Читать книгу: «The Cliff House»
Three women—two sisters and their aunt—and the cliff house on the northern California coast that served as a beacon to them all...
After the death of their mother, sisters Daisy and Beatriz Davenport found a home with their aunt Stella in the beautiful and welcoming town of Cape Sanctuary. They never knew all the dreams that Stella sacrificed to ensure they had everything they’d ever need. Now, with Daisy and Bea grown, it’s time for Stella to reveal the secret she’s been keeping from them—a secret that will change their family forever.
Bea thought she’d sown all her wild oats when she got pregnant far too young. The marriage that followed was rocky and not destined to last, but it gave Bea her wonderful, mature, now eleven-year-old daughter, Marisol. But just as she’s beginning to pursue a new love with an old friend, Bea’s ex-husband resurfaces and turns their lives completely upside down.
Then there’s Daisy—sensible, rational, financially prudent Daisy. She’s never taken a risk in her life—until she meets a man who makes her question everything she thought she knew about life, love and the power of taking chances.
In this heartwarming story, Stella, Bea and Daisy will discover that the path to true happiness is filled with twists and turns, but love always leads them back home.
About the Author
RAEANNE THAYNE finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honors, including RITA® Award nominations from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers and can be contacted through her website, www.raeannethayne.com.
Also by RaeAnne Thayne
Haven Point
Season of Wonder
The Cottages on Silver Beach
Sugar Pine Trail
Serenity Harbor
Snowfall on Haven Point
Riverbend Road
Evergreen Springs
Redemption Bay
Snow Angel Cove
Hope’s Crossing
Wild Iris Ridge
Christmas in Snowflake Canyon
Willowleaf Lane
Currant Creek Valley
Sweet Laurel Falls
Woodrose Mountain
Blackberry Summer
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
The Cliff House
RaeAnne Thayne
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-09652-2
THE CLIFF HOUSE
© 2019 RaeAnne Thayne
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk
Version: 2020-03-02
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Praise for New York Times bestselling author
RaeAnne Thayne
“[Thayne] engages the reader’s heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief that miracles are possible.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
“Serenity Harbor is riveting to the very end.”
—BookPage
“Entertaining, heart-wrenching, and totally involving, this multithreaded story overflows with characters readers will adore.”
—Library Journal on Evergreen Springs (starred review)
“Deliciously flirty and totally engrossing.”
—Library Journal on Sugar Pine Trail
“RaeAnne Thayne is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.... Once you start reading, you aren’t going to be able to stop.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Endearing small-town residents and bratty cats add humor to this heartwarming, steady-paced holiday romance.”
—Publishers Weekly on Sugar Pine Trail
As always, I have legions of people to thank for helping to bring this story to life. I am deeply indebted to my editor, the wonderful Gail Chasan, and her assistant, Megan Broderick; to my indomitable agent, Karen Solem; to Sarah Burningham and her hardworking team at Little Bird Publicity for tirelessly helping spread the word about my books; to my assistants, Judie Bouldry and Carrie Stevenson, for keeping me on track; and to everyone at Harlequin—from the art department for their stunning covers to the marketing team to the copy editors, sales team, production crew and everyone else I may have failed to mention.
I must also thank my hero of a husband and our three children, who somehow manage to love me even in the midst of deadline chaos. You are my heart.
Finally, this particular book would not have been possible without three brilliant friends: Susan Mallery, Christine Rimmer and Jill Shalvis. I can’t thank you enough for all your help!
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Praise
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
EPILOGUE
About the Publisher
1
DAISY
A man was staring at her in the oral care aisle.
A gorgeous, make-your-ovaries-shiver man.
Though it taxed her considerable powers of restraint, Daisy Davenport McClure did not stare back. She wouldn’t give the stranger the courtesy of knowing he had rattled her.
She couldn’t help feeling discombobulated, though. Dark, wavy-haired, green-eyed strangers did not stare at plain, boring her in the grocery store. Or on the street. Or in a car or on a boat or a train or anywhere else Dr. Seuss could have come up with. She simply wasn’t the sort of woman who drew that kind of male attention—and that was exactly the way she liked it.
Why was he staring? She was almost positive she had checked her reflection in the rearview mirror when she picked up her sister outside their aunt’s house twenty minutes earlier. She didn’t remember seeing anything weird. No stray leaves from the yard work she’d been doing earlier, no smudges on her cheek, no splotched paint, no lettuce in her teeth.
There was no reason she could think of why this man might be looking at her as if she were his salvation.
She almost turned around to head down another aisle but despite her certainty that she didn’t have any leafy vegetable residue in her teeth, she still really needed toothpaste, which was why she was here. She drew in a breath.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, reaching around him for her favorite brand, the one that promised to whiten, give her fresh breath and vanquish any hint of tartar or gingivitis.
“Sorry,” he said, easing back a little. The man looked pale beneath his tan and she thought she saw white lines around his mouth.
Probably hungover. Maybe he was a tourist who had started his vacation here on the beautifully rugged Northern California coast by doing his own Cape Sanctuary happy hour pub crawl and now was paying the price.
He didn’t really look like a tourist, but one never knew.
She grabbed her toothpaste, tossed it into her basket and stepped away, careful not to make eye contact.
“Sorry. Have we met?” he asked. His voice was an appealing tenor with a slight accent she couldn’t quite place. Australian, maybe? New Zealand? It was as gorgeous as the rest of him. Naturally.
“I’m sure we haven’t,” she answered curtly. While she considered herself eminently forgettable, she certainly would have remembered him.
“Sorry. It’s odd. I feel as if I should know you, somehow.”
“You don’t,” she assured him, then grabbed a box of dental floss she didn’t really need and hurried out of the aisle.
It was the kind of interaction strangers had all the time—banal, meaningless—but somehow the encounter left her rattled. He left her rattled. When was the last time she had noticed how long a man’s eyelashes were or the strong angle of his jaw or the little indentation that hinted at a dimple?
Longer than she could remember. That she had focused on those features of a stranger who was probably wasted did not say much for her taste or her wisdom, two things she usually took great pride in.
Edgy and unsettled, she tried to put the guy out of her head and went instead to find her sister so they could finish their shopping and make it back to their aunt’s in time.
As Daisy might have expected, she found Beatriz in the magazine aisle, leafing through a tabloid. Her sister might be a twenty-eight-year-old divorced mother, but she was sometimes a teenage girl at heart.
Now, Bea was a woman that someone like the tipsy stranger in the toothpaste aisle would notice, with her dramatic dark curls, the little pierced diamond in her nose, her perfect makeup—though she wore it a little heavy to Daisy’s taste. Everything about Bea drew attention, from her clothes to her hair to her wide, generous smile.
Bea had been boho before boho was a thing, with her own unique style and the voluptuous body and serenely classic features to pull off whatever look she wanted.
Daisy was only a little envious of her sister’s style. They were half sisters and didn’t look much alike, except for the hazel eyes they had inherited from their mother. Daisy’s stick-straight hair was lighter, a boring chestnut color, and she wore it in a shoulder-length classic bob, using hairbands or pulling it up into an updo to keep it out of her face while she worked.
She looked down at her own respectable three-year-old summer dress and matching sandals. She dressed for comfort and ease, not fashion, fully aware that she often looked like somebody’s boring aunt—which she supposed she was, since Bea’s daughter, Mari, was her niece.
So why had the man with the delectable accent even noticed her, let alone stared at her like he was...hungry?
It didn’t matter. She would likely never see him again. The tourist season on the Northern California coast never really ended but August was particularly crowded. Tourists rarely stayed long. He would probably be gone by Monday.
She didn’t miss the fact that her sister’s arms were empty and there was no cart in sight. “You were supposed to be picking up the birthday cake and the candles!”
She had a sinking suspicion they were going to be late.
“Sorry. I got a little distracted by this.”
She flipped up the magazine so Daisy could see the cover. There, in vivid color, was a picture of one of the most famous men in the country, looking tortured and sexy. Lean, tattooed, dangerous.
Above his photograph read the headline in huge type:
Cruz in seclusion after attack by crazed fan.
In smaller type that ran across his legs, in the tight leather leggings his fans loved, another headline read:
Whereabouts of rocker unknown.
“They’ve done a two-page spread on it.” Bea flipped the magazine around so Daisy could see a scattering of several other pictures, one that looked like a grainy picture of Cruz on an ambulance stretcher and another of a man whose face she couldn’t see, slumped against a gray wall and holding his hands against his abdomen, a red stain spreading out across his shirt.
She couldn’t read the caption from where she stood. Was that the assailant or the mysterious man who had rushed to the rescue?
The attack on hometown boy Cruz Romero had been the talk of Cape Sanctuary since it happened a week earlier. People were talking about it everywhere she went in town. Every single client who came into Daisy’s accounting and financial planning office that week had brought it up to her, asking if she knew anything about where Cruz might be, how badly he had been injured, if it was true that he had been attacked by a jealous husband.
She imagined Bea had it much, much worse.
Cruz was her ex-husband, after all.
“Still no word?”
Bea shook her head. “Not since he called the night of the attack to make sure Marisol heard it from him first, before the rumors started flying at school, to assure her he only had a scratch. He was rattled and didn’t make much sense.”
“That’s understandable.”
“I guess. After only a couple of minutes he said he had to go, that he was heading to the hospital for a few stitches and to check on the guy who saved his life. He promised he’d call, but it’s been radio silence since then.”
“From Cruz, maybe, but you’ve heard from his people.”
“Yeah, his manager calls every day. Cruz is in seclusion but Lenny assures me he’s fine and he’ll call as soon as he has the chance.”
That was strange enough to Daisy, since Cruz loved connecting with his fans on social media. She had never had a close brush with death, though, so it wasn’t for her to judge.
“Buy it, if you want. Buy all of them, but I would suggest you don’t let Mari see them yet. She’s still upset about her dad.”
“She’s probably read the online edition on all their websites already, along with everything else she can find,” Bea muttered.
Daisy didn’t doubt it. Her niece was not only tech-savvy and headstrong, but she also adored her father and would want to read as much as possible about the accident that had nearly claimed his life.
“You buy your tabloids, I’ll pick up the candles and the cake. We still have to stop by Melenzana’s for the gnocchi she wanted.”
“Right. Sorry. I’ll take care of the candles and grab a bottle of wine.”
Bea snatched several other magazines with Cruz’s face on them from the racks and tucked them into Daisy’s basket.
Daisy hurried to the bakery. Though located in the grocery store, where one might not expect to find gourmet fare, they still made the best cakes in town.
For months, Stella had been insisting she didn’t want a grand party to mark her fortieth birthday. She said she only wanted their family—the three of them and Bea’s daughter, Mari—together for dinner, in the garden of Three Oaks, Stella’s two-story Craftsman.
Her aunt deserved a party attended by everyone in town. She deserved a freaking ticker-tape parade, as far as Daisy was concerned. She knew all the other lost souls Stella had rescued over the years would certainly agree with her.
She couldn’t go against Stella’s wishes, though. She loved her aunt too much. If Stella only wanted her immediate family to celebrate her milestone birthday with her—and the money they would spend donated to her charity instead—Daisy would make sure that was exactly what happened.
She picked up the cake they had ordered weeks ago, threw in some crusty Italian bread and some of the high-quality olive oil the store stocked, then headed for the checkout.
The cashier in her line had worked at the grocery store as long as Daisy had lived in Cape Sanctuary, while the bagger was another of her aunt’s rescues.
“Hey, Daisy,” he said, not quite making eye contact. Tommy Mathews was on the autism spectrum. When he had come to Stella, he had been considered unmanageable and difficult, close to being institutionalized after his mother died. He had lived with Stella for two years, from seventeen to nineteen, and had thrived with her loving care before moving into his own apartment with two other young adults who had special needs.
Now twenty, Tommy had a steady job at the supermarket and was taking classes to earn an associate’s degree at the community college in the next town over.
He had come so far because of her aunt, whose circle of influence was legendary.
“Hi, Tommy.” She adored him and all the other young people who had come in and out of their lives since Stella began opening her home up to other foster children in the years since she and Bea had moved out.
