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  Magadan’s male scent, accented by his suit, made him more sensual than she thought a man should be. But Magadan’s talk of lobster dinners, coupled with her outfit, was pulling her in another direction. It was the memory of what she’d gone through in this room not long ago that tipped the scale. “Are we going to be late?”

  “The lady isn’t going to take me up on my proposition? Ah, Chela, what am I going to do with you? I have the feeling this is going to be a very expensive evening.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think about that—” she started.

  “Then don’t. You need this tonight. It’s something I want to do for you.”

  Chela nodded and smiled gratefully. She relished the protective way he steered her out of her house by placing his hand in the small of her back. She waited while he locked the door behind her and then guided her to his car, a gentleman taking his date out for a night on the town.

  Chela didn’t look back. Thinking about the meeting with Kohl and her father, let alone telling Magadan about it, was the last thing she wanted to do. Maybe Magadan didn’t trust her enough to let her see where he lived. At least he was perceptive enough to sense how much she needed what they were doing now.

  Magadan explained the restaurant’s decor as he drove. The Bella Mansion had been built during pioneer days to house the town’s first banker. It continued in use as a home for several decades, but eventually no single family could afford the many rooms and extensive grounds. It had been converted into a restaurant over thirty years ago and remained in the same hands since then. “The cook has been to schools in Europe and treats each dish as if it’s his own personal masterpiece. There’s no comparison between it and the hamburger stand we went to. Or the Blue Max for that matter. This is true elegance.”

  Chela had been past the Bella Mansion many times and marveled at the spreading oak trees standing sentry over the extensive parking area. She’d glimpsed some of the two-story mansion from the road, but the one-hundred-year-old-plus trees hid most of the structure. Although it wasn’t quite dark, there were already hanging lanterns lit to welcome dinner guests. Chela barely controlled a gasp as they walked up the broad expanse of stairs and past two magnificent statues of stags.

  They stepped inside and waited a moment while their eyes adjusted to the muted lighting. Despite herself Chela leaned toward Magadan, fighting off an urge to turn and flee. What was she doing here? The cavernous room stretching ahead of them was dominated by a large circular fireplace in the center of the room. Flanking the fireplace were intimate tables for couples wishing a cocktail before dinner. An arched doorway in the distance led, Chela believed, to the dining room.

  Magadan leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”

  Chela blinked back tears. So this was what she and her mother had never experienced. Her father had been here, she was sure of it.

  No! She wasn’t going to think about that. Magadan had brought her here so she could forget her father. “I’m all right,” she whispered, trembling a little. “I—I guess I just didn’t think it’d be like another world.”

  “It is that, I guess,” Magadan acknowledged. “But all of us need a little fantasy once in a while. Please let me indulge you.”

  With Magadan’s presence to give her courage, Chela allowed herself to be led into the room. The thick carpet cushioned her steps and increased the feeling that she’d stepped into another world. She was grateful when he pulled out a chair and settled her at one of the small tables to the left of the fireplace. “We have a little time before dinner,” Magadan said as he took the chair opposite hers. “I’d like to order you a drink.”

  Chela nodded. It was hard to believe she had really spent the day sweating in the orchards. She wondered if this was her escape from her first face-to-face meeting with her father in years. Magadan was right. The Bella Mansion was for fantasies. She focused on Magadan, using him as her passport out of reality. His voice was more rumble than sound as he placed an order. His hand over hers across the table was a soft blanket. “You are beautiful,” he whispered, his eyes shining despite the dark interior broken only by candles at each table. “The most beautiful woman in this room.”

  “I’m a migrant teacher, although I don’t feel much like one tonight.”

  Unexpectedly Magadan lifted her hand and brought it to his lips. “You don’t look much like a migrant teacher tonight. Just be what I see, a beautiful woman.”

  What Magadan was saying filled Chela’s mind. There was no denying that she’d thought of the differences between them many times. But tonight they were locked together in an environment that made no such distinction. “I don’t know what we are to each other anymore, Magadan,” she said softly after the waitress had placed the cool glass of white wine in front of her. “Every time I think I know, things change.”

  “That’s because we’re changing. I thought you were beautiful, unique, from the moment I met you. But I didn’t know you then.”

  “Do you now?” Chela took a sip and challenged him. “Do you know who I am, Magadan?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I think I’m learning. I want to learn everything about you. Like—” He paused a moment as if hesitant to continue. “Like what happened this afternoon. It wasn’t just Kohl. Something else happened.”

  An hour ago Chela might have fled or at least closed herself off from his question, but the atmosphere had blunted her reactions, made her less skittish. “Something else happened, but I can’t tell you what it was. Not now and maybe never. Please. You have to accept that.”

  For a moment Magadan’s eyes sought to pierce her defense. “All right,” he sighed. “I don’t have any choice, do I?”

  Chela shook her head, unaware that the movement caused a couple of men to pause in their conversations and stare at the striking, raven-haired young woman. “Just as I have no choice when you close certain doors to me.”

  “I don’t like it having to be like that,” Magadan admitted. “I’d like to tell you everything there is to tell about me but—” His eyes narrowed. “Tonight feels good. I don’t want to risk anything.”

