Книга - Donovan’s Child

Donovan's Child
Christine Rimmer


Donovan McRae has nothing to lose… Once upon a time he’d been the Man Who Had Everything, until an ice-climbing accident changed his life. Now the architect is beginning to give up on his future. Until Abilene Bravo walks into his life – and he realises he was wrong.Because though he thought he’d lost his heart years ago, he finds himself losing it again as he falls, fast…for the feisty woman who won’t take no for an answer!










Abilene leaned close to him. “Don’t you wish you’d done this sooner?” Her hair swung forward. He could smell her fresh, tart scent. He wanted to touch her hair. He wanted it bad.

And he had a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t have what he wanted.

To hell with all those reasons.

He lifted his hand from the table and caught a thick lock between his fingers.

He wanted to kiss her, to feel the give, the texture, the heat of her mouth.

She said his name “Donovan,” on a whisper of sound. And he thought that no one, ever, had said his name the way she did. With tenderness. And complete understanding.

With acceptance. And the sweet heat of honest desire.

There was nothing else, at that moment. Just Abilene.

So close to him, leaning closer …


Dear Reader,

Once, Donovan McRae was arguably the finest architect in America. He loved his work and he also enjoyed a reputation as a skilled and daring extreme sports enthusiast—a world-class ice climber. But in the past year, the formerly gregarious genius has completely shut himself off from the world. And no one knows why.

He hasn’t been out of the gorgeous house he designed in the middle of the West Texas high desert a hundred miles from El Paso in months. He’s turned away friends and associates, refusing to see anyone—including Abilene Bravo, who had won the special fellowship he offered before he turned his back on his own life. She’s been waiting a year for the important collaboration with him to begin.

No way can he put her off forever. Eventually, he has to let Abilene in.

And when he does, he’s going to get more than he bargained for. The honest, forthright and optimistic Abilene is not about to let him hide from the world forever. Whether he likes it or not, she’s determined to throw open some windows and doors and let the light in.

Sparks will fly. Guaranteed.

Happy reading everyone,

Christine Rimmer




About the Author


CHRISTINE RIMMER came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a salesclerk to a waitress. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma. Visit Christine at www.christinerimmer.com.




Donovan’s Child

Christine Rimmer







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To all of you wonderful readers at eHarlequin

who encouraged me to write this book.

Thank you.




Chapter One


“Impress me,” Donovan McRae commanded from behind a matched pair of enormous computer screens.

The screens sat on a desktop that consisted of a giant slab of ash-colored wood. The slab of wood was mounted on a base hewn from what appeared to be volcanic rock. The desk, the screens and the man were way down at the far end of a long, slant-roofed, skylit space, a space that served as Donovan’s studio and drafting room in his sprawling, half-subterranean retreat in the West Texas high desert.

Impress me?

Abilene Bravo could not believe he’d just said that.

After all, she’d been imagining this moment for over a year now. At first with anticipation, then with apprehension and finally, as the months dragged by, with growing fury. She’d waited so long for this day—and the first words out of the “great man’s” mouth were Impress me?

Hadn’t she already done that? Wasn’t that how she’d won this prize fellowship in the first place?

And would it have killed him to emerge from behind that fortress of screens, to rise from that volcano of a desk, to gesture her nearer, maybe even to go so far as to offer a handshake?

Or, hey. Just, you know, to say hello?

Abilene gritted her teeth and tamped her anger down. She reminded herself that she was not letting her big mouth—or her temper—get the better of her.

She did have something to show him, a preliminary design she’d been tinkering with, tweaking to perfection, for months as she waited for this all-important collaboration to begin. Donovan’s assistant had led her to a workstation, complete with old-school drafting table and a desk, on which sat a computer loaded up with the necessary computer-assisted design software.

“Well?” Donovan barked at her, when she didn’t respond fast enough. “Do you have something to show me or not?”

Abilene saw red, and again ordered her heart to stop racing, her blood not to boil. She said, in a voice that somehow stayed level, “I do, yes,” as she shoved her memory stick into an empty port.

A few clicks of the mouse and her full-color introductory drawing materialized in front of her. On his two screens, Donovan would be seeing it, too.

“My rendering of the front elevation,” she said.

“Self-evident,” he grumbled.

By then, her hand was shaking as she operated the mouse. But beyond that slight tremor, she kept herself well under control as she began to show him the various views—the expanded renderings of classrooms, the central cluster of rooms for administration, the negative spaces that made up the hallways, the welcome area, the main entrance and vestibule.

She intended to cover it all, every square inch of the facility, which she had lovingly, painstakingly worked out—the playgrounds, the pool area, even the parking lot and some general landscaping suggestions. From there, she would go into her rough estimate on the cost of the project.

But she didn’t get far. Ninety seconds into her presentation, he started in on her.

“Depressing,” he declared darkly from behind his wall of monitors. “Institutional in the worst sense of the word. It’s a center for underprivileged children, not a prison.”

It was too much—all the months of waiting, the wondering and worrying if the fellowship was even going to happen. Then, out of nowhere, at last—the call.

That was yesterday, Sunday, the second of January. “This is Ben Yates, Donovan McCrae’s personal assistant. Donovan asked me to tell you that he’s ready to begin tomorrow. And to let you know that instructions will be sent via email….”

She’d had a thousand questions. Ben had answered none of them. He’d given her a choice. She could be flown to El Paso and he would pick her up there. Or she could drive her own vehicle.

She’d opted to drive, figuring it was better to have her own car in a situation like this. In order to arrive before dark, she’d been on the road before the sun came up that morning.

The drive was endless. An eight-hour trek across the wide-open, windblown desert to this godforsaken corner of Texas.

And now she was here, what? She’d met the great man at last. And she found him flat-out rude. As well as dismissive of her work.

He demanded, “What were you thinking to bring me lackluster crap like this?”

Okay, worse than dismissive.

The man was nothing short of brutal. He’d seen a fraction of what she’d brought. And yet he had no compunction about cutting her ideas to shreds.

Abilene had had enough. And she said exactly that. “Enough.” She closed her files and ejected her memory stick.

“Excuse me?” came the deep voice from behind the screens. He sounded vaguely amused.

She shot to her feet. Upright, at least she could see the top half of his head—the thick, dark gold hair, the unwavering gray-blue eyes. “I waited a very long time for this. But maybe you’ve forgotten that.”

“I’ve forgotten nothing,” was the low reply.

“We were to have started at the beginning of last year,” she reminded him.

“I know when we were scheduled to start.”

“Good. So have you maybe noticed that it’s now January of the next year? Twelve months I’ve been waiting, my life put virtually on hold.”

“There is no need to tell me what I already know. My memory is not the least impaired, nor is my awareness of the passage of time.”

“Well, something is impaired. I do believe you are the rudest person I’ve ever met.”

“You’re angry.” He made a low sound, a satisfied kind of sound.

“And that makes you happy?”

“Happy? No. But it does reassure me.”

He found it reassuring that she was totally pissed off at him? “I just don’t get it. There’s such a thing as common courtesy. You could at least have allowed me to finish my presentation before you started ripping my work apart.”

“I saw enough.”

“You saw hardly anything.”

“Still. It was more than enough.”

By then, she just didn’t care what happened—whether she stayed, or whether she threw her suitcases back into her car and headed home to San Antonio. She spoke with measured calm. “I would really like to know what you were doing all year, that you couldn’t even be bothered to follow through on the fellowship you set up yourself. There are kids out there who desperately need a center like this one is supposed to be.”

“I know that.” His voice was flat now. “You wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t.”

“So then, what’s up with you? I just don’t get it.”

