[ June 2001 ]

ANN

It happened this way.

We met in a time of transition for us both. Perhaps this is an important point. Perhaps it just made us both open.

My own route to him began with a telephone call sending me from Honduras to Panama. This was at the very end of my year of exile in which I was fulfilling an overseas assignment given to me supposedly as a reward by the newspaper I'd worked at for over ten years. I came to look upon that year as a test. If I passed, I could move back into my real career goals. In truth, this was a year that the newspaper hoped would allow me to shed a cloud hanging over me for a bit of time before I took over the Central American beat.

His route to me began with a telephone call sending him from Washington DC to Panama. This was the infancy of his new company, a kidnap and ransom consultancy he began about six months earlier with his best friend and most trusted colleague. He went to negotiate the release of a young man who happened to be the little brother of a U.S. Senator from my home state of Louisiana.

He was there to save a life; I was there to report on his mission. We had goals that put us at odds except that we ended up needing each other to both succeed.

My phone call caught me hung-over and groggy but at least this time when the desk was calling, there was no strange male voice answering the phone for which I had to provide an explanation.

His phone call caught him at a time when he was beginning to wonder if he'd traded in one lifestyle that kept him insulated from people for another one that was never going to let him find an intangible 'something missing' that he now craved with the certainty of a reformed hero.

Here's something you might have missed and it's important to note: we were both doing what we loved most in life, make no mistake about that. Yet we were also each missing something in our lives even if we hadn't been actively searching for it any longer. Love hadn't done either of us any favors; it certainly hadn't shielded us from the rudeness of life.

Whereas he was only beginning with his new professional life of owning his own agency, I knew I was leaving this assignment after this final story to take on a new beat in New Orleans. This story was my very last chance to go home with my head held high. I needed it or my career was dead in the waters. But I also needed it to remind me of what I thought was my real calling in life -- hard news. This case could set his fledgling company up in the big leagues if things went well. Overriding all of this for both of us: we both wanted a happy ending to this case because we both really had seen more than enough death and heartache.

One thing we were both doing was searching. He was searching for a person he could believe in; I was searching for a risk worth taking.

Let's just get this over with and then we can rather move on. We really disliked each other when we first met.

That's not strong enough.

I thought he was an uptight, domineering martinet who only wanted to bully me away from a legitimate news story. He thought I was an unreasonable, uncontrollable hack reporter who couldn't care less that what she was doing may threaten the hostage he was trying to retrieve.

In some ways, we were both right. In important ways, we were so very wrong.

But then again, we were both doing our jobs. They were bound to conflict.

Okay, enough of that revisionist bullshit about this time in my life. This is how I heard about the story:

"Marc Guidry's been kidnapped in Panama," the voice on the phone told me.

I tried to sound like I knew who that was as my brain tried to wake up. "Oh. Wow. Any details?"

"Still sketchy. All hush hush. No one's talking officially. Stephanie picked up on it from his sister. So far, it looks like we're the only one's on it. Happened almost a week ago."

When the brain fog parted, I understood the implications but more than that, I felt the lust in my heart for a real news story. THIS was real news. Guidry was the brother of the senior senator from Louisiana.

Within an hour, I was at the airport and flying to Panama. On the flight, I studied all the background info they'd emailed me before I'd left Honduras.

Marc had been in Panama working for an oil company. He'd gone to the beach for a bit of fun. Looked like he hadn't had much. He'd been shanghaied within two days of starting his vacation. That's all they knew, my editors. Everything else was being clamped down by Marc's employer. His brother was being sheltered by his minions. No one even really knew where the Senator was.

Not that we could look for the Senator that hard. If we had, we risked everybody knowing we were onto something big before we were in position to have an exclusive. So, the editors didn't want to make any real waves at home because if they did, we'd likely lose our scoop on this one. So ... it was up to me. Get in country and get the story.

This seemed quite doable. I actually spent a lot of time in Panama while on this beat because of the Canal's importance to Louisiana commerce so I was in pretty good shape -- had good local contacts and was tied in to U.S. interests, including what was left of our military forces there.

