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