Nathan scooped up some of the casserole, chewed and considered. 'I understand that,' he said. 'I can't tell you how much that terrifies me, but I understand. Now, why don't you tell me about your book?'
'Okay.' She moistened her lips. 'I've set it in what is now Arizona, in the 1870s-a decade or so after the Mexican War, when it was ceded to the U.S. as part of New Mexico. I'd toyed around with doing a generational thing and starting in the eighteenth century, when it was still a European settlement, but I found that I wanted to get into the meat right away.'
'No meat in the eighteenth century?'
'Oh, pounds of it.' She took a piece of bread herself and shredded it before she realized she was nervous. 'But Jake and Sarah weren't alive then. My protagonists,' Jackie explained. 'It's really their story, and I was too impatient to start the book a hundred years before they came along. He's a gun-fighter and she's convent-bred. I liked the idea of putting them in Arizona because it really epitomizes America's Old West. The Earps, the Claytons, Tombstone, Tucson, Apaches.' Nerves disappeared as she began to imagine. 'It gives it that nice bloody frontier tradition.'
'Shoot-outs, bounty hunters and Indian raids?'
'That's the idea. The setup has Sarah coming West after her father dies. He, Sarah's father, had led her to believe that he's a prosperous miner. She's grown up in the East, learning all the things that well-bred young ladies of good familes are supposed to learn. Then, after his sudden death, she comes out to the Arizona Territory and discovers that for all the years she was living in moderate luxury back East, her father had barely been scraping by on this dilapidated gold mine, spending every penny he could spare on her education.'
'Now she's penniless, orphaned and out of her element.'
'Exactly.' Pleased with him, Jackie poured more wine. 'I figure that makes her instantly vulnerable and sympathetic, as well as plunging her into immediate jeopardy. Anyway, it doesn't take her long to discover that her father didn't die in an accidental cave-in, but was murdered. By this time, she's already had a few run-ins with Jake Redman, the hard-bitten gun-for-hire renegade who stands for everything she's been taught to detest. He saved her life during an Apache raid.'
'So he's not all bad.'
'A diamond in the rough,' Jackie explained over a bite of bread. 'See, there were a lot of miners and adventurers in the territory during this period, but the War Between the States and troop withdrawal were delaying settlement, so the Apaches were still dominant. That made it a very wild and dangerous place for a gently bred young woman to be.'
'But she stays.'
'If she'd turned to run, she'd have been pitiful rather than sympathetic. Big difference. She's compelled to discover who killed her father and why. Then there's the fact that she's desperately, though unwillingly, attracted to Jake Redman.'
'And he to her?'
'You've got it.' She smiled at him as she toyed with her wine. 'You see, Jake, like a lot of men-and women, for that matter-doesn't believe he needs anyone, certainly not someone who would interfere with his life-style and convince him to settle down. He's a loner, has always been a loner, and intends to keep it that way.'
His brow lifted as he sipped. 'Very clever,' he said mildly.
Pleased that he saw the correlation, she smiled. 'Yes, I thought so. But Sarah's quite determined. Once she discovers that she loves him, that her life would never be complete without him, she wears him down. Of course, Carlotta does her best to botch things up.'
'Carlotta?'
'The town's leading woman of ill repute. It's not so much that she wants Jake, though of course she does. They all do. But she hates Sarah and everything Sarah stands for. Then there's the fact that she knows Sarah's father had been murdered because, after five years, he'd finally hit the mother lode. The mine Sarah now holds the claim for is worth a fortune. That's as far as I've gotten.'
'But how does it end?'
'I don't know.'
'What do you mean, you don't know? You're writing it, you have to know.'
'No, I don't. In fact, I'm almost certain if I knew, exactly, it wouldn't be half as much fun to sit down every day.' She offered him more of the casserole, but he shook his head. 'It's a story for me, too, and I am getting closer, but it's not like a blueprint, Nathan.'
Because she could see he didn't understand, she leaned closer, elbows propped on the table. 'I'll tell you why I think I'd never have made a good architect, though I found the whole process fascinating and the idea of taking an empty lot and bringing it alive with a building incredible.'
He glanced over again at that. What she'd said, and how she'd phrased it, encompassed his own feelings so perfectly that he could almost believe she'd stepped into his mind.
'You have to know every detail, beginning to end. You have to be certain before you take out the first shovel of dirt how it's going to end up. When you build, you're not just responsible for creating an attractive, functional piece of work. You're also responsible for the lives of the people who will work or live in or pass through the building, climb the stairs, ride the elevators. Nothing can be left to chance, and imagination has to conform to safety and practicality.'
'I think you're wrong,' he said after a moment. 'I think you'd have made an excellent architect.'
She smiled at him. 'No, just because I understand doesn't mean I can do. Believe me, I've been there.' She touched his hand easily, friend to friend. 'You're an excellent architect because not only do you understand, but you're able to combine art with practicality, creativity with reality.'
He studied her, both moved and pleased by her insight. 'Is that what you're doing with your writing?'
'I hope so.' She sat back to watch the clouds roll in. It would rain soon after nightfall. 'All my life I've been scrambling around, looking for one creative outlet after another. Music, painting, dancing. I composed my first sonata when I was ten.' Her lips tilted in a self-deprecating grin. 'I was precocious.'
'No, really?'
She chuckled as she slipped her hand under the bowl of her glass. 'It wasn't a particularly good sonata, but I always knew there was something I had to do. My parents have been very patient, even indulgent, and I didn't always deserve it. This time…I guess this sounds silly at my age, but this time I want them to be proud of me.'
'It doesn't sound silly,' he murmured. 'We never grow out of wanting our parents' approval.'
'Do you have yours, Nathan?'
'Yes.' The word was clipped. Because he heard it himself, he added a smile. 'They're both very pleased with the route my career's taken.'
She decided to press just a little farther. 'Your father isn't an architect, is he?'
'No. Finance.'
'Ah. That's funny, when you think of it. I imagine our parents have had cocktails together more than once. J.D.'s biggest interests are in finance.'
'You call your father J.D.?'
'Only when I'm thinking of him as a businessman. He'd always get such a kick out of it when I'd march into his office, plop on his desk and say, 'All right, J.D., is it buy or sell?''
'You're very fond of him.'
'I'm crazy about him. Mother, too, even when she nags. She's always wanting me to fly to Paris and be redone.' With only the faintest of frowns, she touched the tips of her hair. 'She's certain the French could find a way to make me elegant and demure.'
'I like you the way you are.'
Again he saw that quick look of astonishment on her face. 'That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.'
He thought, as he stared into her eyes, that he heard the first rumble of thunder. 'We'd better get this stuff inside. Rain's coming.'
'All right.' She rose easily enough and helped clear the table. It was foolish to be moved by such a simple statement. He hadn't told her she was beautiful or brilliant. He hadn't said he loved her madly. He'd simply told her that he liked her the way she was. Nothing he could have said would have meant more to a woman like
