After the Rain

didn’t look especially sexy or dikey. She looked exhausted. And, sure, she was sharp-as in sharpened to too fine a point. And just plain dangerous, the way someone strung out on speed is unpredictable.

As Broker came up to the edge of the pool he scanned the crowd of parents and watchers and settled on the older guy with sandblasted ash hair. He had the deep face and arm tan of a man who works outside. His muscular legs were pale in comparison. The leisurely wide shorts and oversized orange and red Hawaiian shirt didn’t go with the face, whose pale blue eyes, relentlessly tracking the scene, had forgotten how to relax over twenty years ago.

The moment Broker started toward Kit, Hawaiian Shirt uncoiled out of his chair with slow intensity. His large blunt hands, attached to thick-veined forearms, moved to a hover near his waist, eyes scanning.

Then the eye contact, the recognition, the easing back.

Okay. So Sheriff Wales did have excellent instincts.

Kit was swimming with the sharks.

“Dad-deee…”

Kit shot up, gleaming, out of the water, hoisted herself out of the pool, and ran to him, a blur of freckles and red hair. She jumped into his arms. Broker grimaced and grinned at the same time, hugging the happy squirm of his daughter as he got covered in wet kisses and chlorine. Taller by a good inch since he’d last seen her, Kit was starting to show some of the lean lioness density she inherited from her mother. Broker got thoroughly wet in the process and grimaced when her knee banged his injured hand.

“Kit, hey, look at you.”

She had her mother’s eyes and color. She’d acquired her mom’s scary habit of totally focusing her attention. The habit of picking up small details she got from both of them. “What happened to your hand?” she asked.

“Oh, I hurt it working.”

“Can I see it?”

“Okay. But later. So where’s Mommy?” Broker asked, managing to keep his voice cordial.

Kit knit her brows-the brooding expression came from her dad. “Mom’s at work,” she said. Then she brightened. “I helped. We were in a play.”

“You were, huh? So who’s watching you?” He hefted her in his arms, settling her weight on his hip. She laid her cheek along his neck and nestled in, molding into his hollows. She raised her eyes and said:

“Auntie Jane and Uncle Hollywood.”

“Uncle Hollywood?” Broker nodded, turned, and stared at the gaudy Hawaiian Shirt. “And this must be Auntie Jane.” Broker turned to face the woman in the black swimsuit.

She extended her hand. “Jane Singer. How you doing?” Her grip was a little too firm. An edge of challenge in her eyes was ambiguous and sexually nonspecific. Like a dare to guess where she was really coming from. She’s young, overtrained, and very very tired, Broker thought.

Kit interrupted their mutual inspection, squirming from his embrace.

“Daddy, can I show you something?” She scrambled from his arms, looked to Jane for a second, and then crouched in racing-dive position at the end of the pool.

“Swimmers, take your mark. Get set. Go!” Jane said.

Kit sprang forward into the air, swept up her arms for more loft, clasped them over her head, and cleanly cut the water with nary a splash.

“All right!” Broker said, impressed.

“She has talent,” Jane said simply.

Broker briefly watched his daughter go down the pool. She was a strong swimmer. She was also the only kid in the pool not playing. And that was probably as much his fault as Nina’s-poor kid, condemned to a life sentence with Broker’s and Nina’s genes. He turned and stared at Jane.

She met his eyes in a level gaze and said, “How’s your hand doing? We heard you got dinged yesterday.”

Broker decided not to ask her how she got her information.

“You gonna tell me what’s happening here?” he asked.

“Sure. Let’s put Little Bit in the shower back at the motel and talk.”

Broker waved to Kit. When she scrambled out of the pool he bundled her in the towel that Jane held out. Four months ago when he’d done this he’d thought of her as a baby. Something different now. It had to do with the way she used her eyes, how she held herself. She’d changed into a miniature woman. When Broker started to lead his daughter to his truck, Jane gently intervened. “We have a system. Follow us to the motel.”

Broker decided not to fight the system just this once. He followed Jane to the famous red Volvo, pointed to his Ford. She nodded, got in with Kit, and drove away. A dusty gray Chevy truck pulled in behind her. The Old Man And The Sea was at the wheel. Broker came last.

They parked at the motel, went up a flight of stairs to the room.

“Go take a shower and wash your hair. And use the conditioner-you gotta get the chlorine out or it’ll turn your hair green,” Jane told Kit.

“Okay.” Kit gave Broker a hug and raced into the bathroom. A moment later the water started running.

“She seems to be holding up pretty well,” Broker said.

“She’s very on-task and mature for her age. Plus, she understands what her mom does for a living,” Jane said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“At the very end in Vietnam, you were in MACV-SOG with Nina’s dad. Everyone was leaving, but the two of you went back in to bring out your Vietnamese agents…”

“I knew Ray Pryce,” Broker said simply.

Jane studied his face and said, “Only one of you came back out. For most of Nina’s childhood, her dad was deployed in forward areas. Nina was raised by her mom back in the States.”

“So?”

“So, the shoe’s on the other foot and you don’t like it. You should be big enough to handle Nina’s success…”

Broker looked around. “This…is success?”

“Hey. Deal with it. You married a soldier, mister,” Jane said. Touchy.

Broker looked away from Jane and scanned the room. A fancy laptop on the desk along with a cell phone’s travel charger. His eyes stopped on a large equipment bag on the floor along the wall. He went over, grabbed the handles, and hefted the bag. He was lifting about thirty pounds of steel that shifted and slid like guns and ammo.

Jane watched him, then asked, “So? What are you thinking?”

“That I walked into a classified Army unit that’s wandered off the reservation. And you got a kid along. My kid.” Broker let the bag drop with a crash, then turned and studied her.

“You didn’t walk into shit. You were summoned,” Jane said.

Broker did his best deadpan, working hard to master a powerful resentment at the way this was unfolding. He changed the subject. “You and my daughter have been spending a lot of time together, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jane did a little provocative number with her eyes and eyebrows. “You got a problem with people like me?”

“You mean young, insecure, with a chip on their shoulder?” Broker said carefully. “One thing I do know, I don’t want my kid to have a chip on her shoulder.”

“Cut the shit, Broker. You been filling in the blanks. Tell me what you really think.” Jane folded her arms.

“I think you guys are flying by the seat of your pants and you’re out of your depth. I’m pissed that you put Kit in the middle of it.”

Jane shrugged. “We told her it was like a play at school. She even had some important lines.”

“I talked to the local sheriff.”

“That was a mistake,” Jane said in a flat voice.

“He said there was some kind of fight at a bar? A deputy took you and Kit off-site. Nina stayed with the bar owner.”

“So far so good.”