Dangerous Waters (11 page)

The conversation rambled from national politics to fishing. "I don't hunt," Mac said. "I see too many ugly examples of what guns can do. Shooting one is cold necessity, not fun."

"I'm not a hunter myself," Megan's father agreed. "Most of the folks around here are. I just don't like killing anything that doesn't have scales."

"You don't even like killing the things that do," her mother teased. "Half the time you make me knock them on the head."

"Have to admit," Mac said laconically, "I throw 'em back most of the time."

Megan groaned inwardly. Soul mates. Wouldn't you know? Her peaceful, amiable, slow-talking father and the man sitting across the table from her who had cold eyes and the instinct to run toward danger, not away. On the other hand, her dad had fought in the Vietnam War, which she had never been able to picture. Maybe that was where he had learned to hate killing. Maybe the two men had more in common than was immediately obvious.

"Where are Linda and John tonight?" Megan asked.

Her mother sipped from a mug of herb tea. The dinner plates had been replaced with peach pie and tea. She said vaguely, "Oh, up to their usual, I suppose. I didn't want to overwhelm Mac, so I didn't invite either of them."

"And I suppose Bill's off again."

Her mother only nodded.

"I've met Bill," Mac said.

"So we heard," Mr. Lovell agreed. "Scared the pants off him."

"Yeah, well, he scared the pants off Megan." Mac sounded unapologetic.

Megan opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. What was the point in opening that discussion again?

"We'd better be getting home," she said instead. "I want to stop by the school tomorrow for a few minutes before work. They've changed my room, I'm down in the old wing now, so I'd like to take a peek. I might not have as much bulletin-board space."

Her mother gave a quick look at Mac, who had frowned. Tentatively she said, "Do you really think you'll be able to teach in September?"

Megan straightened. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, if this is still unresolved ..."

"If nobody has taken a pot shot at me by then, I think we can forget the whole thing, don't you?" She stood up. "Mac, are you ready?"

He set down his half-empty cup of coffee. "Sure. Always ready to serve. That's me."

Megan's mother chuckled and Megan rolled her eyes. Damn it, was she always bad-tempered, or did Mac just bring it out in her? " 'Night, Dad." On sudden impulse, she bent to kiss her father on the cheek, though she was normally undemonstrative. "'Night, Mom," she said, turning.

Apparently moved by the same impulse, her mother gave her a quick hug and whispered, "Be careful."

Megan carried the words and the feel of her mother's embrace home with her. Her father's cheek had felt softer than it used to, she thought a little sadly; she had noticed new lines on it tonight.

Had they all shared the same chill that had made her want to reach blindly for her mommy and daddy? Had they all wondered, just for that fleeting second, whether they would see each other again?

Ridiculous, she told herself for the second time that evening, stealing a glance at the shadowed face of the man who sat watchfully beside her in the small car. If somebody wanted to kill her, he would have tried again, not let days pass. Mac's profession encouraged paranoia, hers hope. She would not let herself be infected.

CHAPTER 6

It began to rain the next afternoon, a soft drizzle that steadily hardened. By five o'clock the downpour left the beach empty. Megan and the lifeguards had retreated to the boathouse. She stood in the open doorway and watched the driving rain turn the lake to a battered sheet of iron. She listened to the drumming and smelled the damp.

Where had Mac gone? she wondered. Had he even been here near the end?

On the sunny days, with the beach crowded, she was impatient with his presence. Now, conscious of the nearly deserted parking lot, she began to feel uneasy.

"Well," she said, "I suppose we might as well hang it up."

"You mean, we get a night off?" one of the guards exclaimed with mock incredulity. "Wow, we can have a beach party."

Megan smiled. "Right. Just not here."

They separated to finish bringing the equipment in and hang the No Lifeguard on Duty sign. She overheard two of the boys talking about a kegger and some girl with big boobs. Great. What did she have to look forward to? A cup of hot chocolate? Carefully not thinking about Mac, she stuck out her tongue at the boy's back, the immature gesture curing her of a momentary worry that she might have gray hairs to go with her less than well-endowed chest.

