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murmured with soft male persuasion. „After all, we’re going to be married.“
    Heather tried to speak, swallowed and tried again. „No, there’s no reason. It’s just that I…we, well, we hardly know each other and there’s been so little time.“ She was stumbling over the words, and the knowledge both alarmed and irritated her. After all, she was nearly thirty years old with several years’ experience in handling all kinds of males. She had dealt with them as friends, co-workers, employers and employees.
    But all things considered, she hadn’t dealt with them very often as lovers.
    „Heather, we don’t need that clause in the contract. Trust me this much, will you? A little trust is a valuable ingredient in any kind of relationship, marriage or business.“
    „You won’t rush me?“
    „I won’t rush you.“
    „You won’t make demands?“
    „I won’t make demands.“
    „You won’t sulk or argue or give me the silent treatment if I take my time deciding what I want?“
    „I can guarantee I won’t sulk.“ There was amusement in his lightening expression.
    Heather responded to it, her lips curving in an equally humorous smile. „Then I suppose we can keep that part of the contract on a verbal agreement basis,“ she declared judiciously.
    „You drive a hard bargain, lady.“
    „My father was an excellent teacher.“ Heather pulled free of his light embrace and started down the path toward the kitchens. When he fell into step beside her, slowing his long gliding stride to match hers, she knew a pleasant sense of having resolved an uneasy issue.
    „Call it a compromise, Heather,“ Jake suggested gently.
    „Mother has been lecturing me all week on the necessity of compromising in marriage,“ Heather admitted with a tiny grin.
    „You’ve been very patient with Ruth’s attempts to organize our wedding. It means a lot to her.“
    „I know.“
    „Are you trying to make up for the way you ran off eleven years ago?“
    „Perhaps.“
    Jake considered that in silence as they walked through the side doors of the gleaming kitchens of the Hacienda Strand. Whatever he would have said in response was lost as they confronted the scene of energetic, highly skilled activity that greeted them. The kitchens had been redone two years previously and as a result they were a model of stainless-steel efficiency and cleanliness. Heather remembered this place as a refuge in her childhood. Here she had been able to come after school for a chocolate-chip cookie and a glass of milk. It was here, too, where she could make herself scarce whenever her father was annoyed with her. For some reason he never thought to come looking in the kitchens. And it had been here where she had found someone to teach her how to ride a motorcycle that last year in high school.
    „Miss Strand! You made it. We’ve been looking forward to your visit. Come on in, come on in.“
    „Hello, Julian,“ Heather said with a smile as the robust chef, Julian Richards, came toward them through the scurrying staff like a large ocean liner coming into port. „After those croissants this morning you couldn’t have kept me away. I would never have believed I could find anything like them outside San Francisco. And the fettuccine with anchovy sauce the other evening was absolutely superb. I would have returned to Tucson years ago if I’d known you had been added to the staff.“
    The middle-aged chef beamed under the lavish praise and was about to respond when he appeared to notice that Heather was not alone. „Ah, Mr. Cavender. I’m pleased that you decided to come along on the tour. We don’t see very much of you in the kitchens.“ There was both respect and reproach in the words.
    Heather heard the warmth fade from the chef’s voice as he turned to greet Jake. It wasn’t that he became less gracious, but he was definitely more wary and more distant.
    This wasn’t the first time during the past two weeks Heather had seen this reaction from