Dave Friar

Bonnie

Chapter One

I invited Mark, my cousin, to bring his family out to my summer place on Long Island for a weekend. He hesitated, saying he had to arrange a sitter for the younger kids. I told him I expected them to come, too. I had plenty of room and it would be good to have some youngsters making a racket in the place. It was too big and empty for a 40-year-old guy who liked kids, and the house and grounds demanded the patter of little feet busily raising Hell.

Let's get one thing straight: I'm not crazy about Mark, who's five years older than me. He's okay, and sometimes fun, but he's prone to self-pity. Still: He's family. And I remembered more than a few times – when I was a loner kid – when Mark went out of his way to pal around with me. Now he was on some hard times, I was doing pretty good for myself and I figured it was payback time. He'd been essentially solidly established and was making good money working for a financial paper – until the big crash. His income went from Real Good to Unemployment and to Mark, the job was everything. A little fresh salt air and sunshine and barbecuing – not to mention, a change of scene – would do him good.

Besides which, I genuinely liked Kate, his second wife, and his kids – one by her and two by his first wife. Kate had a wicked deadpan sense of humor; always welcome. I'd been a little suspicious of her, at first. After all, she'd essentially broken up Mark's (already crumbling) first marriage and quickly accepted the proposal of a man 14 years her senior and from a totally different background. But Kate had Stood By Her Man when it hit the fan, and all three kids happily called her "Mom." In fact, if Kate weren't married, I could have been looking forward to her visit for more than friendly chatter and companionship. She was a damn good-looking woman, in the full bloom of femininity, and with all the self-assurance and sexiness that comes with it. And she still had a helluva fine figure and a great, strong face and -

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Anyhow, about a week before they were going to come out – for the third weekend in August, an excellent time to get the hell out of Manhattan – Mark called me. He was sheepish and uncertain and I finally wormed it out of him:

"Well, Kate's kid sister is going to be in New York for a couple of days, and we hate to leave her alone in the condo…"

Kid sister? Yeah, I was beginning to remember – and then it all came back in a flash, from the wedding. Kate's kid – but not "little" – sister, one Miss Irene Marie Pound.

Yes!

"Well, there's plenty of room, Mark – bring her along." I tried not to drool on the phone, all the time figuring: Irene was six years younger than Kate, which would make her about 24 or 25 now and she had been an absolute knockout at the wedding at which time she'd been no more than 15. Yes, I had done a good job of burying that memory; every time I'd looked at her, I'd had an instant physical reaction and had been growling to myself, "Jailbait – Down, boy!"

"Are you sure it's not too much trouble?" he whined.