“I’ll give him the message—both of them,” Abilene promised.
“Have you … spoken with him yet?” Aleta Bravo asked the question carefully. She knew how upset Abilene had been with the whole situation.
“We spoke, yes. We … had words, I guess you could say. He was rude and dismissive. I was forced to tell him off.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“Not as of now. I’ll keep you posted.”
“You can always simply come home, you know. It won’t be that difficult to find a place for yourself. You’re a Bravo. And you graduated at the top of your class.”
“Mom. There are plenty of architects. But an architect who’s worked closely with Donovan McRae, now that’s something else altogether. A fellowship like this—one-on-one with the best there is—it just doesn’t happen very often.”
She considered adding that Donovan had been facing some serious challenges lately and possibly deserved a little slack for his thoughtless behavior. That he used a wheelchair now.
But no. Ben had made it painfully clear that McRae didn’t want the world butting into his private business. She would respect his wishes. At least until she understood better what was going on with him.
Aleta said, “You’re determined to stay, then?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, then I suppose I won’t be changing your mind….”
“No. You won’t.” And then, from her mother’s end of the line, faintly, she heard the deep rumble of her father’s voice.
Aleta laughed. “Your father says to give him hell.”
“I will. Count on it.”
After she said goodbye to her mom, she checked in with Javier Cabrera.
Javier was an experienced builder—and the first person she’d called when she got the summons yesterday from Ben. He owned his own company, Cabrera Construction, and had been kind enough to hire Abilene to work as a draftsperson on a few of his projects over the endless months she’d been waiting to get started on the fellowship. He’d even allowed her to consult with him at his building sites, giving her the chance to gain more hands-on experience in construction. He had become not only her friend, but something of a mentor as well.
His connections to her family were long-standing and complicated. Once the Bravos and the Cabreras had been mortal enemies. But now, in the past few years, the two families seemed to have more in common than points of conflict.
“Abby,” Javier said warmly when he answered the phone. “I was wondering about you.”
“I’ll have you know I have made it safely to Donovan McRae’s amazing rock house in the middle of nowhere.”
“Did he tell you how sorry he was for all the time he made you wait and wait?”
“Not exactly.”
“You get in your car and you come back to SA. I have work for you. Plenty of work.”
She smiled at the driftwood and barbed-wire creation overhead. “You’re good to me.”
“I know talent. You will go far.”
“You always make me feel better about everything.”
“We all need encouragement.” He sounded a little sad. But then, Javier was sad. He was still deeply in love with his estranged wife, Luz.
Abilene confided that Donovan had said her design was crap.
Javier jumped to her defense, as she had known that he would. “Don’t listen to him. Your design is excellent.”
“My design is … workmanlike. It needs to be better than that.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“I have to be hard on myself. I want to be the best someday.”
“Stand tall,” he said. “And call me any time you need to talk to someone who understands.”
“You know I will.”
They chatted for a bit longer. When she hung up, it was ten minutes of seven. She combed her hair and freshened her lip gloss and walked across the courtyard to the front of the house.
Donovan was waiting for her.
He sat by the burled wood bar, watching, as she approached the French doors from the courtyard.
She wore a slim black skirt, a button-down shirt with a few buttons left undone and a long strand of jade-colored beads around her neck. Round-toed high heels showed off her shapely legs, and her thick chestnut hair fell loose on her slim shoulders.
She pushed open one of the doors and stepped inside as if she owned the place. There was something about her that had him thinking of old movies, the ones made way back in the Great Depression. Movies in which the women were lean and tall and always ready with a snappy comeback.
From that first moment in the afternoon, when Ben ushered her into the studio, he had felt … annoyed. With her. With the project. With the world in general. He wasn’t sure exactly why she annoyed him. Maybe it was all the energy that came off her, the sense of purpose and possibility that seemed to swirl around her like a sudden, bracing gust of winter wind.
Donovan didn’t want bracing. What he wanted was silence. Peace. To be left alone.
But he had chosen her, sight unseen, by the promise in the work she’d submitted, before it all went to hell. And he would, finally, follow through on his obligation to the Foundation people. And to her.
They were doing this thing.
She spotted him across the room. Paused. But only for a fraction of a second. Then she kept coming, her stride long and confident.
He poured himself a drink and set down the decanter of scotch. “What can I get you?”
“Whatever you’re having.” She nodded at the decanter. “That’s fine.”
“Scotch? Don’t women your age prefer sweet drinks?” Yeah. All right. It was a dig.
She refused to be goaded. “Seriously. Scotch is fine.”
So he dropped ice cubes into a crystal glass, poured the drink and gave it to her, placing it in her long-fingered, slender hands. They were fine hands, the skin supple, the nails unpolished and clipped short. Useful hands.
She sipped. “It’s good. Thanks.”
He nodded, gestured in the direction of a couple of chairs and a sofa. “Have a seat.” She turned and sauntered to the sofa, dropping to the cushions with artless ease.
He put his drink between his ruined legs and wheeled himself over there, rolling into the empty space between the chairs. “Your rooms?”
“They’re perfect, thanks. Is it just you and Ben here?”
“I have a cook and a housekeeper—a married couple, Anton and Olga. And a part-time groundskeeper to look after the courtyard and the perimeter of the house.” He watched her cross her pretty legs, admired the perfection of her knees. At least she was a pleasure to look at. “Did you rest?”
“I had a shower. Then my mother called. She told me to tell you that Dax sends his regards and my sister says you’d better be nice to me.”
“Your sister and Dax …?”
“They were married on Saturday. And left on their honeymoon this morning.”
“I hope they’ll be very happy,” he said without inflection. “And then what did you do?”