“Hang up, and I’ll have you fired.” His voice was suddenly cold and biting. “All right. How long do you think you’re going to need on this one?”
Relaxing again, she settled back against the pillows and calculated how long it would take to get the job done. “Keep me in for the Halloween issue. I’m getting the first flight out of here tomorrow, so I’m going to need at least a week to get some phone interviews taken care of. After that, it’s just a matter of writing it. Oh, and I need to talk to the intern who gave you that photo. Otherwise, I have no idea how I’ll track down who took it.”
“I’ll tell him to call you.” His tone was definitely back to business. “We need other photos as well,” he pointed out.
“One of the witnesses may have scratch marks on her vehicle. I’m following up on that tomorrow before I leave.”
“What else?”
“I’ll get some shots of the sighting locations. Maybe snap some pictures of the witnesses if they’ll let me.”
“That all?”
“Well, I doubt seriously if I’ll come face-to-face with a real werewolf, Brandon. If I do, you can bet your tail I’m not going to ask it to pose for a picture while I run screaming in the other direction. However, if you want, I’ll be sure to hand it one of your business cards before I run away.”
He gave a soft chuckle. “That’s my girl. Feisty as always.”
She sighed. “I’m tired, Brandon.”
“Hold on a second. Back up. Why are you leaving tomorrow? I thought we’d booked your return flight for a week from today.”
Andrea lifted a hand to her eyes. A dull pain was beginning to throb behind them again. “I’m changing it.”
“Why? You’ve never bailed on an assignment before.”
“I’m not bailing on an assignment, Brandon. I’ve got enough leads to follow up by phone.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“There’s no way you can find out who took that picture by making a phone call. Unless you can give me a good reason, I expect you to stay until the story is done.”
She really wasn’t in the mood for this. “It’s complicated.” Too complicated to explain. Besides, did she really want to let Sean Hunter be the reason she compromised her work ethic? Uh-uh. She shook her head. “Fine.
Fine
. I’ll stay until the story is done. Happy now?”
“Ecstatic. Get some sleep, but I want progress reports, Andrea. Email me or call me, I don’t care, but I need them.”
Tossing the phone aside, she lay back and sighed.
Men were so complicated. She and Brandon had dated for several months, but the relationship had been over for almost a year. She’d broken one of her own cardinal rules by going out with a coworker, which with hindsight had probably doomed the relationship from the beginning anyway. Worse, that coworker was Brandon Montgomery. Not only was he now one of the editors of the
Naked Truth
, but his very well-known, well-connected family owned it. With interests in several publishing and entertainment outlets, the Montgomerys had more money than Donald Trump and the Hiltons combined and were constantly in the public eye simply for being…well, rich.
Andrea had never been very good at going against her instincts, and Brandon had worn away all her reservations and charmed her into believing he was someone he wasn’t. She’d thought she was in love with him, but she now knew she’d only been in love with the idea of who she thought he was. Sensitive. Caring. A man with integrity. A man above the influence of his privileged upbringing. And, yeah, having a man so handsome, rich and semifamous interested in her for the first time in her life had probably blinded her a bit too.
Girlfriend, puleeeeeease
. She’d been so wrong about Brandon, she was embarrassed now to even admit it. Lisa would have been able to spot the jerk a mile away. If only her friend had been around to meet him and smack some sense into Andrea.
If only.
With a shake of her head, Andrea reached for the stack of papers in her bag. Somebody upstairs really must hate her to have promoted Brandon to editor three months ago, and worse, to have assigned him as
her
editor.
She rubbed her eyes.
First Sean, now Brandon. Could this day get any worse?
Her cell phone rang again, startling her, and this time she didn’t even look at the caller ID before answering. “Brandon, it’s late here. What do you want?”
There was a husky chuckle. “I think you might want to work on your phone etiquette, Sunshine. Here in the South, if that’s how you answer the phone, people aren’t going to want to talk to you.”
Sean!
Bolting upright in the bed, Andrea glanced down at her sweats. Crazy to worry about what she was wearing when he couldn’t see through the phone.
