9

Hello.”

Jake had looked up from his laptop on a Friday afternoon in February to find a midthirties woman with short black hair standing over his table at the coffee shop. She had bright eyes behind brown glasses, and a stack of three books under her arm.

“Yes?”

“Are you Jacob Palmer?”

“Jake. Yeah.”

“I’m Irene Barring. It’s good to meet you.” She sat in the chair across from him and set her books on the table.

“Who?”

“Peter’s friend.”

“Peter’s friend?”

“Am I at the wrong table?” Irene glanced around the coffee shop.

“Unfortunately not.”

“Excuse me?” Irene cocked her head and frowned.

“No, no, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean Peter didn’t tell me. I thought I was meeting him here, not you. So this is a bit of a shock.”

“Nice.” Irene grabbed the edges of her books and pressed her lips together. “Not the way I wanted to break on through to the other side.”

“The Doors.”

“You know Jim Morrison’s work?” She leaned forward, eyes growing wider.

“Only because my roommate for two years after college was way into classic rock. I couldn’t get him to stop talking about it.”

“Then you may not know that Morrison was a prophet. He has more to say to us than anyone other than Sri Ramana Maharshi.”

“Jim Morrison? A prophet?”

“Yes.”

“What about Elvis?”

“That’s good. Very good. Very funny.” Irene smiled and pointed at him. “Peter said you had a great sense of humor. But I’m serious. Morrison was not a singer, not a rock star, he was a poet who was thrust into a world he didn’t want to be in. If we forget the music and look at the days before The Doors, and then immerse ourselves with the verse he created, we find a man so consumed by his spirituality, his entire being reflected truths we still are just barely starting to grasp today.”

She reached over and picked up Jake’s cup of coffee and took a sip.

He cocked his head and stared. “Would you like some of my coffee?”

She laughed. “I had to see if we’re compatible.”

“Are we?”

“Yes.” She grinned. “So far anyway. I’ll let you know when we pass the next signpost.”

“You’re talking about the man who suggested we crawl into our minds and play a game where we go insane, where we forget the people around us, where we forget the world, where we let go so we can break through.”

“Yes!” She took his hands. “Maybe I should meet your old roommate. It’s rare to find someone who knows Morrison’s work like that. I am truly impressed.”

“He’s married. My old roommate.” Jake shut his laptop, picked up his coffee, and stood. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. It’s good to meet you, Irene.”

“Are you a spiritual man, Jake?”

“I believe in God and in his Son and in the Spirit of God. So I’m thinking that pretty much disqualifies me from ever worshiping in the halls of the Lizard King.” Jake backed away from the table and waved good-bye.

The second time Peter dropped one of his setups, Jake could have sworn he was on a reality-TV prank show and the woman was a paid professional actor. Jake was sitting at Third Place Books at the end of Lake Washington with no greater ambition than to read his book and sip an overpriced cup of java.

“Hey, Jake, what are you doing here?”

Jake blinked and glanced up at Peter. A woman stood next to him, a shy smile on her face. Pretty, reddish-blond hair at shoulder length, average figure, height maybe five-five or -six, and an engaging smile.

“Having coffee. Reading. You?”

He opened his palm toward the woman. “We were headed back to the office after a sales call and decided to grab a quick cup of coffee to debrief on the meeting.”

“Instead of debriefing in your office?” Jake tried to use his heat vision to drill a hole in Peter’s head, but unfortunately it got stuck in his imagination.

“So many distractions there.”

“But this is five miles from your office.”

“So?”

“This is a bookstore. An out-of-the-way bookstore. There’s three coffee shops between here and there. And you know I hang out here.”

Peter turned to the woman. “I am so sorry. What am I thinking? I gotta introduce you two. Jake, this is Maggie Welker. Maggie, this is my best friend, Jake Palmer.”

“Hi, Maggie. It’s good to meet you.”

“You too. Peter has told me all about you.”

Nice smile, but there was an overeagerness in her eyes that screamed DANGER.

“Oh?”

“Yes. Oodles and oodles and lots of gobs.”

Maggie should have stopped right there, or Jake should have advised her to stop, but it didn’t happen. They sat down and Peter pushed Maggie’s crazy button.

