Tears slid silently down Laura’s cheeks, and she pulled away from Mark. She turned to Donna. “Sorry about this, Donna. Even happy families have their moments, huh? I bet your mom and dad blow up from time to time. I do have to take E.J. with me. Dollie expects him, and…and…I do have to take him.”
“Okay,” Donna said. “I understand. I shouldn’t have suggested going to the park.”
Mark reached out to brush the tears from Laura’s face, and then circled her neck lightly. “You’re right. Dollie will be disappointed if you don’t take E.J. I was just being selfish. I wanted my family to myself for a while. It’s been a long time since we did anything just by ourselves.” He smiled at Donna. “And Donna counts as a borrowed member of my family, right, Donna?”
“Yep,” she agreed, too emphatically.
“Go on, then,” Mark told Laura. He kissed her mouth lingeringly, looked into her eyes and stepped back. “Give my best to Dollie and the rest of them. Try not to volunteer for any more projects.”
“I won’t,” Laura said. “I promise.” She almost stumbled as she left the kitchen, but hurried on.
Mark stared silently out the window for a long time while Donna tried to decide what to do, what to say.
“Laura worries about E.J.,” he said distantly. “She’s a good mother, the best.”
“Yes, she is,” Donna said quickly. “I’m sorry I caused a flap.”
Mark laughed. “E.J. caused the flap. The little stinker. He thought he could hedge his bet by making me behave as if the arrangements were all made, only his plot backfired.”
“He’s a good little boy.”
Mark looked at Donna over his shoulder. “Yes, he’s a good boy.” He laughed again, bitterly this time, his amber eyes clouding. “We’re all good, aren’t we?”
“THESE ARE THE BOOKS Sam promised me—Sam Chong. This one discusses Chinese territorial adventures since 2,000 B.C. There are a lot of very interesting maps and charts showing how the country changed over the centuries as far as its sphere of influence went. And it gives some accurate material about government structure, the philosophy of the people, eras of discontent, and on and on. It’s something.”
“Sounds like it, Bruce.”
“You’ll find Chinese economics and government fascinating.”
Bring back the rockets, Donna thought, give me the exciting stuff. Four thousand years of government and economics should be enough to kill any interest she’d acquired in her father’s homeland. This hadn’t been a sparkling day. First there’d been the disturbing events of the morning at the Hunts’, followed by a depressing afternoon in her room—the only place she’d felt comfortable—while Mark holed up in his library. Now the time she’d looked forward to spending with Bruce was turning into yet another of his fact-feeding sessions.
“Are you listening to me?”
Donna looked up guiltily. “Yes. Yes. I was just looking at the cover of this book. The countryside looks beautiful.”
He narrowed his eyes at the tone of her voice, and made a tutting sound of disapproval. “That’s Bavaria. It’s mine. Shove it over there and concentrate.”
She put the book on the rug beside her and pressed her hands between her knees. “When’s the last time you had your eyes checked?”
Bruce raised his head and squinted at her. “What?”
“When’s the last time you got your eyes checked? You squint and peer all the time.”
He sighed, and flopped against the couch. “Can’t you concentrate for just a little while? I don’t remember when I last saw someone about my eyes. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about any aspect of my health. I do have a pair of reading glasses around here somewhere, but I never remember to use them.”
Donna jumped to her feet. “That’s irresponsible, Bruce. If you need glasses, you need them. It isn’t wimpy to take care of your health. Lots of people need glasses, so they simply use the things. Big deal. Eyes deteriorate sometimes.”
“Mmm,” he agreed, smiling faintly. “Particularly as one gets older, my dear.”
“You’re not…oh, Bruce, you deliberately say things like that just to goad me. You can be two years old and need specs.”
“Maybe I should wear them—all the time. I think there’s an old saying, ‘Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses’?”
Donna couldn’t help laughing. He looked so mischievous, and so pleased with himself. “And you think it might work the other way around and save you from me?”
He shrugged.
“Let’s find the glasses and give it a try.”
