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Abby’s hug felt good, even though it was in front of everyone. Logan clung tighter. How could he not have seen it before? If it wasn’t for Abby and Steve; he, Cole, and Poet would have had nowhere to go. They would have been on their own. Worse, he would still be with his father. Who cared if they had actually wanted him or not? He was just grateful they’d taken him in.

  He tried to stop it, but it was too late. He sobbed. Like a baby. What an idiot!

  “What’s wrong with my boy?” Steve asked Blackbeard. Logan could make out anger in his voice.

  That was weird—it took a lot to make Steve mad. Logan turned his head to look in Steve and Blackbeard’s direction.

  “What have you done to my son?” Steve asked, stepping closer to Blackbeard.

  “Nothing, nothing, honest,” said Blackbeard. “He’s been telling us about your family and I think he’s a little bit overwhelmed.” He stared at Logan, then grinned.

  “You have no idea what you just said, do you?” Blackbeard asked Steve, facing him again.

  “What?” asked Steve, his eyebrows scrunched together.

  “I’ll tell you what you didn’t say,” and taking Steve by the shoulders, Blackbeard turned him so he was looking at Logan, who couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You didn’t say, ‘What’s wrong with my foster child, the one I have to put up with because no one else wants him?’”

  Steve paused, as if thinking about what Blackbeard was saying. How would he respond? Logan held his breath.

  “Of course not. I love Logan as much as I love Nate and Cole and Poet. I’ve always thought of him as my son. I’ve always wanted him in my family,” and he stepped over to Logan and hugged him hard. All the traces of the black cloud were smooshed out of his body.

  Meeka had moved over to lean against Blackbeard. “We’d better get a towel to wipe up that monstrous swamp of tears on the floor before something starts growing in there.”

  “Mum would love to see this. She would be balling her eyes out,” Blackbeard said.

  “Why did you send her out of the room?” Logan asked, wiping his tears on Steve’s shirt.

  “Don’t you dare blow your nose on that,” Steve warned, still holding him tight. Logan reached out and grabbed a nearby tissue.

  “Come on, Meeka. What’s up with you and your Mum?” Logan asked.

  Meeka turned and buried her head in Blackbeard’s shirt. “You say.”

  “I think it’d be better coming from you.” Blackbeard waited. Silence. He added, “Meeka here has had a few bad experiences lately with friend’s parents when they meet her Mum.” He then spoke down to the top of Meeka’s head. “But if you don’t let them meet her, they might think she’s a thief, or an assassin, or a … a … ”

  “Dentist,” Logan said, with a shudder.

  Meeka looked up, a smile creeping over her face. “I can’t have you think that!” She called out, “Mum, you can come back in.”

  Ma’am walked in and spoke to Meeka, “About time too, young lady. Do you have any idea how hard that was, having to listen to the soppy bits through the door?” She smiled and reached out her hand to Abby. “Nice to meet you, I’m …”

  “Lia Castaneda,” Abby said, her face in shock. “The singer.”

  Chapter Seven

  Wow! How could he not have known? What a dummy. Lia Castenada! She was mega-famous.

  Imagine that. He had stolen the last pancake from her plate, drenched her with the hose, and thrown pistachios in her hair. What about when he had joked that she should give him the Ferrari because she was way too old for a car like that?

  Would he be allowed to keep treating her like he had all day? Maybe he would have to start behaving now.

  It was kind of sad she was so famous.

  “I think you mean superstar,” Steve was saying as he shook Lia’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. Abby here deals with showbiz people all day long in the fitting room. She judges them not by their reputation but by the amount of work they create for her.”

  “No special treatment for popularity?” Lia smiled.

  “The more famous they are, the lower they go on her popularity scale,” Logan said. Maybe Lia would still laugh at his wisecracks. “You’re so famous she probably won’t like you at all.” Abby turned red as she thumped Logan on the shoulder.

  Lia laughed. “Maybe if I don’t work with her we might get along as, you know, normal people.”

  That sounded good. Normal must be way easier than famous.

  “Do you cheat at monopoly?” asked Abby. Maybe she was trying to find some common ground.

