* * *
The next morning the hyper-excited twins roused everyone before seven, the hound included. Gina and Jack were determined the girls should experience all the joy of Christmas morning, so their follow-up birthday celebration wasn’t planned until late that afternoon...a timetable Mike Brennan exploited very nicely.
The call came after the family returned from church services and had all trooped down to the resort’s elegant restaurant for the Christmas buffet. They were waiting to be seated when Dev’s cell phone pinged. He checked caller ID and shot Zia a glance before answering.
“Hey, Brennan. What’s happening?” He listened a moment, his brow hiking. “Yeah, she’s right here.”
To everyone’s surprise, he handed the phone to Gina instead of Zia. She took it with a bewildered look. “Hi, Mike. Yes,” she said after a brief pause. “Around four.”
Another pause, punctuated by a wide smile.
“The twins would love that! If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble. Yes. Yes, by all means! Great! We’ll see you then.”
Grinning, she hung up and addressed a phalanx of questioning faces. Her brightest smile went to Zia. “How sweet of you to tell Mike that you couldn’t pass up the girls’ birthday party to see him again.”
“I...well...”
“So he’s coming to the party,” she said happily. “With a piñata and a pony and a half-dozen nieces and nephews, all close to the girls’ age. He said he knew the twins’ friends were all back home, so he thought they might like to share their special day with new ones.”
Zia could only stare at her, openmouthed, and left it to the girls’ father to inquire drily how they were supposed to accommodate a pony in the condo.
“Mike suggested we have the party in the play area. He’s already spoken to the resort manager. The entire playground is ours for the duration.” She hunkered down to address her wide-eyed daughters. “What do you say, girls? Do you want pony rides and a piñata at your party?”
Amalia stamped both feet and clapped her hands enthusiastically. “Yeth!”
Wide-eyed, serious Charlotte had to ask, “What’s a piñata?”
* * *
By six-thirty that evening, Zia’s suspicion that she could fall in love with Mike Brennan had solidified into certainty. She’d never met any man more suited to a brood of nosy, lively children. Children she could never give him, she reminded herself with a slice of pain.
And then, when the last of the kids had driven off with their respective parents and Zia’s family had retreated to the condo, it was just her. Just him.
The salt breeze fluttered the ruffles of the cinnamon-colored overblouse she’d changed into along with jeans and a pair of sandals more suitable to a playground party. Mike had changed, too, and was once again in his beach persona of shorts and flip-flops. Trying to decide which version she liked best, Zia ached to lose herself in the smile she saw in his eyes.
“Thank you. You made this day so special for the twins. For all of us.”
“It’s not over yet.” He tilted his head toward the surf rustling against the deserted shoreline. “Walk with me?”
Zia’s precise mind tabulated an instant list of reasons not to let this man burrow deeper into her heart. Just as quickly, she countered them with the same arguments she’d trotted out yesterday. She was leaving tomorrow. Flying back to cold, snowy New York. She’d most likely never see him again. Why not make the most of these stolen hours?
“Sure.”
As they tracked a path of side-by-side footsteps in the damp sand, his hand folded around hers. His grip remained loose, his voice easy as they swapped stories from their childhood and tales of Christmases past. By contrast, a tight, delicious tension gathered in the pit of Zia’s stomach. It had knotted into a quivering bundle of need by the time the pale turquoise silhouette rose above the dunes directly ahead.
“I know you must be tired,” Mike said as they approached the beach house, “but I don’t want the day to end. How about we have that drink I offered last night but we never quite got around to?”
“A drink sounds good.”
* * *
He’d closed the shutters after Zia had left yesterday morning. No light spilled through them as they took the path through the dunes and mounted the zigzagging staircase. Once inside the beach house, she sniffed the faint scent of trapped salt air. Mike made quick work of folding back the shutters protecting the French doors in the high-ceilinged living room, though, and opened them to let in the sea breeze.
“Would you like coffee or something a little stronger?”
“No offense, but your coffee should be registered with the EPA as a class II corrosive.”
“True.” Grinning, he acknowledged the hit. “But ironic coming from the woman whose great-aunt serves pálinka to unsuspecting guests.”
“I tried to warn you.”
“Yeah, you did. I think I have a less explosive brandy.”
The banter was relaxed, the Courvoisier he poured into two snifters as smooth as sin. And with each sip, the need to touch him grew more critical. She fought the urge, determined to stretch their time together for as long as possible, and carried her drink out to the deck.
The wraparound, multilevel deck was banded by a railing of split boards spaced close enough to keep young nieces and nephews from wiggling through and plunging to the dunes below. The top rail was wide and flat and set at just the right height for adults to lean their elbows on. Zia took advantage of the ledge, cradling the heavy snifter in both hands while she absorbed the vista of foaming surf and the sky purpling out over the Gulf.
“You know,” Mike mused as his elbows joined hers on the weathered shelf, “the NMC is working on a program that would allow mariners to upgrade or renew their credentials on demand from any cyber location in the world.”
She angled to face him, not sure where he was going with that conversational gambit. “NMC?”