They were the first, she and Bea. Stella’s nieces. Her aunt’s influence started there and rippled out like concentric waves from a tiny pebble thrown into a pond.
The tears suddenly burning behind her eyes took her completely by surprise. She usually kept much better control over her emotions.
“Is that cake for Stella?” Tommy asked. “It’s her birthday tomorrow.”
“I know. It’s a big day, isn’t it?”
“She said she didn’t want presents but I have one for her anyway. I’m going to take it to her tomorrow.”
“Oh. That’s so sweet of you.”
“It’s a plant, the kind she likes with pink flowers. I can get it for a discount from the floral department here. It was only sixteen dollars and twenty-three cents with tax, but don’t tell her, okay?”
“I won’t say a word, Tommy. I know she’ll love it.”
“Yeah. She will,” he said with a confidence that made her smile.
Stella had fostered about twenty other children, some with special needs like Tommy and others just in need of a temporary home for a while, like Cruz Romero.
So many lives, changed for the better because Stella was a generous, kind soul who loved to help people.
Unlike Daisy, who hid away in her house on the cliff, afraid to even smile at men she didn’t know who talked to her in the toothpaste aisle.
The checker had rung up the last item when Bea hurried up, candles and a wine bottle in hand. “Sorry. Took me a while to find them. Hi, Janet. Hi, Tommy! Daisy, put this on your check and we’ll split the total.”
The cashier gave a rather sour smile as she ran the candles and the wine through and added them to Daisy’s total. Her sister would pay her, Daisy knew, minus the cost of the toothpaste. These days Bea was much more careful with her money, though it had taken Daisy several years to convince her the healthy alimony and child support she received from Cruz wasn’t exactly a blank check.
Tommy looked happy to see her sister. “Hi, Bea,” he said. “Tomorrow is Stella’s birthday. She’s going to be forty.”
“Isn’t that great?”
“I bought her a present from here, a plant with pink flowers. I get an employee discount.”
“Oh, she’ll love that. Nice job, Tom.”
He beamed, as charmed by Bea as everyone else in the world.
“See you later,” Daisy said, used to being invisible around her more vivacious younger sister.
He gave an almost-smile as he handed her the cake. Bea reached in and grabbed the wine and the bag with the rest of the groceries.
“Bye, Tom,” Bea said. She stopped to give him a quick hug, which seemed to please him, though he didn’t hug her back.
As they walked out of the store, they had to pass a late-model luxury SUV limousine that was idling in the fire lane, one of Daisy’s pet peeves. It wasn’t just because of environmental reasons and the pollutants their idling vehicles were sending into the atmosphere. She hated the sense of entitlement, when people thought they were so important, they shouldn’t have to walk fifteen more feet to a parking space like the rest of the peons.
A man was climbing into the back seat as they passed. He looked up, and for just an instant, their gazes met. She should have known. It was the gorgeous man with the sexy accent.
He gave her a rueful sort of smile and a wave, which she pointedly ignored as she marched behind the vehicle toward her own fifteen-year-old BMW.
“Who was that?” Bea stared after the limo.
“No idea,” Daisy mumbled.
“He looked like he knew you.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Are you sure? He waved at you and everything. He looks familiar. Is he some kind of celebrity?”
Maybe. Daisy didn’t watch much television and her knowledge of pop culture was nonexistent. She couldn’t even tell which Kardashian was which and had no idea why she should care.
“You’re the one who reads all the tabloids. You tell me. I don’t know who he is. I only know I’ve never met him before in my life.”
Before she bumped into him ten minutes earlier, anyway.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’ve got to go or we’ll be late.”
“Trust me, Stella won’t notice. Mari’s over there already and the two of them are probably in the middle of a hot game of slapjack.”
She had to admit Bea was probably right. Stella hadn’t wanted them to make a fuss over her birthday anyway and wouldn’t care if they were a few moments late. “Here. You hold the cake. I don’t want to set it on the seat and risk it falling off.”
Bea made a face but held out her arms for the cake. After a quick stop at the Italian restaurant their aunt loved so they could grab the preordered meal, Daisy drove to Three Oaks, the sturdy, graceful Craftsman house Stella had purchased for a song when she brought the girls here to Cape Sanctuary all those years ago.
It had been a mess when they first moved in, she remembered, with only one tiny working bathroom and two inhabitable bedrooms. She and Bea hadn’t minded sharing, so grateful to be together again and with their beloved aunt.
The three of them had worked together to make this a home: learning to put up drywall, painting, sanding floors, refinishing woodwork. Daisy had loved painting most of all, which was kind of ironic now, when she thought of it.
It had taken them the better part of three years but the result was a lovely home, filled with laughter and joy.
When they walked in, they found Stella in the kitchen wearing a ruffled apron splotched with huge yellow sunflowers. She was taking a tray of something out of the oven—her famous Oreo cookie mini cheesecakes, by the looks of it.
Her face lit up when she spotted them. “Girls! You’re both here at last!”
She set down the muffin tin on the stovetop, took off her oven mitts and rushed to kiss first Bea as soon as she’d set down the cake, then Daisy.
Daisy hugged her back, so very grateful to this woman who had rescued two lost girls.
“You’re not supposed to be doing anything,” Bea scolded. “We brought dinner for you. That’s what you said you wanted for your birthday gift.”
“You know me. I’m not good at sitting around. These are so easy, though. Mari helped.”
“Where is my child?”
“In here,” Mari called from the room off the kitchen that Stella had always called the library, which functioned as an office, homework station and computer center.
“We were watching a YouTube video one of her friends posted on the computer when my timer went off,” Stella explained as she set the cheesecake bites onto a rack to cool.
Daisy watched her aunt with the same unease she’d been feeling for several weeks now.
Though forty, Stella looked years younger. The three of them could have been sisters, really, as her and Bea’s mother, Jewel, had been ten years older than her only surviving sibling. Stella was only ten years older than Daisy.
Stella had elfin features, high cheekbones and wide green eyes. She was petite, just over five feet two inches tall. Many of her middle school students topped her in height, something they all seemed to find hilarious.
While Stella’s features were familiar and beloved, when Daisy looked deeper, she saw that her aunt still had the guarded, closed, almost furtive look that Daisy had first noticed several weeks ago. Something was up. She didn’t know what it was; she only knew Stella was keeping secrets.
Her aunt was usually an open book, free and spontaneous. She had even been known to tell her life story to strangers she met at the diner in town.
Since about Easter, that had begun to change. She would take phone calls in another room and would often beg off arranged meetings for mysterious reasons.
Was it a new man in her life? About time, if it was. Stella deserved nothing but unicorns and rainbows. She deserved the very best man around. As far as Daisy was concerned, no one would ever be good enough for Stella.
She had often wondered why Stella had never married. She had dated here and there but nothing ever very serious, usually breaking things off right around five or six weeks.
“Do you want us to set the food up here or out in the garden?”
“Oh, it’s a lovely evening. Let’s eat outside.” Stella looked around. “Is Shane meeting you here?”
Bea looked surprised. “You said only family.”
“What do you call Shane? He grew up next door and was in and out of here more than his own house. He lives with you, for heaven’s sake. You should have invited him, poor man.”
“I think he has plans, anyway,” Bea said. If Daisy wasn’t mistaken, her sister looked slightly put out by that, making her wonder what the man’s plans were and why they bothered Bea.
“Shane has plans a lot lately.” Marisol, followed as usual by their little dog, Jojo, came in and swiped one of the cheesecake bites off the cooling rack. “We hung out with him more before he moved into the guesthouse. Hi, Aunt Daisy.”
“Hello, darling niece.” Daisy hugged the girl she adored with all her heart.
“Shane is busy right now,” Beatriz explained. “Sometimes we don’t see him for days. You know how it is. It’s the beginning of the football season. We won’t see him again until January.”
After playing college football and spending several years in the pros, Shane Landry, Bea’s best friend since they moved here to Cape Sanctuary, was in his second year of teaching biology at the high school and coaching the state championship high school football team.
One of these days Bea would get smart and figure out the man was crazy in love with her.
“Do you know of any celebrities staying in the area?” Bea asked their aunt. “We saw this gorgeous guy outside the grocery store tonight in a big SUV limo. He looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place him. He only had eyes for Daisy.”
“Do tell!” Stella’s own eyes widened.
Daisy felt herself flush. “He thought he knew me. I told him he was mistaken.”
“You didn’t tell me you talked to him!” Bea exclaimed.
“Apparently, I missed the family rule where I had to tell you everything going on in my life in a twenty-four-hour period.”
“Not everything, just the juicy parts about gorgeous strangers who show up in Cape Sanctuary and act like they know you.”
“Well, that rule is stupid since that has only happened the one time.”
“You’re stupid if you think I wouldn’t want to know you talked to him!” Bea said.
Stella laughed. “We all do. Tell us everything.”
“Nothing to tell. I bumped into him in the toothpaste aisle. Like I said, he thought he knew me. I said he didn’t. We went our separate ways. End of story.”
Bea, she knew, wouldn’t have let that be the end of the story. Bea would have flirted with the man, would have tucked one of those long, luxurious curls behind her ear as she turned her head just so. At the end of sixty seconds of conversation, Beatriz would have had him hanging on her every word.
But Daisy wasn’t her younger sister, she thought as she carried the meal outside to the garden of Three Oaks, with its long pine table and mason jars hanging in the trees, filled with solar-powered candles already beginning to spark to life in the gathering dusk.
She wasn’t her sister by a long shot.
2
BEATRIZ
“Do you really think Dad is okay?”
Bea tried not to think about those tabloid photos or the man with the blood seeping out of his gut.
“Yes, honey. I do,” she assured her daughter. “He said so himself when he called that first night, and his manager swears he only needed a few days to process what happened before he returns to his regular activities.”
“Where do you think he might be?” In the rearview mirror, she caught Mari’s frown in the back seat of her SUV.
That one was harder to answer. “I’m not sure. Maybe with his extended relatives down in Mexico or at the island he likes off Panama. He’ll be in touch.”
“He should be answering his phone. It’s irresponsible of him not to. He has to know I’ll worry about him.”
Sometimes she thought Mari was born sounding about Stella’s age.
“You know he’ll be in touch as soon as he can, honey.”
She was annoyed all over again at Cruz for not considering the impact on his daughter of the highly publicized attack against him. How hard would it be for him to make a freaking phone call to assure their child he was okay?
Then again, he had never been particularly good at checking in with her when they were married and he was touring. Why should he change his habits for their child?
When they returned to the house she had moved into along the coast road after her divorce, the lights were on out by the pool.
“Looks like Shane is swimming!” Mari said. “Can I go out and swim, too?”
She might have guessed he would be there, probably with his sweet yellow Labrador retriever, Sally, either playing in the water with him or lounging on the side.
Her elaborate pool with its secret grotto, waterfalls and high-tech hot tub had become his favorite part of living in the guesthouse. Just a few nights earlier, he told her the pool would be the thing he missed most when the renovations to his own house were finished.
She still wasn’t sure why that had stung so much.
“He might not be there much longer. We don’t know how long he’s already been in the pool. But I don’t mind if he doesn’t. Go ahead and change into your suit.”
“I’ll hurry. I can go fast. Come on, Jojo,” she said, already racing for the door with their little dog scampering along behind her.
Mari, like everyone else in town, adored Shane. Bea had gone with him to enough restaurants or community events to see how people in town respected Shane. Everybody wanted to talk to him, to tell him about their son or nephew or grandson who was on his team, to shake his hand and tell him thanks for all he had done for the town and to wish him well on bringing home the state championship again.
After the shoulder injuries that ended his glowing NFL career, Shane could have thrown a serious pity party. Instead, he had moved home to be with his father during Bill Landry’s final two years and spent six months of that time finishing his teaching certificate to go with the biology degree he earned playing college ball.
He could have taken a position on a major university football staff and possibly worked his way up to a Division One head coach. She knew he’d had offers. Good ones. Instead, he was choosing to make his home here in this little town on the Northern California coast, teaching freshman and sophomore biology and coaching a ragtag group of kids.
Feeling restless for reasons she couldn’t identify, Bea headed to the vast master suite, which she slept in alone, to change into her swimming suit.
