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Chapter 2

Patrick didn't expect to see Teresa so soon after the ball, so when lunchtime came around the next day he was surprised to see her step off the elevator and look around the bullpen for him. She smiled when she saw him lying on the worn leather couch and came over to him, her heeled boots clicking on the wooden floor.

He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. "Hello," he said.

"Hello Mr. Jane," Teresa answered, smoothing invisible wrinkles out of her wide-legged white pants.

"Please, there is no need to call me Mr. Jane. It's Patrick," he said.

She blushed. "Hello Patrick," she answered experimentally.

"Hello, Teresa. May I call you Teresa?"

"Of course!" Teresa answered, adjusting her purse and clearing her throat. "I was wondering if you had plans for lunch this afternoon."

Patrick shook his head. "Nope, I don't think I have lunch plans this afternoon."

"Not even a tuna sandwich?" Teresa double-checked.

"I hardly ever bring a bagged lunch," Patrick replied.

"Hmmm, okay. So, I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch with me since you don't have any plans."

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "Teresa, are you asking me out on a date?"

"Hardly!" She scoffed. "I was thinking we could finish our discussion and that maybe we could be friends."

"Oh," Patrick said, relieved that he wouldn't have to turn her down and give her a speech about how he wasn't ready for a romantic relationship yet. "That would be nice."

"Lunch is on me," Teresa told him.

"Fine, but the next time we have lunch then you're going to have to allow me to pay. It's only fair."

Teresa smiled. "Sounds like a plan," she agreed.

Madeleine Hightower came out of her office carrying a microwavable can of tomato soup and smiled. "Oh, hello Miss Lisbon. What brings you here on this beautiful afternoon?"

"I just dropped in to see if Patrick wanted to join me for lunch," Teresa answered. "Your consultant is very intriguing to me and I wanted a chance to talk to him some more."

Hightower's face brightened even more. "By all means, take him to lunch. Take your time; we'll call you if anything comes up Jane."

Teresa was the one to raise an eyebrow as Patrick's boss disappeared into the kitchen. "What was that all about?" she asked.

"Nothing!" Patrick answered turning and steering her towards the elevators. "How about we go and get some lunch now? I'm starving!"

She drove them to a little bistro that served burgers and fries in downtown Sacramento, a favorite of the Serious Crimes Unit. Patrick wondered if she knew that but then remembered she hadn't always been wealthy and that her tastes probably still ran in the vein of the simpler things in life.

They got a table outside and ordered cheeseburgers with extra French fries. She was chugging a Coke when she finally got to more serious topics.

"So, since you told me your story then I guess it's only fair that I tell you mine," Teresa said, putting her glass down and swallowing.

"I didn't tell you everything though," Patrick told her. "I only told you what's happened in the past three years."

"Well, there's plenty of time to tell me the rest of your story. But today is my turn, fair is fair, I guess." Teresa took another long slug of Coke and then cleared her throat. "Okay, so as you rightly guessed we didn't always have a lot of money when I was younger. My father was from a poor Portuguese family, my mother from a poor Irish one. He was a firefighter and mom was a homemaker. I was whatever I wanted to be, which was a firefighter, princess, homemaker hybrid most days. Mom had more kids, three boys and we were the family everybody envied. Then tragedy happened, because tragedy always happens doesn't it?"

"It seems like it, yes," Patrick answered.

"You probably know what happened," Teresa said.

"Well, nobody has mentioned your mother since we've met. I'm assuming she died tragically, right?"

Teresa nodded. "Yeah, she was killed by a drunk driver when I was twelve. My father was devastated, he turned to alcohol for solace and we almost lost him. I did my best to take care of him and my brothers, but I was just a kid. I could barely take care of myself. And then one day, my father woke up in the hospital recovering from alcohol poisoning. He got sober but my brothers didn't want anything to do with him at that point. I was all he had on the long road to recovery. I balanced his AA meetings and my schooling."

"Let me guess, you followed your father's footsteps and went into law enforcement?" Patrick asked.

"It's a family tradition. Every Lisbon is in some sort of law enforcement," Teresa answered. "I was in the police academy when my father got the call about the inheritance. A family member he didn't even know he had left him all his money and his estate in Lisbon, ironically. He didn't want his thieving ex-wife or his children to have a dime. He did a lot of research to find my father and leave the money to him in his will."

"How were they related?" Patrick asked as the waiter delivered their lunches.

