Falling for the Texas Tycoon

In plain English, he was telling her he was as aware of their age difference as she was. If there was an attraction between them, it wouldn’t go anywhere. There were simply too many complications.

He moved toward the door. As he opened it, he said, “Good luck with your interview on Saturday. Carrie invited me to stop and watch her work. I might just do that. Good night, Lisa.”

Then Alan Barrett was gone.

Touching her locket, rubbing her thumb over the engraved front of it, Lisa sank down onto the couch. She wasn’t keen to do this interview in the first place. Now, knowing he might be there…

She felt as if she had so many secrets to hide, she couldn’t keep the door shut on all of them. Somehow she had to. Alan’s opinion of her was already important to her, and that worried her most of all.

Chapter Three

“Do you know if it’s cool in Rocky Ridge, Texas this time of year?” Jillian Logan asked Lisa as they shopped in one of Portland’s department stores Friday evening.

Lisa plucked a burgundy plaid blouse from a rack and held it in front of her. “I looked it up on the Internet. It’s possible they can even get snow in February, so wearing long sleeves won’t be a problem.”

“Tell me again why you don’t want this Alan Barrett to see your tattoos?”

Jillian, who was twelve years older than Lisa, had become like a big sister since they’d gotten to know one another. Jillian was a social worker at the Children’s Connection, and Lisa had met her after she had given up Timothy for adoption. They’d clicked, and Jillian was one of the few people who knew Lisa’s whole story.

“I’ll be working with him,” Lisa replied. “He has to see me as a professional.”

“I think it’s more than that. You don’t want him to ask any questions.”

Sensitive and caring, Jillian was insightful, too…at least about everyone else. Jillian and her twin brother David had been abandoned by their drug-addicted mother and left in the care of their grandmother, a stroke victim who was barely able to care for them. Thanks to the support and love of the Logans, Jillian and David had survived and thrived. But Jillian was shy in her personal life. She could fight for a client, no holds barred, but when it came to herself and men, she lacked confidence.

“I don’t want any questions,” Lisa admitted. “It seems Alan has been working with Brian a lot.”

“Alan, is it?” Jillian asked with a sly smile.

Not much flustered Lisa, but Alan Barrett did—even a simple discussion about him.

“I don’t believe it.” Jillian’s smile was wide. “You’re blushing!”

Embarrassed, Lisa returned the blouse to the rack. “No, I’m not. It’s just hot in here.”

Jillian’s brown eyes were kind as she tapped her friend’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

With a huge sigh, Lisa answered honestly, “He ties me in knots. Do you know what I mean?”

“Uh-oh. How much time have you spent with him?”

“Not very much. I sat in on a meeting with him in Brian’s office and had dinner with him at Brian and Carrie’s. When we go on this trip to Texas, I’ll be with him every day for three or four days. What am I going to do? I don’t want him to see how he affects me. I have to be all business.”

“Do you?”

“What do you mean?”

Her friend eyed her assessingly. “There’s a reason he’s tying you in knots. A nonbusiness reason. Why does he unsettle you?”

“If I knew, I could stop it from happening,” Lisa grumbled.

Jillian gave her a penetrating look.

“Okay, let me think about it. He’s got the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s tall and broad shouldered and makes me feel protected, which is crazy, because I’ve only been around him about two minutes. He’s got this deep voice that just kind of seeps under my skin, and a Texas accent that for some reason makes my heart beat faster. On the other hand, he’s much older than I am. Before you start analyzing and telling me I’m looking for a father figure, forget it, because when I look at him—”

“How much older?” Jillian asked, cutting right to the chase.

“Seventeen years older.”

Her friend whistled through her teeth. “Lisa…”

“We started out on the wrong foot,” Lisa admitted. “He had this authority thing going on and was determined he could do whatever he wanted. But I stopped him cold.”

“Yeah, I would imagine that. You and authority figures don’t mesh well.”

“But then he helped me carry some furniture up to my apartment and that authority thing wasn’t part of it at all. I mean, when I’m around him, I don’t even think about him being older.”

“You’d better watch your step.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Jillian. You know me.” She lowered her voice. “I haven’t even been with anyone since Thad. I mean, I don’t know if I’d even remember what to do.”