Since Shane had moved into the guesthouse two months earlier, something had changed between them and she wasn’t sure what it was or how to fix it.
They used to be best friends. She used to be able to talk to him about anything going on in her life: her latest art show, the problems Mari was having with a friend, how Daisy had frustrated her that day. All her hopes, dreams, worries.
He had been there when her marriage broke up and she tried to find her way as a single mom.
She, in turn, had helped him navigate the end of his NFL career and had provided emotional support during the final difficult months of his father’s life as heart disease and diabetes eventually claimed Bill Landry.
Bea had been the unofficial football team mom to his high schoolers the previous year. She took refreshments to practice; she hosted game-viewing parties in her home theater; she knew all their names and cheered on every single game, home or away.
Things had been fine until Shane decided to renovate his father’s home next door to Stella’s. The place hadn’t been updated since the sixties when it was built and needed extensive work. It had been Bea’s bright idea to offer Shane the guesthouse here while the inside of his place was gutted and redone with new electricity and plumbing.
She wished she had never opened her big, stupid mouth.
She hated this edginess that had tormented her around him over the summer. She wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before.
Life rolled on. That was one of Cruz’s songs that she had helped him write, back in the glory days of their relationship. Life rolled on. You either rolled with it or let it flatten you as it rolled by.
She changed quickly and found her daughter throwing on her flip-flops near the patio doors.
Shane was swimming laps and didn’t notice them at first, giving Bea a chance to admire the picture he made in the moonlight: muscles rippling across his wide shoulders, tapering down to slim hips in red board shorts.
She used to tease him that if he grew his sun-streaked hair out to his shoulders, he could pass for Thor before the buzz cut of the more recent movies.
She sighed. She hadn’t teased him in a long time. When she tried, her words tangled and she ended up sounding stupid and awkward.
Marisol didn’t wait for him to notice them. She jumped headlong into the deep end, just feet in front of him.
Shane paused in midstroke and lifted his head out of the water. His hair was wet, droplets clinging to his face, and Bea curled her fingers at her side against the urge to wipe them away.
Cut it out, she snapped at herself. He didn’t see her that way. To Shane, she was like a kid sister, one he’d had to bail out of one too many scrapes.
He smiled as Marisol swam toward him like the little fish she was. “Hey, Sunshine.”
Mari grinned at the nickname he always called her, a play on the sol part of Marisol, which meant “sun.”
“Hey, Shane. Guess what? We went to Aunt Stella’s birthday party tonight. She turned forty. Can you believe she’s that old?”
He sent an amused look toward Bea that made butterflies explode to life inside her. “Forty is far from old, kiddo. And anyway, your aunt Stella is the youngest forty-year-old I know.”
“I guess. Race you to the other side. I’m gonna win this time.”
“Says who?” He took off after her and the race was on.
Bea contented herself with swimming laps while the two of them were being silly, taking turns on the diving board with the most elaborate dive, then playing a hot game of one-on-one basketball with the freestanding hoop Shane had bought the previous summer.
Bea swam into the grotto and watched them play through the waterfall. Jojo and Sally, the best of friends, had climbed out some time ago and were curled up together on the outdoor carpet that marked one of the seating areas around the pool.
They loved the pool as much as their humans.
Keeping it heated year-round was sheer indulgence, but Bea didn’t care. Fortunately, Cape Sanctuary had a fairly temperate climate and the thermometer rarely dipped below freezing.
As she might have predicted, Mari started to tire after about an hour in the pool, especially as she’d already had a long day with friends earlier, then the excitement of Stella’s party.
After winning the basketball game by one layup, her daughter climbed out of the pool and started drying off, which seemed to signal to Shane it was time to do the same. After a moment Bea dived through the waterfall so she could exit, embracing the cold drops on her back.
She had left her towel on the chaise next to his and she tried not to stare at his broad, muscled chest as they both dried off, or the network of ugly scars on his shoulder that had ended up changing his life. What would he do if she pressed her lips just there, to the biggest and ugliest of the scars?
“How’s Stella doing with her big birthday?” Shane asked, obviously oblivious to her turmoil.
She swallowed, appalled at herself. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “She has been acting really strange lately. Daisy thinks she’s hiding something from us.”
“It’s not every day a person turns forty. Could be she’s taking it harder than you might have expected.”
“Maybe.”
She suspected there was more to it than simply another cycle around the sun, but Stella could sometimes be an enigma.
“She was mad at me for not taking you along to her party. Apparently, you’re as much a part of her tribe as me or Mari or Daisy.”
His mouth twisted into a smile as he pulled on a T-shirt from his NFL team and she tried not to be too disappointed as he hid all those glorious muscles.
“How was your day?” she asked abruptly.
“Good. The bedrooms are all framed and the drywall subcontractors are finally coming tomorrow.”
“That’s terrific! That will make a big difference. The place is coming along.”
“Yeah. It’s too bad we had so many delays with the plumbers’ and the electricians’ schedules. I would have liked to be out of your hair before the football season started, but we should be back on track now. Probably another month and I’ll be gone.”
She wanted to tell him he wasn’t in her hair, nor was she in a big hurry to send him on his way. She couldn’t figure out how to say either of those things without sounding weird.
“You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” she finally said.
“I know. And I appreciate that. But friends try to be careful not to overstay their welcome.”
“I’m just saying. If you want to wait until the season is over and you have more time to move back, it’s fine.”
“Thanks.”
He held her gaze long enough that she felt flustered and reached down to put on her flip-flop. Somehow she stepped on an uneven paving stone on the pool decking and started to lose her balance.
Shane, with the reflexes he’d always had as a wide receiver, reached in to catch her like she had been thrown by Tom Brady himself.
The heat and strength of him enveloped her and she froze, his face inches from hers. His shirt was damp from where he’d thrown it over his wet muscles, and she wanted to stay right here forever.
Her gaze drifted to his mouth, firm and well shaped and beautifully familiar. She wanted to kiss him. Right now, even with Mari playing with the dogs on the stretch of grass outside the pool area.
“Shane,” she began, not at all sure what she wanted to say after that one word. Whatever she intended was lost by the dogs’ sudden barks and her daughter’s exclamation.
“Daddy!” Mari cried.
If Shane hadn’t been holding Bea already, she would have toppled to the ground in shock.
Cruz. Here? She whirled around and found the man, the legend, the last person on earth she wanted to see right now walking toward them.
Out of all the moments out of any day, Cruz would naturally pick this particular one to make an entrance.
“Hey, Mari Mia!”
Shane’s arms tightened around her for just a moment before he helped steady her so she could stand on her own.
“Hola, Beatriz, my lovely wife.”
Ex-wife, she wanted to tell him. Don’t forget those all-important two letters.
He didn’t look any happier to see Shane than vice versa. His long-lashed dark eyes seemed to go flat, his lean features to tighten.
“And Landry. Hey. Fancy seeing you here.”
“Shane lives here now,” Mari piped up, so very helpfully.
Cruz greeted that information with a scowl. She probably should have mentioned that fact to him before now, she suddenly realized, especially where she was so very diligent about vetting everyone staying with Cruz when he had visitations with Mari.
“Temporarily,” she said, then wished she hadn’t when Shane’s mouth firmed.
She was suddenly annoyed with both of them for this dance they always did, circling around each other like bighorn sheep, ready to bang horns at any moment.
“He’s renovating his father’s house next door to Stella’s and it was faster to move out so he could gut it and start over, rather than working room by room, living in a construction zone. The guesthouse has been sitting there empty, so I offered it to Shane while the work is being done.”
She didn’t owe him any explanations. It wasn’t like anything was going on with her and Shane. Even if it were, she and Cruz had been divorced for years and she didn’t doubt her ex-husband had slept with plenty of women in that time. Tabloids like the one she had picked up earlier were always posting pictures of him with some young beauty or other.
Shane was her oldest and dearest friend. If she wanted him to move into the guesthouse here at Felicidad permanently, Cruz had no right to object.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” Mari asked, oblivious to the tension between the two men. “We’ve been so worried about you, ever since we heard you were attacked.”
“I’m fine, mija. Just fine.”
“The tabloids said you got stabbed. My friend Jamie said you almost died.”
“That’s an exaggeration. I’ve told you not to pay attention to what you read online or in magazines. I just had a scratch. A couple of stitches, that’s it.”
He sank down onto the comfortable glider next to their loungers and Mari sat down beside him, still holding his hand. “I’m not saying it wasn’t scary,” Cruz went on. “If it hadn’t been for a friend of mine who pushed me out of the way, things could have been much worse.”
Like many celebrities, Cruz had plenty of acolytes and hangers-on, but she couldn’t imagine any of them risking their lives for him.
“We tried to call you and left like a hundred messages.” Mari didn’t bother to hide her frustration with her father. A frustration Bea certainly shared.
“I’m sorry, mija. Things have been crazy with all the press calling for comments, so I ended up turning off my phone and going silent. Lenny said he called you regularly with updates.”
“He did,” Bea said. But hearing from a third party wasn’t enough when a girl was worried about her dad.
She was familiar with that from firsthand experience and it made her heart ache that she and her daughter both knew what it was to suffer from parental neglect. Bea’s own father had been a piece of work. Unlike Daisy, Bea at least knew who her father was, but their relationship had been minimal.
Her stepmother had disliked her intensely and made sure Steve Hidalgo devoted his time and energy to the children they shared and had as little to do with his love child as possible.
That was the main reason she did all she could to keep Cruz in their lives. Girls needed their fathers, if at all possible. Without their influence, the scars from that neglect could lead them to do crazy things, like get pregnant when they were seventeen and marry their rocker boyfriends.
Not that she knew anything about that.
“Next time you’re stabbed, do a better job of updating those who are worried about you, okay?” Bea said.
“Sorry,” he said again. “I’m here now, right?”
“I guess.” Mari hugged him, always quick to forgive.
“The good news is, I’ll be around for a while. I’m taking an extended break here at Casa Del Mar.”
As usual, her desire for her daughter to have as healthy a relationship as possible with her father warred with Bea’s desire to live outside the shadow of Cruz’s notoriety.
“How long are you staying?” She had to ask. Forewarned was forearmed, right?
He beamed at her and at Mari. “At least a month. Maybe longer. Won’t that be great?”
Bea did her best not to gulp. “That long? Aren’t you in the middle of a concert tour?”
“We have two weeks left for the new album. I postponed them and will make up the dates in the fall. My fans understand. After what happened in Dallas, I need a few weeks to recover.”
Why did he have to recover here?
She knew she hadn’t spoken aloud but he answered as if he read her mind. “I couldn’t imagine anywhere better to recharge my batteries than here in Cape Sanctuary, with my two favorite girls.”
Shane made a sound that could have been a scoff or a laugh, she couldn’t quite tell. He wrapped the towel around his neck and reached a hand out to Cruz.
“It’s good to see you, but I should go,” Shane said. “We’re working on some new plays for the season. I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt.”
“Any knife wound is serious. That’s what the doc says. The risk of infection is huge.”
“Right. Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Thanks for the game of hoops, Sunshine. You get better every time we play.”
Mari beamed at him. “Night, Shane. I won’t rub it in your face that you lost, I promise.”
“Thanks for sparing my feelings,” he said with a grin. He kissed the top of her head then leaned over to give Bea their usual hug.
She could smell him, chlorine and shampoo and delicious male. To her surprise, he didn’t stop with a hug but kissed her cheek, and she fought a powerful urge to lift her mouth to his.
Where on earth were all these strange impulses coming from?
“Good night,” she murmured.
“Night. Come on, Sal.”
He waved to them all, then headed to the guesthouse on the edge of her property with his yellow Lab following after him.
The place wasn’t huge, a one-bedroom with a separate combined kitchen and living room and a decent-size bathroom, but it was plenty big enough for one man and a dog, especially for only a few months.
It had seemed a great idea a few months ago, the perfect solution when he needed somewhere to live during the renovation. In retrospect, she wished she’d never invited him to stay here at Felicidad. She wanted their friendship back.
“I wish you’d told me he was living here,” Cruz said when Shane went inside the guesthouse and they, in turn, headed inside the main house.
