Moonlight on Monterey Bay (4 page)

She hurried across the street and into the welcome air-conditioning, then found an empty spot at the counter on a round, orange stool.

“Ma’am?” the waitress said.

“I’ll have an iced tea, please. And a menu.”

“In front of you.”

The waitress disappeared. Maddie plucked the plastic menu from the stainless-steel holder and scanned it. Her stomach growled and she pressed one palm flat against it. “Calm down. Help is on the way.”

From the doorway Sam Eastland looked at the back of the dark-haired woman at the counter. He had spotted her in the crowd earlier, just a glimpse from the side, and his reaction then, as now, was a physical one: a tightening in his gut, a bright flash across his mind, then a light, playful sensation. Even though he couldn’t see her face, he felt that he knew her. As he watched, her hand rested briefly on her stomach, over the loose cotton fabric of her dress. Then she turned her head slightly and spoke out loud, and another jolt passed through him, a memory of his own child. He remembered cupping his large hand over the slight bulge on his wife’s small frame and talking to his baby. Six years ago, and he could remember it as if it were yesterday.

And then he thought back to a few days ago when he had called Sara. The overseas connection had been bad, and the child’s small voice seemed hardly to reach him. It was soft and light, then pulled away by some disturbance in space until he couldn’t hear her at all anymore and had to hang up.

“Sir?” A waitress looked at Sam impatiently. “If you wanna booth, you’ll hafta wait, but there’s a seat at the counter.”

Sam nodded. There was a vacant stool next to the black-haired woman who had been speaking to her unborn child. She was busy devouring a pita-bread sandwich and seemed not to notice him when he sat down. Thick black hair shadowed her face.

It wasn’t until Sam ordered his coffee and a cheeseburger that the woman glanced his way. She stopped eating immediately.

Sam saw her face fully now. He stared. Of course he knew her. The woman from the beach house, the beautiful woman who smelled of flowers and fresh air. The woman who had slipped into his thoughts at odd moments for some days now. He took a quick, deep breath.

“You,” was all he said. Her hair hung loose across her shoulders, down her back, and framed her delicate features. A small hat with the brim flipped up in the front was pulled down on her head, holding her hair in place. Without it, he thought vaguely, her hair would fly about her incredible face like a flying angel’s, a spirit’s.

Maddie held her sandwich in midair, wondering what thoughts could possibly be causing such activity in those incredibly deep blue eyes.

Sam wondered if the heat had gotten to him. He wasn’t thinking clearly. She was sitting so close to
him, almost touching him, and he swore he could hear her heartbeat. “Hello, again,” he said finally, his voice nearly a growl.

“You remember me, then?”

“Of course I do.” Sam concentrated on his burger. “You’re the woman I found in my house.”

“My name is Maddie Ames,” she said quietly.

Sam nodded, as if approving her name. He willed away the incoherent feelings clouding his thoughts and concentrated on his association with Maddie Ames. Had Eleanor gotten hold of her, told her he was hiring someone else? He decided not to ask. “What are you doing here in San Jose?” he asked instead.

Maddie flinched. Did he know? She took a sip of tea. “I’m here on business.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding.

“Do you eat here often?” Maddie asked.

“No. This place looked fast. And you?”

“Never before.” She flagged the waitress over and ordered a hot fudge sundae.

Sam lifted one brow. He scanned her slender frame. There was no physical sign of the pregnancy, but her appetite was certainly telling. He vaguely remembered Elizabeth worrying about her appetite, trying desperately not to put on too much weight so that her perfect model’s figure would return as soon as the baby was born. Funny, he had played with images of Maddie Ames all the way home the night he’d met her, and in none
of them had she been married, much less pregnant.

Maddie frowned. “Did I spill? What are you looking at?”

“Sorry. No, I was thinking about your appetite, what pregnancy does to it.”

“Pregnancy?” Maddie stared down at her dress. She flinched, remembering the feeling of pregnancy, then covered the unwelcome flash of sadness with a flippant toss of her head. “Pregnancy?” she repeated, looking up at him. “Mr. Eastland, you’re overflowing with charm and diplomacy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Some women might consider it an insult to be thought pregnant when they’re not. You know, the fat issue. You might want to watch that in the future.”

