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She was the reason they were all here, spending the holidays in Texas. Charlotte hadn’t complained. She considered whining a deplorable character flaw. But Zia hadn’t failed to note how the vicious cold and record snowfall that blanketed New York City in early December had exacerbated the duchess’s arthritis. And all it took was one mention of Zia’s concern to galvanize the entire St. Sebastian clan.
In short order, Dev and Sarah had leased this six-bedroom condo and set it up as a temporary base for their Los Angeles operations. Jack and Gina had adjusted their busy schedules to enjoy a rare, prolonged holiday in South Texas. Dom and Natalie flew down, too, with the hound in tow. The family had also convinced Maria, the duchess’s longtime housekeeper and companion, to enjoy an all-expenses-paid vacation while the staff here at the resort took care of everyone’s needs.
Zia hadn’t been able to spend quite as much time in Texas as the others. Although Mount Sinai’s second-and third-year residents were allowed a full month of vacation, few if any ever strayed far from the hospital. Zia hadn’t taken off more than three days in a row since she began her residency. And with the decision of whether to accept Dr. Wilbanks’s offer weighing so heavily on her mind, she wouldn’t have dragged herself down to Galveston for a full week if Charlotte hadn’t insisted. Almost as if she’d read her mind, the duchess looked up at that moment. Her gnarled fingers tightened on the head of her cane. One snowy brow lifted in a regal arch.
* * *
Ha! Charlotte had only to look at Zia to guess what the girl was thinking! That she was so old and decrepit, she 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.”
Two
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, everyone,” she announced. “Say hello to Mike—”
“Brennan,” Dev finished on a startled note. “Aka Global Shipping Incorporated.” He pushed to his feet and thrust out his hand. “How’re you doing, Mike?”
“I’m good,” he replied, obviously as surprised as Dev to find a familiar face at this family gathering. “You’re related to Zia?”
“She and my wife, Sarah, are cousins.”
“Five or six times removed,” Zia added with a smile.
“The degree doesn’t matter,” Sarah protested. “Not among the St. Sebastians.” She aimed a quizzical glance at her husband. “How do you two know each other?”
“Mike here is president and CEO of Global Shipping Incorporated, the third largest cargo container fleet in the US,” Dev explained. “We contract for, what? Eight or nine million a year in long-haul shipping with GSI?”
“Closer to ten,” Brennan responded.
Zia listened to the exchange in some surprise. In the space of just a few moments her sun-bronzed beach hottie had morphed to cool cowboy dude and now to corporate exec. She was still trying to adjust to the swift transitions when Dev threw in another zinger.
“And now that I think about it, doesn’t your corporation own this resort? Along with another dozen or so commercial and industrial facilities in the greater Houston area?”
“We do.”
“I’m guessing that’s why we got such a good deal on the lease for this condo.”
“We try to take care of our valued customers,” Brennan acknowledged with a grin.
“Which we certainly appreciate.”
Devon’s positive endorsement might have carried some weight with outsiders. The two other males on the terrace preferred to form their own opinions, however. Skilled diplomat that he was, Gina’s husband, Jack, hid his private assessment behind a cordial nod and handshake. Dominic was less reserved.
“Zia told us your young nephew almost drowned this morning,” her brother said, his dark eyes cool. “Pretty careless of your family to let him go down to the beach alone, wasn’t it?”
Brennan didn’t try to dodge the bullet. A ripple of remembered terror seemed to cross his face as he nodded. “Yes, it was.”
Aiming a behave-yourself glance at her brother, Zia introduced her guest to Gina, Maria and Natalie, who kept a firm hand on the collar of the lean, quivering hound eager to sniff out the new arrival. The twins regarded him from the safety of their mother’s knee, but Brennan won giggles from both girls by hunkering down to their level and asking solemnly if that was a tree sprouting from Charlotte’s head.
A giggling Amalia answered for her sister. “No, thilly. Those are antlers.”
“Oh! I get it. She’s one of Santa’s reindeer.”
“Yes,” Charlotte confirmed as she held up two fingers, “and Santa’s coming to Texas in this many days!”
“Wow, just two days, huh?”
“Yes, ’n it’s our birthday, too!” She uncurled another finger. “We’re going to be this many years.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some busy days ahead. You guys better be good so you’ll get lots of presents.”
“We will!”
With that ringing promise producing wry smiles all around, Zia led Mike to the snowy-haired woman ensconced in a fan-backed rattan chair. He swept off his hat as Zia made the introduction.
“This is my great-aunt, Charlotte St. Sebastian, Grand Duchess of Karlenburgh.”
Charlotte held out a blue-veined hand. Mike took it in a gentle grip and held it for a moment. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Duchess. And now I know why Zia’s last name seemed so familiar. Wasn’t there something in the papers a couple of years ago about your family recovering a long-lost painting by Caravaggio?”
“Canaletto,” the duchess corrected.