Bruce straightened hastily. “I don’t think so. China has always had a monumental problem feeding its people. I told Sam we needed something concise; a quickie course in foodstuffs, supply, agricultural methods…you know what I’m talking about.”
“Bruce, am I going to have to study how my ancestors planted crops?”
“Good grief.” He expelled a long breath. “You’re developing the worst possible attitude toward all this. I thought you might be getting interested. You should want to know everything about where your father came from and what his people were like. This total disinterest of yours is unnatural.”
“Says you. What if I’ve discovered I definitely gravitate more toward the Caucasian part of me? I was born here, my biological mother was Caucasian, and I grew up as part of a Caucasian family. I’m still part of a Caucasian family, and I intend to…” She stopped herself from adding that she intended to marry a Caucasian, but the glint in Bruce’s eye let her know that he’d guessed what her next statement would have been.
“You could just as well have had a Chinese mother and a Caucasian father, Donna. Everything could have been reversed. Then it would have been normal for you to want to know about the white part of you. You’re being deliberately difficult.” The room was hot. He stood up and took off the tie and the jacket of the suit he’d been wearing when he’d picked her up on his way home.
Donna watched with dreamy concentration as he rolled his sleeves back over his muscular forearms. Sun-bleached hairs glinted along the moving tendons in the backs of his hands and on his arms. He looked marvelous in his suits—indolent, carelessly elegant—but she preferred him in shorts and an old T-shirt. He had the kind of legs that should always be seen…long, well-shaped, narrow at the ankles, and his feet…. She picked at the seam in her jeans. Did most women get turned on by a man’s ankles and feet? Amy Dross, who lived next door to their old house in Vancouver, would have said something original, like, “Kinky, Donna.” But Amy had never been in love, really in love. The overgrown basketball player she’d been seeing was a passing interest; even Amy said so. Donna expelled a huge sigh. The boys in school had never interested her: she recalled awkward kissing, pawing that always went further than she wanted it to go. Boring.
“Hey. Hi. Come back, please.”
Bruce’s voice penetrated her thoughts, but distantly. Donna smiled up into his face. His face was so perfectly made. The way his eyebrows stretched straight above his eyes and winged upward slightly at the ends, the very regular bridge of his nose and his clearly defined nostrils, his clean-cut jaw, shadowed by beard now, the shallow cleft in his chin, and his mouth…. Bruce had the kind of mouth movie stars had, wide, turned up at the corners, with a fuller lower lip…. She sighed again.
“You understand about the Pacific rim, Donna?”
“Mmm? No.”
“The trading arena created by the U.S. and the Pacific—China, Japan and so on. It’s thought that China could be our greatest trading partner someday.”
He was really serious about all this. One way or the other, he was going to pound some of this information into her skull. “That’s interesting, Bruce,” she said, crossing her legs and concentrating on his eyes—his very blue eyes.
“It is. Very. We’re living in interesting times. And this trading business is one of the reasons your father’s likely to become even more successful than he already is.”
> Donna slumped. Raymond Tsung again. She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands.
“Look, Donna, you’re making too much of this.” Hitching up the knees of his pants, Bruce dropped his loose-limbed body to the rug beside her. “I’m not asking you to become Princess Tsung complete with bound feet. I just don’t want you to come off as nothing but a brainless All-Canadian cheerleader.”
She bristled. “I’m not brainless.”
“I know, I know.” He looped an arm around her shoulders. “That didn’t come out right. What I meant was, I want to feel proud of you and I want him to be proud of you, even if you aren’t going to be more than passing acquaintances. Possibly only related ships that pass in the night. Is that wish so wrong?”
Donna leaned against his chest and closed her eyes. He was finally loosening up with her. And being with him felt so good, so right. “It’s not wrong, Bruce. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“Terrific.” He leaped up and hauled her to her feet. “I want you to take all these back to Mark and Laura’s.” He gathered the books under one arm and, his other arm around Donna’s waist, strode into the hall and out the open front door. “I’ve got an appointment, so I can’t spend any more time with you this evening. I’ll run you home. Spend every spare minute seeing what you can assimilate, and we’ll have another summit meeting in a day or two.”
