Montana Dreaming

by Judy Duarte

  “Do you need anything else, Mr. Douglas?”

  “This looks great, Marge, thank you.”

  After she’d gone, Riley gestured to the food. “Help yourself.”

  Lisa perched on the leather sofa and looked over the selection with interest. Riley politely waited until she made a decision, then seated himself and picked up a napkin and a couple of sandwiches.

  The thick chicken salad had chunks of walnuts and sliced grapes, and Lisa wondered how many she could consume without looking like an oinker. They sure beat her peanut-butter-and-potato-chip special.

  Riley refilled her glass, and she felt a lot more comfortable here than she had at first. If he was trying to soften her up for something with food and wine, it was working. It was a good thing she’d called Bernadine. She was going to need a designated driver.

  Her lawyer showed up a few minutes later. When Riley poured the woman a glass of brandy and offered her a sandwich, she met Lisa’s gaze with a knowing look. But she ate and drank as their discussion got under way.

  Riley showed them the contract he had with Weber Security and explained the situation. “Weber is willing to switch the contract over to your company without a hitch. Have you incorporated?”

  “Lisa and I are working on that today,” Bernadine said.

  “This is all happening so fast,” Lisa told him. “There’s so much to do and to understand.”

  “Hiring Ms. Albright was wise,” Riley told her. “And having her present when you make decisions is to your benefit. But in addition I believe you’re going to need a financial manager.”

  Emily had told her the same thing.

  “And an advisor,” he added. “Someone to help you with investments. Someone who knows the markets and can help you manage and save money.”

  Lisa glanced at Bernadine, who nodded. “He’s right. I can look over the legal stuff, but money management and investment are out of my field.”

  “Is there someone like that around here?” Lisa asked.

  “A manager and an advisor are two different jobs.” Riley eased back comfortably on the sofa. “I’m a manager, and I’d be the best man to work with.”

  “But isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

  “How so? You pay me for my services and I make money off your money. I’d be doing the best I knew how, just like I do for my own holdings and my father’s.”

  “Do you have the time? Surely you have a lot on your plate right now. I’ve read about the ski-resort project. That has to be a huge responsibility.”

  “Thinking the mine was a Douglas property, I had already cleared time to handle it. This way I’d still be involved, but in your employ.”

  Those words perked her interest more than all the others. “You’d work for me?”

  “More or less. Yes.”

  The concept was just too delicious. Riley Douglas, son of one of the richest families in Montana, working for the town dog walker, the great-great-granddaughter of Thunder Canyon’s infamous Lily Divine. Lisa wanted to giggle. She held her exuberance inside with considerable fortitude, so it came out as more of a hiccup.

  Bernadine glanced at her.

  “Excuse me.” She hid her smile behind a cocktail napkin.

  “Think about it for a day or so,” Riley suggested. “We’ll talk again. How’s that?”

  “Unbelievable,” she replied.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s doable,” she answered. “But you said it was two jobs. What about the investment part?”

  “I work with someone who’s always on top of things. You could either hire him or ask him to recommend someone. Phil Wagner has advised my father and I for several years, and I can hook you up. He’s a savvy market man.”

  Riley did seem to have the know-how and the contacts she needed. His willingness to participate was flattering but a little unnerving.

  Caleb arrived next, dressed in a western-cut sport jacket and a beige Stetson. He hung the hat on a rack inside the door and joined them.

  “Dad, this is Bernadine Albright.”

  “We’ve met,” Bernadine said, and extended a hand.

  Caleb leaned forward to greet her.

  “And you’re Lisa Jane Martin,” Caleb said before Riley could introduce her. He took in her appearance with keen interest. “I guess the cap is your disguise?”

  “It must not be working. You knew who I was.”

  “I’ve seen you on television. Is my son being a good host?”

  “As hosts go, he ranks right up there with the best I’ve known.” No man had offered her heavenly chicken sandwiches or plied her with wine before, so Riley was the best so far.

  The security team arrived then. Lisa was disappointed that the rest of the time would be devoted to actual business, but the hard edges of Weber Security’s facts and figures were softly rounded by the incredible buzz she’d acquired.

  Craig Murphy headed the organization and had a manner of making people feel that he was in charge and that things were taken care of. Lisa liked and trusted him immediately. He showed her the initial police reports, maps detailing the whereabouts of his people at all times and a list of the men working the mine and explained the success of their plan thus far.

  “These are the arrangements you made with Mr. Douglas?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he concurred. “And if this strategy works for you, we’ll continue without change or interruption and simply switch the contracts over to you.”

  “We’re not sure exactly how that’s going to work yet,” Bernadine told him and explained their need to incorporate. “There are a lot of things still being worked out.”

  “Tell you what,” Riley said. “Let’s leave it the way it is for the time being. I’ll pick up the tab. As soon as Miss Martin has her corporation set up and some money in her accounts, we’ll do the new paperwork then.”

  “And reimburse you then?” Lisa asked.

  “Only for services from this date forward,” he answered.

  “We’ll need a simple agreement in writing,” Bernadine added.

  “Fine by me,” Craig said.

