An hour in which he hadn’t learned much more than the fact that the woman next to him was definitely not Anna.
“Now what?” she said, echoing his own thoughts.
Logan glanced at her as he stopped for the next light. “Good question. How about some food? It’s after noon, and the last meal I recall was something in a plastic dish served on the airplane an hour before I landed. I don’t think all too well on an empty stomach.”
Rose frowned. “What’s to think about? Your friend confirmed that I’m not this Anna person. End of story. The hotel I’m staying at is around here somewhere, I think. Just drop me off, then you can—”
“Which hotel?” Logan asked as the light turned green.
“The Herbert, on Powell and O’Farrell.”
Logan nodded. He needed a plan, and to give himself time to come up with one, he made small talk.
“I know where that is. Small place. Rather old.”
“Yes. And all I can afford.”
Rose turned to stare out the window, her jaw stiff with chagrin at the ever-so-slightly defensive note she’d heard beneath her words.
It wasn’t that she was ashamed of the reduced state of her finances. She didn’t regret for one moment the money spent on battling her mother’s illness, nor her choice to cut back her performing and teaching schedule to spend as much time as possible with Kathleen rather than taking on new students.
She was a bit embarrassed by the way she’d set off on this trip without considering the cost—driven by a need to escape Queen Anne Hill, to get away from the hustle and bustle of the well-to-do customers who patronized her mother’s gift shop, to escape the sudden emptiness that filled the rooms above that had once rang with loving laughter.
“I can help you with that.”
Logan’s quiet words captured Rose’s attention. She turned to him with a lift of her eyebrows. Before she could ask what he meant, he gave her a smile. It was a wide, warm smile. But this time she noticed right away that it didn’t reach his eyes. Immediately she stiffened suspiciously.
“You can help me with what?”
“Money?”
“And why would you do that?”
“As payment.”
“Payment? For what?”
The smile widened as the car slid to a stop. “For services rendered. And hopefully for services to be rendered.”
Rose frowned. “What are you talking—”
“Park your car, Mr. Maguire?”
A thin brown face appeared at the driver’s side window. Anticipation glittered in the teenager’s dark eyes as Logan replied, “We’ll see. Give us a moment, okay?”
When the boy stepped back, Logan turned to Rose. “I have a proposition for you. It’s of a rather sensitive nature, and given that I’m rather well known in the city, it’s not something I’d feel comfortable discussing in a crowded restaurant. I live in the building across the street. There’s a conservatory on the top floor, an area that’s both public and private at the same time, so you needn’t worry that I’m luring you to my lair. We can stop at the deli to pick up some sandwiches. What do you say?”
Rose wasn’t sure what to say. She glanced around, disoriented.
Apparently, while she’d mulled over the question of her finances and the pain of her recent loss, she’d failed to notice that Logan Maguire hadn’t been driving toward her hotel, as she had assumed. Instead of finding herself in the heart of downtown San Francisco, she discovered that they’d come to a stop on a street running along the southern edge of the bay.
The silver-toned Oakland Bridge soared off to her right. On her left, the building Logan had referred to stretched down the street in both directions, a peachy stucco several stories high with iron balconies and windows framed by brightly colored shutters. High-priced condos, she decided, set up to look like something in a quaint Mediterranean fishing village.
Quaint and expensive.
Tension crept into her shoulders. Once upon a time quaint and expensive had called to her like honey called a fly. And had caught her, just as surely. But, she reminded herself, she’d escaped. Now, forewarned was forearmed. She could walk into quaint and expensive with no fear of becoming entangled in its silky web. She could satisfy her still-unquenched curiosity about this Anna person, then walk away and return to her own pared-down and simple life.
Freed, hopefully, from the dreams that had so haunted her.
“All right,” she replied.
“Leon.” Logan turned to the boy. “Do you know how important my car is?”
The kid nodded solemnly. “You restored every piece of her yourself, and you will hurt anyone who so much as scratches her bumper.”
“Right,” Logan said as he got out. “I’ll call the garage when I’m ready for you to bring her back, in an hour or so.”
Rose watched the boy’s face light up as Logan handed him the keys. By the time Logan reached her side of the car, Leon was behind the wheel, obviously ready to take off as soon as Rose got out. And sure enough, the moment her door closed the kid gunned the motor to a loud roar. He then let it ease to a purr before shooting a grin toward Logan and pulling sedately away from the curb.
Logan led her across the street, then pulled a cell phone from his jacket. As they entered the small deli located on the building’s ground floor, she heard him ask about “the family home project” as she gazed at the selection of salads behind the slanted glass counter.
When the phone conversation ended, Logan stepped up to the counter to order. After the food was prepared and packaged, Rose noted Logan’s composed response to what she considered an exorbitant amount of money for food and beverages that barely filled one small grocery sack, while it was all she could do to keep from choking.
She should be accustomed to people who thought little or nothing of spending large amounts of money, she told herself. After all, her mother’s shop would hardly have supported the two of them, along with her partner, Goldie Lander, for the past nineteen years, if not for customers who were willing and able to pay top dollar for the items on display.
And, she reminded herself as she followed Logan to the stainless-steel elevator, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with that heady lifestyle. She’d simply learned that the cost to maintain it was too high for her blood. No regrets, she told herself as she followed Logan into the elevator.
The area that greeted Rose when the doors opened again whispered of understated elegance. The terra cotta floor was open to the blue sky above, protected from wind and rain by large panes of glass. Here and there lacy potted palms and dwarf citrus trees screened benches or umbrella-covered tables.
Aware that Logan had been as silent as she since leaving the deli, she followed him to one of the tables, where he placed a sandwich and container of salad in front of her. He then took a small pad of paper out of his jacket pocket and began making notations on it with his right hand as he devoured the sandwich in his left.
Rose realized that this was the first chance she’d had to really study the man since those first breathless moments on the balcony, when he’d seemed a dream come true. And, if one went by looks alone, that was just how this man would appear, with his square-jawed, tanned features. The fact that he was every bit as well built as the fit of his jacket indicated had been something she’d learned as she lay pinned to Anna’s bed beneath that powerful body, a memory that now brought a blush to her cheeks and heat flowing wildly through her veins.
Oh, yes, the man of her dreams, she thought as she placed a forkful of macaroni salad in her mouth. Except for the fact that Logan Maguire seemed to be every