Alan understood what Gil was saying, yet when he talked with Lisa, he didn’t feel any of that.
“Are you thinking about dating someone younger?” Gil asked.
Now wasn’t that a million dollar question. Alan lifted his mug, too. “I was just hypothesizing.”
“You don’t hypothesize. You act. You’re a doer, not a ponderer. So if there’s a younger woman who’s making you ponder, you could be in big trouble already.”
Gil was an intelligent man and thought of himself as a cynical reporter feeding the public’s right to know. He had a sixth sense about a good story and could be perceptive about everybody but himself. This time Alan hoped Gil’s insight into what was going on with him was all wrong.
But the devil on Alan’s shoulder told him his friend was on the money once again.
Chapter Four
“Brian left about a half hour ago, Alan.”
Lisa kept her voice completely professional as they spoke over the phone late Monday afternoon. On Saturday, during breakfast with Alan after her interview, she’d let Carrie lead the conversation. However, her gaze had locked with his too many times and her heart had beat much too fast whenever he’d spoken to her…whenever she’d spoken to him.
“I was hoping I could catch him before he left.” Frustration edged Alan’s tone. “I have the schematics he wanted for that San Diego resort. I suppose I could have them messengered to his house.”
“No! I mean,” she added quickly, “I can come over and pick them up.”
She had to convince Alan not to interrupt Brian tonight. Brian had shown her the flowers he’d picked up at lunchtime to take home to Carrie, a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Since they were leaving Wednesday for the trip to Texas, and tomorrow night would be busy with last minute preparations, Lisa suspected he and Carrie were going to have some quality time tonight after Timothy went to bed. If they were interrupted by a messenger service, their evening could be ruined. She had a key to the house. She could pick up the materials from Alan and drop them off without Brian and Carrie even noticing. She’d leave them in Brian’s office with a note and slip out again before they even knew she had been there.
“I hate to take you out of your way. If I can’t find a service to do this tonight, I could drive them over to Brian myself,” Alan offered.
“Aren’t you working on the presentation for the investors?”
“Did Brian tell you that?”
“He gave me a schedule of our meetings with clients, what he was covering and what you’re covering. I know you’re busy. My evening’s free. I really don’t mind stopping by. Just give me directions and tell me exactly where you live.”
After a brief hesitation, Alan did just that.
A half hour later, the security guard at Alan’s building showed Lisa to a private elevator that went directly to the penthouse floor. Alan had apparently given the man her name and told him she’d be arriving within the hour.
The elevator was smooth and speedy, rushing her to the seventh floor in a matter of seconds. When the doors parted, she stepped out into a hallway with plush wine carpeting. The paintings that hung along the corridor were watercolors of ranch scenes.
When she stopped before one and studied it, she saw Christina Barrett’s signature in the corner. Obviously Alan was proud of everything his daughter did.
Lisa had almost reached the paneled mahogany door of the penthouse when it opened and he stood there, looking like neither a businessman nor a Texas rancher. Dressed in khakis and a long-sleeved, black Henley shirt, his rough-hewn face shadowed by a beard line, he looked too sexy for words and not altogether glad to see her. His blue eyes assessed her. She knew he couldn’t see much, because she’d buttoned and belted her coat against the inclement weather.
“Didn’t you park in the garage?”
“I found a spot across the street and just dashed over. I’m not fond of parking garages. They make me feel claustrophobic.”
“That surprises me. You give the impression you’re not afraid of anything.”
“I didn’t say I was afraid of parking garages. I just prefer not to park in them.”
He held up a staying hand. “I shouldn’t have made the observation. I don’t really know you. I’ve just gotten a few impressions.”
She’d gotten a few impressions of her own. Alan, for all his charming Texas manners, was a bit of a loner. How she knew that she wasn’t sure. Maybe he was different around family. Maybe his daughter knew the real man underneath. But Lisa didn’t suppose many people did.
