by Judy Duarte
“You’ll have to stay in touch with me. Where will you go?”
“I have a place in mind.”
Bernadine handed her the magazine and admired the new SUV. “Nice vehicle.”
“Thanks.”
After taking the setter back, she went home and called Chad Falkner and the other local reporters to schedule an interview for the next day. She wanted the taping to take place in her home, where she was comfortable and where they could appease their fascination once and for all.
The salesgirl in Billings had given her a business card, so she called her and told her she needed something to wear on Saturday. The young woman had ordered a few things especially for her and offered to keep the store open for Lisa to try them on that evening. “Or I can come to Thunder Canyon,” she told her. “No problem.”
“No, I’ll be there,” Lisa told her. “I have a new car to drive now.”
Gwen had specially ordered at least thirty dresses and as many casual outfits for Lisa to try on and showed Lisa as soon as she arrived. She had excellent taste, had picked up on Lisa’s new metamorphosis and personality and had chosen garments accordingly.
“I saw you in the dress in the papers—and on the cover of People,” she told her excitedly. “I told you that was a great choice.”
“You did. I need something equally as…”
“Sexy?”
Lisa blushed. “Spectacular, anyway, for Saturday.”
“Look at this.” Gwen took the tissue from a slinky gown in shades of aqua and teal with tinges that shimmered pink in the light. “It reminds me of a butterfly,” she told Lisa. “And so do you.”
Lisa slipped into the dress and turned in front of the mirror. The garment dipped revealingly low in the back, and the side was slit up her thigh. Staring at herself, Lisa felt light and elusive—exactly the impression she wanted to convey. “You’re a genius,” she told Gwen. “I could never have shopped for myself this well.”
“I also took the liberty of finding accessories,” Gwen said hesitantly. “If I’ve overstepped bounds here, just say so. I can send back anything you don’t want.”
“Not at all. I need your help. I’ve never done this before.”
“Lisa, you’re beautiful. You look great in gorgeous clothes and you can afford the best. Allow yourself to enjoy this.”
“I think I am. Thanks.”
Gwen showed her the handbag and shoes she’d chosen, as well as sparkling butterfly pins for her hair. “What do you think?”
“That you’ve spoiled me and I’ll need to hire you.”
Gwen laughed. “That would be a dream job. I should be so lucky.”
Lisa looked in the mirror again. “Think Paris Hilton has a personal shopper?”
“From what I’ve seen, she likes doing all her own shopping. She has a much different background and has always been a spoiled rich girl. Besides, designers are chasing after her to wear their stuff.”
“I’m really getting into this,” Lisa confessed.
“And why not? I heard about the big event Saturday night. I assume you’re attending the ski-resort groundbreaking reception.”
“Yes. I’ve never been around people like the Douglases and the mayor before. If I look good, I’ll feel confident.”
“You look good, honey. You definitely look good.”
Dressed in her new clothing and driving her new Blazer, Lisa arrived at the Lazy D on Saturday night feeling more like Cinderella than ever before. She’d taken every measure she could to assure she’d look the part of the town’s rich girl, but apprehension still fluttered in her chest. She pulled up to the house, and a parking attendant assisted her out, then took the keys to move her vehicle.
Lisa had been to the Douglas house before but never at night, when the windows were lit from within and strings of lights draped from posts to lead the way to the entrance. The door opened as she reached it, and a man in a tux motioned for her to enter.
“Good evening, miss.”
She stood in the two-story foyer and glanced at the grand sweeping staircase, then at the room to her left. Voices and the sound of stringed music carried out to the foyer.
Adele Douglas greeted her in the opening to the enormous room. “Good evening, Lisa,” she said with a smile. “How nice to see you again. You’re quite the news about town. I don’t know when there’s been so much excitement. You look so lovely, dear, I can hardly take it all in.”
“Hello, Mrs. Douglas.”
“Adele, please. Mrs. Douglas was my mother-in-law.”
