The Cliff House

4

DAISY

She was late, and if there is one thing she hated more than last-minute tax filers, it was being late.

Daisy pressed the buzzer at the wrought iron gates leading into her ex-brother-in-law’s estate along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Casa Del Mar was beautiful. It was by far the most luxurious and expensive house along this area of coastline. Built in the Spanish Colonial style, it was massive, around seven thousand square feet, with a recording studio, huge swimming pool, tennis courts and even a two-lane bowling alley. Its biggest draw was the view, though, spectacular from just about every window.

She lived in a house on the cliffs above the ocean, as well, just a half mile down the road, and had a stellar view herself, but the entirety of Pear Tree Cottage would probably fit inside Cruz’s master suite.

He could afford it. As one of his team of financial advisers, she had a full picture of just how successful Cape Sanctuary’s hometown boy had become. The commission she earned handling his interests went a long way to helping her afford the property taxes for that house on the cliffs she loved.

“Yes?” A disembodied voice spoke out of the tastefully hidden speaker. She didn’t recognize the greeter, which wasn’t a big surprise. Cruz’s staff rotated with dizzying frequency.

“Daisy McClure. I have an appointment with Cruz.”

The voice went silent for a moment then returned to the intercom. “Mr. Romero is busy right now. He’s about to have a massage.”

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her BMW and frowned. She was five minutes late, granted, but she had a feeling the massage wasn’t some not-so-subtle dig at her punctuality. She was fairly certain that Cruz had completely forgotten about their appointment. He had a bad habit of doing exactly that.

“Tell Mr. Romero he’s the one who called me to meet him at this time. He said it was important. This is the only time I’m free in several days. I’m here now. He can have his massage when we’re done. If you’d like, I can tell him that myself.”

She spoke firmly, not worried about offending Cruz. She had known him since he was a kid living with his grandmother. She used to help him with his math homework after his grandmother had to go into assisted living and he came to live with Stella. He knew she wouldn’t take his crap—which might be why he entrusted a substantial share of his wealth to her keeping.

“One moment.”

An instant later the door glided open silently and she drove up the long, winding driveway lined with cypress and pine. Here and there, she caught glimpses of blue as the ocean peeped through.

When she pulled up to the house, she saw several luxury SUVs there, indicating he had guests. From here she saw two people playing tennis and was positive that if she walked around the house, she would find more in the pool.

Where was Cruz, however? That was the question du jour.

She rang the doorbell and waited three or four moments, then finally pushed her way inside.

As she might have expected, no one was there to meet her in the huge entryway, with its soaring ceilings and the colorful tile-work staircase and wrought iron banister focal point.

“Hello?” she called out.

Silence echoed through the entryway in response. She frowned, annoyed all over again. Give a guy a few Rolling Stone covers and include him as one of People magazine’s sexiest men of the year, and he thought the world revolved around him.

She had a couple of options. She could wander around the vast house playing Find the Pop Star. Or she could handle things a different way.

She pulled out her phone and texted him.

I’ll be in the sitting room off the great hall. I can wait for ten minutes, then I’ll go and we can reschedule. My time is valuable, too.

He texted her back immediately.

Sorry, babe. Forgot you were coming. Be there in a sec.

She sighed. Cruz might be selfish and narcissistic, and her sister might have divorced him for completely understandable reasons, but he was still family and she loved him.

She headed for her favorite spot in the house, a small, comfortable room near the sprawling kitchen, with a beautiful view of the Pacific. The windows opened here and she could usually find a lovely breeze, sweet with the sea and the scent of the climbing roses that grew outside.

It also had three original Marguerites, an intricately painted table and two matching chairs.

She knew to the penny how much Cruz had paid for them, a staggering amount that still made her blink.

Cruz liked to think he had discovered the mysterious furniture artist. In a way, she supposed he had. It was a spread of this house in Architectural Digest where he gushed about her work that had put Marguerite on the wish list of every designer in California.

