Really Something (10 page)

Duncan cursed under his breath. “I'll be there in a few minutes.”

Katie didn't answer him, she simply hung up. Duncan immediately signaled to the waiter and asked him to grab a cab. Duncan knew he could have just as easily asked Allie to drive him back but that would have meant explaining—and explaining about Katie was something Duncan didn't want to do.

“Seems I'm ditching you again,” he said to Allie, reaching into his wallet for enough money to cover the bill—and his conscious at leaving early. “My…employee had an accident and I need to get over there.”

“At the TV station?”

“No.” He couldn't tell Allie about Katie. Hell, he couldn't tell anyone about Katie.

When the accident had happened, his sister had begged him to keep it quiet. Devastated by what she had become, she'd refused to leave the house, and refused to have anyone but Mrs. Loman, their nanny when Duncan and Katie were children, come and care for her.

“Well,” Allie said, clearly frustrated by his second inopportune ditching. “Another time then.”

“Another time,” Duncan echoed, leaving one more attractive woman at a dinner table, leaving before he could ask her about the interview that would get him closer to his career goals, and wondering whether there ever would be a time for him.

“Allison Gray,
that's
who you are.”

Allie froze. She'd left the My Thai restaurant shortly after Duncan, leaving half-eaten plates of food on the table and refusing the waiter's attempts to box up the leftovers. Exhausted by the day, she'd been thinking only of the comfy hotel bed.

Not who might be waiting in the shadows to expose her.

“Am I right?”

She had to face him sometime. Allie pivoted. Ira Levine stood behind her, a bag of Thai takeout in his hands, a mousy woman standing several feet away by a small dark Honda. Ira wore a cat-that-figured-out-the-canary's-weak-spot smile.

“Excuse me?”
she said.

Ira moved closer. “Seven years ago. High school graduation. You were the valedictorian, but you ran away from the ceremony before you delivered your speech. Randy Newsome captured your picture and we ran it on the front page of the
Tempest Weekly
.” He leaned back and beamed. “I told you, I never forget a face. Though you did make it hard by changing your hair color and the style. Not to mention losing all the weight. I mean, you look awesome.” His face reddened. “Not that I mean anything untoward by that…Oh, geez.”

“You remember my face, all these years later?”

“Well, that and your handwriting.” A sheepish grin took over his face. “That's really what gave it away. I've seen you write the words ‘production' and ‘experience' before. I recognized the loops in your ps and ts.”

Panic clutched at her. Ira was the editor of the paper. She might as well take out a billboard and announce her identity. She wasn't ready for her secret to be exposed, not yet. Not until she had all her pieces in place, her success assured.

Allie reached for Ira's arm, his skin warm and flushed from the food inside the bag. Behind them, his date's eyebrows arched possessively before she got in the car and slammed the door. Ira either didn't notice or didn't care. “Ira, you can't tell anyone.”

“Why not? You're like the story of the century, at least for this bottom-of-the-barrel town.”

“No, Ira, I'm not.” She had to make him understand, to stop him. Of all the people who knew her, wouldn't Ira get it?

Ira stepped closer, his eyes glittering with excitement. “Allison, you're one of those inspirational stories. Those, what do they call 'em, beef stew or—”

“Chicken Soup,”
Allie supplied, then kicked herself.

“Yeah,
Chicken Soup
things. Hell, look at you. You're as gorgeous as a model. I could run that graduation photo beside one of you now and—”

“No,” she said. “No, no,
no
.”

“Why not? Don't you think there's some girl sitting at home right now, overweight and crying, thinking her life will never get better? Or some nerdy kid who was shut in a locker and forgotten about until seventh period, just because he wore glasses? Think of all those misfits who are lonely and wishing someone understood them.”

“I'm sorry that happened to you, Ira. To me, to us. But I'm not here to be a poster child for the outsiders. I want to keep that past where it is—behind me. Don't you think it's better to forget those days in the locker? That fat girl in gym class? What good is it going to do to bring all that up? I'd rather people see who I am now than who I used to be.”

He thought about that for a second, then shook his head. “You can't really grow up and move on if you don't deal with the past, don't you agree?”

“No.” Nothing would make her go back there. Allie was all about the future. She had only visited the past to give the people who had tortured her a taste of their own medicine.

Ira took a step forward, the steam from his bag wafting up to give Allie a mini-facial. “Sometimes, the overweight girl doesn't know how much her friendship meant to the nerdy kid. How it made him feel like he wasn't the only one on the wrong side of the popularity line.”

“I'm glad,” she said softly. The scent of pork fried rice and egg rolls and their shared memories filled the space between them, like a Chinese buffet of their past. “And I'm glad you were there for me, too. But I still can't go back there. You don't understand.”

“A story on you can make a
difference
, Allie, to some girl, sitting at home, feeling left out, misunderstood.”

Allie ground her toe into the parking lot, smushing the stone dust into nothing. “I'm not going back to being Allison Gray, Ira. Not for you, not for some other overweight girl, not for anyone. If you print anything about who I was, I'll sue you for slander.”