Adele had always reminded Lisa of a gracefully aging Meryl Streep in her serenity and quiet dignity. She was one person who wasn’t treating Lisa any differently than she ever had. She’d always been warm and gracious.
Lisa recalled Riley’s revelation about his father’s affair and how Adele had only recently learned of her husband’s illegitimate adult son. Only a classy woman such as this could forgive and accept and move on. “I never thought I’d be here for an occasion like this,” Lisa admitted. “I’ll have to have a moment with Derek before the evening’s over.”
Adele laughed. “You’ll find him in the family room at the back of the house. It’s his hiding place when we have company. I know he’ll enjoy your attention, though.”
“I’ll look for him.”
Caleb approached Lisa. He extended a hand and closed it over hers in a firm hold. “Riley told me you’d be coming. This is an exciting evening for us. We’re finally going to see the resort take shape.”
“I know Riley’s excited about the project,” she replied. “It’s going to be a boost to our town’s economy.”
“That and the gold mine,” he said with a wink. “You hold an important position now, as well, supplying jobs and channeling money into the community. Riley is the best man to help you with that. He’s handled our finances for years now and he has a nose for making money.”
“And spending it,” she said under her breath.
She sensed someone at her side and turned to find Riley in a white shirt and black suit. His appreciative gaze told her the dress was another hit.
“There’s nothing my boy doesn’t know about finance,” Caleb went on. “Trust him, and he’ll steer you right. He’s a good dancer, too.”
The string quartet, which was set up in the corner, had begun a new piece, and Caleb gestured for Riley to escort her to the area set aside for dancing. Riley took her hand and led her to where Emily Stanton and Brad Vaughn danced. Emily introduced Lisa to her new husband.
Lisa hadn’t danced since gym class in high school, but Riley put her at ease and smoothly led her in the steps. With one hand on her bare back and the other holding her hand, electricity sparked between them. He was more handsome than ever in his formal suit and tie. Looking at him made it difficult to breathe.
She was bold and confident when she’d made her plans, but when he held her like this, her self-assurance wavered. It took all of her considerable will to erect adequate barriers of protection. Riley was the demolition man, and she had to keep reconstructing the fortress that guarded her feelings.
“You do trust me, don’t you, Lisa?” His voice was low and seductive.
“Of course I do.” She trusted him to be persistent and persuasive. She trusted him to behave like the man he was born and bred to be. She trusted him to keep her on her toes.
“You’re doing a number on me in that dress, you know.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
He glanced down, his gaze traveling to her cleavage. “I can’t help wondering what you have on underneath.”
Her nipples tightened, and warmth tingled in surprising places. “Shall I tell you?”
He was silent a moment. “I’ll just keep wondering.”
She smiled and glanced away. “Suit yourself.”
For the first time she noticed that the two of them were cause for attention. Several curious looks were being cast their way. Adele and another woman were studying them
with interest as they danced, and Lisa thought she spotted jealousy on a few female faces.
Her emotions ranged from pride to unease. “People are watching us.”
“They’re watching you. You’re beautiful.”
He’d told her that before. She glanced up, hoping to see the truth in his expression. He found her beautiful now, and yes, she had changed her appearance, but she was the same girl she’d been in high school—or even a month ago. He hadn’t given her a second glance then. How much of the attraction was her transformation and how much was money?
“I did the interview Thursday,” she told him.
“How’d it go?”
“Good. Bernadine came. I haven’t been followed since. I wasn’t even followed here tonight.”
“So you think you have until next Thursday free and clear?”
She nodded. “Seems they’re keeping their word.”
“You can make arrangements with your customers and spend some time at the cabin, then.”
“I think I will.”
Riley changed the topic, filling her in on the identities of several of the partygoers. They ended the dance and he introduced her to his acquaintances. But underneath it all simmered the rising tension of what they’d planned for afterward. The night ahead never left Lisa’s mind and she doubted from the looks he gave her that it left Riley’s, either.
