The location saved transportation time, which was especially critical given the kind of jam-packed schedule she maintained. But after leaving David Winthrop, she was thoroughly wide-awake, far too wired to sleep. Surely someone with her analytical capabilities could figure out why. It wasn’t just the disturbing conversation they’d had before she’d left the house, she decided finally. It was the way she’d felt when she’d awakened to find him studying her so intently. There had been a cozy intimacy, a sweet tenderness to that moment that had struck a responsive chord somewhere deep inside her. Combine that with the way she’d felt when she’d kissed Davey good-night and she could be heading for emotional disaster. In an attempt to derail herself from that track and to rid herself of that disconcerting sensation, she found herself driving the entire winding length of Sunset Boulevard, emerging finally on Pacific Coast Highway. She turned toward Malibu. But as she drove along the dark coastal road, nearly deserted at this hour, she couldn’t seem to shake the somewhat astonishing reaction she seemed to be having to David Winthrop and to his son.
