Moved, Sean reached into his pocket for a clean handkerchief, then tried to wipe away the black goop streaming down Kit’s face.
With lightning-quick reflexes, she grabbed his wrist before the handkerchief touched her skin. “Don’t,” she growled, her small white teeth bared. “I’m fine. Just the way I am.”
And she was. She looked like some ancient warrior princess, done up in battle paint, too young to defend her honor and her turf, but willing to fight to the death in the attempt.
“I know,” he conceded, pulling his hand away and pocketing the handkerchief. “You always were.”
Nine years ago he’d found her fascinating. The wild child of a wild child. Buried in responsibilities, he’d watched as Kit cut a swath of anger and anarchy through the school and community.
In their senior class, she’d been fifteen years old to his eighteen, having skipped twice. That didn’t help make her popular.
She’d refused to sit for senior portraits, and someone on the yearbook staff had cruelly printed under the blank space that should have been Kit’s photo, “Most likely to self-destruct by age twenty-one.”
Kit had taken matters into her own hands. She’d ripped up her yearbook and left pages as calling cards wedged in the lumps of manure she’d dumped on and in the cars of the high-school principal, the yearbook adviser, the class president— Sean—the head cheerleader—Jilian, his girl—and a host of others Kit had obviously considered her tormentors.
He’d admired her guts.
By the time a school administrator knocked on Babe Darling’s door, Kit had left town. At fifteen. Without waiting to collect her diploma.
Sean hoisted the stationary bike out of the mud and onto the porch, savoring Kit’s stunned expression.
Only to meet the equally astonished gaze of his daughter. Alex stood on the porch, her arms wrapped around a bunch of soggy stuffed animals, cheap carnival prizes. The look she gave him saw right through him. She’d seen how he’d lost himself in this woman.
This would never do. Kit wasn’t any part of his plan to keep his daughter safe.
“It’s coming down bad, squirt.” Affecting a nonchalance he didn’t feel, he stuck his hand out into the river of rain running off the gutterless porch roof.
Alex plunked the stuffed animals onto the uneven flooring. “This is just like the time Seafaring Cecil was in Hong Kong and the vegetable seller’s sampan sank. Cecil didn’t leave till he’d helped get all the stuff out of the harbor. Remember, the guy was so grateful he gave Cecil a duck to roast?”
Sean chuckled.
Alex whooped and jumped off the top step into the yard. Her boots created splashes that reached her tiny waist as she made a beeline for a lamp molded in the shape of a naked woman.
“Are you two crazy?” Kit cried, racing up the steps with an ugly painting of an almost-naked Elvis. The velvet background was so wet and whorled, Elvis looked pitifully cowlicked. “Why are you still here?”
“Because it seems pretty damned important to you to save this stuff.”
She looked at him as if no one had ever taken into consideration what was important to her.
At that moment Sean wanted to tell her he was sorry for standing her up nine years ago. It hadn’t been at all the way she must have imagined. But, he couldn’t give in to the attraction he’d always harbored for her. He needed his parenting wits about him, and Kit, he felt sure, had the potential to drive him witless.
“Hey, look at this!” Alex bounded back up onto the porch, carrying a plastic laundry basket full of Hollywood fan magazines. “It was sticking out of the bottom.” Nearly bursting with excitement, she took out a scrapbook. “It’s full of stuff about Seafaring Cecil.”
There were clippings about the gonzo travel writer’s adventures, his interactive Web site and the merchandise his adventures, site and books had spawned.
Alex turned to Kit, her eyes sparkling. “If this is part of your yard sale, I wanna buy it!”
Kit looked overwhelmed. “I…I…don’t know.”
“Is it yours?” Alex persisted.
“It must be my mother’s,” Kit replied. The rain drummed on the porch roof as her fingertips hovered over the scrapbook. “I never knew she took any interest in me.”
“You?” Alex flipped through the pages. There were no photos of the intrepid fisherman-traveler. “This is about Seafaring Cecil.”
“I know, kid.” Kit looked squarely at Alex. “I’m Cecil. It’s my working name.”
CHAPTER TWO
ALEX COULDN’T STOP grinning. Could the lady in front of her really be Seafaring Cecil? The man—no, the person—who’d traveled the seven seas and a few rivers thrown in for good measure? The person who’d eaten stir-fried bugs and drunk snake’s blood? The person who’d helped Dad and her plan their ultimate-awesome-when-they-won-the-lottery trip?
Funny, but Kit looked just as cool as Alex had imagined Cecil to be. Only he was a lady.
Still, her dad had taught her not to believe everything people told you.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked up at Kit and issued her challenge. “Prove it.”
Give her credit, Kit didn’t back down. “Did you ever look at the copyright page in any of the books?”
“Nope.” Alex shook her head. “We always got right to the good stuff.”
Kit smiled and Alex noticed her front tooth was just the tiniest bit crooked. She imagined it got that way when Kit had to open her emergency rations with her bare teeth. Maybe. It could happen. Cecil didn’t live like ordinary people.
“If I had a book here,” Kit said, “I could show you. It would say, ‘Copyright by Kit Darling.’ Me.”
A brilliant idea popped into Alex’s head. “We have Seafaring Cecil books at our house. Everyone.” She tugged on her dad’s pocket. “Can Kit come to supper tonight? We could check it out then.”
Dad looked like he’d been turned to stone with a voodoo curse.
“That’s okay.” Kit was acting funny, too. She probably wasn’t used to eating at a table with knives and forks. “I should be making supper for you. For your help. But I’m fresh out of duck for roasting. Plus the utilities are off.” She gave Alex a wobbly smile.
Alex felt a stab of disappointment. “I should have known a big shot like you wouldn’t—”
“Hey, it’s not like that. I’m no big shot.” Kit knelt before her on the porch. The rain all around made it feel like they were marooned in the middle of the jungle. In Brazil maybe. Or Thailand. Up close, Alex got to look at Kit’s cool vine tattoo. Had a rain forest tribesman given it to her?
“I’m only in town for a short while,” Kit explained. “I have a long list of appointments. Lawyers, mostly.” She made a face. “Then I need to get back on the road again. New places to visit. New things to write about.” She looked kinda sorry. “But I do want to thank you for your help. And for being a Cecil fan. Perhaps tomorrow you could bring me your books and I’ll autograph them. We could have a picnic lunch on the boulder out back while your dad’s working. It would give your aunt a break.”
Alex held her breath, looking at her dad. He cleared his throat.
“I don’t think so,” he said. Sean had pinched lines between his eyes. Like he had a stomachache. “You see…Alex has been suspended from school for two weeks. The suspension doesn’t include picnics.”
Now why did he have to bring that