LITMIR.BIZ

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been part of the small band of flower children who’d traveled down the coast, pooled their scant resources and bought a small dairy farm with the intention of using the proceeds from the milk and ice cream to fund their various artistic enterprises.

      Serendipity had proven to be their ally. More than one of the commune members had achieved fame and fortune. Among the former residents was a world-famous balladeer, a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist and, of course her father, who could boast, if he were so inclined which he wasn’t, that the past three First Ladies had been seen wearing bracelets fashioned in his workshop.

      And as if to prove that Mistress Fate did indeed have a sense of humor, last year Contented Cows, Inc.—specializing in dairy products from cows fed organically grown dandelions—had been purchased by C. S. Mackay Enterprises, which had allowed the band of former anticapitalists to pay off the mortgage on the two-hundred-acre site.

      It was here Tara had grown up, one of several children granted a freedom unknown to the average kid in suburban America. During her preschool years, clothes had been optional, and although studies were never neglected, the teaching methods at the commune school had definitely not come from mainstream textbooks.

      Science had been more often than not taught outdoors, beneath the wide sky overlooking the sea. All those hours spent exploring tide pools and charting stars and Pacific storms and growing the gardens that supplied the extended family with vegetables had intensified Tara’s affinity for nature.

      Music and art were as important to the members of the small community as the air they breathed, and censorship, of course, was unheard-of. The commune library was extensive and varied, and was one of the reasons Tara’s love of the written word had flourished.

      Such a freewheeling atmosphere might be nirvana for someone wanting to grow up to be another Michelangelo or Georgette Heyer. A budding John Lennon or Bob Dylan would never lack for musicians to jam with. And there wasn’t an adult in residence who wouldn’t stop work to listen to a child’s poem.

      But Tara had always had the need for some boundaries in her life. She could still recall, vividly, when as a seven-year-old she had accompanied her parents to a Renaissance fair in Midland, Texas, and had been overwhelmed by the vastness of the country. The flat west Texas landscape, with its horizons stretching far in the distance on all four compass points, had made her feel as if she were adrift on a small dinghy in the middle of the ocean.

      Later, she’d often felt exactly the same way living in the commune. While other teenagers all over the world were rebelling against authority, demanding freedom, Tara found the dictates of following one’s own star unnerving.

      The lack of boundaries had given her more than her share of anxiety attacks, and had definitely inhibited her social life. It was only when she’d discovered her love for mathematics, and the purity of numbers whose values never changed and always did what they were supposed to do—so long as you followed the rules and theorems—that she’d begun to feel comfortable.

      From that day forward, she’d buried herself in her textbooks and, to the good-natured amusement of the adults in residence, had become the first math nerd in the artistic communal family.

      Her mother was waiting for her outside the house her father had designed—a wonderfully sprawling series of cubes and towers perched on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. It was daring even for this community, and whenever anyone asked Darren McKenna what he would do when the house inevitably slid into the sea, he promptly answered, “Build another one, of course.”

      Her father never had been one to look beyond the moment. Which made him the opposite of his daughter, who could, with a quick glance at her leather-bound organizer, tell what she’d be doing at any given hour weeks into the future.

      “Tara, darling.” Her mother’s flowing skirt swirled around her legs as she spanned the distance between them. “Welcome home. It’s been too long.”

      As she returned her mother’s embrace, Tara breathed in the scent of custom-blended jasmine and gardenia and felt instantly comforted.

      “It’s good to be here.” It was true, Tara realized with some surprise. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she’d entered the gates with a sense of relief, a sense of homecoming.

      Her mother leaned her head back and gave her a long maternal look that gave Tara the feeling that she could see all the way inside her. To her heart. Her soul.

      “You haven’t been sleeping well,” Lina diagnosed.

      “Now you’re monitoring my dreams?” Tara tried for a friendly flippant tone and had to cringe when the words came out overly defensive.

      “Actually, it was the shadows beneath your eyes that gave you away,” Lina said mildly. “And the fact that you’re too pale. Even for someone living in the city.”

      “I’ve always been fair skinned.” Her ivory complexion had been the bane of her existence during her teenage years when she’d struggled to gain the golden tan the boys seemed to admire so on the other California girls.

      “True. In that respect, as well as so many others, you take after your grandmother,” Lina agreed. “But you’ve always had an inner glow.” She reached out and trailed the back of her hand up Tara’s cheek. “It’s missing.”

      “It’s only stress. One of my clients is a computer company that just completed negotiations for buying a software firm. I’ve been working nearly around the clock combing through years of back financial statements.”

      After graduating from Cal Poly University with an M.B.A., Tara had taken a top-level job in the financial department of a San Francisco Fortune 500 company. She’d continued to go to night school and had earned her C.P.A., but apparently she was more like her parents than she’d thought because she began to find the corporate atmosphere stifling. Eventually, she’d struck out on her own, becoming a consultant, and although she worked harder than she ever had as an employee, she enjoyed the ability to pick and choose her jobs.

      “All the more reason to take a break and visit your mother.” Although Lina’s tone was characteristically mild, she could not keep the seeds of worry from her expressive hazel eyes.

      “We’ll have tea out on the patio. And we’ll talk. About your work, your vacation. And whatever else you’d like.”

      “I definitely don’t want to talk about Brigid’s house.”

      “Of course you do, dear.” Lina laced their fingers together and led Tara into the house. “That’s why you’re here.”

      Tara did not even try to argue. There was no need. Because, although she hadn’t realized it until this moment, once again, her mother was right.

      As she sat overlooking the sun-gilded waters and sipped a cup of lemon balm tea, and helped herself to a second helping of the smooth yellow custard made with crushed marigold petals from her mother’s garden, Tara could literally feel the tension that had her shoulders tied up in knots slipping away.

      “This is nice,” she murmured, enjoying the sight of sea gulls diving for fish out amidst the breakers. “I hadn’t realized how long it’s been since I’ve taken a breather.”

      “You work too hard.”

      Tara knew her mother’s comment was not criticism but merely observation. She opened her mouth to argue, but knew she could never lie to this woman.

      “I know.” She sighed. “But it’s not as if I have a choice.”

      “We always have a choice, dear.”

      “That’s easy for you to say,” Tara flared, her nerves more on edge than she’d thought. “You dropped out thirty years ago. Some of us prefer life in the real world.”

      “Reality is where you find it, I suppose,” Lina murmured, frustrating Tara even further.

      As much as she truly loved her mother, she could not remember a single instance

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