One From The Heart (6 page)

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Fine. I’m finished. Thanks, Ernie. I’ll take over with Petey now.”
Somehow
.

“No, she’s asleep. Has been for a long time. You stay where you are.”

“Why?” she asked as he limped into the kitchen, her first dreaded thought that he had another session of first aid planned. She couldn’t even cope with touching his bare arm; she’d never manage his bare knee.

“You got to eat, Miss Hannah. I told you that last night. I haven’t had anything to eat since that brown milk shake, so I’m going to whip us up something.”

“Whip away,” Hannah said in relief. She had groceries now, and she was too tired for false courtesy. If he wanted to cook, he could cook. “A brown milk shake?” it suddenly occurred to her to ask.

“That’s what Petey ordered for us at McDonald’s: two brown milk shakes.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows once, and Hannah smiled in spite of herself. What a nice man he was, she thought in dismay. Handsome, beautiful sad eyes, kind to small children, and nice for goodness’ sake.

He made Spanish omelets and coffee while she watched. Admittedly, she was more interested in the cook than in the cuisine, and her eyes followed him constantly, as if something he did or didn’t do was going to tell her the real reason why he’d come back to Dallas. Not that she didn’t already know the real reason—his regard for Elizabeth. She noted that he worked quickly, in spite of having to limp around the kitchen, and that he had other injuries, old injuries: a crooked little finger on his left hand, scars on the bridge of his nose and in the middle of his chin. He looked up once, she thought because he felt her staring at him, but he didn’t say anything, giving her a sassy wink and going back to what he was doing with only a brief thoughtful glance. The eggs were delicious, and she ate with more zest than she had in some time, both because she had finished the scripts and because she was quite frankly enjoying the company of the cook.

“This is wonderful,” she said. “Where did you learn to do this?” It was hard for her to accept such incongruous talent in a rodeo clown.

“Here and there,” he answered vaguely.

“Ah,” she said. “Some woman taught you, right?”

He gave her his well-rehearsed mischievous grin and didn’t answer.

“So,” she said. “How did you get to be a rodeo clown?”

“Just kind of fell into it, I guess. I started rodeoing when I was a kid. I was pretty good at it—got to be Best All Around Cowboy once. And then one day they were short a clown, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. I was young and crazy then,” he added with a pleasant little chuckle she hadn’t heard before. “Now I’m just crazy.”

“Go on,” Hannah said, smiling in return.

“Well, I liked it. I like”—he paused to find the right way to say it—“keeping a man from getting hurt if I can. It makes you feel good when some cowboy comes up to you and shakes your hand and tells you he appreciates what you did for him out in the arena.” He stared too long into her eyes, and Hannah was the first to look away.

“Do you have children?” she asked next, feeling an intense need for conversation. She had to do something. She was so aware of him she could hardly stand it.

“No,” he answered. Period.

“Then how do you know so much about them?”

“I don’t. I like kids. They like me. You get to meet a lot of kids when you’re a rodeo clown. And I’m a godfather.”

“You’re a godfather?” She didn’t mean to sound so incredulous, but somehow, as good with Petey as he was, he was still supposed to be a hard-drinking womanizer—not a likely choice for a godparent.

“I have two god-children,” he said in the same tone of voice. “A little boy and a little girl. The boy’s name is Adam McDade—he’s five. His sister’s name is Cissy. She’s almost two. They live in Chimayo, New Mexico. Their father, Mac, and I have been friends since we were boys.” He smiled and looked her directly in the eye. “I know it’s crazy for people like Mac and his wife Amelia—and Libby—and
you
—to go around trusting me to take care of their kids. But they do. What can I say?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.”

Hannah looked down at her plate. She’d hurt his feelings, and she hadn’t meant to do that. The silence lengthened, and the eggs she’d been enjoying weren’t so enjoyable anymore.

“So,” Ernie said after what seemed a long time. “Did you get fired from the big station downtown or what?”

She looked up at him sharply, thinking he wanted to pick a fight because she’d insulted him. She still thought so, in spite of his grin. “No, I didn’t get fired from the big station downtown. Do you always ask exactly what you want to know?”

“Always,” he assured her. “I move around a lot. I don’t have the time to waste on working up to something. So why did you leave?” he persisted, pouring her another cup of coffee without asking. He made excellent coffee, too, Hannah noted.

“I’ve moved around a lot myself, but a little tact is never amiss.”

“So why did you leave?” he asked again, ignoring her pointed observation. His eyes studied hers, making her feel as if there were things he wanted to know about her, things he
would
know, regardless of what she said or did.

“I had a moment of truth and saw myself as a despicable person,” she answered shortly, getting back to her omelet.

“Yeah? I had one of those, too. That’s when I quit drinking. Kind of like Saul-on-the-road-to-Tarsus, aren’t they? So where was yours?”

“None of your business, Watson.” She was finding conversation wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything. If I waited around for things that were my business, Petey and I wouldn’t be here. She’d be in a foster home someplace, and I’d be in South Dakota. Go on. Tell me. I’m not going to think badly of you.”

“I don’t care if you think badly of me or not!” she said, knowing she just didn’t want him to think she was anything like Elizabeth.

He grinned. “Then tell me. Where was it?”

“In the Dallas airport!” she said in exasperation. His grin widened, but there was something in his eyes that suddenly lessened her annoyance—empathy, she supposed. “It was … after an airliner crashed. My cameraman and I were one of the first news teams to get there. They wouldn’t let us out to the crash scene, so we worked the airport. People … were coming in. People who didn’t know if their family and friends were on the plane that had crashed on takeoff. We dogged them through the airport—really great pictures, you know?

