Excerpt of What Have I Done for Me Lately? by Isabel Sharpe

"MYWIFE PATTY has done a lot of needlework in her time." Mr. Jed Baxter sent the sour-faced woman beside him a look of adoration.

Ryan Masterson raised his eyebrows as if this was the most exciting thing he'd heard in nearly forever, mind spinning over the absolute nothing he knew about needlework to try to come up with a follow-up question. He'd been sitting in the Union Square Café for the better part of two hours with Jed and Patty Baxter, a middle-aged couple who'd just moved to Manhattan from Dallas. The point of the meal was to get to know them, let them get to know him, and to interest them in his firm's latest venture-capital fund, for female- and minority-owned businesses in the city. However, the ebb and flow of conversation had been heavy on ebb and light on flow. He'd already struck out on the topic of rodeo, a passion of Jed's. Ditto barbecue, because what could be said after your guest emphatically denied you could have an opinion being from the North? They'd had to resort to a discussion of tax law, a subject he could only b.s. his way through at best.

"Needlework. Really. What kind?" That had to be a safe and relevant question, didn't it? Wasn't there more than one kind of needlework? He was pretty sure Jed wasn't talking about tattooing or body piercing.

Patty flicked a glance at Ryan and went back to staring at something past his head. "Needlepoint, knitting..."

"Sweaters?" He took a sip of water. Sweaters? He was scraping absolute bottom. Times like this he needed a woman beside him, maybe someone like Christine, the woman who lived across the hall. That might sound sexist, but while he was sure there were men into needlework, he was just as sure he didn't want to date any.

"Yes. And embroidery. Crewel tablecloths." She glanced at him again and almost smiled, which was the closest thing to an expression he'd seen all evening.

Ryan put on his most impressed face. Whatever cruel tablecloths were, they clearly deserved a reaction. "Well. I'm in awe. Did you ever think of starting a business?"

She blinked in apparent alarm. "No."

With that chatty and fascinating response, the waiter brought back the signed copy of the bill, thank God, and Ryan could end this misery. At the door to the restaurant, he kept a warm smile on while he shook hands, sure this was the last time he'd get that chance. Jed and Patty were old money, liberal, new to the city and in search of a place to leave their mark. Gilbert Capital's newest fund fit their needs perfectly. But why would they give over large sums to someone they couldn't connect with? Trust and compatibility were vital to the process, and Ryan was generally very good at eliciting both, even at first meetings. The Baxters had defeated him. Done in by bucking broncos and table linens.

"Well, it's been a lovely evening."

"It certainly has been." Jed and Patty exchanged glances wearing polite smiles and made their escape, going east on 16th Street toward Union Square.

Ryan went west, turning back once to lift a hand in case the Baxters had the same impulse.

They didn't.

He sighed and pushed impatiently at hair that insisted on ignoring careful combing, and diving over his forehead, aiming for his eyes. He needed to cut it, but he couldn't bring himself to part with this last symbol of his rebellious youth. Maybe the Baxters liked short hair. Jed's had been buzzed close to military-short. Maybe they liked bawdy humor instead of intelligent conversation, maybe they liked beer instead of wine, maybe they'd rather have gone to a deli for pastrami sandwiches. Jed was obviously devoted to his wife, and Ryan couldn't find a single topic to draw her out, maybe that was it. If Patty made the decisions in the family, Ryan and his fund were definitely going nowhere.

A man bumped into him on Fifth Avenue and Ryan instinctively felt for his watch and wallet, then dodged another man aiming too close. New York, New York, a helluva town. He turned onto West 14th Street and a stiff breeze dislodged the rest of his attempt at a controlled hairstyle. Warm for mid-April. Nearly summerlike tonight.

At the Sixth Avenue subway stop, he paused, got a whiff of stale subterranean air and kept walking, straight and brisk, or as brisk as the crowd would allow. The thought of being underground, cooped up in a metal car, squashed among strangers' bodies never appealed, but tonight it seemed unbearable.

Not for the first time, and more frequently in recent months, the country's largest city felt too small, too tight. He'd never be a country boy, but he craved less crowded spaces, a more peaceful pace of life, a motorcycle between his legs, a pair of female arms wrapped around his middle and nowhere in particular to go.

Which would accomplish what?

He needed a change, but he needed to move forward, not back. His motorcycle days were over long ago, and with them, his reckless youth. Instead of high-speed alcohol consumption followed by high-speed driving, his social life consisted of low-key evenings with friends, work- related outings or charity events, an over-thirty soccer league and occasional dates. In short, he'd grown up.

When he left the city, he'd leave it for a commuting suburb, maybe in Connecticut, his home state, a big friendly house with a loving wife and a bunch of kids to play in the green backyard. That would be his next journey. And if his increasing restlessness in Manhattan was any indication, he was due to be starting it soon.

A taxi screeched to a halt near him, horns blared, people shouted.

Very soon.

He reached home, a typically New York nineteenth-century brownstone on Bank Street, and got into the elevator with a middle-aged woman and her yappy little dog who lived a floor above him. The woman looked, as usual, as if she'd just had a horrible fight with a loved one. The dog was one of those jittery bug-eyed ones that always looked as if they were about to explode. Hostility. Suspicion. Stress. Daily facts of life. He'd had enough.

On the fourth floor, he got off the elevator, calling out a good-night that wasn't returned, and strode down the narrow cool hall. The second his key hit the lock of 4C, the door to the apartment across from his opened.

"Hey, Ryan." The soft throaty voice filled the hallway. Christine. He turned and nearly dropped his key. Christine? Wearing the kind of negligee he'd only seen in the pages of Victoria's Secret catalogs.