She sighed. “He’s not living with me. He’s living in the guesthouse, as you can clearly see. Farther away than when he lived next door to Three Oaks.”
Even if Shane were living inside the main house, in one of the six bedrooms, she had more than enough room.
It was too much house for only her and Mari. She knew that and some part of her wished she’d chosen differently when she was shopping for properties. But Daisy had advised her this was a good investment and she did love her studio that overlooked the ocean and had all the natural light she could ever want.
As usual, though, she had been weak and let other people determine her destiny.
“I’m going to change out of my swimming suit. I’ll be right back,” Mari said, hurrying off to her bedroom at the end of the hall, the one with the loft bed Shane had helped Bea build.
“I bet Landry jumped at the chance to move here,” Cruz said when she was gone.
She frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means. Shane has always had a thing for you.”
What did Cruz see that she didn’t? Those strange butterflies seemed to flutter around again.
“You’re crazy. He has not. We’re friends. Best friends. We have been since fifth grade.”
Cruz scoffed. “Shane Landry wants more than friendship from you. You’re the only one who doesn’t see it.”
He was wrong. He had to be. She’d been divorced for years. If Shane was interested in her, why didn’t he do anything about it? Sure, he had been busy with his NFL career then the injury that had ended it, then caring for his ailing father the past few years. But he had dated other women in that time. He certainly hadn’t shown the slightest inclination that he wanted to kick their relationship to another level.
Cruz didn’t know what he was talking about. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with him, though.
“Are you really planning to spend an entire month here in Cape Sanctuary? Mari will love it, but you can’t be away from your career that long, can you?”
“My team understands that I need this. I want to spend more time with my family. My baby girl. I almost died, babe. That crazy bastard wanted me gone. When I close my eyes, I can still see him coming at me.”
She couldn’t even imagine. “It must have been terrifying.”
“That kind of thing messes with your head. I’ve had nightmares every night since it happened. I wanted to fly back here that night after they stitched me up to be with you and Mari but I didn’t feel right about leaving Gabe. That’s the guy who saved my life.”
“Was he seriously hurt?”
Cruz nodded, looking uncharacteristically grim. “It was touch and go for a while. He ended up losing part of his liver.”
“Oh, no!” She’d had no idea things had been that grave for the man who had stepped in front of a knife for Cruz.
“For a while there, the docs said he might need a transplant. I was going to offer, but we both know mine’s probably not in the best of shape.”
He grinned but she didn’t find the comment at all amusing. His drinking and his recreational drug use were partly responsible for the breakup of their marriage, helped along by his chronic infidelity. Cruz, known as one of rock’s sexiest bad boys, had a tough time resisting his legion of groupies.
He didn’t look particularly bad now, sprawled out on one of her kitchen chairs. “Turns out, they just removed the damaged part.”
“Is he okay now?” Bea asked.
“He’s out of the woods. That’s another reason I’m back. After he was released from the hospital, he needed a place to recover. I told him there was no better place on earth to recuperate than here in Cape Sanctuary. He’s back at the house.”
Along with probably a dozen groupies and other hangers-on. The king of rock had to travel with his court.
“I’d love you to meet him,” Cruz continued. “Both you and Mari.”
“Before I can let her stay, you know I’ll need to have Peter run a background check on this Gabe person and everyone else who is here with you at Casa Del Mar.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She had made it a requirement of their custody agreement, that she needed to vet all the people who surrounded her famous ex-husband before exposing her daughter to any of them. Her attorney who handled that for her was on speed dial and she would call him in the morning.
“I’ll get you the names,” Cruz said. They had been through this routine so many times that he only sounded a little annoyed. He understood by now that she was only concerned for their daughter’s safety.
The circumstances of the past few weeks reinforced that her husband lived in a precarious, larger-than-life world where strangers could attack with hunting knives and change a person’s life forever.
“Are you really okay?” Bea asked. She had loved Cruz once, as deeply and passionately as a teenage girl could. Even in her early twenties she had cared for him, until his success had changed him from the earnest, loving boy with the golden voice and poet’s soul to a man addicted to his fans and his fame.
“I’m fine physically. Like I said, just a scratch.” He paused. “Emotionally and mentally, that’s another story. Coming this close to death, knowing I could check out at a moment’s notice...that has made me reevaluate everything.”
“And what startling conclusions have you come up with?”
“That I never should have agreed to our divorce,” he said bluntly.
The words came out of nowhere and just about knocked her over. If they had still been standing by the pool, she might have toppled in.
“Of course you should have. It was your idea in the first place! We were miserable together.”
“I don’t remember being miserable. I remember being madly in love. You’ve always been the only one who gets me, babe.”
She so did not want to have this conversation. Not when Mari could come back into the room at any moment.
Once, this man had been everything to her. When she found out she was pregnant, she had been over the moon, couldn’t wait to run away with him to Los Angeles so they could get married and he could become the big star they both seemed to know was his fate.
She had sacrificed everything for his music career. Even while pregnant and in the months after having Mari, she had worked three jobs, checking in a supermarket in the mornings, delivering pizzas in the afternoon and waiting tables at night.
When his momentum started to build and he found representation that believed in their vision of him, too, they thought all their dreams had come true.
She and Cruz might have made it work. There were certainly couples that could handle juggling a family and standing in the limelight, too, when one of them had a high-powered, very public career. Beatriz and Cruz Romero hadn’t been one of those couples.
They started to fight about his drinking and drug use, about his friends, about the other women he couldn’t seem to resist.
They had loved each other passionately, but little by little that love had dried up, until there had been nothing left but the empty husks of what they had once been to each other.
Now, apparently, Cruz wanted to see if they could resurrect those seeds.
“I want you and Mari in my life again,” he said with the same earnestness he brought to his ballads that made teenage girls everywhere go weak-kneed. “Every day. The three of us against the world. I want the chance to prove to you I’ve changed. I’m a different man than the one who let you go.”
“Because a crazed fan came at you with a knife.”
“Because I’ve grown up. I’ve come to realize nothing else matters but you and Mari.”
He reached for her hand, wrapping both of his around it. “You were the best thing I ever had going for me, babe. I’ve always known that. I would never have come this far without you.”
She couldn’t deny there was some truth to that. She had helped shape his early career, cowriting some of his early songs and laying the groundwork for the awards, sold-out tours and multiplatinum record sales that would follow.
She had walked away from that world, had devoted the past five years here in Cape Sanctuary to giving their child a normal life and rebuilding the jagged pieces of her heart.
How could he simply stroll into her home, utter a few words and think she would be willing to jump right back into the mess?
She slipped her hand from his and moved to put a chair between them.
Cruz noted her movement with a frown. “You have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The Cruz-is-loco look.”
“Of course I think you’re crazy! I’m sorry, but you can’t just walk in here after we’ve been happily divorced all these years and drop a bombshell like this on me without any warning!”
“I’m laying my cards out on the table from the very start. I want another chance with you. You don’t have to make any decisions right now. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. I betrayed your trust.”
“Again and again and again,” she pointed out.
He stuck his lower lip out, looking remarkably like Mari used to as a toddler when she wanted a toy in the store. “I know there’s a price for my bad behavior but I think I’ve been paying that all these years.”
“Have you?”
“I’ve been without you and my little girl. Isn’t that enough of a price? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I still care about you and want to see if we could rebuild something on the ashes of what we burned down.”
“Let me guess. That’s a new song you’re working on.”
“It should be, right?” He grinned, teeth gleaming, and she could feel herself weaken. She was as susceptible to that famous Cruz Romero smile as the rest of the female population of the world, she couldn’t deny.
Fortunately, she was saved from having to answer and from her own weaknesses by the appearance of their daughter, who hurried into the room and right back to her father’s side.
“Can I stay at Casa Del Mar tonight, Daddy?”
A few years ago he probably would have said yes, leaving Bea to explain to her child that there were certain steps that had to be taken first. This time, after a quick glance in her direction, he shook his head. “Not tonight. I’m sorry. But soon, I promise.”
Marisol huffed a little but accepted his words. She couldn’t seem to stop hugging her father, clearly delighted to have him in town.
Bea suspected that if it was up to their child, she and Cruz would have reunited years ago. Marisol would love nothing more than for the two of them to get back together. Whenever Cruz left after one of his infrequent visits to town or whenever she returned from staying with him somewhere on the road or at his house in Southern California, she would mope around for days.
Bea knew too well how that felt, to pine for something she couldn’t have.
Shane Landry wants more than friendship from you, Cruz had said. You’re the only one who doesn’t see it.
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. She would have picked up on the signs earlier.
Still, the very idea that Shane might want to deepen their friendship left her ridiculously breathless. She would rather think about that than try to figure out what she was going to do about Cruz and his sudden, nonsensical desire to reunite.
3
STELLA
This was one amazing fortieth birthday present.
Stella Davenport looked at the array of tests laid out on her bathroom counter, a half dozen of them, all giving her the same message.
She had done it. She was pregnant.
She couldn’t deny the truth when it was staring at her from six different pregnancy tests. Positive signs in every direction confirmed everything she had been suspecting for the past two weeks but had been too afraid to verify at the doctor’s office.
Preggers. Expecting. Knocked up. A bun in the oven.
She still couldn’t seem to believe it.
For months she had been waiting for this day. She had hoped, prayed, yearned. She had charted her cycle religiously, had pored over sperm donor files to find the perfect one, had dipped into her savings account for a healthy chunk to cover the four times she had been artificially inseminated.
She had suffered the indignity of feet in the stirrups, the catheter, the waiting half an hour with her hips raised, then hoping and praying and yearning for results.
If this one hadn’t worked, she wasn’t sure what she would have done.
Nothing, she told herself. She would have been fine. She would have called the state foster care agency to see if there was any chance they would reconsider and let her foster an adoptable infant this time, as a single working mother.
Other teachers had babies and there were certainly foster care babies who needed homes.
If that didn’t work, she would go on as she always had, providing a stable, loving, comfortable home for older children and teenagers in need.
She loved her work as a foster parent. It had been both necessary and rewarding, helping young people who had few options left to them. At last count there were twenty of them who had stayed with her in the ten years since Beatriz ran off with Cruz Romero, sometimes with her only a few months, sometimes a few years. Each had left an indelible imprint on her heart.
It had all started with Bea and Daisy, of course. She had loved being a mother figure to them, struggling to form a family and build a home together when she was barely twenty-one and they were nine and eleven. She could still picture them, two lost and damaged girls who had suffered so very much because of their irresponsible, selfish, fickle mother.
The girls were the daughters of her heart and she would always consider them such.
Because of them, she had started Open Hearts, in an effort to do what she could to make sure all children who had to be in the foster care system received loving and supportive placements.
She was proud of all she had accomplished, but she wanted something else now. She wanted her own child, and according to the pregnancy tests assembled around her, she would have her wish in about eight and a half months.
Pregnant.
Joy burst through her, incandescent and perfect, and she pressed her hands over her abdomen and the tiny life growing inside her.
This was it. Everything she had dreamed about for the past year.
She was having a baby!
Dear God. She was forty years old and she was having a baby!
She was crazy! What had she been thinking? She was going to become a mother at an age many women were starting to think about becoming empty nesters.
Panic started to chew at her jubilation. She pushed it away. No. She wouldn’t let it take over. For this moment she wanted to simply savor the miracle of life.
She had to tell someone. The news was too big inside her, like a dancing, whirling wind looking for an escape.
Fortunately, her best friend, Cleo, had texted an hour ago that she would stop by with a birthday present, despite Stella’s insistence that she wanted nothing from her friends.
She had the best gift of all.
She touched her abdomen again. “Hello, little baby,” she whispered. “I love you so much already.”
Her child would never spend a moment of his or her existence wondering what it felt like to be loved.
The doorbell rang while she was whispering softly to her child and she jumped up. Cleo. She was the perfect person to tell, had been supportive from the moment Stella told her this was something she wanted. She was the only one who knew about the past months of fertility treatments. How perfect, that she was the only one who would know about the baby for now.
She scooped up the closest pregnancy test and rushed to the front door then yanked it open.
“Look. Just look! I did it! I’m pregnant!”