Megan took care to be ready to leave at the same time as her employees. The parking lot was as gray as the lake. Like the others, she ran to her car, but she was still drenched when she got there. Just as she reached it, the driver's-side door swung open, offering refuge.

"Come on, get in," Mac said. His deep voice should have startled her but didn't.

She bumped her elbow on the steering wheel before she managed to squeeze herself and her duffel bag in and slam the door. She gave a shiver and shook drops off her hair. "Lovely weather."

"Look at it this way," Mac suggested. He had the seat pushed back to give him leg room and looked enviably dry and comfortable. "You get to go home and take a hot shower, have dinner, read a good book..."

"Are you trying to send me to bed at eight o'clock again?" Megan asked tartly. "What if I feel like partying?"

"Do you?"

She made a face. "What do you think?"

"I think we should buy a pizza on our way home. Maybe a six-pack."

"Now you're trying to get me drunk."

That mouth quirked into an irresistible grin that deepened the crease in one cheek. "Now you're being difficult."

Conscious of a reckless stirring inside, Megan retorted, "Comes naturally."

"I've noticed," he said, lazy humor in those gray eyes that were so often as chilly as the rain outside the car. "So, what do you say?"

"Pizza it is," she agreed, and started the car.

Half an hour later, they sat at her table sharing a hot pizza loaded with everything but the kitchen sink. She had toweled her hair, combed it out, and left it loose to dry. When she had changed clothes, Megan ignored the sweats that would have been cozy and instead chose a pair of black leggings and an oversize cotton sweater.

Mac's first comment was, "You look about sixteen years old."

"Sweet sixteen," she said flippantly, reaching into the refrigerator for a can of beer.

"But I know you've been kissed."

Did he have any idea how his voice gave away his thoughts? Megan wondered. It had just become a little grittier, the texture as tempting as the hard line of his mouth.

"Can't I pretend?" she said lightly, and opened the pizza box. "Help yourself."

Abruptly he asked, "Why do you take a summer job? You don't need the money, do you?"

Megan gave her standard answer. "I get bored. What would I do all summer? Sit around with my feet up?"

"Travel. Do some more endorsements." He smiled. "Read some good books and go to bed early every night."

She looked away from that too perceptive gaze. "I traveled when I was a swimmer. It was fun then, but I saw every place. China, Australia, Mexico City, you name it, I've been there. Now I just want to be home again."

"Trying to recapture your childhood?"

She concentrated on separating another piece of pizza from its mates, winding a string of cheese around her finger. "Maybe," she admitted, then startled herself by sharing a realization she had only recently made. "When I'm doing something useful, I feel like I belong here. When I'm not, I don't."

Mac set his beer can down and studied her. What did she know about not belonging? he thought with bitterness he seldom acknowledged.

She looked so young in some ways, until you saw her eyes. Vivid blue, they should have been smiling, but they weren't. Her expression was too often guarded. Like his own.

"That's not how people around here think of you," he said carefully. "You're theirs. They're proud of you."

She shrugged with resignation. "That's just it. I'm different."

"You must have wanted to make people proud of you. You didn't swim only for yourself, did you?"

Again those extraordinarily blue eyes met his and he saw layers of complex emotions.

"No. How could I? Do you have any idea how many people you owe, by the time you make the Olympic team? My family sacrificed for me, the town sacrificed so I could afford to train in California, the country was counting on me... I'd get these piles of letters from people who were trying to be supportive, telling me how proud they were that I was an American, and do you know how you end up feeling?" When he silently shook his head, she finished in a burst. "Burdened. Carrying everybody else's expectations, not just your own. How could I lose? I'd have disappointed so many people. And, do you know, even though I won, I still feel guilty. Especially with my brothers and sister. Too much of my parents' time and energy was spent driving me to practice, getting me to meets, eventually paying for me to live away so I could train with other swimmers at my own level."

He didn't dare move. If he had tried to comfort her, take her hand in his, argue, she would close up, he knew. So he said dispassionately, "Why do you feel guilty? Do your brothers or your sister resent you?"