Er, not that he ever wasted time looking at those. Of course.

"Hi, there." He suppressed his cave man reaction and grinned, glad to see a friendly familiar face after the strained evening. Christine would have been a welcome addition at dinner tonight. He'd bet she could have chatted easily with the Baxters, as she seemed to be able to do with everyone. The tone of the evening and the outcome would have been decidedly different. He'd probably still have a chance at their participation in the fund.

"Just home from work?" She hefted a small bag of trash, her apparent reason for being out in her nightgown. She worked in the office suite next to his firm's and had asked him six months ago, shortly after she started, if there were any vacancies in his building. He'd hesitated when the first one that came open was across the hall. Did he really want to invite a stranger he'd see fairly regularly at work to be his neighbor?

But something about Christine brought out his protective side — maybe that she was relatively new to the city and Manhattan could batter people who weren't used to it — and he'd given in. A few weeks later, she was his neighbor, and had proved to be as friendly and sweet as she seemed, with a knack for baking — and more importantly, sharing what she'd made — that made his eyes roll back into his head with pleasure.

His suburban-house fantasy crystalized. A harborside mansion in Southport, Connecticut. His lovely wife, Christine, not only at his side wining and dining clients, but beside him at home as well, the beautiful, gentle mother of his kids. The picture was pleasant, comfortable and logical. If her face weren't so innocent, the outfit — and the fact that she often appeared when he was either coming or going — would make him wonder if she'd had similar thoughts herself.

Maybe Fate had put her in his path tonight, when he'd been thinking about settling down.

"Yes, I'm just back. I had a dinner with prospective investors."

"Oh, how'd it go?" She appeared all wide-eyed interest and he managed to keep himself from visually exploring her generous cleavage, displayed by cream-colored material that looked delicate enough to snag on his hands. Her blond hair had been twisted up into a clip with just enough strands loose to make her look soft and vulnerable and...luscious.

Luscious? That was a new one where Christine was concerned. Everything about her seemed different tonight. Was it how she looked? Or how he was seeing her?

"It...went." He gave in and examined the negligee and the body in it, not at all sorry once he started. She was tall, five-seven or eight, with endless legs, one of his favorite female traits — physically speaking. "Did you wear that to work?"

She laughed, blushing, and clutched the semitransparent robe closer. "You caught me. I was hoping to sneak to the trash chute and back before anyone saw. I was trying to play it cool when you appeared, but frankly, I'm mortified."

He chuckled, and in deference to her discomfort, dragged his gaze reluctantly back to her eyes, hazel and luminous, looking at him with something primitive he'd never seen there before. His body reacted; he moved backward toward his door. He needed to think this through before he let his other brain take over. "I didn't mean to embarrass —"

"It's okay. Really." She spoke hurriedly and he stopped his retreat.

Was he nuts? Was she sending him a yes, please signal? Or was she only being her usual cordial self and her outfit had turned him into a testosterone-driven beast?

"Well, good night." He turned resolutely away, put his key in the lock, jiggled it slightly while twisting and opened his door. Dating someone who worked and lived so close to him could turn into disaster.

He kept the door open with his foot, reached in and flipped the light on in his entrance hall.

Or it could turn out great.

He'd gotten a pretty good sense of Christine over the past few months. He'd helped her out here and there, recommending restaurants, hardware stores, auto repair places, giving her directions and advice. He'd also helped with a few heavy-lifting and handyman chores in her apartment, which he had a feeling would have been done better by Fred Farbington, the building super. Several times they'd found themselves leaving the Graybar building at the same time on their lunch hours and had joined forces. He liked her. A lot. And with the sudden sexual zing in the air tonight, he wanted to get to know her better. A lot.

She didn't strike him as a complicated person, but far from dull, she seemed intelligent and ambitious, already earning herself a promotion at the insurance firm where she worked. And anyone who could move to Manhattan without knowing a soul and appear to thrive had strength in spades. As far as he could tell, there wasn't a mean- spirited bone in her body. She was calm, beautiful and elegant, but didn't come across as snobbish or —

Okay, he'd convinced himself.

He went back into the hall, found Christine at her door again, having gotten rid of her trash. "Christine."

"Yes?" She turned and smiled, not blushing this time, not clutching the robe closed, and he saw again, more distinctly, that flash of awareness that she looked good and she knew he noticed and was glad he had.

Well, well. The fantasy house in Connecticut suddenly acquired a detailed master bedroom.

"Do you do any needlework?"

She laughed, a sudden nervous burst he didn't blame her for. She probably thought he'd lost it.

"What kind?"

"Tattooing, piercing...I want to get my nose done." She started to look horrified and he grinned to show he was kidding. "I meant craft needlework."

"Oh." She put a hand to her chest and his eyes followed it enviously. "Sure. I used to sew a lot. I still knit occasionally, when someone in the family has a baby. I never did needlepoint or embroidery —"

"But you know what they are."

"Yes." She gave him a "you-feeling-okay?" look. "I know what they are."

"I could have used your help tonight."

"You're stuck on a knitting project?"

He laughed at her joke, feeling keyed up and happy, the way he always felt when a promising relationship was starting — though it had been well over a year and he'd had quite a few disappointments before this. His decision had made itself for him. "Have dinner with me tomorrow? Been a while since I had a good Thai meal. I'd like to share one of my favorite places with you."

She looked astonished at first, then her sincere delight made him feel as if he'd been crowned king of a small nation. "I'd love that, Ryan. Thank you."

"I'll knock at seven?"

"Perfect." She smiled again, and he watched her go through her doorway, then pause and half turn as if she wanted to say something or look back. She must have changed her mind because she continued on and the door swung slowly shut behind her.