Unspeaking, he held her gaze for a solid count of five. And then, bizarrely, without moving anything but his arms, he seemed to roll backward. His torso turned, his arms working.

He rolled out from behind the massive desk—in a wheelchair.




Chapter Two


A wheelchair.

Nobody had mentioned that he was using a wheelchair.

Yes, she’d heard that he’d had some kind of accident climbing some snow-covered mountain peak in some distant land. But that was nearly a year ago. She’d had no clue the accident was bad enough for him to still need a wheelchair now.

“Oh, God. I had no idea,” she heard herself whisper.

He kept on rolling, approaching her down the endless length of the room. Beneath the long sleeves of the knit shirt he wore, she could see the powerful muscles of his arms bunching and releasing as he worked the wheels of the chair. He didn’t stop until he was directly in front of her.

And then, for several excruciating seconds, he stared up at her as she stared right back at him.

Golden, she thought. He was as golden up close and personal as in the pictures she’d seen of him. As golden as from a distance, on a stage, when she’d been a starry-eyed undergraduate at Rice University and he’d come to Houston to deliver an absolutely brilliant lecture on form, style and function.

Golden hair, golden skin. He was a beautiful man, broad-shouldered and fit-looking. A lion of a man.

Too bad about the cold, dead gray-blue eyes.

He broke the uncomfortable silence with a shrug. “At least you’re no doormat.”

She thought of the apology she probably owed him. She really should have considered that there might be more going on with him than sheer egotism and contempt for others.

Then again, just because he now used a wheelchair didn’t mean he had a right be a total ass. A lot of people faced difficult challenges in their lives and still managed to treat others with a minimum of courtesy and respect.

She returned his shrug. “I have a big mouth. It’s true. And my temper rarely gets the better of me. But when it does, watch out.”

“Good.”

It wasn’t exactly the response she’d expected. “It’s good that I never learned when to shut up?”

“You’ve got guts. I like that. You can be pushed just so far and then you stand up and fight. You’re going to need a little fighting spirit if you want to have a prayer of saving this project from disaster.”

She didn’t know whether to be flattered—or scared to death. “You make it sound as though I would be doing this all on my own.”

“Because you will be doing this all on your own.”

Surely she hadn’t heard him right. Caught by surprise, she fell back a step, until she came up against the hard edge of the drafting table. “But …” Her sentence trailed off, hardly begun.

It was called a fellowship for a reason. Without his name and reputation, the project would never have gotten the go-ahead in the first place. The San Antonio Help the Children Foundation was all for giving a bright, young hometown architect a chance. But it was Donovan McCrae they were counting on to deliver. He knew that every bit as well as she did.

The ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of his perfectly symmetrical mouth. “Abilene. You’re speechless. How refreshing.”

She found her voice. “You’re Donovan McCrae. I’m not. Without you, this won’t fly and you know it.”

“We need to carry through.”

“You noticed. Finally.”

A slow, regal dip of that leonine head. “I’ve put this off for way too long. And as you’ve already pointed out, there’s a need for this center. An urgent need. So I’ll … supervise. At least in the design phase. I’ll put my stamp of approval on it when I’m satisfied with what you’ve done. But don’t kid yourself. If it gets built, the design will be yours, not mine. And you will be following through in construction.”

Abilene believed in herself—in her talent, her knowledge, and her work ethic. Yes, she’d hoped this fellowship would give her a leg up on snaring a great job with a good firm. That maybe she’d be one of the fortunate few who could skip the years of grunt work that went into becoming a top architect. But to be in charge of a project of this magnitude, at this point in her career?

It killed her to admit it, but she did anyway. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“You’re going to have to be. Let me make this very clear. I haven’t worked in a year. I doubt if I’ll ever work again.”

Never work again?

That would be a crime. She might not care much for his personality. But he was, hands down, the finest architect of his generation. They spoke of him in the same breath with Frank O. Gehry and Robert Venturi. Some even dared to compare him favorably to Frank Lloyd Wright. He blended the Modern with the Classical, Bauhaus with the Prairie style, all with seeming effortlessness.

And he was still young. Not yet forty. Many believed an architect couldn’t possibly hit creative stride until at least the age of fifty. There was just too much to learn and master. Donovan McCrae’s best work should be ahead of him.

“Never work again …” She repeated the impossible words that kept scrolling through her mind.

“That’s right.” He looked … satisfied. In a bleak and strangely determined sort of way.

“But why?” she asked, knowing she was pushing it, but wanting to understand what, exactly, had happened to him to make him turn his back on the kind of career that most would kill for. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with your brain, is there?”

An actual chuckle escaped him. “You do have a big mouth.”

She refused to back off. “Seriously. Have you suffered some kind of brain damage?”

“No.”

“Then why would you stop working? I just don’t get it.”

Something flashed in those steel-blue eyes of his. She sensed that he actually might give her an answer.

But then he only shook his head. “Enough. I’ll take that memory stick.” He held out his hand.

She kept her lips pressed together over a sarcastic remark and laid the stick in his open palm.

He closed his fingers around it. “Ben will show you to your rooms. Get comfortable—but not too comfortable.” He backed and turned and wheeled away from her, disappearing through a door beyond the looming edifice that served as his desk.

“Abilene?” said a quiet voice behind her. She turned to face Ben Yates, who was slim and tall and self-contained, with black hair and eyes to match. “This way.”

She grabbed her bag off the back of her chair and followed him.

The house was a marvel—like all of Donovan McCrae’s designs. Built into the side of a rocky cliff, it had seemed to Abilene, as she approached it earlier, to materialize out of the desert: a cave, a fortress, a palace made of rock—and a house—all at the same time.

It was built around a central courtyard. The back half nestled into the cliff face. It had large glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows all along the courtyard walls, giving access to the outside and great views of the pool and the harsh, beautiful landscaping. The facade side had windows and glass doors leading to the courtyard, as well. It also offered wide vistas of the wild, open desert.

Abilene’s rooms were on the cliff side.

Ben ushered her in ahead of him. “Here we are.”

The door was extra wide. The one to the bedroom was wide, as well. She ran her hand down the rough-hewn doorframe.

Ben said, “Donovan had all the rooms made wheelchair-accessible, so it would be possible for him to get around anywhere in the house.”

She set her leather tote on a long table by the door and made a circuit. First of the sitting room, then of the bedroom. She looked into the walk-in closet where her own clothes were already hanging, and also the bathroom with its open shower and giant sunken tub.

The walls of the place seemed hewn of the rock face itself. And the furniture was rustic, made from twisted hunks of hardwood, starkly beautiful, like the desert landscape outside. French doors led out to the pool, and to the paths that wound through the courtyard.

Donovan’s assistant waited for her near the door. “The pool is yours to use as long as you’re here. There’s also a large gym downstairs. Check with me if you want to work out there and I’ll give you a schedule. Donovan uses the gym several hours a day and prefers to do so alone. The desk, computer and drafting table you used today in the studio are yours whenever you need them. Anytime you’re hungry, the kitchen is to your left as you exit your rooms. Just keep going until you reach it. Or you can ring. Press the red button on the phone. The housekeeper will answer and see that you get anything you need.”

“I know I’ll be very comfortable. Thank you.”

“I had your suitcases unpacked for you.”

She gave him a wry smile. “You assumed I would stay?”

“I did, yes.”

“I have to tell you, it was touch and go back there in the studio. Your boss can be rude.”

Apparently, Ben felt no obligation to leap to Donovan’s defense. He spoke in his usual calm, unruffled tone. “Don’t let him run you off.”

“I won’t. It’s a promise.”

