needed this bright Texas sunshine to warm her bones. Well, perhaps she did. But she also needed to put some color back into her great-niece’s cheeks. She was too pale. Too thin and tired. She’d worn herself to the bone during the first two years of her residency. And worked even more the past few months. But every time Charlotte tried to probe the shadows lurking behind those weary eyes, the girl smiled and fobbed her off with the excuse that exhaustion just was part of being a third-year resident in one of the country’s most prestigious medical schools.
Charlotte might not see eighty again, but she wasn’t yet senile. Nor was she the least bit hesitant where the well-being of her family was concerned. None of them, Anastazia included, had the least idea that she’d engineered this sojourn in the sun. All it had taken was some not-quite-surreptitious kneading of her arthritic knuckles and one or two few valiantly disguised grimaces. Those, combined with her seemingly offhand comment that New York City felt especially cold and damp this December, had done the trick.
Her family had reacted just as she’d anticipated. Within days they’d sorted through dozens of options from Florida to California and everywhere in between. A villa on the Riviera and over-water bungalows in the South Pacific hadn’t been out of the mix, either. But they’d decided on South Texas as the most convenient for both the East and West Coast family contingents. Within a week, Charlotte and Maria had been ensconced in seaside, sun-drenched luxury with various members of the family joining them for differing lengths of time.
Charlotte had even convinced Zia to take off the whole of Christmas week. The girl was still too thin and tired, but at least her cheeks had gained some color. And, the duchess noted with relief, there was something very close to a sparkle in her eyes. Even more intriguing, her glossy black hair was damp and straggly and threaded with what looked suspiciously like strands of seaweed. Intrigued, she thumped her cane on the floor to get the twins’ attention.
“Charlotte, Amalia, please be quiet for a moment.”
The girls’ high-pitched giggles dropped a few degrees in decibel level, if not in frequency.
“Come sit beside me, Anastazia, and tell me what happened during your run on the beach.”
“How do you know something happened?”
“You have kelp dangling from your ear.”
Zia patted both ears to find the offending strand. “So I do,” she replied, chuckling.
The lighthearted response delighted Charlotte. The girl hadn’t laughed very much lately. So little, in fact, that her rippling merriment snagged the attention of every adult in the room.
“Tell us,” the duchess commanded. “What happened?”
“Let’s see.” Playing to her suddenly attentive audience, Zia pretended to search her memory. “A little boy got sucked in by the undertow and I dove in after him. I dragged him to shore, then administered CPR.”
“Dear God! Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. So is his uncle, by the way. Very fine,” she added with a waggle of her brows. “Which is why I agreed to have dinner with him this evening.”
As Zia had anticipated, the announcement that she’d agreed to dinner with a total stranger unleashed a barrage of questions. The fact that she knew nothing about him didn’t sit well with the overprotective males of her family.
As a result, the whole clan just happened to be gathered for pre-dinner cocktails when the doorman buzzed that evening and announced a visitor for Dr. St. Sebastian. Zia briefly considered taking the coward’s way out and slipping down to wait for Brennan in the lobby. But she figured if he couldn’t withstand the combined firepower of her brother, cousins and the duchess, she might as well not waste her time with him.
She was waiting at the front door when he exited the elevator. “Hello.”
“Hi, Doc.”
Wow, Zia thought. Or as some of her younger patients might say, the man was chill! The easy smile was the one she remembered from this morning, but the packaging was completely different. He’d traded his cutoffs and flip-flops for black slacks creased to a knife edge, an open-necked blue oxford shirt and a casually elegant sport coat. The tooled leather boots and black Stetson were a surprise, however.
Like most Europeans, Zia had grown up on the Hollywood image of cowboys. Tom Selleck in Last Stand at Sabre River. Matt Damon in All The Pretty Horses. Kevin Costner in Open Range. Living in New York City for the past two and a half years hadn’t altered her mental stereotype. Nor had she stumbled across many locals here in Galveston who sported the traditional Texas headgear. It looked good on Brennan, though. Natural. As though it was as much a part of him as his air of easy self-assurance and long-legged stride. It also lit a spark of unexpected delight low in her belly. The man was primo in flip-flops or cowboy boots.
She did a mental tongue-swallow and asked about his nephew. “How’s Davy?”
“Sulking because he got cut off from TV and videos for the entire day as punishment for skipping out of the house.”
“No aftereffects?”
“None so far. His mother’s patience is wearing wire thin, though.”
“I can imagine.”
“My family’s having drinks on the terrace. Would you like to say hello?”
“Sure.”
“Be prepared,” she warned. “There are a lot of them.”
“No problem. My Irish grandfather married a Mexican beauty right out of a convent school here on South Padre Island. You haven’t experienced big and noisy until you’ve been to Sunday dinner at my abuelita’s house.”
Now that he’d mentioned his heritage, Zia could see traces of both cultures. The reddish glint in his dark chestnut hair and those emerald-green eyes hinted at the Irish in him. What she’d assumed was a deep Texas tan might well be a gift from his Mexican grandmother. Wherever the source, the combination made for a decidedly potent whole!
As she led him to the terrace that wrapped around two sides of the condo, she was glad she’d decided to dress up a bit, too. She spent most of her days in a lab coat with a stethoscope draped around her neck and her rare evenings off in comfortable sweats. She had to admit it had felt good to slither into a silky red camisole and a pair of Gina’s tight, straight-leg jeans with a sparkling red crystal heart on the right rear pocket. Gina had also supplied the shoes. The lethal stilettos added three inches to Zia’s own five-seven yet still didn’t bring her quite to eye level with Mike Brennan.
She’d clipped her hair up in its usual neat knot, but Sarah had insisted on teasing loose a few strands to frame her face. And Dom’s wife, Natalie, contributed the twisted copper torque she’d found in a London shop specializing in reproductions of ancient Celtic jewelry. Feeling like Cinderella dressed by three doting fairy godmothers, Zia slid back the glass door to the terrace.
The twelve pairs of eyes that locked on the new arrival might have intimidated a lesser man. To Brennan’s credit, his stride barely faltered as he followed Zia onto the wide terrace.
“Hey,
