them to meet at a company function. It was al very clandestine. Aly didn’t believe in blind dates. Alan didn’t need his former col ege room-mate fixing him up.
To say they hit it off would be a gross understatement. He was the brash young businessman bearing the company’s name. She was the graduate student who didn’t believe a man’s position meant a pauper’s penny if the man couldn’t articulate his principles.
“So what drives you, Mr. Davis?” she had asked him pointedly. “Power, money, position? Al of the above?”
Alan had held her eye and calmly replied, “None of the above real y. Those are byproducts of hard work perhaps, and I have nothing against hard work and the success it brings,” he had said. “The question for me is more a matter of figuring out how I can make the world a better place in which to live. Do I let my head do the talking and hope my heart fol ows along, or do I lead with my heart and let my head figure out how to get there? Give me door number two any day.”
That was the beginning. Three months later, they were engaged. Those three months were the most unforgettable of his life. Wel , except for every day since, he thought with a wistful smile.
Alan gazed out the window as the company plane began its descent into New York’s LaGuardia surveying the thousands of rooftops below and the vehicles fil ing the streets and avenues. He thought how different the vista would be without ample amounts of affordable energy.
AIRBORNE TO EL PASO
WHILE THEIR BOSS was headed home in one company plane, Brian Hal and Marie Chavez were flying into El Paso aboard another. They had one weekend to investigate the proposed training site before the next meeting of the Adala planning group at Mil ar Import and Export Company. They only stopped in El Paso long enough to rent a Jeep Cherokee, grab a couple of tacos and a smal cooler with a stock of bottled water and Corona beer. The hunting ranch owned by Jonathan Bryer, an old friend of Brian’s, fil ed an entire val ey 125 miles northeast of the city. Rugged and remote, it seemed to be nearly perfect for their purposes.
Marie and Brian parked on a hil ock overlooking the val ey. Mesquite, sage, and scrub oak stretched out before them for mile after mile.
Marie, a city girl born and bred, shook her head as if some sadistic god had plopped them on the dark side of the moon just for grins. “My heavens, Mr. Hal , your friend cal s this a hunting refuge?” she said bleakly. “You sure about that?”
“Al 25,000 acres of it.”
“Okay, as hard as that is for me to believe, let me ask you this. What clearthinking creature would actual y find this suitable for habitation other than the occasional snake or lizard?”
Brian chuckled. He put an arm around her shoulder. “Open your New York eyes, girl. Look out there. It’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful, huh? Al right, for the sake of our relationship, I’l go as far as to say it’s daunting, if not awe-inspiring––as long as the ranch has a shower, clean sheets, and cable television.”
“The cable television might be a bit of stretch,” he admitted, “but there is a ranch house, an airstrip, a 20,000-gal on fuel storage facility, wel water a plenty, a power generator, and a bunkhouse Jon says wil hold twenty men comfortably. And, a bonus we should definitely not overlook, the nearest neighbor is a good five miles back down the road.”
“Sounds good,” Marie admitted, “and he’s wil ing to rent it out no questions asked?”
“As he put it, at a price we won’t be able to refuse. He’s real y interested in having us fix up the place, do whatever repairs are needed, and general y make the place habitable again.”
“Wel then, let’s take the tour, shal we?” Marie suggested. “Let’s get some pictures and take some notes.”
They climbed into the Jeep again. Brian turned up the air condition-ing, flipped the tops on two cold beers, and started down the road into the val ey. Unless they were missing something, he thought, Adala had found a home.