When we landed, I dropped my bags at the hotel I normally used in Colón and then raced to the local office of the North American Oil Exploration Corporation. Presented myself all proper and professional at the office of the local managing director.

This is where I met him. My mystery man walked into my life.

But first they tried to divert me by making me wait almost two hours out in this reception office. All this did was let me catch a distinct odor of fear in the air, which confirmed for me that everything they were about to tell me would be a lie designed to get me off this story.

The first person they had meet with me was the local managing director. He couldn't have been more charming if more ill-prepared to deal with a journalist who was used to eating people like him for breakfast. And I was hungry after starving on an almost year-long diet of features and human interest pabulum.

I took their attempts to lie to me with relatively good humor. This guy started gushing to me about how sorry he was I'd come all this way for nothing because Marc was simply out in the field and incommunicado. Only when he said that he hated to see me go home empty-handed so maybe I'd like to do a nice story about their newest refinery with its brand new industrial scrubbers that were sure to make the process much more efficient and eco-friendly ... no thanks, I said ... only then did I start getting truly irritated. But then he went and said, well, since there was nothing else they could do for me, would I like a lift back to the airport?

"I think not," I said quietly and rose to leave. Shook his hand and was almost out of his office but then I turned around to catch him standing there behind his desk and mouthing 'whew' to his assistant. "There was just one other thing, though."

Both sets of eyes widened but both men managed to return my smile.

I whipped out my notebook and made a show of thumbing to an open page. Clicked my pen open into the silent room and knew that to them it sounded like a gunshot. "Just for the record ... because I will have to file a story, you see? They don't just send us down here for kicks. Anyway, for the record, let me ask this question so I can write up your official response in the story. Has Marc Guidry been the victim of a crime here in Panama?"

And so it went. I am, I must say, ruthless in pursuit of a news story. I had the guy skewered and ready for roasting within three questions. I actually had tricked him into having to tell me that he himself wasn't positive where Marc was and that he 'might' have even been missing or met with 'foul play.' And I was pressing in hard on an admission of kidnap. But then the door opened and this man came out. Something in the room shifted.

He had a power about him and ... yet ... all he did was tell me his name and hand me a card. He was oh so polite. Not at all threatening. Polished. Professional. Dressed in a conservative suit and tie that couldn't hide the fact that the body under it all belonged to someone who seemed more suited to action and not so at home in the boardroom. He was the real deal; the one I knew would never cave in. But it was more than that and I knew it the instant he really focused on me.

"Terrence Thorne. Risk consultant." Those words. This voice that came from a dream I think I had once had. An accent that it took me a bit to understand and longer to place. It sounded like softened Australian but it's only later I learned why it wasn't full tilt Aussie.

We shook hands and locked eyes. Mr. Thorne explained to me that there was no way he was ever going to let me file a story on this. That he'd close down any chance I ever had of getting any concrete facts on anything I thought I knew. I just listened to him. Terse words. Body language of a man used to dealing with situations.

But not used to dealing with me.

"So if I understand correctly, you've just verified that Marc Guidry, younger brother of an important political figure in my home state, has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. And yet, you think I don't have a story?"

"I did not verify that."

"Yes, you did." Holding up his business card to him. "If I investigate your company, Thorne and O'Leary Risk, will I find that it's an insurance company? Or will I find that it's a K&R consultancy firm?"

His eyes got hard.

"I wasn't born yesterday, Mr. Thorne. Now you either deal with me and give me the truth or I'll file the story with what I already know."

"You file a story now and you'll be signing his death warrant." Switching tactics now to become a bit more aggressive and threatening.

I chuckled. "Don't be so melodramatic."