“Sorry. The National Maritime Center. It’s a US Coast Guard agency, under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security. The center is responsible for credentialing US mariners. The process is complicated and time-consuming now, but the NMC’s new program would let crews access the system electronically, just like they access their bank accounts or withdraw cash from an ATM.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“GSI provided input into the initial system architecture.”
“Oh-kay.”
She still couldn’t guess where this was heading, especially with the swiftly falling darkness painting Mike’s face in shadows.
“NMC’s presenting a status update briefing at the Maritime Trades Association’s executive board meeting in mid-January. I was supposed to be in Helsinki and hadn’t planned to attend but now I’m thinking I might. The meeting’s in New York. Not,” he added with an exaggerated drawl, “that I need an excuse to come callin’.”
She wasn’t expecting the sudden zing of excitement at the prospect of seeing him again. It took every ounce of Zia’s resolve to squelch it.
“I’ve enjoyed our time together, Mike, as brief as it’s been. But...” She pulled in a breath. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to try to build on it.”
“Funny, I think it’s a hell of an idea.”
She had a dozen convenient excuses she could have thrown out. She was supervising four interns, conducting team meetings, examining patients, doing chart reviews—and all this less than two weeks away from presenting the results of her research study. She also owed Dr. Wilbanks an answer when she got back to New York.
But dealing with patients and anxious relatives had taught Zia it was best to be honest. She usually softened a harsh truth with sympathy, but sometimes it was stark and unavoidable. This was one of those times.
“I like you, Mike. Too muc
h to let either of us get in over our heads.”
“Okay, that needs a little more explaining.”
“The other evening, during dinner, I told you about...about the skiing trip in Slovenia that ended in disaster.”
Now it was his turn to look as though he wasn’t sure where the conversation was going. “I remember.”
“I watched you with your family yesterday. With my family today. You’re so good with the children.” She dragged in another breath and carefully centered her snifter on the broad ledge. “You don’t need to get involved with a woman—another woman—who isn’t going to give you any.”
“Well, Christ! Which one of my loving sisters told you about...?” He shook his head, exasperated. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we’re a long ways yet from getting in over our heads.”
“Which is why I say...” She caught her accent slipping and forced a correction. “Why I said we should stop now, before either of us gets hurt.”
He angled his head, studying her in the deepening twilight. She couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, only the purse of his lips as he weighed her comment.
“How about we strike a deal here?” he said after several long moments. “I’ll tell you if and when I approach the hurting stage, and you do the same.”
Rendben! Oké! She’d warned him. Made it perfectly clear they could never become serious. So...
“All right.”
“All right?”
“I accept the deal.” She hooked a hand behind his neck, tugged him down to her level. “And just to seal the bargain...”
Mike was careful not to let his quick, visceral triumph flavor the kiss. He hadn’t lied. He was a long way yet from getting in over his head. But he was navigating in that direction and had no intention of charting a different course. Zia St. Sebastian fascinated and challenged and aroused him in ways he hadn’t been fascinated or challenged or aroused in a long, long time.
Her revelation the other night at the restaurant that she couldn’t have children had given him pause for maybe ten, fifteen seconds. It had also brought back some bitter memories. Right up until he reminded himself there was a whole passel of difference between couldn’t and wouldn’t.
Zia wasn’t Jill. The two women might have been bred on different planets. Different universes. And right now, all Mike wanted to do was revel in those differences. Like the way Zia’s mouth molded his with no coy pretense of having to be coaxed. The fit of her tall, slender body against his, so perfect he didn’t have to stoop or contort to cant her hips into his. The lemony scent of her shampoo, the smoky taste of Courvoisier on her lips, the way the skin at the small of her back warmed under his searching fingers when he tugged up the hem of her blouse. Every touch, every sensory signal that raced along his snapping nerves, made him raw with wanting her.
He managed to keep from tugging the ruffled blouse over her head and baring her to the night. But he did circle her waist and perch her on the wide ledge. The move put her nose just a few inches above his and gave him easy access to the underside of her chin.
“You know,” he said as he nibbled the tender skin, “you’re a hard woman to please. I had to call a dozen stables before I found someone who would deliver a pony this afternoon.”
“That was your idea, not mine,” she reminded him, threading her fingers through his hair. “And totally unnecessary, I might add. The piñata and kids were more than enough. But I appreciate the trouble you went to.”
“Yeah, well, since you brought it up...”
“You brought it up.”
“I’m talking about your appreciation.”
“Is that right?” She used her hold on his hair to tilt his head back. “What about it?”
“Well, it just seems to me there are a number of ways you might show it.”
Her eyes glinted with amusement. “Just what did you have in mind, cowboy?”
He answered her question with a quick barrage of his own. “What time’s your flight tomorrow?”
“Eleven-twenty.”
“From Houston Hobby or George Bush Intercontinental?”
“Houston Hobby.”
“And how long will it take you to pack?”
“Thirty minutes. Maybe less. Why?”