He motioned her inside. “If you want to warm up a bit before you dash back out there, I have a fresh pot of coffee brewing.”
Having coffee with Alan—in his apartment, no less—wasn’t a good idea. Coming here had been a bad idea. Still, she looked around with interest. “No, I’ll just pick up whatever you want Brian to look at, then I’ll be going.”
Alan’s condo was a showplace. The same rich carpeting from the hall covered the living room. A navy leather couch and huge recliner were arranged across from a high-tech entertainment center, plasma screen TV, stereo system, CD player. Other electronic gadgets sat on the shelves—an iPod and an Xbox, along with a rack of CDs. The buttered plaster walls were devoid of art. She could see into the dining room with its shiny mahogany table that looked as if it had never been used. Alan might stay here when he was in Portland, but he didn’t really live here. It was too uncluttered, too clean, too polished.
He went to the library table along one wall and picked up a cardboard tube. Handing it to her, he asked, “What’s the real reason you wanted to pick these up?”
His perception amazed her. She’d found most men accepted simple explanations and didn’t look much deeper. But she was discovering that Alan wasn’t like most men.
To be diplomatic or just plain honest?
With this man, she went with honesty. “Brian was planning to spend some time with Carrie tonight.”
Alan’s eyebrows quirked up. “What are you, their guardian angel?”
That was laughable. She wasn’t anybody’s angel. Not by a long shot. “I’m a friend,” she answered easily. “That’s all.”
The truth was, she remembered the tension between Brian and Carrie before they’d adopted Timothy. A lot of that tension had come from Carrie inviting Lisa into their home to live until her child was born. But since then, Carrie had confided in Lisa that the tension had come from the secret Carrie had kept from Brian throughout their marriage, until the night Timothy had been kidnapped. The trauma of that awful event had brought everything out in the open. Afterward, when Brian had come to terms with all of it, his marriage to Carrie had become stronger than it had ever been. So had his commitment and his love. When Timothy had been returned to them, well cared for and healthy, they’d been ready for a new stage in their lives and in their marriage. Lisa admired them as individuals and as a couple.
Apparently deciding to take a different tack, Alan handed her the cardboard tube. “Are you ready to go to Texas?”
“Do you mean am I ready to fly in a private jet, or am I ready to absorb everything about this development deal so that I’ll learn from it and move on to the next step?”
“Both.”
“I’m ready.” She tilted her head and added, “I even bought a pair of cowboy boots.”
At that he laughed, and the tension that always seemed to crop up between them eased. “Have you ever been on a working ranch?” he asked.
“Nope. I’ve been a city girl all my life. Do you think I’ll have some time to see what you do there?”
“Oh, I think you’ll have time to fit in a tour. If I’m too busy, Neal can show you around.”
“If you’re busy with this golf resort, I will be, too.”
“That isn’t exactly what I meant. Besides work, I’ll be spending some time with my daughter. I always do when I’m home.”
Lisa knew she shouldn’t set foot in dangerous territory. She knew she should leave well enough alone. Y
et she couldn’t help herself. “You must have been young when you became a father.”
He was standing very close to her now. Chest hairs peeked up over the buttons of his shirt. It was so tempting… She curled her hand around the schematics tube. This man oozed so much sex appeal he almost took her breath away.
“I was young. Twenty-one,” he explained. “But from the moment I learned I was going to be a father, it was as if my life crystalized around the baby—around Christina. I left college and didn’t look back.”
“You left?” That surprised her. Alan was quick, intelligent, perceptive. To her, that had added up to well-educated.
“I could have worked on the ranch and just pulled a salary, but I wanted more for the family I was building. I helped manage the Lazy B and finished learning the ropes, but at night I got my real estate license. By the time Christina was in grade school, I already had a nest egg squirreled away.”