Her eyelids lowered and her expression turned intensely private, as it always did when talk drifted to the Venetian landscape her husband had given her when she’d become pregnant with their first and only child.
“Would you care for an aperitif?” she asked, emerging from her brief reverie. “We can offer you whatever you wish. Or,” she added blandly, “a taste of one of the finest brandies ever to come out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
“Say no and make a polite escape,” Gina warned. “Pálinka is not for the faint of heart.”
“I’ve been accused of a lot of things,” Brennan responded with a crooked grin. “Being faint of heart isn’t one of them.”
Sarah and Gina exchanged quick, amused glances. Downing a swig of the fruity, throat-searing brandy produced only in Hungary had become something of a rite of passage for men introduced into the St. Sebastian clan. Dev and Jack had passed the test but claimed they still bore the scorch marks on their vocal chords.
“Don’t say you weren’t warned,” Zia murmured after she’d splashed some of the amber liquid into a cut-crystal snifter.
Mike accepted the snifter with a smile. His dad and grandfather had both been hardworking, hard-living longshoremen who’d worked the Houston docks all their lives. Mike and his two brothers had skipped school more times than they could count to hang around the waterfront with them. They’d also worked holidays and summers as casuals, lashing cargo containers or spending long, backbreaking hours shoveling cargo into the holds of cavernous bulk carriers. All three Brennan sons had been offered a coveted slot in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union after they’d graduated from college. Colin and Sean had joined, but Mike had opted for a hitch in the navy instead, then used his savings and a hefty bank loan to buy his first ship—a rusty old tub that made milk runs to Central America. Twelve years and a fleet of oceangoing oil tankers and container vessels later, he could still swear and drink with the best of them.
So he tossed back a swallow of the brandy with absolute certainty that it couldn’t pack half the kick of the corrosive rotgut he’d downed in and out of the navy. He knew he was wrong the instant it hit the back of his throat. He managed not to choke, but his eyes leaked like an old bucket and he had to suck air big-time though his nostrils.
“Wow!” Blinking and breathing fire, he gave the brandy a look of profound respect. “What did you say this is?” he asked the duchess between quick gasps.
“Pálinka.”
“And it comes from Austria?”
“From Hungary, actually.”
“Anyone ever tried to convert it to fuel? One gallon of this stuff could propel a turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine.”
The smile that came into the duchess’s faded blue eyes told Mike he’d survived his initial trial by fire. He wasn’t ashamed to grab a ready-made excuse to dodge another test.
“I’ve made reservations at a restaurant just a couple of blocks from here,” he told her. “Would you like to join us for dinner?” He turned to include the rest of the family. “Any of you?”
Charlotte answered for them all. “Thank you, but I’m sure Zia would prefer not to have her family regale you with stories about her misspent youth. We’ll let her do that herself.”
* * *
Once in the elevator, Mike propped his shoulders against the rear of the cage dropping them twenty stories. “Misspent?” he echoed. “I’m intrigued.”
More than intrigued. He was as fascinated by this woman’s stunning beauty as by the dark circles under her eyes. She’d tried to conceal them with makeup but the shadows were still visible, like faint bruises marring the pearly luster of her skin.
“I guess misspent is as good a description as any,” she replied with a laugh. “But in my defense I only tried to operate on the family dog once. My brother, unfortunately, didn’t get off as easily. I subjected him to all kinds of torture in the name of medicine.”
“Looks like he survived okay.”
He also looked decidedly less than friendly. Mike didn’t blame the man. He and his brothers had threatened bodily harm to any male who let his glands get out of control while dating one of their sisters.
God knew Mike’s glands were certainly working overtime. Despite those faint shadows under her eyes, Anastazia St. Sebastian was every man’s secret fantasy come to life. Slender, graceful and so sexy she turned heads as they crossed the marble-tiled lobby and exited into the six acres of lush gardens at the center of the Camino del Rey complex.
The vacation complex was only one of several projects Mike’s ever-expanding corporation had invested in to help restore Galveston after Hurricane Ike roared ashore in September 2008. The costliest hurricane in Texas history, Ike claimed more than a hundred lives and did more than $37 billion in damage all along the Gulf. Parts of Galveston were still recovering, but major investments like this beautifully landscaped luxury resort were helping that process considerably.
A frisky ocean breeze teased Zia’s hair as she and Mike wound past the massive Neptune fountain the landscape architect had made the focal point of the gardens. Beyond the statue were two tall, elaborately designed wrought-iron gates that gave directly onto the beach. On the opposite side of the garden, a set of identical gates exited onto San Luis Pass Road, the main artery that ran the length of Galveston Island.
“I made reservations at Casa Mia,” Mike said as he took her elbow to steer her through the gates. “Hope that’s okay.”
“This is my first trip to Galveston. I’m more than happy to trust the judgment of a local.”
