Jeff looked up as she entered. He was still wearing his suit, although he'd taken off the jacket and loosened his tie. A few strands of hair fell across his forehead. They should have softened his appearance, but he was as formidable as always.
'Have a seat,' he said, motioning to one of the empty club chairs.
She sank into the dark brown leather seat and tried to relax. She had an agenda and a purpose. She would do well to remember both and not think about how his gray eyes made her think of the sea during a storm or the way his long, strong fingers had looked as he briefly touched her daughter's hair. She wasn't sure if he was a kind man, but he was capable of kind acts. Did that make him any safer for her?
'You've been very good to us,' she said, plunging in when it became apparent he wasn't going to speak first, which made sense-she'd been the one to request the meeting. 'Putting us up, arranging for Maggie to get to school. It's not that I'm not grateful, it's just that there are some things I need to do myself.'
He rose. 'Are you taking any medication?'
She blinked at him. 'What?'
'Are you taking anything for the flu? I was going to offer you a brandy.'
'Oh. No. I'm feeling much better. A brandy would be nice.'
It would also give her something to hold so she wouldn't have to worry about her fingers twisting together the way they were now.
He opened the doors of a cabinet built into one of the bookcases and withdrew a bottle of brandy along with two glasses.
'Go on with what you were saying. You need to be responsible for some things yourself. Can you be more specific?'
As he spoke, he poured, then handed her a glass. She took it, careful to keep her fingers from touching his. 'Thanks. I was talking about the baby-sitter. When she dropped off Maggie she wouldn't let me pay her. That's not right.'
He poured his own drink, then settled on a corner of the desk. Which meant he was closer to her than he'd been before. Which meant her heart had jumped into her throat, making it impossible to breathe or swallow.
'You have a point,' he said.
'I do?'
He nodded.
She forced herself to be calm. Slowly she found herself breathing again. She even managed to take a tiny sip of the brandy. It was hot and wonderful as it burned its way down to her stomach.
'I didn't mean to take over your life,' he said. 'I'll give you an invoice for the baby-sitting expenses to date and you can reimburse me.'
'I, ah, thank you,' she said, surprised he'd seen her side so easily. She also wondered how many times she'd thanked the man since meeting him.
'Anything else?'
As in, did she want to talk about anything else, she supposed. She studied him, thinking that despite the beautiful home and the successful business, he was incredibly alone. Before she and Maggie arrived, there hadn't even been any food in the house. She sensed he lived for work and little else and found herself wondering why.
Of course there could be women, she reminded herself. Maybe it was her own wishful thinking that he spent a lot of time by himself. There could be dozens of girlfriends. But only the kind he didn't invite home, she thought. The house was too silent. There were no echoes of past voices and laughter.
'Ashley?'
'Huh? Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought.'
'Want to tell me about what?'
'Not especially.' She gave him a false smile, then said the first thing that popped into her mind. 'I'm not a widow.'
A slight raising of his left eyebrow was his only response.
She closed her eyes and wondered if that had sounded as stupid as she thought. 'What I mean is that based on what I said before you probably think I'm a widow, and I'm not. Well, technically Damian is dead, but we divorced first. He died a few months later.'
'All right.'
She could see he was wondering what possible relevance that information had for him. 'It's just that we'd talked about it before. Actually, Maggie mentioned it. She made it sound as if… well…' She cleared her throat and took another sip of her brandy.
'I, ah, should go now,' she said, rising to her feet. 'You have work and I-'
'You're welcome to stay,' he said. 'If you're feeling up to a little conversation.'
'I-yes, that would be nice.' She plopped back onto the seat and smiled. The man made her nervous, but with a little effort on her part, she was sure she could act fairly normal.
'Tell me about school,' he said, moving around the desk and settling into his leather executive chair. 'Why accounting?'
'It suits me,' she said, consciously relaxing in her chair. 'I've always enjoyed math and I'm basically an orderly person. I wanted a career that gave me flexibility with my time and didn't tie me down to a big city.'
'You want to leave Seattle?'
'No, but I want the option in case that changes.'
'Makes sense.'
'I started college right out of high school, but with getting married and then getting pregnant, I wasn't able to finish as quickly as I would like.'
'But you didn't give up.'
He wasn't asking a question. His gray eyes seemed to see past her facade of quiet confidence-if that's what her facade was projecting.
'I'm not the giving-up kind,' she admitted, and took another sip of her brandy.
Around them, the night was still. It wasn't raining and there wasn't any wind. In the distance she heard the faint sound of a car, but nothing else. While she and Jeff weren't the only people left in the world, there was an air of solitude in the study. As if they might be cut off from civilization. Oddly, that didn't seem like such a bad thing.
'Who taught you not to quit?' he asked.
She considered the question. 'I didn't have a choice. If I'd given up, I wouldn't have survived.'
'Why?'
She hesitated, not sure she was ready, or willing, to tell her life story to a virtual stranger. But, despite his emotional distance, Jeff was easy to talk to. Probably because she doubted she could say anything that would shock him. He'd seen and done so much more than she could ever imagine. Her life would be very small in comparison.
'I had a sister who was four years older than me. Margaret… Maggie. I adored her. My dad ran off before I was born, so it was just us three girls. At least that's what my mom used to say.' She smiled sadly at the memory. 'Mom worked really long hours. She was a waitress. She tried going back to school so she could do something else, but she couldn't make it. She was always so tired. She kept saying that she should have done it when she was young and that we should learn from her mistakes. Don't give up on college no matter what.'
'You took her words to heart.'
Ashley nodded. 'They made a lot of sense.'
He continued to study her. Was he taking her measure? Did he find her wanting? Lamplight touched his hair, illuminating the light strands. There wasn't any gold glinting there just pure blond. A muscle twitched in his cheek.
'You told me you don't have any family,' he said. 'Where are they now?'
Involuntarily she looked away, lowering her chin and biting her bottom lip. 'Gone,' she said softly. 'Maggie was hit by a drunk driver when she was just sixteen. She and a couple of friends were walking home from the library. It was about nine in the evening and they'd been studying for midterms. All three girls were killed instantly.' She hesitated. 'It was a difficult time.'
The simple sentence didn't begin to explain what she'd gone through. The shock-the incredible pain and