It got worse. But the worst thing of all? I think the moment I saw him, he knocked me off my stride and I spent the rest of the time trying to get the upper hand. Instead of seeing him only as a news source, I kept seeing he was a man. Things like that don't happen to me -- I have a focus when on the job that can be quite scary if you are someone trying to hide information I want. But I couldn't help it - even as we got so testy with each other, I was still much too aware of the instant attraction I felt for him. I have never had that happen to me on the job. I always keep those kinds of feelings out of it. I may flirt with men to get information, but I never mean it as anything but a manipulation of their weakness. This man was making me feel weak.

You would have had to have seen him, felt his presence, heard his voice. And you would have also had to see how he knew within a short amount of time that he was affecting me that way. As I slung bitchy words at him and he'd respond in kind, I would catch that cocky look ... the one that said he liked the impact he was having and he was using it against me.

And then he suddenly switched tactics on me again. Smiled at me. This almost shy demeanor. Acting like we were on the same team. Dammit if a part of me didn't start sweating. He was a master at this. Changing up the pitches. Altering his approach until he found the one that worked.

That smile. It actually made me stammer. I don't know the last time a man's been able to do that to me. Long time. I hated it and was embarrassed he was able to do that to me.

But something happened in that last exchange between us. I was walking out of there and knew I'd just been outsmarted and outmaneuvered. I stood on the sidewalk and shook my head in wonder. I turned around to walk back into the building and get my story but the door was locked. God but I sure hope no one I knew saw me because I was so mad that I actually ... almost ... started crying in frustration.

He'd sucked my story away from me! I really had nothing.

An hour later, I was deeply hating Mr. Thorne and wanting to do him real harm. I'd just had to tell the desk that I had bumpkus. I mean, sure, we could have gone with a five-inch news blurb saying Guidry's brother was 'suspected' to have been kidnapped by a drug gang. But if we did that, every news outfit of any salt would be swooping down on Colón and stealing the real guts of the story right out from under me.

No. What I needed was someone on the record. An official. Someone impressive. I needed facts: Who had him? Why him? What did they want? What was going to be done to get him back? Where had they taken him? How long would they hold him?

And the most irritating thing of all is that inside that office building, locked away from me, I suspected all the answers were tucked away. And that damned Mr. Thorne held the key.

Well.

I spent the next two days trying my best to work around Mr. Thorne. I met with contacts, put out the word, flirted at the embassy, smiled at the local police station. I hired two local stringers.

But among the most interesting things I did was some background checking on one Terrence Andrew Thorne. Mystery man, without a doubt. His firm was indeed a kidnap and ransom specialty. He was ex-military as many of that type are; in his case, SAS, which put him a notch above in my estimation. Made me curious how a homey from Australia ended up in the Queen's employ. But what do I know? Not much about such things; maybe that's not so abnormal as it sounded to me. He had a partner who was an American, also ex-military; this one had been in the Marines. Semper Fi, I said to myself, and got an instant image of an ex-jarhead complete with tattoo and shaved head and foghorn voice. Other than the barest of bare bones, their career highlights didn't give me much. I presumed their real exploits were of the classified variety. Their firm had only been in existence for less than six months but they each had stellar credentials with larger K&R firms for about five years prior. But personal information on either of them? Harder to come by than honesty in a Louisiana politician. Something told me that in their line of work, that was exactly what they wanted - can you imagine a bad guy able to find out your soft spots?

About midmorning on the second day, I was just off the phone with my research desk, which had made inquiries with his last employer, when my email pinged. He had sent me this terse note: "Stop looking into my background. I am not the story. Do not make this personal."

I have to admit, I giggled at it. I could hear him saying it all prim and prissy, his eyes narrowing and his body language looking like he had a stick up his tush.

He called me that afternoon. Told me that he might have been willing to let my snooping into his background go but he could not let me continue to crash around there in Colón trying to dig out information on Guidry's whereabouts. In this deep voice trying to stay light, he said I should stop because I was beginning to just look silly but meanwhile I was making people nervous. I told him to fuck off. He said something quite nasty about whether or not that was an invitation and that he didn't think he was that desperate - yet. But that he'd be sure to let me know if he ever was. I remember screaming at him after I slammed the phone down.