“That’s the spirit.” Did he almost smile? She couldn’t be sure. “Drinks at seven, just you and Donovan.”

“That sounds really fun.” She said it deadpan.

Ben took her meaning. “Only if you feel up to it. If you’d prefer, I can have something sent here, to your rooms.”

“I definitely feel up to it.”

“Excellent. If you follow either the courtyard breeze-way or the interior hall in either direction, you’ll eventually reach the front living room off the main entrance. Or you can simply cross the courtyard. It’s chilly out, but not too bad.”

“I’m sure I can find my way.”

“Good, then. If you need anything—”

“I know. Press the red button on the house phone.”

“I’ll see you at dinner.” He turned to go.

“Ben?”

He paused in the doorway, his back to her.

“I had no idea Donovan was in a wheelchair.”

A silence. And then, reluctantly, he turned to her again. “Yes. Well, he’s very protective of his privacy lately.”

“A little communication goes a long way.”

“You should be discussing this with him.”

“Probably. What happened to him?”

Ben frowned. She was sure he would blow her off—or tell her again to ask Donovan. But then he surprised her and gave it up. “You may have heard about the ice-climbing accident.”

“Just that there was one.”

“He fell several hundred feet. Both legs sustained multiple fractures. His right tibia was driven up through the knee joint into the thigh.”

She forced herself not to wince. “So … it’s not his spine? I mean, he’s not paralyzed?”

“No, he’s not paralyzed.”

“Will he walk again?”

“It’s likely. But with … difficulty—and I’ve said more than enough. Seven. Drinks in the front living area.”

And he was gone.

Abilene got out of her tired traveling clothes and jumped in the shower. In twenty minutes, she was freshened up and ready to go again. She considered exploring the house a little but decided to ask Donovan to show her around personally later. It might be a way to break the ice between them.

If such a thing was possible. The man was as guarded as they came. She had her work cut out for her, to try to get to know him a little.

Stretching out across the big bed, she stared up at the ceiling fixture, which consisted of tangled bits of petrified wood interwoven with golden globe-shaped lights that seemed strung on barbed wire. With a sigh, she let her eyes drift shut. Maybe what she really needed about now was a nice little nap….

The faint sound of her cell ringing snapped her awake. She went to the sitting room to get it. The display read Mom.

She answered. “I’m here. Safe. Don’t worry.”

“Just what I needed to know. Your father sends his love.”

“Love to him, too. Did Zoe and Dax get away all right?” Saturday, which had been New Year’s day, Abilene’s baby sister had married her boss and the father of her coming baby. The newlyweds were to have left for their honeymoon on Maui that morning.

“They’re on their way,” her mother said. “Dax says to say hi to Donovan.” Zoe’s groom and Donovan were longtime acquaintances. “And your sister says to tell your new mentor that he’d better treat you right.”

“I’ll give him the message—both of them,” Abilene promised.

“Have you … spoken with him yet?” Aleta Bravo asked the question carefully. She knew how upset Abilene had been with the whole situation.

“We spoke, yes. We … had words, I guess you could say. He was rude and dismissive. I was forced to tell him off.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“Not as of now. I’ll keep you posted.”

“You can always simply come home, you know. It won’t be that difficult to find a place for yourself. You’re a Bravo. And you graduated at the top of your class.”

“Mom. There are plenty of architects. But an architect who’s worked closely with Donovan McRae, now that’s something else altogether. A fellowship like this—one-on-one with the best there is—it just doesn’t happen very often.”

She considered adding that Donovan had been facing some serious challenges lately and possibly deserved a little slack for his thoughtless behavior. That he used a wheelchair now.

But no. Ben had made it painfully clear that McRae didn’t want the world butting into his private business. She would respect his wishes. At least until she understood better what was going on with him.

Aleta said, “You’re determined to stay, then?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, then I suppose I won’t be changing your mind….”

“No. You won’t.” And then, from her mother’s end of the line, faintly, she heard the deep rumble of her father’s voice.

Aleta laughed. “Your father says to give him hell.”

“I will. Count on it.”

After she said goodbye to her mom, she checked in with Javier Cabrera.

Javier was an experienced builder—and the first person she’d called when she got the summons yesterday from Ben. He owned his own company, Cabrera Construction, and had been kind enough to hire Abilene to work as a draftsperson on a few of his projects over the endless months she’d been waiting to get started on the fellowship. He’d even allowed her to consult with him at his building sites, giving her the chance to gain more hands-on experience in construction. He had become not only her friend, but something of a mentor as well.

His connections to her family were long-standing and complicated. Once the Bravos and the Cabreras had been mortal enemies. But now, in the past few years, the two families seemed to have more in common than points of conflict.

“Abby,” Javier said warmly when he answered the phone. “I was wondering about you.”

“I’ll have you know I have made it safely to Donovan McRae’s amazing rock house in the middle of nowhere.”

“Did he tell you how sorry he was for all the time he made you wait and wait?”

“Not exactly.”

“You get in your car and you come back to SA. I have work for you. Plenty of work.”

She smiled at the driftwood and barbed-wire creation overhead. “You’re good to me.”

“I know talent. You will go far.”

“You always make me feel better about everything.”

“We all need encouragement.” He sounded a little sad. But then, Javier was sad. He was still deeply in love with his estranged wife, Luz.

Abilene confided that Donovan had said her design was crap.

Javier jumped to her defense, as she had known that he would. “Don’t listen to him. Your design is excellent.”

“My design is … workmanlike. It needs to be better than that.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“I have to be hard on myself. I want to be the best someday.”

“Stand tall,” he said. “And call me any time you need to talk to someone who understands.”

“You know I will.”

They chatted for a bit longer. When she hung up, it was ten minutes of seven. She combed her hair and freshened her lip gloss and walked across the courtyard to the front of the house.

Donovan was waiting for her.

He sat by the burled wood bar, watching, as she approached the French doors from the courtyard.

She wore a slim black skirt, a button-down shirt with a few buttons left undone and a long strand of jade-colored beads around her neck. Round-toed high heels showed off her shapely legs, and her thick chestnut hair fell loose on her slim shoulders.

She pushed open one of the doors and stepped inside as if she owned the place. There was something about her that had him thinking of old movies, the ones made way back in the Great Depression. Movies in which the women were lean and tall and always ready with a snappy comeback.

From that first moment in the afternoon, when Ben ushered her into the studio, he had felt … annoyed. With her. With the project. With the world in general. He wasn’t sure exactly why she annoyed him. Maybe it was all the energy that came off her, the sense of purpose and possibility that seemed to swirl around her like a sudden, bracing gust of winter wind.

Donovan didn’t want bracing. What he wanted was silence. Peace. To be left alone.

But he had chosen her, sight unseen, by the promise in the work she’d submitted, before it all went to hell. And he would, finally, follow through on his obligation to the Foundation people. And to her.

They were doing this thing.

She spotted him across the room. Paused. But only for a fraction of a second. Then she kept coming, her stride long and confident.

He poured himself a drink and set down the decanter of scotch. “What can I get you?”

“Whatever you’re having.” She nodded at the decanter. “That’s fine.”

“Scotch? Don’t women your age prefer sweet drinks?” Yeah. All right. It was a dig.

She refused to be goaded. “Seriously. Scotch is fine.”

So he dropped ice cubes into a crystal glass, poured the drink and gave it to her, placing it in her long-fingered, slender hands. They were fine hands, the skin supple, the nails unpolished and clipped short. Useful hands.

She sipped. “It’s good. Thanks.”

He nodded, gestured in the direction of a couple of chairs and a sofa. “Have a seat.” She turned and sauntered to the sofa, dropping to the cushions with artless ease.