  “Never,” said Lia, then frowning at Blackbeard added, “Cheats make me mad.”

  He looked down at his hands.

  Abby smiled. “Well then, I might like you after all.”

  Lia turned to Meeka. “See, no problem.”

  “Just wait …” she grumped, gloom in her eyes.

  “What for?” Steve asked.

  “Everything to change. When people find out who my Mum is, suddenly I’m not Meeka anymore. I’m Lia Castaneda’s daughter and I must be treated carefully. Everyone has to watch what they say and do around me. And I have to be good and proper all the time …”

  “That’d be impossible!” Logan snorted.

  Meeka poked her tongue out at him, and then kept talking.

  “… or what I do might get published in some stupid magazine. Last time I made a friend at the playground, her Mum fainted when she met my Mum.”

  Blackbeard rolled his eyes. “You can imagine what Meeka said about that.”

  Logan winked at Meeka. “Gee, Mum, you need to shower more often.”

  “Exactly!” Blackbeard laughed before Steve or Abby had a chance to tell Logan off.

  Lia was shaking her head. “That is precisely what she said. Can you read her mind?”

  “It’s a pretty simple mind. There’s a lot of space voyaging going on in there,” Logan said. Meeka poked her tongue out at him again, and then grinned.

  He grinned back then looked at Blackbeard. “Hang on a minute—if Ma’am is Lia Castaneda, that means you’re her husband, Jason Whitley, the famous stunt director!”

  Blackbeard nodded his agreement. He was Jason Whitley. That was it—no more Blackbeard from now on. Jason Whitley was epic! And real. And standing right there in front of him, in person.

  Jason’s eyes glowed as he looked at Logan and said, “Did you hear that Lia? He said famous. I sure like this kid. Logan, I’m nowhere near famous.”

  “You are to me. I think you’re amazing!”

  “You’re not going to faint are you?” Meeka asked, her brows furrowed.

  Logan stood there shaking his head, speechless.

  “Logan, Mum’s famous. Dad’s, well … I don’t know. Have you seen some of the stuff he does? He’s stupid.”

  Jason laughed. “You know Meeka, I think he believes my stunts are better than your mother’s singing.”

  “Of course!” said Logan, then went red in the face. “Oops. Sorry Ms Castaneda.”

  “No, it’s good to know where you stand right from the beginning.” Lia looked at Jason and he nodded. “I think Logan, you can call me Lia. It’d be great if we all got to spend a bit more time together while we’re here. We’ve loved having you with us for the day, and if your foster family are as much fun as you, we’d be keen to meet them.”

  She smiled at Logan, and then her face became serious again. “Only thing is, you all need to promise not to talk to anyone about the stuff we do when we’re together. Even with your friends as school. Chitchat has a way of getting twisted around and passed from person to person until it finds its way to some magazine publisher. Then it creates a whole lot of unnecessary problems. Do you think you can all manage that?”

  “There are lots of things we don’t talk about with anyone,” Logan said. “All that stuff I told you about my family, I haven’t told anyone else.”

  Steve grabbed Abby’s hand and squeezed it. Was it because he used the word family i
nstead of foster family? That was kind of new. It felt good.

  Abby spoke up. “I don’t know what you’ve done today, but you’ve made a big impact on Logan, and that means more to us than the fact that you’re a superstar and you’re a famous stunt director. For that reason alone we’d love to spend some time with you, and if it means we have to have some kind of code of silence, I’m sure we can all handle that.”

  “Poet might need bribing,” Steve said.

  “No, she’s good at secrets,” said Logan. Uh-oh, big mistake.

  “Oh, what secrets are those?” asked Steve, his eyes glinting.

  “Now, they wouldn’t be secrets if he told you, would they?” Meeka said. “I think you should go and get everyone and come back for dinner.”

  She was a master of distraction. Would it work?

  Abby frowned and ran her hand through her hair. “No, we couldn’t do that. There’s too many of us to cook for.”

  “Oh, we don’t cook,” Meeka said.

  “I have a moral objection to cooking,” Lia said.

  “And we have a moral objection to eating her cooking,” Meeka said without hesitating. Jason smiled.

