The Swallow's Nest. Emilie Richards

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       7

      Blake’s “villa” overlooked a golf course, which didn’t surprise Marina. The day they’d met waiting in line at a popular restaurant downtown, he had been dressed in a bright blue polo shirt with the Pebble Beach logo. Three months into a pregnancy she regretted, she had started an idle conversation with the attractive older man who had lost none of his graying dark hair and held himself like a soldier. They’d cut their mutual wait time by taking a table together, and she’d learned that Blake was adjusting to being a widower. He had seemed lonely, in spite of admitting to a new romantic interest. Before parting, they’d exchanged phone numbers. “Just to chat.”

      In the following months they had chatted occasionally, talking about everything, except her pregnancy. She hadn’t told him about the baby, preferring to pretend to herself, as well as to him, that she was carefree and single. After all, who did it hurt? But a month after Toby’s birth, he had invited her to dinner. The new girlfriend was out of his life, and by then, Graham was definitely out of hers.

      The community where he lived was divided into villages sprawling over land where a vineyard and winery once stood, and his village was near tennis courts and the clubhouse restaurant. The villa, while small, was still three times larger than Marina’s apartment, with every possible amenity.

      Blake fell into the amenity category.

      This morning Marina woke slowly and saw the sun was high in the sky. She could hardly remember days when she had slept until she was ready to wake up, but she was rapidly getting used to it. Even before the baby she’d needed to be at her job early, and weekends had been filled with shopping and cleaning or helping Deedee with some project she couldn’t complete on her own. But this morning no alarm had awakened her, and now Blake stood beside the bed they’d shared for a week with a cup of steaming coffee in his hands.

      “Sleeping Beauty,” he said fondly.

      She slid up to a sitting position and pulled the top sheet over her breasts before taking the cup. On the evening she had volunteered to meet him here, Blake had invited her to stay the night, and she had never gone home. Although he had taken her on a surprise shopping trip during her second day in residence, she hadn’t bothered with a nightgown.

      She took her first sip and realized he’d added cream, exactly the way she liked it. She tried to remember when a man had remembered even the important details about her, much less what she put in her coffee.

      “This is such a lovely treat. Thank you.” She lifted the cup to her lips. “How long have you been up?”

      He smiled, teeth white against tanned skin. “I had a little work to do, so I got up at seven.”

      Blake was semiretired from a company that had something to do with network processors. He’d started the business himself, and his two sons—one of whom was a year older than Marina—were now in charge. Blake still went to his headquarters occasionally and worked each morning on a laptop in the kitchen dining nook. If he thought about work when they were together, he never let on.

      Cream in her coffee was just one example of the attention he had lavished on her.

      She patted the place beside her, and he sat. He was wearing khaki slacks and one of his endless supply of polo shirts. His cheeks were ruddy from shaving, and his brown eyes sparkled. He smelled like soap and aftershave, and she wasn’t at all sorry to wake in his bed.

      “I have to go back to work on Monday,” she said, “so I’ll need to go home this afternoon and get all my things ready. But haven’t we had a good time?”

      “You’re sure you have to go?”

      She pursed her lips seductively. “I’m a working girl.”

      “How well do you like your job?”

      From the beginning he’d seemed interested, so she’d already told him a little about her position with a building materials supplier, about the way she facilitated sales and analyzed data, about the endless trips to construction sites with promotional items and a ready smile.

      She answered truthfully. “I like putting together sales presentations. I like traveling to job sites but not the waiting around.”

      “Are you looking for something else?”

      She wondered if Blake was going to offer her a job at his company, and then she wondered how his sons would like that. “Right after college I got a great job in public relations in LA, and I loved it.”

      She didn’t add that even more, she had liked the fact that single executives had been plentiful, and she’d dated her share. She’d been in no hurry, looking at net worth, future prospects and work habits before she went on to appearance, intelligence and humor. She hadn’t viewed her assessments as particularly calculating. She had simply done for herself what parents in other cultures did for their daughters.

      Blake still seemed interested. “Why did you quit?”

      She’d quit because Deedee had suffered a heart attack, and of course, Marina’s brothers hadn’t lifted a finger to help. She’d left behind a new lover who owned a chain of blue chip financial planning firms and called a congressman from northern California “Cousin.”

      She bent the truth. “I missed my family. And it’s no sacrifice to live in San Jose, is it?” She smiled. “Just think, I never would have met you.”

      “My lucky break.”

      “What do you have planned for the day?”

      “Bridge at noon.”

      “Are you going to teach me to play?”

      “You’re too smart. As it is I’m going to have to watch myself on the golf course.”

      He had escorted her to the Par 3 course yesterday and given basic instructions. She’d realized the real meaning of senior living СКАЧАТЬ