NORA ROBERTS is the New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred and ninety novels. A born storyteller, she creates a blend of warmth, humour and poignancy that speaks directly to her readers and has earned her almost every award for excellence in her field. The youngest of five children, Nora Roberts lives in western Maryland. She has two sons.

Visit her website at www.noraroberts.com.

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Nora Roberts

THE MACKADE BROTHERS

The Return of Rafe MacKade

The Pride of Jared MacKade

The Heart of Devin MacKade

The Fall of Shane MacKade

THE STANISLASKIS

Taming Natasha

Falling for Rachel

Luring a Lady

Convincing Alex

Waiting for Nick

Considering Kate

THE CALHOUN WOMEN

The Calhouns:

Catherine, Amanda & Lilah

The Calhouns:

Suzanna & Megan

CORDINA’S ROYAL FAMILY

Cordina’s Royal Family:

Gabriella & Alexander

Cordina’s Royal Family:

Bennett & Camilla

THE MACGREGORS

The MacGregors:

Daniel & Ian

The MacGregors:

Alan & Grant

The MacGregors:

Serena & Caine

The MacGregor Brides:

Christmas Fairytales

The MacGregor Grooms

The Perfect Neighbour

Rebellion

THE STARS OF MITHRA

Stars

Treasures

THE DONOVAN LEGACY

Captivated

Entranced

Charmed

Enchanted

NIGHT TALES

Night Shift

Night Shadow

Nightshade

Night Smoke

Night Shield

THE O’HURLEYS

The Last Honest Woman

Dance to the Piper

Skin Deep

Without a Trace

Time and Again

Reflections and Dreams

Truly, Madly Manhattan

Table for Two

Going Home

Summer Pleasures

Engaging the Enemy

Dream Makers

Love By Design

Christmas Angels

The Gift

Winter Dreams

Risky Business

The Welcoming

The Right Path

Partners

The Art of Deception

The Winning Hand

Under Summer Skies

Irish Rebel

The Magic of Home

The Law is a Lady

Night Moves
Nora Roberts

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the mountains I live in,

and the people who love them.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Copyright

Chapter 1

“What the hell are you doing in a place like this?”

Maggie, on her hands and knees, didn’t look up. “C.J., you’re playing the same old song.”

C.J. pulled down the hem of his cashmere sweater. He was a man who made worry an art, and he worried about Maggie. Someone had to. Frustrated, he looked down at the sable-brown hair twisted untidily into a knot on top of her head. Her neck was slender, pale, her shoulders curved slightly forward as she rested her weight on her forearms. She had a delicate build, with the kind of fragility C.J. had always associated with nineteenth-century English aristocratic ladies. Though perhaps they, too, had possessed endless stores of strength and endurance under frail bones and porcelain skin.

She wore a T-shirt and jeans that were both faded and slightly damp from perspiration. When he looked at her hands, fine-boned, elegant hands, and saw they were grimy, he shuddered. He knew the magic they were capable of.

A phase, he thought. She was just going through a phase. After two marriages and a few affairs, C.J. understood that women went through odd moods from time to time. He brushed at his trim, sandy mustache with one finger. It was up to him to guide her back, gently, to the real world.

As he glanced around at nothing but trees and rocks and isolation, he wondered, fleetingly, if there were bears in the woods. In the real world, such things were kept in zoos. Keeping a nervous lookout for suspicious movements, he tried again.

“Maggie, just how long are you going to go on this way?”

“What way is that, C.J.?” Her voice was low, husky, as if she’d just been awakened. It was a voice that made most men wish they’d awakened her.

The woman was infuriating. C.J. tugged a hand through his carefully styled, blow-dried hair. What was she doing three thousand miles from L.A., wasting herself on this dirty work? He had a responsibility to her and, damn it, to himself. C.J. blew out a long breath, an old habit he had whenever he met with opposition. Negotiations were, after all, his business. It was up to him to talk some sense into her. He shifted his feet, careful to keep his polished loafers out of the dirt. “Babe, I love you. You know I do. Come home.”

This time Maggie turned her head, looking up with a flash of a smile that involved every inch of her face—the mouth that stopped just short of being too wide, the chin a bit pointed, the sweep of cheekbones that gave her face a diamond shape. Her eyes, big, round and shades darker than her hair, added that final spark of animation. It wasn’t a stunning face. You’d tell yourself that while you tried to focus in on the reason you were stunned. Even now, without makeup, with a long streak of topsoil across one cheek, the face involved you. Maggie Fitzgerald involved you because she was exactly what she seemed. Interesting. Interested.

Now she sat back on her haunches, blowing a wisp of hair out of her eyes as she looked up at the man who was frowning at her. She felt a tug of affection, a tug of amusement. Both had always come easily to her. “C.J., I love you, too. Now stop acting like an old woman.”

“You don’t belong here,” he began, more exasperated than insulted. “You shouldn’t be grubbing around on your hands and knees—”

“I like it,” she said simply.

It was the very simplicity of the tone that told him he had a real problem. If she’d shouted, argued, his chances of turning her around would’ve been all but secured. But when she was like this, calmly stubborn, changing her mind would be like climbing Mount Everest. Treacherous and exhausting. Because he was a clever man, C.J. changed tactics.

“Maggie, I can certainly understand why you might like to get away for a while, rest a bit. No one deserves it more.” That was a nice touch, he thought, because it was true. “Why don’t you take a couple weeks in Cancún, or go on a shopping spree in Paris?”

“Mmm.” Maggie shifted on her knees and fluffed up the petals of the pansies she was planting. They looked, she decided, a bit sick. “Hand me that watering can, will you?”

“You’re not listening.”

“Yes, I am.” Stretching over, she retrieved the can herself. “I’ve been to Cancún, and I have so many clothes now I left half of them in storage in L.A.”

Without breaking stride, C.J. tried a different turn. “It’s not just me,” he began again, watching as she drenched the pansies. “Everyone who knows you, who knows about this, thinks you’ve—”

“Slipped a gear?” Maggie supplied. Overdid the water, she decided as the saturated blossoms drooped. She had a lot to learn about the basics of country life. “C.J., instead of nagging me and trying to talk me into doing something I’ve no intention of doing, why don’t you come down here and give me a hand?”

“A hand?” His voice held the slightly appalled note it might have if she’d suggested he dilute prime scotch with tap water. Maggie chuckled.

“Pass me that flat of petunias.” She stuck the small spade in the ground again, fighting the rocky soil. “Gardening’s good for you. It gets you back in touch with nature.”

“I’ve no desire to touch nature.”

This time she laughed and lifted her face to the sky. No, the closest C.J. would come to nature would be a chlorinated pool—solar-heated. Up to a few months ago she’d barely gotten much closer herself. She’d certainly never attempted to. But now she’d found something—something she hadn’t even been looking for. If she hadn’t come to the East Coast to collaborate on the score for a new musical, if she hadn’t taken an impulsive drive south after the long, grueling sessions had ended, she never would’ve happened on the sleepy little town tucked into the Blue Ridge.

Do we ever know where we belong, Maggie wondered, unless we’re lucky enough to stumble onto our own personal space? She only knew that she’d been heading nowhere in particular and she’d come home.

Maybe it had been fate that had led her into Morganville, a cluster of houses cupped in the foothills that boasted a population of 142. From the town proper, it spread out into farms and isolated mountain homes. If fate had taken her to Morganville, it had again taken her past the sign that listed the sale of a house and twelve acres. There’d been no moment of indecision, no quibbling over the price, no last-minute doubts. Maggie had met the terms and had had the deed in her hand within thirty days.

Looking up at the three-story frame house, with shutters still hanging crooked, Maggie could well imagine her friends and colleagues wondering about her mental state. She’d left her Italian-marble entrance hall and mosaic-tiled pool for rusty hinges and rocks. She’d done it without a backward glance.

Maggie patted the dirt around the petunias, then sat back. They looked a bit more spritely than her pansies. Maybe she was beginning to get the hang of it. “What do you think?”

“I think you should come back to L.A. and finish the score.”

“I meant the flowers.” She brushed off her jeans as she rose. “In any case, I am finishing the score—right here.”

“Maggie, how can you work here?” C.J. exploded. He tossed out both arms in a gesture she’d always admired for its unapologetic theatrics. “How can you live here? This place isn’t even civilized.”

“Why? Because there’s no health club and boutique on every other corner?” Wanting to temper the words, she tucked a hand through C.J.’s arm. “Go ahead, take a deep breath. The clean air won’t hurt you.”

“Smog’s underrated,” he mumbled as he shifted his feet again. Professionally he was her agent, but personally C.J. considered himself her friend, perhaps her best friend since Jerry had died. Thinking of that, he changed his tone again. This time it was gentle. “Look, Maggie, I know you’ve been through some rough times. Maybe L.A. has too many memories for you to deal with right now. But you can’t bury yourself.”