  “Are you going to let her get away with that?” Lia looked at him, folded her arms, and clenched her fists.

  “Well,” he paused only long enough to put his hand on his heart, “I’m with her on that one.”

  “Oh, you are, are you? I guess you’ll be with her tonight in a tent on the back lawn,” Lia said.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Meeka shouted, dancing around them both, “Can Logan and Poet and Nate and Cole and their dog and their cat and their crocodile come too? Please, please, please …”

  “Now look what you’ve done!” said Jason. “Stop it, Meeka. Your mother was kidding. Let’s sort out dinner first, eh?”

  He turned his attention to Abby and Steve. “We’d love for you to come to dinner, and we’d like to meet Poet, Nate and Cole, though I think you can leave the cat, the dog and the crocodile for another day.”

  He reached out and put his hand on Meeka’s head. “Don’t worry about how we’ll feed you—if Janet can’t get something for us we’ll spit-roast Happy here.”

  Steve looked at Meeka. “You might prefer the crocodile spit-roasted. Happy might not go round us all.”

  “Oh, there’s always enough Happy in this house for everyone,” Lia said.

  Meeka jumped up and down. “Especially if the kids can go camping!”

  Jason looked a little sad. “Sorry, we have no tents.”

  “We do!” said Logan. “We love camping, and it would be off the grid awesome on your lawn. We could go right down real close to the sand. It’d be like a holiday on a deserted island.”

  “Or like a holiday on the back of a gimungus sea turtle floating on the surface of the great deep where no one has ever been before.” Meeka danced around in excitement.

  Steve frowned. “Or like a bunch of kids putting tent peg holes in an immaculate lawn that looks like it’s never been walked on.”

  “Thank you,” Lia said. “Someone with common sense. You need to spend some time with Jason. Maybe you could teach him something.”

  “Common sense never invented the light bulb,” said Jason.

  “Or tried to fly,” said Logan.

  “Or land on the moon,” said Meeka as she stood beside Jason, his arm around her shoulders. They sure made a good team.

  “I could just ask Janet about the tenting,” Jason said, a hopeful look on his face.

  Logan and Meeka both shouted as Lia punched Jason in the arm. “You’re such a pushover,” she said.

  “Aw, come on, it’d be fun. We could have a fire on the beach and roast marshmallows and sing camp songs and tell scary stories. You could still sleep in your bed. Promise.” He looked at Lia with big puppy-dog eyes. She shook her head and smiled.

  “Okay, I guess it does sound like fun. As long as Janet is all right with it, and Abby and I don’t have to do any work. We’ll sit inside and eat chocolate and cake while you guys set everything up. Agreed?”

  “Deal. That is, if Steve and Abby don’t mind?” Jason asked. “Come bedtime you’re welcome to tent or sleep inside or go back to your own home and abandon us to the back of the giant deserted turtle island.”

  “Sounds like fun. We’ll be in.” Steve said.

  Jason phoned Janet, who was fine about the tenting. She also said she would sort something out for dinner and have it to them in an hour.

  Logan went with Steve and Abby to get the others and help with the gear. When they got home, everyone listened to Logan as he downloaded all he could in twenty minutes. The kids didn’t believe that he was telling the truth about spending the day with Lia Castaneda, but once Abby confirmed it they yelped and hollered.

  Logan leaned against the doorframe and watched them all. He looked over to Abby, who seemed glad to be home as she sat, watching everyone dance around. Her thick dark brown hair was cut short into a bob, and pushed back, as usual, with a colourful scarf. Her African heritage gave her dark skin as well as dark eyes which Logan knew never missed a thing. This should be reassuring, but more often than not, it was just plain annoying.

  Cole was swinging Poet around while she attempted to sing one of Lia’s songs, completely off-key. Cole and Poet were obviously related, with their blond hair and sky blue eyes. Cole looked pretty strong as he dropped Poet onto the couch. Must be from all the training he did. Mind you, Poet was short and skinny as a weed—with her long blond hair flinging around her face she looked like a dandelion puffball on a stalk.