If she had hoped she might have a few moments to herself to enjoy the functional art while she waited for Cruz, she was sadly disappointed.

Someone was already there.

A man who was asleep, his feet on the coffee table and a drink on the extremely expensive Marguerite side table—without a coaster.

She knew this man, she suddenly realized. She had last seen him climbing into a luxury SUV outside the supermarket the night of Stella’s birthday party.

He wasn’t staring at her now. He was out, probably sleeping off a night of partying with Cruz into the wee hours.

She was aware of the sting of disappointment at discovering the man she had thought about several times since their brief encounter was only another one of her ex-brother-in-law’s sycophants and freeloaders.

A gorgeous one, yes, but that didn’t make up for being a slob.

She grabbed a walnut-and-leather coaster off the little tray—they were right there, for heaven’s sake—and bent over to slide it under his drink.

“Well. That’s a lovely thing to wake up to.”

She jerked her gaze down at the deep voice and that slight, hard-to-place accent and found his stunning green eyes open and fixed somewhere south of her neck. Only now did she realize the position she was in, bending almost over him so that her unfortunately abundant girls were just at his eye level.

Making matters worse, the top button had come loose on her tidy dress shirt, she realized, revealing plenty of cleavage as well as a hint of the decadent lace from the minimizer bras she favored.

“Oh.” She straightened quickly, blushing as she worked to button her shirt.

He sat up, wincing a little. “Sorry. That was the drugs talking. I’m usually not such a pig, I promise.”

She couldn’t help her inelegant snort of disbelief. A slob, a pig and a junkie. Typical of Cruz’s guests.

It was completely unfair that he could still manage to look rumpled and sexy, hair messed and the perfect degree of dark stubble.

She stepped 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 not responsible for me.”

“I beg to differ. You lost half of your liver saving my sorry ass, which means I’m responsible for making sure you listen to the doctors.”

Gabriel Ellison made a face. “Exaggerate much? It was a small section of my liver. Barely even a few centimeters. I’ll be perfectly fine once it heals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a walk and find another comfortable and quiet spot to read my book.”

He picked up the glass and the book she hadn’t noticed before and moved past her. She had to say something, before things became even more awkward between them.

Daisy cleared her throat. “I...I feel like I owe you an apology, Mr. Ellison.”

Why was that name so familiar?

“For what? Having a difference of opinion? I enjoyed the conversation. It was a pleasure meeting you, Daisy.”

He moved past her a little unsteadily. She frowned after him.

“Will he be okay on his own?”

“Give me a minute and I’ll make sure my security people keep an eye on him.”

He called a number, spoke a few murmured words, then hung up. “Now. Tell me again how much money you’ve made for me while I’ve been gone.”

With a sigh, she turned her attention from the mystery of Gabriel Ellison to business, something she knew and understood.

5

GABE

Somehow, by the grace of a God he assumed had forsaken him a long time ago, Gabe managed to walk out of the cozy, warm little sitting room he had found the day before without making a complete ass of himself.

It was a close thing. He felt as weak as a damn day-old Bengal tiger cub. He wasn’t sure if it was from his lacerated liver, from the infection he was still fighting off or from the painkiller he had finally taken in desperation somewhere close to dawn after a mostly sleepless night.

Whoever would have guessed he would come to this point?

As an adventure documentary filmmaker, he might have expected to meet his fate on some bitterly cold mountain somewhere, in the midst of giant ocean swells, or while trudging across a vast, sun-parched desert.

He never would have guessed the injury that would take him lower than he’d ever been and make him wonder if he would actually survive would happen in the tunnel of a football stadium prior to a concert for a pop star whose music he didn’t even particularly enjoy.

It had all been a fluke, mere chance. He wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place but had been in Dallas meeting with some producers when he met Cruz Romero at a party. Cruz was apparently a fan of his work and had been a fan of Gabe’s father, which shouldn’t have surprised him but somehow did.

