Public Secrets Part 89

around a friendly wave that sent them about their business.

"When my father hears about this, he'll never let me surf again."

"Why does he have to hear about it?"

"He always does." She made a concentrated effort not to look at her

bodyguards.

"Everybody wipes out." Beautiful eyes, he thought again, then looked

deliberately out to sea. "You were doing pretty good."

"Really." She colored a bit. "You're wonderful. I've watched you."

"Thanks." He grinned and showed a chipped tooth.

Emma stared at him as memory came flooding back. "You're Michael."

"Yeah." His grin widened. "How'd you know?"

"You don't remember me." She pushed herself up to sit. "met you, well,

it was a long time ago. I'm Emma. Emma McAvoy. Your father brought

you to the rehearsal hall one Afternoon."

"McAvoy?" Michael dragged a hand through his dripping hair. "Brian

McAvoy?" As he said the name he saw Emma take a quick look round to see

if anyone had heard him. "I remember you. You sent me a picture. I've

still got it." His eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder. "So

that's what they're doing here," he murmured, studying the guards. "I

thought they were narcs or something."

"Bodyguards," she said dully, then shrugged it off. "My father

worries."

"Yeah, I bet." He remembered, clearly, the police photograph of a little

boy. It left him with nothing else to say.

"I remember your father." She began to draw idle circles in the sand.

"He came to the hospital to see me after we lost my brother."

"He's a captain now," Michael said for lack of anything else.

"That's nice." She'd been raised to be polite under any circ.u.mstances.

"You'll tell him I said h.e.l.lo, won't you?"

"Sure." They ran out of things to say so that the whoosh of the waves

filled the gaps. "Ah, listen, do you want a c.o.ke or something?"

She looked up, dazzled to be asked. It was the first time in her life

she had had more than a five-minute conversation with a boy. Men,

certainly. Her life had been frill of men. But being asked to have a

c.o.ke with a boy only a few years her senior was a wonderful, and beady,

experience. She nearly agreed before she remembered the .rds. She

couldn't bear them watching.

"Thanks, but I'd better go. Dad was going to pick me up in a couple of

hours, but I don't think I'm up to any more surfing today. I'll have to

call him."

"I could take you." He made a restless movement with his shoulders. It

was stupid to feel so tongue-tied with a kid. But he couldn't remember

being more nervous since he'd asked Nancy Brimmer to the ninth-grade

Valentine's Dance. "Give you a ride home," he continued as Emma stared

at him. "If you want."

"You probably have something you want to do."

"No. Not really."

He wanted to meet her father again, Emma decided after one ecstatic

moment. A boy like him-why, he must have been at least

eighteen-wouldn't be interested in her. But the daughter of Brian