Her face lit up, and she slid off the bed, dashed over, and wrapped her arms around my waist, her head pressed against my tummy. I patted the back of her head and hoped that was a correct response to this kid hug.
“Everything going okay? You having fun around here?”
“I don’t like boys,” she said, looking up at me with a very serious look on her face.
“Trust me, kiddo. You’ll change your mind one day.”
I remembered the bag I’d brought and I told her to sit on the bed. I pulled out the white dress and held it up. “This is for you,” I said.
She reached out and fingered the lace at the hem, a look of disbelief on her face. I could see already that it would be much too big for her.
She jumped off the bed and hugged me again, rubbing her cheek against the fabric of the dress where she had pinned it against my body.
I heard the sound of the front door opening, and then someone else was enduring an attack from the twins. I let go of Solange to go see who had arrived. After I’d spread the dress on the bed, she slipped her hand into mine and followed close by my side.
On his back in the middle of the living room, Rusty Elliot, special agent to the INS, lay pinned to the floor by two blond dervishes who straddled his body, threatening him with Super Soaker squirt guns nearly as big as they were.
Jeannie looked up from her computer and shrugged. “He didn’t know the password,” she said.
“It’s his house! Doesn’t that count for something?”
She indicated her sons and smiled. “Not with them.”
At that point the floor erupted with flying limbs, streams of water, and giggles. Apparently the special agent was fighting back by tickling, and he was winning. The boys tumbled off of him and retreated to the far side of the room. Then Rusty held up his hand.
“Hold it.” The water streams stopped. “I think this battle needs to continue in the pool. What do you say, kids?”
The boys cheered and Solange smiled. I didn’t think she understood the word pool, but the entire scene had been extremely entertaining. I wondered if she’d ever seen an adult horsing around with kids like that before.
Rusty got up and brushed the water off his clothes and hair. He was wearing a white knit sport shirt and khaki cargo shorts. There was no avoiding it. The man looked good. He nodded to me. “Good afternoon, Miss Sullivan.”
“Hey.” I started to say something, but he’d turned and disappeared into the bedroom. He came out a few seconds later, drying himself off with a towel. “You’re good with kids.”
“I got a bunch of rugrat nieces and nephews. They keep me in shape.”
“You seem to like them as much as they like you,” I said, thinking that if most men had any idea how attractive it made them to be comfortable around kids, they’d all be pushing strollers.
“What’s not to like? They’re great. Anyway, how’re things around here? You been here long?”
“I just got here a few minutes before you. Jeannie? How’s the day been?”
She turned from the computer as the page she was browsing shut down. “Nobody but me’s been near these kids today—not that I haven’t felt like killing them myself a few times this afternoon. My boys are set on getting that girl to play with them, and she doesn’t want to have a thing to do with them. She’s a quiet little thing.” She heaved herself up out of the chair and walked to the bedroom door. She turned back to Rusty. “You sure it’s safe to take these kids down to the pool? I’d love to get out of here for a while. I’ve got a serious case of cabin fever.”
“We’ll be all right. I’ve checked with the local PD, and they say no one has shown the least interest in this place all day. The pool is screened from the road, and we’ll all be there watching them.”
She turned into the bedroom. “Okay, boys, swim trunks on, now.”
“What about Solange?” I asked.
A pair of red swim trunks flew out of the bedroom and hit me on the side of the head. I handed them to the girl. “Go put these on.”
She started toward the bedroom, dragging my hand. “You don’t need me to come with you.” I looked around the room and my eyes lit on Rusty’s. He was smiling.
“Don’t look to me for help, Sullivan.”
The kid squeezed my hand even tighter and looked up at me with those big brown eyes.
“Oh, all right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The pool deck at the Heron Heights condo complex was on the north side of the building, just two steps higher than the wood docks where a collection of power and sail craft were tied up to pilings and small finger piers that jutted out into the Intracoastal. A rough wood fence shielded the pool on three sides, effectively keeping out the neighbors and the noise and prying eyes of the motorists passing on A1A. The view, however, was open on the water side, and when Rusty opened the gate and the boys darted through, I thought about how nice it would be to live like this someday. Across the tops of the boats in the marina, on the other side of the Intracoastal, I could make out a flock of egrets roosting in the mangroves of West Lake Park. Except for the occasional passing boat and the balconies up above, the little pool area was surprisingly private. Solange pressed her body against my side and held my hand tight as I arranged a chair in the shade at one of the umbrella tables.
