Kat Martin - Scent Of Roses

He climbed out of the car, took a breath of the burning air and started toward the front door of the main building, a light brown two-story stucco structure. As he walked along, hot air enveloped him. Damn, he was glad he no longer lived in San Pico.

He had almost reached the edge of the parking lot when his gaze caught on a late model, pearl-white Acura a few spaces down from his. Liz Conners drove a car like that. He had seen it the day she came out to tour Teen Vision.

He wondered if the Acura might be Liz’s and picked up his pace, walking faster than he usually did toward the sterile, white-walled room occupied by his father. Seeing the old man lying there staring at the ceiling, or slumped in his wheelchair, always depressed him. But the doctors still held out a small degree of hope that one day he might improve, and either way, Zach wasn’t about to abandon him.

He pulled open the heavy front door and stepped into the air-conditioning, grateful for the burst of cool air against his face. Since he came out to the home whenever he was in town, the receptionist, a small, dark-haired woman with glasses, recognized him.

She smiled. “Hi, Zach. Don’t forget to sign in.”

“I won’t. Thanks, Ellie.” He penned his name and the date and started across the well-appointed lobby down the hall, passing a long line of rooms filled with the elderly. The place was very nice, compared to the kind of rest homes he had read about. No more than two occupants to a room, some of them private, like his father’s. After the terrible fall Fletcher Harcourt had suffered, he’d been brought to Willow Glen to recover as soon as he’d been released from the hospital.

Zach had wanted him to have in-home nursing so that he could live in his own house, but Carson believed he should stay in the nursing home where he could receive more professional care. Since Carson was the eldest, according to provisions in their father’s will, he was named conservator of all of Fletcher Harcourt’s holdings, including the farm and any decisions to do with his health care.

Zach had argued, but Carson had the final say, and their dad had stayed in the home.

Just one more thing to dislike about his brother.

Zach made his way along the hall, glancing into the rooms along the way, until he came to C-14 in the west wing. He recognized the woman walking out of a room just a few doors down and paused there in the hall.

“Hello, Liz.”

She looked up at the sound of her name, came to an abrupt stop in front of him.

“Zachary…” She looked back over her shoulder. “You’re here to see your father?”

He nodded. “I come by whenever I’m in town. What about you?”

“I’m doing a teaching series for the nursing staff.”

“Subject?”

“Geriatric Psychology. Basically, it involves teaching techniques to deal with the elderly.”

“Sounds useful.”

“Every little bit helps.” She turned toward the open door. “I knew your father was in here. I hope he’s doing all right.”

“His condition stays pretty much the same. His legs don’t work quite right. There’s some kind of problem getting signals from the brain. He doesn’t talk much. When he does, he remembers bits and pieces from the past, which he gets mixed up with the present. Nothing about the accident or much about things that have happened since then.”

“I heard about the accident when it happened. He took a fall down the stairs, right? My dad was still alive back then and my sister still lived here. She and her husband moved to San Francisco in March.”

“Tracy, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Tracy’s a couple years younger.” She looked past him through the doorway to the form on the bed, lying beneath the sheets. “Such a terrible waste. Your father always seemed such a vital man.”

“He could be a real bastard at times. But mostly he was good to me. I owe him a lot. More than I could ever repay.”

“Is there…is there any chance he’ll get better?”

He looked at the man on the bed. “The doctors still hold out hope for him. They say technology is always improving. They say there’s work being done that might allow them to operate, remove the bits of bone that are pressing into his brain. I keep hoping. All of us do.”

Liz looked at him, studying him as if he were a specimen under a glass. “You’re a surprising man, Zach. You’re here to see your father. Sam says you founded Teen Vision. You’ve conquered your drug and alcohol problems and you’re a successful lawyer. You’re also rude and overbearing and irritating as hell. I can’t seem to figure you out.”

Zach grinned. “It’s encouraging to know you’re trying. Why don’t we go out to dinner and you can have another go at it?”

“I told you—”

“Yeah, I know. You’re busy.”

For a moment, she glanced away. “Look, I’d better get going. I’ve got a lot to do back at my office.” She turned and started walking.

“Liz?”

She stopped, slowly turned to face him.

“If you won’t go to out dinner with me, how about lunch?”

She didn’t answer for so long his palms began to sweat. Jesus. The last time a woman did that to him he was in high school.

“When?” she asked and his heart kicked up just like it used to back then.

“How about today? It’s already eleven o’clock. You’ve got to eat and so do I. We can meet at noon, after I’ve had a little time to spend with my father.”

“All right, but if you say Marge’s, the deal is off.”

He laughed. “I was thinking The Ranch House. They’ve got a pretty decent lunch menu.”

“Fine. I’ll meet you at The Ranch House at one.” She started walking again.

“One is fine. One is great. I’ll see you there.” Zach watched her turn the corner and disappear out of sight. She looked different today, all business in a simple coral suit with a plain white, open-collared blouse.

He dried his damp palms on his slacks, his heartbeat once more under control. It was crazy. Women didn’t make him nervous. If anything, it was the other way around. Maybe it was some weird psychological hang-up left over from the big-time brush-off she had given him in high school.

Must be, he told himself. Still, he planned to meet her, and as he walked into his father’s room, it bothered him to realize how much he was looking forward to it.

Elizabeth shoved through the door of The Ranch House at exactly 1:00 p.m. She was always on time. Her schedule was too tight not to be. Besides, she’d always felt being late was rude.

Surprisingly, Zach was already there, sitting on a bench in the foyer, not pulling the I’m-such-a-busy-guy-I-can-barely-squeeze-you-in routine that a lot of attorneys seemed to do. He looked good. Too darned good. He was fit and trim, his skin tanned from serious hard work instead of a tanning bed. He had thick, nearly black hair that waved just a little and a face as handsome as sin.

He dressed well—a short-sleeved yellow oxford cloth shirt with light beige slacks and Italian loafers. He looked great in his clothes, sophisticated as she had never imagined the ruffian in studded black leather she had known in high school would ever manage.

And yet something of that hard-edged youth remained. It was there in the line of his jaw, the faint curl of his lip, the slightly arrogant set of his shoulders. It seemed to make him all the more attractive.

Which was exactly the reason if she’d had a way to call him she would have cancelled.

“Right on time,” Zach said, coming to his feet the moment he saw her. “I wasn’t sure you would actually show up.”

“I wouldn’t have, if I’d had your cell number. I would have cancelled. This is crazy, Zach. What are we doing here? You and I have nothing in common. I have no idea why you asked me to lunch.”