“I’m sorry.” Again he half smiled. “I, well, I saw you earlier patting your stomach, and it looked as if you were talking to it. So I thought—but you don’t look pregnant at all. If anything, you’re too slender.”

“You’re determined to insult me, aren’t you?” She laughed, a throaty laugh, and then went on to explain. “My stomach was begging for food. I was hushing it.” She smiled. He was such an in-charge kind of person, but for a brief moment he looked almost sheepish. Only for a minute, though, and then the frown came back, and the distance. “But I’m really not pregnant,” she said brightly.

“Oh. Well, good.”

Good? Maddie wondered. Why good? “And you’re forgiven for your social blunder. I can understand that my dress could be deceiving.” She turned slightly on the stool and looked at him, remembering why she had come to San Jose in the first place. Here she had Eastland right next to her, and she was wasting a golden opportunity. “Listen,” she said earnestly, “since I’ve revealed such intimacies about myself, it’s your turn. Tell me about you, Mr. Eastland.”

“I’m not pregnant either,” he said.

She looked sideways at him. His mouth was still, but she caught laughter in his eyes. “Touché,” she said, finding herself unreasonably happy that he had a sense of humor. But he was almost finished with his hamburger and would be rushing off in another minute; she needed to concentrate on more important things. “What do you do when you aren’t working?” she asked suddenly.

She was smiling brightly, her chin slightly tipped up, her eyes bright. Lord, she was beautiful, so natural and unaffected with that incredible dark hair falling freely everywhere. Laid-back Santa Cruz had been a perfect backdrop for her. Here in San Jose she seemed less comfortable, restrained somehow.

“During your free time,” she persisted, “what do you do?”

“That’s an odd question for a stranger to ask.”

“Stranger.” Maddie frowned. Then she brushed her hair from her cheek and looked at him squarely.
“It’s called small talk,” she said. “Something to fill the time while waiting for a check, or a bus, or an elevator.”

“Small talk,” he repeated. “Interesting concept.” The corner of his mouth lifted.

“I know you swim. What else?”

“I don’t have much spare time.”

“Do you hunt? Play a musical instrument? Collect things? Fish?”

“No, a long time ago, not really, occasionally.” He reached for the grease-stained check and scanned it.

“You’re definitely getting the hang of this small-talk routine,” Maddie said. “With a little practice, who knows?”

“Don’t bet the farm on it.” Sam slipped a bill from his pocket onto the counter and stood up. He needed to get out of there. Maddie Ames had sucked him into a twilight zone. He was unnerved, distracted. He looked at her for a moment, his face expressionless, and then he said, “Well, thanks. The company was nice, and the small talk passable.”

He left then, and Maddie couldn’t tell if he was smiling or frowning as he hurried out the door. His broad shoulders flexed as he slipped his arms into his suit coat. With purposeful steps he strode down the street and out of sight.

Maddie sighed.

The waitress appeared in front of her. “Big tipper,” she said, nodding toward the door.

“How big?”

“Ten smackers for a three-buck burger. Not bad.”

Maddie nodded. Okay, then, the trip hadn’t been entirely in vain. She knew now that Sam Eastland was a big tipper. And on the drive back to Santa Cruz, she added to her meager cache of personal insights the fact that he had donated a wing to a children’s museum, that he occasionally fished, that he rarely relaxed, and that he was sexy, definitely sexy.

Surely she could design an interior around all that.

Sure she could.

THREE

It was dusk when Maddie drove up her street and parked her yellow Bug beneath the bending oak tree. The sky was deepening into night, a midnight-blue sky without a cloud, and Maddie felt at one with it. All the way back home, from the time she turned onto the winding highway back to Santa Cruz, she had been filled with a sweet, delicious humming sensation.

“Come on, Eeyore,” she called out to her golden retriever, holding open the screen for the lumbering dog. “Let’s hit the beach, pal.” And together they ran down the short block, across the park, and to the waiting beach.