  Nate started tickling Poet. He was like Steve, his Dad, black hair and dark blue eyes the colour of denim. People often asked if Logan and Nate were twins because they were so close in age. Weird. They looked completely different. Nate was average height and solid like a tree trunk, whereas he was taller and skinnier, with dark brown eyes and light brown hair bleached blond by the sun.

  Abby smiled at Logan. “How do you think the Castenada-Whitleys are going to cope with all of us?”

  He shrugged, grinning. Poet started dancing around the table and singing another one of Lia’s songs, off-key again. Cole threw a cushion at her.

  Nate covered his ears. “Poet, whatever you do, please don’t sing.”

  *****

  On a salvage boat out at sea, the Captain was shouting at Oscar and waving his arms about.

  “You’ve got to get those buckets into the house and off this ship tonight! The coastguard issued me with an inspection notice today. They’ll be here tomorrow or the next day, and I don’t want to risk them finding anything onboard. Tomorrow night the wind’s going to pick up, and you won’t want to be anywhere near the water in your runabout. You can’t go during the day with people staying there. You’ve got to go later tonight while they’re all sleeping.”

  Oscar, frowned, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he put down his beer, then let out an angry moan. “Okay, okay, let’s get loaded up then. Come on Zach.” He kicked Zach’s feet out of the way as he stalked past him.

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday Evening

  After another classy meal provided by Janet, everyone had a lot of fun setting up the tents. Abby and Lia sat in the house talking about shows and costumes, and every time Logan had to go and get something he found them laughing. They were really hitting it off.

  Jason called out to them. “Everything’s ready. Come on ladies, let’s sit around the fire and tell stories. Hope you saved us some chocolate.”

  It was Jason and Steve who did most of the talking, swapping stunt stories with coastguard rescue stories. It seemed that Jason liked to throw people off cliffs, while Steve liked to rescue them from cliffs. The makings of a great friendship for sure.

  “Sit still,” Cole told Nate. He was drawing everyone in turn in his sketch pad. It was a nice change to see Cole relaxing and enjoying himself. Abby said Cole had grown up pretty quick, what with helping to look after Poet since she was bor
n, and then seeing his father murdered. He was always worrying about Poet and wanting to keep her safe. In fact, he was protective about Nate as well. More like over-protective. He was always wary of strangers, but for once he seemed happy to enjoy Jason, Lia and Meeka, no questions asked.

  Logan stood up and went to take a look at the sketch of himself that Cole had already drawn. Not too bad.

  Cole smiled at him. “I reckon I’ve never seen you look happier, Logan.”

  It was true. Wouldn’t it be great if this night lasted forever?

  It didn’t get dark until about nine-thirty, so it was ten o’clock before they started roasting the marshmallows. Logan had hardly left Steve’s side all night, Nate was leaning on Abby, and Poet was resting her head on Cole’s shoulder, as she often did when she was tired.

  Meeka was snuggling up close to her mum. Jason sat on Meeka’s other side. It was all very cosy and everyone was enjoying themselves and the marshmallows, although Meeka refused to roast her own. She didn’t seem to want to get close to the fire, even though it had died right down.

  “Why don’t you have a go, Meeka?” asked Nate. “It’s fun.”

  Typical Nate. He found most things in life fun, and if they weren’t, he knew how to turn them into fun.

  “I’m scared of the fire,” she said.

  Jason squeezed her shoulder and she moved to lean against him.

  “When Meeka was five, I got home after being away for a few weeks,” Jason said. “I spent some time with her first then left her with her nanny while I went to surprise Lia, who was in the studio downstairs. The nanny was hopeless. She got talking on the phone and left Meeka to herself. Meeka thought she would cook me some lunch and slapped half a loaf of bread on the element and turned it on full, thinking she would make me some toast.”

  He paused, stroked Meeka’s hair, took a deep breath, and continued.

  “The sprinkler system wasn’t working—the electrician was coming in the next day to fix it. The tea towel had been left on the stove element and it caught on fire, then the flames jumped onto the net curtains. After that, the room caught fire and there was nothing to stop it. Thankfully the fire alarm went off, but the stupid nanny thought Meeka was outside and ran out looking for her.”