As soon as she said the last word, a long, drawn-out affair that seemed to take about a dozen extra syllables, shock drenched her like a January rain.
The person at her door wasn’t her best friend, the woman she considered the closest thing she had to a sister.
The person at her door was a man, lean and distinguished and gorgeous.
A man she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years—and had tried her best to forget.
All the blood seemed to leave her head to pool somewhere in the vicinity of her favorite pair of Birkenstocks and she had to grip the door frame with her free hand to keep from toppling over.
“Ed!” she exclaimed.
“Um, congratulations,” he said at the same moment, looking as bemused as any man would under the circumstances.
She was still holding the pregnancy test, she realized on some appalled level. But she couldn’t think about that now. Not when Ed Clayton, the love of her life, had suddenly appeared out of the freaking blue.
“Ed!” she said again. She couldn’t seem to make her brain connect to her voice to say anything else.
“Hello, Stella.”
This couldn’t be real. Maybe this was all some kind of bizarre dream, brought on by the Italian food she and the girls had the night before. No. The pregnancy tests were certainly real.
She couldn’t seem to catch hold of her wildly scrambling thoughts. Was this the pregnancy brain she’d read about, where cheerful, perky bloggers nearly half her age warned that her synapses would turn into a jumbled mess?
Or was this simply a normal reaction to the bizarre confluence of events, suddenly discovering the only man she had ever loved on her doorstep the very moment she learned she was going to be a single mother in approximately eight months and change?
“May I...come in?” He sounded real enough, with a wary hesitance in his voice. She couldn’t really blame him for that. The last time she had spoken to the man, she had made it more than clear she had no use for him and never wanted to see him again.
The blatant lie of her words couldn’t be more obvious as she all but drank in the sight of him.
He had aged, of course, with lines at the corners of his eyes and a little sprinkling of gray in his brown hair. She found it totally unfair that those things only added to his appeal.
“Ed. Wh-what are you doing here?”
He gestured to the pregnancy stick in her hand. “I don’t think I’m quite the person you were expecting.”
“How could I possibly have been expecting you when I haven’t seen or heard from you in years?”
“I’ve obviously come at a bad time. I can come back later. You probably need to call someone else besides me to tell them the news. Your...husband? Boyfriend? Significant other?”
She obviously didn’t have any of those things, which was why she had to be artificially inseminated.
“I don’t need to call anyone,” she said. “This is my baby. Mine alone.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You do remember I was a medical student with plans to become an OB-GYN when you walked away. I’ve been in practice for more than a decade now. I think I have a pretty firm grasp on the basics of what’s required for a successful pregnancy.”
He had been twenty-three when they met, already finishing his second year of med school, earnest and compassionate and eager to make a difference in the world.
While she could never claim to have any gift for telling the future, she had known without a doubt that he would be a brilliant doctor someday.
How many times over the years had she wondered about him? She could admit to herself it had taken all her self-restraint not to google him or find him on social media.
Somehow she had known that making contact with him would be a mistake, would stir up all the emotions she had struggled bitterly to overcome.
“This is obviously not a good time.” He scratched his neck, looking rueful. “I think it would be better if I came back later.”
Yes, she wanted to tell him. Go away.
Stella needed at least a few moments for the joy to sink in, to savor the idea of being pregnant. She wanted to imagine burying her face in her baby’s neck to inhale the intoxicating scent, to think about how wonderful it finally would be to cradle that sweet, warm weight against her after all these months of dreaming.
She had no desire to traipse down memory lane with a man she had done her best to forget.
She should invite him in but she didn’t want to. She wanted him to walk back out the way he had come, to go on and live his life without her, as she had forced him to do.
Good manners wouldn’t let her go quite that far. “You’re here. You obviously have a reason for that. You might as well come in.”
She held the door open, and after an awkward moment, he moved past her. She had a wild urge to pinch him to make sure he was truly there and not some strange pregnancy-induced apparition. Somehow she was able to refrain.
“I take it from what you said that you’re not married. Does that mean you’re planning to raise the baby by yourself?”
She refused to let herself panic about how very daunting that task suddenly seemed.
“Yes. I’m certainly not the only woman in the world who has ever done that.”
“True enough. And you raised the girls yourself, so you had plenty of practice, right?”
With preteens and teenagers. Not with an infant. That panic flared again and she stuffed it down. She was forty years old, far more experienced than she’d been when she took custody of the girls. She could do it.
“What are you doing here, Ed?” If she asked enough times, he would have to answer her, right?
He again looked uncomfortable, his gaze shifting away from her. “It’s a long story. The short answer is that I wanted to give you fair warning that I’m moving to Cape Sanctuary with my daughter.”
Moving. Here. Of all the places in this vast and beautiful country, he was moving here? She had spent twenty years trying to forget him. How on earth was she supposed to do that if he was living in Cape Sanctuary, a town of only ten thousand people?
She couldn’t wrap her head around that. Instead, she focused on what was probably the least earthshaking part of his sentence. “You have a daughter.”
The somewhat harsh planes of his face softened with a tenderness that made her throat feel tight and achy.
“Yes. Rowan. She’s almost twelve. Smart, funny, curious. Amazing.”
As a middle school teacher, she couldn’t help being touched by his words. She knew too many parents who came to parent-teacher conferences armed with only criticism and frustration toward their child for not measuring up to expectations.
“How lovely. And her mother?”
His smile slipped. “She...died two years ago,” he said curtly.
Oh. Poor Ed and poor Rowan. Compassion nudged its way past the shock. She knew what it was to lose her own mother at a young age and how hard it had been on Bea and Daisy, too.
She had so hoped that by leaving him after she took custody of the girls, by allowing him the freedom to pursue his dreams unencumbered by all her baggage, she was providing him the chance to find the happy-ever-after she had been incapable of providing him.
After his own rough youth, largely putting his own life on hold from the age of twelve to help his single mother raise his own brother and sisters after his father walked out, she couldn’t ask Ed to do the same thing all over again with two orphaned, needy girls.
It hurt more than she might have expected to know her hopes for him to have a beautiful, happy life hadn’t been realized. He had walked his own tough road. He had loved again, lost again and was now a widower.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. That’s why I’m here, actually. Not here in your living room but here in Cape Sanctuary. My daughter and I were in need of a fresh start and a good friend from medical school told me her partner was retiring and asked if I wanted to go into practice with her. You might know her. Joanne Chen.”
Her stomach suddenly twisted with the vague nausea of the past few weeks that had been hinting at the truth she had been afraid to verify.
“I do know her,” she said. “Quite well, actually. She’s my doctor.”
He made a face. “When I saw you standing there with the pregnancy test, I feared as much. That’s one of the reasons I looked you up and decided to stop by, so that neither one of us had any sudden shocks when we run into each other at the clinic or on the street somewhere.”
“You mean like the kind of shock I might have had when I opened my front door to find you on the other side, after all these years?”
He gave her a rueful look. “Yeah. Exactly like that one. I’m sorry. I should have thought things through a little more and phoned you first. In retrospect, I probably should have reached out to discuss it with you when Rowan and I were first considering the idea of moving here.”
“You can move wherever you want, Ed. I’m not queen and supreme ruler of Cape Sanctuary. Though I have to ask, of all the places you could have gone, why here?”
“My previous practice was in Pasadena and I wanted more of a small-town atmosphere. And Rowan wanted somewhere with a beach. She is learning to surf and wants to be a marine biologist. I bumped into Jo at a conference several months ago and she mentioned what a lovely town it was. It seemed the perfect place for us. Not tiny but small enough to feel like we’re part of the community.”
“You remembered that I lived here?”
“I remembered that this is where you took the girls when you left. I remember you talking about how much you loved it here, how your time in foster care in Cape Sanctuary was the happiest of your life, when you felt the most safe.”
Had she said that? Probably. After their mother died when she was eight and her only sister, Jewel, ten years older, took off with the first of a long string of boyfriends, Stella spent five difficult years being bounced from foster home to foster home throughout Northern California. At thirteen, she finally landed in Cape Sanctuary with a wonderful, loving couple that showed her by example how a family should function. With mutual respect, with kindness, with compassion.
Cape Sanctuary had become home. Naturally, this was also where she had been compelled to bring Daisy and Beatriz when she obtained custody of them after Jewel’s lifestyle caught up with her.
“I guess, maybe I was looking for some kind of peace for me and for Rowan. She’s struggling a great deal over losing her mom. Holly’s death was...difficult. The idea of finding a sanctuary somewhere held a great deal of appeal. To be honest, I figured you probably weren’t here anymore. I just assumed you would have married and moved away and had the half-dozen children you always talked about wanting.”
She hadn’t. Just the girls and this tiny life growing inside her, though she wanted to think she had been a mother figure to all the foster children who had found temporary refuge here at Three Oaks.
“I’m still here,” she said, stating the obvious. “Thank you for warning me. Now I guess I’ll have no excuse to freak out if I see you in the street.”
He was quiet, those handsome features she had loved so much looking tense and uncomfortable. “I want this move to work for my daughter, but not at the expense of you and your comfort here in town.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t bother me at all,” she lied. “You can move wherever you want, Ed. I hope that after all this time, we can be friends.”
“I would like that,” he said softly. “I’ve learned that true friends in this life are as rare as they are precious.”
He gave her a careful look. “Now that we’ve cleared the air and gotten the initial shock of seeing each other again out of the way, tell me about this pregnancy. How far along do you think you might be?”
She knew exactly how far along she was, five weeks to the day since her last rendezvous with the doctor’s turkey baster. She wasn’t about to tell him that, though.
“About a month,” she said.
“Jo is an excellent doctor. You’re in good hands.”
“Yes. She’s been my OB-GYN for years.”
“Then you know her skills well.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you for being understanding. It’s really great to see you, Stella. And congratulations again.”
“Thank you.”
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
Not if I see you first, she wanted to say, but that would probably sound juvenile coming from a forty-year-old schoolteacher who was about to become a mother.
“Right.”
To her astonished dismay, he leaned in and kissed her cheek, then turned around and walked through her door, leaving behind a little swirl of his distinctive scent that took her right back to those intense college days when she had been young and completely in love.
Those heady months they had been together had seemed full of amazing possibilities. She had been close to graduating, in the middle of her last semester of coursework before doing her student teaching.
It had been an important time for her scholastically but she had barely been able to keep her mind on her schoolwork that final semester because she’d been in love for the first and only time.
Stella sank into her favorite chair, the one she had saved and saved to buy, with its whimsical forest scene created by her favorite artist, the anonymously infamous Marguerite.
The chair usually centered her. It was the one she meditated in, read in, sat in to write in her diary. This time she couldn’t seem to find anything resembling peace as the memories crowded in.
She had been so in love with the gorgeous medical student she’d met at the UCLA student health clinic when she had sprained her ankle playing beach volleyball with friends over the holiday break.
Sparks had flared between them instantly and she had slipped him her phone number, something she had never done before or since. He called her the next day, ostensibly to check up on her ankle, and the two of them ended up talking for hours. Ed had dropped by the next night with a pizza and a bouquet of flowers and she had fallen hard. From that instant on, they spent every available moment together. They studied together, met up for meals on campus, spent all their free time hiking, riding bikes, or just taking a drive and talking.
He had proposed after two months. It was entirely too early in their relationship and they were both too young. Plus, he had years of med school, residency and internship ahead of him.
Both of them knew getting married had been a crazy idea but things seemed so right and real and perfect. Ed had been old-fashioned, hadn’t wanted to move in together without marrying her, and by that point neither of them could imagine being apart.
She had known she wanted to build a life with him, so she had said yes. He was warm and loving, honorable and kind and amazing.
She wasn’t sure what he saw in her, a former foster child with an alcoholic mother and a deadbeat father who had disappeared long ago, but she didn’t care. She had been lost in the wonder and magic of knowing he would be hers and they would build the family she had always wanted.
And then she had found out purely by accident that her sister, Jewel, had died months earlier of a drug overdose, and Jewel’s daughters, her nieces, had been put in separate foster homes.
And that was that. In that single moment her entire future had changed and she had known exactly what she had to do.
The girls needed her.
