thanks a lot” Jeff struck up the side of the first dune, feeling the sea wind like the stroke of cool fingers in his hair. From beyond the crest, he could hear the roll and hiss of the incoming tide. Silently he prayed that two venturesome little girls would have the sense to stay back from the waves.

      “What do you do the rest of the year?” he asked, shifting the conversation back to neutral ground.

      “The rest of the year, I batten down my house against the nor’easters and mostly hole up in my pottery studio,” she answered. “What gave you the idea the girls went to the beach? Was it something Floss told you?”

      “Right—careful!” Jeff grabbed her elbow to steady her on the sandy slope. Her arm felt lean and strong. He liked touching her. “It struck me as a bit strange,” he said, “but Floss claimed she overheard them talking about…mermaids.”

      “Mermaids!” Her laugh was low and cool, with a delicious little bite to it, like iced Kahlúa on a sweltering summer day. “I should have guessed! My daughter loves mermaids! She’s writing a book about them!”

      “A book?” Jeff felt a hillock of sand give way beneath his step, filling his shoe with grit. He cursed mildly under his breath. “I thought we were looking for a youngster.”

      “We are.” The glance she flashed him was ripe with mystery. Then she, too, stumbled in the cascade of loose sand. Her big, clown feet splayed in opposite directions, and she went down hard on her padded rump.

      Caught between gallantry and amusement, Jeff stretched out a hand. She reached up tentatively, then withdrew, shaking her shaggy, purple mane. “It’s no use! I can’t climb sand dunes in these idiot shoes. I’ll have to get rid of them and catch up with you—go on.”

      “Go on? And leave a lady in distress? I’d never live it down. Here…” Jeff slid to the sand at her feet and began tugging at her tightly knotted shoelaces. She sank back against the dune in tacit consent, resting, but far from relaxed.

      “Are you sure you should be out here alone with me?” she ventured. “Your mother was upset enough when our daughters disappeared together. If her son vanishes, too…” She broke off, her small, even teeth pressing her lower lip as if she’d said too much.

      “I’m a big boy. Even my mother knows that.” Jeff tugged off one of the platter-sized shoes and the thick cotton sweat sock she wore underneath. Her narrow-boned foot was as pink and innocent as a child’s. For a heartbeat, he cradled it like a captive seabird in his big, brown hand, feeling the warmth of her skin against his palm. A subtle electric pulse trickled up his arm, awakening his whole body to a quivering awareness of—

      No, this was not a good idea.

      “I realize she comes on a little stridently,” he said, reaching for the other shoe, “but don’t misjudge my mother. She never expected to be raising another child at the age of sixty. She does her best, and I know how much she cares for Ellen, but I daresay it hasn’t been an easy adjustment for either of them. Sometimes that shows.”

      Her blue-green eyes studied him from their painted circles, their expression as unreadable as a cat’s. Seconds ticked by before she spoke.

      “Do you mind my asking what happened to Ellen’s mother?”

      “She died over a year ago—in an automobile accident.” Jeff tugged at the stubbornly knotted shoelace. No use going into the ugly details—Meredith’s drinking, her affair with one of his clients, the bitter divorce that would have become final six days after she crashed her Mercedes into an oncoming truck….

      “I’m sorry,” said the clown.

      “We—were all sorry?” Jeff jerked the knot loose and twisted off the other shoe. The sock came with it. “Come on,” he muttered. “We’d better get moving if we want to find our daughters.”

      He gave her a hand up, surprised at the power in her thin fingers. Then he waited while she knotted the ends of her shoelaces and flung the shoes over her shoulder. Her bare feet gripped the sand as they mounted the dune.

      Kathryn. Kate. Kate Valera. The name had a nice ring to it. Almost as nice as her voice. And her eyes.

      But what was he thinking? He wasn’t ready for another woman in his life, let alone a free-spirited throwback to the seventies, who made pottery, masqueraded as a clown and, for all he knew, could look like a basset hound under that greasepaint.

      Oh, sooner or later he planned to remarry—to provide a mother for Ellen, if nothing else. But the few dates he’d tried in recent months had been disasters, underscoring the fact that he was still too raw, too angry for a new relationship.

      But why

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