“Hold on.” He settled his hands on her hips and pretended to conduct a series of rapid mental calculations. “Okay, the way I figure it we have fifteen and a half hours. Should be just enough time for me to go through my entire repertoire of moves and send you back to New York a happy woman.”
“Good Lord!” The amusement bubbled into laughter. “Fifteen and a half hours going through your repertoires and I won’t be able to walk, much less board a plane.”
Which was pretty much the idea. Mike didn’t share that thought, choosing instead to scoop her off the rail and into his arms.
“Better call back to the condo,” he suggested as he carried her, still grinning, into the house. “Your brother wasn’t looking all that friendly this afternoon.”
“Are you worried what Dom might think?”
“More what he might do,” Mike admitted wryly. “Which is probably exactly the same thing I would if any of my sisters spent fifteen and a half hours engaged in the kind of activity I have planned for you, Doc.”
Six
Zia slept for the entire flight from Houston to LaGuardia. Hardly a surprise, given that Mike had made good on his promise to keep her busy for an astonishing portion of their stolen interlude.
When she exited the terminal, the icy air hit like a slap in the face. Luckily, she’d worn her UGGs and fleece-lined parka on the flight down to Texas. They protected her now while she stood in the taxi line, but the howling wind sliced into the tiger-striped leggings Gina had given her for Christmas and her nose dripped like a faucet by the time she tumbled into a cab.
After a week of sun-washed beaches and balmy days, the dirty slush and nasty gray sky should have been a shock to her system. Yet as the taxi rattled over the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and headed for Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the hustle and bustle of her adopted city grabbed her. She loved its pulsing rhythm, its cultural diversity, its kitsch and class. Of course, her perceptions were skewed by the fact that she now lived in one of the city’s most famous apartment buildings.
As the cab pulled up at the entrance to the Dakota, Zia couldn’t help thinking how much the multistory Victorian-era complex reminded her of her native Budapest. Gabled and fancifully turreted, the Dakota stood out from the modern structures crowding it on three sides and drew the eye with the same regal dignity as the iconic spires of Hungary’s parliament building.
Charlotte St. Sebastian had purchased her fifth-floor, seven-room apartment after an odyssey that included her escape from the Soviets and short stays in both Vienna and Paris. Her title and the jewels she’d converted to cold, hard cash had won her acceptance by the Dakota’s exclusive enclave that over the years had included such luminaries as Judy Garland, Rudolph Nureyev, Leonard Bernstein, Bono and John Lennon, who was tragically murdered just steps from the front entrance.
Zia knew the duchess had almost been forced to sell her apartment not long ago. The apartment and her determination to educate her granddaughters in the manner she insisted was commensurate with their heritage had drained her resources. Bad investments by her financial advisor had sucked away most of the rest.
When Sarah married her handsome billionaire, she’d known better than to offer to pay her grandmother’s living expenses. The duchess’s pride would never allow it. But Charlotte had allowed Dev to sink what little remained of her savings in several of his wildly successful business ventures. And Gina’s husband, Jack, had added to the duchess’s financial security with investments in blue-chip stocks. Charlotte could now live in splendid luxury for the rest of her life.<
br />
This development pleased the uniformed doorman who made his stately way to help Zia from the taxi almost as much as it did the St. Sebastians. Sarah and Gina considered Jerome one of the family. He’d treated them to candy and ice cream during their schoolgirl years, scrutinized their high school dates with steely eyes, attended their weddings and delighted in the lively twins.
He’d taken Zia under his wing, too, when Charlotte had invited her to live at the Dakota. As kind as he was dignified, Jerome had acquainted the new arrival with such intricacies as subway schedules, jogging paths and the best pastrami this side of Romania. Which is why Zia made sure she paid the cab fare even before the driver pulled up at the curb. There was no way she would keep Jerome standing in the icy wind.
“Welcome home, Doctor.”
He would no more think of dropping her title than he would Lady Sarah’s or Lady Eugenia’s. But his smile was warm and welcoming as he held the door and ushered her into what was once the porte cochère.
“How was your Christmas?”
“Wonderful.”
“And the duchess? Maria? They’re enjoying being out of this ice and snow?”
“Very much so, although I suspect they’ll be happy to come home after another two weeks of sun and sand.”
“I suspect so, too. And if I may be so bold,” he added as he escorted her to the bank of elevators, “may I say it’s good to see you smiling again.”
“Was I so glum before?” Zia asked, startled.
“Not glum. Just tired. And,” he said gently, “somewhat troubled.”
Jézus, Mária és József! Was she so transparent? Surely she did a better job of sublimating her inner self when working with patients.
“You hid it well,” the doorman hastened to assure her. “But a keen eye and an ability to assess character comes with this job.” He paused, searching her face. “Did you find the solution to whatever was distressing you in Texas?”
She had to hide a smile at the slight but unmistakable emphasis on the last word. New York born and bred, Jerome would find it hard to believe the answer to anyone’s problems couldn’t be found right here in the city. And to tell the truth, Zia wasn’t quite sure how those stolen hours with Mike had lifted some of the weight of the decision that still hung over her like an executioner’s ax, but they had. They most definitely had.
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