“Mr. Hunter.” She changed her tone to sound more professional. Still, even she heard the slight chill in her voice when she spoke. “What an unexpected surprise.” Covering her face with one hand, she sighed. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
“Yes, I know. Brandon.” In the background she heard what sounded like a kid talking, but she couldn’t be sure. “Boyfriend giving you trouble?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Brandon is my editor.”
He gave a startled bark of laughter. “If I talked to the boss like that, you can bet I’d be canned. I gotta hand it to you, Andi, you’re my new role model.”
She considered furthering the banter, then decided against it. She was too unfocused to keep up with him right now. “I’m sorry. Why were you calling?”
“To make sure you’re okay.”
“Thank you. I’m fine.”
“Good to hear. I also called to help, of course. I put in a call to Cindy Spencer at the high school. She’s the advisor of the club I mentioned,” he reminded. “I thought I could take you to the school and introduce you to some of the kids who claim to have seen our resident werewolf. Nine o’clock a good time to pick you up?”
It had been on her list of things to do to call the school in the morning, and she partly resented that he’d done it before she had the chance. Still, she was too smart to turn her back on the appointment now that it had been set. “I appreciate that, Mr. Hunter. But I don’t want you to feel like I need a personal guide while I’m in town. I know you have a newspaper to run. If you just give me directions to the school, I can handle it from there.”
Reaching for a pen and paper, she fully expected it to be that easy. She should have known it wouldn’t be.
“I insist on helping out.” His voice was every bit as sexy as she remembered. “Tomorrow is our lightest day and the office will be in good hands, so it’s no big deal.”
She started to argue, then heard a crashing sound in the background. “Hold on a second,” Sean said quickly. His voice grew muffled. “Kelly, put that down right now or I’m gonna tell your mother.” It sounded like he dropped the phone, there was another muffled crash, and a few seconds later, his voice was clear again. “Nine o’clock, then,” he told Andrea. “See ya tomorrow.”
“Wait, I—” She was speaking to dead air.
She tossed the phone aside. So Sean was married and had at least one kid. She felt a twinge of irrational hurt at the thought, as if she were the same foolish schoolgirl discovering her hero was dating the head cheerleader. Then she felt a spurt of anger, marveling at his nerve to openly flirt with her. The guy probably had an adoring wife at home.
Jerk.
It wasn’t until a half hour later, once she was out of her bath and toweling the dampness from her soft skin that she realized something else she’d learned from their brief phone call.
He’d called her
Andi
.
“Who was that on the phone earlier, Sean? Something to do with the wedding?”
In the comfortable little kitchen he’d helped paint yellow a week ago, Sean rolled up his sleeves and went to work yet again, this time helping his older sister wash the dishes from the dinner she’d cooked. He wondered how to answer her innocent enough question. If he told her he’d been talking to a woman she didn’t know, he’d immediately have to answer a million more questions about who she was and how he knew her. If he somehow said the wrong thing, Meg would be pushing for
his
wedding by spring.
“Just someone I’m trying to help out with a story.” He scrubbed one particularly stubborn plate clean and handed it to her to rinse and dry. “Remind me to get your dishwasher fixed before I come over for dinner next time. I could be watching the Sox play right now.” He ribbed her with his elbow and grinned.
His sister set the plate aside and moved to dry the next dish. “This reminds me of when we were kids. Remember how Mom used to stand over us until we cleaned all the dishes?” Megan used the back of her hand to push her hair away from her eyes and smiled fondly at the memory. “Sometimes I wonder if I make it too easy on Kelly and Jason.” She stared off into space as she had done so often the past year or so, her eyes both worried and pensive.
“Hey. You’re a great mom, Meg.”
She looked at him fondly and smiled again. “Well, I’m a terrible sister. You should be out enjoying yourself, not babysitting me and the kids. I wish you didn’t feel like you had to take care of us so much.”
“I’m here because I want to be here.” He finished scrubbing the last plate and handed it to her. “Besides, if I come over and play your kids’ video games I don’t have to buy my own.”
“You bought them that Xbox.”
“Exactly. I can’t afford another one.”
“I’m serious, Sean. You’ve done too much for us. I feel guilty when you spend so much time over here.”