“I’m not burying myself.” She put her hands on his forearms, squeezing for both emphasis and support. “And I buried Jerry nearly two years ago. That was another part of my life, C.J., and has nothing to do with this. This is home. I don’t know how else to explain it.” She slid her hands down to his, forgetting hers were smeared with earth. “This is my mountain now, and I’m happier here, more settled, than I ever was in Los Angeles.”

He knew he was beating his head against a wall, but opted to give it one more shot. “Maggie.” He slipped an arm around her shoulder, as if, she thought ruefully, she was a small child needing guidance. “Look at that place.” He let the silence hang a moment while they both studied the house on the rise above. He noticed that the porch was missing several boards and that the paint on the trim was peeling badly. Maggie saw the sun reflecting off the window glass in rainbows. “You can’t possibly be serious about living there.”

“A little paint, a few nails.” She shrugged it away. Long ago she’d learned that surface problems were best ignored. It was the problem simmering under the surface, not quite visible, that had to be dealt with. “It has such possibilities, C.J.”

“The biggest one is that it’ll fall down on your head.”

“I had the roof fixed last week—a local man.”

“Maggie, I’m not at all convinced there are any local men, or women, within ten miles. This place doesn’t look fit for anything but elves and gnomes.”

“Well, he might’ve been a gnome.” Her sense of fun spurred her on as she stretched her back muscles. “He was about five foot five, stocky as a bull and somewhere around a hundred and two. His name was Bog.”

“Maggie—”

“He was very helpful,” she went on. “He and his boy are coming back to deal with the porch and some of the other major repairs.”

“All right, so you’ve got a gnome to do some hammering and sawing. What about this?” He swept his hand around to take in the surrounding land. It was rocky, uneven and overgrown with weeds and thickets. Not even a dedicated optimist could’ve considered any part of it a lawn. A burly tree slanted dangerously toward the house itself, while thorny vines and wildflowers scrambled for space. There was a pervading smell of earth and green.

“Like Sleeping Beauty’s castle,” Maggie murmured. “I’ll be sorry in a way to hack it down, but Mr. Bog has that under control, too.”

“He does excavation work, too?”

Maggie tilted her head and arched her brows. It was a look that made anyone over forty remember her mother. “He recommended a landscaper. Mr. Bog assures me that Cliff Delaney is the best man in the county. He’s coming by this afternoon to take a look at the place.”

“If he’s a smart man, he’ll take one look at that gully you call a road leading up here and keep on going.”

“But you brought your rented Mercedes all the way up.” Turning, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate that or the fact that you flew in from the Coast or that you care enough to be concerned. I appreciate all of it. I appreciate you.” She ruffled his hair, something no one else would’ve gotten away with. “Trust my judgment on this, C.J. I really do know what I’m doing. Professionally, my work can’t do anything but improve here.”

“That’s yet to be seen,” he muttered, but lifted a hand to touch her cheek. She was still young enough to have foolish dreams, he thought. Still sweet enough to believe in them. “You know it’s not your work I’m worried about.”

“I know.” Her voice softened, and with it her eyes, her mouth. She was not a woman who guided her emotions, but one who was guided by them. “I need the peace here. Do you know, this is the first time in my life I’ve gotten off the merry-go-round? I’m enjoying the solid ground, C.J.”

He knew her well and understood that there was no moving her, for the moment, from the position she’d taken. He understood, too, that from birth her life had been ribboned with the stuff of fantasies—and of nightmares. Perhaps she did need to compensate, for a time.

“I’ve got a plane to catch,” he grumbled. “As long as you insist on staying here, I want you to call me every day.”

Maggie kissed him again. “Once a week,” she countered. “You’ll have the completed score for Heat Dance in ten days.” With her arm around his waist, she led him to the end of the uneven, overgrown path where his Mercedes sat in incongruous splendor. “I love the film, C.J. It’s even better than I thought it would be when I first read the script. The music’s all but writing itself.”

He only grunted and cast one look behind him at the house. “If you get lonely—”

“I won’t.” With a quick laugh, Maggie nudged him into the car. “It’s been enlightening discovering how self-sufficient I can be. Now, have a nice trip back and stop worrying about me.”

Fat chance, he thought, automatically reaching in his briefcase to make certain his Dramamine was there. “Send me the score, and if it’s sensational, I might stop worrying … a little.”

“It is sensational.” She backed off from the car to give him room to turn around. “I’m sensational!” she shouted as the Mercedes began to inch around. “Tell everyone back on the Coast that I’ve decided to buy some goats and chickens.”

The Mercedes stopped dead. “Maggie …”

Laughing, she waved at him and backed down the path. “Not yet … but maybe in the fall.” She decided it was best to reassure him, or else he might get out and start again. “Oh, and send me some Godiva chocolates.”

That was more like it, C.J. thought, and put the car in gear again. She’d be back in L.A. in six weeks. He glanced in his rearview mirror as he started to drive away. He could see her, small and slender, still laughing, against the backdrop of the overgrown land, greening trees and dilapidated house. Once again he shuddered, but this time it wasn’t from an offense of his sensibilities. This time it was from something like fear. He had a sudden flash of certainty that she wasn’t safe there.

Shaking his head, C.J. reached in his pocket for his antacids as the car bumped noisily over a rock. Everyone told him he worried too much.

Lonely, Maggie thought as she watched the Mercedes bump and wind its way down her excuse for a lane. No, she wasn’t lonely. She was as certain as she’d ever been about anything that she’d never be lonely here. She felt an unexpected sense of foreboding that she shrugged off as ridiculous.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned in two slow circles. Trees rose up out of the rocky hillside. The leaves were hardly more than buds now, but in a few weeks they would grow and spread, turning the woods into a lush cover of green. She liked to imagine it that way and to try to picture it in the dead of winter—white, all white and black with ice clinging to the branches and shimmering on the rocks. In the fall there’d be a tapestry outside every window. She was far from lonely.

For the first time in her life, she had a chance to put her own stamp on a place. It wouldn’t be a copy of anything she’d had before or anything that’d been given to her. It was hers, absolutely, and so were any mistakes she made here, any triumphs. There’d be no press to compare this isolated spot in western Maryland with her mother’s mansion in Beverly Hills or her father’s villa in the south of France. If she was lucky, very, very lucky, Maggie thought with a satisfied sigh, there’d be no press at all. She could make her music and live her life in peace and solitude.

If she stood very still, if she closed her eyes and didn’t move, she could hear the music all around her. Not birdsong but the ruffle of air through branches and tiny leaves. If she concentrated, she could hear the faint trickle of the narrow creek that ran along the other side of the lane. The quality of silence was rich, flowing over her like a symphony.

There was a place for glitz, she mused, and for glamour. She simply didn’t want that place any longer. The truth was she hadn’t wanted that place for a very long time but hadn’t known the way out. When your birth had been celebrated by the international press, your first step, your first words, cataloged for the public, it was natural to forget there was another way of life.

Her mother had been one of the greatest blues and ballad singers in America, her father a child actor turned successful film director. Their courtship and marriage had been followed religiously by fans around the world. The birth of their daughter had been an event treated like the birth of royalty. And Maggie had lived the life of a pampered princess. Gold carousels and white fur coats. She’d been lucky because her parents had adored her, and each other. That had compensated for the make-believe, often hard-edged world of show business, with all its demands and inconstancy. Her world had been cushioned by wealth and love, rippled continually with publicity.

The paparazzi haunted her on dates through her teenage years—to her amusement but often to the boys’ frustration. Maggie had accepted the fact that her life was public domain. It had never been otherwise.

And when her parents’ private plane had crashed into the Swiss Alps, the press had frozen her grief in glossies and newsprint. She hadn’t tried to stop it; she’d realized that the world had mourned with her. She’d been eighteen when the fabric of her world had torn.

Then there had been Jerry. First friend, then lover, then husband. With him, her life had drifted into more fantasy, and more tragedy.

She wouldn’t think of any of that now, Maggie told herself as she picked up her spade and began to fight the tough soil again. All that was really left of that portion of her life was her music. That she would never give up. She couldn’t have if she’d tried. It was part of her the way her eyes and ears were part of her. She composed words and music and twined them together, not effortlessly, as it sometimes seemed from the fluid finished result, but obsessively, wonderingly, constantly. Unlike her mother, she didn’t perform but fed other performers with her gift.

At twenty-eight, she had two Oscars, five Grammies and a Tony. She could sit at the piano and play any song she’d ever written from memory. The awards were still in the packing boxes that had been shipped from L.A.

The little flower plot she was planting in a spot perhaps no one would see but herself was a labor of love with no guarantee of success. It was enough that it gave her pleasure to add her own peculiar spot of color to the land she’d claimed as hers. Maggie began to sing as she worked. She’d completely forgotten her former feeling of apprehension.

Normally he didn’t do the estimating and initial planning on a job himself. Not anymore. For the past six years Cliff Delaney had been in the position of being able to send one or two of his best men out on the first stage of a project; then he would fine-tune. If the job was interesting enough, he would visit the site while work was in progress, perhaps handle some of the grading and planting himself. He was making an exception.

