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“You’re on the board of directors at the school. Get rid of her. Make sure she has to move, too. You have the phone number where the artist can be reached, don’t you? Tell him she’s throwing wild parties or something.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Cade informed his father, his own anger building at his father’s scheming.
Walter placed both hands on his desk and leaned closer, his eyes boring into Cade’s. “You will if you want to keep that ranch you’re so crazy about. I got you your position with the law firm. I can take it away.”
Cade took a deep breath. Another one. It was no use. He headed for the door.
“Where the hell are you going? I’m not through talking to you,” his father said in a snarl.
“I’m leaving,” Cade said, keeping his own tone quiet and carefully controlled. “Before I punch you out. It’s never good form to beat up one’s father.”
He walked out without looking back. The secretary kept her gaze pinned to the papers on her desk as he swept past.
Cade was careful around her. He and his siblings had figured out long ago that anything they said to her would be repeated to their father.
In the hall, he nearly ran over Linda Mailer, his father’s accountant. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“It was my fault,” she said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She gestured at the sheaf of papers in her hand. “Do you have a moment? I have some questions—”
“Later,” Cade said and forced a smile. “I have to be somewhere.”
Anywhere but in the vicinity of his father, Cade thought, going outside and breathing deeply.
The day was clear and warm, an invitation to be outside in the summer sun. Perusing the display of jewelry in the store window, he experienced an overpowering need to get away from everything that bore his father’s touch. The ranch was just the place for that.
“It’s no problem,” Sara assured Tai Monday afternoon. She’d agreed to take Stacy home and let the child stay with her until Cade arrived.
“Thanks, Sara. That’s a load off my mind,” Tai said, relief mingling with the worry in her eyes.
The young woman’s mother had undergone emergency surgery during the night for a ruptured appendix. Tai, an only child, needed to take care of her for a few days until the older woman was on her feet again.
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll explain what happened to Cade.” Sara walked the premed student to the classroom door and waved as Tai hurried from the school grounds.
It was lunch recess and the babble of conversation and laughter on the playground was reassuring to Sara. As long as there were children and laughter, then the world couldn’t be all bad.
But it could be harsh.
She thought of Tai’s concern for her mom, of the past winter and her own mother’s slow fading, those thin hands growing paler and colder each day as Marla’s heart failed in its effort to supply the vital link to life.
With the death of her mother, Sara had felt adrift in life, cut off from her roots and all the past generations that made her the person she was. The future had seemed dark and fuzzy, an endless road leading to a place she couldn’t see. Sensing Tai’s fear had revived her own.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period. The children ran about in seeming disorder, but soon sorted themselves into lines in front of their classrooms, then marched in with their teachers.
Sara put the past out of her mind and finished her teaching duties. She ended the day by having the children dance around the classroom in time to a lively tune, then she and the twenty students straightened up the room in preparation for the next day.
“Stacy, you’ll walk home with me,” she told the youngster when the final bell rang. “Tai’s mom got sick and Tai will have to stay with her for a couple of weeks.”
Stacy smiled happily. “I like being with you. And Tai,” she added, loyal to her sitter.
“You’re a very likable person to be with, too,” Sara said. “Shall we plan dinner for your father tonight since Tai won’t be there to start it?”
“Let’s have spaghetti. That’s his favorite food.”
Sara gave a little skeptical snort. “I think I know whose favorite it is,” she said as Stacy skipped along beside her.
Stacy pressed a hand over her mouth and giggled.
At the town house, they worked together and soon the spicy sauce was bubbling in the pan. While it simmered, the two weeded the front flower beds, not that they needed much work. The mysterious Mr. Lee—Sara had never seen him—kept the grounds in tip-top shape.
That’s where Cade found them when he arrived at six o’clock.
After the usual hug, swing and nose-rubbing with his daughter, he turned to Sara. His stare was so intent, she became flustered and dropped the small bunch of grass sprouts they’d pulled from among the flowers.
“We cooked dinner,” Stacy told him.
“Where’s Tai?” he asked Sara.
“Her mommy’s sick,” Stacy answered. “Tai has to stay with her ’cause she had a op’ration.”
“An operation,” he corrected.
“Mommy wanted Daddy to have one, but he got mad,” Stacy said to Sara. The child gazed earnestly at her father. “Sara and I could stay with you if you had one,” she volunteered.
Before Sara could quite figure out the implications, Cade abruptly set the girl on her feet, unlocked the door and disappeared inside with her. His face had turned an interesting shade of red.
Sara felt her own face heat up as she sorted through the conversation. While working together last week, Rachel had told Sara all she’d read about Cade’s wife. The woman had been an ardent partygoer. It didn’t take a strong leap to imagine her not wanting more children…or that she’d wanted Cade to do something about it.
Had he?
Going inside, she prepared the pasta and salad and rolls, then studied the ebony table with its perfect finish. She’d never used it.
Getting a colorful tablecloth from her belongings, she went onto the deck and spread it over the patio table there. With the table set and the food ready to bring out, she wondered what to do next.
Feeling embarrassed and more than a little foolish, she knocked on Cade’s back door.
He answered in less than a minute. He’d changed to jeans and a blue chambray shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the buttons not yet fastened down the front.
His chest was lightly sprinkled with dark hair. His skin was tanned. She wondered when he spent time outside to acquire it. He wasn’t a brawny man, but he looked strong and fit, with a whipcord leanness to him that spoke of latent energy, ready to be unleashed on a second’s notice.
