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“Did you really think I was going to take presents from you?”
“The furniture was for me, not you. I’ll be damned if I spend another night on that futon.”
“Good thing you’re bored with me.”
“I might change my mind. As a matter of fact—”
“It isn’t your job to furnish my place,” she said. “I’ll do it when I get around to it. Although I have to admit you almost sucked me in with those air conditioners. Unfortunately, I’ve developed this totally asinine sense of personal pride.”
“Your loss.”
> “You have enough people to take care of, Mr. Mayor. You don’t have to take care of me, too.”
She’d finally caught him off balance. He looked at her oddly. “That’s not what I was doing.”
“Oh, yes, you were.” She did her best to contain the thread of tenderness unraveling inside her. “I came here to rip your head off, but this house seems to have sucked away most of my righteous indignation. Do you happen to have anything to eat?”
He tilted his head. “Back there.”
The stunning stainless-steel kitchen wasn’t large, but it was dauntingly efficient. A limousine-long central island began as a workspace, then seamlessly extended into a sleek table large enough for a dinner party, with four wire-back chairs pushed under it on each side. “I don’t like dining rooms,” he said. “I like to eat in the kitchen.”
“I think you’re onto something.”
Forgetting her hunger, she wandered over to the room’s most striking feature, another colossal sheet-glass wall, this one looking down upon the Pedernales Valley where the river ran like a blue-green ribbon over jagged limestone shelves. Beyond the valley, the setting sun outlined the purple hills in a tangerine blaze. “Extraordinary,” she said. “You designed this house, didn’t you?”
“It’s an experiment in net zero energy.”
“Meaning?”
“The house produces more energy than it consumes. Right now about forty percent. There are photovoltaic and solar panels in the roof, along with rainwater collection. I have a gray water system, geothermal heating and cooling machines, appliances with kill switches to keep them from drawing power in the off mode. Basically, I’m living off the grid.”
Ted had made his fortune helping towns optimize electrical usage, so the house was a natural extension of his work, but it was still remarkable.
“We use too damned much power in this country.” He pulled open the refrigerator door. “I’ve got some leftover roast beef. Or there’s stuff in the freezer.”
She couldn’t keep the wonder out of her voice. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
He slammed the door and whipped around. “Apparently, I can’t make love according to your specifications, whatever the hell they might be.”
Once again, she’d inadvertently ventured into the killing zone. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Yeah. Telling a guy he’s a bust-out in the sack is guaranteed to make him feel great.”
“You’re not a bust-out. You’re perfect. Even I know that.”
“Then what the hell is your gripe?”
“Why do you care?” she said. “Did you ever think it might be my problem instead of yours?”
“You’re damned right it’s your problem. And I’m not perfect. I wish you’d quit saying that.”
“True. You have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and you’ve gotten so good at hiding what you’re really feeling that I doubt you even know what you feel anymore. Case in point. Your fiancée left you at the altar, and you barely seem to have noticed.”
“Let me get this straight.” He leveled his finger at her. “A woman who’s never held a job, who has no direction, and whose own family seems to have given up on her—”
“They haven’t given up on me. They’re just—I don’t know—taking a short break.” She threw up her hands. “You’re right. I’m jealous because you’re everything I’m not.”
Some of the wind went out of his sails. “You aren’t jealous, and you know it.”
