The Cliff House Read online

“Lucky for them, anyway,” he answered. “I’m not so sure about the rest of us.”

  Fortunately, her ex-brother-in-law wandered in before she could deck his guest.

  Cruz wore his stardom well, dressed in loose linen slacks and a T-shirt from his latest tour.

  “Daisy, my darling sister-in-law. Bring it in.”

  She sighed and hugged him. “Ex-sister-in-law.”

  “For now,” he said with an enigmatic look. “Divorce or not, you’ll always be my baby girl’s aunt, which means we’re connected forever.”

  “Not to mention the fact that I handle a significant portion of your assets.”

  He laughed and turned to the other man in the room. “I see you’ve met Gabriel.”

  How inappropriately named. He wasn’t at all angelic. “He was just leaving, I believe. And taking his booze with him.”

  “Just water, babe,” Cruz said. “The man is boring enough to be a preacher. His body is a temple, apparently.”

  She hated having to agree with Cruz on that point.

  “It’s worked out well for me so far,” the unworthily named Gabriel said with a smile. As he rose, his smile turned into a wince that had Cruz taking a step forward.

  “You okay, man?”

  Daisy raised an eyebrow at the genuine concern in Cruz’s voice.

  “Fine. Just a little stiff. I’m going to take a walk.”

  Now her ex-brother-in-law looked anxious. “Be careful. You know you’re not supposed to go far.”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll just walk around the pool and back. You know you don’t have to babysit me every moment, right?”

  “I promised the doctors I would make sure you take it easy,” Cruz said, confirming Daisy’s growing suspicions. “That’s the only way they let you out of the hospital.”

  “In case it’s escaped your attention, I’m not hooked up to monitors anymore. Nobody has to know that I dared walk a hundred yards.”

  “I know. Now Daisy does, too. You’re a miserable patient, Ellison.”

  Gabriel Ellison. She knew that name. She frowned, trying and failing to place exactly how. He wasn’t a celebrity, she was sure of it.

  She was also sure that she owed this man an apology for her attitude toward him. Gabriel was the person she had seen in the grainy, out-of-focus picture in that tabloid, the one who had been slumped against a wall holding his hands to a knife wound.

  This was the man who had saved Cruz’s life. And she had been treating him with contempt and disdain, as if he was some druggie parasite.

  Shame twisted through her. When would she ever learn not to jump to conclusions?

  “I’m a miserable patient and you’re a mother hen. You’re not responsible for me.”

  “I beg to differ. You lost half of your liver saving my sorry ass, which means I’m responsible for making sure you listen to the doctors.”

  Gabriel Ellison made a face. “Exaggerate much? It was a small section of my liver. Barely even a few centimeters. I’ll be perfectly fine once it heals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a walk and find another comfortable and quiet spot to read my book.”

  He picked up the glass and the book she hadn’t noticed before and moved past her. She had to say something, before things became even more awkward between them.

  Daisy cleared her throat. “I...I feel like I owe you an apology, Mr. Ellison.”

  Why was that name so familiar?

  “For what? Having a difference of opinion? I enjoyed the conversation. It was a pleasure meeting you, Daisy.”

  He moved past her a little unsteadily. She frowned after him.

  “Will he be okay on his own?”

  “Give me a minute and I’ll make sure my security people keep an eye on him.”

  He called a number, spoke a few murmured words, then hung up. “Now. Tell me again how much money you’ve made for me while I’ve been gone.”

  With a sigh, she turned her attention from the mystery of Gabriel Ellison to business, something she knew and understood.

  5

  GABE

  Somehow, by the grace of a God he assumed had forsaken him a long time ago, Gabe managed to walk out of the cozy, warm little sitting room he had found the day before without making a complete ass of himself.

  It was a close thing. He felt as weak as a damn day-old Bengal tiger cub. He wasn’t sure if it was from his lacerated liver, from the infection he was still fighting off or from the painkiller he had finally taken in desperation somewhere close to dawn after a mostly sleepless night.

  Whoever would have guessed he would come to this point?

  As an adventure documentary filmmaker, he might have expected to meet his fate on some bitterly cold mountain somewhere, in the midst of giant ocean swells, or while trudging across a vast, sun-parched desert.

  He never would have guessed the injury that would take him lower than he’d ever been and make him wonder if he would actually survive would happen in the tunnel of a football stadium prior to a concert for a pop star whose music he didn’t even particularly enjoy.

  It had all been a fluke, mere chance. He wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place but had been in Dallas meeting with some producers when he met Cruz Romero at a party. Cruz was apparently a fan of his work and had been a fan of Gabe’s father, which shouldn’t have surprised him but somehow did.

  Cruz had expressed interest in investing in Gabe’s next project, showing the extensive efforts under way to protect tiny indigenous tribes along the Amazon, and had invited him backstage for his show later that night to discuss it.

  He should have turned him down. But he hadn’t had plans that night and as a lifelong learner had been interested in what went on behind the scenes at a major concert venue, so he’d agreed.