Unexpected hunger uncoiled and flooded her with intense longing. She hadn’t felt passion in so long it took a moment to realize fully what it was.
She wanted this man. She wanted his arms around her. She wanted to feel his warmth, his intimate touch. She wanted to caress him, to explore his masculine flesh with her hands…with her body…
“Yes?” he said.
Sara hesitated at his tone—not exactly cold, but not exactly friendly, either. “Uh, did Stacy tell you we prepared dinner?”
“Yes. I was just about to call and see if the invitation was still open.”
“Of course.” She dredged up a smile. “I don’t want to eat leftover spaghetti for the next six nights.”
His answering smile was forced. “I’ll get Stace. We’ll be over in a minute.”
“I, uh, thought we would eat on the deck.”
“Great. We’ll be right out.”
Sara retreated, leaving her door open so they could come inside if they wished. Her fingers trembled slightly as she removed crisp sourdough bread from the oven and placed it in a cloth-lined basket. She made a nest for the sauce in the center of the pasta, which she’d placed on a platter with a high rim.
“I’ll take that,” Cade said, coming to the door. He removed the platter from her hand.
“Thanks. Stace, if you’ll put these rolls on the table, I’ll get drinks. Milk or iced tea?”
“Tea for me, milk for the young lady,” Cade said.
Since it was early, the air hadn’t cooled to the point of being chilly. The temperature was a pleasant seventy-two degrees. With the irrepressible Stacy there to bridge any awkward pauses, the tension between Sara and Cade eased and the evening became quite cheerful.
“So, did both of you enjoy your first day of school?” he asked when they were seated.
The two females gave him a thorough review of their day while the shadows lengthened and the sun hid behind the fog bank on the horizon. They finished the meal, but lingered at the table and talked.
“There’ll be no flash tonight,” Cade told them, gazing at the horizon.
Sara thought he looked wistful, but in the next instant, as his eyes met hers, she decided she was wrong. She’d been aware of his gaze on her several times during the meal, but his thoughts had been too obscure to read. Now he merely looked amused and somehow distant.
Not that they’d ever been close, except as children in school together, she mused, her senses keenly aware of him and his physical presence, the innate masculinity that called to something equally strong but feminine in her.
After eating, they all pitched in to clean up the dishes, then Cade and Stacy went to their place so the child could get ready for bed. Sara draped a sweater over her shoulders and returned to the deck.
Twilight deepened into night, and still she lingered. No mosquitoes came out to annoy her. Few sounds from the street penetrated back here. It didn’t even feel as if she were in a city.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” Cade asked from his doorway an hour later.
“Yes, that would be nice.”
He joined her on the deck and handed her a glass of wine, which was red and mellow, holding only a hint of tannin from the oak barrel in which it had been aged.
“Very good,” she murmured after taking a sip.
“An eight-year-old Cabernet,” he told her. “It won the blue ribbon in a recent international competition.”
“You should have saved it for a special occasion.”
“I think this is special enough. A fine dinner and interesting conversation, two beautiful women to share the evening—what more could a man want?”
The cheer sounded somewhat forced, but his voice had deepened. It flowed over her with the same dark complexities as the wine, a subtle weaving of spicy flavors that spoke of other pleasures to come—
She stopped the train of thought with an effort. She couldn’t afford to think like that. Rising, she stood by the railing and stared out toward the sea.
Ships were visible as lights that rose and dipped with the movement of the sea. They struck her as unbearably lonely as they sailed off into the night.
But she knew the loneliness was in herself. She swallowed the painful knot in her throat when Cade came over and stood beside her.
“I used to watch the ships when I was a kid,” he said. “I wanted to go on a grand adventure with the sailors, a modern-day Jason on the trail of the golden fleece.”
She heard and understood the undertone of sadness when he chuckled at his boyish ideas. It reached down into her own heart and opened places she’d thought were closed forever.
“We all have dreams,” she said in hardly more than a whisper. “And we all have to grow up.”
“Some more quickly than others. You, I think.”
“And you,” she murmured.
“Perhaps,” he said.
She knew a lot about his life now and wondered if he was thinking of his mother, who’d been sent away to a very private hospital, it was rumored, for the mentally ill. Mark Banning had told them this news.
“When your mother was sent away?” she asked.
He was silent for a long moment. “Yes. It was like the sun went out.”
His voice was so low she had to strain to hear. “Do…do you ever see her?”
“No. My father thinks it would serve no purpose. She has the best of care and, according to him, she wouldn’t be interested in any of her children anyway.”
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t deny the compassion she felt for him and his loss.
“Into every life…” He shrugged philosophically.
“Some rain must fall,” she finished when he stopped.
His smile appeared, a beacon in the dark. “We’re getting awfully serious, young Sara.”
“I don’t feel young. I haven’t for a long time.”
He touched her shoulder. Warmth flowed from his hand all the way to the center of her. Without meaning to, she leaned into him when he stepped closer. He slipped both arms around her, clasping his hands over her tummy and tucking her against his body.
For some reason, it made her ache inside, as if her heart were weeping. She laid her hands over his. They stayed that way for a long time, not speaking as they watched a few stars appear.
“Without the glare of city lights,” he said, “you can see a million stars. At the ranch, the only way to tell the ocean from the night sky is to note where the stars begin.”
“You have a ranch?”
“Yes. I plan to go up Friday night. Stace and I would like to have you join us.”
“I may have work to do,” she hedged, wanting to go but not sure if she should. When she glanced up, he lowered his head and gently touched her lips with his.
“Sara,” he said, his voice soft, husky.