He put his drink between his ruined legs and wheeled himself over there, rolling into the empty space between the chairs. “Your rooms?”

“They’re perfect, thanks. Is it just you and Ben here?”

“I have a cook and a housekeeper—a married couple, Anton and Olga. And a part-time groundskeeper to look after the courtyard and the perimeter of the house.” He watched her cross her pretty legs, admired the perfection of her knees. At least she was a pleasure to look at. “Did you rest?”

“I had a shower. Then my mother called. She told me to tell you that Dax sends his regards and my sister says you’d better be nice to me.”

“Your sister and Dax …?”

“They were married on Saturday. And left on their honeymoon this morning.”

“I hope they’ll be very happy,” he said without inflection. “And then what did you do?”

“Does that really matter to you?”

“It’s called conversation, Abilene.”

Her expression was mutinous, but she did answer his question. “After I talked to my mother, I called a … friend.”

He took note of her hesitation before the word, friend. “A lover, you mean?”

She laughed, a low, husky sound that irked him to no end. A laugh that said he didn’t intimidate her, not with his purposeful rudeness, nor with his too-personal questions. “No, not a lover. Javier is a builder. A really good one. I’ve been working for him over the past year, on and off. He also happens to be my half sister Elena’s father. And the adoptive father of my sister-in-law, Mercedes.”

He sipped his scotch. “All right. I’m thoroughly confused.”

“I kind of guessed that by the way your eyes glazed over.”

“Maybe just a few more details …”

She swirled her glass. Ice clinked on crystal. “My father and Javier’s wife, Luz, had a secret affair years ago.”

“An adulterous affair, that’s what you’re telling me.”

“Yes. That’s what I’m telling you. Luz was married to Javier. My dad to my mom. The affair didn’t last long.”

“Did your father love your mother?”

“He did—and he does. And I believe that Luz loved—and loves—Javier. But both of their marriages were troubled at the time.”

“Troubled, how?”

She gave him a look. One that said he’d better back off. “I was a toddler when all this happened. I don’t know all the details, all the deep inner motivations.”

“Maybe you should ask your father.”

“Maybe you should stop goading me.”

“But I kind of like goading you.”

“Clearly. Where was I? Wait. I remember. Javier—and everyone else except Luz—believed that Elena, my half sister, was his. But then, a few years back, the truth came out. It was … a difficult time.”

“I would imagine.”

“However, things are better now. Slowly, we’ve all picked up the pieces and moved on.” She uncrossed her legs, put her elbows on her knees and leaned toward him. With the glass of scotch between her two fine hands, she studied him some more through those arresting golden-green eyes of hers. “So what did you do while I was busy talking on the phone?”

“Mostly, I was downstairs in the torture chamber with one of my physical therapists.”

“You mean the gym? You were working out?”

“Torture really is a better word for it. Necessary torture, but torture nonetheless.” And he had no desire to talk about himself. “What made you become an architect?”

She sank back against the sofa cushions. “Didn’t I explain all that in my fellowship submission?”

As if he remembered some essay she had written to go with her original concept for the children’s center. As if he’d even read her essay. Essays were of no interest to him. It was the work that mattered. “Explain it again. Briefly, if you don’t mind.”

She turned her head to the side, slid him a narrow look. He thought she would argue and he was ready for that—looking forward to it, really. But she didn’t. “Four of my seven brothers work for the family company, Bravo Corp. I wanted to be in the family business, too. BravoCorp used to be big into property development.”

“And so you set out to become the family architect.”

She gave him one slow, regal nod. “But since then, BravoCorp has moved more into renewable energy. And various other investments. There’s not much of a need for an architect at the moment.” She set her drink on the side table by the arm of the sofa. “What about your family?”

He put on a fake expression of shock. “Haven’t you read my books?”

She almost rolled her eyes. “What? That was a requirement?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, then all right. I confess. I have read your books. All four of them, as matter of fact. Will there be a quiz?”

“Don’t tempt me. And if you’ve read my books, then you know more than anyone could ever want to know about my family.”

“I’d like to hear it from you—briefly, if you don’t mind.” Those haunting eyes turned more gold than green as she gave his own words back to him.

He bent to the side and set his drink on the floor, then straightened in the chair and braced his elbows on the swing-away armrests. “I hate all this getting-to-know-you crap.”

“Really? You seemed to be enjoying yourself a minute or two ago. But then, that was when you were asking the questions.”

“You are an annoying woman.” There. It was out.

She said nothing for several seconds. When she did speak, her voice was gentle. “You’re not going to scare me off, Donovan. If you want me to go, you’ll have to send me away—which means you’ll also have to admit, once and for all, that you’re backing out of the fellowship.”

“But I’m not backing out of the fellowship.”

“All right, then. Tell me about your family.”

He was tempted to refuse. If she’d read his books as she claimed, she knew it all anyway. But he had the distinct impression that if he refused, she would only badger him until he gave it up.

So he told her. “My father was never in the picture.”

From where he sat, without shifting his gaze from her face, he could see out the wide front windows. He spotted the headlights of a car approaching down the winding driveway. When the car pulled to a stop under the glow of the bright facade lights, he recognized the vehicle.

A red Cadillac.

He ignored the car and continued telling Abilene what she no doubt already knew. “My mother was a very determined woman. I was her only child and she set out to make me fearless. She was a force to be reckoned with. Adventurous. Always curious. And clever. It was her idea that I should write my autobiography when I wasn’t even old enough to have one. She said I needed to cultivate myself as a legend and an authority. And the rest would follow. She died when I was in my early twenties. A freak skydiving accident.”

Abilene had her elbow braced on the chair arm, her strong chin framed in the L of her thumb and forefinger. “A legend and an authority. I like that.”

“It’s a direct quote from my second book. If you really had read that book, you would remember it.”

“This may come as a shock, but I don’t remember everything I read.”

“How limiting for you.”

She gave him a slow smile, one that told him he was not going to break her. “Did you ever find your father?”

“To find him implies that I looked for him.”

“So that would be a no?”

An atonal series of chimes sounded: the doorbell. Abilene sent a glance over her shoulder and shifted as if to rise.

“Don’t get up,” Donovan said.

“But—”

“Olga will take care of it.”

Abilene sank back to the couch cushions as his housekeeper appeared in the wide-open arched doorway that led to the foyer. Olga cast him a questioning look. He gave a tight shake of his head.

Olga shut the thick archway doors before answering the bell. Seconds later, there were voices: Olga’s and that of another woman. The heavy foyer doors blocked out the actual words.

He heard the front door shut.

And then Olga opened the doors to the living area again. “Dinner is ready,” she announced, her square face, framed by wiry graying hair, serene and untroubled.

“Thanks, Olga. We’ll be right in.” Out in the driveway, the Cadillac started moving, backing and turning and then speeding off the way it had come. Abilene had turned to watch it go. He asked her, “Hungry?”

She faced him again. “Who was that?”

“Does it really matter? And more to the point, is it any of your business?”

Abilene stood and smoothed her skinny little skirt down over those shapely knees. “I can see this is going to be one long, dirty battle, every step of the way.”

“Maybe you should give up, pack your bags, go back to San Antonio and your so-helpful builder friend, who also happens to be the father of your half sister, as well as of your sister-in-law. To the loving arms of your large, powerful, wealthy family. To your father, who loves your mother even though he betrayed her.”

Her eyes went to jade, mysterious. Deep. “I’m going nowhere, Donovan.”

“Wait. Learn. The evening is young yet. You can still change your mind.”

“It’s obvious that you don’t know me very well.”




Chapter Three


Dinner, Abilene found, was more of the same.