He knew the old Morgan place. It had been built by a Morgan, even as the tiny community a few miles away had been named after one. For ten years, since William Morgan’s car had crashed into the Potomac, the house had stood empty. The house had always been stern, the land formidable. But with the right touch, the right insight, Cliff knew, it could be magnificent. He had his doubts that the lady from L.A. had the right insight.

He knew of her. Naturally he knew of her. Anyone who hadn’t spent the last twenty-eight years in a cave knew Maggie Fitzgerald. At the moment, she was the biggest news in Morganville—all but eclipsing the hot gossip of Lloyd Messner’s wife running off with the bank manager.

It was a simple town, the kind that moved slowly. The kind of town where everyone took pride in the acquisition of a new fire engine and the yearly Founder’s Day parade. That’s why Cliff chose to live there after he’d reached a point where he could live anywhere he chose. He’d grown up there and understood the people, their unity and their possessiveness. He understood their failings. More, perhaps much more, than that, he understood the land. He had serious doubts that the glamorous song writer from California would understand either.

C.J. had estimated six weeks before she flew back. Cliff, without ever setting eyes on her, cut that in half. But perhaps before Maggie Fitzgerald grew bored with her shot at rural living, he could put his own mark on the land.

He turned off the paved road onto the quarter-mile lane that cut through the Morgan property. It had been years since he’d been on it, and it was worse than he remembered. Rain and neglect had worn ruts in the dirt. From both sides of the lane, branches reached out to whip at the truck. The first order of business would be the lane itself, Cliff thought as his small pickup bounced over ruts. It would be graded, leveled, filled. Drainage ditches would have to be dug, gravel spread.

He went slowly, not for the truck’s sake but because the land on either side of the lane appealed to him. It was wild and primitive, timeless. He’d want to work with that, incorporate his own talents with the genius of nature. If Maggie Fitzgerald wanted blacktop and hothouse plants, she’d come to the wrong place. He’d be the first one to let her know.

If he had a distrust of outsiders, Cliff considered he’d come by it honestly. They came, often from the rich suburbs of D.C., and wanted their lawns flat and free of the poplar and oak that had first claim. They wanted neat little flowers in orderly rows. Lawns should be even, so that their mowers could handle the weekly cutting effortlessly. What they wanted, Cliff thought derisively, was to say they lived in the country while they brought city attitudes and city tastes with them. By the time he rounded the last bend, he was already out of patience with Maggie Fitzgerald.

Maggie heard the truck coming before it was in sight. That was something else she liked about her new home. It was quiet—so quiet that the sound of a truck, which would have been ignored in the city, brought her to attention. Halfheartedly brushing her hands on the seat of her pants, she rose from her planting, then shielded her eyes against the sun.

While she watched, the truck rounded the curve and parked where the Mercedes had been only an hour before. A bit dusty from the road, with its chrome dull rather than gleaming, the truck looked much more comfortable than the luxury car had. Though she couldn’t yet see the driver through the glare of sun on windshield, Maggie smiled and lifted a hand in greeting.

The first thing Cliff thought was that she was smaller than he’d expected, more delicate in build. The Fitzgeralds had always been larger than life. He wondered, with a quick grunt, if she’d want to raise orchids to match her style. He got out of the truck, convinced she was going to annoy him.

Perhaps it was because she’d been expecting another Mr. Bog that Maggie felt a flutter of surprise when Cliff stepped out of the truck. Or perhaps, she thought with her usual penchant for honesty, it was because he was quite simply a magnificent example of manhood. Six-two, Maggie decided, with an impressive breadth of shoulders. Black hair that had been ruffled by the wind through the open truck windows fell over his forehead and ears in loose waves. He didn’t smile, but his mouth was sculpted, sensual. She had a fleeting regret that he wore dark glasses so that his eyes were hidden. She judged people from their eyes.

Instead, Maggie summed him up from the way he moved—loosely, confidently. Athletic, she concluded, as he strode over the uneven ground. Definitely self-assured. He was still a yard away when she got the unmistakable impression that he wasn’t particularly friendly.

“Miss Fitzgerald?”

“Yes.” Giving him a neutral smile, Maggie held out a hand. “You’re from Delaney’s?”

“That’s right.” Their hands met, briefly, hers soft, his hard, both of them capable. Without bothering to identify himself, Cliff scanned the grounds. “You wanted an estimate on some landscaping.”

Maggie followed his gaze, and this time her smile held amusement. “Obviously I need something. Does your company perform miracles?”

“We do the job.” He glanced down at the splash of color behind her, wilted pansies and soggy petunias. Her effort touched something in him that he ignored, telling himself she’d be bored long before it was time to pull the first weeds. “Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind?”

“A glass of iced tea at the moment. Look around while I get some; then we’ll talk about it.” She’d been giving orders without a second thought all her life. After giving this one, Maggie turned and climbed the rickety steps to the porch. Behind the tinted glasses, Cliff’s eyes narrowed.

Designer jeans, he thought with a smirk as he watched the graceful sway of hips before the screen door banged shut at her back. And the solitaire on the thin chain around her neck had been no less than a carat. Just what game was little Miss Hollywood playing? She’d left a trace of her scent behind, something soft and subtle that would nag at a man’s senses. Shrugging, he turned his back on the house and looked at the land.

It could be shaped and structured without being tamed. It should never lose its basic unruly sense by being manicured, though he admitted the years of neglect had given the rougher side of nature too much of an advantage. Still, he wouldn’t level it for her. Cliff had turned down more than one job because the client had insisted on altering the land’s personality. Even with that, he wouldn’t have called himself an artist. He was a businessman. His business was the land.

He walked farther away from the house, toward a grove of trees overrun with tangling vines, greedy saplings and thistles. Without effort he could see it cleared of undergrowth, richly mulched, naturalized perhaps with jonquils. That one section would personify peace, as he saw it. Hitching his thumbs in his back pockets, Cliff reflected that from the reams that had been written about Maggie Fitzgerald over the years, she didn’t go in much for peace.

Jet-setting, the fast lane, glitter and glitz. What the hell had she moved out here for?

Before he heard her, Cliff caught a fresh whiff of her perfume. When he turned, she was a few paces behind him, two glasses in her hand. She watched him steadily with a curiosity she didn’t bother to hide. He learned something more about her then as she stood with her eyes on his face and the sun at her back. She was the most alluring woman he’d ever met, though he’d be damned if he knew why.

Maggie approached him and offered a glass of frosty tea. “Want to hear my ideas?”

The voice had something to do with it, Cliff decided. An innocent question, phrased in that sultry voice, conjured up a dozen dark pleasures. He took a slow sip. “That’s what I’m here for,” he told her with a curtness he’d never shown any potential client.

Her brow lifted at the tone, the only sign that she’d noticed his rudeness. With that attitude, she thought, he wouldn’t have the job for long. Then again, he didn’t strike her as a man who’d work for someone else. “Indeed you are, Mr….?”

“Delaney.”

“Ah, the man himself.” That made more sense, she decided, if his attitude didn’t. “Well, Mr. Delaney, I’m told you’re the best. I believe in having the best, so.” Thoughtfully, she ran a fingertip down the length of her glass, streaking the film of moisture. “I’ll tell you what I want, and you tell me if you can deliver.”

“Fair enough.” He didn’t know why her simple statement should annoy him any more than he could understand why he was just noticing how smooth her skin was and how compelling were those large velvet eyes. Like a doe’s, Cliff realized. He wasn’t a man who hunted but a man who watched. “I’ll tell you up front that my company has a policy against destroying the natural terrain in order to make the land into something it’s not. This is rough country, Miss Fitzgerald. It’s supposed to be. If you want an acre or two of manicured lawn, you’ve bought the wrong land and called the wrong landscaper.”

It took a great deal to fire up her temper. Maggie had worked long and hard to control a natural tendency toward quick fury in order to block the label of temperamental daughter of temperamental artists. “Decent of you to point it out,” she managed after three long, quiet breaths.

“I don’t know why you bought the place,” he began.

“I don’t believe I’ve offered that information.”

“And it’s none of my business,” Cliff finished with an acknowledging nod. “But this—” he indicated the property with a gesture of his hand “—is my business.”

“You’re a bit premature in condemning me, aren’t you, Mr. Delaney?” To keep herself in check, Maggie took a sip of tea. It was cold, with a faint bite of lemon. “I’ve yet to ask you to bring on the bulldozers and chain saws.” She ought to tell him to haul his buns into his truck and take off. Almost before she could wonder why she didn’t, the answer came. Instinct. Instinct had brought her to Morganville and to the property she now stood on. It was instinct that told her he was indeed the best. Nothing else would do for her land. To give herself a moment to be sure she didn’t do anything rash, Maggie took another sip from her glass.

“That grove there,” she began briskly. “I want it cleared of undergrowth. It can’t be enjoyed if you have to fight your way through thorns and thickets to walk in it.” She shot him a look. “Don’t you want to take notes?”

He watched her, consideringly. “No. Go on.”

