At least he was civil. “Students, then?”
“Once, meaning long ago,” Donovan offered distantly. “Never happened. Never going to happen. And I decided against changing the tables for one large one. Too depressing, just Ben and me, alone at a table made for twenty.” He gave Ben a cool glance. “Ben is an engineer,” he said. “A civil engineer.”
Ben didn’t sigh. But he looked as though he wanted to. “I had some idea I needed a change. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was a very good engineer.”
“I saved him from that,” Donovan explained in a grating, self-congratulatory tone. “In the end, an architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows everything about one thing. It’s not good for a man, to be too wrapped up the details.”
Ben swallowed a bite of prime rib and turned to Abilene. “But then, my job here is to deal with the details. So I guess I’m still an engineer.”
She sipped her wine. Slowly.
Donovan glared at her. “All right. What are you thinking?”
She set down her glass. “I’m thinking you need to get out more. How long have you been hiding out here in the desert?”
A low, derisive laugh escaped him. “Hiding out?”
She refused to let him off the hook. “Months, at least. Right? Out here a hundred miles from nowhere, with your cook and your housekeeper and your engineer.”
“Are you going to lose your temper again?” he asked in that so-superior way that made her want to jump up and stab him with her fork.
“No. I’m not.”
“Should I be relieved?”
She glanced to the side and saw that the corners of Ben’s mouth were twitching. He was enjoying this.
Abilene wasn’t. Not in the least. She was tired and she was starting to wonder if maybe she should do exactly what she’d told everyone she wouldn’t: give up and head back to SA. “I’m just saying, maybe we could go out to dinner one of these nights.”
“Go out where?” Donovan demanded.
“I don’t know. El Paso?”
He dismissed her suggestion with a wave of his hand. “It’s a long way to El Paso.”
“It’s a long way to anywhere from here.”
“And that’s just how I like it.”
“I did go through a small town maybe twenty miles east of here today.”
“Chula Mesa,” said Donovan in a tone that said the little town didn’t thrill him in the least.
Abilene kept trying. “That’s it. Chula Mesa. And just outside of town, I saw a roadhouse, Luisa’s Cantina? We could go there. Have a beer. Shoot some pool.”
“I’m not going to Luisa’s.”
“You’ve been there before, then?”
“What does it matter? I’m not going there now. And as for Chula Mesa, there is nothing in that dusty little burg that interests me in the least.”
“Maybe you could just pretend to be interested.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Sometimes you have to pretend a little, Donovan. You might surprise yourself and find that you actually do enjoy what you’re pretending to enjoy.”
“When it comes to Chula Mesa, I’m not willing to pre tend. Wait. I’ll go further. I’m not willing to pretend anywhere. About anything.”
She really did want to do violence to him. To grab his big shoulders and shake him, at least. To tell him to grow up. Snap out of it. Stop acting like a very bright, very spoiled child. She took a bite of prime rib, one of potato. Dipped an artichoke leaf in buttery sauce and carefully bit off the tender end.
Donovan chuckled. “Fed up with me already, huh? I predict you’re out of here by morning.”
Ben surprised her by coming to her defense. “Leave her alone, Donovan. Let her eat her dinner in peace.”
Donovan’s manly jaw twitched. Twice. And then he grunted and picked up his fork.
They ate the rest of the meal in bleak silence.
When Abilene was finished, she dabbed at her lips with her snowy napkin, slid it in at the edge of her plate and stood. She spoke directly to Ben. “Would you tell the cook the food was excellent, please? I’ve had long day. Good night.”
“I’ll tell him,” Ben replied pleasantly. “Sleep well.”
“My studio,” Donovan muttered. “Nine o’clock sharp. We have a lot of work to do.”
She let a nod serve as her answer, and she left by the door to the interior hallway.
In her rooms, she changed into sweats and then sat on the bed and did email for a while. The house had wireless internet.
Really, it was kind of a miracle. Way out here, miles from nowhere, her cell worked fine and so did email and her web connection. She would have been impressed if she wasn’t so tired and disheartened.
What she needed was sleep, but she felt restless, too. Unhappy and unsatisfied. All these months of waiting. For this.
She knew if she got into bed, she would only lie there fuming, imagining any number of brutal ways to do physical harm to Donovan McRae.
Eventually, she turned on the bedroom TV and flipped through the channels, settling on The History Channel, where she watched a rerun of Pawn Stars and then an episode of Life After People, which succeeded in making her feel even more depressed.
Nothing like witnessing the great buildings of the world rot and fall into rubble after a so-enchanting evening with Donovan McRae. It could make a woman wonder if there was any point in going on.
At a few minutes after ten, there was a tap on her sitting room door.
It was Ben, holding two plates of something sinfully chocolate. “You left before dessert. No one makes flourless chocolate cake like Anton.”
She took one of the plates and a fork and stepped aside. “Okay. Since there’s chocolate involved, you can come in.” She poked at the dollop of creamy white stuff beside the sinfully dark cake. “Crème fraîche?”
“Try it.”
She did. “Wonderful. Your boss may deserve slow torture and an agonizing death, but I have no complaints about the food.”
They sat on the couch and ate without speaking until both of their plates were clean.
“Feel better?” He set his plate on the coffee table.
She put hers beside it. “I do. Much. Thank
