The Cliff House. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ away from him and glowered.

      “I have an appointment in this room momentarily with Cruz. We’re going to talk about big important, boring things, like taxes and annuities and investment properties. I suggest you find somewhere else for your nap. I’m sure there are all kinds of bikini-clad women out by the pool for you to ogle.”

      He blinked a little but she refused to feel guilty for the attack.

      “Wow. Thanks for looking out for me and my ogling.” He glanced at the coaster. “And my water glass, apparently.”

      “As Mr. Romero’s financial adviser, I am compelled to protect his assets. Have you any idea how much an original Marguerite goes for these days?”

      “Entirely too much, if you ask me, for hand-painted folk art.”

      She did her best not to hiss and tried to rein in her temper. “I didn’t. Ask you, I mean.”

      Yes, she sounded bitchy, but she was fairly protective of the artist in question.

      The insufferable man gave her a closer look. “You must be a fan.”

      Daisy had no idea how to answer that. “I admire the woman for building an artistic empire while keeping her anonymity.”

      “If Marguerite is a woman. From what I understand, nobody knows. Could be a ninety-year-old hillbilly with a pot gut and gout who woke up one morning in the nursing home and decided to pick up a paintbrush and go to town on some old furniture.”

      She gripped the strap of her briefcase to keep from walloping him on the side of the head with it. “Isn’t it funny how everyone has a theory, but nobody seems to have any proof?”

      “He makes sure of that, doesn’t he? And that only adds to the mystique, which I’m sure is quite deliberate. I wonder if everyone would still show the same kind of frenzied interest if they found out Marguerite is some middle-aged housewife with too much time on her hands.”

      “Make up your mind. Is Marguerite a bored housewife or a ninety-year-old man trying to pass the time in a nursing home?”

      “Does it matter? The taste arbiters don’t care. They only want what everybody else wants.”

      Who was this man? He seemed older than Cruz’s usual assemblage of unfortunates, the name she had given the acolytes or aspiring rockers or groupies who were drawn to her ex-brother-in-law’s fame.

      There was an intelligence in his eyes that seemed to glimmer through the bleariness of sleep and the haze of whatever drugs he was on.

      Who was he, and what was he doing here at Casa Del Mar?

      “Do you see something wrong with that?”

      “No. I always find it fascinating when something takes hold of the public consciousness. You have to wonder why, right? What makes a musician like Cruz hit big? Talent is part of it, certainly. He is unquestionably talented. A brilliant songwriter with a decent voice and a strong stage presence. But so are hundreds, maybe thousands, of others trying to make it big. There’s something else, some hidden cultural zeitgeist.”

      “Cultural zeitgeist.”

      “Do you know that humans are among only a very few species in the animal kingdom who excel at passing on certain behaviors through imitation, not DNA? Some songbirds do and great apes to a small extent, but that’s about it in the animal kingdom.”

      “What do songbirds and great apes have to do with Cruz Romero? Or Marguerite, for that matter?”

      “Look at the things we call fads. We want what someone else says we should want. Do you know that nobody cared about Vermeer until about two hundred years after his death, when somebody decided he was a genius and the rest of the world jumped on board?”

      “I guess it’s lucky Marguerite and Cruz didn’t have to wait that long, then, isn’t it?” she answered tartly.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