A verbal torture chamber. But at least it was brief. She saw to that.

Ben joined them in the dining room, which was the next room over from the enormous living area and had more large windows with beautifully framed views of the desert and distant, barren peaks.

There were several tables of varying sizes, as in a lodging house, or a bed-and-breakfast. They ate at one of the smaller ones, by the French doors to the courtyard, just the three of them. Olga brought the food and a bottle of very nice cabernet and left them alone.

Abilene asked, “Why all the tables? Are you thinking of renting out rooms?”

Donovan raised one glided eyebrow. “And this is of interest to you, why?”

Ben answered for him. “Once, Donovan thought he might offer a number of fellowships….”

Abilene smiled at Ben. At least he was civil. “Students, then?”

“Once, meaning long ago,” Donovan offered distantly. “Never happened. Never going to happen. And I decided against changing the tables for one large one. Too depressing, just Ben and me, alone at a table made for twenty.” He gave Ben a cool glance. “Ben is an engineer,” he said. “A civil engineer.”

Ben didn’t sigh. But he looked as though he wanted to. “I had some idea I needed a change. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was a very good engineer.”

“I saved him from that,” Donovan explained in a grating, self-congratulatory tone. “In the end, an architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows everything about one thing. It’s not good for a man, to be too wrapped up the details.”

Ben swallowed a bite of prime rib and turned to Abilene. “But then, my job here is to deal with the details. So I guess I’m still an engineer.”

She sipped her wine. Slowly.

Donovan glared at her. “All right. What are you thinking?”

She set down her glass. “I’m thinking you need to get out more. How long have you been hiding out here in the desert?”

A low, derisive laugh escaped him. “Hiding out?”

She refused to let him off the hook. “Months, at least. Right? Out here a hundred miles from nowhere, with your cook and your housekeeper and your engineer.”

“Are you going to lose your temper again?” he asked in that so-superior way that made her want to jump up and stab him with her fork.

“No. I’m not.”

“Should I be relieved?”

She glanced to the side and saw that the corners of Ben’s mouth were twitching. He was enjoying this.

Abilene wasn’t. Not in the least. She was tired and she was starting to wonder if maybe she should do exactly what she’d told everyone she wouldn’t: give up and head back to SA. “I’m just saying, maybe we could go out to dinner one of these nights.”

“Go out where?” Donovan demanded.

“I don’t know. El Paso?”

He dismissed her suggestion with a wave of his hand. “It’s a long way to El Paso.”

“It’s a long way to anywhere from here.”

“And that’s just how I like it.”

“I did go through a small town maybe twenty miles east of here today.”

“Chula Mesa,” said Donovan in a tone that said the little town didn’t thrill him in the least.

Abilene kept trying. “That’s it. Chula Mesa. And just outside of town, I saw a roadhouse, Luisa’s Cantina? We could go there. Have a beer. Shoot some pool.”

“I’m not going to Luisa’s.”

“You’ve been there before, then?”

“What does it matter? I’m not going there now. And as for Chula Mesa, there is nothing in that dusty little burg that interests me in the least.”

“Maybe you could just pretend to be interested.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Sometimes you have to pretend a little, Donovan. You might surprise yourself and find that you actually do enjoy what you’re pretending to enjoy.”

“When it comes to Chula Mesa, I’m not willing to pre tend. Wait. I’ll go further. I’m not willing to pretend anywhere. About anything.”

She really did want to do violence to him. To grab his big shoulders and shake him, at least. To tell him to grow up. Snap out of it. Stop acting like a very bright, very spoiled child. She took a bite of prime rib, one of potato. Dipped an artichoke leaf in buttery sauce and carefully bit off the tender end.

Donovan chuckled. “Fed up with me already, huh? I predict you’re out of here by morning.”

Ben surprised her by coming to her defense. “Leave her alone, Donovan. Let her eat her dinner in peace.”

Donovan’s manly jaw twitched. Twice. And then he grunted and picked up his fork.

They ate the rest of the meal in bleak silence.

When Abilene was finished, she dabbed at her lips with her snowy napkin, slid it in at the edge of her plate and stood. She spoke directly to Ben. “Would you tell the cook the food was excellent, please? I’ve had long day. Good night.”

“I’ll tell him,” Ben replied pleasantly. “Sleep well.”

“My studio,” Donovan muttered. “Nine o’clock sharp. We have a lot of work to do.”

She let a nod serve as her answer, and she left by the door to the interior hallway.

In her rooms, she changed into sweats and then sat on the bed and did email for a while. The house had wireless internet.

Really, it was kind of a miracle. Way out here, miles from nowhere, her cell worked fine and so did email and her web connection. She would have been impressed if she wasn’t so tired and disheartened.

What she needed was sleep, but she felt restless, too. Unhappy and unsatisfied. All these months of waiting. For this.

She knew if she got into bed, she would only lie there fuming, imagining any number of brutal ways to do physical harm to Donovan McRae.

Eventually, she turned on the bedroom TV and flipped through the channels, settling on The History Channel, where she watched a rerun of Pawn Stars and then an episode of Life After People, which succeeded in making her feel even more depressed.

Nothing like witnessing the great buildings of the world rot and fall into rubble after a so-enchanting evening with Donovan McRae. It could make a woman wonder if there was any point in going on.

At a few minutes after ten, there was a tap on her sitting room door.

It was Ben, holding two plates of something sinfully chocolate. “You left before dessert. No one makes flourless chocolate cake like Anton.”

She took one of the plates and a fork and stepped aside. “Okay. Since there’s chocolate involved, you can come in.” She poked at the dollop of creamy white stuff beside the sinfully dark cake. “Crème fraîche?”

“Try it.”

She did. “Wonderful. Your boss may deserve slow torture and an agonizing death, but I have no complaints about the food.”

They sat on the couch and ate without speaking until both of their plates were clean.

“Feel better?” He set his plate on the coffee table.

She put hers beside it. “I do. Much. Thank you.”

Ben stared off toward the doors to the darkened courtyard. “I started working for him two years ago, before the accident on the mountain. At the time, I really liked him. He used to be charming. He honestly did.”

“I know,” she answered gently. “I heard him speak once. He was so funny. Funny and inspiring. He made it all seem so simple. We were an auditorium full of students, raw beginners. Yet we came away feeling we were brilliant and accomplished, that we could do anything, that we understood what makes a building work, what makes it both fully functional and full of … meaning, too. Then, after he spoke, there was a party for the upperclassmen and professors, with Donovan the guest of honor. I was a freshman, not invited. But I heard how he amazed them all, how fascinating he was, how full of life, how … interested in everything and everyone. We all wanted to be just like him when we grew up.”

“I keep waiting,” Ben said, “for the day I wake up and he’s changed back into the man he used to be. But it’s been a while now. And the change is nowhere on the horizon.”

She asked the central question. “So. What happened to him? Was it the accident on the mountain?”

Ben only smiled. “That, I really can’t tell you. You’ll have to find out from him.”

She scoffed. “I don’t think I’ll hold my breath.”

“He likes you.”

That made her laugh. “Oh, come on.”

“Seriously. He does. I know him well enough by now to read him a little, at least. He finds you fascinating. And attractive—both of which you are.”

Was Ben flirting with her? She slid him a look. He was still staring off into the middle distance. So maybe not. “Well, if you’re right, I would hate to see how he treats someone he doesn’t like.”

“He ignores them. He ignores almost everyone now. Just pretends they aren’t even there. Sends me or Olga to deal with them.”

She gathered her knees up to the side. “This evening, before dinner, someone arrived and was sent away, someone in a red Cadillac. I didn’t see who, but I heard a woman’s voice talking to Olga at the door….”