Obviously he hadn’t thought of giving the responsibility for his daughter to someone else. It sounded as if he’d taken on his new life without a complaint, without fear, without regret. There was no doubt in Lisa’s mind now that he’d never understand why she’d given up a baby for adoption. There was no doubt that if he knew, he’d no longer respect her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, stepping even closer. “You look as if you’ve lost your best friend.”
Steeling herself, she met his gaze. To steer the conversation away from children, she replied with a question to turn the focus back on him. “So you never finished your degree?”
“Never did. Maybe when I retire, or when I’m too old to climb on a horse, I’ll have the time. I decided real life experience was worth twenty years of book learning any day. You’ll see that for yourself now that you’re in the thick of it.”
She certainly was in the thick of it. His blue eyes were absolutely mesmerizing. The timbre of his deep voice strummed a chord somewhere in her midsection. She responded to him viscerally and she hated the fact she couldn’t control her reaction.
When he reached out and lightly trailed his fingers along a loose strand of her hair, she didn’t breathe.
“It’s wet.” His voice was husky and low.
“It’ll dry,” she managed to say, still caught up in him. She’d forgotten why she’d come to his condo.
He dropped his hand to his side. “You’re so young.”
“Isn’t age a state of mind?” she asked, more seriously than flippantly.
“I wish that were true.”
“You’re not old,” she protested.
“No, I’m not. But I’m not fresh out of college, either. My life’s on a track I’ve already chosen. Yours still has a lot of flexibility.”
Was he going to talk about this attraction? Were they going to admit there was some kind of live current between them?
For an instant—just an instant—she thought he might bend his head and kiss her. She thought they might find out exactly what the chemistry was between them. But maybe that was the difference between her being twenty-one and him being thirty-eight. He didn’t want to risk finding out.
Stepping back, he slipped his hands into his slacks pockets. “Tell Brian I’ll talk to him during the flight to Texas about the changes I think we should make.”
“You won’t see him before then?”
“No, I have meetings all day tomorrow. Tomorrow night I want to check out the plane myself and make sure everything’s ready.”
A hum of intense awareness still danced between them. He’d stepped away from it and she knew she should, too. This time she did.
As she walked toward the door, he followed her.
“When you enter the elevator, Ralph will be alerted downstairs. He’ll escort you out of the building.”
Now Alan couldn’t seem to wait to get her out of his apartment. Maybe he’d been closer to kissing her than she’d imagined. Or maybe he was just a busy man with a workload she’d never want to contemplate.
At his door she turned the knob and opened it. “I’ll see you Wednesday morning.”
He nodded, his expression set and serious. “See you Wednesday morning,” he agreed and closed his door behind her.
As Lisa walked toward the elevator, she still felt the intimacy of standing near Alan. The thrill of awareness of looking at him, breathing in his cologne, still surged through her system. But again she caught sight of Christina’s name on a watercolor in the hall. Alan Barrett had embraced fatherhood as he had everything else in his life, and he was proud of it.
Lisa knew he’d never be proud of her.
When Lisa stepped inside Alan’s plane, she felt almost awed. It wasn’t just the smell of fine leather, the computer workstations, the space. It was the atmosphere. Big deals happened for Alan even here.
“Have you been inside a corporate jet before?” His deep voice came from an alcove, which, she saw, was a galley of sorts. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, jeans and the ever-present boots.
“I’ve never been inside anything like this, but I guess if you do business all over the country, it’s the best way to travel.”
“I found it to be. Let me give you a tour. I want you to feel at home. If you need something during the flight, please help yourself.” He motioned to the refrigerator in the alcove. “It’s well stocked with soda, wine, beer and fruit juice.”
Opening the cupboards above it, he pointed out crackers and cookies and peanut butter. “For longer trips we pack frozen dinners, but this will only take us three and a half hours.” He noticed her briefcase and purse. “Did you hand off your suitcase down below?”
“Yes, someone took it before I came up the stairs. I guess Brian’s not here yet? He told me to take a taxi, and I think Carrie’s going to drop him off.”