Jillian rolled her eyes. “I think it would all come back.”

Lisa shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want it to come back. I don’t want to get involved with anyone.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” her friend said. “You want to get involved but you’re afraid if you do, the man will walk away and you’ll have to deal with abandonment again. You’ve been abandoned a lot.”

Yes, she had—by her parents when they died, by her aunt when she didn’t want her, by Thad, who hadn’t really cared about her at all. Thinking of him made Lisa remember the note. Thinking about the note made anxiety turn in her stomach. She could confide in Jillian, she supposed, but something made her keep the letter to herself. As long as she didn’t tell anyone about it, it didn’t seem real.

Taking a deep breath, willfully lightening her mood, she asked Jillian, “Are you giving me a free counseling session?”

“If you need one.”

“I don’t. Alan is Brian’s colleague and just somebody I have to work with on this project. We’ll both be professional and when we’re at his ranch in Texas, Brian will be a great chaperone. I have nothing to worry about.”

“Repeat it a thousand more times, and I might believe it.”

If she repeated it a thousand more times, she might believe it herself, Lisa thought. She pointed to a light blue and white striped shirt with embroidery on the pockets. Going to the display rack, she found her size and held it up. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re trying to concentrate on details so you don’t have to think about the trip itself.”

Sometimes Lisa wished Jillian wasn’t quite so perceptive. But if she needed to think about the details to alleviate some of her anxiety, that was exactly what she was going to do.

“My career is everything to me now,” Lisa told Carrie during their TV interview on Saturday morning.

Carrie had spent the last twenty minutes going over Lisa’s degree, future goals and the opportunities in Portland for young professionals. In her charming way, she had kept the interview questions nonpersonal but interesting, so Lisa could give information to young people making decisions about college.

Now, however, her voice warmed into a teasing quality. “Everything?” she asked with a smile. “A beautiful young woman like yourself makes time for dating, I imagine. Are there opportunities for young professionals to meet in Portland?”

Lisa felt heat come into her cheeks. “There are clubs and organizations.” She realized Carrie had to give the viewers something a little more personal than her career to pique their interest. But she had to admit dating wasn’t on her agenda, even though Carrie thought it should be. “I really don’t date. There just doesn’t seem to be time in my schedule. Some evenings I get home late, weekends I catch up on chores and spend time with family and friends.”

“I imagine the station might get a few e-mails from young men who are interested in you. What would you say to them?”

“I’d say my focus is on building my future and the future of the family I’d like to have someday. I don’t have time for romantic entanglements right now. I’m operating on the belief that I’m self-sufficient. I have my own apartment, pay my own bills, pay my own way. The truth is, I don’t really want a man complicating my life.”

“In other words, you want to be financially stable before you enter into a partnership with anyone.”

“Exactly,” Lisa agreed. “I don’t want any of my decisions to be impulsive ones, but well thought out. That way, they won’t land me in trouble.” Again, she thought, determined not to make the same mistake she’d made before. When she was a high school senior she’d needed someone to love, and she’d needed someone to love her. Only Thad hadn’t loved her, he’d used her.

She wouldn’t fall into that trap again.

“It’s been a pleasure interviewing you, Lisa,” Carrie said, meaning it. “You’ve given young women goals to aspire to. Thank you for agreeing to be on About Portland.”

Then the camera focused on Carrie, and Lisa could finally relax. Carrie had danced on the edge of the personal, but taken care not to ask questions that would reveal anything Lisa preferred to keep to herself.

After Carrie signed off, she stood and removed her microphone. Lisa did the same and set it on the chair where she’d sat. The bright lights that had blinded her suddenly blinked off.

A male voice came from the side of the room—a deep male voice Lisa was beginning to know all too well.

“Great job, Miss Sanders.” Although he’d called her by her first name a few times, he obviously felt the need for more formality today. As he approached the stage, his rugged good looks practically bowled her over, and she felt that pull of attraction again.

“Alan! I’m glad you dropped by,” Carrie said. “What did you think of the interview?”

His gaze stayed on Lisa as he answered, “I picked up some pointers for Christina. After all, if I’m going to spend more time in Portland, she might want to consider getting a job in this area after college.”

