"I don't want the job."
"That's a lie."
Savannah's eyes went molten. "Now look, sister—"
"No, you look." Revved, Regan jabbed a finger at Savannah's chest. "We don't have to be friends. I've got friends. Though I'm baffled at how we could both manage to be friends with someone as sweet as Cassie Dolin. She finds you admirable, and it's not my place to tell her you're just plain rude. You were interested in the job when Jared suggested it. Interested enough to come to the house. And according to Rafe, everything was just dandy until I walked in. Now what's your problem? Sister."
Savannah found her temper warring with amusement, and reluctant admiration. Didn't the woman realize Savannah was big enough to break her in half? "I guess you told me."
"So why don't you tell me?" Regan shot back.
"I don't like the way you look."
"You—I beg your pardon?"
"Or the way you talk." Pleased with herself, Savannah smiled. "Let me guess—private education, dances at the country club, debutante ball."
"I was never a debutante." If she hadn't been so baffled, Regan would have been insulted. "And what's that got to do with anything?"
"You look like you just stepped out of one of those classy women's magazines."
Regan threw up her hands. "That's it?"
"Yeah, that's it."
"Well, you look like one of those statues men sacrificed virgins to. I don't hold it against you. Exactly."
They frowned at each other for a minute. Then Savannah sighed, shrugged. "I've got some ice tea."
"I'd love some."
By the time she was sipping her second glass, Regan was up and wandering the front room. She stopped by a landscape, all rocky hills and trees gone violent with autumn.
"This one," she decided. "He needs this one where that horrible white-orchid still life is hanging."
"I'd have thought you'd go for the orchids." When Regan turned, her eyes narrowed blandly, Savannah smiled fully for the first time. "Yeah, I can see I'd have been wrong."
"Greens and mauves," Regan announced. "Deep greens. And those chairs in the outer office have got to go. I've got a couple of library chairs in mind. Deep-cushioned, high-backed. Leather. And I figure hardwood with area rugs, instead of that gray sea of wall-to-wall."
Yes, of course. Savannah could already see it. Regan MacKade was obviously a woman who knew what she wanted. "Look, I'm not a humble person, but can you actually see my paintings jibing with your taste... or Jared's?"
"Yes. And I think, all things considered, that you and I will work together very well." Regan held out a hand, waited. "Well, are we going to give Jared a break and get him out of that tomb?"
"Yeah." Savannah took the pretty hand, with its glittering rings, in hers. "Why the hell not?"
Later, Savannah walked toward the woods. She had to admit she'd done something she detested in others. She had looked at the surface and made a decision. All she had seen—maybe all she'd wanted to see when she looked at Regan MacKade—was elegance, privilege and class.
But who could have guessed there'd be such grit under all that polish?
She should have, Savannah realized.
And when she saw Jared sitting on a rock smoking quietly, she realized she had known she'd find him here.
He said nothing when she sat down beside him and took the cigar. The silence was lovely, filled with birdsong and breezes.
"I owe you an apology." It didn't quite stick in her throat, but she handed him back the cigar. "I was... You caught me at a bad time the other day."
"Did I?"