Seeing Stars Read Online Free PDF

doesn't work, I try another."
    "And if you get desperate?"
    "I talk the high school alumni association into having everyone fill out a form for the mailing list, then I steal a look at the forms, looking for someone who might tempt a brainy kid who's lost his connection to life."
    She wondered how many times Don had asked Blake's help with troubled teenagers. "What were you taking at the university before you left?"
    "Engineering, but I wanted to build boats, and that's what I'm doing here."
    "And saving kids." She'd known nothing about him, nothing at all. "You want me to help you, but I'm way out of my league. Where would I start?"
    They had been walking, slowly, but now he stopped and turned her to face him. "Thinking about it, that's where you start. Come down to the shipyard tomorrow, let me show you around. Jake might be there. Maybe not, but sometimes you get a break. If he turns up, he won't be able to resist your eyes."
    She realized she was clinging to his hands and forced herself to let go, but he kept holding on to hers and she knew she was going to do this crazy thing, try to do something for a kid who terrified her before she even met him.
    Playing in her mind was an even crazier idea. Jennifer's idea.
    "What about my eyes, Blake?"
    She saw his smile grow, masculine and dangerous. "You've got these big eyes, impossibly big, impossibly blue. I used to think it was the glasses that made them look like that, but it's not. A kid like Jake, he sees things, notices things. He'll fall for your eyes."
    "Fall for?"
    "If the kid gets a crush on you, it's the best thing that could happen to him. Show him a few stars with your telescope, Claire. Talk heavenly bodies and mystery, go back to your mountain and write him a letter once a month. It could work."
    "You're crazy." She tugged on her hands. "Let go."
    "Your hands are cold."
    They weren't cold at all. They were blazing hot, tingling with fever.
    She asked, "There must be a woman somewhere who'd be upset about your standing down here on the docks, holding my hands."
    "It's a float, not a dock."
    "What?"
    "The dock is the space a boat occupies when it's berthed, in the water. That's why a boat on land is in dry dock. What you're standing on is a float. And no, there's no woman with a right to be upset if I hold your hands."
    What did it matter if she made a fool of herself? She could leave tonight, drive away and never come back. 
    "Why is there no woman?"
    "I've got a shipyard to run, kids to deal with, and I suppose I never wanted to give someone else that much power over me."
    It would be completely safe. He'd never want more, never ask her to sacrifice any part of her life. She had to be crazy to think he'd agree. To think she wanted him to agree.
    "What about you, Claire? No husband? No boyfriend?"
    "There was a man once, but he wanted me to give up my mountaintop, come down and live in the city. I'll make a deal with you about Jake."
    "I'm listening."
    He was watching too, though it must have been hard to see much in her face with only the overhead marina lights. She pulled her hands away. Have an affair, Jennifer had ordered, but of course it had been a joke.
    She turned and walked along the float, past a powerboat with its engines running. "Why do they have the engines running?" 
    "Probably charging his batteries. There's no power on this float. What's the deal?"
    Her hands didn't know where to settle. She wrapped them around her waist and walked past the noisy powerboat.
    "I'm staying at Discovery Bay," she said when they reached the quiet at the end of the float. There was nowhere to go now, and she felt ridiculously frightened.
    If she was afraid, she didn't need to ask. If she did ask, and he said no—well, it couldn't be more than a few minutes' embarrassment, could it? She'd simply leave, never see him again.
    He stood motionless, watching her. Waiting.
    "I'll be here for a week." She dropped her arms because suddenly it seemed a vulnerable pose, hugging