Chapter 2

Jarrod had trouble falling asleep that night. Holding a woman in his arms again, even if it had just been one dance at a public gathering, had moved him in a way he wasn't expecting. It didn't make any sense, intellectually, but he realized that it wasn't his intellect that had enjoyed that feeling again. It wasn't his mind that was aroused by the scent she was wearing. It wasn't anything that reached him on any level other than the primal one. Need. Physical longing for that closeness with another person – a woman. The feelings that Beth had awakened in him but had been stolen far too soon.

He fell asleep, and it wasn't until he woke up in the morning that he even gave a thought about the fact that Alana Roman was – as Nat Springer put it – looking around, despite her marriage. It had just been one dance the night before. It probably wasn't just him she was "looking" to. If she was as open and direct with other men as she had been with him, then he was virtually nothing to her. She couldn't possibly know how – what was the word?

Vulnerable. He didn't like it, but there it was. That was what he was. Vulnerable. He had tried very hard not to be since Beth, since what had happened to him after she was killed and he realized what a monster he could be. He had shut himself off and not let anyone get close. But there, in one evening, in one dance, Alana Roman had chipped a small hole in his wall. She had found that vulnerable spot without even looking for it.

All right, then, he decided. It had just been one evening, one dance. It really hadn't changed him in any profound way. So the physical reaction she woke up in him had led to some very deep emotional thinking. Time to stop. Time to just go to work and forget about Alana Roman.

Except that Alana Roman wasn't about to forget about him. Jarrod wasn't behind his desk more than half an hour before his secretary, Angie, knocked on his door. He told her to come in.

"Mr. Barkley, there is a woman here to see you," Angie said. "Mrs. Alana Roman."

More absolute directness. "Have her come in," Jarrod said, stood up and came around to the front of his desk.

Alana Roman looked as lovely and high class as she had the night before, dressed to the nines and extending her gloved hand Jarrod's way as she walked to him. She extended it palm down. Jarrod accepted the gesture as it was, lifted her hand and kissed it.

"Good morning, Mrs. Roman," Jarrod said.

"Since we had such a lovely dance last night, I would consider myself fortunate if you called me Alana," she said.

"Alana," Jarrod agreed with a nod.

"May I call you Jarrod?"

Jarrod agreed with a nod and motioned her to sit down. She sat in the chair in front of Jarrod's desk while he went to his chair behind it, asking, "Is this a social or a professional call?"

"Perhaps both," Alana said.

"Perhaps we should discuss the professional first," Jarrod said.

"I need a lawyer," she said. "Not to handle my divorce. I have one for that. Neil Pennyman. I believe you know him."

Jarrod nodded again. "Only professionally, but I'm sure he'll take good care of you. Why do you need another lawyer?"

"To handle my other business affairs. I know you do that for your family and for several other people both here and in Stockton. Once Steve and I have separated our financial affairs, I will need someone to handle the various interests I expect to have – contracts with Steve's shipping business, which I'm sure he'll retain, and interests I expect to keep in real estate and other businesses."

"Neil Pennyman is certainly capable of representing your interests there, and he is always here in San Francisco," Jarrod said.

"I'm not inclined to let my divorce lawyer handle anything for me other than divorce."

"Do you expect to have more divorces?"

Alana chuckled at that. "Steve is my second divorce. I don't appear to be very good at marriages."

"Well," Jarrod said, "as you know, I spend much of my time with my practice in Stockton, with my family and with private clients. I'll be going back to Stockton within a few days and I'm not sure yet how long it will be before I get back to San Francisco."

"There are telegraph wires and the U.S. mail, Jarrod," Alana said. "And Stockton isn't all that far away if I really need you."

Now it was Jarrod's turn to chuckle, mostly at the thought of how it would go if he were to bring Alana to the front door of the Barkley home and introduce her out of the blue. It probably wouldn't go as well as it had with Beth. It would probably go about as well as it did with Nick and Hester Converse. "Well, Alana," Jarrod said, "you'll have to let me take a look at my current business situation and decide whether or not I can afford to give you the time I think you're going to want."

"How much time do you think I'm going to want?" she asked flat out.

Jarrod still smiled a little, just as direct as she was being. "We haven't known each other but one dance and a few minutes right here and now, but I suspect you would want a lot of time and attention from me – particularly after you're divorced."

Alana smiled just a little and said, "Would that be so bad?"

There it was again, that feeling that she had awakened the night before when they were dancing. That need, and that vulnerability. Jarrod was glad they had the desk between them. He took a deep breath and returned the smile. "No, it wouldn't," he said, "but the question is whether I can afford it or not." In a lot of ways, he though, not just time and money.

Alana stayed just as direct, and even more so. "Perhaps we can discuss it over dinner tonight. That will give you all day to consider your – workload."

Her very direct approach again. Now Jarrod had to chuckle.

Alana kept going. "The Palace? At eight?"

"All right," Jarrod said, the answer coming out before he even thought enough about it.

Alana got up. "I live at the Palace these days. Why don't you meet me at my place – 207. About 7:30. We can share a drink before dinner. You're a scotch man, I hear."

Good grief. Had Nat Springer given her his entire life story? "All right," Jarrod agreed again, and stood up and came around the desk to see her out.

At the door, she offered her hand again, again palm down. Jarrod took it and kissed it.

Alana left then, moving confidently through the outer office past Angie. Angie gave Jarrod a raised eyebrow look when Alana had left. Jarrod just gave her a smile and said, "Make a reservation for dinner at the palace for me, Angie – for two."

Angie sighed, but she nodded and set about arranging for a messenger.

XXXXXXX

Jarrod Barkley was a precise man, and rang the bell at Alana's door at exactly 7:30. She answered herself, smiling, saying, "I suspected you would be prompt." And she let him in.

He entered, looked around the large ornate parlor and saw not one servant present. "I always try to be on time," Jarrod said.

She offered her hand for a kiss again. Jarrod obliged her. "Come, have a drink," she said and led him to the sofa while she fetched a scotch from the small bar in the corner.

Jarrod sat down, watching her as she poured and brought him a glass of what looked like a double shot of scotch whiskey. "Things look very comfortable here," Jarrod said as he took the drink.

Alana sat down beside him. "I hope you don't mind. They told me at the restaurant that you had made a reservation for us, but I asked them to bring dinner to the room here instead."

Jarrod raised an eyebrow. How much more direct was this woman planning to be? "I suppose that's all right," he said, without asking what else she had in mind. He'd let her lead and he'd follow until he didn't like where it was going. "You don't hold back much on your – " He almost used the word "desires" but then decided to hold back himself and said, "plans and opinions, do you?"

Alana laughed a little. "I know what I want in life and I know how to get it."

Jarrod suspected what she wanted the most was control. Maybe she got it initially with being straight out about it, but maybe that approach wore off with Steve Roman and her other husband, and that's why she was in the market again. "You're not subtle," he said and sipped his scotch.

"No, I've discovered that subtlety doesn't get me what I want," she said. She reached for a drink she already had sitting on the low coffee table in front of them.

Jarrod thought her drink looked more like straight Irish whiskey, but it was hard to be sure and it didn't matter. It definitely was alcoholic. He decided he'd be sticking to this one double scotch, until wine with dinner, and he decided he would not overdo on the wine either. This was one night he'd better stay sober.