Chapter One

	“What’s with men anyway?” The redhead leaned over the bar and popped a chip
into her mouth.  She half waved a hand in the air, and shook her head, reaching for
another chip.  “I mean, guys just want one thing, if they want anything at all.  I went out
on a date with a guy two weeks ago, he said he would call, and I’ve never heard from
him since.  Then there was this other guy who basically said ‘hey, I had a great time, but
you’re not my type, sorry’.” 
	While she had been talking she had been waving the chip around
absentmindedly, and now she popped it in her mouth and shrugged, while her
companion simply smiled.  “Then there was this guy named James.  We went to the
baseball game last week, then we went to the show a couple of days later and then
Thursday night we were both at the gym so we went for drinks after, and he figured that
was three dates, and that meant it was time for me to put out!”
	Maxine McGreggor was the kind of girl who made friends envious.  With her
mass of red curls, and green eyes, she was a walking attention getter; and then there
was the fact that she was a Phys. Ed. teacher, which meant she kept in shape.  Put it all
together and you had a girl who looked good no matter whether she was dressed to the
nines or just wearing sweats after a work out at the gym.  Jake Forrester could certainly
see why any red-blooded guy would want to take her to bed, but as he sat next to her at
the lunch bar at the local tennis club, he sure wasn’t going to tell her that!  
	Of course, he was immune to these effects, he reminded himself.  He and Max
had become fast friends since his best friend, and boss, had married her best friend. 
Their Saturday morning tennis games had become a growing rivalry long ago, and Jake
reminded himself that she had effectively blocked his every move on the court today and
had been extremely smug about it.  Not that he didn’t rub her nose in it when he won, 
but that was more fun of course.  At least for him.  Max always seemed to have a great
deal of fun when she beat him at a game, especially on a day like today when the scores
were so greatly mismatched.
	Then there were the twice-weekly trips to the gym, where they usually paced
themselves against each other.  This past Thursday he’d had to work late, and Max had
gone to the gym on her own.  Obviously James had taken advantage of that fact, he
thought.  He frowned, thinking he should have been there with her.  For some reason,
he seemed to think it should be his job to protect her, which was ridiculous, because
Max was a perfectly independent woman quite capable of looking after herself.  In fact,
she had stood her ground with James.  Good for her!  At least, he figured she had.  He
gave her a cautious sideways glance with a thoughtful look.
	“You didn’t do it, did you?”  he asked.
	“Jake!”  Max swatted him playfully on the arm and laughed.  “Of course not!  I
hardly know the guy.”
	“Well, I was just checking,” Jake said, frowning, and glancing her way. 
	She laughed.  “Anyway, a baseball game, and the gym —   c’mon,  are those
even considered dates?” she asked, picking another chip out of the bowl and waving it
around.
	Jake took the chip out of her hand and ate it.  “Nope,” he said, mainly because
he knew that was what she wanted to hear.  Besides, if those activities were considered
dates, that would mean he and Max had been dating for months!
	“Hey! That was my chip!” she exclaimed, pretending to pout.
	“Finders keepers.”  he said, with a shrug, as he in turn pretended to savour the
stolen chip.
	Thank goodness for Jake, Max thought to herself.  A girl couldn’t ask for a better
male friend.  To him, she was just one of the guys, and she liked that.  He didn’t get all
mushy over her, or treat her like she was fragile.  No, he spotted for her when she lifted
weights and knew exactly how much she could press.  He played one-on-one with her
down at the basketball hoop in the school yard, and raced her to the car when they were
at the end of their jog in the park.   And he let her tease him relentlessly when she beat
him at tennis, she thought with a laugh.
	“By the way,” Max said, picking up another chip.  “I saw Luke the other day.”
	Jake glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Oh yeah?  He’s back in town?”
	She nodded, as she finished chewing the chip before answering him.  “Yeah. I
spotted him over at Maurice’s Cafe when I was out shopping.  He had a girl with him,
and they looked pretty cozy.”  She glanced at Jake with a grin and raised her brow.
	“Good for him,” Jake said casually, as he plucked the next chip out of Max’s
fingers just as she was raising it to her mouth.  
	“You and I both know that Lucas Ryan doesn’t stay with one woman more than
three weeks, Jake!” she said with a chuckle.