"Cousins. Apparently my father's dad had a following out with his father and they never spoke again," Teresa replied, taking a French fry and putting it in her mouth. She chewed for a second and then swallowed. "So, he inherited all the money. five hundred million dollars, apparently he was a miser. All he did was hoard money; he never spent it at all."

"And then what happened?"

"I quit the academy to help my father with the money and then we moved here. Away from the memories, away from the temptation. A fresh start. And now I lead the life of a lady of leisure. My dad is smart with money, so he invested most of it. But like I said, he doesn't do well with being around functions that have alcohol. He faces the same old temptations every time, so he sends me instead."

"Do you miss the police academy? Or Chicago?" Patrick asked.

Teresa shrugged and took a drink. "I don't think I miss Chicago that much. Except for the pizza and the Cubs games."

"What about the work?"

"I think I would have liked being a detective, but how do you miss something you never really got a chance to do?" Teresa asked. "It isn't like I'm sitting around the house all day, working on needlepoint and waiting for a rich young man to marry me so we can join our fortunes together and be incredibly wealthy."

"So, what does a wealthy young woman like you do with herself most days?"

Teresa shook her head and bit into her burger. "We'll save that for another day. We don't want to run out of things to talk about before we even have a chance to become friends."

"Well, can I at least ask how old you are?" Patrick asked.

"I'm twenty-eight," Teresa answered. "How old are you?"

"Thirty."

"You're younger than I thought."

Patrick laughed. "Well, you're younger than I thought you'd be. I would have never guessed you were twenty-eight."

"Because I don't look like it?" Teresa asked.

"No, you look younger than twenty-eight. But you carry yourself like you're older than that."

"I see," Teresa said biting her lip. "You're almost as good a listener as you are a talker."

"In my line of work, you have to be good at both."

"And what line of work is that?" Teresa asked. "Fake psychic or CBI consultant."

"Both."

They finished lunch and Teresa paid the bill, she played Coldplay on the way back to the office and hummed along to Yellow while they made small talk about what they liked to drink and eat.

And Patrick was amazed at how easy it was to be with her. He hadn't felt this easy with someone since Angela.

Yes, he liked Bosco, Hightower and the rest of the Serious Crime Unit well enough, but being around them was nothing like being around him. She saw him as a potential friend, not somebody with a tragic history or as somebody who could advance their career because of his record of closing cases.

She dropped him off at the front of the building and smiled at him. "I'll see you again soon, I hope."

"Well, I do owe you lunch," Patrick answered.

Teresa smiled. "Well, maybe I should give you my number. It might make this being friends thing a lot easier."

"Yes, having your number would be very helpful," Patrick agreed.

She jotted it down on the back of a receipt for a coffee purchase and handed it over. "Okay, I'll see you later."

"Goodbye Teresa," Patrick answered, waving to her as she drove away.

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"I'm guessing lunch was successful," Bosco said as Patrick entered the bullpen.

"It was fine," Patrick answered.

Bosco took a long sip of his coffee and then a bite of his powdered doughnut. "It was just fine?"

"It was fine," Patrick repeated, going into the break room to make a cup of tea. "We were just two people finishing a conversation."

"Right."

"I am not dating her!"

"You're the one who said you were dating her! Not me!" Bosco said, smirking at him.

"I can hear your thoughts as clear as day," Patrick answered. "And you're thinking that we're dating. Well, we're not."

"Maybe, but you are going to be dating her eventually. Mark my words; she isn't the kind of woman you're just friends with."

"Then why didn't you marry her?" Patrick challenged.

"First of all, she's almost twelve years younger than me. Second of all, Mandee is a better fit for me than she would have ever been," Bosco replied. "But that doesn't mean you're not good for her. Besides, you've probably seen When Harry Met Sally. Somebody always wants to be something more. . ."

"I am not having this conversation with you," Patrick told him.

Bosco sighed. "Fine. But. . ."

"No! No more!" Patrick stopped him.

Bosco smirked again and took a drink of his coffee to stop him from saying anything else. But he couldn't resist. "Are you going to see her again?"

"To finish a conversation," Patrick answered. "Stop being a busybody, Bosco."

"What are you talking about?" Wayne Rigsby, one of his other teammates asked as he came into the bullpen looking for an after-lunch snack. "Why does Jane want you to mind your own business?"

Patrick rolled his eyes.

