Rogue Read Free Page B

a caterer to come in and do dinner. You're welcome to join us,” he said generously, and hoped she would. He still enjoyed her company. Nothing had changed, he thought she was a fantastic woman. He just wished she'd relax and have more fun. He thought she had taken the Puritan work ethic to an extreme.
    Her intercom buzzer rang as she was saying goodbye to Blake. Her four o'clock patient, the fifteen-year-old boy, had arrived. She hung up, and opened the door to her office, as her patient wandered in. He sat down in one of the two big easy chairs before he looked at her directly and said hello.
    “Hi, Ted,” she said comfortably. “How's it going?” He shrugged, as she closed the door and their session began. He had tried to hang himself twice. She had hospitalized him for three months, and he was doing better after two weeks at home. He had begun showing signs of being bipolar when he was thirteen. She was seeing him three times a week, and once a week he went to a group for previously suicidal teens. He was doing well, and Maxine had a good relationship with him. Her patients liked her a lot. She had a great way with them. And she cared about them deeply. She was a good doctor and good person.
    The session lasted fifty minutes, after which she had a ten-minute break, managed to return two phone calls, and started her last session of the day with a sixteen-year-old anorexic girl. As usual, it was a long, hard, interesting day, that required a lot of concentration. Afterward, she managed to return the rest of her calls, and by sixthirty she was walking home in the rain, thinking about Blake. She was glad that he'd be coming for Thanksgiving, and she knew their children would be thrilled. She wondered if that meant he wouldn't be coming to see them for Christmas. If anything, he'd probably want them to meet him in Aspen. He usually ended the year there. With all his interesting options and houses, it was hard to know where he'd be at any given time. And now, with Morocco added to the list, it would be even harder to track or pin him down. She didn't hold it against him, it was just the way he was, even if it was frustrating for her at times. There was no malice in him, but no sense of responsibility either. In many ways, Blake refused to grow up. It made him delightful to be with, as long as you never expected too much. Once in a while he'd surprise them, and do something really thoughtful and wonderful, and then he'd fly off again. She wondered if things would have been different, if he hadn't made the fortune he did at thirtytwo. It had changed his life and theirs forever. She almost wished he hadn't made all that money on his dot-com windfall. Their life had been sweet at times before that. But with the money, everything had changed.
    Maxine met Blake while she was doing her residency at Stanford Hospital. He had been working in Silicon Valley, in the world of hightech investments. He had been making plans for his fledgling company then, she'd never fully understood it, but was fascinated by his incredible energy and passion for the ideas he was developing. They had met at a party she didn't want to go to, but a friend had dragged her along. She'd been working in the trauma unit for two days straight and was half asleep the night they met. Blake had woken her up with a bang. The next day he had taken her for a helicopter ride, and they had flown over the bay, and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Being with him had been thrilling, and their relationship had taken off like a forest fire in a strong wind after that. They were married in less than a year. She was twenty-seven when they got married, and it had been a whirlwind year. Ten months after their wedding, Blake sold his company for a fortune. The rest was history. He turned the money into even more, seemingly without effort. He was willing to risk it all and was truly a genius at what he did. Maxine had been dazzled by his foresight, skill, and brilliant mind.
    By the