They reached his car, and he let her go while he opened the passenger door and tossed the books behind the seat. She climbed in, feeling vaguely numb.
Bruce drove fast enough to make Donna cling to the window rim, and squealed into the circular driveway at the Hunts’. When they stood by the steps, he presented her with the books, a charmingly satisfied grin on his face.
“That should keep you going for a while,” he said, glancing up at the house, clearly anxious to be gone. Donna had wanted to talk to him about Mark and Laura, but he hadn’t given her a chance.
“Anything wrong, Donna?”
What sort of appointment could he have at eight in the evening? she wondered. “Why would anything be wrong? I’ve got to shut myself up with piles of dusty facts I don’t want to know. Everything’s wonderful.”
“Oh, Donna.” He gripped her shoulders and rested his forehead on hers. “I don’t want to harp on this, love, but you did start something, and now we simply have to finish it. I’m sorry you aren’t more interested. I’ll tell you what. How about having our little cruise on the bay on Saturday? We could relax and go over some of this in comfortable surroundings. I think you need to unwind.”
She had to close out the clean, faintly lime smell of him, and the feeling of his hair on her brow. Saturday on the bay, with Bruce, in that beautiful boat she’d heard about but had never seen. Saturday. Less than two days away.
“Don’t you like the idea? You said you wanted to go out on the boat.”
“What time should I be ready?”
“That’s my girl.” Bruce threw back his head and laughed, showing off perfect white teeth. “I’ll call you tomorrow, or talk to you at the office. Plan on leaving fairly early in the morning, though. Do you like to watch the sun come up?”
Watching the sun come up with Bruce appealed more to Donna at this moment than anything had ever appealed to her before. “Yes, I do,” she replied demurely. He was already climbing into the car. “I’ll be on this spot at four on Saturday morning.”
Bruce grimaced, and yelled over the sound of the engine: “Make it four-thirty, sweetie. Some of us still need our beauty sleep. See you on Saturday.”
Donna opened her mouth to shout back, but the car was already in motion. “Saturday,” she murmured against the pile of books in her arms, and hopped from one foot to the other when gravel spewed from Bruce’s tires onto her sandaled feet.
CHAPTER NINE
BRUCE HIT A LEVER on one side of the control panel and Donna heard a rumbling, bumping noise at the stern. She leaned over the cockpit rail and watched a chain creep steadily through a brass-rimmed opening. The anchor sank into the clear waters of San Francisco Bay. “Jeez. Everything on this boat’s automatic. I bet even I could run it single-handed.”
Bruce gave her a withering glance. “I told you this tub wasn’t for the purist. As far as I’m concerned, a pleasure craft means just that—a craft designed for pleasure, not something to sweat over.” He cut the engines and added, “I can’t believe how few people are out this morning.” He shaded his eyes and looked directly into the sun.
“They’ll catch up with us later,” Donna remarked, considering, then discarding, the idea of taking off the terry cloth wrap she wore over her swimsuit. “It’s still a bit early for mere mortals.”
“And we aren’t mere mortals?” He did something to fix the wheel and dragged a deck chair farther aft.
Donna positioned another chair beside Bruce’s. “We are definitely most unusual. We know what’s worth effort, and that sunrise was worth getting up in the middle of the night for.” She sat down, but he was still checking the sky and the sea and the steadily rising sun, as if making sure he’d selected the best spot to heave to.
“I’d have to agree with you there.” He flopped down, slid forward, and stretched out his long legs. “All that purple and gray and gold.”
“In stripes,” Donna added.
“The water was fantastic too, wasn’t it?”
“Yep. Mauve silk and steel. Fantastic.”
“You win.”
Donna closed her left eye and looked at Bruce with the other. “Win what?”
“The description contest. You’re better at it. Silk, steel. I wouldn’t have thought of those.” He tilted his floppy white bucket hat over his eyes and crossed his arms.