He almost growled at her to stop implying she was a burden to him, but he bit his tongue. He had to tread carefully when it came to Megan and her self-confidence. “Have you seen my place? Total mess. I’d much rather spend my time here, believe me.”
Sean didn’t mind spending time with Megan’s family. He felt he owed her, after all. She’d been his rock when their mother had died from breast cancer his freshman year of college. Newly married, Megan hadn’t let a needy husband and pregnancy stop her from driving hours to see her little brother compete in every swim meet in those months following Ma’s death.
And it hadn’t been until Megan sat him down after graduation and told him what a reckless, arrogant jerk he’d become that he’d taken a look at his life and made a few changes. Megan had reminded him of how disappointed Ma would have been if he’d let his grief over her passing destroy his future. That had really put things in perspective for him. He’d stopped partying instead of taking his career for granted. He’d stopped dating every pretty little thing who batted her eyelashes at him. He’d tried to start putting other people before himself. Focused on his career. Focused on the family he had left.
He’d found his niche in life working in newspapers. He
loved
it. He’d landed a coveted spot on the staff of the
New York Times
after college and had just been promoted to assistant editor of the city desk when his world—like most Americans’—had been shattered by the terrorist attacks. He’d lost more than a few acquaintances and friends on Sept. 11, and that had jarred him like nothing else in life. He’d felt lost for a while, his ambition and drive dampened by grief. He’d muddled through, feeling like something was missing.
Meg’s urgent phone call that night a few years ago had been a blessing in disguise. It had felt great to be needed. He’d come to Woodbine, kicked his abusive brother-in-law to the curb and never looked back.
Sean glanced out the kitchen window in front of him. Trees swayed against the breeze. Crickets chirped through the open window. He took a deep breath of fresh, clean air.
This was a much simpler life than he’d been used to, but it was also one in which he found great peace.
He heard the kids in the next room, arguing over the remote control, and had to smile. The peace only lasted so long when those two were together.
“You know—” he leaned in and snatched the plate Meg had been rubbing dry, “maybe you should have a night out sometime. It might do you good. You know you have a reliable babysitter right here. Just say when.”
She rolled her eyes and made a face, but he could read her like a book. She didn’t want to inconvenience him with the kids.
“Who would I go with? Besides, I’m getting too old to attract guys. Might as well stay home.”
“You’re only 41! Trust me, you’re not that old—yet. You’re still a knockout, and you know it. Besides, Luke’s wedding is in a few weeks, and if you think I’m taking you as my date, you’re crazy. No respectable bachelor shows up as a groomsman with his sister on his arm.”
She turned toward him and planted one hand on her hip. “Then who are you taking?”
An image of Andrea Lockhart came to mind. That was insane. She wouldn’t even still be in town. And she would probably try to claw his eyes out if he tried to ask her.
There were plenty of eligible ladies in Woodbine. He’d already dated a few. Well, he’d mostly
slept with
a few of them. Even if he’d found one he liked well enough to spend more time with, he didn’t really have time for anything else.
“I don’t think I’ll have trouble finding anyone. Don’t worry.”
“But—”
“You’re going with someone else even if I have to pull a guy off the street for you,” he growled. “I’ll just have to grill him, make sure he’s good enough for you first.”
He sent her a look that told her not to argue with him. If she did, they’d be here all night.
“Look at me.” Megan reached to frame his face with her hands. She smiled at him, much the way his mother had often done, and wiped at his cheek as if he had crumbs there. “Someday you’re going to make some woman very happy.”
His lips curved upward. “Yeah, well, I hate to break it to you, Sis, but I’m no innocent kid anymore. I’ve already made
lots
of women very happy.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed his grinning face away, but he saw the amusement in her eyes as she feigned disgust. “Ugh. Men are such pigs.”
“Why are men pigs, Mommy?”
Sean and Megan looked down to see six-year-old Kelly standing right behind them. Sheesh. Sometimes Sean could have sworn his niece and nephew had a stealth button installed and knew how to use it. One minute they were making enough noise to wake the neighborhood, the next they were sneaking up on people.