LITMIR.BIZ

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he say when he’d let you know?”

      “No. He’ll probably just give Cole a call. I’m half expecting to hear from my interfering brother any minute now.”

      “What if he doesn’t say no?”

      Annie’s heart nearly stopped, and then her breathing followed suit. Both started again raggedly. “He’s going to say no.” That’s all there was to it. “I’ve got my first interview with a prospective donor next week in Houston.”

      “Who with?” Becky’s surprise seemed to distract her—which was a good thing as far as Annie was concerned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

      “I just set it up this morning,” she replied. “He’s a communications professor, a friend of someone I worked with at the station in San Antonio when I was married to Blake. He’s widowed, fifty-seven, has two grown kids and a woman friend who is in complete support of the ‘project,’ as he called it.”

      “He called your baby a project?”

      Annie hadn’t been thrilled with that, either.

      “HEY, DO YOU KNOW WHY Katie Hollister would be looking for Shane?” Annie asked as she and Becky tidied up after the lunch they’d barely touched.

      “They hardly know each other,” Becky said, shaking her head. “She’s a senior, and Shane just started high school.”

      “That’s what I thought.” The Hollisters lived across the street from the three-bedroom ranch home Annie and Roger had bought when they got married.

      Annie repeated the conversation she’d had with her young neighbor at school earlier that day.

      “She’s seen Shane over here often enough with me,” Becky said. The women frequently had Sunday dinner together.

      Becky, who was the daughter of River Bluff’s sheriff, had been raised by her father’s exceedingly strict mother, and she was sometimes as eager as Annie to escape family get-togethers.

      “Guess that’s why she’d assume you’d know,” Becky was saying now, but she was frowning, and she seemed to be thinking about far more than that.

      “Could also be that we live in the same town we grew up in and everyone knows we’re best friends,” Annie teased, wiping crumbs off the counter. “So what’s up? Why would a popular girl like Katie be looking for a guy three years younger than she is?”

      “I have no idea, but I intend to find out.”

      “If it’s a romantic thing, I doubt your son is going to open up to his mother about it,” Annie observed.

      “Of course it isn’t romantic.” Becky’s voice became more adamant with every word. “He’s barely fifteen years old,” she added, as if that explained it all. “Girls like Katie Hollister go for football captains and college guys, not younger boys.”

      Unless the boy in question had great muscles and a gorgeous face like Shane Howard’s? Annie sure hoped not. The last thing Becky needed right now was problems with her son. And the last thing Shane needed was to be led off track by hormones and a slightly wild older woman. He was a good kid, with decent grades and a plan for his future.

      ANNIE FOLLOWED BECKY back out to the car to retrieve her bike.

      “You call me the second you hear from Blake,” her friend demanded, closing the back of the Tahoe.

      “I’m not going to hear from him.”

      Becky’s expression was firm as she stood there, shoulders back. “You might, Annie. You need to be prepared for that.”

      No, she didn’t. But she’d be fine, either way.

      “Have you thought about what you’ll do if he says yes?”

      “He’s not going to say yes.”

      Becky’s keys dangled from her fingers as she put her hands on her hips. “I hope you’re right.”

      Annie knew what Becky was trying to do here. She wanted Annie’s eyes wide open so she wouldn’t be blindsided—and get hurt. “Remember last New Year’s Eve?” she asked.

      Shane had been at a party hosted by the town council for all the local teens. They’d been locked in at the high school. And Becky and Annie had spent the night in Annie’s newly empty house, grilling steaks, drinking wine and thinking positively about the life ahead of them.

      “Yeah,” Becky said slowly.

      “We said we were going to keep our thoughts on the things we want. And that we weren’t going to worry about things that haven’t happened—most particularly, when they probably won’t happen.”

      “We were talking about getting cancer or being hurt or…”

      “Blake saying yes to fathering my child.”

      “Oh, honey, bless your heart,” Becky said, as she saw the tears in her eyes.

      “He did that once, you know.” Annie’s voice was little more than a whisper.

      And then he’d left the country on business, even though Annie had begged him not to go, and she’d miscarried, and he hadn’t come back….

      CHAPTER THREE

      “THANKS FOR SEEING ME, Mr. Smith. I brought a copy of my résumé for you.” The twentysomething, smartly dressed young man seemed to have enough energy for the two of them Friday morning. A damn good thing, as Blake had slept little in the two nights since his ex-wife’s invasion of his life.

      “I’m sorry if Marta gave you the impression I’m hiring,” he said now, taking the linen-covered portfolio he’d just been handed. “I’m a one-man show in here and my secretary’s got all of the administrative duties covered.”

      “She did relay that information,” Colin Warner said, his slightly spiky hair bringing an inward grin to Blake’s rather bleak state of mind. He tried to picture any of the Wild Bunch showing up at the poker table with similar hair—or any kind of styling, for that matter. “I’d still like to speak with you, if I may.”

      Better that, Blake told himself, than think about friendships and impossible requests from determined women.

      “Marta said you have a proposition for me.”

      “I do—an investment.”

      Eyes narrowed, Blake shifted in his chair. “Go on.”

      “Just not your usual sort.”

      “How do you know my usual sort?” If he had one, he didn’t know about it.

      “Everyone has his or her own unique signature, a personal collection of habitual actions, with which he leaves an individual mark on the space he occupies.”

      In theory, Blake agreed.

      “You, for example, tend to buy based on three things—global use, word of mouth and thorough financial analysis. You’ve been in business for two years, you’ve dealt mainly in real estate and insurance, though there’s the half interest in Cowboy Bob’s….”

      A steak franchise that one of his uncle’s former clients had brought his way.

      “Land, peace of mind and food—things everyone needs. You buy only when you’re approached, and you’ve made a profit on every single transaction to date.”

      Did this kid know Blake was set to clear close to a quarter of a million this year, too?

      Did he know what kind of toilet paper Blake used?

      Because he prided himself on giving everyone a shot—and was in need of a diversion —Blake continued to listen.

      “What I have to offer you fits only one of those three models.”

      “What

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