  “Neither do I,” Chela admitted, smiling. As the cool wine warmed her veins and blunted even more her usual world, Chela told Magadan what she could of her latest contact with Kohl. Despite her continued suspicions of the coyote, she honestly believed he would follow through with his plans to relieve her, or Magadan rather, of the money they were dangling in front of him. She was equally sure that Ortez wouldn’t be delivered to her until Kohl had drained her of every cent he could. He relished playing cat and mouse. “It could be dangerous for Ortez,” she pointed out.

  “He’s aware of that. But Ortez dislikes the man as much as you do. He’s willing to take certain risks. I’m a lot more concerned about the risks to you.”

  “I’m not afraid of Kohl.”

  “Aren’t you?” Magadan had been lounging against the back of his chair as she talked, but now he leaned forward. “Something made you look like a deer about to bolt.”

  “I didn’t bolt,” she pointed out. “I’m still here.”

  “Will you be able to say that if the man with Kohl, whoever he is, comes back again?”

  Chela glanced around the room, desperately seeking the illusions that were keeping her insulated from reality. “Let me worry about that, Magadan,” she said as their waitress approached. “I’m not asking you to fight my battles for me.”

  Chela let Magadan take her hand as they walked from the cocktail room into the main dining hall. She distracted herself by studying the red linen tablecloths draped over tables decorated with fresh flowers and candles. She marveled at the attire of their fellow diners, not realizing that even the women were looking her way. Heavy red draperies covered the windows and the same thick carpet silenced the sound of footsteps. It seemed to Chela that everyone in the room was whispering. For some reason that made her want to laugh.

  She tried to concentrate on the menu, but she’d never heard of most of the dishes and
the prices quite overwhelmed her. Finally she turned the decision-making over to Magadan. “Does it show? Do I look like a bull in a china shop?”

  “Hardly.” He pointed out the lobster dish and placed their order with the waitress. “You’re doing very well here.”

  Chela sighed. “My foster parents were very proper. They made sure I learned table manners. They tried to instruct me in the art of small talk, but I never saw a reason for it.”

  “Were you at all close to your foster parents?” Magadan asked, his eyes never leaving her face. “It doesn’t seem right that you should be so alone after your mother died.”

  Chela jerked her head up. “No. I never felt close to my foster parents. They believed it was their duty to provide for some of the world’s unfortunates. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that those unfortunates needed love.” Chela shook her head angrily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I haven’t thought about that part of my life for a long time.”

  “I didn’t mean to stir it up. I just want to know more about you. I’m going to keep asking questions like that until I get the answers I want.”

  “I don’t think so, Magadan,” Chela challenged. “You don’t give me certain answers. Why should I be the only one?”

  Magadan’s eyes darkened until they resembled caves. “There’s no arguing that and you know it. Damn! We make life complicated for ourselves, don’t we?”

  Chela’s eyes widened as their waitress brought a carafe of wine and placed it between them. She didn’t remember Magadan ordering that. “Life’s complicated. More so than I want to think about. Are you trying to get me drunk?”

  “Hardly. I think you’d stop before you got to that point. But you need to relax tonight. I want to make sure that happens.” Magadan poured twin glasses and handed one to her. He sounded like a tour guide as he explained that the wine came from a local vineyard, which, although small, made excellent dry white wines.

  “How do you know so much about local wines?” Chela asked absently as she took a sip. Magadan was right. The wine slid like velvet down her throat.

  “I could tell you I have inside information on such things, but the truth is there was an article on the vineyard in the newspaper’s business section few weeks ago. So much for impressing you with my expertise.”

  Chela tried to digest that bit of information, but the wine had done its work. She was a lot more interested in dinner and people-watching than trying to dig through the layers to the real Magadan.

  It was dark by the time Chela and Magadan left the restaurant, but people were still arriving. “It’s nine,” she observed. “How can they wait so long to eat?”

  “Probably because they don’t have breakfast at 6:00 a.m. How did you like the lobster? I got to thinking, maybe it was too rich for you.”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning,” Chela admitted as she slid her arm around Magadan’s waist in response to his arm around her. “Tonight was special. The dinner was the most perfect meal of my life.”

  “I think you should tell the chef. He’d probably serve you for nothing from now on. It was a good evening, wasn’t it?” Magadan started to open the truck door but wound up taking Chela in his arms instead. Overhead one of the lanterns cast a romantic glow on the two caught in an embrace that took them beyond the Bella Mansion parking lot.

  Chela felt herself swaying in Magadan’s grasp, but she knew she was in no danger of losing her footing. So women held on to their escorts’ arms to keep from tottering on their high heels? In Chela’s case her precarious stance came, not from her shoes, but her reaction to a kiss that seemed to hold no dimension of time. It wasn’t just the wine, or the effects of a magnificent dinner.

  Her state came from knowing that what had happened earlier in her house was a world removed from what she was experiencing now. Moths flitted around the lanterns. Night was cooling the summer-sun-heated day. The scent of roses from trailing vines around the restaurant piqued Chela’s nostrils and made her aware of her heightened sensual response to everything. Her bare arms felt the breeze, her ears caught the whisper of moving wings from the moths, but the real, overriding response came from what Magadan’s lips were doing to her entire body.