She had broken things off with Ed. What choice did she have? She could never ask him to help her raise two troubled girls, not when he needed all his energy and focus to become the brilliant doctor she saw inside him.
He would have done it. He would have put all his dreams on hold to help her obtain custody of the girls and would probably have quit med school to help support them all.
She couldn’t let him. So she had just...walked away. Eventually, she had told him she wasn’t in love with him, that she was too young to be married. That part was probably truth. She told him she had an offer to do her student teaching in Cape Sanctuary, at the other end of the state and a world away, and she was taking it.
She had cried herself to sleep the first three months she was away from him and had tortured herself by keeping a picture of them on the beach in the drawer of her bedside table until she had finally forced herself to put it away.
And now he was here.
What kind of weird wind had carried him back into her life now? And what was she going to do?
She wiped at the tears she hadn’t realized she still had inside her for Ed Clayton and a love that seemed as real and strong now as it had then.
It didn’t matter. She touched her abdomen, to the tiny life growing there. She couldn’t let it matter. She had more important things to worry about now, like how in the world she was going to raise this child by herself.
4
DAISY
She was late, and if there is one thing she hated more than last-minute tax filers, it was being late.
Daisy pressed the buzzer at the wrought iron gates leading into her ex-brother-in-law’s estate along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Casa Del Mar was beautiful. It was by far the most luxurious and expensive house along this area of coastline. Built in the Spanish Colonial style, it was massive, around seven thousand square feet, with a recording studio, huge swimming pool, tennis courts and even a two-lane bowling alley. Its biggest draw was the view, though, spectacular from just about every window.
She lived in a house on the cliffs above the ocean, as well, just a half mile down the road, and had a stellar view herself, but the entirety of Pear Tree Cottage would probably fit inside Cruz’s master suite.
He could afford it. As one of his team of financial advisers, she had a full picture of just how successful Cape Sanctuary’s hometown boy had become. The commission she earned handling his interests went a long way to helping her afford the property taxes for that house on the cliffs she loved.
“Yes?” A disembodied voice spoke out of the tastefully hidden speaker. She didn’t recognize the greeter, which wasn’t a big surprise. Cruz’s staff rotated with dizzying frequency.
“Daisy McClure. I have an appointment with Cruz.”
The voice went silent for a moment then returned to the intercom. “Mr. Romero is busy right now. He’s about to have a massage.”
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her BMW and frowned. She was five minutes late, granted, but she had a feeling the massage wasn’t some not-so-subtle dig at her punctuality. She was fairly certain that Cruz had completely forgotten about their appointment. He had a bad habit of doing exactly that.
“Tell Mr. Romero he’s the one who called me to meet him at this time. He said it was important. This is the only time I’m free in several days. I’m here now. He can have his massage when we’re done. If you’d like, I can tell him that myself.”
She spoke firmly, not worried about offending Cruz. She had known him since he was a kid living with his grandmother. She used to help him with his math homework after his grandmother had to go into assisted living and he came to live with Stella. He knew she wouldn’t take his crap—which might be why he entrusted a substantial share of his wealth to her keeping.
“One moment.”
An instant later the door glided open silently and she drove up the long, winding driveway lined with cypress and pine. Here and there, she caught glimpses of blue as the ocean peeped through.
When she pulled up to the house, she saw several luxury SUVs there, indicating he had guests. From here she saw two people playing tennis and was positive that if she walked around the house, she would find more in the pool.
Where was Cruz, however? That was the question du jour.
She rang the doorbell and waited three or four moments, then finally pushed her way inside.
As she might have expected, no one was there to meet her in the huge entryway, with its soaring ceilings and the colorful tile-work staircase and wrought iron banister focal point.
“Hello?” she called out.
Silence echoed through the entryway in response. She frowned, annoyed all over again. Give a guy a few Rolling Stone covers and include him as one of People magazine’s sexiest men of the year, and he thought the world revolved around him.
She had a couple of options. She could wander around the vast house playing Find the Pop Star. Or she could handle things a different way.
She pulled out her phone and texted him.
I’ll be in the sitting room off the great hall. I can wait for ten minutes, then I’ll go and we can reschedule. My time is valuable, too.
He texted her back immediately.
Sorry, babe. Forgot you were coming. Be there in a sec.
She sighed. Cruz might be selfish and narcissistic, and her sister might have divorced him for completely understandable reasons, but he was still family and she loved him.
She headed for her favorite spot in the house, a small, comfortable room near the sprawling kitchen, with a beautiful view of the Pacific. The windows opened here and she could usually find a lovely breeze, sweet with the sea and the scent of the climbing roses that grew outside.
It also had three original Marguerites, an intricately painted table and two matching chairs.
She knew to the penny how much Cruz had paid for them, a staggering amount that still made her blink.
Cruz liked to think he had discovered the mysterious furniture artist. In a way, she supposed he had. It was a spread of this house in Architectural Digest where he gushed about her work that had put Marguerite on the wish list of every designer in California.
If she had hoped she might have a few moments to herself to enjoy the functional art while she waited for Cruz, she was sadly disappointed.
Someone was already there.
A man who was asleep, his feet on the coffee table and a drink on the extremely expensive Marguerite side table—without a coaster.
She knew this man, she suddenly realized. She had last seen him climbing into a luxury SUV outside the supermarket the night of Stella’s birthday party.
He wasn’t staring at her now. He was out, probably sleeping off a night of partying with Cruz into the wee hours.
She was aware of the sting of disappointment at discovering the man she had thought about several times since their brief encounter was only another one of her ex-brother-in-law’s sycophants and freeloaders.
A gorgeous one, yes, but that didn’t make up for being a slob.
She grabbed a walnut-and-leather coaster off the little tray—they were right there, for heaven’s sake—and bent over to slide it under his drink.
“Well. That’s a lovely thing to wake up to.”
She jerked her gaze down at the deep voice and that slight, hard-to-place accent and found his stunning green eyes open and fixed somewhere south of her neck. Only now did she realize the position she was in, bending almost over him so that her unfortunately abundant girls were just at his eye level.
Making matters worse, the top button had come loose on her tidy dress shirt, she realized, revealing plenty of cleavage as well as a hint of the decadent lace from the minimizer bras she favored.
“Oh.” She straightened quickly, blushing as she worked to button her shirt.
He sat up, wincing a little. “Sorry. That was the drugs talking. I’m usually not such a pig, I promise.”
She couldn’t help her inelegant snort of disbelief. A slob, a pig and a junkie. Typical of Cruz’s guests.
It was completely unfair that he could still manage to look rumpled and sexy, hair messed and the perfect degree of dark stubble.
She stepped away from him and glowered.
“I have an appointment in this room momentarily with Cruz. We’re going to talk about big important, boring things, like taxes and annuities and investment properties. I suggest you find somewhere else for your nap. I’m sure there are all kinds of bikini-clad women out by the pool for you to ogle.”
He blinked a little but she refused to feel guilty for the attack.
“Wow. Thanks for looking out for me and my ogling.” He glanced at the coaster. “And my water glass, apparently.”
“As Mr. Romero’s financial adviser, I am compelled to protect his assets. Have you any idea how much an original Marguerite goes for these days?”
“Entirely too much, if you ask me, for hand-painted folk art.”
She did her best not to hiss and tried to rein in her temper. “I didn’t. Ask you, I mean.”
Yes, she sounded bitchy, but she was fairly protective of the artist in question.
The insufferable man gave her a closer look. “You must be a fan.”
Daisy had no idea how to answer that. “I admire the woman for building an artistic empire while keeping her anonymity.”
“If Marguerite is a woman. From what I understand, nobody knows. Could be a ninety-year-old hillbilly with a pot gut and gout who woke up one morning in the nursing home and decided to pick up a paintbrush and go to town on some old furniture.”
She gripped the strap of her briefcase to keep from walloping him on the side of the head with it. “Isn’t it funny how everyone has a theory, but nobody seems to have any proof?”
“He makes sure of that, doesn’t he? And that only adds to the mystique, which I’m sure is quite deliberate. I wonder if everyone would still show the same kind of frenzied interest if they found out Marguerite is some middle-aged housewife with too much time on her hands.”
“Make up your mind. Is Marguerite a bored housewife or a ninety-year-old man trying to pass the time in a nursing home?”
“Does it matter? The taste arbiters don’t care. They only want what everybody else wants.”
Who was this man? He seemed older than Cruz’s usual assemblage of unfortunates, the name she had given the acolytes or aspiring rockers or groupies who were drawn to her ex-brother-in-law’s fame.
There was an intelligence in his eyes that seemed to glimmer through the bleariness of sleep and the haze of whatever drugs he was on.
Who was he, and what was he doing here at Casa Del Mar?
“Do you see something wrong with that?”
“No. I always find it fascinating when something takes hold of the public consciousness. You have to wonder why, right? What makes a musician like Cruz hit big? Talent is part of it, certainly. He is unquestionably talented. A brilliant songwriter with a decent voice and a strong stage presence. But so are hundreds, maybe thousands, of others trying to make it big. There’s something else, some hidden cultural zeitgeist.”
“Cultural zeitgeist.”
“Do you know that humans are among only a very few species in the animal kingdom who excel at passing on certain behaviors through imitation, not DNA? Some songbirds do and great apes to a small extent, but that’s about it in the animal kingdom.”
“What do songbirds and great apes have to do with Cruz Romero? Or Marguerite, for that matter?”
“Look at the things we call fads. We want what someone else says we should want. Do you know that nobody cared about Vermeer until about two hundred years after his death, when somebody decided he was a genius and the rest of the world jumped on board?”
“I guess it’s lucky Marguerite and Cruz didn’t have to wait that long, then, isn’t it?” she answered tartly.
“Lucky for them, anyway,” he answered. “I’m not so sure about the rest of us.”
Fortunately, her ex-brother-in-law wandered in before she could deck his guest.
Cruz wore his stardom well, dressed in loose linen slacks and a T-shirt from his latest tour.
“Daisy, my darling sister-in-law. Bring it in.”
She sighed and hugged him. “Ex-sister-in-law.”
“For now,” he said with an enigmatic look. “Divorce or not, you’ll always be my baby girl’s aunt, which means we’re connected forever.”
“Not to mention the fact that I handle a significant portion of your assets.”
He laughed and turned to the other man in the room. “I see you’ve met Gabriel.”
How inappropriately named. He wasn’t at all angelic. “He was just leaving, I believe. And taking his booze with him.”
“Just water, babe,” Cruz said. “The man is boring enough to be a preacher. His body is a temple, apparently.”
She hated having to agree with Cruz on that point.
“It’s worked out well for me so far,” the unworthily named Gabriel said with a smile. As he rose, his smile turned into a wince that had Cruz taking a step forward.
“You okay, man?”
Daisy raised an eyebrow at the genuine concern in Cruz’s voice.
“Fine. Just a little stiff. I’m going to take a walk.”
Now her ex-brother-in-law looked anxious. “Be careful. You know you’re not supposed to go far.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll just walk around the pool and back. You know you don’t have to babysit me every moment, right?”
“I promised the doctors I would make sure you take it easy,” Cruz said, confirming Daisy’s growing suspicions. “That’s the only way they let you out of the hospital.”
“In case it’s escaped your attention, I’m not hooked up to monitors anymore. Nobody has to know that I dared walk a hundred yards.”
“I know. Now Daisy does, too. You’re a miserable patient, Ellison.”
Gabriel Ellison. She knew that name. She frowned, trying and failing to place exactly how. He wasn’t a celebrity, she was sure of it.
She was also sure that she owed this man an apology for her attitude toward him. Gabriel was the person she had seen in the grainy, out-of-focus picture in that tabloid, the one who had been slumped against a wall holding his hands to a knife wound.
This was the man who had saved Cruz’s life. And she had been treating him with contempt and disdain, as if he was some druggie parasite.
Shame twisted through her. When would she ever learn not to jump to conclusions?
“I’m a miserable patient and you’re a mother hen. You’re not responsible for me.”
“I beg to differ. You lost half of your liver saving my sorry ass, which means I’m responsible for making sure you listen to the doctors.”
