Within Reach Read Free Page A

to, but it doesn’t help sometimes. You won’t reconsider and let me come along?”
    He straightened and spoke quietly. “I really have to be free this time, Danica. With the exception of a dinner tomorrow night, it’ll be business all the way.”
    “I know. But it’s so quiet here when you’re away.” Saying the words, she realized that it wasn’t the quiet that bothered her but the fact that she felt widowed. Twenty-eight years old and widowed.
    Stifling the thought, she watched him carefully coil and pack two leather belts. Her gaze slowly climbed to his face and she was struck, once again and for the umpteenth time, by how handsome a man he was. The very first time she had been so struck she’d been nineteen and attending a fund-raiser for her father. Blake Lindsay had been impressive then, tall and dark and immaculately groomed. Now, nine years later, he was no less attractive. The years had barely touched him, it seemed. His forty-three-year-old body was firm and well toned, but then, he believed in exercise, jogged regularly, played squash several times a week and watched his weight. That he prided himself on his appearance had been obvious to Danica from the start. Unfortunately, between exercise and work, he seemed to have little time for much else, let alone her.
    “You have plenty to keep you busy, haven’t you?” Pivoting, he went to the closet, selected several ties from the rack, then moved toward the window to scrutinize the possibilities in daylight.
    “Oh, yes. There’s a board meeting at the hospital tomorrow and I have an appointment with the printer on Thursday to order our invitations.”
    “Plans are going well for the party?” He sounded distracted, which was no wonder, Danica decided, since he faced the monumental task of choosing between two blue and gray silk ties, the stripes of which varied infinitesimally in width. She could no more understand how he could choose one over the other than she could why he owned two such similar ties in the first place, but then, perhaps he felt the same way about her blouses or panty hose or belts.
    “The caterer’s all set. So’s the florist, and I’ve booked the chamber music ensemble from the conservatory. That pretty much does it until after the invitations are printed. Have you decided whether or not to invite the group from SpanTech?”
    Having somehow decided between the two ties, Blake put the loser back in the closet and returned to lay the others carefully in his suitcase. “SpanTech? Mmmm…not sure yet.” He rubbed his upper lip, then set off for the bathroom. When he returned, he carried a case containing his grooming needs. After fitting it into the space he had purposely left, he returned to the dresser for shirts.
    “It’d be easy enough, Blake. Another ten or twelve people won’t make much difference as long as we notify the caterer in time. It certainly won’t mean any more work for me, if you think it’d be worthwhile to invite them.” She knew that Blake had been negotiating to bring in SpanTech, outstanding for its research in microelectronics, as a division of Eastbridge.
    He sent her a brilliant smile, which flared, then was gone. “Let me think about it a little more, okay?”
    She nodded. When a silence fell between them, she searched for something else to say. “Did I tell you Reggie Nichols called?”
    “She’s in town?”
    “Mmmm. She’s seeing some guy, I guess.”
    “Isn’t she playing the circuit?”
    Reggie Nichols had been top-rated in women’s tennis for more than a decade. She and Danica had been friends since Danica’s own tennis-playing days when the two had trained under the same coach.
    “Sure. But I guess she needs the break. From what she said on the phone, things have been rough. Every year there are younger faces. I think it’s getting her down.…My Lord, Blake, you’ve got six shirts there.” She had been watching him place them one by one, starched and cardboard-backed, in the