With her light, sexy laugh, Monique waved a hand. “My sweet, you’ll learn that a honeymoon isn’t a time or a trip, but a state of mind. Don’t concern yourself with that. Besides, do you think I could leave before they take those nasty stitches out of your arm?”

“Mother—” Summer felt the hitch in her stomach and reached for the tea in defense.

“No, no. I wasn’t there for you when the doctor treated you, but—” here, her eyes filled and her lips trembled “—I will be by your side when she removes them—one at a time.”

Summer had an all-too-vivid picture of herself lying once again on the examining table, the tough-faced doctor over her. Monique, frail in black, would be standing by, dabbing at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream, or just drop her head between her knees.

“Mother, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve just remembered, I have an appointment with Blake in his office.” Without waiting for an answer, Summer dashed from the storage room.

Almost immediately Monique’s eyes were dry and her lips curved. Leaning back in her chair, she laughed in delight. Perhaps she hadn’t always known just what to do with a daughter when Summer had been a child, but now… Woman to woman, she knew precisely how to nudge her daughter along. And she was nudging her along to Blake, where Monique had no doubt her strong-willed, practical and much-loved daughter belonged.

“À l’amour,” she said and lifted the tea in a toast.

It didn’t matter to Summer that she didn’t have an appointment, only that she see Blake, talk to him and restore her sanity. “I have to see Mr. Cocharan,” she said desperately as she pushed right past the receptionist.

“But, Ms. Lyndon—”

Heedless, Summer dashed through the outer office and tossed open his door without knocking. “Blake!”

He lifted a brow, motioned her inside, then continued with his telephone conversation. She looked, he thought, as if she were on the last stages of a manhunt, and on the wrong side of the bloodhounds. His first instinct might have been to comfort, to soothe, but common sense prevailed. It was all too obvious that she was getting enough of that, and detesting it.

Frustrated, she whirled around the room. Nervous energy flowed from her. She stalked to the window, then, restless, turned away from the view. Ultimately she walked to the bar and poured herself a defiant portion of vermouth. The moment she heard the phone click back on the cradle, she turned to him.

“Something has to be done!”

“If you’re going to wave that around,” he said mildly, indicating her glass, “you’d better drink some first. It’ll be all over you.”

Scowling, Summer look a long sip. “Blake, my mother has to go back to California.”

“Oh?” He finished scrawling a memo. “Well, we’ll be sorry to see her go.”

“No! No, she has to go back, but she won’t. She insists on staying here and nursing me into catatonia. And Max,” she continued before he could comment. “Something has to be done about Max. Today—today it was shrimp salad and avocado. I can’t take much more.” She sucked in a breath, then continued in a dazed rambling of complaints. “Charlie looks at me as if I were Joan of Arc, and the rest of the kitchen staff is just as bad—if not worse. They’re driving me crazy.”