Diana Palmer - Mystery Man

“Now, just wait a minute here,” she began.

“Where’s your husband?” he demanded.

Her eyes blazed. “I’m not married!”

Those eyebrows were really expressive now.

She flushed. “My private life is none of your business,” she said haughtily. His assumptions, added to his obvious contempt, made her furious. An idea flashed into her mind and, inwardly, she chuckled. She struck a pose, prepared to live right down to his image of her. “But just for the record,” she added in purring tones, “my son was born in a commune. I’m not really sure who his father is, of course…”

The expression on his face was unforgettable. She wished with all her heart for a camera, so that she could relive the moment again and again.

“A commune? Is that where you learned to track?” he asked pointedly.

“Oh, no.” She searched for other outlandish things to tell him. He was obviously anxious to learn any dreadful aspect of her past. “I learned that from a Frenchman that I lived with up in the northern stretches of Canada. He taught me how to track and make coats from the fur of animals.” She smiled helpfully. “I can shoot, too.”

“Wonderful news for the ammunition industry, no doubt,” he said with a mocking smile.

She put her own hands on her hips and glared back. It was a long way up, although she was medium height. “It’s getting dark.”

“Better track fast, hadn’t you?” he added. He lifted a hand and motioned to a man coming down toward the beach. “¿Sabe donde estñaan?” he shot at the man in fluent Spanish.

“No, lo siento, señtnor. ¡Nadie los han visto!” the smaller man called back.

“Llame a la policñaia.”

“Sñai, señtnor!”

Police sounded the same in any language and her pulse jumped. “You said police. You’re going to call the police?” she groaned. That was all she needed, to have to explain to a police officer that she’d forgotten the time and let her little brother get lost.

“You speak Spanish?” he asked with some disbelief.

“No, but police sounds the same in most languages, I guess.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

She sighed. “No, I guess not. It’s just that…”

“Dad!”

They both whirled as Karie and Kurt came running along the beach with an armload of souvenirs between them, wearing sombreros.

“Gosh, Dad, I’m sorry, we forgot the time!” Karie warbled to her father. “We went to the mercado in town and bought all this neat stuff. Look at my hat! It’s called a sombrero, and I got it for a dollar!”

“Yeah, and look what I got, S— mmmmffg. ” Kurt’s “Sis” was cut off in midstream by Janine’s hand across his mouth.

She grinned at him. “That’s fine, son, ” she emphasized, her eyes daring him to contradict her. “You know, you shouldn’t really scare your poor old mother this way,” she added, in case he hadn’t gotten the point.

Kurt was intrigued. Obviously his big sister wanted this rather formidable-looking man to think he was her son. Okay. He could go along with a gag. Just in case, he stared at Karie until she got the idea, too, and nodded to let him know that she understood.

“I’m sorry… Mom, ” Kurt added with an apologetic smile. “But Karie and I were having so much fun, we just forgot the time. And then when we tried to get back, neither of us knew any Spanish, so we couldn’t call a cab. We had to find someone who spoke English to get us a cab.”

“All the cabdrivers speak enough English to get by,” Karie’s father said coldly.

“We didn’t know that, Dad,” Karie defended. “This is my friend Kurt. He lives next door.”

Karie’s dad didn’t seem very impressed with Kurt, either. He stared at his daughter. “I have to stop Josñae before he gets the police out here on a wild-goose chase. And then we have to leave,” he told her. “We’re having dinner with the Elligers and their daughter.”

“Oh, gosh, not them again,” she groaned. “Missy wants to marry you.”

“Karie,” he said warningly.

She sighed. “Oh, all right. Kurt, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, Karie.”

“Maybe we can find that garden hose,” she added in a conspiratorial tone.

He brightened. “Great idea!”

“What the hell do you want with a hose?” Karie’s father asked as they walked back up the beach, totally ignoring the two people he’d just left.

“Whew!” Kurt huffed. “Gosh, he’s scary!”

“No, he isn’t,” Janine said irritably. “He’s just pompous and irritating! And he thinks he’s an emperor or something. I told him we lived in a commune and you’re my son and I don’t know who your father is. Don’t you tell him any differently,” she added when he tried to speak. “I want to live down to his image of me!”

He chuckled. “Boy, are you mad,” he said. “You don’t have fights with anybody.”

“Wait,” she promised, glaring after the man.

“He reminds me of somebody,” he said.

“Probably the devil,” she muttered. “I hear he’s got blue eyes. Somebody wrote a song about it a few years ago.”

“No,” he mumbled, still thinking. “Didn’t he seem familiar to you?”

“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “I don’t know why. I’ve never seen him before.”

“Are you kidding? You don’t know who he is? Haven’t you recognized him? He’s famous enough as he is. But just think, Janie, think if he had gray makeup on.”

“He could pass for a sand crab,” she muttered absently.

“That’s not what I meant,” he muttered. “Listen, they call this guy Mr. Software. Good grief, don’t you ever read the newspapers or watch the news?”

“No. It depresses me,” she said, glowering.

He sighed. “Mr. Software just lost everything. For the past year, he’s been involved in a lawsuit to prevent a merger that would have saved his empire. He just lost the suit, and a fortune with it. Now he can’t merge his software company with a major computer chain. He’s down here avoiding the media so he can get himself back together before he starts over again. He’s already promised his stockholders that he’ll recoup every penny he lost. I bet he will, too. He’s a tiger.”

She scowled. “He, who?”

“Him. Canton Rourke,” he emphasized. “Third generation American, grandson of Irish immigrants. His mother was Spanish, can’t you tell it in his bearing? He made billions designing and selling computer programs, and now he’s moving into computer production. The company he was trying to acquire made the computer you use. And the software word processing program you use was one he designed himself.”

“That’s Canton Rourke?” she asked, turning to stare at the already dim figure in the distance. “I thought he was much older than that.”

“He’s old enough, I guess. He’s divorced. Karie said her mother ran for the hills when it looked like he was going to risk everything in that merger attempt. She likes jewelry and real estate and high living. She found herself another rich man and remarried within a month of the divorce becoming final. She moved to Greece. Just as well, probably. Her parents were never together, anyway. He was always working on a program and her mother was at some party, living it up. What a mismatch!”

“I guess so.” She shook her head. “He didn’t look like a billionaire.”

“He isn’t, now. All he has is his savings, from what they say on TV, and that’s not a whole lot.”

“That sort of man will make it all back,” she said thoughtfully. “Workaholics make money because they love to work. Most of them don’t care much about the money, though. That’s just how they keep score.”