“Don’t you want to go into the water?”
She shook her head.
“Tell you what. We’ll go check it out together in a few minutes,” I said, and pulled her onto my lap as Jeannie and Rusty installed themselves in chairs around the table. Jeannie, whose webbed pool chair was creaking in a disconcerting manner, was the only adult who had changed into a swimsuit, although she was still wearing her muu-muu over the top. Today’s version had green curly-tailed lizards pictured in the tropical print.
“Seychelle, we need to talk,” Rusty said. “I heard about what happened this afternoon.”
“Hey, not here,” I said, nodding my head to indicate the child sitting on my lap.
“Then let’s go where we can talk. Collazo called me. This situation is becoming very difficult to defend. After today’s events, it’s time to turn her over—”
I cut him off. “Rusty, I said we’d talk later. After we let these kids burn off a little energy and we give Jeannie a break.”
“Speaking of which,” Jeannie said, “I think I’m ready to try out that water before this chair demonstrates what happens when you exceed its load capacity.”
“I think we are, too. Right, kiddo?” Solange didn’t look too happy about it. She was wearing red boys swim trunks and a bright yellow tank top. We both sat on the edge of the pool, dangling our feet in the water, and watched Jeannie as she unzipped the front of her muumuu and stepped out in a matching lizard-covered swimsuit. The great thing about Jeannie, though, was how at ease she was in her body and how light on her feet. She walked down the steps and lowered herself into the water, bobbing right into the middle of a splash fight between her boys, dunking one and splashing the other with a playfulness and ease I envied. Some people seemed to be born knowing how to act around kids.
Little fingers tapped my upper arm. Solange was looking up at me and speaking softly. “I go home with you? I stay with you and Abaco?”
“No, look, I can’t keep you at my place. I... you know, I’m not set up to take care of kids, with the right food and all that.”
“I don’t eat much.”
“Ah, geez, Solange, it’s not that.” I put my arm around her narrow shoulders and hugged her to me. “It wouldn’t be safe. We’re keeping you here because the Capitaine doesn’t know about this place. He could find you at my place.” Bringing up the Capitaine’s name reminded me that I needed to get over to Port Laudania to look for the freighter. After another half hour or so around here, I’d have to bow out and take a quick trip up to Dania.
Solange tapped my arm again to make me look at her. “You stay here, too. You be safe.”
“Oh, I’m okay. And I’m hardly ever at my place these days. You know, I’m going to have to leave in a few minutes. I’ve got to find your father, your papa.”
She didn’t say anything after that. We just sat together and watched as Jeannie threw her boys into the air and the three of them laughed and hooted and splashed.
Rusty stood and called out to us, “You guys want to see my boat?”
His boat was the last one at the north end of the condo complex’s docks. He’d trotted on ahead and was already standing in the boat tying a canvas strap to the side of the hull when Solange and I arrived on the dock off the stem of his boat.
“Oh my God, Rusty. Why do rational people completely lose it when it comes to naming their boats?”
“You like it?” He looked so damned cute standing there grinning up at me, his shaggy blond hair falling in his eyes, that knit shirt showing off his sculpted chest.
“Folks must figure you either work for Immigration or Allstate,” I said, pointing to the lettering on the stem that read
INS AGENT
. “What were you thinking?”
Rusty’s boat was not the prettiest thing on the dock, but the man kept it immaculate. For a boat that was over twenty-five years old, it looked great. He had repainted the fiberglass hull with one of the new polyurethane paints, and all the stainless was polished to a mirror finish. The blue canvas bimini that provided the shade Rusty was standing in looked brand new. The tide was such that the deck of his boat was almost perfectly level with the wood dock, and even Solange had no trouble hopping aboard. The steering wheel was offset to the left, and just forward of that and down a step, double wood doors stood open, revealing the tiny sink and V-berth in the cuddy cabin.