  Lisa and Bernadine concurred and accepted Riley’s offer.

  The meeting ended, and Lisa was one of the last to walk out of his office behind Bernadine. Riley and his father accompanied them.

  “I’m glad we had this opportunity to meet,” Caleb said.

  “Likewise.” She pulled out her sunglasses and slipped them on. “We meet with the Montana Mining Association this afternoon.”

  “Feel free to call me anytime if you need an opinion or advice,” Riley told her. He gestured to the limousine at the curb. “Your ride.”

  “I’m riding with Bernadine from here, thanks.”

  She got into the lawyer’s crème-colored New Yorker and glanced out the window at the two men who watched the car pull away.

  “What kind of feeling did you get?” Bernadine asked.

  Her feelings for Riley Douglas had been adolescent yearnings she’d outgrown years ago. “Why? What did you see?”

  “Well, with Caleb I’m not sure that what you see is what you get, and I suspect the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “You don’t trust Riley to manage us?”

  “That’s the odd thing. He’s a hell of a financier, and we’d be missing out on using his genius brain for handling money if we didn’t hook up with him. I would trust him as your manager. He knows what he’s doing. But he probably has an ulterior motive, and we’d better have our loins girded for whatever that may be.”

  “What might his motive be?”

  Bernadette cocked a brow at her. “Hello?”

  “Money.”

  The woman merely nodded as she drove.

  “Forewarned is girded, right? We let him do his money thing, and we watch for anything fishy.”

  “Watching is good,” Bernadine replied.

  Lisa thought about all the times she’d watched Riley Douglas. Watched him frown as he stru
ggled with chemistry homework; watched him stroll the halls with that distinctive swagger; watched him on the football field as cheerleaders swamped him. Watching Riley was no hardship.

  The interesting thing this time was that he was actually paying attention to her, knew her name, had sought her out. She didn’t have any illusions that his interest was in anything other than the glittering gold mine she’d inherited, but the attention was, to say the least, flattering.

  She might as well enjoy her new status. Who knew what would come of it?

  Chapter Three

  So much for the ball cap and the sunglasses. Lisa sat cross-legged on her sofa, her Lean Cuisine Mexican dinner in her lap, and stared at the television. Tonight’s recap showed her hosing out the dog runs with untamed morning hair, wearing a pink tank top with yellow polka-dot pajama bottoms and the neon-green rubber boots.

  “You people suck!” She sat her dinner on the coffee table and got up to stomp across the room to the front door. She turned the bolt lock and flung open the door. “You suck! Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  Her neighbor, Mrs. Carlson, had been setting her sprinkler to water her rose bushes, and she straightened to stare at Lisa. She always stared at Lisa, always seemed to be censoring her every coming and going, so the stare was nothing new.

  “Oh, hey, Mrs. Carlson.”

  Piper tried to wedge past Lisa’s legs, so she closed the door to keep him in and went back to resume her place. The last image on the screen was the high school picture again, just before the news moved on to footage of a water-main break downtown. Thank God there were a few disasters to occasionally take the focus away from her.

  Joey burped from beside the sofa.

  Lisa lowered her gaze to the empty tray where her burritos and rice had been. The tray had barely been moved, but it looked as clean as any of the dishes in her cupboards.

  She met the dog’s gaze and he smiled.

  “Real funny. Now I get to eat peanut butter again. That was the last dinner, and I don’t want to go to the store.”

  She ransacked the cupboards and finally ate a handful of trail mix and poured out the expired milk.

  “Okay, tomorrow I’ll go to the store.”

  Piper laid his head on her lap when she sat at the kitchen table and opened the phone book.

  “I’ll get you a chewy, but none for Joey.”

  At his name, the retriever padded into the room and stood watching her with expectation.

  “Don’t complain to me about heartburn, you pig.” She got up, dialed the phone on the wall and ordered a pizza.

  “Lisa Martin?” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Awesome! I just saw you on TV.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s really cool, you owning the mine and all.”

  “Yeah, cool.”

  “We’ll get your pizza there right away. You want any bread sticks or a two-liter or anything?”

  She remembered a couple cans of beer in the back of her fridge. “No, thanks.”

  An hour later, she’d eaten her fill of her pan-fried-crust pepperoni pizza, finished a beer and was watching one of her favorite romantic movies. A comfort night she’d needed badly.

  Here in her private haven, she was in her zone. The dogs had edged their way onto the sofa on either side of her, and she stroked their ears and heads.

  As the movie drew to an end, she blinked back tears and drew a deep breath. “Oh, my—Joey, you dog!”

  Now her tears weren’t brought on by sentiment but by the Mexican dinner the canine had consumed.

  She herded both dogs to the back door and stepped out for fresh air. “You’re not sleeping with me if you keep that up.”

  Her boys ran along the fence and sniffed. Piper growled deep in his throat. Lisa glanced at the dark sky and the woods behind the house, not liking the constant feeling of being observed. “Suppose they have infrared, too?” She waved for good measure. “Let’s go back in, boys.”

  Their tags jingled as they joined her.