That night, I joined a few colleagues for some mayhem on the town. All I really wanted to do was get a bit drunk and bitch about work. Typical Friday night blow out. Journalists tend to get a snoot on when they're tense. When am I not lately?

My biggest source of tension of course: I needed this story. I couldn't face coming back from exile looking like I couldn't hack it in the big bad world. I was too young to be washed up.

So there I was. Friday night in this strange drivel of neon-lit bars along a stretch of Colón beach that catered to ex-pats and Yankee businessmen. Six of us hunkered around a table and telling war stories. Shining each other on about why we were in Colón  ... a rich journalistic tradition. Twisting the knife in so expertly because you just knew that in the morning you'd be wondering if someone else really was scooping you and that you might just be in for a royal ass-chewing from your editor when the competition's story ran.

What fun.

We had a bet going. Name that Pulitzer. We quizzed each other. Loser bought the next round. But then someone upped the stakes and said whoever lost the next one had to ride the cheesy mechanical bull in the center of the barroom. I remember making some smart-ass comment about how those bulls were out of style even in Texas. The guy from the Dallas Morning News took exception to that comment. We laughed so hard when he lost the next round and rode the bull. He did it so good; we concluded he had an unfair advantage. They're all cowboys in Texas, right?

Next round? That's right. I lost.

No way I was riding that bull. Even on a good night, I'm known for being a mite clumsy. 

"I'm in a skirt! I am not riding that thing. What if I get thrown?" I yelped out as three of them dragged me from the table and a fourth one was tipping the operator $5 to make it a wild ride.

They hooted at me ... told me the fact I was wearing a skirt was my problem and that they were going to enjoy the show. I paid the operator more money to make it a gentle ride. He screwed me over. I don't know what happened. Somewhere between slipping him a $20 bill and him helping me on the bull and showing me how to hold the rope and grip with my knees and then leaving me sitting there sweating but smug, he turned on me.

At first, it was nice and gentle. Just as I was getting rather comfy and feeling like I could do this, I turned to grin at my drinking buddies. Did this saucy little jiggle of my boobs at them to show I wasn't scared of a mechanical bull. But then I saw him. Sitting there at a table right on the edge of the mats set up to cushion anyone falling from the bull. Watching me. Mr. Thorne. I frowned. He raised his glass in salute, smirked and then gave me this little wave with his other hand. And then the damned bull took off. I wasn't really paying attention because Thorne's eyes had distracted me.

Things got wild. The room started spinning. I was yelping at the operator to stop. I could feel air against skin that should have been covered. I was hanging on for dear life and to hell with maintaining dignity or class. I just wanted to survive the ride. Next thing I remember, I was airborne. I landed on my hands and knees. Felt tears in my eyes because that smarted. Looked up. Man's groin in front of me. So close I think I could have reached out for a lick. Looking mighty tasty in those jeans. By the time my eyes made it to his face, I somehow knew whose fine body I was prostrate before and I was already blushing full out. And hating myself for the instant bout of insane, bone-deep lust that took me over even as I fought for some modicum of control in the face of this man who had become my nemesis at the same time I was dreaming filthy thoughts of him at night.

I tried bravado because what the hell else could I do? I mean, was there a graceful way to recover from such an embarrassing situation? Decided to give him a bit of lip as I smoothed my clothes down after noticing his eyes taking in the flesh I was showing off because the damned skirt was rucked up above my waist.

"Well, what do you know ... all this time I thought I was a Cajun ... turns out I'm a Laplander," I said.

He leaned over and stuck his hand out to me to help me up off my knees. A smug look on his face. "You always good for an eight-second ride, love?"

God, how I hated him. I struggled to my feet without his help. Looked down at him like I was perfectly at ease landing face down in a stranger's crotch. "Do I get a fancy buckle if I stay on?"

He didn't even hesitate. "Dunno ... save a bull, ride a cowboy?"

