Free Wish List by Fern Michaels

probably finish when we do. If we leave at the same time we can say something casual then. Eat,” Ariel ordered, clearly frustrated with the scenario she’d just created.
    “Who do you think he reminds you of?”
    “I don’t know. Someone who’s passed through my life. I’m pretty good with faces, but I’m not good with names. It doesn’t matter. I’m really tired, Dolly. I can’t wait to get out of here and home to a hot bath.”
    “Me, too. I’m almost too tired to eat. Am I going to give you a computer lesson tonight or do you want to get up early tomorrow? Guess what I learned today. We got an order to pick up twenty thousand Coke bottles. But, they aren’t the real bottles you see in the store—they’re like test tubes and our driver takes them to where they get blown into bottles. Interesting, huh? And a pickup came in for us to haul forty-two thousand pounds of butter cookies. Pickups come in all the time. Tomorrow we have to pick up a load of Guess? jeans and take them to the place where they get stone-washed. The things you learn. I say we skip dessert.”
    “Okay, I’m ready, but I have to use the ladies’ room. Where is it?”
    “Over there,” Dolly said, pointing to Ariel’s left. “Guess we can leave by that entrance. Which means we either walk over to that guy’s table or we forget it.”
    “Let’s decide after we use the ladies’ room. Two beers don’t allow me to stand around and chitchat.”
    “He’s gone,” Dolly said.
    Outside, in the darkness, a dark pickup backed up, turned, and crawled past them. “It’s him,” Dolly said. “Do something. His window looks like it’s down.”
    “Thanks for dinner,” Ariel shouted. “That was very kind of you.”
    “My pleasure,” the man said as he drove off.
    “I know that voice or one that sounds like it. When I least expect it, it’ll come to me. Time to go home, Dolly.”
    “Bet you dream about that guy tonight,” Dolly said.
    “Bet I don’t.”
    “Bet you do!”
    “That’s a sucker bet and you know it,” Ariel giggled, “but I’ll take it.”
    “You’re on, Miz Ariel Hart.”
    It was almost like old times, when Ariel was one of the prettiest actresses in Hollywood.
    Almost.
    “The morning will be fine.”
     
     
    Lex saddled up one of his Arabians, a stallion named KO for King Omar. He cantered away from the barn before giving the stallion his head. The horse pounded over the hard ground, his hooves spewing up clumps of dark brown sod. Go, KO, drive these demons from my head. “Go, boy, go!”

Four
    The grand unveiling of Able Body Trucking’s new offices was scheduled, ironically, for Valentine’s Day. “It’s probably an omen of some kind and I’m too stupid to see it,” Ariel said as she fit the key into the brand new lock on the office door. It was six o’clock in the morning and she was shivering, as was Dolly. “Maybe we should have stayed yesterday, but it was ten o’clock and I was too tired. I’m still tired.” She was grumbling, and she hated herself for acting this way. “The carpet people promised to place all the furniture. I paid extra for that little contribution. The florist said she’d be here a little before five, or as soon as she can after she gets back from the wholesale market. So . . . I say let’s open this door and hope everything is the way I want it to be.”
    It was everything she wanted it to be and more. The meadow green carpet seemed thicker and more lush than she’d remembered. The vertical blinds, with a thread of meadow green running lengthwise, were a perfect complement to the luxurious carpet. The light oak desk and hunter green leather chair brought the room together. The deep, comfortable client chairs in front of the desk were covered in a nubby green fabric that felt silky to the touch. Feathery green ferns nestled on oak pedestals in all the corners. A shiny-leaf plant in a red. clay pot sat on the corner of Ariel’s desk, right next to the brand new