Gabriel Ellison made a face. “Exaggerate much? It was a small section of my liver. Barely even a few centimeters. I’ll be perfectly fine once it heals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a walk and find another comfortable and quiet spot to read my book.”
He picked up the glass and the book she hadn’t noticed before and moved past her. She had to say something, before things became even more awkward between them.
Daisy cleared her throat. “I...I feel like I owe you an apology, Mr. Ellison.”
Why was that name so familiar?
“For what? Having a difference of opinion? I enjoyed the conversation. It was a pleasure meeting you, Daisy.”
He moved past her a little unsteadily. She frowned after him.
“Will he be okay on his own?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll make sure my security people keep an eye on him.”
He called a number, spoke a few murmured words, then hung up. “Now. Tell me again how much money you’ve made for me while I’ve been gone.”
With a sigh, she turned her attention from the mystery of Gabriel Ellison to business, something she knew and understood.
5
GABE
Somehow, by the grace of a God he assumed had forsaken him a long time ago, Gabe managed to walk out of the cozy, warm little sitting room he had found the day before without making a complete ass of himself.
It was a close thing. He felt as weak as a damn day-old Bengal tiger cub. He wasn’t sure if it was from his lacerated liver, from the infection he was still fighting off or from the painkiller he had finally taken in desperation somewhere close to dawn after a mostly sleepless night.
Whoever would have guessed he would come to this point?
As an adventure documentary filmmaker, he might have expected to meet his fate on some bitterly cold mountain somewhere, in the midst of giant ocean swells, or while trudging across a vast, sun-parched desert.
He never would have guessed the injury that would take him lower than he’d ever been and make him wonder if he would actually survive would happen in the tunnel of a football stadium prior to a concert for a pop star whose music he didn’t even particularly enjoy.
It had all been a fluke, mere chance. He wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place but had been in Dallas meeting with some producers when he met Cruz Romero at a party. Cruz was apparently a fan of his work and had been a fan of Gabe’s father, which shouldn’t have surprised him but somehow did.
Cruz had expressed interest in investing in Gabe’s next project, showing the extensive efforts under way to protect tiny indigenous tribes along the Amazon, and had invited him backstage for his show later that night to discuss it.
He should have turned him down. But he hadn’t had plans that night and as a lifelong learner had been interested in what went on behind the scenes at a major concert venue, so he’d agreed.
He shouldn’t have been there. Yet he was. He had been standing next to Cruz just after he came off stage when a huge linebacker of a man lunged at the performer with a wild look in his eyes and a massive, wicked-looking hunting knife in his hand.
Gabe could have slipped away. It wasn’t his fight, after all, and the crazy dude wasn’t after him but the man he apparently blamed for the breakup of his marriage—Cruz.
He hadn’t. Instead, his instincts kicked in, the instincts he had honed from a lifetime of living in dangerous situations.
He had deflected the guy’s aim slightly, though not completely, but what would have been a gouge straight to Cruz’s heart had glanced off his arm instead.
Unfortunately, this had only enraged the guy more and he turned his attention to Gabe, thrusting the knife into his gut hard before bodyguards had finally come to the rescue and taken him down.
Turned out, the man’s wife had been a groupie who had actually slept with Cruz two years earlier after a previous concert in Dallas. She had been so certain he wrote one of his love songs for her that she’d left her husband and two kids to follow the pop star around the country.
He couldn’t really blame the guy for wanting a little revenge. He just would have preferred he boycotted the concert, maybe walked outside holding a placard or something, instead of trying to even the score with a ten-inch hunting knife.
In the days since the attack, Gabe had learned some interesting facts about knife wounds.
He had learned livers were one of the most common organs injured by knife and gunshot wounds, largely because of their size and vulnerable position in the abdomen.
He had learned that a damaged liver could heal on its own, one of the rare organs that could regenerate new cells instead of scar tissue.
He’d also learned that any abdominal injury was prone to infection—and that recovering from one was a hell of a lot harder than he expected.
He hadn’t died from blood loss, as he now knew the ER doctors had fully expected would happen. He had made it through the first twenty-four hours and then the week after and was well on the road to recovery now.
He hadn’t wanted to come here to Cruz’s estate to recover, but with his only fixed address a third-floor walk-up in Manhattan Beach that he used as a home base, he hadn’t had many choices.
Gabe still wasn’t sure he liked the guy’s music but had to admit Romero had stepped up to show his gratitude, insisting on staying with Gabe through those early days in the hospital and then arranging for him to fly here upon release.
Cruz hadn’t listened to a single argument.
There were far worse places to rest and recuperate.
Gabe sank into a bench overlooking the ocean, enjoying the waves crashing against the rugged cliffs below.
He would rest here for a minute, he told himself. Just long enough to avoid the prickly Daisy, whose last name he still didn’t know.
She was lovely. He couldn’t deny that. At first glance she seemed almost forgettable but then a man looked closer and saw those stunning hazel eyes, full mouth, lush curves.
He hadn’t been able to look away when he’d seen her in the grocery store the other day. He was rather embarrassed to remember that he might have stared. She had seemed familiar to him and now he knew why. In the hallway outside his room was a picture of Cruz and a little girl he assumed was his daughter. Also in the picture was a woman who looked a lot like the little girl, which he now figured was Cruz’s ex-wife, an older woman with short hair and glasses and the voluptuous Daisy.
Those hazel eyes had gazed out of the picture, hypnotizing him.
He would love to photograph those eyes. Maybe he would pose her on that Marguerite table she loved so much, wearing nothing but scarves, with only her vibrant eyes visible above the filmy material...
The image came out of nowhere, unsettling him...and arousing him, he realized, as his body stirred to life.
That was a relief. The business downstairs had been listless and uncooperative since the stabbing.
Good to know things appeared to be in working order, though apparently nearly dying had the odd and unexpected side effect of making him develop a sudden fierce attraction for prickly businesswomen with sharp tongues and questionable taste in art.
6
STELLA
“It is one hundred percent official. You are pregnant, my dear.”
Stella gazed at her friend and longtime OB-GYN, still reeling from the shock of it. “You’re sure?”
“The numbers don’t lie, honey. Congratulations.”
She smiled at Jo, who had held her hand through the entire process of fertility treatments. “I feel like you did half of the work. Shouldn’t you be passing out cigars right about now?”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work that way. You get to do all the work from here on out, until the last bit.”
She wasn’t going to stress about that part until she had to. “I don’t know how to thank you. Seriously. You’ve been amazing.”
“Everything looks good so far. I would say, considering the date of your last insemination, that puts you at approximately six weeks along—assuming you haven’t been finding a little action on the side, anyway.”
“No action here, except you and your turkey baster, which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you. It’s all you, Jo.”
“Well, I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
“I don’t know how to thank you. It’s amazing.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We have a few weeks to go.”
Six weeks down, approximately thirty-four to go. She couldn’t quite believe this was happening. She would be holding her own baby in just a little over eight months.
“Do you have any questions or concerns for me?”
“That depends. How much time do you have?”
Jo laughed. “I can give you another fifteen minutes. If you have more than that, we’ll have to meet for lunch next week.”
“Fifteen minutes will at least get us started.”
The truth was, Stella had been dreaming of this day for so long, visualizing what it would be like to be right here, finding out positive news from her doctor, that she had already researched everything she might have wanted to know. She had just about memorized the stages of fetal development, what symptoms she might be experiencing at each stage of the pregnancy and any concerns she should be watching for.
All that and much, much more was available with the click of a keyboard. Seriously, how had women survived all the questions of pregnancy before the internet?
She knew the answer. They had a village. Mothers, sisters, grandmothers, friends. She had that, too, and was deeply grateful.
They talked about a few of her symptoms—the breast tenderness, the sleepiness, the hints of nausea she’d been feeling throughout the day.
“That might get worse before it gets better,” Jo warned. “Make sure you let me know if it becomes more than you can handle.”
She knew as a woman past forty—barely!—she would face additional challenges and was completely confident in Jo, grateful she would have a friend and solid partner in this whole baby business.
“If that’s it for now,” her doctor said, “I’d like to see you again in my office in two weeks. Be warned, I’m going to be following you more frequently than most first-time moms. Because of your age, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy, which means we’ll become even better friends before we’re done here.”
“Sounds great to me.”
“Go ahead and get dressed and the nurse will be in with the bundle of information we give to all first-time expectant mothers.”
She was an expectant mother. It still didn’t seem real.
“Thank you.”
“I’m so thrilled for you, Stella. You’re going to be an amazing mother.”
She wasn’t at all convinced of that. She was fairly certain self-doubt would be more of an issue throughout the pregnancy than anything else. She was in it now, though. Like every other mother, she imagined, she would have to figure things out as she went along.
The nurse, Katie Frye, had been Stella’s student years ago. She knocked just as Stella finished dressing. “Come in,” she called.
Katie marched through the door carrying a large cotton tote with flowers on it. “Here you go. This is the swag bag we give to all new prenatal patients. There are samples, coupons, leaflets and a nice pregnancy journal, as well as a book we give expectant moms. You might find it answers your most common questions. Read through it when you can. And congrats, Mama.”
Her stomach, which hadn’t felt the most stable all day, seemed to twist at the words.
“Remember, you can call us any day or night,” Katie went on. “Now, make sure you stop at the reception desk to set up your next appointment.”
“I will. Thank you.”
When she walked out to the luxuriously appointed reception area, she saw a couple of women she knew, including one who was a notorious gossip. She waved, grateful the swag bag was somewhat discreet and didn’t scream Baby Mama on it. She wasn’t ready for the whole world to know yet. She didn’t even know when she wanted to tell Daisy and Bea.
After making the appointment with the receptionist—another of her old students—she was entering the info into her phone’s calendar when the door behind her opened. She couldn’t see who it was, but she felt a collective burst of energy ripple through the room as if every woman had suddenly put her hormones on notice.
With a growing sense of dread, she turned around and, as she feared, discovered Dr. Ed Clayton walking through the front door, accompanied by a gamine young girl with brown hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.
His face lit up when he spotted her. “Stella! Hi. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
Of all the OB-GYN offices in all the cities along the coast, he had to walk into hers.
“I told you Jo was my doctor.” She held up the bag of swag. “First appointment.”
How was it possible that Ed Clayton was the only other person besides Jo and Katie who knew about her pregnancy? That was just as unreal as the pregnancy itself.
“I hope all went well.”
“So far so good,” she answered.
“Glad to hear it. Actually, I’m happy we bumped into you. I wanted you to meet my daughter. Rowan, this is Stella Davenport. She’s an old friend and also teaches at the middle school.”
“Hi.” The girl looked at her curiously, but without any hint that she knew her father and Stella once had a relationship.
“Hi, Rowan. It’s so nice to meet you. Are you in sixth grade or seventh?”
“Starting sixth.” A hint of worry showed in the girl’s eyes that were remarkably like her father’s. “We just drove past the school and it’s huge.”
“Her previous school was a small, private elementary not far from our house,” Ed explained.
“This is my first time in public school. I really hope I don’t get lost.”
“It’s not bad once you walk around a little. If you’d like, I can meet you there ahead of time and show you around. When you get your schedule, I can give you the tour and come up with a map to your classes.”
“That would be great. Thank you.”
Stella felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. She remembered that terrifying feeling of showing up to a new place when you didn’t have friends, didn’t know the routine, had no idea of the customs or cliques.
How many times had she endured that through her childhood?
Her past experience meant she had a special place in her heart for new students. She figured school was hard enough at this age without throwing in a complete change.
“It can be daunting to start at a new school but I think you’ll find plenty of friends. I actually have a great-niece going into sixth grade and all her friends are very nice girls.”
“That’s good.”
She could almost guess what the girl was thinking. How lucky for your great-niece. How is that going to help me?
“You know, I’m sure Mari would love to meet you before school starts. Would you be interested, if I could arrange for the two of you to hang out? Maybe she could invite some of her other friends to a little pool party at her house, just to make sure you have a few familiar faces on the first day.”
This stirred Rowan’s interest. She gave Stella a look that seemed both wary and eager. “That would be really nice. Thanks.”