	Jake straightened his back and moved his coffee cup.  Their lunch had arrived,
and he paused while the plates were put in front of them, then nodded.  “Just as long as
you remember that,” he said, with a grin.  
	When Mikki and Reese had paired Max with Jake in their wedding party, Luke,
the playboy step-brother of the groom,  had been the only one upset about it.  Luke had
had to share his duty with Josephine — otherwise known as Joey — the last of the
inseparable trio of friends.  Joey was a beautiful black haired woman with oriental blood
that gave her a glowing complexion and sleek beauty, but who wasn’t really Luke’s type,
apparently.  Besides, Joey had virtually disappeared for weeks prior to the wedding, and
when she had shown up at the wedding she'd been followed by a rich, handsome
rancher from Montana, whom she had eventually married.  Lucas wouldn't have had a
chance.
	Max, on the other hand, had been gorgeous, and suitably single, and Luke had
figured it was his job to try to change that fact.  Jake had nothing against his boss’s
step-brother; they got along very well in fact, but Luke was a playboy to the core and
there appeared to be no changing the fact.  There had been no doubt in Jake’s mind
that Max deserved better than that. 
	Max laughed and picked up a wedge of the clubhouse sandwich she had
ordered for lunch.  At the same moment, Jake reached over to her plate and picked up a
French fry and ate it.  He hadn’t ordered any for himself, just a corned beef sandwich
that he wasn’t really paying much attention to yet.
	“Do you want some of these?” Max asked as she pushed the plate slightly
towards him.
	“No, I’m meeting Reese for lunch after this,” he said, shaking his head.  He then
proceeded to reach for another fry and grinned at her as he popped it in his mouth. 
	Max lifted a finger and grinned back at him.  “Make sure to tell him I trounced you
on the tennis court today,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.
	“Oh sure,” Jake nodded, giving her a sly look over their plates.  “That will
definitely be the first thing I tell him!”  
	Max straightened her shoulders and looked smug.  “Well, just in case they’re
keeping score,” she said, then as Jake reached for another fry she pushed the plate a
little further toward him.  “Are you sure you don’t want to share these?”
	“No,” he said, shaking his head and popping the fry into his mouth.  “I’m fine.”

	As it turned out, it was the first thing he had to talk about when he met with his
boss for lunch an hour later, but only because Reese brought it up.
	“So, a little off your game this morning?”  Reese said with a grin, as he took his
seat across the table from the best foreman he’d ever had, not to mention the best
friend a man could have.  Reese had put up with his fair share of teasing for months
after he had made a fool of himself in front of Jake and Luke, in a fit of jealousy over
Mikki and a man named Max — who happened to be very much a woman.  Jake had
delighted in bringing the subject up every chance he could, and even under threat of
being fired, he had continued.  Of course, both men knew perfectly well that Kincaide
Landscaping would never be the same without Jake Forrester, so Reese had endured. 
When Jake and Max started playing tennis together, however, Reese jumped at the
chance for pay back.
	Jake glared at his boss and groaned.  “What did the woman do, hire a skywriter
or something?”
	Reese laughed.  “Now there’s an idea!” Jake rolled his eyes and Reese
continued to laugh.  “Actually, she stopped by to see the baby just as I was getting ready
to leave the house,”  he said, as he flipped open the menu and studied it, despite the
fact that he went ahead and ordered the same thing he always did.  When he handed
the menu back to the waitress he returned his attention to the man across the table.  “So
when are you two going to go on a real date?”
	Jake, who had been taking a sip of water at the time, sputtered back into his
glass and set it down with a thud.  “Max?”  he said, sounding astonished.
	Reese grinned and shrugged.  “Pick someplace neutral though.  Not anything
that she can beat you at — like tennis. Hmm, let’s see, you could take her to the Charity
Ball next weekend?”
	Jake stared at his boss.  The fact was, he had been going to ask Max to go to
the ball with him.  Reese has purchased four tickets in the company’s name, and had
given two of them to Jake.  He’d expected to ask Max right from the beginning but he
hadn't got around to bringing it up yet.  It had seemed the natural thing to do, since he’d
be going with Reese and Mikki anyway.  But if he did ask her now, he grumbled to
himself, it was going to look like a date!