Megan let out a long breath. "No. Of course not." She smiled ruefully, shattering the mood. "That doesn't mean I can't torture myself, does it?"

"Nah," he said. "It's one of life's little pleasures."

She chuckled, a delicious ripple that sounded so carefree, he congratulated himself. But then she gestured with the can of beer she'd been working on for twenty minutes. So much for getting her drunk.  "You know everything about me. Now it's your turn. C'mon, give."

He automatically evaded the question. "Hey, you already know me. We're opposites. I don't care about places."

"Or things," she said. "I remember. What I don't know is, why."

Mac took a swallow of beer and said, "I grew up in foster homes. That doesn't exactly give you roots."

She bit her lip. "And here I've been whining about not belonging," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

"It's hard being different, no matter why you are.”

Her blue eyes searched his face. "You said foster homes. Did you move a lot?"

A familiar feeling of shame made him look away from her. "Ten or twelve times. I wasn't exactly...cooperative." The truth was, he'd wanted somebody to love him no matter how he rebelled, but it hadn't worked that way. Maybe parents loved their kids no matter what they did, but no stranger had cared that much about the defiant, lonely, scared boy he'd been.

Her voice was gentle. "What about your parents? Did you know them?"

"Not my father." He tried to sound no more than wry. "It was a case of hit and run, I suspect. My mother..." Mac shrugged. "She was too young, too poor, too weak. Didn't know how to cope, I guess. It was supposed to be just for a little while, until she could get a better job, a decent place to live. I was maybe five or six. She visited at first, but visits got further and further apart." He took a gulp of the beer, which didn't have the comforting heat of good whiskey. "I've thought about looking her up, but it never seems worth the bother."

He wasn't surprised by the shock he saw on her face. "Aren't you...curious?"

"Why should I be?" he said coldly.

"Maybe something happened to her. Maybe she couldn't help it. Wouldn't it make you feel better to know why she quit coming?"

He'd debated enough with himself to be sure of his answer. "No. You can't change the past. She left my life too long ago for me to care one way or another anymore."

He saw her teeth close again on her lower lip as though she restrained herself. "Maybe you're right," she said finally. "I'd want to know, but maybe that's just because I like to torture myself."

The small attempt at humor worked, and he gave a twisted smile. "I have my moments." He pushed away his plate with a half-eaten piece of pizza that had lost its appeal. What he craved now had nothing to do with food. It was the woman who sat on the other side of the table who made him hungry for more. He wanted to feel her soft lower lip between his teeth. He wanted to run his fingers through those thick, shiny strands of hair that tumbled over her shoulders. He wanted to feel the sleek strength of her body against his. He wanted...

Mac pulled himself up short. He wanted her. Was that supposed to be news?

To evade the bite of desire that would never be satisfied, he said in a different tone of voice, "I called Norm again today."

Her eyes flashed to his. "Your partner?"

"Um." Mac took another long swallow of beer and made himself say it. "Somebody must have betrayed me. There's no other answer."

Megan's forehead crinkled. "Somebody? You mean, someone you work with?"

"Have any better ideas?"

"Well, there are lots of other possibilities, aren't there? Like... oh, could the phone be tapped? You call all the time."

"I didn't, until this started. Anyway, we made damn sure that doesn't happen."

Her troubled gaze searched his. "Could some conversation just have been overheard? You know how you drop a remark..."

"Yeah." His mouth twisted. "Gee, Hal, want a drink? By the way, did you know MacClain went to ground in Devil's Lake, Oregon? Works for a guy named Jim Kellerman."

She wrinkled her nose. "Okay. But you know it wouldn't have to be that expansive. Anyway, the alternative isn't very pleasant. To think that somebody you know..."

"Believe me, I've thought about it." He tasted acid in his throat and regretted the pizza. He'd damn near had an ulcer a few years before. Wouldn't surprise him if he were working on one again.

"How many people...?"

"Five." He rubbed the knots on the back of his neck. "Unless somebody's slipped badly, only five people know where I am. They're not all friends, but close enough."

Softly she said, "Do you want to talk about it?"