Temperatures in South Texas during the summer could give hell a run for its money. In the dead of winter, however, the balmy days and sixty-five-degree evenings were close to heaven...and perfect for strolling the wide sidewalk that bordered San Luis Pass Road. Smooth operator that he was, Mike casually shifted his hold from Zia’s elbow to her forearm. Her skin was warm under his palm, her muscles firm and well-toned. He used the short walk to fill in the essential blanks. Found out she was born in Hungary. Did her undergraduate work at the University of Budapest. Graduated from medical school in Vienna at the top of her class. Had offers from a half-dozen prestigious pediatric residency programs before opting for Mount Sinai in New York City.
She elicited the same basics from him. “Texas born and bred,” he admitted cheerfully. “I traveled quite a bit during my years in the navy, but this area kept pulling me back. It’s home to four generations of Brennans now. My parents, grandparents, one brother and two of my three sisters all live within a few blocks of each other.”
She eyed the ultraexpensive high-rises crowding the beachfront. “Here on the island?”
“No, they live in Houston. So do I, most of the time. I keep a place here on the island for the family to use, though. The kids all love the beach.”
“And you’re not married.”
It was a statement, not a question, which told Mike she wouldn’t be walking through the soft evening light with him if she had any doubts about the matter.
“I was. Didn’t work out.”
That masterful understatement came nowhere close to describing three months of mind-blowing sex followed by three years of growing restlessness, increasing dissatisfaction, angry complaints and, finally, corrosive bitterness. Hers, not his. By the time the marriage was finally over Mike felt as though he’d been dragged through fifty miles of Texas scrub by his heels. He’d survived, but the experience wasn’t one he wanted to repeat again in this lifetime. Although...
His psyche might still be licking its wounds but his head told him marriage would be different with the right woman. Someone who appreciated the dogged determination required to build a multinational corporation from the ground up. Someone who understood that success in any field often meant seventy-or eighty-hour workweeks, missed vacations, opting out of a spur-of-the-moment junket to Vegas.
Someone like the leggy brunette at his side.
Mike slanted the doc a glance. One of his sisters was a nurse. He knew the demands Kathleen’s career made on her and on the other professionals she worked with. Anastazia St. Sebastian had to have a core of steel to make it as far as she had.
His curiosity about the woman mounted as they turned onto a side street. A few steps later they reached the Spanish-style villa that had recently become one of Galveston’s most exclusive spots. It sat behind tall gates with no sign, no lit menu box, no indication at all that it was a commercial establishment. But the hundreds of flickering votive lights in the courtyard drew a pleased gasp from Zia, and the table tucked in a private corner of the candle-lit patio was the one always made available to the top officers and favored clients of Global Shipping Incorporated.
“Back to subjecting your bother to all kinds of medical torture,” he said when they’d been seated and ordered an iced tea for the doc and Vizcaya on ice for Mike, who sincerely hoped a slug of white rum would kill the lingering aftereffects of pálinka. “Did you always want to be a physician?”
“Always.”
The reply was quick but not quite as light as she’d obviously intended. Mike hadn’t survived all those summers and holidays in the bare-knuckle world of the docks without learning to pick up on every nuance, spoken or not.
“But....?” he prompted.
She flashed him a look that ran the gamut from surprised to guarded to deliberately blasé. “Med school’s been a long and rather grueling slog. I’m in the homestretch now, though.”
“But...?” he said again, the word soft against the clink of cutlery and buzz of conversation from other tables.
The arrival of the server with their drinks saved Zia from having to answer. She hadn’t shared her insidious doubts with anyone in her family. Not even Dominic. Yet as she sipped her iced tea she felt the most absurd urge to spill her guts to this stranger.
So why not confide in him? Odds were she’d never see the man again after tonight. There were only a few days left on her precious vacation. And judging from Dev’s comments about Global Shipping Inc., its president and CEO had a shrewd head on his shoulders. Granted, he couldn’t begin to understand the demands and complexities of the medical world but that might actually be a plus. An outsider could assess her situation objectively, without the baggage of having cheered and supported and encouraged her through six and a half years of med school and residency.
“But,” she said slowly, swirling the ice in her tall glass, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m truly right for pediatric medicine.”
“Why?”
She could toss out a hundred reasons. Like the overwhelming sense of responsibility for patients too young or too frightened to tell her how they hurt. The aching helplessness when faced with children beyond saving. The struggle to contain her fury at parents or guardians whose carelessness or cruelty inflicted unbelievably grievous injuries.
But the real reason, the one she’d thought she could compensate for by going into pediatric medicine, rose up to haunt her. She’d never talked about it to anyone but Dom. And even he was convinced she’d put it behind her. Yet reluctantly, inexplicably, Zia found herself detailing the old pain to Mike Brennan.
“I developed a uterine cyst my first year at university,” she said, amazed that she could speak so calmly of the submucosal fibroid that had changed her life forever. “It ruptured during winter break, while I was on a ski trip in Slovenia.”