	“Reese, that’s not fair!”  he shot back. “You know I would have asked her, just for
Mikki’s sake.  But we’re just friends.  It wouldn’t be a real date!”
	Reese leaned back in his chair and grinned.  “Keep telling yourself that, maybe
you’ll keep believing it,” he said. 
	“Reese!”  Jake glared, and his boss threw back his head in laughter. 
	“Pay back feels great,” Reese announced, and Jake sat back brooding.  Then
Reese leaned forward and reached for his water glass.  “But seriously, Old Man, you’d
better ask her soon.  She’s not chopped liver you know, in case you haven’t noticed. 
She may already have a date, then who will you take?”
	Jake’s frown deepened.  The thought of Max having a date was annoying him
just as much as it had annoyed him listening to her talking about James.  And there was
no reason for it.  Why then, was he sitting there kicking himself for not having brought up
the subject of the charity ball when he’d seen her earlier that day?  Of course, the timing
had been bad, he reminded himself.  Responding to her complaints about men and
dating by asking her to accompany him to the Charity Ball would have just seemed
tacky. 
	“Snap out of it, Old Man,”  Reese broke into this thoughts.  “Is it that difficult a
question?”
	Jake scowled at him.   “I’d have no choice, I’d have to take Maddy.”
	“You’d have to get through her father first!”  Reese said flatly, and then both men
laughed.  Madison Kincaide was the most beautiful girl in the world.  At least, Reese
thought so, but then he was biased.  From the day she was born she’d had him wrapped
around her little finger, and quite quickly she’d managed to wrap her Uncle Jake right
around there too.  At ten months old she was a delightful little curly-head toddler, and
Reese wasn’t looking forward to the day when the boys started calling. 
	“Her old man is a push over,”  Jake said, through his laughter.  “Just wait until
she grows up and I tell her the story of when her Daddy went ballistic over Aunty Max
having dinner with her Mom!”
	And this was much the way things went when Reese and Jake were together. 
The tables were turned as quick as a blink, with each of them being sharp witted and on
the lookout for the next take-down.  At least, that was when they weren’t at work.  On the
job they clicked together like a well-oiled machine.  Jake counted his blessings at having
been hired by Kincaide Landscaping all those years ago.  Starting out as a worker, he’d
quickly proven his worth.  As the company continued to grow, and Reese needed a
second-in-command he could trust, Jake had been his natural choice for foreman.  In
the days since Reese’s marriage, and the arrival of Maddy, the balance of power had
slowly been slowly shifting, making Jake virtually a partner in the business.  He still
considered Reese to be very much the boss, however.
	Reese cleared his throat and prepared to ignore Jake’s last comment.  “All right,
Jake, it’s time to get serious now.  The reason I asked you to have lunch with me today
is that I have some important company business to discuss with you.”
	Jake looked across the table with eyes narrowed.  He was used to Reese playing
tricks on him, and he studied his friend to see if this was one of them.  Reese’s face was
serious, however, as he leaned back in his chair and tapped the table with his fingers.
	“What’s up, Reese?” Jake asked.
	Reese sighed. “It's taken a lot of thought, and a lot of discussion with Mikki, but
I’ve made a big decision.  There is going to be a change in ownership and I just wanted
you to be the first to know, since you’ve been by my side in this thing almost since the
beginning.”
	Jake stared at the other man in shock.  “You’re selling the company!”  Business
had been booming, sometimes there had been almost more work than they could
handle, but they’d always managed to cope, and come out feeling good about
themselves in the end.  Reese had never given any indication that he was considering
selling out.  Jake couldn’t believe his ears.
	“Reese, I can’t believe this!  You never said a word!”  
	“It’s a decision I had to make on my own, Jake.  As I said, I’ve talked it over with
Mikki, and I’ve decided this is the only thing to do.”  Reese’s face looked grim, and Jake
felt something in the pit of his stomach roll over.
	“But Reese…”
	Reese shook his head and held up his hand to silence his friend. “I’m sorry,
Jake. Don’t try to talk me out of it.  My mind’s made up.  I’m having a lawyer meet me
here to sign the papers,”  he looked at his watch. “He should be here any minute.  I just
wanted to tell you first.”
	Jake was speechless.  He slumped back in his chair and frowned.  There was, of
course, one question that had to be asked, though he hated to ask it. “Who are you
selling to, Reese?”