There, while surfers paid her no heed and several older couples, seated on the hard benches, watched her with vicarious pleasure, she slipped out of her shoes, bunched her skirt in her arms, and with Eeyore at her side, ran with abandon along the hard sandy
shore. Her hair flew wildly behind her, sand sprayed out from beneath her bare feet, and somewhere along the curving shore, her head began to fill with colors and plans and textures. What she would come up with would be good, and it would fit East of the Ocean as no one else’s plan would.

When Maddie and Eeyore returned home a while later, she was ready. With a determination that sent Eeyore scurrying for a safe haven in the bedroom, she sat down at her dining-room table with a pencil and pad and began to work. Before she got up to stretch for the first time, the sky was lightening over the hills—and all her pads of paper were filled.

Maddie was on a roll.

A week later, and a full week ahead of schedule, she express-mailed a thick packet of plans to Eastland Enterprises, care of Eleanor, took a deep breath, and said to Joseph, “Okay, cross your fingers, your toes, and get out the statue of St. Anthony.”

“Patron saint of lost causes?”

“
Difficult
causes, not lost. We’re going to get this one, Joseph, or go down fighting.”

Sam Eastland stood with his palms flat on the shiny surface of his conference table, looking at the neat drawings spread out in front of him.

“What do you think?” Eleanor asked, coming up behind him.

Sam flexed his shoulders. “Why did Oceanic send two sets?” He pointed to the folder not yet opened.

“They didn’t. The second is from Madeline Ames at Ocean Interiors.” She threatened him into silence with her scowl. “Don’t say a single word until you’ve looked at them. This woman is a breath of fresh air, Sam, and that’s exactly what that place needs. Come here, look at this.”

Sam shoved his hands into his suit pants and glowered at Eleanor. She was the one person on earth he couldn’t silence, and her stubborn streak was as strong as his own. He could tell from the tone of her voice that he was in for a fight. He glanced at his watch and thought about the meeting with the mayor in an hour. “Ten minutes, Eleanor, that’s it.”

“Good. Now, here, these are the rough ideas from Oceanic.”

Sam glanced down at the architectural drawings of the rooms of his house, filled with neat pieces of furniture, then over to the details of the furnishings. It all looked familiar, the flowered upholstered sofa and matching high-backed chairs in navy and plums, the beautiful ornately framed paintings, the heavy master-bedroom set. Formal, expensive, and beautiful. Exactly the way Elizabeth had decorated every room they had ever spent three minutes in.

“Okay. This is fine, Eleanor.”

Eleanor nodded. She scooped up all the papers and placed them neatly into a folder, then quickly
spread out the next set. This time each room was a painting and outlines of furniture were brushed in. Plants, dozens of them, were there as well. It was impressionistic, but a feeling rose up from the papers.

Eleanor watched him scan the collection, room by room, then go back to the painting in the center. It was a young girl’s bedroom, more defined than the others, and bright and fresh and practically smelling of sunshine. A wicker bed with puffy pillows in rainbow colors took center stage and in one corner was a rocking chair stuffed full of dolls. Built-in bookshelves were filled with books, toy sailboats, softballs and soccer balls, and a miniature fishing pole. “What the—” Sam’s voice was ragged, caught in the fantasy of the room and the emotion of the moment. It was a five-year-old girl’s dream room.

“I think it’s lovely,” Eleanor said behind him.

Sam clenched his jaw, forced his attention to the other sketches. “It’s a damn jungle. There’re plants everywhere.”

Maddie heard the tail end of his sentence, but it was the tone of voice that pulled her through the half-open door. “Ahem,” she said, clearing her throat.

Eleanor smiled warmly at her. “Hello, Maddie.”

Maddie looked over at Sam. He was still standing at the conference table, but his eyes were on her. She took a deep breath and plunged in. “Those are only ideas, of course. We’ll work from there.” Barging in like this was not the way she usually did business at
all. But it was so important to Joseph to get this job that she decided to take the chance. And somehow she knew that being in Sam’s presence would help her cause. There was a powerful pull between them that Sam didn’t like; she had felt it in the diner and even that first day in the beach house. But once here, once their eyes could meet over the excellent ideas in the designs spread out on the table, she had at least a fighting chance.