  He shouldn’t have been there. Yet he was. He had been standing next to Cruz just after he came off stage when a huge linebacker of a man lunged at the performer with a wild look in his eyes and a massive, wicked-looking hunting knife in his hand.

  Gabe could have slipped away. It wasn’t his fight, after all, and the crazy dude wasn’t after him but the man he apparently blamed for the breakup of his marriage—Cruz.

  He hadn’t. Instead, his instincts kicked in, the instincts he had honed from a lifetime of living in dangerous situations.

  He had deflected the guy’s aim slightly, though not completely, but what would have been a gouge straight to Cruz’s heart had glanced off his arm instead.

  Unfortunately, this had only enraged the guy more and he turned his attention to Gabe, thrusting the knife into his gut hard before bodyguards had finally come to the rescue and taken him down.

  Turned out, the man’s wife had been a groupie who had actually slept with Cruz two years earlier after a previous concert in Dallas. She had been so certain he wrote one of his love songs for her that she’d left her husband and two kids to follow the pop star around the country.

  He couldn’t really blame the guy for wanting a little revenge. He just would have preferred he boycotted the concert, maybe walked outside holding a placard or something, instead of trying to even the score with a ten-inch hunting knife.

  In the days since the attack, Gabe had learned some interesting facts about knife wounds.

  He had learned livers were one of the most common organs injured by knife and gunshot wounds, largely because of their size and vulnerable position in the abdomen.

  He had learned that a damaged liver could heal on its own, one of the rare organs that could regenerate new cells instead of scar tissue.

  He’d also learned that any abdominal injury was prone to infection—and that recovering from one was a hell of a lot harder than he expected.

  He hadn’t died from blood loss, as he now knew the ER doctors had fully expected would happen. He had made it through th
e first twenty-four hours and then the week after and was well on the road to recovery now.

  He hadn’t wanted to come here to Cruz’s estate to recover, but with his only fixed address a third-floor walk-up in Manhattan Beach that he used as a home base, he hadn’t had many choices.

  Gabe still wasn’t sure he liked the guy’s music but had to admit Romero had stepped up to show his gratitude, insisting on staying with Gabe through those early days in the hospital and then arranging for him to fly here upon release.

  Cruz hadn’t listened to a single argument.

  There were far worse places to rest and recuperate.

  Gabe sank into a bench overlooking the ocean, enjoying the waves crashing against the rugged cliffs below.

  He would rest here for a minute, he told himself. Just long enough to avoid the prickly Daisy, whose last name he still didn’t know.

  She was lovely. He couldn’t deny that. At first glance she seemed almost forgettable but then a man looked closer and saw those stunning hazel eyes, full mouth, lush curves.

  He hadn’t been able to look away when he’d seen her in the grocery store the other day. He was rather embarrassed to remember that he might have stared. She had seemed familiar to him and now he knew why. In the hallway outside his room was a picture of Cruz and a little girl he assumed was his daughter. Also in the picture was a woman who looked a lot like the little girl, which he now figured was Cruz’s ex-wife, an older woman with short hair and glasses and the voluptuous Daisy.

  Those hazel eyes had gazed out of the picture, hypnotizing him.

  He would love to photograph those eyes. Maybe he would pose her on that Marguerite table she loved so much, wearing nothing but scarves, with only her vibrant eyes visible above the filmy material...

  The image came out of nowhere, unsettling him...and arousing him, he realized, as his body stirred to life.

  That was a relief. The business downstairs had been listless and uncooperative since the stabbing.

  Good to know things appeared to be in working order, though apparently nearly dying had the odd and unexpected side effect of making him develop a sudden fierce attraction for prickly businesswomen with sharp tongues and questionable taste in art.

  6

  STELLA

  “It is one hundred percent official. You are pregnant, my dear.”

  Stella gazed at her friend and longtime OB-GYN, still reeling from the shock of it. “You’re sure?”

  “The numbers don’t lie, honey. Congratulations.”

  She smiled at Jo, who had held her hand through the entire process of fertility treatments. “I feel like you did half of the work. Shouldn’t you be passing out cigars right about now?”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work that way. You get to do all the work from here on out, until the last bit.”

  She wasn’t going to stress about that part until she had to. “I don’t know how to thank you. Seriously. You’ve been amazing.”

  “Everything looks good so far. I would say, considering the date of your last insemination, that puts you at approximately six weeks along—assuming you haven’t been finding a little action on the side, anyway.”

  “No action here, except you and your turkey baster, which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you. It’s all you, Jo.”

  “Well, I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you. It’s amazing.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We have a few weeks to go.”

  Six weeks down, approximately thirty-four to go. She couldn’t quite believe this was happening. She would be holding her own baby in just a little over eight months.

  “Do you have any questions or concerns for me?”

  “That depends. How much time do you have?”