“All right. This stretch right here, in front of the porch—I imagine that was a lawn of sorts at one time.” She turned, looking at the knee-high weeds. “It should be again, but I want enough room to plant, I don’t know, some pines, maybe, to keep the line between lawn and woods from being too marked. Then there’s the way the whole thing just sort of falls away until it reaches the lane below.”

Forgetting her annoyance for the moment, Maggie made her way across the relatively flat land to where it sloped steeply down. Weeds, some of them as tall as she, grew in abundance wherever the rocks would permit. “It’s certainly too steep for grass to be practical,” she said half to herself. “But I can’t just let all these weeds have their way. I’d like some color, but I don’t want uniformity.”

“You’ll want some evergreens,” he said from behind her. “Some spreading junipers along the bottom edge of the whole slope, a few coming farther up over there, with some forsythia mixed in. Here, where the grade’s not so dramatic, you’d want some low ground cover.” He could see phlox spilling and bumping over the rocks. “That tree’s got to come down,” he went on, frowning at the one that leaned precariously toward her roof. “And there’s two, maybe three, on the rise behind the house that’ve got to be taken down before they fall down.”

She was frowning now, but she’d always believed in letting an expert set the plan. “Okay, but I don’t want you to cut down anything that doesn’t have to be cleared.”

Maggie could only see her own reflection in his glasses when he faced her. “I never do.” He turned and began to walk around the side of the house. “That’s another problem,” Cliff continued without checking to see if she was following. “The way that dirt wall’s eroding down from the cliff here. You’re going to end up with a tree or a boulder in your kitchen when you least expect it.”

“So?” Maggie tilted her head so she could scan the ridge behind her house. “You’re the expert.”

“It’ll need to be recut, tapered back some. Then I’d put up a retaining wall, three, maybe four, foot high. Crown vetch’d hold the dirt above that. Plant it along the entire slope. It’s hardy and fast.”

“All right.” It sounded reasonable. He sounded more reasonable, Maggie decided, when he was talking about his business. A man of the land, she mused, and wished again she could see beyond the tinted glass to his eyes. “This part behind the house has to be cleared.” She began to fight her way through the weeds and briars as she talked. “I think if I had a walkway of some kind from here to the lane, I could have a rockery … here.” A vague gesture of her hands indicated the spot she had in mind. “There’re plenty of rocks,” she muttered, nearly stumbling over one. “Then down here—”

Cliff took her arm before she could start down the slope on the far side of the house. The contact jolted both of them. More surprised than alarmed, Maggie turned her head.

“I wouldn’t,” Cliff said softly, and she felt a tiny trickle, an odd excitement, sprint up her spine.

“Wouldn’t what?” Her chin automatically tilted, her eyes challenged.

“Walk down there.” Her skin was soft, Cliff discovered. With his hand wrapped around her arm, he could touch his fingertips to his thumb. Small and soft, he mused, enjoying the feel of his flesh against hers. Too small and soft for land that would fight back at you.

Maggie glanced down to where he held her. She noticed the tan on the back of his hand; she noticed the size and the strength of it. When she noticed her pulse wasn’t quite steady, she lifted her gaze again. “Mr. Delaney—”

“Snakes,” he said simply, and had the satisfaction of seeing her take two quick steps back. “You’re almost sure to have some down in a spot like that. In fact, with the way this place is overgrown, you’re likely to have them everywhere.”

“Well, then—” Maggie swallowed and made a herculean effort not to shudder “—maybe you can start the job right away.”

For the first time, he smiled, a very slight, very cautious, curving of lips. They’d both forgotten he still held her, but they were standing much closer now, within a hand span of touching. She certainly hadn’t reacted the way he’d expected. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d screeched at the mention of snakes, then had dashed into the house, slamming and locking the door. Her skin was soft, Cliff mused, unconsciously moving his thumb over it. But apparently she wasn’t.

“I might be able to send a crew out next week, but the first thing that has to be dealt with is your road.”

Maggie dismissed this with a shrug. “Do whatever you think best there, excluding asphalt. It’s only a means of getting in and out to me. I want to concentrate on the house and grounds.”

“The road’s going to run you twelve, maybe fifteen, hundred,” he began, but she cut him off again.

“Do what you have to,” she told him with the unconscious arrogance of someone who’d never worried about money. “This section here—” She pointed to the steep drop in front of them, making no move this time to go down it. At the base it spread twenty feet wide, perhaps thirty in length, in a wicked maze of thorny vines and weeds as thick at the stem as her thumb. “I want a pond.”

Cliff brought his attention back to her. “A pond?”

She gave him a level look and stood her ground. “Allow me one eccentricity, Mr. Delaney. A small one,” she continued before he could comment. “There’s certainly enough room, and it seems to me that this section here’s the worst. It’s hardly more than a hole in the ground in a very awkward place. Do you have an objection to water?”

Instead of answering, he studied the ground below them, running through the possibilities. The truth was, she couldn’t have picked a better spot as far as the lay of the land and the angle to the house. It could be done, he mused. It wouldn’t be an easy job, but it could be done. And it would be very effective.

“It’s going to cost you,” he said at length. “You’re going to be sinking a lot of cash into this place. If you’re weighing that against resale value, I can tell you, this property won’t be easy to sell.”

It snapped her patience. She was tired, very tired, of having people suggest she didn’t know what she was doing. “Mr. Delaney, I’m hiring you to do a job, not to advise me on real estate or my finances. If you can’t handle it, just say so and I’ll get someone else.”

His eyes narrowed. The fingers on her arm tightened fractionally. “I can handle it, Miss Fitzgerald. I’ll draw up an estimate and a contract. They’ll be in the mail tomorrow. If you still want the job done after you’ve looked them over, call my office.” Slowly, he released her arm, then handed her back the glass of tea. He left her there, near the edge where the slope gave way to gully as he headed back toward his truck. “By the way,” he said without turning around, “you overwatered your pansies.”

Maggie let out one long, simmering breath and dumped the tepid tea on the ground at her feet.

Chapter 2

When she was alone, Maggie went back inside, through the back door, which creaked ominously on its hinges. She wasn’t going to think about Cliff Delaney. In fact, she doubted if she’d see him again. He’d send crews out to deal with the actual work, and whatever they had to discuss would be done via phone or letter. Better that way, Maggie decided. He’d been unfriendly, abrupt and annoying, though his mouth had been attractive, she reflected, even kind.

She was halfway through the kitchen when she remembered the glasses in her hand. Turning back, she crossed the scarred linoleum to set them both in the sink, then leaned on the windowsill to look out at the rise behind her house. Even as she watched, a few loose stones and dirt slid down the wall. A couple of hard rains, she mused, and half that bank would be at her back door. A retaining wall. Maggie nodded. Cliff Delaney obviously knew his business.

There was just enough breeze to carry a hint of spring to her. Far back in the woods a bird she couldn’t see sang out as though it would never stop. Listening, she forgot the eroding wall and the exposed roots of trees that were much too close to its edge. She forgot the rudeness, and the attraction, of a stranger. If she looked up, far up, she could see where the tops of the trees met the sky.

She wondered how this view would change with the seasons and found herself impatient to experience them all. Perhaps she’d never realized how badly she’d needed a place to herself, time to herself, until she’d found it.

With a sigh, Maggie moved away from the window. It was time to get down to work if she was to deliver the finished score as promised. She walked down the hall where the wallpaper was peeling and curled and turned into what had once been the back parlor. It was now her music room.

Boxes she hadn’t even thought of unpacking stood in a pile against one wall. A few odd pieces of furniture that had come with the house sat hidden under dustcovers. The windows were uncurtained, the floor was uncarpeted. There were pale squares intermittently on the walls where pictures had once hung. In the center of the room, glossy and elegant, stood her baby grand. A single box lay open beside it, and from this Maggie took a sheet of staff paper. Tucking a pencil behind her ear, she sat.

For a moment she did nothing else, just sat in the silence while she let the music come and play in her head. She knew what she wanted for this segment—something dramatic, something strong and full of power. Behind her closed eyelids she could see the scene from the film sweep by. It was up to her to underscore, to accentuate, to take the mood and make it music.

Reaching out, she switched on the cassette tape and began.

She let the notes build in strength as she continued to visualize the scene her music would amplify. She only worked on films she had a feeling for. Though the Oscars told her she excelled in this area of work, Maggie’s true affection was for the single song—words and music.

Maggie had always compared the composing of a score to the building of a bridge. First came the blueprint, the overall plan. Then the construction had to be done, slowly, meticulously, until each end fit snugly on solid ground, a flawless arch in between. It was a labor of precision.

The single song was a painting, to be created as the mood dictated. The single song could be written from nothing more than a phrasing of words or notes. It could encapsulate mood, emotion or a story in a matter of minutes. It was a labor of love.

When she worked, she forgot the time, forgot everything but the careful structuring of notes to mood. Her fingers moved over the piano keys as she repeated the same segment again and again, changing perhaps no more than one note until her instincts told her it was right. An hour passed, then two. She didn’t grow weary or bored or impatient with the constant repetition. Music was her business, but it was also her lover.

