Donovan's Child

“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?”

“Does that really matter to you?”

“It’s called conversation, Abilene.”

Her expression was mutinous, but she did answer his question. “After I talked to my mother, I called a … friend.”

He took note of her hesitation before the word, friend. “A lover, you mean?”

She laughed, a low, husky sound that irked him to no end. A laugh that said he didn’t intimidate her, not with his purposeful rudeness, nor with his too-personal questions. “No, not a lover. Javier is a builder. A really good one. I’ve been working for him over the past year, on and off. He also happens to be my half sister Elena’s father. And the adoptive father of my sister-in-law, Mercedes.”

He sipped his scotch. “All right. I’m thoroughly confused.”

“I kind of guessed that by the way your eyes glazed over.”

“Maybe just a few more details …”

She swirled her glass. Ice clinked on crystal. “My father and Javier’s wife, Luz, had a secret affair years ago.”

“An adulterous affair, that’s what you’re telling me.”

“Yes. That’s what I’m telling you. Luz was married to Javier. My dad to my mom. The affair didn’t last long.”

“Did your father love your mother?”

“He did—and he does. And I believe that Luz loved—and loves—Javier. But both of their marriages were troubled at the time.”

“Troubled, how?”

She gave him a look. One that said he’d better back off. “I was a toddler when all this happened. I don’t know all the details, all the deep inner motivations.”

“Maybe you should ask your father.”

“Maybe you should stop goading me.”

“But I kind of like goading you.”

“Clearly. Where was I? Wait. I remember. Javier—and everyone else except Luz—believed that Elena, my half sister, was his. But then, a few years back, the truth came out. It was … a difficult time.”

“I would imagine.”

“However, things are better now. Slowly, we’ve all picked up the pieces and moved on.” She uncrossed her legs, put her elbows on her knees and leaned toward him. With the glass of scotch between her two fine hands, she studied him some more through those arresting golden-green eyes of hers. “So what did you do while I was busy talking on the phone?”

“Mostly, I was downstairs in the torture chamber with one of my physical therapists.”