HERE'S THE MEETING BETWEEN LANIE AND FRANK:

So here she was, after an hour, sipping a glass of white wine and sitting on the sidelines of the party. She had met several men. Most of them were not very interesting, but some of the propositions they made certainly were colorful, to say the least. Do men really think they can just walk over to a woman they don't even know and say those things and get lucky? She couldn't believe it. Bored, she strolled over to get another glass of wine. That's when it happened.

A tall blond man at the bar backed up just as she approached. He turned around suddenly and bumped into her, very hard. She felt the wetness on the front of her new dress and looked down to see the stain. It was bright red and it had soaked her dress in the area of her left breast. Without a moment's hesitation, the man grabbed a handful of paper napkins and began to blot at the stain.

In shock, Lanie looked up into the soft brown eyes of the man trying in vain to wipe the stain off the front of her dress. She quickly realized that the stain he was trying to wipe off her dress was mainly on one of her breasts. When he finally looked up and their eyes met, she felt a sharp jolt in the pit of her stomach. The kind of jolt you feel when an elevator drops a few feet, quickly and unexpectedly. The sudden jolt shocked her into immediate action. She shrieked with sudden rage as she swung her hand, palm open and hard right across his face. The slap made a satisfying crack!

Kate and Laura both gave a little jump as they heard a shriek coming from the side of the yard where the bar was set up. They looked up just in time to see Frank get slapped silly and then yelled at by a short, slender, redhead.

"You great big lumbering oaf! Get your damn hands off me! Why the heck don't you use those big brown eyes if you plan to walk around with a full drink in your hand? It would have to be red wine!" The woman fumed. "Idiot. Clod. Jerk. You were pretending to be helping me while you were really trying to feel me up. I could tell!"

"You ran into me, you little danger zone, I was standing still." Frank's face was stinging and he would never admit that he was in the wrong, not after that slap! "And I never have had to spill something on a woman just to get a chance to touch her breasts, even if she did have fantastic--"

Suddenly his voice trailed off, realizing that he was about to commit a grave tactical error.

Lanie snorted skeptically, a sound that replied to his protests even better than words.

Frank was completely infuriated, his mouth running ahead of his brain. "Lots of women like to have me touching them." He shouted unwisely.

He was so much taller than the unknown woman that he had to lean over to yell in her face. He bent down until he was almost nose to nose with his combative new acquaintance.

"It may be a cliché but there is no accounting for taste." Lanie said coldly. "But keep your great big clumsy hands off of me, if you please."

"And if I don't please?" Frank almost reached for her, without knowing why.

Lanie sputtered, too irate to speak.

"Who's that?" Kate asked, across the patio. "All I know is her name is Lanie."

"Lanie McPherson. She's a friend of Jack's from work. Actually, she just bought into the company and so now she's his business partner." Laura said and, anticipating Kate’s next question, she continued, "she’s single but she has a nine-year-old daughter. She's a fighter. She had been getting a hard time from some of the male landscape architects at the office, so she recently decided to buy into the company. Some of the jerks are going to be real surprised to find out that she's a partner now. She's tough enough to fight back, anyway."

"Interesting solution to sexual harassment, just buy into the company. It puts her in a position not only to help herself, but other women in the company also. She looks perfect to me." Kate said grinning.

"And they met without our interference." Laura said, returning Kate's grin. "He can't even blame us."

"She'll give him a hard time." Kate said softly. "A real hard time."

They looked at each other, gave each other a high-five and said in unison, "Perfect!"