Ben shrugged. “People come by, now and then. When they get fed up with him not returning their calls. When they can’t take the waiting, the wondering if he’s all right, the stewing over what could be going on with him.”

“People like …?”

“Old friends. Mountain climbers he used to know, used to partner with. Beginning architects he once encouraged.”

“Old girlfriends, too?”

“Yes.” Ben sent her a patient glance. “Old girlfriends, too.”

She predicted, “Eventually, they’ll all give up on him. He’ll get what he seems to be after. To be completely alone.”

Ben’s dark eyes gleamed. “With his cook and his housekeeper and his engineer.”

She told him gently, “I didn’t mean that as a criticism of you.”

He smiled. A warm smile. “I know you didn’t.”

“I just don’t get what’s up with him.”

“Well, don’t worry. You’re not the only one.”

“How will he live, if he doesn’t work? This house alone must cost a fortune to run.”

“His books still make money.”

“But an architect needs clients. We’re not like painters or writers. We can’t go into a room and lock the door and turn out a masterpiece and then try to sell it….”

“I know,” Ben said softly. He admitted, “Eventually, there could be a problem. But not for a few years yet, anyway….” There was a silence. Ben was gazing off toward the courtyard again.

Finally, she said, “You seemed pretty stuffy at first.”

He chuckled. “Like the butler in one of those movies with Emma Thompson, right?”

“Pretty much. But now I realize you’re not like someone’s snobby butler, not in the least. You’re okay, Ben.”

He did look at her then. His dark eyes were so sad. “I was afraid, after the way he behaved at dinner, that he’d succeeded in chasing you off. I hope he hasn’t. He needs a little interaction, with someone other than Anton, or Olga. Or me.”

“A fresh victim, you mean.”

“No. I mean someone smart and tough and aggressively optimistic.”

“Aggressively optimistic? That’s a little scary.”

“I meant it in the best possible way.”

“Oh, right.”

“I meant someone able to keep up with him—I could use someone like that around here, too, when you come right down to it. Someone like you …”

“I wouldn’t say I’m exactly keeping up with him.”

“Well, I would.”

She drooped back against the couch cushions. “Okay, I’m still here. But it’s going to take a lot of chocolate, you know.”

“I’ll make sure that Anton keeps it coming.” He got up. “And I’ll let you get your rest.”

She waited until he reached the door before she said, “Good night.”

“‘Night, Abilene.” And he was gone.

“It’s not a horrible arrangement of the space,” Donovan announced when she entered the studio the next day. He was already at his desk, staring at his computer screens.

She saw that her design for the center was up on the computer at the desk she’d used the day before—which meant he was probably looking at the same thing on his two ginormous screens.

Just to be sure, she marched down the length of the room and sidled around to join him behind his desk.

Yep. It was her design. Up on display like a sacrificial offering at a summoning of demons. Ready to be ripped to shreds by the high priest of darkness.

He shot her an aggravated glance. “What? You do have a desk of your own, you know.”

She sidled in closer, and then leaned in to whisper in his ear. “But yours is so much bigger, so much … more impressive.”

He made a snarly sound. “Did I mention you annoy me?”

“Yes, you did. Don’t repeat yourself. It makes you seem unimaginative.” He smelled good. Clean. With a faint hint of some really nice aftershave. How could some one who smelled so good be such an ass?

It was a question for the ages.

“You’re crowding me,” he growled.

“Oh, I’m so sorry….” She straightened again, and stepped back from him, but only a fraction.

“No, you’re not—and I don’t like people lurking behind me, either.”

“Fair enough.” She slid around so she was beside him again, put her hand on his sacrificial slab of a desk and leaned in as close as before. “I slept well, surprisingly. And I’m feeling much better this morning, thank you.”

He turned his head slowly. Reluctantly. And met her eyes. “I didn’t ask how you slept.”

“But you should have asked.”

“Yeah. Well, don’t expect a lot of polite noises from me.”

She heaved a fake sigh. “I only wish.”

“If you absolutely have to lurk at my elbow, pay attention.” He turned back to the monitors, began clicking through the views. “Have you noticed?”

This close, she could see the hair follicles of his just-shaved beard. His skin was as golden and flawless from beside him as from several feet away. He must get outside now and then, to have such great color in his face. And his neck. And his strong, lean hands. “Noticed what?”

“It lacks a true parti.” The parti, pronounced par-TEE, as in We are going to par-tee, was the central idea or concept for a building. In the process of creating a building design, the parti often changed many times.

She jumped to her own defense. “It does not lack a parti.”

He sent her a look. “You never mentioned the parti.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Well, all right then. What is the parti?” He let out a dry chuckle. “Nestled rectangles?”

Okay, his guess was way too close. She’d actually been thinking of the parti as learning rectangles. Which somehow seemed ham-handed and far too elementary, now he’d taken his scalpel of a tongue to it.

“What’s wrong with rectangles?” She sounded defensive and she knew it. “They’re classrooms. Activity rooms. A rectangle is a perfectly acceptable shape for a classroom.”

“Children deserve a learning space as open and receptive as their young minds.”

“Oh, wait. The great man speaks. I should write that down.”

“Yes, you should. You should carry a notebook around with you, and a pen, be ready to jot down every pearl of wisdom that drops from my lips.” He spoke with more irony than egotism.

And she almost laughed. “You know, you are amusing now and then—in your own totally self-absorbed way.”

“Thank you. I agree. And you need to start with some soft sketches. You need to get off the computer and go back to the beginning, start working with charcoal, pastels and crayons.”

“Starting over. Wonderful.”

“To truly gain control of a design,” he intoned, “one must first accept—even embrace—the feeling that everything is out of control.”

“I’m so looking forward to that.”

“And we have to be quick about it. I told the Foundation we’d be ready to bring in the whole team in six weeks.” He meant the builder, the other architects and the engineers.

“Did you just say that we’d be ready?”

“I decided it would be unwise to go into how I won’t be involved past the planning stages.”

“Good thinking. Since you know exactly how that would go over—it wouldn’t. It won’t. They’re counting on you.”

“And they will learn to count on you.”

“So you totally misled them.”

He looked down his manly blade of a nose at her. “Better that they see the design and the scale model and love it first, meet you at your most self-assured and persuasive. You can give them a full-out oral presentation, really wow them. Make them see that you’re not only confident, you’re completely capable of handling the construction on your own.”

“Confident, capable, self-assured and persuasive. Well. At least I like the sound of all that.”

He granted her a wry glance. “You have a lot of work to do. Don’t become overly confident.”

“With you around? Never going to happen.”

Loftily, he informed her, “March one is the target date for breaking ground.”

She put up a hand, forefinger extended. “If I might just make one small point.”

“As if I could stop you.”

“I can’t help but notice that suddenly, you’re all about not wasting time. What’s that old saying? ‘Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.’”

“The tight timeline has nothing to do with my planning, poor or otherwise.”

“Planned or not, you’re the one who kept us from going ahead months ago.”

“Since you seem to be so fond of clichés, here’s one for you. Can we stop beating the same dead horse? Yes, I put the project on hold. Now I’m ready to get down to work.”

“And the timeline is impossibly tight.”

“That may be so.”

“How generous of you to admit it.”

“But in the end, Abilene, there is only one question.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Do you want to make a success of this or not?”

Okay. He had it right for once. That was the question. “Yes, Donovan. I do.”

“Then go back to your work area, get out your pastels, your charcoal, your fat markers. And stop fooling around.”




