asked with curiosity, a smile still on his lips…very nice male lips. Today he was dressed in gray, stone-washed jeans and a navy-blue sweater. A hint of blond chest hair peeked out of his V-neck.
Lisa felt that hot tingly feeling rolling through her again. “Usually. I think it’s important for people to know where I stand. So there’s no misunderstanding. Misunderstandings are inevitable, but honesty helps.”
“And you really don’t date? That man who took you to lunch looked very friendly.”
“That’s because we are friends.”
Now Alan’s voice turned from amused to serious. “What turned you off men?”
“I’m not turned off men. I’m just focused on my career.”
He gave her a long look.
“Really, Mr. Barrett. I’m just very focused.”
“It’s Alan, remember? And do you mind if I call you Lisa?”
“No, I don’t mind,” she said softly.
As they gazed at each other for a few moments, Lisa felt the rest of the world falling away. Her knees seemed a little wobbly and she wondered if someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
“This community you want to build. Would you like to do that in California?”
His question brought her back to reality. “Oh, no.” She thought about Timothy and Carrie and Brian. “I don’t intend to leave Portland. I have close friends here.”
“I would have thought a career woman on the move would relocate in order to further her ambition.”
“I was born and raised in Portland, and Portland is where I want to stay. Maybe fifteen years from now I’ll consider branching out.”
“Why fifteen?”
Lisa knew she’d just made a huge mistake. In her mind, she thought about when Timothy would be eighteen and going off to college. And if college wasn’t what he wanted, he might travel or move someplace else. Fifteen years from now, she still wanted to be his friend. Long before then, she hoped, he’d know she was his mother. She’d go wherever was necessary to maintain contact.
“Fifteen years seems reasonable to accomplish what I want to do here,” she ad-libbed.
But Alan seemed to be a perceptive man, and the look he gave her said he knew she was hiding something, or if not hiding it, guarding her privacy all too well. Well, he’d just have to wonder. She didn’t discuss her past with anyone unless they’d lived it with her. She didn’t want to revisit it, although it was always right behind her. When she thought about the threatening note she’d received, she wanted to blank it all out, and that’s exactly what she was going to do, for as long as she could.
Alan Barrett didn’t need to know anything more about her in order to work with her. And that’s all they were going to do—work together.
Alan pushed open the heavy door to the Goal Post, an out-of-the-way pub in Portland. The early February rain had pelted his windshield on his drive over. He was glad to escape from the dampness into the bar, which boasted a real fireplace. Brian had introduced him to the Goal Post after one of their first successful deals. Now Alan had named it as a meeting place for him and an old college buddy, Gil Reynolds. He and Gil had gotten together last fall after Alan had started spending a lot of time in Portland, but since then, they’d both been too busy to connect.
Alan spotted Gil at a bleacher-style booth, not far from the fireplace. As he approached, Gil grinned. His dark brown hair looked damp, and his black eyes looked as sharp and calculating as they had when they’d been housemates off campus at the University of Oregon.
Alan slid onto the hard wooden seat across from Gil. “It’s good to see you, finally. How have you been?”
“Busy, the same as you. You know the newspaper business.”
Gil was an editor at the Portland Gazette. “Real estate and news,” Alan commented. “I guess we’re both in careers that never let up.”
“That’s the truth. Not only do they never let up, but to sell papers I have to keep coming up with bigger stories. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think I do. Clients aren’t any easier to please these days than advertisers or subscribers. And as we both know, bigger isn’t always better.”
When the waitress came to their table, they both ordered beer on tap.
“So how’s Christina?” Gil asked. “Is she enjoying her last year of high school? Are you ready for her to fly off on her own?”
“She’s loving her last year, and, no, I’m not ready for her to leave. To tell you the truth, I can’t quite imagine her not being at the ranch on weekends. I can’t imagine her only coming home on holidays. I can’t imagine worrying because she’s not with her mother and she’s not with me and God knows what she is doing.”
“I thought you said Christina has a level head.”
“She does, usually, but put her at college with all that freedom, with new friends, with guys who want to take advantage of her, and I think I’d rather lock her in her room for a couple of more years.”
Gil laughed. “You are the definition of a protective father. How does she put up with you?”
“I try to hide my protective streak when she’s around.”
“I don’t think you fool her for a minute. And how’s Sherri?”
“Sherri is Sherri,” Alan said with a shrug. “She flits from one new project to another. She’s on a committee to beautify the roads and historic buildings in Rocky Ridge. Her new hobby is making jewelry out of glass beads, and she’s thinking about staying on as the cheerleading coach even after Christina graduates. From what Christina tells me, she has a new boyfriend. This one is a stockbroker.”
“Is it serious?”
“You expect me to know that?”
“You and Sherri talk.”
“About Christina, not about our personal lives.”
“Do you have a personal life?” Gil asked, with the interest of a longtime friend.
In spite of himself, Alan thought of Lisa. “I don’t have time for one.”
“As the most eligible bachelor in Rocky Ridge, you might have dated every single woman there. But now that you’ve come to Portland, you have a whole new dating pool. Every man needs a little recreation.”
For a certain number of years after his divorce, Alan and Gil had had the same mind-set about dating. Women could relieve the pressure of a heavy workload, while providing entertainment, companionship and physical satisfaction. But over the past few years, Alan had found that seeing women in that light, not attempting to find anything deeper, had left him empty, restless and feeling more alone than he had after his divorce. So instead of putting his energy into being charming and attentive to a woman for an evening, he’d discovered he’d found more enjoyment in traveling someplace he’d never been, going white-water rafting or simply riding his favorite horse until the wind blew the cobwebs from his head.
“I’m not interested in Portland’s dating pool.” Nevertheless, he thought again of Lisa—how poised she was, how frank, how the camera had seemed to love her face during her interview. Once more, he pushed her from his mind.
“Are you seeing anybody regularly?” he asked Gil.
“That all depends on what you mean by regularly.”
“You know, the same woman one weekend after another for more than a month.”
Instead of the sardonic smile Gil was so good at, he frowned and moved the saltshaker back and forth on the table. “I don’t know, Alan. I start liking a woman. We have