“Why don’t you tell Jake a little about yourself?”

“Okay, okay, if you really want to hear a little bit about me. But after that, I want to hear about you.” She scrunched up her face, smiled, and poked the air in front of him. “I love flowers, I do, and if that’s wrong, well, piddle on you, they’re beautiful and they brighten everything up, and they smell so gooooooood.” She clutched her arms across her chest. “Do you love flowers, Jake? I betcha do, I know you do, or Peter wouldn’t have ever introduced us in the first place.”

“Well—”

“What’s your favorite kind? I mean your over-the-moon-and-back-again favorite flower. I bet it’s the same as mine, betcha it is!” She wiggled in her seat.

“I don’t really have a—”

“Oh, come on. Sure you do. You might not think about it all the time, I understand, men and women are different and we don’t always think about the same things, but if you dig deep, deep, deep, there’s an answer there, I promise you.” She paused and poked him lightly in the arm with a forefinger whose nail was bright yellow. “And I want to hear it.”

Jake stared at the woman’s expectant eyes and tried not to laugh. She nodded and he realized she wouldn’t stop till he gave her an answer.

“Sunflowers?”

“Oooooooooo! Are you serious? You can’t be serious, but I know you are! Sunflowers are mine too!” Maggie bounced in her seat and glanced back and forth between Jake and Peter. “Yes, yes, yes! Can you believe that? Can you? Can you?”

“No, I can’t.”

She turned to Peter and punched him in the arm. “Stick me with a pin if you don’t think that’s the most wonderful dollop of sugar you’ve ever tasted!” She laughed again. “But not too hard with that pin. Ha!”

Jake endured another ten minutes before he excused himself, leaving the woman with a look on her face that seemed to say, “Aren’t you going to ask for my hand in blessed matrimony first?”

“Peter, I’ll call you tonight.”

When he reached Peter that evening, Jake muttered, “I’m going to kill you.”

“She gets nervous meeting men.”

“I’m going to maim you first.”

“She’s not usually like that. Really. That was weird. I’ve never seen her like that. If you give her a chance—”

“You let her sell for you? You let her represent your company?”

“Probably not for long. I didn’t hire her. But—”

“Please tell me that was a joke, setting me up with her. You really thought I’d like her?”

“Like I said, she got nervous. I didn’t expect that and it was over the top, but—”

“She was a wacko. Like all the rest.”

“Not the one that you met last month. She was cool. You guys truly connected, didn’t you? Tell me I was wrong with her. And what about the one four months back? Are you telling me you didn’t like her either?”

It was true. Both of those women were interesting and Jake had liked them. But it didn’t matter what he thought of them, or even what they thought of him.

“It makes not the slightest difference if any of them are great, not great, weird, not weird, or somewhere in between, I’m not going to date ever again. You know this. You know why.”

“You gotta get over that.”

“Until you’ve lived it, don’t judge it. You can’t imagine.”

“I’m just trying to help. Get you to have some fun. Get back on the dating circuit.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Ever?”

“Ding! I think he’s got it, folks. Ever. Next time you’re tempted to go Jake stalking with a woman in tow, repeat this phrase: ‘Jake is never going to date again. King Arthur will return to Britain before Jake gets into a relationship, so I’m not going to try to set him up ever again.’ Got it?”

“Got it.”

“You promise you’ll never do this to me again, right?”

“I swear.”

Deep down, Jake appreciated Peter’s persistence. God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone. Didn’t Jake know it. But unless God had a major renovation plan for his body, he’d be alone for the rest of his life.

A few weeks later Jake went to Peter’s office to pick him up for a Mariners game. While sitting in the lobby waiting, Jake spied a kayaking magazine, picked it up, and quickly became engrossed in an article about two men and one woman who had shot the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River in less than twelve hours. An incredible accomplishment.

“Excuse me.”

The voice sliced through his study of the article, and Jake dropped the magazine to find a striking dark-haired woman in a dark blue and gray skirt gazing down on him, trying not to laugh.

“Yes?” Jake blinked and caught the look in her eyes. “That’s not the first time you tried to get my attention, is it?”

