QUOTE : Pilar approached the guest house by the back door. It was a friendly habit. She felt she had<br />become friends with Theo. He was an interesting, and interested, young man once you chipped<br />through the surface. A boy, she thought, who needed the softening influence of a mother.<br />She was touched that he seemed to enjoy rather than resent her company when he came by the<br />villa to use the pool. She'd managed to lure him up to the music room and have him play—or at least<br />play around with—the piano. It had been an easy step from there to open up a dialogue, and a debate,<br />over music.<br />She hoped he was as entertained by them as she was.<br />Maddy was a different matter. The girl was polite but consistently cool. And watched, Pilar<br />thought, everything and everyone. It wasn't resentment so much as a measuring. A measuring, Pilar<br />knew, that was directly connected to her relationship with Maddy's father.<br />That aspect appeared to have gone straight over Theo's head. But Pilar recognized the female-tofemale<br />judgment in Maddy's eyes. So far, she hadn't come up to snuff.