Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

It had taken no time at all this morning to go from the boxer shorts he’d slept in to the elegant attire he now wore. His dark hair, still damp from his shower, was cut much shorter than it had been back in high school, but he still had a full head of it. Luckily for him, receding hairlines didn’t run in the family. Even his father had aged well, despite his years of hard living.

And so had Wyatt. Nobody he met ever realized he was closing in on forty. He forgot, most of the time, himself. The only hint of his age, whenever he looked in the mirror, were the faint beginnings of crinkly lines around the corners of his eyes.

At the moment, they were concealed behind a pair of black designer sunglasses.

No, the sun wasn’t shining brightly today-not yet, anyway. But he had donned the glasses despite the overcast sky, the way he used to back in high school. Back then, he used them as an impenetrable fort that could keep the world at bay.

Not anymore. He didn’t have to hide anymore.

And he wasn’t hiding from Lindsay-not really. But the glasses would give him an advantage. He wouldn’t have to look her in the eye until he’d had a chance to get used to the fact that he was with her again. Until he figured out how he felt about that-and had a chance to look at her and maybe figure out how she felt about him, and why she had called him so abruptly.

He supposed she was going to tell him. She’d said she had to talk to him about something. What could it be?

Whatever.

That she had crashed into his world out of the blue for the second time in his life seemed fitting. He only hoped that this time, she wouldn’t blow right on out of it again.

Maybe she won’t. We’re both adults now.

Right. They had that in common, if nothing else, he reminded himself wryly. That and, oh yeah, irony of ironies: money.

During their brief conversation, she had acted clueless about his life now-and he had pretended to be just as clueless about hers.

Of course he knew she was an event planner in Manhattan-a successful one, judging by her address and her client list.

Keeping track of her was simple, despite the fact that Wyatt’s parents were long deceased, his brothers had relocated, and he’d lost touch with his other hometown connections when he left.

Google was a handy invention. Plug in someone’s name and poof! There they were: name, location, occupation…

He only wished there had been a photo of Lindsay on the Web, but there never was when he checked.

And he checked often.

Well, now you don’t need a photo. Now you’ll get to see her for yourself.

His right foot pressed down on the accelerator before he remembered to lighten up.

This wasn’t a race. After twenty years, he could wait another half hour to see her.

Yeah, sure you can.

He forced himself to steer his way into the right lane, allowing the luxury sports car to languish behind a relatively slow-moving double semi.

Why did she call him? What did she want? And in person, no less.

Maybe she was interested in him now that she’d found out that he could now buy and sell her old man-and Farrell Timber-from here to the West Coast and back.

She wouldn’t be the first opportunist from his past to resurface.

Then again, Lindsay had never struck him as a gold-digger.

Come on…she didn’t have to be.

She had her own money, plenty of it. Everybody in Portland knew that money grew on the Farrell family tree.

Anyway, information about Wyatt wasn’t readily available on the Internet. He was a silent partner in the business, importing exotic luxury cars for high-profile clients.

Cars had always been his thing, even back in high school.

That was how he first noticed Lindsay, in fact. He’d turned his head to admire a sleek black Porsche that had pulled up in front of church one Sunday morning before Mass. Then she’d emerged from the backseat, and he was instantly more captivated by her than the car. Which was saying a lot.

In those days he worked his ass off, holding three part-time jobs to save enough for his used BMW. There were plenty of days when he got home at three a.m. after washing dishes at a local restaurant, too exhausted to wake up for school the next morning. You miss one too many days, and you’re expelled.

And once you’ve been expelled from one school, the next one has a zero-tolerance policy. Get caught having a cigarette on school grounds, and you’re out. No excuses accepted, no questions asked.

Of course college was beyond his reach anyway, so he didn’t worry much about his academic record. After graduating from Washington High, he found his way into automobile sales-first in Portland, then Indianapolis, then Daytona. Race cars.

From there, he got into luxury imports, found his way up the East Coast through a series of stepping stones, and here he was. Still working his ass off.

But the reward now was much greater. He was wealthy, living among blue bloods who made Lindsay’s privileged family look like paupers.

It wasn’t about money, though. Not for Wyatt.

And it wasn’t about Lindsay rejecting him all those years ago because he wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t even about his parents, who never believed in him, or his brothers, who didn’t either-until he sent them each a Jaguar for Christmas a few years back. Of course Shane promptly sold his to keep his L.A. townhouse from going into foreclosure, and Devin totaled his during an icy Montana rain that spring.

Oh, well. Let bygones be bygones, Wyatt figured. No need to hold grudges.

If Wyatt Goddard ever had anything to prove, it was to himself.

He should have been satisfied now, a bon vivant living life on his own terms.

He wasn’t.

Not entirely.

But he figured he was as close to satisfied as he was ever going to get on his own.

Sure, something was missing. Something he couldn’t even put his finger on, most days.

Today, however, he could.

Maybe because Allison had moved out.

More likely because Lindsay had contacted him.

No, she wasn’t the thing that was missing, per se…

It was just that hearing from her reminded him-far more than Allison’s departure had-that he was alone.

Alone again, alone always…

Alone.

There were plenty of people in his life, but he held them at arm’s length, the way he always had. It was his nature. In his relationships with women, with family, with friends and colleagues.

If he didn’t let them in, he didn’t have to push them out-or worse, let them out when they wanted to leave.

He didn’t have to take Psych 101 to know that it was a defense mechanism, honed by years of being a latchkey kid with parents who were absent even when they were physically there. He had long ago forgiven both of them, quite some time before he found himself at their consecutive deathbeds, keeping vigil, holding it together while his older brothers fell apart and stayed away. His father went first: cirrhosis of the liver. No surprise. His mother followed within a year: emphysema. No surprise there, either.

Wyatt had long since quit smoking, and he never touched a drop of liquor. Never did drugs, either, not even pot. Not even when he ran around with that crowd back in school.

No, he was an expert at always remaining in control…

Even at high speed.

He checked the rearview mirror, glanced over his shoulder, then flicked on his turn signal and swerved left.

Then he allowed his foot to sink onto the accelerator, gunning the sports car down the highway toward New York, and Lindsay.

This was going to be tricky.

She couldn’t help but wish Lindsay and Wyatt were going to meet at Lindsay’s apartment so that she could easily eavesdrop in the comfort of her Lexington Avenue hotel room a few blocks away.