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“I’m always nice,” he said as he prepared to leave. He touched her shoulder. Lianne resisted the impulse to lean against him for strength. She wanted to keep their relationship normal. She couldn’t take any more distractions at this point.
Lianne watched as he drove away. Nice was not the word she’d use to describe her boss. But sometimes he could be kind. She walked back out to the beach, wishing the sun was shining brightly and children were playing on the sand. Instead she had the lonely cry of the gulls to keep her company on a blustery day.
Tray drove back to the city reviewing the business awaiting his attention. Maybe he hadn’t needed to seek out Lianne, but he’d wanted to see for himself that she was all right. Finding out she wasn’t had shaken him. She’d always seemed indestructible. He never remembered her sick before. These past two days had shown a vulnerability that startled him. And brought out protective instincts he hadn’t known he had. Meeting her sister had also been a surprise. She looked exactly like Lianne. At first, he’d thought his assistant had gotten married and planned to quit her job. He’d been relieved and intrigued to discover the twin connection. What other surprises would he discover if he hung around her longer?
The revelation that she might not be able to have children—and longed to have them—had been another. Not that they’d ever discussed lifelong dreams, but she was devoted to work. Of course she had a private life. She didn’t go into hibernation at night and reappear at the office the next morning. He felt he was seeing Lianne in three dimension for the first time.
Life was so unfair. He’d known that since he’d been a small boy bewildered when he learned of the death of his mother and his father’s abandonment. But it still astounded him sometimes.
Like now. Lianne wanted a baby so badly and had no one to make one with. While Suzanne had been pregnant with their child and ended its life.
CHAPTER TWO
LIANNE arrived at work early Thursday morning. She had her coffee in hand and was prioritizing her phone calls when Tray entered her small office and looked at her.
“I hoped you’d be back in today. How are you feeling?”
“Back to normal, thank you.” She felt awkward and embarrassed remembering him preparing her meals.
“Good. Mark’s meeting me for lunch. I thought the three of us could go together.”
“Today?” she asked, surprised Tray had acted so quickly in lining someone up. She half thought he’d been giving her lip service.
“No time like the present. Mark will be here at noon.” With that he disappeared down the hall.
The phone rang and Lianne’s day began.
As noon approached, Lianne grew more and more nervous. She’d never met anyone before with the deliberate intent of seeing if they could hit it off enough to get involved. How far would it go—to marriage? She thought when the right man came along she’d recognize him immediately and be swept off her feet. Now she felt like some of the man-hungry women she’d read about out for only a meal ticket. Only in her case it was a baby ticket. Was she wrong to try for a family? She would miss so much from life if she never had a child of her own.
She made a good income. She didn’t need a man to support her. But she did need a man if she wanted a baby before it was too late. One who would be a good father—and loving husband?
Tray and a tall man with sandy hair entered her office promptly at noon. She looked up and smiled at them both, feeling like an actress getting ready to go on stage who couldn’t remember her lines. The visitor smiled easily when Tray introduced him.
“Join us for lunch,” Tray said as if it wasn’t already planned.
“Thanks, I’d like to.” She pretended she didn’t see the surprised look Mark had given Tray. This was never going to work.
Lianne felt awkward at the lunch table. For one wild moment she considered refusing when Tray had issued the invitation, but her boss had gone to all this trouble for her, she had to hold up her end.
Soon, however, the awkwardness began to ease when Mark proved to be entertaining and personable. Probably needed to be for his job, she thought skeptically. She couldn’t help compare the two men. Tray was dark, quiet, intense. Mark had a sunnier disposition and seemed interested in her. Maybe they would hit it off.
When lunch was finished, Tray excused himself—to be available for an important phone call due from Europe.
“For the first time since I’ve known him, his timing is superb,” Mark said when Tray left.
“Oh?” Lianne asked.
“I was hoping I’d get a moment alone with you. I’d like to invite you to dinner, if you’re free.”
“I’d love to,” she replied. Had a script been written out, it couldn’t have gone better.
“Tonight?” Mark asked.
“Terrific,” she said, smiling. Her heart didn’t skip a beat. There was no sense of weightlessness or flutter of excitement. But Mark was entertaining and maybe feelings would develop. She couldn’t expect love at first sight. That was surely a fantasy in books.
Tray was in a meeting when she returned to work. She wanted to let him know about her dinner date, but couldn’t leave a message with his secretary. She hoped the cryptic note would clue him in.
The afternoon flew by. Tray stopped at her desk at one point, on his way to meet with some of the operatives.
“So?” he said, holding up the note she’d left.
“Date tonight,” she said.
He nodded and moved on. Lianne watched him walk away. She was disappointed he didn’t want to know more. He’d set it up, wasn’t he more curious? Sighing, she turned back to the analysis she was working on. He’d know soon enough if she and Mark would make a match of it.
Her phone rang.
“Lianne,” she answered, glancing at the time. Another hour or so and she’d take off.
“Hey, thought you were coming to see me when you got back from the cottage,” her sister said without preamble.
“It was late last night and I came to work early this morning.”
“Obviously. I called before but you were busy. You doing okay?” Annalise asked.
“I’m hanging in there, if that’s what you wanted to know.”
“Feeling okay?”
“Much better.” Lianne sighed softly. It was a day-by-day thing at the time of her period. The rest of the time her life seemed normal.
“I’ve been thinking what you need is a social life to find some man to fall for,” Annalise said.
“I’m ahead of you there, I have a date tonight.”
“Really, who with?”
“Tray introduced me to one of his friends.”