“No.” She smiled. Playful green eyes. In an earlier life he would have allowed himself to be attracted to her.

“I think it was my third attempt to get your attention. Maybe the fourth.” She pointed at the magazine. “You must have found an interesting article.”

“Yeah, I did.” Jake opened the magazine and pointed to the article. “How to be stupid crazy in a tiny little boat and have the time of your life doing it.”

“You’ve done this?” She pointed to a photo Jake had been studying a moment ago.

“A few times, but not on rivers like that one. I’m not that stupid and not that crazy. But I will admit a big part of me wishes I could do it.”

“It’s such an invigorating sport.” She smiled. Nice smile. Very nice. “You’re a kayaker?”

“About five years now. You?”

“Going on fourteen months.” The woman pulled one leg behind the other and Jake couldn’t help but notice the curve of her calves. Lyrical.

“You like it?” Jake asked.

“I love it.” She sat on the edge of the leather chair on the other side of the glass coffee table. “But I feel like I’m still getting started, nothing too tough yet.”

“Have you been anywhere interesting?” Jake glanced at her, then looked back at the magazine. If he stared at her eyes too long, he might never find his way out of them.

“I did the Rogue River in Oregon with some friends last summer.”

“That’s such a great trip. Stunning beauty, nice smooth stretches, and some really fun white water.”

Jake studied the woman. No wedding ring. She wasn’t flirting. Yet she wasn’t going away. There had to be a reason . . . wait. Right. Duh. She’d interrupted him for something more than small talk. Before he could voice his realization, she pointed at the magazine for the second time.

“That’s my magazine.”

“Whoops.” Jake tilted his head back and a laugh puffed out. “I saw it lying on the chair over there and assumed it belonged to the office.”

“No, I should have taken it with me. I dropped it there, went back to my office to get something, and—”

“Here.” Jake reached over the coffee table to hand it to her.

“Would you like to keep it?”

“No, but thanks.”

The woman smiled and took the magazine. “You’re a friend of Peter’s?”

“Yeah, Jake Palmer.” Jake stood and offered his hand.

She took it. “Ari Conwell.”

“Pleasure. You work for Peter?”

“For nine months now.”

“You’ve been able to stand him for that long? I’m impressed.”

Ari smiled. “He’s told me a lot about you, Jake Palmer.”

“Oh?”

“He says life rarely gives people friends like you.”

“Yeah, sorry you had to hear that. Peter is getting mushy in his old age.”

Before Ari could respond, Peter strode out of his office and clapped his hands. “Clark, sorry to keep you waiting. Be right there. Just need to grab something out of the conference room.”

As Peter rushed by them, Ari frowned. “I thought you said your name was Jake.”

“It is.” Jake started to explain, then stopped himself. “It’s a long story.”

“Nice to meet you, Jake. Clark.” She smiled and reached for his hand.

“You too.” He gave her fingers a quick squeeze and let go. “But no Clark. Just Jake.”

“Okay.”

Again the smile. Intoxicating, but what he saw behind the smile was even deadlier. Time to move.

“Take care, Ari.” Jake motioned down the hall with his thumb. “I’m going to use the restroom.”

But before he could step away, Peter marched up to them. “Ari, Jake. Jake, Ari. But I’m sure you already introduced yourselves.”

“Yeah.” Jake focused on Peter. “Ready?”

They’d walked out without Jake repeating his good-bye to Ari. He’d almost turned as they reached the front door of Peter’s office, but he didn’t give in to the temptation.

“Jake? You with me?”

Peter’s voice brought Jake back to the present. He blinked at his friend, who was now standing at the corner of the deck overlooking the lush lawn.

“Yeah, I’m with you.”

Peter pointed at a spot on the slope below. “I’m thinking that would be a good spot for our Cowboy Golf tourney later this week.”

“Sure. Perfect.”

“I need to get back in, keep working on this meal. Camille told me she could watch things for a few minutes, but, uh . . .” Peter pointed at him on the way back to the kitchen. “And get ready, I have a fun surprise for everyone coming just before we chow.”

Jake tried to believe the surprise would be a good one. But at the moment, he didn’t have enough faith.