The Burning Point by Mary Jo Putney Page B

see that her mood was improving, he took a bottle of ginger beer from the refrigerator and poured himself a glass. "Have some more focaccia. I figure another two pieces and you'll be civil."
    "Civility is going to require a year of time, not olive oil," she said, the bite gone from her voice. "We shouldn't share food, Donovan. It's too...too intimate."
    Keeping the width of the counter between them, he dunked a piece of bread in the olive oil. "Kate, living together isn't going to be easy, but I can't believe that artificially ignoring each other is the answer. There's lasagna baking in the oven. Wouldn't it be easier just to set two places at the table and eat together?"
    "Sure it's easier in the short term, but we have three years of habit patterns waiting to reactivate. How long does it take to go from lasagna to feeling like we're a couple again? And if that happens, then what?"
    "We're not kids anymore, Kate. We don't have to be ruled by the past. Wasn't that the point of this exercise?"
    She tore a piece of the dense bread into minuscule crumbs. "I'm just...not handling this very well. In the abstract, trying to fulfill the will seemed like a reasonable idea, but in the last week, I've lost my business, my house, my cat, and maybe my moorings as well."
    "You could have brought the cat."
    "Ginger Bear is old, and will be much happier in familiar surroundings. My friend Jenny will take good care of him. Just like she'll take good care of my house and my business." Kate closed her eyes, emphasizing the dark shadows under her eyes.
    Deciding she needed time to pull herself together, he went to the garage to collect her luggage. After dropping off her bags in the bedroom wing, he returned to the kitchen and remarked, "You're driving Sam's Cadillac?"
    "My car is being driven cross-country by a couple of graduate students on their way to Johns Hopkins. Julia said I could use Sam's car until mine arrives. The blasted thing is the size of a tank truck, but a lot fancier. Sam must have loved it."
    "He did. None of those foreign luxury cars for him." Donovan began to set the kitchen table. "Technically the Caddy belongs to PDI, not your mother. That will have to be sorted out eventually."
    "It's a company car? Since you already have a Jeep, a red vintage Corvette, and a huge Harley motorcycle, if I counted the boy toys correctly, I presume you don't want the Cadillac yourself. Maybe you should give it to another employee, like Luther. He's been at PDI longer than anyone."
    "I'll ask if he wants it, but I suspect that he shares your opinion of the car's charms. Now that his kids are grown, he has a little sports number so he and his wife can zip around like teenagers." Donovan took a large dish of steaming lasagna from the oven and set it on a table mat, then tossed the salad with oil and vinegar. "If he doesn't want the tank car, I'll sell it. PDI could use the cash."
    Kate moved the drinks and the focaccia to the table. "Really? I thought the company has been wildly profitable for the last couple of decades."
    "It always has been, but Sam's death is having an effect. There are still only about six companies in the world that do explosive demolition, and PDI had the distinction of being the only one never to have caused a fatality. Well, except for Nick's company, which is too new to count. Now we've lost our aura of infallibility. Not only has that sent our insurance rates up, but when I've called firms that had contacted us about possible jobs, several said I needn't bother following up with a written estimate."
    Frowning, she served the lasagna. "It's a nuisance that business is off, but surely this is temporary."
    "Your dear cousin has been doing his damnedest to take as many clients as he can to his new firm, Implosions, Inc."
    "Only to be expected, I suppose. But unless he's improved on the technical end, Nick is no match for you."
    "He's no sharpshooter, but his field work is certainly competent, and he took a couple of good