He looked her straight in the eye. “You seem like a good risk to me, too.”

She didn’t seem pleased by the observation. “You make me sound like a filly you might bet on in the fifth race at Belmont.”

He waved off the comparison. “That’s just money. I’m talking about fate here, Janet. Yours and mine. You’ve been talking a lot about my willingness to take risks. What about you? How do you feel about serendipity?”

He watched her closely as she seemed to struggle with the question. Whatever internal war she was waging struck him as a pretty good indication that she did have things to hide.

“I’m all for it,” she said eventually.

“Oh, really? Then why aren’t you seizing my offer to take you away to some romantic spot for a few days?”

She scowled at him. “I explained that.”

“Not to my satisfaction.”

She stood then and threw down her napkin. “Not everything in this world has to meet your satisfaction, Harlan Adams. You’d do well to remember that.”

With that she turned and sashayed straight out of Rosa’s, ignoring the gaping expressions of Mule and all the others following her departure. To his everlasting regret, Harlan’s body turned rock-hard just watching her go.

When she was finally out of sight, he sighed. That woman’s defiant streak was going to be the death of him yet. Worse, he didn’t know a damn bit more about what was going on in her head now than he had before he’d forced this confrontation. Yep, it was just as he’d suspected. He was definitely losing his touch.

11

“Mom, did Mr. Adams seem weird to you today?” Jenny asked as she watched the hamburgers she had frying on the stove for dinner.

“Weird, how?” Janet replied, even though she thought she knew exactly what Jenny was talking about. He’d struck her as weird, impossible, arrogant and a whole lot more. She was interested, though, in just which vibes Jenny had picked up on.

“Like he was mad or something. I don’t know. He was just awful quiet, not bossy like he usually is. And he took off in the middle of the morning without giving me anything to do. He said I could just go into his library and read, if I wanted to.”

“That must have been when he came into town to see me.”

Jenny put the spatula down, turned and regarded her worriedly. “How come?”

Janet had been wondering the very same thing ever since he’d appeared on her office doorstep. Their lunch hadn’t really enlightened her. Even though Harlan had plainly stated that he wanted to discuss their future, there had been those odd undercurrents, as if he were really looking for evidence of some treachery. She couldn’t share that with her daughter, so she simply said he’d wanted to talk.

“About what?” Jenny persisted. “Me?”