The Cliff House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Good idea. I would offer to come with you, but unfortunately, I’m not cleared to drive yet.”

  She heard the frustration in his voice and could only imagine how difficult that must be to a man who had spent most of his life traveling the world.

  “I can take care of it.”

  She would have to take the dog to the office with her during the day. That wouldn’t be a problem. Her assistant would love the chance to help her care for him.

  Gabe crouched down so he could scoop up the dog. She didn’t miss his wince when he stood up. Again, she had the urge to take care of him and quashed it. He was a grown man. He didn’t need her help.

  He petted the Frenchie’s big ears. “I will have to insist on visitation privileges. I saved his life, which means we’re bonded now.”

  “Does the same hold true for Cruz?”

  He laughed roughly, a low, sexy sound that sent a shiver rippling down her spine. “Not if I can help it.”

  She did her best to ignore her reaction. “I’ll have to run to the grocery store to pick up something for him to eat. I can drop you off at Cruz’s place while I’m out.”

  “I’ll pay for any supplies.”

  She opened her mouth to argue but closed it again at his firm look.

  “My rescue. My responsibility. I can’t physically take care of him unless I go check into a hotel somewhere, but I insist on paying for his supplies.”

  “We can split the cost.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a stubborn woman, Daisy McClure.”

  “I’m not the one who climbed down a cliff to rescue a strange dog when I am still recovering from a knife to the liver.”

  “Good point.” He smiled at her and Daisy felt everything inside her sigh. The man was entirely too gorgeous for her peace of mind but somehow she would have to find a way to resist him.

  10

  GABE

  “You really didn’t have to come along. I would have been happy to drop you off at Cruz’s place and simply bill you for your half of the dog’s supplies,” Daisy said yet again as they drove along the cliffs and down toward town.

  He hurt like a mother trucker but there was something infinitely soothing about sitting in the passenger seat of Daisy McClure’s comfortable old BMW with a dog in his lap as she drove with the same brisk competence he had a feeling she brought to everything else.

  He couldn’t find any rational reason for it, especially considering she had mostly been prickly and difficult, but he felt a kind of peace in Daisy’s presence. There was something calming about her, maybe because he knew instinctively she was someone he could trust in his corner. He only knew he liked being with her and wasn’t in a hurry to return to his guest room at Casa Del Mar.

  He would rather hurt with her than be more comfortable at home.

  “So, Daisy. Tell me about yourself.”

  She shifted her gaze from the road only for an instant, then turned back to focus on driving. “Not much to tell. I’m an accountant and financial planner. I guess you already know that, considering I had an appointment the other day with Cruz to talk about his investments.”

  “How long have you lived in Cape Sanctuary?”

  She looked for a moment as if she didn’t want to answer him but she finally spoke. “My sister, Beatriz, Cruz’s ex-wife, and I moved here with our aunt Stella when I was eleven and Bea was nine. I’ve been here ever since.”

  There had to be more to that particular story. “What happened to your parents?”

  She glared at him. “I agreed to watch your dog, not tell you my life story.”

  “You have to admit, it was the logical next question.”

  It was his job as a documentary filmmaker to dig into people’s lives. To probe and observe until he reached the heart of them.

  People and their stories fascinated him. It was one of the reasons he had agreed to come to Casa Del Mar to recover. Cruz interested him. Not the man himself, necessarily, but the almost cultlike obsession of his fans.

  Now he found his interests shifting to Daisy McClure, who seemed to have layers of secrets.

  “Our mother was a bit of a free spirit, I guess you could say,” she finally answered, just when he thought she would ignore his question. “She was an artist, like Bea, and traveled around the country to art shows and different art colonies.”

  “And your dad?”

  Her mouth tightened, giving him the impression this was an old wound that ached when pressed. “I never knew him, and Jewel, my mother, didn’t talk about him. He was someone she knew once. That’s all she would say. Bea and I have different fathers. She knew hers, but he wasn’t really in her life. It’s a long story but most of our childhood, he was married to a woman who didn’t want the burden of a wild stepdaughter. He chose his wife over his child and didn’t have much to do with Bea. The random trip to the beach or to Disneyland. That was about it.”

  Gabe could certainly relate to that. His own mother had done the same, chosen to leave him and his father for a man who could provide her with the comforts she thought she deserved. Most of the time he didn’t think about her. As far as Gabe was concerned, she had lost the right to be called his mother when she handed a five-year-old boy over to his wild, irresponsible father.

  “That must have been tough on her.”

  Which was harder? Never knowing your father, like Daisy, or having one who wouldn’t fight for you? He wasn’t sure he could answer that.

  “Jewel died when we were girls and eventually Stella was able to get custody and bring us all here.”

  He knew there had to be more than that to the story but she didn’t seem inclined to discuss her childhood. He couldn’t really blame her, as he didn’t like thinking about his own.

  “After you stopped by Casa Del Mar the other day, Cruz told me you were married and your husband died a couple of years ago. I’m sorry.”