“Miss Lisa Jane,” a man said jovially from beside her.
Lisa turned to discover portly Mayor Brookhurst. She’d met him face-to-face the day she’d claimed the deed.
“Hello, Mayor.”
“You’re the belle of the ball tonight,” he told her. “May I have a dance?”
She glanced uncomfortably at Riley but said, “Certainly.”
The mayor wasn’t nearly as smooth a dancer as Riley. She didn’t like suspecting that part of his reason in asking her had been to get close, but her dress was little more than tissue paper between her skin and the mayor’s suit. It had been sensual with Riley as her dance partner. With the mayor it felt obscene.
After the song ended she excused herself as quickly as possible and sought out Bernadine, who was visiting with another woman.
“Lisa, this is Olivia Chester,” the lawyer said. “She’s our local ob-gyn.”
Lisa greeted the pretty Native American woman she guessed to be in her forties.
“I’ve followed all the excitement about the gold mine,” Olivia told her. Then she grinned and said, “Kind of hard not to.”
Caleb approached Lisa then. “I have someone I want you to meet.”
She excused herself and joined him. He led her to a small group. A young man and woman turned at his approach.
“Lisa, this is my son and his new wife, Justin and my adopted daughter, Katie.”
“Lisa and I have met, of course,” Katie told Caleb and greeted Lisa warmly. “Lisa has come into the library often.”
“Nice to meet you, Lisa.” Justin was tall and broad shouldered like Riley, his hair the same gleaming obsidian and his eyes held a similar intensity. The resemblance between the two half brothers was amazing. “I would have been able to recognize you without the introduction,” she said.
“Both my sons are handsome devils, aren’t they?” Caleb said proudly.
“That they are,” Katie agreed, wrapping her arm around Justin’s waist and smiling up at him.
Lisa imagined that Caleb had once been as tall and virile-looking as his sons, too, because he was still a handsome man.
“Where is Riley, anyway?” Katie asked. “I never see much of him anymore.” She spotted him, caught his eye and gestured for Riley to join them.
Lisa sensed Riley’s unease as soon as he approached and stood with the group. She’d heard the pain in his voice when he’d spoken of this newly discovered brother. It had been plain that he still had a ways to go in accepting the situation.
Caleb behaved as though things couldn’t have been more normal, however. “What a treat to have you all together. Adele and I are planning a family shindig soon. You’re invited, Lisa. We’d love to have you join us.”
“Well, thank you,” she said uncomfortably. “I’ll have to see if I can make it.”
“Of course you can make it. You’ll be there.”
Lisa exchanged a look with Katie, who simply smiled as though she was used to the older man’s overbearing manner.
“Excuse us now,” Riley said. “I want to introduce Lisa to Phil.”
Lisa met his friend and financial advisor, Phil Wagner, and while the two men stood talking, she slipped away and headed toward the back of the house.
Meeting all those strangers and trying to remember names and keep smiling was exhausting. The “family room,” as Adele had called it, was an immense room with Oriental rugs, a pool table, fireplace, sofa and love seats.
At Lisa’s entry, Derek—Adele’s enormous white poodle—roused from his resting place on the floor, sniffed the air hesitantly, then came forward to greet her with a lick.
“Hey, boy. How are you doing?” The white poodle wore a red bandanna around his neck and, as Riley had so adeptly described, his fur was cut into ridiculous pom-poms. Quite undignified for such a mannerly and handsome animal but not his fault, as she still maintained. Derek’s fur was so thick, she had to bury her fingers in it to scratch him.
“Smart of you to find a quiet place to hide out. Wouldn’t mind joining you, actually. You’re smelling my dogs, aren’t you? Wonder what they’d make of you.”
She eased down onto the sofa and slipped off her shoes. Derek sat at her knees and seemed to enjoy her company and a lengthy head scratch by closing his eyes.
