"Ah, Alan, I'm sorry to have to cut this short, but I have plans for this evening, and was just on my way out the door." Lee's ears perked up at her words, his eyes catching hers as he gave her a smile of encouragement, which she returned. She was still listening to whatever Alan was saying on the other end of the phone line. As he watched, she rolled her eyes over something that was said and began shaking her head as if unable to believe what she was hearing. "Yes, I guess you could call it a date . . . kinda." She spoke the words resignedly into the mouthpiece. "Yes, he is a very nice man and yes, it's someone I work with," she confirmed, flashing Lee an embarrassed look. "Look, Alan, I really need to go," she cut short whatever the other man was saying. "What?" The question was spoken with a bit of shocked surprise.

Lee watched with interest as a tinge of color came into her cheeks. Once again, she shook her head resignedly, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "I'll see you on Saturday, Alan. We can talk then." She spoke the words very firmly and Lee recognized her 'I'm not gonna answer that one' tone. She had paused, listening again. "Yeah, 6:00 would be perfect. We'll see you then. Good bye, Alan." She spoke her good bye with a hint of laughter in her voice and Lee could have sworn he saw her mouth the word 'men' as she pulled the receiver away from her ear. She hung up, sending Lee an apologetic glance. "Sorry about that," she told him.

Lee found the half-embarrassed, shy look on her face intriguing. "No problem," he assured her, not sure if he were telling the truth or not. On one hand, for some reason, he didn't like the idea that Chamberlain was still calling her, let alone making arrangements to see her. But, on the other hand, the tone of her voice as she had spoken with the other man had given Lee a piece of vital information that he found telling. She was not yet involved with Alan, at least he was pretty sure she wasn't. While her voice had been friendly and even warm, it had lacked any of the softer tones or innuendo that was usually present in a conversation between lovers. For right now, that was enough for Lee's peace of mind. Chamberlain might be invited to dinner on Saturday night, but tonight was his, and his alone. Now he just had to figure out what he hoped to accomplish with it.

When he had invited her for dinner, just the two of them with no shoptalk, he had known that he was taking the next step in their relationship. They had been out together before, dozens upon dozens of times. Mostly on business situations, with the occasional friendship or apology dinner thrown in. This time it wasn't really any of those. Tonight was strictly no business; friendship had very little to do with the offer and he had already made his apologies. He just wanted to spend this time with her tonight. Not because he felt like he owed her something for giving her such a hard time, but because he really wanted to. It was just that he didn't know where he wanted to go from here.

He knew where his hormones wanted to go, but this was Amanda, his partner . . . his best friend, and he wasn't going to rush into anything that might make her feel uncomfortable or possibly jeopardize what they already had. Usually when he took a woman out, there was a good chance that they would end up in bed sometime before the evening was over. This time he knew the date would end with him returning her chastely to her doorstep.

However, if she should make a move or two . . . he allowed the idea to slide around in his thoughts for a moment, before calling a halt to it. This was Amanda. He knew that he'd be likely to pound on anyone he caught trying anything with her without a firm commitment in mind. He also knew that he would hate himself in the morning if he allowed anything to happen, not to mention that Amanda probably wouldn't be too thrilled with him either.

"I'll just get a jacket, and then we can leave," Amanda told him, heading toward the coat closet. "If we're quick about it, maybe we can get out of here before there are any more interruptions," she laughed. "It's been like grand central station here tonight." A few moments later, they were finally out the door.

Just as they reached his car, the honking of a horn caught their attention. Looking up, they realized the sound was coming from a car stopped in the middle of the street, trying to get their attention. "Amanda!" a male voice called. Lee clenched his teeth, wondering just how many men he was going to be confronted with. Usually, his women caused the interruptions when he was out on the town. To be confronted with some man at every turn was something new, or almost.

From the beginning, he had been aware that Amanda attracted men almost as quickly as she attracted trouble. It seemed that in almost every assignment they had been on, she had caught the eye of some man or the other. Leave her alone for a mere moment to get some work done and some man in the room would make a beeline for her. The only thing that had made it tolerable was that she always seemed to be honestly flustered by the attention she received, and rarely sought it out or encouraged it.

He knew from spending time with her over the past couple years, that the same was true in her private life. There was just something about her that seemed to appeal to the male population, be it men his own age, kids or grandfather types . . . they all seemed to respond to the enigma that was solely Amanda.

Reluctantly, he stepped back, allowing her to maneuver around him so she could see what the guy wanted. She smiled apologetically as she moved away from him and approached the gentleman in the car. "Hi, Jim. What's the problem?" she asked, smiling as she gave him her attention. Lee wasn't close enough to hear their conversation, but he could hear the rumble of the man's laughter at something Amanda had said. Lee was beginning to think that maybe he should just pick her up, toss her in the car and make a quick getaway.

The entire conversation only took about a minute and a half, but it seemed a lot longer to Lee. Finally, she moved back from the car laughing, promising the guy that she'd think about whatever he had said. As she came toward him, Lee was struck by how naturally beautiful she was. There was nothing artificial or phony about Amanda. What you saw was what you got. She always seemed to have a ready smile and her enjoyment of life was obvious to all. She also had the uncanny ability to laugh at herself, which made her fun to be around. She was laughing now.

As she reached him, her beautiful brown eyes were twinkling with amusement. "That was Jim Trawley," she informed him as if he should know the name. 'Trawley', he turned the name over in his mind, it did sound vaguely familiar. Seeing the confusion on his face, she continued to expand with a small laugh. "Jim Trawley, as in the father of Joshua Trawley -- your fellow trellis climber."