	The expression on his friend’s face grew even grimmer, and Jake’s frown
deepened.  “That’s the thing, Jake,”  Reese said, raking his hand through his hair
nervously.  “I’m not sure how well you’re going to get along with the new management. 
He’s a bit of a smartass at times, and he’s got one hell of a temper.  I don’t know if —“ 
But as he spoke, his attention was drawn to the door of the restaurant.  “Here’s the
lawyer now.  This won’t take long, Jake, then we can get back to our lunch.”
	Jake sighed.  Suddenly  he was glad of the sandwich and stolen fries he'd eaten
at the club earlier, because he'd just lost his appetite.  He sat back in his chair and
frowned as Reese stood up to offer a hand to the lawyer.  He watched as the newcomer
sat down, placed his briefcase on the table, and proceeded to extract a sheaf of very
official looking documents from it.  Jake’s frown deepened even more as Reese began
to read over the papers, nodding his approval as he shuffled through them.  He wanted
to shout out Stop! Don’t do it! There must be another way! But he knew Reese well
enough by now that when the man said Don’t try to talk me out of it, he meant it. 
	At last, Reese signed the last of the papers and put down the pen, smiling at the
lawyer. “That about does it then,” he said. “I guess there’s only one thing left to do now.”
	The lawyer nodded, took the papers from Reese’s outstretched hand, and picked
up the pen.  “Can I just get your signature on these, Mr. Forrester?”
	Jake’s eyes popped open wide, then narrowed to questioning slits. “What for?” 
He looked from one to the other, and suddenly he noticed the crack beginning to form in
Reese’s hard shell.  “What’s going on here?”
	“Please, Mr. Forrester,” the lawyer continued, handing the papers closer to him. 
“If you’ll just sign these, I can be on my way.”
	Leerily, Jake took the papers from the lawyer, although his eyes never left
Reese’s face.  He ignored the pen, and slowly lowered his eyes to the top page in the
pile of papers he held.  As he stared at the bold black print, he could hardly believe his
eyes. 

IN THE ISSUE OF THE NEWLY FORMED PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN 
REESE KINCAIDE AND JAKE FORRESTER …

	Jake stopped reading.  “What’s this all about?”  he asked, his voice now heavily
laden with suspicion.  He lifted a bewildered gaze across the table, and this time Reese
met his gaze with a childish grin.  The lawyer, seated at the side of the table, was looking
just as smug. 	“Damn you, Kincaide!” Jake exclaimed, as he looked back at the papers
and began to leaf through them.  It was all there, plain as day.  Reese was making him
full partner in Kincaide Landscaping.  
	“Hurry up, Old Man!”  Reese said, unable to contain his laughter any longer. 
“Don't take all day. Sign the papers.”  And as Jake finally took the pen and began to set
it to paper, his friend added, “The ladies are waiting.”
	Jake looked around the room, then stared at Reese. “Ladies? What ladies? 
Reese, what the hell's going on here?” he questioned, and Reese laughed louder then
waved his hand in the air.  From the foyer outside the front entrance to the restaurant
Mikki, Maddy and Max appeared, walking toward their table.
	“You should have seen your face!”  Reese said, when all the papers had been
signed, stowed safely back in the briefcase, and the lawyer had said his farewells.  “I
wish I had a picture of it!  When you thought I was selling out, it was priceless!”
	Jake grunted, and glared across the table.  “Yeah, but what was that you were
saying about the new owner?  Something about being a smartass, and having a bad
temper?”
	“That about sums it up,” Reese said, almost rolling in laughter. 
	“Don’t you pay any attention to him, Jake,” Mikki said, giving her husband a
playful push on the shoulder.
	“You were in on this too, weren't you?”  Jake said, eyeing the woman accusingly,
then he turned his gaze to Max.  “And you?”
	The redhead grinned mischievously.  “Who, me?”  she said, her voice heavily
laced with sarcasm. 
	“I'll get you for this!” Jake said, laughing and giving her a friendly poke on the
shoulder.   Max grinned back at him.  She was pretty certain he would get her back
eventually.  That was one of the things that made their friendship so much fun.
	“Okay, kids, break it up,”  Reese said with a chuckle.  “It's time to celebrate!”