  For just an instant, he saw raw pain flash across her features before she once again composed herself.

  “Thank you. Pear Tree Cottage was his.”

  The dog shifted in his lap and Gabe tried not to wince. “It’s a lovely home,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “So how did you come to be representing the infamous Marguerite?”

  He didn’t miss the way her hands gripped the steering wheel. Even in the darkened interior of the vehicle, he could see the muscles of her face tighten.

  “I told you, I can’t talk about it.”

  He didn’t completely believe her protestations that she wasn’t the artist but it was still tough to fathom that the stiff, prickly woman he had met could have created nuanced, whimsical work in secret.

  “Enough about me,” she said abruptly. “What about you? What would possibly lead an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker to step in front of a crazed fan to protect my niece’s father?”

  How had she known he had been nominated for a couple of Academy Awards? It wasn’t like he wore a sign proclaiming it to the world, though sometimes he wanted to.

  Had she googled him? If so, what else had she read?

  “Would you believe me if I told you it was all a weird, cosmic, random accident?”

  “So much of life is,” she murmured.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be at the show that night but I was in Dallas on business and met Cruz at a party. Apparently, he was a fan of the work I did with my father as well as some of my more recent films and invited me to his show.”

  “Cruz loves movies of all kinds. That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I should have said no but I didn’t have anything else going on that night and was at loose ends so figured why not. Now, of course, I’m wishing I had given a different answer.”

  “I’m sorry you were hurt but very glad you saved Cruz’s life,” she said. “Mari would have been shattered
if he’d died.”

  Suddenly, for the first time, he was glad, too.

  They arrived at the grocery store before he could answer.

  “You’re looking pale,” Daisy said when she pulled into a parking space. “Why don’t you wait in the car with our new friend here? I’ll run in and out in just a few minutes.”

  He didn’t want to sit here like some old man but he was feeling embarrassingly weak and didn’t want to fall over in front of her.

  “Yes. Okay.”

  He shifted the dog in his lap. “You know we’re going to have to come up with something else to call him until we can find his owners.”

  “You work on that while I’m in the store.”

  After she exited the car, he decided instead to look up everything he could find on the elusive Marguerite.

  He found a wealth of information about the highly valued artist, including the shocking information that a similar side table to the one he’d left his drink on the other day was going for more money than a luxury sports car.

  He did an image search and found many of her works exhibited in private homes and even in a few museums. As he scanned through the work as a whole, he began to better appreciate the appeal. They were dense, intricate pieces with a rich, evocative beauty.

  He also couldn’t believe they could be painted by Daisy. She seemed much too...prosaic to have created the artwork.

  What about her sister, Bea? Cruz had told him she was an artist. What if she had another secret identity as the mysterious Marguerite? Or this aunt Stella that Daisy had talked about. She could be the one.

  He was so busy looking at the images online that he didn’t realize she had returned until the dog on his lap lifted his head at the same moment the rear door opened and she deposited a bag of dog food and another bag that looked like it held dog accessories.

  He fumbled with his phone, embarrassed that she’d caught him digging deeper into the mystery.

  “Looking at porn?” she asked when she slid behind the wheel, surprising a laugh out of him.

  “I’m not quite desperate enough to wank off in a supermarket parking lot, thanks.”

  On a hunch, he decided to tell her the truth. “I was doing a web search on the famous Marguerite.”

  She visibly tensed, then seemed to force herself to relax. “You won’t let it go, will you?”

  “It’s you, isn’t it? You don’t have to lie to me, Daisy. Why keep it such a big secret? Is the anonymity simply to increase the mystique about your work?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “Please drop this subject right now.”

  He should respect her wishes. She obviously didn’t want to discuss it. But somehow, he couldn’t let it go. “Tell me,” he said softly.

  She glared at him. “Let it go,” she repeated. “Why would I tell you anything? I don’t even know you.”

  “That rhetorical question seems to suggest you have something you’d like to tell me.”

  She shook her head with an exasperated look. “You’re crazy. The reason I don’t want to tell you anything is simply because there is nothing to tell. Now drop it, unless you want to find your own ride back to Casa Del Mar.”

  She had a stubborn set to her jaw that convinced him she wasn’t going to bend. “Fine. Keep your secrets. You know I won’t stop digging, right?”

  Unease flashed across her gaze, making him a little sorry for his words but more convinced than ever that she wasn’t being truthful with him.

  In response, she chose to start the car and change the subject. “You were supposed to come up with a name for the dog. Did you have any luck?”

  He had been too busy looking at painted furniture. “No. Nothing. What about you?”

  She looked at the dog in his lap, then back at the road. “Well, he’s a French bulldog. What about Pierre or Gaston or Jean Michel?”

  “He doesn’t look like any of those. How about Archie? Or Otis?”

  He went through a few more names as she drove through the night back to Casa Del Mar.

  “What about Louie?” Gabe suggested after about a hundred other ideas. “That’s French, sort of. King Louis the Fourteenth was kind of a big deal over there.”