I don't know what happened. Okay, I admit I can be a harpy but it is really so very rare for me to meet a man who makes me launch an instant attack. I just couldn't help myself. "Well, I'd need a cowboy first, wouldn't I? You don't look up to filling the bill."

"I might be able to compete with the average mechanical apparatus, but not one that weighs a bloody ton."

"Well, that's disappointing." I tried to act bored. "My mom always told me it's not the size that counts."

"Well, I always heard it's not the length or the size but how many times you can make it rise." Taking a long swig from his beer bottle and eyeing me up. Finishing with this little cocky smile. "But that's just me."

"My mom also always told me it's not frequency, it's quality," I retorted as I felt the heat rise at his sexual innuendo.

"Did she ride a big machine too? Must have been a man in there somewhere ..." Fixing me with a grin. "... if you're standing here insulting me."

"Now, Mr. Thorne, that wasn't an insult. Did you take it as one? Why, I wonder? Feeling a bit of an underachiever, are you? Perhaps if you were less a bull in trying to intimidate poor defenseless reporters, you'd be better able to harness that energy where it really would do you some good."

He got this little frown on his handsome face and, I swear, I had this insane impulse to drop down into his lap and kiss him. A bit of frost in that voice. "Just like a woman, always wanting to put a rope around a man's balls."

"I'd have to find yours first."

He paused and then rose up before me. Fixed me with a tough guy look that made me wet. But his words made me blush with a feeling of being put firmly in my place. He said it in this low voice and delivered it with the perfect cool I'm-too-much-man-for-you-little-girl attitude. "Reckon you got a pretty good look from the floor, love. I noticed your eyes didn't rise above my belt ... even though my buckle isn't big and shiny."

Idiot. I felt like a fool! I stammered out something that sounded like I was back in junior high: "All I could see was your ego. It rather blinded me to everything else."

He had me on the run. Leaned in near me to say it soft and filled with sexual power, "So did the skin you had on display. Of course, I'm not complaining about that ... been fantasizing about it since we met - you getting tossed on that pretty little arse of yours. Good job I was here to see it. Made my night, love."

Why can't I keep my mouth shut? If I'd left it alone there, see, then I could have almost been on top ... I could have walked away from the encounter thinking that maybe hidden inside that insult was a match to the lust I felt to be anywhere near him. But instead, I kept right on being ... well ... being me.

"Glad to see you're so easy to please about some things. And it's also somehow reassuring to see what puerile fantasies you have."

"I think I'm not the only one with puerile fantasies."

"How would you know anything about my fantasies?"

He took his time, his eyes traveling slowly down my body; it felt like he stopped very deliberately to look right smack in the direction of my wet panties and then paused hard to take in my breasts. I almost looked down to see if they were at attention in the presence of this man. Then he looked me right in the eyes, his body tall and rather stiff before me, his hand rubbing at his face. Raising an eyebrow at me. "Do you really want to know?"

"Actually, I think I know more than I need to know about how little boys' minds work."

Chuckling at my increasingly lame attempts to keep up with him. "I wasn't the one looking for an eight-second ride, sweetheart."

"Yeah, well if I'd wanted a four-second ride, reckon I know which cowboy wannabe I would have come to, eh?"

"Maybe four seconds was enough for the last bloke. Of course, we speak a different language. I still have my balls."

Giving me this grin, turning right smart on his heel and then sauntering off.

While I stood there, open-mouthed, watching that fine ass walk out on me and feeling like I'd just shot myself in the foot. What in God's name was really wrong with me? Had I really just engaged in a battle of wits with a man who bested me faster than the bull had? Why the fuck didn't I flirt with him instead? He would have been so sexy to flirt with ... God. I can't think like that about him, I grumbled to myself.

I turned and glared at my compatriots who'd been taking in the floorshow like they'd paid for the privilege. On my way out the door, I passed the ride operator and found out that my $20 tip stood no competition to Mr. Thorne's competing $100 bribe.