She might not have heard the knock if she hadn’t paused to rewind the tape. Disoriented, she ignored it, waiting for the maid to answer before she recalled where she was.

No maids, Maggie, she reminded herself. No gardener, no cook. It’s all up to you now. The thought pleased her. If there was no one to answer to her, she had no one to answer to.

Rising, she went back into the hall and down to the big front door. She didn’t have to develop the country habit of leaving the doors unlocked. In L.A., there’d been servants to deal with bolts and chains and security systems. Maggie never gave them a thought. Taking the knob in both hands, she twisted and tugged. She reminded herself to tell Mr. Bog about the sticking problem as the door swung open.

On the porch stood a tall, prim-looking woman in her early fifties. Her hair was a soft, uniform gray worn with more tidiness than style. Faded blue eyes studied Maggie from behind rose-framed glasses. If this was the welcome wagon lady, Maggie thought after a glance at the unhappy line of the woman’s mouth, she didn’t seem thrilled with the job. Much too used to strangers’ approaches to be reserved, Maggie tilted her head and smiled.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“You are Miss Fitzgerald?” The voice was low and even, as subdued and inoffensive as her plain, pale coatdress.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m Louella Morgan.”

It took Maggie a moment; then the name clicked. Louella Morgan, widow of William Morgan, former owner of the house that was now hers. For an instant Maggie felt like an intruder; then she shook the feeling away and extended her hand. “Hello, Mrs. Morgan. Won’t you come in?”

“I don’t want to disturb you.”

“No, please.” As she spoke, she opened the door a bit wider. “I met your daughter when we settled on the house.”

“Yes, Joyce told me.” Louella’s gaze darted around and behind Maggie as she stepped over the threshold. “She never expected to sell so quickly. The property had only been on the market a week.”

“I like to think it was fate.” Maggie put her weight against the door and pushed until she managed to close it. Definitely a job for Bog, she decided.

“Fate?” Louella turned back from her study of the long, empty hall.

“It just seemed to be waiting for me.” Though she found the woman’s direct, unsmiling stare odd, Maggie gestured toward the living room. “Come in and sit down,” she invited. “Would you like some coffee? Something cold?”

“No, thank you. I’ll stay only a minute.” Louella did wander into the living room, and though there was a single sofa piled with soft, inviting pillows, she didn’t accept Maggie’s invitation to sit. She looked at the crumbling wallpaper, the cracked paint and the windows that glistened from Maggie’s diligence with ammonia. “I suppose I wanted to see the house again with someone living in it.”

Maggie took a look at the almost-empty room. Maybe she’d start stripping off the wallpaper next week. “I guess it’ll be a few weeks more before it looks as though someone is.”

Louella didn’t seem to hear. “I came here as a newlywed.” She smiled then, but Maggie didn’t see anything happy in it. The eyes, she thought, looked lost, as if the woman had been lost for years. “But then, my husband wanted something more modern, more convenient to town and his business. So we moved, and he rented it out.”

Louella focused on Maggie again. “Such a lovely, quiet spot,” she murmured. “A pity it’s been so neglected over the years.”

“It is a lovely spot,” Maggie agreed, struggling not to sound as uncomfortable as she felt. “I’m having some work done on both the house and the land …” Her voice trailed off when Louella wandered to the front window and stared out. Heavens, Maggie thought, searching for something more to say, what have I got here? “Ah, of course I plan to do a lot of the painting and papering and such myself.”

“The weeds have taken over,” Louella said with her back to the room.

Maggie’s brows lifted and fell as she wondered what to do next. “Yes, well, Cliff Delaney was out this afternoon to take a look around.”

“Cliff.” Louella’s attention seemed to focus again as she turned back. The light coming through the uncurtained windows made her seem more pale, more insubstantial. “An interesting young man, rather rough-and-ready, but very clever. He’ll do well for you here, for the land. He’s a cousin of the Morgans, you know.” She paused and seemed to laugh, but very softly. “Then, you’ll find many Morgans and their kin scattered throughout the county.”

A cousin, Maggie mused. Perhaps he’d been unfriendly because he didn’t think the property should’ve been sold to an outsider. Resolutely, she tried to push Cliff Delaney aside. He didn’t have to approve. The land was hers.

“The front lawn was lovely once,” Louella murmured.

Maggie felt a stirring of pity. “It will be again. The front’s going to be cleared and planted. The back, too.” Wanting to reassure her, Maggie stepped closer. Both women stood by the window now. “I’m going to have a rock garden, and there’ll be a pond where the gully is on the side.”

“A pond?” Louella turned and fixed her with another long stare. “You’re going to clear out the gully?”

“Yes.” Uncomfortable again, Maggie shifted. “It’s the perfect place.”

Louella ran a hand over the front of her purse as if she were wiping something away. “I used to have a rock garden. Sweet william and azure Adams. There was wisteria beneath my bedroom window, and roses, red roses, climbing on a trellis.”

“I’d like to have seen it,” Maggie said gently. “It must’ve been beautiful.”

“I have pictures.”

“Do you?” Struck with an idea, Maggie forgot her discomfort. “Perhaps I could see them. They’d help me decide just what to plant.”

“I’ll see that you get them. You’re very kind to let me come in this way.” Louella took one last scan of the room. “The house holds memories.” When she walked out into the hall, Maggie went with her to tug open the front door again. “Goodbye, Miss Fitzgerald.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Morgan.” Her pity stirred again, and Maggie reached out to touch the woman’s shoulder. “Please, come again.”

Louella looked back, her smile very slight, her eyes very tired. “Thank you.”

While Maggie watched, she walked to an old, well-preserved Lincoln, then drove slowly down the hill. Vaguely disturbed, Maggie went back into the music room. She hadn’t met many residents of Morganville yet, she mused, but they were certainly an interesting bunch.

The noise brought Maggie out of a sound sleep into a drowsy, cranky state. For a moment, as she tried to bury her head under the pillow, she thought she was in New York. The groan and roar sounded like a big, nasty garbage truck. But she wasn’t in New York, she thought as she surfaced, rubbing her hands over her eyes. She was in Morganville, and there weren’t any garbage trucks. Here you piled your trash into the back of your car or pickup and hauled it to the county dump. Maggie had considered this the height of self-sufficiency.

Still, something was out there.

She lay on her back for a full minute, staring up at the ceiling. The sunlight slanted, low and thin, across her newly purchased quilt. She’d never been a morning person, nor did she intend to have country life change that intimate part of her nature. Warily, she turned her head to look at the clock: 7:05. Good heavens.

It was a struggle, but she pushed herself into a sitting position and stared blankly around the room. Here, too, boxes were piled, unopened. There was a precariously stacked pile of books and magazines on decorating and landscaping beside the bed. On the wall were three fresh strips of wallpaper, an ivory background with tiny violets, that she’d hung herself. More rolls and paste were pushed into a corner. The noise outside was a constant, irritating roar.

Resigned, Maggie got out of bed. She stumbled over a pair of shoes, swore, then went to the window. She’d chosen that room as her own because she could see out over the rolling pitch of what would be her front yard, over the tops of the trees on her own property to the valley beyond.

There was a farmhouse in the distance with a red roof and a smoking chimney. Beside it was a long, wide field that had just been plowed and planted. If she looked farther still, she could see the peaks of mountains faintly blue and indistinct in the morning mist. The window on the connecting wall would give her a view of the intended pond and the line of pines that would eventually be planted.

Maggie pushed the window up the rest of the way, struggling as it stuck a bit. The early-spring air had a pleasant chill. She could still hear the constant low sound of a running engine. Curious, she pressed her face against the screen, only to have it topple out of the window frame and fall to the porch below. One more thing for Mr. Bog to see to, Maggie thought with a sigh as she leaned through the opening. Just then the yellow bulk of a bulldozer rounded the bend in her lane and broke into view.

So, she thought, watching it inch its way along, leveling and pushing at rock and dirt, Cliff Delaney was a man of his word. She’d received the promised estimate and contract two days after his visit. When she’d called his office, Maggie had spoken to an efficient-sounding woman who’d told her the work would begin the first of the week.

And it’s Monday, she reflected, leaning her elbows on the sill. Very prompt. Narrowing her eyes, she looked more closely at the man on top of the bulldozer. His build was too slight, she decided, his hair not quite dark enough. She didn’t have to see his face to know it wasn’t Cliff. Shrugging, she turned away from the window. Why should she have thought Cliff Delaney would work his own machines? And why should she have wanted it to be him? Hadn’t she already decided she wouldn’t see him again? She’d hired his company to do a job; the job would be done, and she’d write out a check. That was all there was to it.

Maggie attributed her crankiness to the early awakening as she snatched up her robe and headed for the shower.

Two hours later, fortified with the coffee she’d made for herself and the bulldozer operator, Maggie was on her knees on the kitchen floor. Since she was up at a barbaric hour, she thought it best to do something physical. On the counter above her sat her cassette tape player. The sound of her score, nearly completed, all but drowned out the whine of machinery. She let herself flow with it while words to the title song she’d yet to compose flitted in and out of her mind.