Solange let go of my hand and moved away from me for the first time since I’d arrived. As she scampered down into the cramped forward cabin, I thought that I should feel relieved, but I was starting to enjoy the attachment.
“There you go, young lady,” Rusty said, bending forward at the waist to look into the cabin. Solange was stretched out on the bunk. “You’re just about the right size for that cabin.” He stood up and faced me. “She’s a twenty-five-foot Anacapri with double bunk V-berth in the cuddy cabin along with an enclosed head. Well, the head is mostly for people about Solange’s size, too.” He went on to show me his collection of rods stowed neatly in the cabin’s overhead, his fresh bait well, his cast net for catching bait, lifejackets, flares, the inflatable dinghy in the seat locker with C02 cartridges so it could double as a life raft. I understood that he was damn proud of that boat, but it wasn’t like I had never seen a standard boat U.S. flare kit. I was beginning to think the term obsessive-compulsive might apply. Then I saw him rub my fingerprints from the gel coat after I touched the topsides rail, and I was convinced.
“So, this is your ‘classic,’ eh? I gotta admit, you keep a clean boat, Agent Elliot. I assume your engines are just as clean?”
“You bet. Twin Mercs. They’re not the newest engines, but if you spend the time and give them a little TLC, they’ll keep running for a long time.”
“I wish more people thought that way. If it weren’t for all the yahoos out there breaking down every weekend, there probably wouldn’t be so many people jumping into the towing business. It’s getting harder and harder for a slow boat like
Gorda
to make it.”
“You do all right.”
“How do you know? You been checking up on me, Agent Elliot?”
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t have let this child go into the hands of people I knew nothing about.” He pointed down toward the cuddy cabin where Solange, lying on her belly on the blue canvas mattress, watched us with her head propped up on her two fists.
Rusty looked at his watch. “Hey, it’s almost five-thirty. You getting hungry?”
“I guess I could use a little something. I haven’t eaten much all day.”
“What do you say we take the boat down the Intracoastal a bit and hit one of those waterfront restaurants? That would also give us the chance to talk in private.”
I had just been thinking about getting a look at Port Laudania, and here was the perfect way. “Sounds good to me, except, there’s this place up the Dania Canal—”
“Sure, I know the place. Tugboat Annie’s? Perfecto. Then I’ll be able to say—”
“Just stop it right there,” I said. “There is nothing original about making a Tugboat Annie joke to me.”
Tugboat’s was a favorite waterfront bar and restaurant with an outdoor dining area that served up barbecue and reggae, along with cans of Off on weekend afternoons for those brave enough to face the no-see-ums. Their logo and namesake was a caricature of an old crone smoking a pipe, leaning out the wheelhouse window of a tug. I’d been the object of way too many jokes that noted some physical similarities between the crone and me. I kept pointing out to folks that I’d never smoked a pipe.
“Okay, I promise. No Tugboat Annie jokes if you’ll lay off the name of my boat.”
“Deal.” I shook his hand, then peered down into the cuddy cabin. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get you back to Auntie Jeannie.”
The boys were still splashing and shouting in the pool, but Jeannie had installed herself on a wrought-iron bench that looked far sturdier than the webbed pool furniture. The bench backed up against the wood fence around the pool and Jeannie looked absolutely regal surveying the pool deck from beneath the brim of a white floppy hat. She turned to us and waved as we came around the corner and up the steps from the docks.
“I wondered where you two had disappeared to.” Rusty had stayed behind to prepare the boat.
I pointed to the north end of the dock. “Rusty’s boat.” I sat down on the bench next to her, and Solange squeezed in next to me. “I don’t get him, Jeannie. On the one hand, he does a damn good job of playing the rustic redneck type. But then there’s this condo with a million-dollar view, finished like something out of Southern Living magazine. And his boat down there? It’s old, but it’s immaculate. He wants me to think otherwise, but my guess is it’s professionally maintained. Where does a Border Patrol agent get the money for all this?”
“You like him, don’tcha .”
“What?”
“Seychelle, my friend, you are so transparent. Soon as you like a fellow, you start picking on him. I pity the poor man you marry.”