He'd set me up just to humiliate me.

For some reason, it made me laugh. At least he'd gone to some effort for me. I was beginning to appreciate his style.

And, so, this was how it happened. This was how we met.

TERRY

For six months, I'd lived in this new world. If it hadn't been for Dino, I might have figured I'd taken such a nosedive after the last assignment that I was no longer connected to reality.

Instead, we decided to test the waters in this other reality. Both went a bit crazy in the beginning. After Maximus finally got our attention, Dino and I had a bit of a time of it. Boys will be boys, eh?

But then the redhead isn't one to not figure out how to test the system. Max said it was an alternate reality; Dino decided he wanted to test this theory. First he went looking for a woman who had died in our reality years earlier. Wanted to know if in this one, she had survived. She hadn't. But he called me late the next day and said there was one other woman in his past he needed to find ... a woman he had most regretted not going back for before. Her, he found. I'd watched the developing love he shared with Heather with real appreciation. If anyone deserved it, it was Dino. As a bonus, Heather had become a calming, feminine influence in my own life as we moved into a friendship that was more special and important than I could have ever imagined.

Me? No one I wanted to look up from my past. And I wasn't into romance just then. Still sorting myself out from Tecala and the life I'd been leading that got me drawn into that. But a few dalliances later, and I had things pretty straight about all that. Not much to it, really. Just reality.

I longed for a different future. Tecala was a mistake born in the need to make changes in my life. I was tired of being the man who only knew how to pick up women for the night or for brief flings that were never going to go anywhere. What I wanted was someone who mattered to me, someone who filled in the missing pieces. Told myself that the next time I was attracted to a woman of substance, I'd see it through with a real attempt at making it something to last.

Not sure I put that much credence into what Maximus said. But I am good at getting along with others when I need to or want to. And I wanted to get along with him. Why not? He was willing to be a guide yet he was also willing to let me be on my own. Only thing he insisted on was that I stay a part of this family.

Max explained how things worked for us and some of the group dynamics. He stressed that the most important thing was keeping the 'secrets' of this group of brothers to ensure the safety of the entire family group. Seemed easy enough to me; besides, who'd I have told? Even I wasn't sure I believed most of it. Frankly, I just wanted to be left alone to sort things out. But I didn't need to buck Max on something like that. Besides, I liked Max. He never made excuses, he made decisions. He never bullshit us. He had a bloody good sense of humor once he loosened up. His focus in life was sharp and his insight was a bit uncanny. When I finally saw his film and saw what he'd been through, I had no problem respecting him and his view.

He wanted us to think about our personal futures. He talked about keeping a place for love if and when it showed up. How it might be different for us here. He said there was this thing ... 'the pull' ... how we'd feel it with the woman meant to be our mate here. I thought it was bullshit. Then when Dino said he'd felt it for Heather, it made me think about it. On the other hand, he'd already felt loving toward her, so that didn't seem conclusive.

So months after Dino and I went through with setting up our own shop, I was busy with work. Early on, I needed to spend time in the field until we had our own operatives we trusted in the various regions. Not much chance of meeting any new kind of woman there ... just the same sort you always met on the job. Pay for the whores when you need some. Take the casual offers for a fun time for what they were. Don't let the need for sex translate into the craving for intimacy. Don't fool yourself they're the same.

The family didn't require much attention from either Dino or I. He'd long since found his Heather; she'd turned out to be everything he'd said with the added bonus of having grown into a woman of real beauty, grace and wit. I liked being around her; she had this soft way of making you want to trust her; and she and I liked nothing better than winding Dino up. The way Dino settled into the man he was with her could make me jealous if I wasn't careful.

The Panama job was the first big case we'd taken on. I'd been on it just over a week. Things were proceeding as they often do early on ... chaos and little concrete information while you're scrambling to make contact with the person who will do the negotiating for the other side. Panama was a tough place ... tough to find out first of all who even had the hostage.