While she let her thoughts flow with the music she’d created, Maggie chipped away at the worn tile on the kitchen floor. True, her bedroom had only one wall partially papered, and only the ceiling in the upstairs bath was painted, and there were two more steps to be stripped and lacquered before the main stairway was finished, but she worked in her own way, at her own speed. She found herself jumping from project to project, leaving one partially done and leaping headlong into the next. This way, she reasoned, she could watch the house come together piece by piece rather than have one completed, out-of-place room.

Besides, she’d gotten a peek at the flooring beneath the tile when she’d inadvertently knocked an edge off a corner. Curiosity had done the rest.

When Cliff walked to the back door, he was already annoyed. It was ridiculous for him to be wasting time here, with all the other jobs his firm had in progress. Yet he was here. He’d knocked at the front door for almost five minutes. He knew Maggie was inside, her car was in the driveway, and the bulldozer operator had told him she’d brought out coffee an hour or so before. Didn’t it occur to her that someone usually knocked when they wanted something?

The music coming through the open windows caught his attention, and his imagination. He’d never heard the melody before. It was compelling, sexy, moody. A lone piano, no backdrop of strings or brass, but it had the power of making the listener want to stop and hear every note. For a moment he did stop, both disturbed and moved.

Shifting the screen he’d found into his other hand, Cliff started to knock. Then he saw her.

She was on her hands and knees, prying up pieces of linoleum with what looked like a putty knife. Her hair was loose, falling over one shoulder so that her face was hidden behind it. The deep, rich sable brown picked up hints of gold from the sunlight that streamed through the open door and window.

Gray corduroys fit snugly over her hips, tapering down to bare ankles and feet. A vivid red suede shirt was tucked into the waist. He recognized the shirt as one sold in exclusive shops for very exclusive prices. Her wrists and hands looked impossibly delicate against it. Cliff was scowling at them when Maggie got too enthusiastic with the putty knife and scraped her knuckle against a corner of the tile.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, swinging the door open and striding in before Maggie had a chance to react. She’d barely put the knuckle to her mouth in an instinctive move when he was crouched beside her and grabbing her hand.

“It’s nothing,” she said automatically. “Just a scratch.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t slice it, the way you’re hacking at that tile.” Though his voice was rough and impatient, his hand was gentle. She left hers in it.

Yes, his hand was gentle, though rough-edged, like his voice, but this time she could see his eyes. They were gray; smoky, secret. Evening mists came to her mind. Mists that were sometimes dangerous but always compelling. That was the sort of mist she’d always believed had cloaked Brigadoon for a hundred years at a time. Maggie decided she could like him, in a cautious sort of way.

“Who’d be stupid enough to put linoleum over this?” With the fingers of her free hand, she skimmed over the hardwood she’d exposed. “Lovely, isn’t it? Or it will be when it’s sanded and sealed.”

“Get Bog to deal with it,” Cliff ordered. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

So everyone said. Maggie withdrew a bit, annoyed by the phrase. “Why should he have all the fun? Besides, I’m being careful.”

“I can see that.” He turned her hand over so that she saw the scrape over her thumb. It infuriated him to see the delicacy marred. “Doesn’t someone in your profession have to be careful with their hands?”

“They’re insured,” she tossed back. “I think I can probably hit a few chords, even with a wound as serious as this.” She pulled her hand out of his. “Did you come here to criticize me, Mr. Delaney, or did you have something else in mind?”

“I came to check on the job.” Which wasn’t necessary, he admitted. In any case, why should it matter to him if she was careless enough to hurt her hand? She was just a woman who had touched down in his territory and would be gone again before the leaves were full-blown with summer. He was going to have to remember that, and the fact that she didn’t interest him personally. Shifting, he picked up the screen he’d dropped when he’d taken her hand. “I found this outside.”

It wasn’t often her voice took on that regal tone. He seemed to nudge it out of her. “Thank you.” She took the screen and leaned it against the stove.

“Your road’ll be blocked most of the day. I hope you weren’t planning on going anywhere.”

Maggie gave him a level look that held a hint of challenge. “I’m not going anywhere, Mr. Delaney.”

He inclined his head. “Fine.” The music on the tape player changed tempo. It was more hard-driving, more primitive. It seemed something to be played on hot, moonless nights. It drew him, pulled at him. “What is that?” Cliff demanded. “I’ve never heard it before.”

Maggie glanced up at the recorder. “It’s a movie score I’m composing. That’s the melody for the title song.” Because it had given her a great deal of trouble, she frowned at the revolving tape. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

It was the most simple and most direct answer he’d given her thus far. It wasn’t enough for Maggie.

“Why?”

He paused a moment, still listening, hardly aware that they were both still on the floor, close enough to touch. “It goes straight to the blood, straight to the imagination. Isn’t that what a song’s supposed to do?”

He could have said nothing more perfect. Her smile flashed, a quick, stunning smile that left him staring at her as though he’d been struck by lightning. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.” In her enthusiasm she shifted. Their knees brushed. “I’m trying for something very basic with this. It has to set the mood for a film about a passionate relationship—an intensely passionate relationship between two people who seem to have nothing in common but an uncontrollable desire for each other. One of them will kill because of it.”

She trailed off, lost in the music and the mood. She could see it in vivid colors—scarlets, purples. She could feel it, like the close, sultry air on a hot summer night. Then she frowned, and as if on cue, the music stopped. From the tape came a sharp, pungent curse, then silence.

“I lost something in those last two bars,” she muttered. “It was like—” she gestured with both hands, bringing them up, turning them over, then dropping them again “—something came un-meshed. It has to build to desperation, but it has to be more subtle than that. Passion at the very edge of control.”

“Do you always write like that?” Cliff was studying her when she focused on him again, studying her as he had her land—thoroughly, with an eye both for detail and an overview.

She sat back on her haunches, comfortable now with a conversation on her own turf. He could hardly frustrate her in a discussion of music. She’d lived with it, in it, all her life. “Like what?” she countered.

“With the emphasis on mood and emotions rather than notes and timing.”

Her brows lifted. With one hand, she pushed back the hair that swept across her cheek. She wore an amethyst on her finger, wine-colored, square. It caught the light, holding it until she dropped her hand again. As she thought it over, it occurred to her that no one, not even her closest associates, had ever defined her style so cleanly. It pleased her, though she didn’t know why, that he had done so. “Yes,” she said simply.

He didn’t like what those big, soft eyes could do to him. Cliff rose. “That’s why your music is good.”

Maggie gave a quick laugh, not at the compliment, but at the grudging tone with which he delivered it. “So, you can say something nice, after all.”

“When it’s appropriate.” He watched her stand, noting that she moved with the sort of fluidity he’d always associated with tall, willowy women. “I admire your music.”

Again, it was the tone, rather than the words, that spoke to her. This time it touched off annoyance, rather than humor. “And little else that has to do with me.”

“I don’t know you,” Cliff countered.

“You didn’t like me when you drove up that hill the other day.” With her temper rising, Maggie put her hands on her hips and faced him squarely. “I get the impression you didn’t like me years before we met.”

That was direct, Cliff decided. Maggie Fitzgerald, glamour girl from the Coast, didn’t believe in evasions. Neither did he. “I have a problem with people who live their lives on silver platters. I’ve too much respect for reality.”

“Silver platters,” Maggie repeated in a voice that was much, much too quiet. “In other words, I was born into affluence, therefore, I can’t understand the real world.”

He didn’t know why he wanted to smile. Perhaps it was the way color flooded her face. Perhaps it was because she stood nearly a foot beneath him but gave every appearance of being ready to Indian-wrestle and win. Yet he didn’t smile. Cliff had the impression that if you gave an inch to this lady, you’d soon be begging to give a mile. “That about sums it up. The gravel for the lane’ll be delivered and spread by five.”

“Sums it up?” Accustomed to ending a conversation when she chose, Maggie grabbed his arm as he started to turn for the door. “You’re a narrow-minded snob, and you know nothing about my life.”

Cliff looked down at the delicate hand against his tanned muscled arm. The amethyst glowed up at him. “Miss Fitzgerald, everyone in the country knows about your life.”

“That is one of the most unintelligent statements I’ve ever heard.” She made one final attempt to control her temper, then forgot it. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Delaney—” The phone interrupted what would have been a stream of impassioned abuse. Maggie ended up swearing. “You stay there,” she ordered as she turned to the wall phone.

Cliff’s brows lifted at the command. Slowly, he leaned against the kitchen counter. He’d stay, he decided. Not because she’d told him to, but because he’d discovered he wanted to hear what she had to say.

Maggie yanked the receiver from the wall and barked into it. “Hello.”

“Well, it’s nice to hear that country life’s agreeing with you.”

“C.J.” She struggled to hold down her temper. She wanted neither questions nor I-told-you-sos. “Sorry, you caught me in the middle of a philosophical discussion.” Though she heard Cliff’s quick snort of laughter, she ignored it. “Something up, C.J.?”

