Grand Passion

wound was acting up again tonight, bringing back memories he had no intention of indulging.
    He concentrated instead on Cleopatra Robbins as she bustled about behind the front desk.
    Max remembered that Jason had called her Cleo. The nickname suited her much better than the more dramatic Cleopatra.
    Trust Jason to choose a mistress who did not fit the stereotype. But, then, Jason had always had a gift for looking beneath the surface. He'd had the discerning eye of an intuitive collector, a man who trusted his own instincts rather than the opinion of others. The stunning array of paintings he had bequeathed to his favorite art museum in Seattle bore testimony to his unerring taste. But the five Amos Luttrells had formed the centerpiece of his collection.
    Curzon had owned close to two hundred paintings at the time of his death. As far as Max knew, Cleopatra Robbins was the only mistress Jason had ever collected.
    An unexpected sense of wrongness rippled through Max as he tried to envision the woman behind the desk in bed with Jason Curzon. Jason was the closest thing Max had ever had to a father. He told himself he should have been glad that the old man had had some feminine companionship during the last year and a half of his life. God knew, Jason had had many lonely years after the death of his wife.
    But for some reason Max didn't like the idea that the female providing that companionship had been Cleo Robbins.
    Max concluded that she was somewhere in her late twenties, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He studied her precariously listing topknot of thick, dark, auburn hair and found himself wondering what it would look like tumbled down around her shoulders. There was no particular style to the design of the topknot. The rich mass of hair had obviously been twisted into position in a hurry, anchored with a clip, and left to flounder under its own weight.
    Instead of the exotic kohl her namesake might have used to outline her eyes, Cleo Robbins wore a pair of round, gold-framed glasses. Max realized that in an odd way they served the same purpose as elaborate makeup, concealing the real expression in her wide, hazel green eyes.
    The lady he had been hunting for the past month looked out at the world with the professionally friendly gaze of a successful innkeeper, but he sensed something deeper and more compelling about her.
    Max had an inexplicable urge to try something that he knew from experience rarely worked. He looked into Cleo Robbins the way he looked into a painting.
    To his surprise, the commotion and noise around him receded, just as it did when he was transfixed by a work of art. The world and his focus narrowed to include only Cleo Robbins. He felt the familiar stirring deep inside himself almost immediately. It made him uneasy. He was accustomed to feeling this sense of fascination and longing only when he was in the presence of the things he collected.
    Jason had told Max that the talent could be applied to people as well as art and books. But Max had discovered the hard way that the ability to see beneath the surface had its limits when it came to dealing with other human beings. People were more complex than art, and all too often they had an ability to hide the deeper truths about themselves.
    Nevertheless, there was no denying the kick-in-the-gut feeling he was getting now as he studied Cleo with what Jason had called his inner eye.
    “Just one moment, Mr. Partridge. I'll have someone take your luggage up to your room.” Cleo gave the irritable-looking Mr. Partridge a spectacular smile as she banged the silver bell on the desk.
    “About time,” Partridge muttered. “Took me nearly three hours to get here from Seattle. Don't know why in hell the company had to pick an inn way out here on the coast for this damn fool motivational seminar. Could have held it at one of the big hotels in the city.”
    “I'm sure you'll find that at this time of year the Washington coast provides a wonderful setting for an educational retreat.” Cleo glanced anxiously toward the staircase. “I'm afraid my bellhop is busy at the moment. I'll give you your key, and you can go on up to your room. I'll have the luggage brought up to you later, if you don't mind.”
    “Forget it. I'll carry it myself.” Partridge snatched up the suitcase at his feet. “Can I at least get a drink somewhere around here?”
    “An excellent selection of Northwest wines and beers is available in the lounge, Mr.