Heart of the Raven (14 page)

C
assie stared out the picture window of the ARC conference room. The windy San Francisco Bay was dotted with boats and Windsurfers, normal for a Saturday afternoon. Quinn had called a meeting his first day back in the office after more than a month away on a trip that had taken him almost around the world, protecting a hotshot CEO with some international enemies. She wished she could do the same. Get away. Focus on work. Stop thinking about…everything.

“Last item on the agenda. We got a check from Heath Raven,” her boss said, “but I haven't seen billing for him. He attached a note saying it was an estimate, but to let him know if he owed more or was due a refund.”

Cassie felt Quinn studying her, and Jamey, as well.

“I didn't bill him,” she said then turned around.

“Do you intend to?” Quinn asked.

She shook her head. “Send his check back, okay? I'll make it up to you. You can deduct it from my wages.”

“Did you break rule number one, Cass?”

Never get personally involved with the client.
She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

“Was it the baby?”

“In the beginning.”

He was quiet a few seconds. “If I don't let it go, it'd be like the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn't it?”

“Claire wasn't a client,” Jamey reminded him.

“Close enough.” Quinn stuck the check and letter back in its envelope. “Okay, Cass.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, humbly.

“When did you see him last?”

“Ten days ago.” Not that she was counting or anything. “I said goodbye.”

“No hope?”

She shook her head. He hadn't even tried to talk her out of leaving. Not that she'd wanted him to or anything.

“Hmm.”

Cassie frowned. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Because he called a little while ago, looking for you. I told him to come over.”

“You what?”
She pushed herself out of her chair. She couldn't see him. She couldn't. She was just starting to sleep at night again.

“He said he had some unfinished business.” Quinn's cell phone rang. “That's probably him. I told him to call when he got here and I would unlock the door. Here—” he passed her the envelope “—you can return this.”

He answered his cell phone as he left the room. “Be there in two seconds,” Cassie heard him say.

She turned the envelope over and over. She needed to get herself under control. She couldn't let on how much she'd missed him, needed him. Wanted him. How she'd lost interest in the little things in life, like Letterman and food and sleep.

What unfinished business? She crushed the envelope in her fist. Why couldn't he have waited? It was too soon for him to be comfortable with his new life. He should take at least a year—

“You don't have to see him,” Jamey said.

She looked at the crushed envelope. Where could she hide it? “I can't not see him. I'm weak.”

He laughed. “Right. You are the strongest woman I know—who has a weakness for one man.” He stood. “Don't jump to conclusions, Cass. Let him talk. See what he wants. He may surprise you.”

“But in a good or a bad way?”

She heard his voice and she went weak in the knees. He preceded Quinn into the room, was introduced to Jamey, who then left, along with Quinn. The door was shut behind them. She tried to shift into her self-protection mode, the one that had helped her through countless situations before, but it refused to accommodate her. Her heart seemed to be on a marathon. She shoved the envelope under her just before he looked at her.

“Hello, Cassie.”

“Hi.”

“How've you been?”

She intertwined her fingers to keep from reaching for
him. “Fine, thanks. How about you?”
Inane prattle. Why are you here? What do you want?

“I've been to hell and back, frankly. Can I sit down?”

“Sure.” She straightened, curious. He didn't look bad. In fact he looked incredibly good. Some of the lines were gone from his face. And he'd cut his hair.

He didn't sit across from her but walked around the table and pulled up a chair next to her. He set a folder on the table.

“I went to see my parents.”

“In New Hampshire?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I needed to finally face losing Kyle.”

She saw fresh grief in his eyes. It was all she could do not to hug him. “How did going home help you do that, Heath?”

His hands lay loosely in his lap. “About four years ago I designed a school for their community—my community, a private school that would serve a widespread area and be modern and comfortable, with central heat and air-conditioning, a computer lab, the works, although simple in many ways, too. They raised some of the money. I got them grants and donated the design. But I wanted to do more.”

He paused. “I bought them a school bus so the kids wouldn't have to trek through the snow and rain during the winter.”

Cassie went very still.
Bus accident. Kyle died in a bus accident.
“How were they getting to school?”

“Most walked. A few, a very few, were driven. The parents protested the gift. Didn't want it. Didn't need
it. It hadn't hurt any of them as kids to walk to school. It wouldn't hurt their kids, either. When the snow is really bad, they stay home. No problem.”

Cassie kept quiet, letting him tell her at his own pace.

“My ego was pretty big, though. Big-shot, successful architect, earning awards, making a name for himself, comes home to the commune and wants to improve their lives. I pushed and pushed and pushed until they finally accepted the gift. Arrogance,” he said it like a curse word. “Unbelievable arrogance.”

She couldn't help herself. She put her hands on his. She knew what was coming.

“Mary Ann, Kyle and I flew back for the opening of the school. MaryAnn was ticked that I'd pushed so hard for the bus, saying we didn't need to spend the money when they didn't want it, but I didn't let her have any input. Still, she came along, good wife that she was, but not on the bus ride. Kyle and I got on the bus at the beginning of the route so that we could welcome every student aboard. I was proud. I wanted him to be proud of me. ‘Look what I did!'” He squeezed her hands. “A tire caught the lip of the road and the bus tipped. It slid down an embankment. Everyone survived except Kyle.”