“So you’re really going to establish roots here?” Carrie asked.

Finally he broke eye contact. “It seems that way. I suppose it depends on the market, but the development deals Brian and I are making will last for many years. Have you two ladies had breakfast? I’d be glad to treat.”

“That would be wonderful,” Carrie responded with a smile. “Lisa and I are going to run errands, but we can take a little time for breakfast, right?”

As Carrie checked with her, Lisa knew she couldn’t nix the idea. This man was Brian’s colleague. And Carrie was only doing her part to help Brian. “Right,” she answered brightly.

No sense trying to wiggle out of breakfast. She could keep herself removed. She could pretend that Alan was just a business client who had to be entertained for half an hour.

“I have to go to the dressing room and pick up a few things I left there,” Carrie stated. “Anything I can gather up for you?”

Lisa’s purse was lying to the side of the stage under a coat she’d tossed over a chair. “No, I’m fine.”

“I’ll be right back.” Carrie flashed another one of those smiles that could bring any man to his knees. The thing was, she didn’t seem to care how beautiful she was, or that lots of men looked at her with longing. She only cared about how Brian looked at her. Lisa loved that about her.

To Lisa’s surprise, Alan’s gaze was back on her rather than on Carrie walking away. “So real estate really is where you want to build your future?”

Had he thought she’d been kidding, merely using this job with Brian as a stepping stone? In a way she was. “I want to get experience with Brian, but I have another goal, too, and because of that I’ll probably leave Summers Development eventually. I’d like to hook up with a contractor to develop communities for families. There are several in California that are great models.”

“You mean planned communities?”

“Yes. A real neighborhood, where people know each other, where there’s a park with a playground for kids to play, where the school is close enough to walk to. I don’t want to create an exclusive neighborhood with gates and security men, but a place where everyone watches out for everyone else.”

“That has a lot more to do with people than the land they’re building houses on,” he said with understanding.

“Maybe. But I think with the right public relations, with the right focus, we’ll draw in buyers who want that kind of neighborhood. I don’t care if I get rich doing it. I just want to make a difference.” As soon as those words were out of her mouth, she knew Alan could take them as an insult. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being rich,” she amended quickly.

Instead of being insulted, he laughed, and she could feel the pleasure of the sound down to the tips of her high-heeled shoes.

“Do you always say exactly what you’re feeling?” he 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 fun together. We have a good time in bed. Then something happens. Suddenly we’re not just dating. We’re a couple and then I hear things like, ‘Maybe you could stay overnight more often, maybe I could stay with you more often, why don’t you give me a key, why don’t we move in together, you should meet my parents, I should meet yours, have you thought about having a family?’”

“In other words, the woman wants more.”

“Yeah, that’s right. The woman wants more. I don’t. Some days I go into work at six and I don’t get home until ten, twelve, two. I’ve got a career and it’s damn demanding. My personal life has always come second, but a woman never wants to hear that.”

“Tell me something, Gil. Is your career just a ready excuse not to get involved with anybody?”

“You tell me. Don’t you do the same thing?”

“Not anymore. As I said, I’m not even looking at the dating pool. I’ve found other ways to enjoy life. But you like parties. You like going clubbing.”

The waitress brought them mugs of beer and Gil raised his to Alan. “You’re right. I do. I like having fun.”

“That’s why you shut down and make an exit when a woman wants more?”

Gil’s eyes narrowed and he lifted his mug. “Uh-oh. We’re getting way too deep here. Maybe you’re asking me all these questions because you’re looking for answers yourself.”

Was he looking for answers to the void in his life that would yawn wide open when Christina went to college? Why hadn’t he gotten involved with anyone seriously since his divorce? Why had meeting Lisa Sanders shaken him up in a way he didn’t understand at all?

“One more question, then we can move on to how the Mariners are going to do this year,” Alan promised.

Gil took a few swallows of beer, then set down his mug. “Shoot. But I reserve the right to remain silent.”

“Have you ever dated a younger woman?”

Gil smiled. “How much younger?”

“I don’t know, maybe ten, twelve, fifteen years younger.”

“I’ve dated a few women in their mid-twenties, but we seemed to run out of things to say. Our reference points were different. Do you know what I mean?”

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.

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