Most important thing ... the thing I stressed to every official I worked with on this case was to keep a lid on this. Last thing we needed was for whoever held Guidry to find out he was connected like he was. It'd be tough enough negotiating the ransom without it. If they found out how hot he was, they may have cut their losses and killed him to keep from facing the combined forces of both the Panamanian and U.S. governments. There's such a thing as a hostage being too hot in such circumstances.

Then she waltzed in unannounced into their offices in Colón, demanding to see the top executive in country. I was listening to her from the other room when the managing director was trying to handle her. Figured it was worth a shot, right? But then she turned from this timid, apologetic girl into a tough, no-nonsense reporter who knew she had a real story. That's when I stepped in.

Something happened. Don't quite think I can explain it but looking back on it, I know now that there was a reason we affected each other like we did. 'The pull' -- part attraction, part intrigue and a whole lot of heat.

But I've been doing this too long and I tried hard to ignore what seemed like something quite irrational. Focused instead on finding the right approach to shut her down and neutralize her. Considered myself lucky to get her out of there without her getting any verifiable facts. Knew I was still taking a chance that her newspaper would report something anyway.

Put a tail on her right off. Started keeping tabs on her. From the start, it was obvious Ann was digging in and not getting scared off. Had to admire her tenacity. Tried to squelch some of the obvious sources; but then she hired some locals to help her and they proved more difficult to maneuver around. When I got the call from Luthan Risk that her newspaper was looking into my background, it both infuriated me and impressed me. Imagine checking me out?

I did her a return favor. Ran her name through police agencies and did a general background check. A few surprises. They didn't matter that much to me ... at the time. What mattered more was that she had a solid professional reputation. She'd been on the political beat for a long while, was respected by peers and those she covered. No professional scandal, but her private life had a spot of roughness happen just before she left the political beat for some general assignment reporting. Never seemed to shake this little cloud hanging over her during that time though and then she had been given a Central American beat for the consortium of newspapers that owned the paper she'd been working for in New Orleans.

So the bottom line was that I had a bona fide journalist on my hands who probably wasn't going away.

I took a bit more interest in her but it was more than just work. It was more about that feeling I had about her ... that she was someone I was supposed to meet. Well, that and the fact that Heather ragged on me that for someone I wasn't interested in, I spent a lot of my time talking about Ann. I tried to pass it off as just the fact that she was currently my major irritant down there, but Heather wasn't having any of it. Even Dino found it amusing. And eventually even I had to consider if this was the legendary 'pull' that Maximus talked about. Or maybe it was just the way any man would want a woman who makes him hard just being near her. Sometimes when I was with a woman I'd picked up to pass some time in the night, it was Ann I would picture under me. More and more, each time I saw her, I noticed the way her eyes focused on me and made me feel like I wanted nothing so much as to see how they looked when she made love. I kept wondering what she'd sound like when she was coming.

But it wasn't only sexual. There were times when I wondered why she seemed to hold the world at arm's length. I wondered what it would feel like to be someone she'd let close enough to trust.

Had followed her to that bar with the express intention of buying her a drink and chatting her up. Figured I'd lay on the charm and explore the possibilities of making this something less confrontational and more personal. Not that I'd ever have wanted her to be too simple of a problem for me to figure out.

I liked the challenge she was. I liked that it wouldn't be easy or neat with her. Just hadn't expected the way she refused to back down and I left the bar figuring she was impervious to my charms. Right. That, of course, meant I was then determined to wear her down until I had her in my bed. But in the end, when the chance came, I realized I wanted it to mean more than that seems to imply.

Loneliness. It's what she reminded me I'd been feeling. Watching her that night, seeing how hard she was pretending ... and I knew this ... she was as lonely as I was. It made me feel something for her that I tried not to feel. I was tired of the pain of my life. Wasn't sure but I do think I was ready to see if she was the answer.

Might have been the best thing that happened to us both that I walked out on her that night. Things happen for a reason. And if what I wanted was a real relationship that would last, then I didn't want to make a move that might be a mistake.