  The dog’s ears perked up and he gave a low bark as if in agreement.

  Daisy made a face. “He doesn’t exactly look like a Sun King or anyone else who should be hanging out at Versailles, for that matter, but that seems to be a winner. All right, Louie it is.”

  A few moments later she pulled up to the gates of Casa Del Mar and Gabe used the remote Cruz had given him to slide them open. “You don’t have to drive all the way in,” he said. “You can let me off here.”

  She ignored him and drove through the gates, for which he was secretly grateful. Much to his chagrin, he was hurting more than he wanted to admit.

  She pulled up in front of the main house and he climbed out of the car and set Louie on the seat, trying not to wince like a big crybaby as pain clutched at his gut. Gabe rubbed the dog’s head to distract himself and the dog whined a little, obviously sensing he was leaving.

  “You’ll be okay. Daisy here will take great care of you,” he assured him. He couldn’t have said how he knew that but he didn’t have a doubt.

  He was surprised at how sad he felt at leaving the dog behind. He had always thought he wasn’t a pet person, mostly because the wandering lifestyle he and his father had shared hadn’t been very conducive to taking along a dog or a cat.

  “Thank you for watching over him,” he said again to Daisy after he had pulled his backpack and camera gear out of the back seat.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, with a hint of hesitancy in her voice that made him suspect she was regretting her offer to take the dog.

  “I’d like to stop by tomorrow to walk Louie here. Is there a time you’ll be home?”

  “I’ll be there in the afternoon. But you don’t have to walk him. I’m planning to take him into work with me. Between my assistant and me, I am sure we can find plenty of exercise for him.”

  “Humor me. I need to walk and also want to feel like I’m doing my part to care for him. I told you I wanted visitation rights.”

  She paused, clearly torn. Was it because she didn’t want to see him again? If so, he only had himself to blame for pushing her so hard about Marguerite. He should have kept his mouth shut.

  He wanted to promise he wouldn’t ask her about the artist again but he was afraid that wasn’t a vow he would be able to keep.

  To his relief, she finally nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll be home after four. You can walk him then, assuming the vet doesn’t find a chip and he’s not home with his owners by then.”

  He wanted the dog to be reunited with his family but was also happy he now had a good excuse to see the dog again. Not to mention the intriguing Daisy McClure.

  11

  BEATRIZ

  “Please, Mom? Can we go? Please?”

  Bea gazed at Cruz and their child, frustration simmering through her like an old, forgotten song she now couldn’t shake.

  “You don’t have other plans, do you?” Cruz asked. “I don’t want to step on toes if you did. We could eat here just as easily.”

  Meaning, she could cook for him. She sighed.

  “I have been in the studio all day and haven’t thought that far ahead,” she said.

  Cruz beamed. “Great. Then this is the perfect night to celebrate Marisol’s birthday.”

  Except it was three months late. Cruz had been touring during the actual birthday. He had sent a large box of presents but hadn’t been able to make it here for the day in question.

  She didn’t want to go out to dinner with them tonight. She was tired and her back hurt from being hunched over a sculpture commissioned by one of her favorite clients.

  But
she didn’t know how to say no to either of them.

  “Fine. We can go.”

  “Yay!” Cruz stepped forward and kissed her cheek. He looked as excited at the idea of a simple dinner as Mari did when her favorite YouTube star came out with a new video.

  He smiled at her, that old, familiar smile that used to make her feel safe and warm and loved. “This is going to be great. We’ll be all together as a family again, just like old times.”

  “I just need to fix my hair again. Then I’ll be ready.”

  “Your hair looks beautiful, as always,” Cruz said, that warm light in his eyes that used to make her glow for days. It had taken four years of marriage for her to figure out he used it on everyone.

  “Five minutes,” she promised.

  In her room she quickly pulled her hair into her favorite classic yet comfortable bun and reapplied the makeup she had put on earlier that day.

  She changed into one of her favorite loose dresses and went looking for the coral-colored sweater she liked to wear with it, especially when going to restaurants that liked to keep their air-conditioning set permanently to arctic tundra.

  Her cardigan was out by the pool, she remembered. She’d worn it earlier in the day when she’d been sitting out there, trying to sketch out some designs while the light was good.

  Her master bedroom had its own private exit to the pool, so she hurried out that door, intending to grab the sweater and circle back inside to the living room, where Cruz and Mari were waiting.

  She found it right where she left it, on the table next to her favorite chaise. Just as she picked it up and shrugged into it, the door to the guesthouse opened and Shane walked out.

  He wore a dark blue dress shirt and gray slacks and looked completely luscious.

  “Oh. Hello.” She felt completely flustered, which annoyed the heck out of her.

  This was Shane. Her best friend. She had no reason to feel awkward around him, simply because she had started seeing him in an entirely new light.

  She forced herself to step forward and give him a casual hug. He smelled delicious, too, with just a hint of some sporty, sexy aftershave she had only known him to wear a few times.