“I’ll call her. I’m sure she would love to meet you. And if you have any questions about Cape Sanctuary or the things young people your age like to do around here, I would be happy to answer them or direct you to someone else who can.”
“Thanks, Stella,” Ed said. He glanced at the reception desk. “I’m here to drop off some forms they need before I start working next week, but if you’re free, would you be interested in going to lunch with us to maybe give us some of those pointers?”
She gazed at him, clutching her baby swag bag. “Lunch.”
He smiled. “Yes. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure. The meal between breakfast and dinner.”
She wanted to say no. A few days ago she thought she had put Ed Clayton firmly in her past. It may have taken years of effort but she had almost managed to forget him.
She could do nothing about his decision to move here to Cape Sanctuary but that didn’t mean she had to willingly sign up to entangle their lives together again.
She was about to refuse but then she saw the eager expression on Rowan’s face and couldn’t do it.
For his daughter’s sake, she could handle a little thing like lunch. “Did you have somewhere in mind?”
“You tell us. We don’t know restaurants in the area. That’s one of the areas where I could use help.”
“I like The Ocean Club. It’s on Seaview Drive, near the Pine intersection, just a block from here.”
“Do you want to walk?”
She needed to stay active during her pregnancy, for the baby’s health and her own. “Sure.”
“Give me a few minutes to take care of the reason I came here.”
He handed the receptionist some signed forms. “Here you go. I think that’s everything you needed from me but let me know if I left anything off.”
The receptionist apparently was not immune to the gorgeousness that was Ed Clayton. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at him. “Thank you so much, Dr. Clayton. We can’t wait for you to start.”
Stella had a feeling that as soon as word trickled out about the sexy new doctor, the women of Cape Sanctuary would be lining up for appointments.
* * *
Stella felt extremely conspicuous as she walked into The Ocean Club with Ed and his daughter. She had taught all three of the owner’s children and also knew several of the patrons eating at the comfortable café. The place was frequented by both locals and tourists alike, known for its excellent and extensive menu and spectacular view of Sea Glass Beach.
She waved to Elena, the owner, who raised her eyebrows in Ed’s direction, all but wiggling them, Groucho Marx style. She frowned at her friend, hoping Ed didn’t notice.
“Elena Jimenez, this is Ed Clayton and his daughter, Rowan. They’ve just moved to town. Ed is a doctor, joining Jo Chen’s practice.”
“Nice to meet you, Ed. Hi, Rowan.” Elena gave them both a friendly smile. “Welcome to Cape Sanctuary.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want to sit outside on the patio? It’s a beautiful day.”
“That sounds great. Thanks.”
“Go ahead and sit where you want,” Elena said. “I’ll send Leilani out in a minute to take your order.”
Stella was nervous as she led them to a lovely spot near the patio edge, with a striking view of the curving beach below and the dramatic rock formations offshore.
“This is nice,” Rowan said.
She smiled at the girl. “The food is good, too. And reasonably priced.”
They spent a moment going over the menu, then gave their order to Elena’s sweet daughter, who helped her mother out at the restaurant.
“So do you have a place to live yet?” she asked after the server left.
“We opted for a short-term lease our first few months, to give us time to figure out what neighborhood we want to settle in for the long haul,” Ed answered. “For now, we’re in the Surfside condos.”
Surfside was a lovely development not far from Three Oaks. “You’ll like it there. It’s a nice area. Plus, they have that great pool complex.”
“It’s got a good view of the ocean. That was my only requirement.”
“You’re not far from the middle school there, only a few blocks,” she said to Rowan. “You should be able to walk or ride a bike.”
“Or my longboard,” Rowan said.
“That would work, too.” She knew many students rode longboards to school and stored them in their lockers. “You know, we have a really great skate park north of Dragonfly Park. That’s about three blocks from your condo.”
She knew all about the skate park since she had been on the committee that persuaded the city council to build it. Several of her foster children had been into skateboarding, and the park provided a safe place to do it where they didn’t annoy business owners.
“I hear from those who’ve used it that it’s pretty boss.”
“That could be cool.” The girl sipped at the soda Leilani brought her. “What about surfing around here? Is it always too cold? I was just starting up back home and was hoping I could take more lessons here, but we went down to the beach the other day and it was freezing. I only waded in and I thought my toes were going to fall off from frostbite.”
“You have to wear a full-body wet suit but there are plenty of folks around here who do. There’s a nice surf break up a little north of town at Hidden Beach. I’m not an expert, I’m afraid. Surfing’s not my thing but you can talk to the couple that runs the surf and bike rental shop down the street and they can give you all the info you need.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“So,” Ed said when the conversation lagged. “Tell me what you’ve been doing the past twenty years.”
Missing you.
She cleared her throat. “Teaching. Raising the girls.”
“You have daughters?” Rowan asked. “How old are they?”
“Nieces, actually. And they’re grown now. Daisy’s turned thirty this year and Bea is twenty-eight.”
“Do they live around here?”
“Yes. Daisy is an accountant and financial planner in town and Bea is an artist. As a matter of fact, she has some lovely pieces in the gallery next door.”
“We’ll have to check it out,” Ed said.
“It’s her daughter who is around your age,” she told Rowan. “Marisol is a very funny, creative, kind girl. I think you’ll like her.”
“Maybe.”
Stella didn’t miss the hint of wariness in the girl’s voice, as if she was afraid to get her hopes up. It made her even more determined to help her connect with Mari. “I’ll talk to her mother and see what we can arrange before school starts.”
That might mean she had to spend more time with Ed, but for the girl’s sake, she was willing to make a sacrifice.
“What other sorts of things besides longboarding and surfing did you like to do back in Pasadena?”
Rowan fiddled with her silverware. “I don’t know. Just stuff. Ride my scooter. Watch movies. Listen to music.”
She wondered if Rowan liked Cruz Romero’s music but decided not to blow her mind by telling her the pop icon was her niece’s father.
“Sounds like the same stuff Mari likes. I’ll call her mom as soon as we finish lunch.”
Leilani brought their food a moment later, and while they ate, they spoke of Rowan’s previous school and Ed’s practice, their dog, Boomer, and a trip the two of them were planning over Christmas break to Hawaii.
She would be done with the first trimester by then, she thought, and into the second, with a nice baby bump.
The meal was much more pleasant than she might have expected. She was aware of the currents simmering between them, all the unanswered questions about why she had walked away and their difficult last meeting so long ago. But Ed seemed willing to put that aside. Wouldn’t it be lovely if they could build a friendship, after all these years?
He insisted on paying for lunch as recompense for all her advice about the community. By the time she finished eating, she was exhausted and wanted to find a nice corner of the restaurant to curl up in and take a nap. She had a feeling that getting through the school day while fighting this fatigue was going to be one of the hardest parts of the pregnancy.
“Thank you,” she said after they rose to leave the restaurant.
“This was a great place. I appreciate you directing us to it.”
It would probably be tough to have a friendship with him when his smile still made her insides shiver.
“You’re welcome. If you want, I can give you a list of some of my favorite restaurants in town. Or you can just explore. Trial and error is good for finding your own favorites.”
“I would appreciate a starting point. Thanks.”
She forced a smile as they walked out of the restaurant. Since both of their vehicles were still parked back at the women’s clinic, they started in that direction when the door to the art gallery next door opened and she spotted a familiar person coming out. Bea looked lovely in a flowery, flowing sundress and a floppy hat.
“Hey, Aunt Stella!”
Oh, dear. She didn’t want either of the girls to see her with Ed and get the wrong idea about them. It was too late to worry about that now. The damage was done.
“Bea. Darling. We were just speaking about you.”
“Were you?”
“About Mari, actually. I suppose I should introduce you. Bea, this is Ed Clayton and his daughter, Rowan. They’ve just moved to Cape Sanctuary. Dr. Clayton is going into partnership with Jo Chen.”
“Oh. Welcome, both of you.” Bea gave them a wide smile, making Stella grateful for her kind nature. Though she had been a bit of a wild, rebellious girl once upon a time, motherhood had settled Bea a great deal.
“Thank you,” Ed replied. Was Stella the only one who found the way he smiled with his eyes enormously sexy?
“I was telling Rowan here how amazing my great-niece, Mari, is and how I’m sure they would love each other if they met. They’re both a little too old for playdates at this age, so I was thinking we could set something else up. Maybe a swim party or something with some of Mari’s other friends, just so Rowan can meet some other girls her age before school starts in a few weeks.”
“What a great idea! Mari would love that. I’ll talk to her and see what we can figure out.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Bea’s gaze was fixed on Ed, a slight frown furrowing her forehead. “Ed, you seem familiar somehow. I’m sorry. Have we met?”
Stella froze. She could only think of one reason Bea might recognize Ed. The girl had once stumbled onto a picture of the two of them together, one Stella couldn’t bear to throw away.
“Ed and I are old friends, tracing all the way back to our university days at UCLA,” she said quickly. “He’s moving up from Southern California.”
She still had the picture. She kept it in a little carved box of papers and receipts and the few photographs she had of her and Jewel when they were young. Once in a while, she stumbled onto it. Seeing Ed’s face always seemed to knock the wind out of her.
“I’m actually glad I bumped into you.” Bea changed the subject, much to Stella’s relief.
“Oh?”
“I wanted to give you a heads-up, if you haven’t already heard. Cruz is in town, staying at Casa Del Mar. So far, the paparazzi haven’t found him but that could change at any moment. You might want to avoid that section of Seaview Drive until he’s gone again.”
The curving, tight road could be dangerous under the best of circumstances. Sometimes when Cruz was in the middle of some scandal or other and came back to town, the paparazzi’s vehicles could block the entire road.
“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll be careful. How is he?”
Though she could never quite forgive him for getting Bea pregnant when she was barely seventeen and taking her away from them before she could graduate from high school, she would always have a soft spot in her heart for Cruz. He had been her student first, with a poet’s soul she had recognized early, then had lived with her after the grandmother who had been raising him had to go into a nursing home.
“He seems to be okay,” Bea said. If Stella wasn’t mistaken, her niece still seemed troubled, despite her words.
“I’m so glad. Did he tell you or Mari how long he plans to stay?”
Bea’s mouth tightened, confirming Stella’s suspicions that she wasn’t particularly happy with her ex-husband right now. “A month. That’s what he said, anyway.”
“That means he’ll be here for the Arts and Hearts on the Cape Festival.”
“Probably.”
The huge festival in September had become the signature fund-raiser for Open Hearts. “Maybe he would agree to attend one of the events. Imagine how the attendance might soar if people knew Cruz Romero was attending!”
“Cruz Romero? You know Cruz Romero?” Rowan’s eyes were huge.
“You could say that,” Bea muttered.
“Cruz and my niece here were married once. He is Mari’s father.”
“Really?”
“He has a house here in Cape Sanctuary. You might have seen it, a really big, sprawling Spanish Colonial just on the edge of town, overlooking the water.”
“Remember that big house we saw the other night? The one you said looked like a hotel?” Ed said.
“That’s the one,” Bea said grimly. “Go ahead and ask him about the festival. You know he can never say no to you. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to Mari about the pool party and let you know.”
“Thanks, honey.” Stella kissed her niece on the cheek and Bea waved and headed on the way, but not until she gave Ed another searching look as if still trying to place him.
“Thank you again for having lunch with us,” Ed said as they neared the clinic.
“I enjoyed it,” she answered, and was surprised to find it was true. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“I thought we would walk around downtown a little more, just to get the feel of things.”
She was reluctant to leave them, suddenly. Her fatigue seemed to have disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“Have you been to the library yet? In my opinion, you don’t truly belong to a community until you have a library card. We have an excellent library here in Cape Sanctuary.”
“We have not made that stop yet.”
“It’s right across the street on the corner. And across the next street from that is the local historical museum, where I am a docent a few times a month. I can show you that, too. It will give you a nice overview of Cape Sanctuary.”
“That would be great,” Rowan said, obviously still dazed at discovering Cruz Romero lived close by.
As Stella led the way, she told herself she was only being friendly to two people moving to the town she loved. Her offer to show them around had nothing to do with any desire on her part to spend more time with the man whose memory she had cherished for nearly two decades.
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