Moving toward one of the high-back, camel leather seats, Alan pointed to the workstation in front of it. “You can stow your things there if you like.”
She did and then pulled down the short jacket of her denim pantsuit. The long sleeves covered both of her tattoos and that’s the way she wanted it.
After Alan showed her where the bathroom was located, he glanced at the curtain at the back of the plane. So did she. When he swung aside the fabric, which slid across a rod, Lisa spotted a bed.
“Sometimes I have to catch a few winks,” he explained. “It comes in handy.”
The bed brought to mind images she didn’t want to think about. Images of Alan shirtless. More than shirtless. Then she wondered if he brought along women on any of those jaunts. This alcove could be a secluded hideaway, flying high above the rest of the world, immune from it, separate from it….
“What are you thinking?”
Flustered, she quickly mumbled, “Nothing. I mean…it’s convenient for you to have this here.”
When he moved close to her, she took a step back. He frowned. “You’re jumpy today. What’s going on?”
After taking a steadying breath, she met his gaze. “In lots of ways, this is like a job interview for me. I’m an apprentice, learning the ropes. At least that’s the way I look at it. I don’t want to do anything wrong or say anything wrong.”
Angling his head, he eyed her thoughtfully. “You seem to have a level head on your shoulders. You know what you want. You’re well-spoken and seem to quickly grasp whatever Brian and I discuss. You’re not going to say or do anything wrong.”
“I don’t mean so much professionally as…personally.”
“Let’s be honest, Lisa. I think there’s chemistry going on between us that neither of us wants to admit to. But I’ll tell you this. If you want no part of it, you just say so. I understand ‘no.’ I understand ‘business only.’”
If she admitted to the attraction between them, she had a feeling she’d be in big trouble.
Just then, Brian boarded the plane. Lisa breathed a hefty sigh of relief. Alan heard it, but he misunderstood it.
“Maybe I’ve gotten things all wrong. Maybe what’s really afoot here is chemist
ry between you and Brian.”
Shocked, Lisa was speechless for a moment.
Brian stopped at one of the chairs to unload his briefcase. Lisa wanted to protest. She wanted to tell Alan he couldn’t be more wrong. But she couldn’t discuss it with him while Brian was within earshot.
Alan was already turning away, and she knew he thought he’d gotten it right. As soon as she could, she had to set him straight. But she needed a little privacy to do that. She might also need one huge dose of courage, because she might have to admit that the sparks between her and Alan were quite real.
Lisa stayed very much in the background as the two men discussed business during the flight to Rocky Ridge, Texas. Alan looked at her and even Brian differently, and she hated that. She had to put things straight with him—and soon—but she didn’t want Brian to have any inkling of what Alan thought.
When they flew over the town of Rocky Ridge, heading south to the airport, Brian was the one to point out a few landmarks—the mall, the medical clinic, the sheriff’s department, the high school from which Christina would soon be graduating.
After they landed, Alan spent a few minutes talking with the pilot. A black SUV pulled up to the plane and Alan introduced his brother, Neal, who was two inches shorter, and stockier. Neal’s hair was brown rather than blond, but his eyes were the same vivid blue as Alan’s. He shook Brian’s hand enthusiastically. When Lisa extended hers, he gave it a quick shake, apparently dismissing her as an underling. Normally her hackles would rise at something like that, but she was too worried about the conversation she had to have with Alan to be concerned with what his brother thought. After all, she was simply a secretary on this trip, wasn’t she?
Neal drove a few miles from the airport, then veered onto a drive that passed under a wooden arch branded with the Lazy B. The road and white pipe fencing seemed to go on for miles. Eventually they arrived at a sprawling, tan brick house two stories tall and grander than any Lisa had ever seen. Carrie and Brian’s home was spacious, but this was magnificent.
As Alan showed them inside, they entered a huge living room. She could see the dining room and kitchen beyond.
Falling for the Texas Tycoon Page 5