"He met somebody!" Bosco replied as he took a chocolate éclair.

Rigsby smiled. "Really? Good for you Jane! Finally!"

"We're just friends," Patrick answered like he had to spell it out for him.

"But you did meet somebody?" Rigsby asked.

"Sure," Patrick replied. "I met somebody, somebody who is just a friend. And we're hardly even friends because she's somebody I just met."

"So, when did you guys meet?"

"Last night at the ball," Bosco answered. "Her father was the one who donated all the money to the CBI. I introduced them."

Patrick walked away, leaving them to their idle gossip. There was no sense in trying to tell them that nothing was going on between him and Teresa Lisbon, he had tried and failed too many times already. He would just allow time to show them the truth of what was really going on.

Besides, he might have been the smartest person in the building but he didn't know why everybody had an intense need to see him matched up with somebody new. He wasn't that pathetic that he needed a lady in his life. In the life that he had.

He crawled on his couch and pretended to sleep so nobody would bother him until they actually needed his services.

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"Where were you this afternoon, dear?" Carlos Lisbon asked his daughter as she came into his penthouse apartment and tossed her car keys on the table by the door. "I thought we were going to have lunch."

"I know dad and I'm sorry I didn't make it. . . but I was having lunch with somebody else," Teresa answered, grinning at him.

Carlos raised an eyebrow. "Really? A girlfriend?"

"No. . ." Teresa answered.

"A boyfriend then?" Carlos asked hopefully.

"He's a guy. . . who could be a friend," she replied, sitting down on the couch and taking his hand.

"It's better than nothing, I suppose. You always seem so lonely with only me for company."

"I'm not lonely! Not really," Teresa answered. "You're my number one priority. You know that."

"And I am grateful for it," Carlos said. "You know that I am. I don't know what I would do without you my dear. But don't you want a life outside of taking care of me and looking over the finances?"

"Oh dad. . . if it hadn't been for the inheritance, you know what I would be doing right now."

"Yes, something else. You'd probably be the youngest lead agent at the CBI right now."

Teresa blushed. "You don't know that. You have a very high opinion of me."

"You were at the top of your class before you left the academy. Any agency would have been lucky to have somebody like you working for them."

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. That means a lot to me."

"Now tell me about this fellow you had lunch with," Carlos said. "Is he nice? Where did you meet him? What's his name?"

"His name is Patrick Jane," Teresa started.

"Patrick Jane, he's that psychic from Regis & Kathie Lee, right?"

Teresa's mouth twisted into a smile. "Yes, he was on the Regis & Kathie Lee Show. I met him at the party last night."

"Was he the entertainment? Wait a second; he doesn't do psychic stuff anymore. I heard that on ET. So, what is he doing at the CBI?"

"Helping out with the casework. I met him through Bosco. And we talked; I liked talking to him so I went and finished a conversation with him. Except we didn't really finish it, I left it off for the next time."

Carlos smiled and took his daughter's hand. "I have tickets for the opera. You should invite him to go; I'm not going to use them anyways."

"You need to get out sometimes too," Teresa answered.

"I'll do it another time," Carlos replied. "I promise."

"You better," Teresa told him warningly. "Come on, I'll make you dinner and then we can watch a movie."

"As long as you take the tickets," Carlos said.

"Okay," Teresa answered. "I'll take the tickets. Even though I don't like the opera. At all."

"Have you ever been to the opera? No! You might be surprised. You might love it," Carlos answered. "Your mother, God rest her soul, loved the opera. And you are her daughter in more ways than one."

Teresa smiled. "Okay. I'll give it a chance."

"And dear, do not go and pick a dress off the rack even though the opera is tomorrow night. Try and find something that will fit. Please."

"Dad. . ."

"I know, I know. It isn't a date but my dear; you don't know what can happen."

"Okay, okay. I'll try and pick something that fits."

"And nothing that is discounted either. You already met him, but you don't have to stop making impressions."

"Okay, okay!" Teresa repeated as they went into the kitchen to start making dinner again.

She wasn't going to tell him that Patrick wasn't looking for anything else aside from friendship. He wouldn't listen to her anyways.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note:

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. And if you don't know who Nick & Nora are, I highly recommend the Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy. They are brilliant and Robin Tunney's choice for chemistry that reminds her of Jane and Lisbon. Also, a huge thank you to justlook3 for the cover art. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Love,

Holly, 1/9/2015_