“You aren’t going to sleep, are you?” Donna asked.
“Mmm. Just a nap. Got to make up for last night. You nap, too.”
Donna opened her mouth to say she didn’t want to nap. Instead, she smiled and rested her cheek on the back of her chair. Bruce’s tanned chest, most of it exposed beneath the thin cotton shirt he hadn’t buttoned, already rose and fell steadily. He’d fallen asleep. Just like that. Donna got up and prowled the cockpit of the fifty-foot motor-sailer. A lazy man’s toy, Bruce had called it while they were driving to the marina. A vessel guaranteed to be sneered at by any self-respecting sailing purist. Donna climbed halfway up the ladder from the cockpit to the main deck, and studied the boat’s elegant lines. The sails were furled, and the mast soared cleanly into a steadily brightening sky. Oak and brass gleamed. Lake Lady might be a lazy man’s toy, but she was also very beautiful, and worth a fortune, Donna guessed.
She returned to the cockpit, and found a spot where she could rest her elbows on the rail and face Bruce. He sighed and crossed one ankle over the other. This was the way he should always look, she thought, relaxed, young. Today he’d “dressed up” he said, which meant that a khaki shirt and shorts had taken the place of the customary T-shirt and cutoffs. Donna crossed her own arms and narrowed her eyes. He was too good-looking to be on the loose, and too appealing. She wished he’d wake up. She wanted to talk to him, and look at him…and swim…and look at him. Well, she could look at him, anyway.
“Is my fly unzipped or something?”
Donna jumped, and felt her cheeks flame. “I wasn’t…” Damn him. He hadn’t been asleep at all!
“A figure of speech, my love.” Bruce pushed back his hat and grinned innocently at her. “I just meant you were staring as if there was something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, except your foul sense of humor.” She turned to lean on the rail and stared back toward the marina, a distant green strip flanked by pale stucco houses and apartment buildings.
She heard the deck chair creak. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Bruce said, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. “But you were staring at me pretty hard, young lady. And it wasn’t the stare of a kid at a surrogate uncle, was it?”
Donna’s heart beat hard. “We already know you passed the surrogate-uncle stage with me a long time ago, Bruce.”
His chin rested on top of her head. She wished she’d taken off her robe; she wanted to feel his naked skin on hers.
He took a deep, ragged breath that moved her hair. He smelled wonderful, warm and clean. The salty air whipped their clothes.
“I wish I didn’t like holding you, Donna.”
She slid her hands over his forearms, afraid he’d let her go. “There’s nothing wrong with one human being liking to hold another. It’s healthy.”
He hummed a tune she didn’t recognize, his throat vibrating at the back of her head, and rocked her more firmly against him. They were becoming closer; despite Bruce’s reservations, the magic she’d known existed was working.
“This is just about my favorite spot in the world,” Bruce said. “I’ve loved the water and boats as long as I can remember. When I was a boy, my father used to bring me out here to fish.”
“Your father was George Fenton.”
“Yes. And my mother’s name was Rhea. Everyone saw her as an iron lady, and she was tough—but she could be a marshmallow.”
Donna kissed a flexed muscle in his arm. “You loved your parents. Laura lived with you, too, didn’t she?”
Bruce ran a thumb along her jaw. “Yes. I didn’t appreciate her then. She must have been a saint to put up with me. I was a horror, but she was forever covering up for me with the folks.”
“What happened to her own parents?”
Bruce became still. “I’m not sure I should…” He hesitated, then resumed his swaying motion. “Laura would tell you herself if you asked. Her mother was my father’s sister, a bit flighty, my mother always said—whatever that meant in those days. Anyway, Laura lived with us from the time she was a baby. Actually, she was already with my parents when I was born. Later we heard her mother had died. I don’t know anything about her father.”
“I see.” Donna sank into deep thought. Laura was gentle, reflective. She’d always been kind and understanding toward Donna. Maybe her own precarious childhood was the reason. She knew what it was like to feel tolerated and unsure, the way Donna had before Sara and Evan had adopted her.
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