Chapter Four


From that moment on, for Abilene, work trumped everything else. From nine—sometimes eight—in the morning, until after seven at night. Donovan supervised. He guided and challenged her. But he fully expected her to carry most of the load.

It would be her project in the truest sense. Which made it the chance of a lifetime for her, professionally. And also absolutely terrifying.

She drove herself tirelessly and mostly managed to keep her fear that she might fail at bay.

Donovan was not always there in the studio with her. He would set her a task or a problem to solve and then disappear, only to return hours later to check on her progress, to prod her onward.

Often during the day, when he wasn’t with her, he took his personal elevator down to his underground gym to work with one of his physical therapists. Now and then, she would see them, Donovan’s trainers. And the massage therapists, too. They were healthy, muscular types, both men and women. They came and went by the kitchen door. Anton, the cook, who was big and barrel-chested with a booming laugh and long gray hair clubbed back in a ponytail, would sometimes feed them after they finished putting Donovan through his paces.

Donovan seemed dedicated to that, at least, to taking care of his body, to making it stronger—though he continued to do nothing to heal his damaged spirit.

Or, apparently, his broken relationships. As had happened the first night, people Abilene never saw showed up at the front door to ask to speak with him. Olga or Ben always answered the doorbell when it rang. And they always sent whoever it was away.

More and more as the days went by, Abilene found herself wondering about that. About the people who cared for Donovan, the people he kept turning his back on. She would wonder—and then she would catch herself.

Really, it wasn’t her concern if he refused to see former friends. She didn’t even like him. Why should she keep wondering what had happened to him? Why couldn’t she stop puzzling over what could have made him turn his back on other people, on a fabulous career?

There was the climbing accident, of course. That seemed the most likely answer to the question of what had killed his will to work, to fully engage in his own life. It seemed to her that something must have happened, some thing that had changed him so completely from the out going, inspiring man she’d admired from a distance back in college into someone entirely different.

She found she was constantly reminding herself that she was there to work, not to wonder what in the world had happened to Donovan McRae. She told herself to focus on the positive. If she could pull this off, create a design that would wow the Foundation people and hold her own overseeing construction, her career would be made.

And there were some benefits to being stuck in the desert with Donovan—Olga, for one.

The housekeeper was helpful and pleasant and ran the big house with seeming effortlessness. And beyond Olga, there was Anton’s cooking; every meal was delicious and nourishing. And the conversation at dinner, while not always pleasant, did challenge her. Donovan might not be a very nice man, but he was certainly interesting. Ben provided a little balance, with his dry wit, his warm laughter.

Abilene really did like Ben. As the days passed, the two of them became friends. Every night, he came to her rooms for an hour or two before bedtime. Often, he brought dessert. They would eat the sweet treat, and he would commiserate with her over Donovan’s most recent cruelties.

And beyond the great food, the comfortable house, the very efficient Olga and Abilene’s friendship with Ben, there was music. Anton played the piano, and beautifully. Sometimes after dinner, in the music room at the east end of the house, he would play for them. Everything from Chopin to Gershwin, from Ray Charles to Norah Jones.

One night, about two weeks into her stay in Donovan’s house, Anton played a long set of Elton John songs—songs that had been popular when Abilene’s parents were young. Anton sang them, beautifully, in a smoky baritone, and Olga, who had a good contralto voice, sang harmony. Abilene felt the tears welling when they sang “Candle in the Wind.”

She turned away, hoping Donovan wouldn’t notice and torment her about it.

But it was never a good bet, to hope that Donovan wouldn’t notice.

When the last notes died away, he went for the throat. “Abilene. Are you crying?”

She blinked the dampness away, drew her shoulders back and turned to him. “Of course not.”

“Liar.” He held her gaze. His was blue and cool and distant as the desert sky on a winter afternoon. “Your eyes are wet.”

She sniffed. “Allergies.”

He refused to look away. She felt herself held, pinned, beneath his uncompromising stare. She also found herself thinking how good-looking he was. How compelling. And how totally infuriating. “It’s winter in the desert,” he said. “Nobody has allergies now. You’re crying. You protect yourself by pretending to be cool and sophisticated. But in your heart, you’re a complete sentimentalist, a big bowl of emotional mush.”

It occurred to her right then that he was right. And she wasn’t the least ashamed of it. “Okay, Donovan. I plead guilty. I am sentimental. And really, what is so wrong with that?”

“Sentimentality is cheap.”

Ben, sitting beside her, shifted tightly in his chair. “Cut it out, Donovan.”

“Ben.” She reached over and clasped his arm. “It’s okay.”

He searched her face. “You’re sure?”

“I am positive.” She turned her gaze on Donovan. “A lot of things are cheap. Laughter. Honest tears. Good times with good friends. A mother’s love. A baby can have that love by the mere fact of its existence. Of its very vulnerability, its need for affection and care. Cheap is not always a bad thing—and I’ll bet that when you were a child, you used to pull the wings off of butterflies.” She regretted the dig as soon as it was out. It wasn’t true and she knew it. Whatever had shriveled his spirit had happened much more recently than his childhood.

He totally surprised her by responding mildly. “I was a very nice little boy, actually. Sweet-natured. Gentle. Curious.”

The question was there, the one that kept eating at her. She framed it in words. “So then, what is it, exactly, that’s turned you into such a bitter, angry man?”

He didn’t answer. But he did look away, at last.

And for the rest of the evening, he was quiet. The few times he did speak, he was surprisingly subdued about it, almost benign.

Ben brought her red velvet cake that night. “I figured you deserved it, after that dustup in the music room.”

“It wasn’t so bad, really. I shouldn’t have said that about him torturing butterflies.”

“It got him to back off, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. But …”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, in the past few days especially, I don’t feel angry with him at all. I only feel sorry for him.”

Ben put on a frown. “So then you don’t want this cake….”

She grabbed for it, laughing. “Don’t you dare take that away.”

He handed over one of the plates and she gestured him inside. They sat on the couch as they always did when he brought dessert.

She took a couple of slow, savoring bites. “I don’t know how Anton does it. Red velvet cake always looks so good, you know? But as a rule, it’s a disappointment.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s usually dry. And too sweet.”

“But not Anton’s red velvet cake.” She treated her mouth to another slow bite. “Umm. Perfect. Moist. And the cream cheese frosting is to die for. So good …”

Ben laughed. “You should see your face.”

“Can you tell I’m in heaven? Good company and a really well-made red velvet cake. What more is there to life?”

“You’re happy. I like that.”

She gave him a bright smile, ate yet another dreamy bite of the wonderful cake. “You know, we really should go into that little town, Chula Mesa, one of these nights.”

He swallowed, lowered his fork. His dark eyes shone. “We?”

“Yeah. You. Me. Donovan.”

“Donovan.” Ben spoke flatly now. “Of course, Donovan.”

“No, really. I think it would be good for him, for all three of us, to get out of this house for a while. We could invite Anton and Olga, too. Make it a group outing.”

Ben wasn’t exactly jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of a night out with his boss. “Have you brought this up to him?”

“Just that first night.” She made a show of rolling her eyes. “You remember how well that went.”

“What can I say? You can’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do.”

“Ben, he needs to get out. He’s … hiding here. He’s made this house into his fortress—you know that he has. It’s not good for him.”

Ben lowered his half-finished plate to his lap. “Listen to you. You’re getting way too invested in him.”

“What’s wrong with that? You said it yourself, that first night. You said he needed someone like me around.”

“I didn’t mean that you should make him into a … project.”

“But I’m not.”

“Abilene. You’re his protégé. Not his therapist.”