  The Super Saver Mart opened at seven the next morning, and Lisa was in the parking lot waiting for the doors to be unlocked. The television vans were parked at the farthest sides of the lot.

  A newer car pulled up to a front slot, and the driver glanced toward the building. Just a customer, Lisa assured herself.

  She’d showered and fixed her hair before cleaning the runs that morning and she’d found a skirt that looked less like wallpaper than all the rest. Her denim jacket fit nicely, but her tennis shoes were simply the most comfortable for grocery shopping.

  After glancing at her reflection in the rearview mirror and knowing her hair was hopeless, she caught sight of someone unlocking the doors from inside the store and got out of her Blazer. She refused to turn and look at the television vans as she hurried to the door.

  An SUV was coming through the parking lot, as well.

  It was cool inside the market, and someone was adjusting the piped-in music. Lisa got a cart and passed Joseph Martinelli building a display of boxed macaroni dinners. “Morning,” the store employee said.

  “Morning.”

  Lisa decided to stock up on nonperishables so she wouldn’t have to come back for a while. She filled her cart quickly and headed for the checkout, where she glanced with trepidation toward the magazine racks. None of them sported her picture, of course, but she sympathized with Kirstie Alley, who’d been photographed at her least flattering moments. She pushed her cart on past.

  The two women checkers spotted her and one said something to the other. Lisa had seen both of them in here for years and neither had ever voiced more than the total of her purchase.

  Today, however, the woman checking her out said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “Did you find everything you needed? This is the best buy this week. I got some of these nectarines the other day and my son loved them.”

  “They do look good.” Lisa dug in her wallet for her debit card.

  When she glanced up, a tall, dark-haired man was making a purchase in the other lane. She’d recognize Riley Douglas anywhere, even without his sport jacket. Buying his own groceries? How unlikely was that?

  He accepted a plastic bag from the checker and turned to leave, then noticed her.

  The woman was bagging Lisa’s groceries.

  “Well, hi,” he said easily. “You’re out early.”

  “Had to get my worms.”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “Never mind. What brings you into town?”

  He raised his bag, which clearly held only one small item. “Allergies are kicking up. Had to pick up something.”

  And he didn’t have a prescription for that? Or a personal assistant to run his errands? He looked fine to her. No watering, itchy eyes or runny nose that she detected.

  “Uh-huh. Well, I hope it does the trick.”

  “Carryout on five, please,” the checker called.

  “I’ll get this,” Riley said and took charge of the cart. Lisa glanced from the woman to Riley’s back and followed him and her groceries out the door.

  “You realize you’re on Candid Camera,” she said as they crossed the parking lot.

  He glanced toward the media vehicles. “Not so candid. Is it like this everywhere you go?”

  “Pretty much. They’ll probably go in and interview the checker now, and tonight’s news will feature my supper menu.”

  “Yeah, how was the pizza last night?”

  She blinked. “You read that this morning?”

  With a grin, he nodded.

  They had reached Lisa’s Blazer, and she used the key to unlock the back door. It opened with a squeak of metal, and a few flakes of rust fell to the pavement.

  “I got rear-ended once,” she said. “This door’s never been the same.” She’d used the insurance money to pay her vet bill instead of having the dent pounded out, but she didn’t feel the need to share that detail.

 
Riley set her bags in the back, glancing at the items on top. “What kind of wine goes with rawhide strips?”

  “Those aren’t my dinner.”

  “No kidding.” He finished loading her groceries and pushed the cart into a return area. “Have you been to the mine yet?”

  She shook her head. Oddly enough, she wasn’t even sure where the Queen of Hearts was located.

  “Want to take a ride out there and have a look at your property?”

  Couldn’t hurt, could it? She’d been curious but too self-conscious of the stares. She gestured with her thumb to indicate their observers. “They’ll follow, you know.”

  Riley didn’t look toward the media vans. “We could lose them.”

  “How?”

  He appeared to be thinking for a moment. “Drive out to my place. They’ll follow. We’ll leave your vehicle parked and take another one.”

  “But they’ll see us leave.”

  “Trust me. I’ll figure it out.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. I have to get my groceries home, then take care of a few pets. It might take me a couple hours.”

  He reached into his pocket and took out a tiny phone, which he flipped open. “What’s your cell phone number?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  He closed the phone. “Do you have a piece of paper?”

  She rummaged through her purse and found a receipt and a pen.

  He jotted something down and handed both back. “That’s mine. Call me when you’re leaving.”

  She put the pen and note in her purse and got into her car.

  An hour and a half later, none of the dogs questioned had answered when asked if they were having any allergy symptoms.

  She stopped by the McGills’ to feed their cats and change litter boxes. She asked Sassy and Callie about allergies, as well, but after being rudely ignored, she returned home, freshened up and made an attempt to tame her hair.

  If she changed clothes, Riley would think she was trying to impress him or that she cared what he thought. She wasn’t and she didn’t, so she wore what she had on.

  Lisa called Bernadine to make sure she wasn’t making a tactical error. “I’m going to see the mine site with Riley Douglas. Do you think there’s aproblem with that?”