“Heath.” She whispered his name in sympathy.

“I couldn't save him. He called for me in that last second, and I couldn't save him.” He leaned closer to her. “You wondered why I wouldn't open the blinds in my house. It was part of my penance. I'd built that house for him and Mary Ann. We'd finished it just before we left on the trip and had only spent one night there. We didn't even have all the furniture in yet. I loved the view. I bought the property because of the view, de
signed the house to take advantage of it. I decided that part of my punishment was to live in the house…and not enjoy the view. This morning for the first time I opened the blinds in my office.”

Cassie framed his face. “I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you.” He reached for her hands, taking them away and setting them in her lap.

She didn't know what to make of that. He didn't even want her to touch him? She reached for her briefcase, covering her confusion.
Why did you come,
she wanted to ask,
if you don't want me anymore?

“What's this?” he asked, tugging the envelope from under her. He smoothed it out.

She felt her face heat. “We're returning your check.”

“Why?”

“I can't bill you, Heath.”

His gaze was intense, direct, all-searching, his eyes a deep forest-green, reminding her of his house, of the memories there, of her short time with him, then he blinked and changed his demeanor completely.

“I brought you something,” he said, reaching for the folder.

She could see there was more in the folder, but he pulled out only one item and passed it to her. A picture of her, Heath and Danny. “Oh!” She ran her fingertips across the print, looked at him, then at the picture again. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“I didn't know if you would want it, if it would only make it harder for you. I decided you would want to have it.”

“Yes. Yes, thank you.” She smiled at it. “He was such a sweetie.”

“I've been in touch with Brad. He's doing well. They've given him a different name, of course. Do you want to know it?”

“No. Not now, anyway.”

“Okay.” He settled into his chair, his body relaxed, but his eyes sharp and focused. “You look beautiful.”

He flustered her. She knew she looked worn-out, not beautiful.

“Have you been sleeping?” he asked.

She looked toward the view of the bay again. “Sure.”

“Don't start lying to me, Cassie. Not now.”

She met his gaze. “No, not well.”

“Keeping the light off during the night?”

She shook her head.
No angel to kiss me good night.

He eyed her in silence, then he reached for his folder and pulled out a sheet of paper, passing it to her. “You wanted a house designed.”

Her heart raced as she took it from him. She studied it, her confusion growing by the second. “This is your house.”

“With an addition.”

“I don't understand.” Did he want to sell her his house? Were there too many memories of Kyle there?

“We would call it Kyle's House,” he said.

“We?”

He nodded. “It would be a haven, a place to feel safe. A place filled with noisy kids and laughter, as it was intended.”

“We?” she repeated, her pulse thundering.

Leaning forward he took her hands in his. “I figured out why you left me so suddenly, so coldly.”

“You did?”

“Because you love me.”

Her eyes stung. “Doesn't make sense when you put it that way, does it?”

He smiled. “Not at first. I was angry and hurt, but eventually I came to realize that you wanted me to find myself. That's such a sixties' phrase, more suited to my parents, but it's true, isn't it? You wanted me to find myself.”

“Yes.” The rough, dry word dragged along her throat.

“And you figured once I found myself I wouldn't want you anymore.”

“I wanted you to live. That's all I was thinking.”

“I don't think that was all, but I'll let that go for now. You probably also think I couldn't possibly have found myself this quickly, that ten days is too soon.”

She nodded. He was right. She did think that, even though a huge part of her hoped otherwise.

“Do I come across as a man who doesn't know his own mind?”

“No. Never.”

“Then believe me when I tell you that I love you.”

Her emotions had been close to the surface since he'd walked in the door. They began to spill over now. Her heart swelled, closing her throat, bringing fresh tears.

“I want to raise children with you, ours and any others who are sent our way. I found myself with you, Cassie.”

“And Danny.”

“Danny, too, but I've been able to make a place for him that no longer hurts. I helped him out during his first three weeks of life. Who knows what Eva would've done if I hadn't been there? And then there was you. Without Danny there wouldn't have been you.”

She smiled. Her heart surged with love and hope.

“Can't you say the words?” he asked.

“I love you. I love you so much. I wasn't whole without you, either.”

“Yet you sacrificed. For me.”

“Yeah, well, I'm a helluva woman.”

He laughed then kissed her finally, pulling her up so that they could hold each other close, feel their bodies touching. When the kiss ended and he held her against him, he said, “I'm going to visit the sites of all the buildings I designed but haven't seen in person. I'd like you to go with me. It will give us time together, time alone together. We'll figure out the rest of our lives.”

“I'm in.”

The words were casual, but the bright shimmer in her eyes told him how deeply she felt.

“You gave me back my life, Cassie. Now I want to give you yours. Something new and exciting. And permanent.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Happily ever after?”

“Shall I tell you how it'll be?”

“Please do.”

“Okay. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, a cross between Rapunzel and Wonder Woman….”