Cruz had expressed interest in investing in Gabe’s next project, showing the extensive efforts under way to protect tiny indigenous tribes along the Amazon, and had invited him backstage for his show later that night to discuss it.

He should have turned him down. But he hadn’t had plans that night and as a lifelong learner had been interested in what went on behind the scenes at a major concert venue, so he’d agreed.

He shouldn’t have been there. Yet he was. He had been standing next to Cruz just after he came off stage when a huge linebacker of a man lunged at the performer with a wild look in his eyes and a massive, wicked-looking hunting knife in his hand.

Gabe could have slipped away. It wasn’t his fight, after all, and the crazy dude wasn’t after him but the man he apparently blamed for the breakup of his marriage—Cruz.

He hadn’t. Instead, his instincts kicked in, the instincts he had honed from a lifetime of living in dangerous situations.

He had deflected the guy’s aim slightly, though not completely, but what would have been a gouge straight to Cruz’s heart had glanced off his arm instead.

Unfortunately, this had only enraged the guy more and he turned his attention to Gabe, thrusting the knife into his gut hard before bodyguards had finally come to the rescue and taken him down.

Turned out, the man’s wife had been a groupie who had actually slept with Cruz two years earlier after a previous concert in Dallas. She had been so certain he wrote one of his love songs for her that she’d left her husband and two kids to follow the pop star around the country.

He couldn’t really blame the guy for wanting a little revenge. He just would have preferred he boycotted the concert, maybe walked outside holding a placard or something, instead of trying to even the score with a ten-inch hunting knife.

In the days since the attack, Gabe had learned some interesting facts about knife wounds.

He had learned livers were one of the most common organs injured by knife and gunshot wounds, largely because of their size and vulnerable position in the abdomen.

He had learned that a damaged liver could heal on its own, one of the rare organs that could regenerate new cells instead of scar tissue.

He’d also learned that any abdominal injury was prone to infection—and that recovering from one was a hell of a lot harder than he expected.

He hadn’t died from blood loss, as he now knew the ER doctors had fully expected would happen. He had made it through the first twenty-four hours and then the week after and was well on the road to recovery now.

He hadn’t wanted to come here to Cruz’s estate to recover, but with his only fixed address a third-floor walk-up in Manhattan Beach that he used as a home base, he hadn’t had many choices.

Gabe still wasn’t sure he liked the guy’s music but had to admit Romero had stepped up to show his gratitude, insisting on staying with Gabe through those early days in the hospital and then arranging for him to fly here upon release.

Cruz hadn’t listened to a single argument.

There were far worse places to rest and recuperate.

Gabe sank into a bench overlooking the ocean, enjoying the waves crashing against the rugged cliffs below.

He would rest here for a minute, he told himself. Just long enough to avoid the prickly Daisy, whose last name he still didn’t know.

She was lovely. He couldn’t deny that. At first glance she seemed almost forgettable but then a man looked closer and saw those stunning hazel eyes, full mouth, lush curves.

He hadn’t been able to look away when he’d seen her in the grocery store the other day. He was rather embarrassed to remember that he might have stared. She had seemed familiar to him and now he knew why. In the hallway outside his room was a picture of Cruz and a little girl he assumed was his daughter. Also in the picture was a woman who looked a lot like the little girl, which he now figured was Cruz’s ex-wife, an older woman with short hair and glasses and the voluptuous Daisy.

Those hazel eyes had gazed out of the picture, hypnotizing him.

He would love to photograph those eyes. Maybe he would pose her on that Marguerite table she loved so much, wearing nothing but scarves, with only her vibrant eyes visible above the filmy material...

The image came out of nowhere, unsettling him...and arousing him, he realized, as his body stirred to life.

That was a relief. The business downstairs had been listless and uncooperative since the stabbing.

Good to know things appeared to be in working order, though apparently nearly dying had the odd and unexpected side effect of making him develop a sudden fierce attraction for prickly businesswomen with sharp tongues and questionable taste in art.