Sometime later the dog eased onto the sofa beside her, and they were enjoying the quiet time together when Riley found her. “There you are. Mother said I’d find you here.”
“Derek and I are hanging out.”
Riley glanced at the dog that barely seemed to notice his arrival. “What do you see in him, anyway?”
“He’s affectionate. And intelligent. He’s back here away from the crazies, isn’t he? Don’t give me your respect theory again. Respect is a two-way street. I doubt he thinks much of you either.”
Derek opened eyes to slits to look at Riley at that moment, as though assessing the man.
Riley perched on Lisa’s other side.
“So, Derek, what do you think of Riley?” she asked. “Would you trust him with your best rawhide strip? He could turn it into a steak for you. He has a way with investing.” The dog tilted his head in keen interest as she spoke.
Riley chuckled and leaned forward to kiss her. She lifted her face to meet him. A sigh escaped her.
“You’re a nut, you know that?” he said, gazing at her fondly.
“Be that as it may, I think you should give Derek a chance before it’s too late for the two of you.”
“How’s it going to be too late?”
“Don’t want him to hear this, but ogdays on’tday ivelay ongerlay anthay ifteenfay or osay earsyay.”
“What did you just say?”
“You don’t understand pig latin?”
“Sorry, I had a French tutor.”
She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Dogs don’t live longer than fifteen or so years. Your bonding is going to have to happen now.”
She sat back and he studied her eyes with amusement flickering in his. “There’s no one else I would do this for, you know that, don’t you?”
She shrugged mischievously.
He turned and faced the dog. “So, Derek. May I call you Derek? It’s come to my attention that I haven’t given you a fair chance. I’d like to correct that. Can we be friends?”
The dog merely looked at him. Lisa had stopped scratching his head, and the animal looked expectantly from Lisa back to Riley.
Riley extended a hand.
Derek licked it.
Riley rubbed Derek’s head.
“There, isn’t that better?” Lisa raised up and kissed Ri
ley’s cheek.
He turned his face and reached his left arm around her back to bring her closer. Their lips met in a warm, melding crush of eager anticipation. His kiss had the same narcotic effect as the first time. She could easily become a Riley junkie.
A kiss wasn’t enough. Two kisses weren’t enough. She pressed her palm against the crisp starched front of his shirt and felt his warm flesh and hard muscle beneath. More. She wanted more.
She felt something warm and damp but completely out of place and realized Derek was licking her bare toes. “I think it’s time to go.”
Riley helped her to her feet and paused to address the dog. “Excuse us now. I’m not sharing her for the rest of the night.”
She smiled and gave the dog a last affectionate pat.
Riley took her hand and they fled out the back door.
As they’d planned, Riley used one of his father’s plain sedans and left first. Lisa waited fifteen tense minutes before following.
Surprisingly no one followed her. The reporters had been good for their word. Her heart pounded in a silly girlish flutter every time she imagined Riley at her house. Riley in her bed. But she calmed her giddiness and forced herself to think rationally. This was a temporary diversion. She was allowing him to think he was pulling one over on her. But no matter what, she would not let him know her feelings and she would not let her feelings get out of control.
She parked in her driveway and got out of her Blazer. At the back fence, the dogs whined. She walked toward the back, unlocked the gate and entered the yard.
She let the boys free from their run, and they ran in circles around her, pausing to sniff her feet and skirt and hands, keenly aware of the other dog scent.
“Be on your best behavior, boys. We have a guest.”
She unlocked the back door and pushed it open. The light she’d left on over the sink partially illuminated the room.
“Riley?” she called.
“In here.”
A light came on in the living room.
“I waited to turn on a lamp.” His footsteps sounded in the hallway.
The dogs turned in that direction, and Piper let out an ear-piercing bark followed by a volley of others.
“Piper. Hush,” she told him. “It’s okay.” Lisa hurried to meet Riley in the kitchen entryway, where she stood in front of him and turned to the dogs. Riley held a bottle of wine.