“Well, I hadn’t heard from you in a couple of days—”

“I told you I’d call once a week. Will you stop worrying?”

“You know I can’t.”

She had to laugh. “No, I know you can’t. If it relieves your mind, I’m having the lane fixed even as we speak. The next time you visit, you won’t have to worry about your muffler falling off.”

“It doesn’t relieve my mind,” C.J. grumbled. “I have nightmares about that roof caving in on your head. The damn place is falling apart.”

“The place is not falling apart.” She turned, inadvertently kicking the screen and sending it clattering across the floor. At that moment, her eyes met Cliff’s. He was still leaning against the counter, still close enough to the back door to be gone in two strides. But now he was grinning. Maggie looked at the screen, then back at Cliff, and covered her mouth to smother a giggle.

“What was that noise?” C.J. demanded.

“Noise?” Maggie swallowed. “I didn’t hear any noise.” She covered the mouth of the receiver with her hand when Cliff laughed again. “Shh,” she whispered, smiling. “C.J.,” she said back into the phone, knowing she needed to distract him, “the score’s nearly finished.”

“When?” The response was immediate and predictable. She sent Cliff a knowing nod.

“For the most part, it’s polished. I’m a little hung up on the title song. If you let me get back to work, the tape’ll be in your office next week.”

“Why don’t you deliver it yourself? We’ll have lunch.”

“Forget it.”

He sighed. “Just thought I’d try. To show you my heart’s in the right place, I sent you a present.”

“A present? The Godiva?”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” he said evasively. “It’ll be there by tomorrow morning. I expect you to be so touched you’ll catch the next plane to L.A. to thank me in person.”

“C.J.—”

“Get back to work. And call me,” he added, clever enough to know when to retreat and when to advance. “I keep having visions of you falling off that mountain.”

He hung up, leaving her, as he often did, torn between amusement and annoyance. “My agent,” Maggie said as she replaced the receiver. “He likes to worry.”

“I see.”

Cliff remained where he was; so did she. That one silly shared moment seemed to have broken down a barrier between them. Now, in its place, was an awkwardness neither of them fully understood. He was suddenly aware of the allure of her scent, of the slender line of her throat. She was suddenly disturbed by his basic masculinity, by the memory of the firm, rough feel of his palm. Maggie cleared her throat.

“Mr. Delaney—”

“Cliff,” he corrected.

She smiled, telling herself to relax. “Cliff. We seem to’ve gotten off on the wrong foot for some reason. Maybe if we concentrate on something that interests us both—my land—we won’t keep rubbing each other the wrong way.”

He found it an interesting phrase, particularly since he was imagining what it would feel like to run his hands over her skin. “All right,” he agreed as he straightened from the counter. He crossed to her, wondering who he was testing, himself or her. When he stopped, she was trapped between him and the stove.

He didn’t touch her, but both of them could sense what it would be like. Hard hands, soft skin. Warmth turning quickly to heat. Mouth meeting mouth with confidence, with knowledge, with passion.

“I consider your land a challenge.” He said it quietly, his eyes on hers. She didn’t think of mists now but of smoke—of smoke and fire. “Which is why I’ve decided to give this project quite a bit of my personal attention.”

Her nerves were suddenly strung tight. Maggie didn’t back away, because she was almost certain that was what he wanted. Instead, she met his gaze. If her eyes weren’t calm, if they’d darkened with the first traces of desire, she couldn’t prevent it. “I can’t argue with that.”

“No.” He smiled a little. If he stayed, even moments longer, he knew he’d find out how her lips tasted. That might be the biggest mistake he’d ever make. Turning, he went to the back door. “Call Bog.” He tossed this over his shoulder as he pushed the screen door open. “Your fingers belong on piano keys, not on putty knives.”

Maggie let out a long, tense breath when the screen door slammed. Did he do that on purpose, she wondered as she pressed a hand to her speeding heart. Or was it a natural talent of his to turn women into limp rags? Shaking her head, she told herself to forget it. If there was one thing she had experience in, it was in avoiding and evading the professional lothario. She was definitely uninterested in going a few rounds with Morganville’s leading contender.

With a scowl, she dropped back to her knees and picked up the putty knife. She began to hack at the tile with a vengeance. Maggie Fitzgerald could take care of herself.

Chapter 3

For the third morning in a row, Maggie was awakened by the sound of men and machinery outside her windows. It occurred to her that she’d hardly had the chance to become used to the quiet when the chaos had started.

The bulldozer had been replaced by chain saws, industrial weed eaters and trucks. While she was far from getting used to the early risings, she was resigned. By seven-fifteen she had dragged herself out of the shower and was staring at her face in the bathroom mirror.

Not so good, she decided, studying her own sleepy eyes. But then she’d been up until two working on the score. Displeased, she ran a hand over her face. She’d never considered pampering her skin a luxury or a waste of time. It was simply something she did routinely, the same way she’d swim twenty laps every morning in California.

She’d been neglecting the basics lately, Maggie decided, squinting at her reflection. Had it been over two months since she’d been in a salon? Ruefully, she tugged at the bangs that swept over her forehead. It was showing, and it was time to do something about it.

After wrapping her still-damp hair in a towel, she pulled open the mirrored medicine-cabinet door. The nearest Elizabeth Arden’s was seventy miles away. There were times, Maggie told herself as she smeared on a clay mask, that you had to fend for yourself.

She was just rinsing her hands when the sound of quick, high-pitched barking reached her. C.J.’s present, Maggie thought wryly, wanted his breakfast. In her short terry-cloth robe, which was raveled at the hem, her hair wrapped in a checked towel and the clay mask hardening on her face, she started downstairs to tend to the demanding gift her agent had flown out to her. She had just reached the bottom landing when a knock on the door sent the homely bulldog puppy into a frenzy.

“Calm down,” she ordered, scooping him up under one arm. “All this excitement and I haven’t had my coffee yet. Give me a break.” The pup lowered his head and growled when she pulled on the front door. Definitely city-oriented, she thought, trying to calm the pup. She wondered if C.J. had planned it that way. The door resisted, sticking. Swearing, Maggie set down the dog and yanked with both hands.

The door swung open, carrying her a few steps back with the momentum. The pup dashed through the closest doorway, poking his head around the frame and snarling as if he meant business. Cliff stared at Maggie as she stood, panting, in the hall. She blew out a breath, wondering what could happen next. “I thought country life was supposed to be peaceful.”

Cliff grinned, tucking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. “Not necessarily. Get you up?”

“I’ve been up for quite some time,” she said loftily.

“Mmm-hmm.” His gaze skimmed over her legs, nicely exposed by the brief robe, before it lingered on the puppy crouched in the doorway. Her legs were longer, he mused, than one would think, considering the overall size of her. “Friend of yours?”

Maggie looked at the bulldog, which was making fierce sounds in his throat while keeping a careful distance. “A present from my agent.”

“What’s his name?”

Maggie sent the cowering puppy a wry look. “Killer.”

Cliff watched the pup disappear behind the wall again. “Very apt. You figure to train him as a guard dog?”

“I’m going to teach him to attack music critics.” She lifted a hand to push it through her hair—an old habit—and discovered the towel. Just as abruptly, she remembered the rest of her appearance. One hand flew to her face and found the thin layer of hardened clay. “Oh, my God,” Maggie murmured as Cliff’s grin widened. “Oh, damn.” Turning, she raced for the stairs. “Just a minute.” He was treated to an intriguing glimpse of bare thighs as she dashed upstairs.

Ten minutes later, she walked back down, perfectly composed. Her hair was swept back at the side with mother-of-pearl combs; her face was lightly touched with makeup. She’d pulled on the first thing she’d come to in her still-unpacked trunk. The tight black jeans proved an interesting contrast to the bulky white sweatshirt. Cliff sat on the bottom landing, sending the cowardly puppy into ecstasy by rubbing his belly. Maggie frowned down at the crown of Cliff’s head.

“You weren’t going to say a word, were you?”

He continued to rub the puppy, not bothering to look up. “About what?”

Maggie narrowed her eyes and folded her arms under her breasts. “Nothing. Was there something you wanted to discuss this morning?”

He wasn’t precisely sure why that frosty, regal tone appealed to him. Perhaps he just liked knowing he had the ability to make her use it. “Still want that pond?”

“Yes, I still want the pond,” she snapped, then gritted her teeth to prevent herself from doing so again. “I don’t make a habit of changing my mind.”

“Fine. We’ll be clearing out the gully this afternoon.” Rising, he faced her while the puppy sat expectantly at his feet. “You didn’t call Bog about the kitchen floor.”

Confusion came and went in her eyes. “How do you—”

“It’s easy to find things out in Morganville.”

“Well, it’s none of your—”

“Hard to keep your business to yourself in small towns,” Cliff interrupted again. It amused him to hear her breath huff out in frustration. “Fact is, you’re about the top news item in town these days. Everybody wonders what the lady from California’s doing up on this mountain. The more you keep to yourself,” he added, “the more they wonder.”