“You have to get great pictures because that guarantees you a spot on the six o’clock news—maybe a chance to be picked up by the network. And if you’re in the news business you want to get picked up by the network. A few good spots today, and you’re an anchor somewhere tomorrow.” She stopped, because she’d never spoken about the real reasons for her resignation to anyone. She looked at him across the table, again noting how at ease she felt talking to him. She didn’t know what it was about him that made her let her guard down the way she did. Maybe it was because he seemed to be so open about things—about some things, at least.

“Go on,” Ernie said quietly. She wanted to look away from him, and she couldn’t. And she wanted to tell him.

“It … suddenly hit me—what I was doing. These were real people—frightened people anticipating the worst tragedy they could imagine, and I was there feeding off their fear in the name of ‘news.’ It was disgusting.
I
was disgusting. So I left.” She gave a small shrug and finally looked away. She didn’t mention the man she’d loved when she was in her twenties, the man whose leaving had driven her to that kind of mindless worship of her career.

“And you like what you’re doing now?”

She gave a small smile. “Ever see the Big Bob Bowzer furniture outlet commercial on KHRB-TV?”

“With Big Bob dressed like a cross between a ballerina and Tinker Bell?”

“Right—flesh-colored bodysuit, silver tutu, wings, and a wand—and he flits around the store from bargain to bargain. I wrote that commercial. Since Bowzer started airing it, his sales have gone up six-point-eight percent.”

He laughed that soft, chuckling laugh again, the one that he probably didn’t use much, but that sounded sincere when he did. “I know Bob Bowzer,” he said. “How the devil did you get him to do that?”

“It wasn’t hard. He likes to be silly.”

“And letting Big Bob be silly is better than aiming for an anchor job with the network?”

“Well, it beats standing in the rain in a yellow poncho telling people it’s raining and praying lightning doesn’t run in on your mike before you can tell them. I started in this business as a high school student—a volunteer gofer. I did a little bit of everything, learned it from the ground up. Now I’m doing a little bit of everything again—producing, directing, writing. Sometimes I even sweep. It … really is better. You know how they introduced me at the reading class tonight? As the person who turned Big Bob Bowzer into a fairy—Ernie, why are you doing this?” she asked abruptly. She didn’t want to avoid the issue any longer. She was attracted to him, and she was certain he knew it. She’d save herself a lot of trouble and heartache if he’d just say it. I’m here because I’m still in love with Elizabeth.

“Doing what?” he asked, looking down and pushing his eggs around his plate with a very suspicious nonchalance.

“Don’t. Please. You know what. You said you weren’t getting mixed up with any more Browne women.”

“Yeah, I said that,” he admitted. He looked up at her, his expression unreadable.

“Then what are you doing here?”

He put down his fork and braced his arms on the edge of the table. “I thought you didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Once a newsperson, always a newsperson. Tell me. I want to know.”

“I told you. I came back because of Petey. And because of you.”

“Me,” Hannah repeated. “Because you think I won’t take good care of her.”

“No, because I don’t mind helping you. I told you. You’re a good sport, Hannah—but you don’t take any crap. Men just naturally know how to do that, but it’s a hard thing to find in a woman. And when I left last night, you looked kind of bewildered … sort of like Bambi when the woods caught on fire. And …” He paused, then grinned. “You got the damnedest drawerful of underwear it’s ever been my privilege to review.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Ernie,” Hannah said, trying hard to be serious and not respond to his flagrant teasing. “Those are the
dumbest
reasons I’ve ever heard.”

There it was again. That chuckle she liked so much, and she laughed with him, enjoying herself, enjoying him, realizing how relieved she was that she’d given him the chance to put Elizabeth firmly between them—and he hadn’t taken it.

“There’s more,” he said, his smile sliding away so that he was staring at her gravely.

“What?” she asked, her relief short-lived. Now he would tell her.

“I want to see—” He stopped.

“What?” she said again, but he abruptly got up from the table.

“Nothing. I’ve been awake too damn long. What time do you go into work in the morning?”

“Wait—I thought you didn’t waste time working up to things.”

“I don’t. I ask what I want to ask, but I don’t tell what I don’t want to tell. What time?”

“Seven o’clock. What were you going to say?” she persisted. She needed to hear the truth from him to keep from making a fool of herself.

“’Night, Miss Hannah,” he said, clearly not planning to answer. “You get to do the dishes. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Ernie,” she protested, but he kept going.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he called over his shoulder.

“Bambi?” she suddenly remembered as the front door slammed.

She didn’t expect him to be there. She got up early and dressed, leaving Petey asleep and fully expecting she’d have to call the station manager again with another tale of woe. She paced and watched out the window and waited, feeling the cold fist of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

Relax, Hannah
, she told herself.
You’ve got the scripts done, at least
.

Ernie Watson wasn’t dependable. Whatever had made her think he was dependable? she asked herself a hundred times. But he arrived on time, freshly showered and looking rather boyish and adorable with his hair wet and slicked down, though he still had his five-o’clock shadow. He gave her his and Petey’s itinerary for the day, in case she needed to get in touch with him, and he said a kind word about the way she looked before she left.

She accepted the compliment a bit skeptically—since she was wearing a gray pin-striped business suit and high heels, her hair in a severe bun and a briefcase under her arm. “Thanks a lot, Ernie. You really know how to shore up a woman’s confidence.”

“
Why
are you dressed like that?”

“Because I’m selling another furniture outlet commercial. This owner is
not
the Tinker Bell type. I have to look as if I know what I’m doing.”

“Well, Hannah, you look like Perry Mason,” he advised her.

“I thought I looked like Bambi,” she said, searching for the car keys she’d had only a moment ago.