"Oh." Lee nodded remembering that she had thought he was this Joshua kid last night when he had climbed her trellis. "So, what'd he want?" he inquired, curious as to what was behind the amusement bubbling inside her.

"Oh, nothing much," she laughed. Turning she pointed down the street toward a small one story house on the corner. "Joshua lives in that little bungalow over there with his parents. Turns out that ours isn't the only roof he's been trying to get on lately. He has quite a few of the neighbors in an uproar about the matter. Seems he has some sort of a school project. Something to do with an egg and he's trying to find some place really high to drop it from. Guess if it doesn't break he gets an A on the project. Josh claims their roof isn't high enough, so Jim wants me to consider letting him up on ours so the rest of the neighbors will stop complaining." She shook her head over the ingenuity and tenacity of kids these days. "I told him I'd think about it."

She took hold of Lee's offered hand and lowered herself into his Corvette. It was a nice car, but after getting in and out of her station wagon, the seats seemed to sit awfully low. Oh, well. She watched as Lee moved around the front of the car and got in. He started the engine, and then glanced over at the woman beside him, before turning to reach behind their seats and pull out a small clear box. "For you," he said, handing it to her.

Amanda took the box, noticing that it held a small corsage that consisted of a single white orchid, surrounded by a bit of greenery. Its very simplicity gave it an elegant beauty unrivaled by any corsage she had ever received. "It's beautiful." She smiled shyly at him. "You didn't have to do this, you know."

Lee returned the smile, enjoying the expression on her face as she carefully opened the box and removed the corsage, bending her head to pin it on herself. "I wanted to do it, Amanda," he assured her firmly, reaching over to help her. She sat still, tilting her head out of the way as he finished pinning it on for her. To do so, he inadvertently slid two fingers into the neckline of her blouse, trying to hold the material still. For Lee, it lent the entire endeavor an intimacy he hadn't expected, causing him to hold his own breath until he had finished the task.

After straightening the flower a bit when he was finished, he glanced at Amanda, to see if she had been similarly affected. She was casually rearranging the collar of her blouse as she looked at the flower pinned there. The slight encroachment didn't seem to have bothered her. She seemed to accept his assistance as easily as he accepted her assistance with his tie. There was no embarrassment in her expression as she turned her eyes back up to his. "Thank you, it really is beautiful," she told him with quiet sincerity.

Lee smiled, mostly to himself, as he put the car in gear. "You are very welcome," he told her, glad that he had taken the time to run past Carmen's House of Flowers. It had taken him only a few moments to make a decision on which flower he wanted. The elegance of the orchid just seem to say 'Amanda'.

Amanda glanced out her window as they headed out of her neighborhood, her thoughts running every which direction. She could still feel the warmth of Lee's fingers where they had brushed against the hollow of her shoulder as he had pinned the corsage on. She was getting really good at hiding the little jumps of awareness his touch created, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel them or think about them.

While she was content to be in his presence, she was also feeling slightly on edge, as if not knowing what to expect from him. He was doing it to her again. Yesterday he had introduced her to his new girlfriend and now, this evening he had invited her out on what she would consider a date. Only problem was she wasn't sure just what he considered it.

His words of invitation said 'date', his picking her up at her house said 'date', even his choice of flower said 'date'. But this was Lee, and he had a habit of leading her down one road and then pulling back at the last moment, giving her that stupid spiel of his. She told herself again that if this was one of those times when he started in, she really was going to reply with 'not exactly'. And tonight, it would be true. He had said 'no shoptalk' and she was going to hold him to it. That meant that he couldn't later start in about how this was just business.

She sure hoped he wasn't setting her up for something. She wouldn't put it past him to spring an assignment on her at the last minute. There was just something about this turnaround that bothered her, she couldn't put her finger on it, but something nagged in the back of her mind. This past week he had all but ignored her, in fact he had been down right rude to her. Of course, she reminded herself, a lot of his behavior had always come off as being rude, so why his rudeness this past week had bothered her she wasn't sure.

Maybe it was because they had seemed to be getting along so well up until then. They had been working well together lately and he had seemed to be seeking her out more and more often. His blowing hot and cold really was aggravating. She never knew where she stood with him and therefore resolving her feelings for him was difficult. One day she had them neatly pegged as just really good friends and then the next he would do something to cause her to wonder if it could be more than that. Like now, this evening, with this date. Problem was he had pulled back so many times before that she found herself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Penny for your thoughts." Lee's words dropped casually on her ears, drawing her attention back to him. She smiled up at him ruefully, knowing full well that she wasn't about to tell him what she had been thinking.

"Inflation would make it at least a nickel," she teased, "and they aren't worth that. I was just thinking about the vagaries of life."

"Vagaries of life, huh?" Lee repeated the phrase, "And exactly what would those be?"

"Unh Uh, Scarecrow, no dice. My thoughts really weren't all that great and besides a girl has to have some secrets!" she teased.

"Hey, they must really be something interesting if they're so secret," Lee teased back, enjoying the repartee with her. He had always enjoyed that part of their relationship. Somehow she had been able to bring a smile to his heart right from the beginning. He glanced in his rear view mirror as he switched lanes. Then he did a double take.

Trying to keep his eye on both the traffic in front of him and his rearview mirror, he sped up. The black limo several lengths behind them also sped up. He switched lanes, the long black car switched lanes as well, so he switched back. Seeing the other car follow suit just confirmed his suspicions. Somewhere along the line they had picked up a tail.

To be cont.