“Is that so?” Maggie tilted her head and stepped closer. “And you?” she countered. “Do you wonder?”

Cliff knew a challenge when he heard one, and knew he’d answer it in his own time. Impulsively, he cupped her chin in his hand and ran his thumb over her jawline. She didn’t flinch or draw back, but became very still. “Nice skin,” he murmured, sweeping his gaze along the path his thumb took. “Very nice. You take good care of it, Maggie. I’ll take care of your land.”

With this, he left her precisely as she was—arms folded, head tilted back, eyes astonished.

By ten, Maggie decided it wasn’t going to be the quiet, solitary sort of day she’d moved to the country for. The men outside shouted above the machinery to make themselves heard. Trucks came and went down her newly graveled lane. She could comfort herself that in a few weeks that part of the disruption would be over.

She took three calls from the Coast from friends who wondered how and what she was doing. By the third call, she was a bit testy from explaining she was scraping linoleum, papering walls, painting woodwork and enjoying it. She left the phone off the hook and went back to her putty knife and kitchen floor.

More than half of the wood was exposed now. The progress excited her enough that she decided to stick with this one job until it was completed. The floor would be beautiful, and, she added, thinking of Cliff’s comments, she’d have done it herself.

Maggie had barely scraped off two more inches when there was a knock behind her. She turned her head, ready to flare if it was Cliff Delaney returned to taunt her. Instead, she saw a tall, slender woman of her own age with soft brown hair and pale blue eyes. As Maggie studied Joyce Morgan Agee, she wondered why she hadn’t seen the resemblance to Louella before.

“Mrs. Agee.” Maggie rose, brushing at the knees of her jeans. “Please, come in. I’m sorry.” Her sneakers squeaked as she stepped on a thin layer of old glue. “The floor’s a bit sticky.”

“I don’t mean to disturb your work.” Joyce stood uncertainly in the doorway, eyeing the floor. “I would’ve called, but I was on my way home from Mother’s.”

Joyce’s pumps were trim and stylish. Maggie felt the glue pull at the bottom of her old sneakers. “We can talk outside, if you don’t mind.” Taking the initiative, Maggie walked out into the sunshine. “Things are a little confused around here right now.”

“Yes.” They heard one of the workers call to a companion, punctuating his suggestion with good-natured swearing. Joyce glanced over in their direction before she turned back to Maggie. “You’re not wasting any time, I see.”

“No.” Maggie laughed and eyed the crumbling dirt wall beside them. “I’ve never been very patient. For some reason, I’m more anxious to have the outside the way I want it than the inside.”

“You couldn’t have picked a better company,” Joyce murmured, glancing over at one of the trucks with Delaney’s on the side.

Maggie followed her gaze but kept her tone neutral. “So I’m told.”

“I want you to know I’m really glad you’re doing so much to the place.” Joyce began to fiddle with the strap of her shoulder bag. “I can hardly remember living here. I was a child when we moved, but I hate waste.” With a little smile, she looked around again and shook her head. “I don’t think I could live out here. I like being in town, with neighbors close by and other children for my children to play with. Of course, Stan, my husband, likes being available all the time.”

It took Maggie a moment; then she remembered. “Oh, your husband’s the sheriff, isn’t he?”

“That’s right. Morganville’s a quiet town, nothing like Los Angeles, but it keeps him busy.” She smiled, but Maggie wondered why she sensed strain. “We’re just not city people.”

“No.” Maggie smiled, too. “I guess I’ve discovered I’m not, either.”

“I don’t understand how you could give up—” Joyce seemed to catch herself. “I guess what I meant was, this must be such a change for you after living in a place like Beverly Hills.”

“A change,” Maggie agreed. Was she sensing undercurrents here, too, as she had with Louella’s dreaminess? “It was one I wanted.”

“Yes, well, you know I’m glad you bought the place, and so quickly. Stan was a little upset with my putting it on the market when he was out of town, but I couldn’t see it just sitting here. Who knows, if you hadn’t come along so fast, he might’ve talked me out of selling it.”

“Then we can both be grateful I saw the sign when I did.” Mentally, Maggie was trying to figure out the logistics of the situation. It seemed the house had belonged exclusively to Joyce, without her husband or her mother having any claim. Fleetingly, she wondered why Joyce hadn’t rented or sold the property before.

“The real reason I came by, Miss Fitzgerald, is my mother. She told me she was here a few days ago.”

“Yes, she’s a lovely woman.”

“Yes.” Joyce looked back toward the men working, then took a deep breath. Maggie no longer had to wonder if she was sensing undercurrents. She was sure of it. “It’s more than possible she’ll drop in on you again. I’d like to ask you a favor, that is, if she begins to bother you, if you’d tell me instead of her.”

“Why should she bother me?”

Joyce let out a sound that was somewhere between fatigue and frustration. “Mother often dwells on the past. She’s never completely gotten over my father’s death. She makes some people uncomfortable.”

Maggie remembered the discomfort she’d felt on and off during Louella’s brief visit. Still, she shook her head. “Your mother’s welcome to visit me from time to time, Mrs. Agee.”

“Thank you, but you will promise to tell me if—well, if you’d like her to stay away. You see, she’d often come here, even when the place was deserted. I don’t want her to get in your way. She doesn’t know who you are. That is—” Obviously embarrassed, Joyce broke off. “I mean, Mother doesn’t understand that someone like you would be busy.”

Maggie remembered the lost eyes, the unhappy mouth. Pity stirred again. “All right, if she bothers me, I’ll tell you.”

The relief in Joyce’s face was quick and very plain. “I appreciate it, Miss Fitzgerald.”

“Maggie.”

“Yes, well …” As if only more uncertain of her ground, Joyce managed a smile. “I understand that someone like you wouldn’t want to have people dropping by and getting in the way.”

Maggie laughed, thinking how many times the phone calls from California had interrupted her that morning. “I’m not a recluse,” she told Joyce, though she was no longer completely sure. “And I’m not really very temperamental. Some people even consider me normal.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t. Come back when I’ve done something with that floor, and we’ll have some coffee.”

“I’d like to, really. Oh, I nearly forgot.” She reached into the big canvas bag on her shoulder and pulled out a manila envelope. “Mother said you wanted to see these. Some pictures of the property.”

“Yes.” Pleased, Maggie took the envelope. She hadn’t thought Louella would remember or bother to put them together for her. “I hoped they might give me some ideas.”

“Mother said you could keep them as long as you liked.” Joyce hesitated, fiddling again with the strap of her bag. “I have to get back. My youngest gets home from kindergarten at noon, and Stan sometimes comes home for lunch. I haven’t done a thing to the house. I hope I see you sometime in town.”

“I’m sure you will.” Maggie tucked the envelope under her arm. “Give my best to your mother.”

Maggie started back into the house, but as she put her hand on the doorknob, she noticed Cliff crossing to Joyce. Curiosity had her stopping to watch as Cliff took both the brunette’s hands in his own. Though she couldn’t hear the conversation over the din of motors, it was obvious that they knew each other well. There was a gentleness on Cliff’s face Maggie hadn’t seen before, and something she interpreted as concern. He bent down close, as if Joyce were speaking very softly, then touched her hair. The touch of a brother? Maggie wondered. Or a lover?

As she watched, Joyce shook her head, apparently fumbling with the door handle before she got into the car. Cliff leaned into the window for a moment. Were they arguing? Maggie wondered. Was the tension she sensed real or imaginary? Fascinated with the silent scene being played out in her driveway, Maggie watched as Cliff withdrew from the window and Joyce backed out to drive away. Before she could retreat inside, Cliff turned, and their gazes locked.

There were a hundred feet separating them, and the air was full of the sounds of men and machines. The sun was strong enough to make her almost too warm in the sweatshirt, yet she felt one quick, unexpected chill race up her spine. Perhaps it was hostility she felt. Maggie tried to tell herself it was hostility and not the first dangerous flutters of passion.

There was a temptation to cross those hundred feet and test both of them. Even the thought of it stirred her blood. He didn’t move. He didn’t take his eyes from her. With fingers gone suddenly numb, Maggie twisted the handle and went inside.

Two hours later, Maggie went out again. She’d never been one to retreat from a challenge, from her emotions or from trouble. Cliff Delaney seemed connected with all three. While she’d scraped linoleum, Maggie had lectured herself on letting Cliff intimidate her for no reason other than his being powerfully male and sexy.

And different, she’d admitted. Different from most of the men she’d encountered in her profession. He didn’t fawn—far from it. He didn’t pour on the charm. He wasn’t impressed with his own physique, looks or sophistication. It must have been that difference that had made her not quite certain how to handle him.

A very direct, very frank business approach, she decided as she circled around the back of the house. Maggie paused to look at the bank fronting her house.

The vines, briars and thick sumac were gone. Piles of rich, dark topsoil were being spread over what had been a tangled jungle of neglect. The tree that had leaned toward her house was gone, stump and all. Two men, backs glistening with sweat, were setting stone in a low-spreading wall where the edge of the slope met the edge of the lawn.

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