“Which is a very good question. Does he have a therapist—a counselor I mean, someone to talk to? If he spent half as much time trying to figure out what’s going on inside him as he does in the gym downstairs, he’d be a much happier person. Not to mention, more fun to be around.”

“No. He doesn’t have a counselor.”

“Well, he should. And he should get out. We should work together on this, you and me, make it a point to get him to—”

“Abilene. Stop.” Ben set his plate down, hard.

She blinked. “What?”

“I’ll go with you, okay?” He spoke with intensity. With passion, almost. “Into Chula Mesa, to Luisa’s. We can have a few drinks. A few laughs, just the two of us.”

Just the two of us.

Suddenly, the rich cake was too much. She set it down, half-finished, next to Ben’s. “Ben, I …”

He sat very still. And then he smiled. It was not a particularly pleasant smile. “Not interested, huh?”

“Ben …”

His lip still curled. But now, not in any way resembling a smile. “Just answer the question.”

There was no good way to say it. “No. I’m not. Not in that way.”

He let out a slow breath, and then smoothed his hair back with both hands. “Well, at least you didn’t say how much you like me. How much you want to be friends.” “But, I do. On both counts. You know I do.” She wanted to touch him. To soothe him. But that would be beyond inappropriate, given the circumstances. “But my liking you and wanting to be your friend … neither of those is the issue right now, is it?”

“No, they’re not. The issue is that I want more. And you don’t.” Now he looked openly angry. “It’s Donovan, right?”

She gaped. “Donovan? Not on your life.”

He grunted, nodded his head. “Yeah. It’s Donovan.”

“Ben. Come on. I don’t even like him.”

“Yeah. You do. You like him a lot.” He stood. “I think that you and I need to redefine the boundaries.”

She hated that. But he was right. “Yes. I agree. I think we do.”

“If you want to know about Donovan, you should ask him yourself. If you want to go to Chula Mesa with him, tell him so. If you think he needs a shrink, say so. Say it to him. Leave me out of it. Please.”

He left her, shutting the door a little too loudly behind him.

“What did you do to Ben?” Donovan demanded when she walked into the studio the next morning bright and early.

As if she was answering that one. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, come on. I know he’s got a thing for you.”

She took a careful breath. Let it out slowly. “If you knew that, you might have mentioned it to me before now.”

“I thought it was none of my business.”

“Oh, right. Because you’re so considerate of other people and all.” She was standing in front of her drafting table.

He rolled out from behind his twin computer screens and came at her, fast, stopping cleanly a foot from her shoes. “He left a half hour ago.”

Her throat clutched. She gulped. “What do you mean, left?”

“He packed his suitcases and he left. He said he needed to get out of this house, away from here. Far away.”

“For … how long?”

Donovan blew out a breath. “Abilene. He quit.”

She felt awful. Yes, Ben had been upset last night. But she’d never imagined he would just pack up and move out, just walk away from a job he’d had for two years now. “But where will he go?”

Donovan stared up at her. His sky-colored eyes, as always, saw far too clearly. “If you cared that much, you wouldn’t have turned him down when he made his play, now would you?”

She eased backward, around the drafting table, and sank into the swivel chair behind it, not even caring that Donovan would see the move for what it was: a retreat. “How would you know if he made a play for me?”

He let out a low sound—dismissive? Disbelieving? She couldn’t tell which. “I guessed. And since you’re not denying it, I’m thinking I guessed right.”

She threw up both hands. “What do you want me to say?”

“How about the truth?”

“Fine. All right. He did ask me out. I said no.” She glared at him, daring him to say one more word about it.

He said nothing. He only sat there, his strong hands gripping the wheels of his chair, watching her face.

She dropped her hands, flat, to the drafting table, making a hard slapping sound. “Where will he go, Donovan?” Tears of frustration—and yes, guilt, too—tried to rise. She gulped them down, hard.

He rolled a fraction closer and spoke with surprising gentleness. “Stop worrying. He owns a house in Fort Worth, near his family. And he’s an excellent engineer. I gave him a glowing letter of recommendation. He’ll easily find another job. Plus, it wasn’t just you. I think he was getting a little tired of things around here. A little tired of the isolation, of dealing with me. He was ready to move on. And he definitely has options as to what to do next. So please, take my word on it, Ben is going to be fine.”

She stared at him, vaguely stunned. He had just been kind to her, hadn’t he? He’d made a real effort to soothe her worries about Ben.

Had he ever once been kind to her before?

Not that she recalled. And Donovan McRae being kind … that was something she would definitely have remembered.

She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks, murmured softly, “It’s … kind of you, to say that.”

“Not kind,” he answered gruffly. “It’s only the simple truth.”

A weak laugh escaped her. “You just can’t stand it, can you? To have someone call you kind?”

“Because I’m not kind. I’m a hardheaded SOB with absolutely no consideration for anyone but myself. We both know that.”

She closed her eyes, pressed her fingertips against her shut eyelids and wished she could quit thinking about the things Ben had said last night—about how she had a thing for Donovan. About how, if she had questions for Donovan, she should gut up and ask them of the man himself.

Well, she absolutely did not have a thing for Donovan. Not in the way Ben had meant. She was only … intrigued by him. She was curious about him.

And yes, she wanted to help him get past whatever was eating at him, whatever had made him turn his back on his own life.

Was that so wrong?

He was watching her. Way too closely. “All right.” He pulled a very clever sort of wheelie maneuver, leaning back in the chair, so the wheels lifted a fraction, turning while the wheels were lifted, and then rolling the chair backward until he was sitting beside her at the drafting table. “What terrifying thoughts are racing through that mind of yours?” He almost sounded … friendly.

So she told him. “I think you need someone to talk to.”

“About what?”

“About … all the stuff that’s bothering you. I think you need to see a trained professional.”

He craned away from her in the chair. “A psychiatrist. You think I need a shrink.”

“I do. Yes.”

“No.”

“Just like that?” She raised a hand and snapped her fingers. “No?”

“That’s right. Just like that.”

“Donovan, you’re a very intelligent man. You have to know that there’s no shame in seeking help.”

“I didn’t say there was shame in it. I only said no. And since I am perfectly sane and a danger to no one, I have that right. I’m allowed to say no.”

“It’s not about being sane. I know you’re sane.”

“That’s a relief.” He pretended to wipe sweat off his brow.

“I just thought that if you could talk it out with a professional, if you could—”

“I’ll say it once more, since you have a bad habit of not listening when I say things the first time. No.”

She could see she was getting nowhere on the shrink front. So she moved on to the next issue. “Then how about this? Will you go into Chula Mesa with me some evening?”

He actually groaned. “Didn’t I make it clear two weeks ago that I was not going to Chula Mesa—with you, or otherwise?”

“You could rethink that. You could change your mind. People do that, you know, change their minds?”

“Abilene. Have you ever been in Chula Mesa?”

“Well, besides driving through it, no, I haven’t.”

“I’ve been in Chula Mesa. I’ve seen it all, been there. Done that. I don’t need to go there again.”

“Just … think about it. Please.”

“I fail to understand what a visit to Chula Mesa could possibly accomplish.”

“We’ll get out of the house, see other people, broaden our horizons a little.”

“If I wanted a broader horizon, I wouldn’t look for it in Chula Mesa.”

She was becoming irritated with him again. “You really should stop saying mean things about Chula Mesa.”

“I will be only too happy to. As soon as you stop trying to drag me there.”

“I’ll leave it alone for now, okay? I’ll bring it up again later.”

“Why is it I don’t find that comforting in the least?”

She still had a thousand unanswered questions for him. “One more thing …”

“With you, it’s never just one more thing.”

“Tell me about what happened, on that mountain, when you broke both your legs.”





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