  Jo laughed. “I can give you another fifteen minutes. If you have more than that, we’ll have to meet for lunch next week.”

  “Fifteen minutes will at least get us started.”

  The truth was, Stella had been dreaming of this day for so long, visualizing what it would be like to be right here, finding out positive news from her doctor, that she had already researched everything she might have wanted to know. She had just about memorized the stages of fetal development, what symptoms she might be experiencing at each stage of the pregnancy and any concerns she should be watching for.

  All that and much, much more was available with the click of a keyboard. Seriously, how had women survived all the questions of pregnancy before the internet?

  She knew the answer. They had a village. Mothers, sisters, grandmothers, friends. She had that, too, and was deeply grateful.

  They talked about a few of her symptoms—the breast tenderness, the sleepiness, the hints of nausea she’d been feeling throughout the day.

  “That might get worse before it gets better,” Jo warned. “Make sure you let me know if it becomes more than you can handle.”

  She knew as a woman past forty—barely!—she would face additional challenges and was completely confident in Jo, grateful she would have a friend and solid partner in this whole baby business.

  “If that’s it for now,” her doctor said, “I’d like to see you again in my office in two weeks. Be warned, I’m going to be following you more frequently than most first-time moms. Because of your age, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy, which means we’ll become even better friends before we’re done here.”

  “Sounds great to me.”

  “Go ahead and get dressed and the nurse will be in with the bundle of information we give to all first-time expectant mothers.”

  She was an expectant mother. It still didn’t seem real.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m so thrilled for you, Stella. You’re going to be an amazing mother.”

  She wasn’t at all convinced of that. She was fairly certain self-doubt would be more of an issue throughout the pregnancy than anything else. She was in it now, though. Like every other mother, she imagined, she would have to figure things out as she went along.

  The nurse, Katie Frye, had been Stella’s student years ago. She knocked just as Stella finished dressing. “Come in,” she called.

  Katie marched through the door carrying a large cotton tote with flowers on it. “Here you go. This is the swag bag we give to all new prenatal patients. There are samples, coupons, leaflets and a nice pregnancy journal, as well as a book we give expectant moms. You might find it answers your most common questions. Read through it when you can. And congrats, Mama.”

  Her stomach, which hadn’t felt the most stable all day, seemed to twist at the words.

  “Remember, you can call us any day or night,” Katie went on. “Now, make sure you stop at the reception desk to set up your next appointment.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  When she walked out to the luxuriously appointed reception area, she saw a couple of women she knew, including one who was a notorious gossip. She waved, grateful the swag bag was somewhat discreet and didn’t scream Baby Mama on it. She wasn’t ready for the whole world to know yet. She didn’t even know when she wanted to tell Daisy and Bea.

  After making the appointment with the receptionist—another of her old students—she was entering the info into her phone’s calendar when the door behind her opened. She couldn’t see who it was, but she felt a collective burst of energy ripple through the room as if every woman had suddenly put her hormones on notice.

  With a growing sense of dread, she turned around and, as she feared, discovered Dr. Ed Clayton walking through the front door, accompanied by a gamine young girl with brown hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.

  His face lit up when he spotted her. “Stella! Hi. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  Of all the OB-GYN offices in all the cities along the coast, he had to walk into hers.

&
nbsp; “I told you Jo was my doctor.” She held up the bag of swag. “First appointment.”

  How was it possible that Ed Clayton was the only other person besides Jo and Katie who knew about her pregnancy? That was just as unreal as the pregnancy itself.

  “I hope all went well.”

  “So far so good,” she answered.

  “Glad to hear it. Actually, I’m happy we bumped into you. I wanted you to meet my daughter. Rowan, this is Stella Davenport. She’s an old friend and also teaches at the middle school.”

  “Hi.” The girl looked at her curiously, but without any hint that she knew her father and Stella once had a relationship.

  “Hi, Rowan. It’s so nice to meet you. Are you in sixth grade or seventh?”

  “Starting sixth.” A hint of worry showed in the girl’s eyes that were remarkably like her father’s. “We just drove past the school and it’s huge.”

  “Her previous school was a small, private elementary not far from our house,” Ed explained.

  “This is my first time in public school. I really hope I don’t get lost.”

  “It’s not bad once you walk around a little. If you’d like, I can meet you there ahead of time and show you around. When you get your schedule, I can give you the tour and come up with a map to your classes.”

  “That would be great. Thank you.”

  Stella felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. She remembered that terrifying feeling of showing up to a new place when you didn’t have friends, didn’t know the routine, had no idea of the customs or cliques.

  How many times had she endured that through her childhood?

  Her past experience meant she had a special place in her heart for new students. She figured school was hard enough at this age without throwing in a complete change.

  “It can be daunting to start at a new school but I think you’ll find plenty of friends. I actually have a great-niece going into sixth grade and all her friends are very nice girls.”

  “That’s good.”

  She could almost guess what the girl was thinking. How lucky for your great-niece. How is that going to help me?