“Why would he do that?” Annalise asked.
“I told him about the situation.”
“He came to the cottage, didn’t he? I thought he might when he almost browbeat me into giving out where you were. Were you okay with that?”
“Yes, that was fine. He listened to my tale of woe and came up with this idea—meet his friend who used to be married and wants to be married again. Maybe we’ll hit it off. We all had lunch together today and Mark asked me to dinner tonight.” She didn’t tell Annalise about Tray’s help for two days. Her sister would jump to erroneous conclusions.
“Fast worker. How are you feeling about that?”
“He seems nice.”
“Yuck, the kiss of death. No one wants to be nice. If he’s only nice, he’s not for you.”
Lianne laughed. “Don’t be silly. Of course I want a nice man for a husband. What—do you think I should have someone not nice?”
“How would you describe your boss?”
Lianne went still for a moment. “Why?”
“I figured you would fall for someone like him. You and I are alike and he’s the closest man to Dominic I know.”
“He’s nothing like your husband.”
“Maybe not superficially, but they both have that rock-hard center, they know their way around the world and give me the feeling of being able to take on anything—and come out the winner.”
Lianne nodded, then realized her sister couldn’t see her. “I guess. But I’m definitely not his type. His latest girlfriend could be a super model. Thin, beautiful and sophisticated.”
“You’re pretty and sophisticated,” Annalise said.
Lianne laughed. “I noticed you left out the thin part. But I’m not in her league, not that I want to be. Tray’s not for me. Anyway, I’ll let you know more about Mark after dinner tonight. Gotta go.” She hung up and returned to her task. Her and Tray? Where did Annalise come up with such an idea? She would not give that a moment’s thought. They were work colleagues—nothing more.
It was after eleven by the time Lianne returned home. Dinner had been at one of the “in” restaurants in Washington. Even on a Thursday evening it had been crowded. Mark had reserved a table so there’d been no wait. Lianne wondered how he’d managed that.
She kicked off her shoes and went into the kitchen. Putting the kettle on, she got tea from the cupboard. A cup of chamomile would help her relax. She yawned, feeling her cheek muscles protest. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled so much. Be polite, she could hear her mother’s voice echoing throughout the night.
The phone rang. She went to answer, noticing the flashing light on her answering machine.
“So how did it go?” Tray asked when she answered.
Lianne was surprised to hear from him. Annalise she expected.
“All right.”
“Only all right?”
“He’s nice.”
“But?”
“Does there have to be a but?” she asked, stalling. Mark was Tray’s friend.
“Yes, with that lead-in, there does.”
She hesitated a moment. It would serve no purpose to delay, time wouldn’t change anything. “He’s nice and still hung up on his ex-wife. If I had to listen to another word about how he’d screwed up and how she’d been an angel only he hadn’t seen it in time, I thought I would scream.”
“The man has rocks for brains,” Tray said. “Did he talk about her all night?”
“No. That’s what is sort of sad. He’d talk about something, then end up talking about her. Once he’d realize he was doing that, he’d stop and try another topic, segueing back to his ex. I think he really wants to be over her, but he’s not.”
“Are you seeing him again?”
“No.”
The silence stretched out for several seconds.
“Maybe I know someone else,” Tray said slowly.
“Forget it. Annalise knows some men she says are right up my alley. I’ll see how I get along with them. It’s my own fault. I love my job, you know that. I still should have done more about a social life before now.”
“This was only the first day of your campaign.”
“You make it sound like a war strategy.” It wasn’t at all like she hoped. She pictured herself as happy as her twin when she fell in love. Now the entire thing sounded analytical and deliberate. Where was the happiness in all this? Was the price of a baby going to be too high?
“It is a kind of strategy. You need to find the right match.”
“Mmm. It’s early, I know, but what if I don’t find someone I can even think of going to bed with?”
“Was that the real problem with Mark?”
She thought about it a moment. “Yes. No matter what, I couldn’t see myself getting intimate with the man.”
“It was a first date,” Tray said.
“I don’t think that would change.”
“You’ll find someone. Let me know how your sister’s friends work out. I have another couple of friends who are still single.”
“Maybe they want to stay single like you,” she said.
“You think I won’t marry?”
“Tray, you’re thirty-six years old and haven’t come close to getting married yet. You date some of the world’s most beautiful women. I think you’re hard to please. And you have to admit, you spend a lot of time at work. Relationships take time to build and maintain.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want a family—someday.”
Lianne heard the kettle whistling. She walked into the kitchen and turned off the gas. “Do you think there are several people in the world a person could be equally happy with?”
“Maybe.”
“I mean that one man for one woman sounds awfully chancy. What if they pass each other by? Would neither ever find happiness?” Lianne asked wistfully.
“You’re getting too philosophical for tonight. Go to sleep and tomorrow see what your sister turns up.”
Lianne fixed her tea and went to the living room. Turning off the lights, she opened her drapes and gazed out over the lights of Washington. Sipping the warm beverage she thought about her evening. The highlight had been the conversation with Tray. What did that say about her chances of finding Mr. Right?
How odd her sister thought she should be on the lookout for someone like Tray. He was handsome in a very sexy way, if she let herself think about it. Mostly she considered him her boss. And she’d decided early in her tenure with Protection, Inc. not to become involved with a fellow employee. She’d heard of office romances gone bad. Her job had been too important to her to risk it.
For a moment she wondered what it’d be like to be romanced by Tray. Fleeting, at best. He had a different girlfriend every few months. She’d rather spend hours each week working with him, than be one in a long line of dates.