  Chela questioned if she existed as a separate person now or if her essence had been interwoven with Magadan’s. She wondered how she had gone this far in life without knowing that this emotion was possible.

  I think I love you, Magadan. I think that’s what’s happening. Chela gripped Magadan’s neck tightly, her revelation making her dizzy.

  “Do you know what I wish?” Magadan whispered. “I wish tonight would never end.”

  “You do? That’s a beautiful thought.”

  Magadan kissed her lightly on the nose. “I have an even more interesting thought. Do you know what I’d like to do? I’ve never walked through an orchard at night.”

  “There’s a mystery to it,” Chela supplied as she slid into her side of the truck. “There are sounds all around, but you can’t tell where they’re coming from. You can smell the heat in the ground, even when the air’s cool. You can almost feel things growing.”

  “Do you want to go there?”

  The alternative was going back to her place. “Yes. I don’t care where we go. Why don’t you try Walker Road? There are orchards there with histories that go back nearly a century.” Chela placed her head on Magadan’s shoulder as he started the engine. So this was what it was like to be protected, to have someone take over. It wasn’t bad.

  Chela might have dozed, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t really become aware of her surroundings until they’d been traveling for half an hour. She rubbed her eyes, sat up. Walker Road had narrowed down until there was no longer any shoulder. They were far from the city limits—and closing in on her past.

  “Here,” Chela directed, surprised to hear the word come from her mouth. “Please pull over here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You wanted to walk through an orchard at night.” Chela took a deep breath to still the warning voice inside her. Magadan was with her. She was safe. She could touch base with her past. “There are things… I haven’t been here for two years.”

  Magadan gave her a look she took to mean he sought a further explanation, but instead of giving it, she slipped out of the truck and waited for him to join her. The sounds and smells here were no different from any other orchard. She could take Magadan’s arm, tell him what she dared about the land. “The nearest house is two miles away,” she said softly, gaining courage. “The only building around is a storage shed for the equipment.”

  It wasn’t the orchard’s fault that her father had once owned it. There were some thirty acres of Cornice pears sheltered from much of spring’s frost by their secluded location between two low hills. The pears here might not be the first to ripen in the fall, but they were less likely to be damaged by freezing temperatures. “It’s one of the few orchards still to use smudge pots,” she remembered aloud. The pots, which contained oil, were fired in the spring to protect fragile buds from frost. “The—the former owner didn’t put much money in it.”

  “Look,” Magadan said. “Can you see the overhead sprinklers?”

  Chela couldn’t make out the high, thin metal pipes rising above the trees, but it didn’t surprise her that she didn’t know about the improvements. She had avoided all talk about Hidden Valley Orchard. “An ice coating on the buds does a much better job of protection from frost,” she explained. “A lot has changed here. I wonder what else the current owner has been doing.”

  “Do you want to find out?” Magadan’s eyes were on her but unreadable in the dark.

  Chela leaned over and removed her shoes. She started across the ditch in her stockinged feet before answering. “I think I do now.”

  He followed her. They walked side by side down the open space between the two rows of trees, not touching, silence settling comfortably over them. Chela was thinking about the sounds night birds made and what the wi
ld asparagus growing at the foot of the trees tasted like. The orchard hadn’t been watered in the last day or two, which meant she didn’t have to worry about sinking into mud. The carpet of grass under her feet kept her stockings from being ruined, but she wouldn’t mind even if they were. Stockings were things she wore when she slipped into a fancy dress and went off to a fantasy mansion for dinner. They had nothing to do with her real world.

  “The pears look as if they’ll be ready in about two months,” Magadan observed, breaking a silence that had gone on for almost five minutes. “For fall pears they’re ripening fast in the hot weather. I’m glad to see that. The dry cycle a few years ago was hard on the crop.”

  Chela stopped, and turned toward him. Not many people concerned themselves with the weather’s influence on the pear harvest. “You know what happened here?”

  “Of course. I’m a businessman. I also know that during the years when this orchard wasn’t being properly maintained, there was substantial damage due to insects. That’s the best damn way I know of losing it all. Spraying isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

  “You know about…the man who used to own this place?”

  “I didn’t move here until things had gone sour for him.” Magadan placed his hands on Chela’s shoulders and held her firmly. “I don’t want to talk about that, do you?”

  Chela dropped her head and muttered an anguished, “No.” She’d hidden from this all evening, but now was the time to face what Kohl had thrown in her face. Magadan couldn’t know about it, but he was talking about her father. Lou Dye was the man whose greed had allowed an orchard to become neglected and unproductive, who failed to inform seasonal workers of this until they’d already come here. How many workers had Lou Dye, her father, lied to? But that wasn’t all her father had done.

  She couldn’t tell Magadan that. Up until a few weeks ago she’d kept her secret because she wanted to keep buried something that belonged in the past. Back then, her father’s identity was none of Magadan’s business. Now, however, her closed lips and clenched teeth were caused by something else.