The Burning Point by Mary Jo Putney Page A

that had been tucked between the kitchen and the door to the garage. As a female architect, she approved. It was convenient to be able to keep an eye on the laundry while cooking.
    Professional curiosity engaged, she crossed the entry hall and entered the old living room. Now it was a den and TV room. None of the casual furniture was familiar, for which she was grateful.
    She lingered to study the bookshelves. An eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction, including a copy of the Blasters' Handbook . And, damnation, here was the beautiful coffee table edition of the Book of Kells that she had given him one Christmas. They'd both loved the ancient Celtic manuscript illuminations.
    She turned away from the books, preferring to admire the first-rate sound system. Donovan had probably wired the house so that music would play into every room.
    A new door opened from the den into a much larger room. Oscar Wilde was padding in that direction, so she followed him down the three steps. Then she halted, stunned. Dear God, it was her house ! No wonder the other areas had seemed so right.
    Her gaze swept over the magnificent, cathedral-ceilinged living room, the fieldstone fireplace flanked by narrow stained glass panels. Sunshine poured in through skylights, and tall windows afforded sweeping views of the surrounding woodlands. It was all exactly as she had visualized when drawing up the plans.
    Hearing a footstep behind her, she whirled to find Donovan coming through the kitchen door, a mug of coffee in each hand. Voice choked, she exclaimed, "You used the plans I drew up when I was studying at Maryland!"
    "It seemed silly to reinvent the wheel when your ideas were so good," he said as he handed her a steaming mug. "I made some minor changes, but basically it's the house you designed as your first big residential project."
    Her hand was shaking so badly that scalding coffee slopped over her fingers. The original structure was so small and nondescript that Kate had felt no compunctions about making major changes. She'd wanted to create a home filled with sunlight, and incorporating some of the wonderful architectural elements salvaged from PDI jobs, like the carved oak mantelpiece and the stained glass panels beside the fireplace.
    She'd drawn a blizzard of sketches, selling her ideas to her husband as if he were a paying client. Discovering her design brought to vivid life in wood and stone was more upsetting than the original house would have been. She'd put so much of herself and her dreams for the future into her plans. Seeing her house was like--like finding out that she'd had a child she didn't know about.
    She sipped at her coffee. Milk only, just the way she liked it. Damn Donovan!
    Wrapping her hands around the mug for warmth, she paced the length of the room. As in the rest of the house, the furnishings were comfortable but sparse. The empty spaces cried out pictures and plants, woven hangings and tapestry pillows....
    She cut her spiraling imagination off. This was not her house. Not anymore. But there were haunting similarities to her home in San Francisco. She and Donovan had similar tastes in Persian rugs and softly neutral overstuffed furniture, creating ghostly echoes between her house and his.
    Trying to take refuge in professional detachment, she said, "Very nice. When did you have this built?"
    "I did most of the work myself. The living room was the last major project. I finished it a year or so ago."
    His shuttered expression made her wonder what he had felt while working from the drawings and floor plans she'd labored over for months. Had he thought about her, or done his best not to? "You used your spare time for building as a counterbalance to wrecking things for a living?"
    "Something like that."
    Stopping by the glass doors, she gazed over the deck into the trees. One end of the deck was screened in, with a door that led into the kitchen. A great place to eat and hang out in the summer. Donovan's idea--her design