“Slander's spoken. Libel's written.”

“Whatever.” She threw up her hands. “All I want to do is get this movie set up, then get the hell out of this town and never come back. I'm Allie Dean now. Allison Gray is dead and buried, along with her Slim-Fast bars and her Jenny Craig menus. Leave her be.”

Ira studied her for a long time, then gave one quick nod. “Fine. Besides, what do I know? I'm just the editor of a small town, mean-nothing paper. Forgive me for confusing you with someone else. A friend I
thought
I knew.”

Then he walked away, shoulders sagging with disappointment. She watched him get in his car and leave, guilt and regret weighing on Allie more than all those pounds ever had.

 

Duncan Henry had reduced himself to begging. Pleading. Offering untold sums of money.

But Mrs. Loman remained resolute. “You know I'd do anything for you, Duncan. Anything but this. I love Katie, but when she drinks…” her voice trailed off and she threw up her hands.

He looked down at the cast on Mrs. Loman's ankle, white on white against her hospital bed. Katie, drunk again, had thrown a bottle across the room in yet another temper tantrum. Mrs. Loman, not expecting the puddle of alcohol on the floor, had slipped and fallen on her way into Katie's room with a dinner tray. When Duncan got home, he found the hall littered with pea-and-carrot shrapnel.

“I understand, Mrs. Loman,” Duncan said. He sat down on the edge of her bed and laid a hand on the arm of the sixty-five-year-old woman who had been part caretaker, part grandmother to him for so many years, he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't seen Mrs. Loman inside the Henry house. “I appreciate all you've done.”

Her eyes filled with unshed tears. “If anything changes, call me.”

He nodded, knowing that wasn't likely to happen. Katie's drinking was spiraling out of control. The chances of his sister seeing the light and getting on the wagon were slimmer than a one-dollar bill. “I will,” he promised.

“Do you want me to call one of the neighbors to help you?”

“I'll be fine. I'll take a few days off of work, take care of Katie while I'm looking for a private-duty nurse. I could use the time off anyway.”

Mrs. Loman's aged face softened and she laid her opposite hand on top of his. “You do, dear. You've done more than any one man should have to.”

Duncan cleared his throat. “Before I go, can I get you anything?”

“No, but thank you for offering, dear. My sister is coming into town to help me.” Mrs. Loman laughed a little. “Imagine that. The caretaker needing care. But I appreciate the offer.”

He rose, pressed a quick kiss to her L'air du Temps—scented cheek, then said good-bye. In the hall, he checked with the doctor one more time, directing the hospital to send all of Mrs. Loman's medical bills direct to Duncan. It was the least he could do.

On his way back to his car, his cell phone rang. For a moment, he froze, not in the mood to deal with Katie. Not now.

Then he saw the Caller ID displaying Steve's office number, drew in a breath that didn't have stress all over it, and answered the call.

“Dunk, you got your chance,” Steve said.

“My chance at what?”

“To be my lead anchor. Klein's mother or mother-in-law or someone died and he has to go out of town for a few days.”

“What about Jane?” Duncan asked.

“She's going out on maternity leave next week and says she's not sure she's coming back. So, the job is all yours, if you want it.”

Excitement surged in Duncan's chest. Finally, the chance he had been waiting for. “Sure, I'd love to,” he said. “Do you want me to get started on some stories or—”

“Klein has left plenty of taped pieces in the hopper. You just look show up, look pretty, and read the teleprompter.”

“Steve, I can—”

“I bet the ratings go through the roof this week. Klein's okay, and the owners love him, but he hasn't got your sex appeal. The man's too serious, like he thinks he's the next Dan Rather or something. Always after the story, not thinking about what the viewers really want.”

Duncan bristled. “Which is what, exactly?”

“Sex, of course. Hell, the whole world revolves around it.” Steve chuckled. “And I have Indiana's best sex symbol at my station.”

“Steve, I don't want to be the station's sex symbol. I want to do serious news.”

Steve snorted his opinion of serious news. “You're working on that one piece, aren't you? The movie thing?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Though he hadn't done much work at all tonight on anything other than trying to figure out what made Allie Dean tick. Hell, who was he kidding? If he didn't start taking his own career seriously, how could he expect anyone else to?

“All righty then. Do a bang-up job on that and maybe I'll throw a criminal probe or two your way.” Steve snorted. “Assuming anything more exciting than a tractor pull ever happens around here.”

It would have to do. Duncan resolved to be the best damned anchor Tempest had ever seen. He'd show Steve, and all the naysayers in Tempest and everywhere else in southern Indiana that he was more than just a former football captain. More than a pretty face.

That he had more going for him than his damned S-factor and a blue shirt.

Then his gaze turned back to the hospital and he realized he had a massive problem on his hands. Without Mrs. Loman, he had no one to sit with Katie. It would take at least a couple days to find a nurse with the right combination of sternness and a thick hide.

That meant he needed help. A favor, really.

He could think of only one person who needed something desperately from him. Duncan Henry was about to find out exactly how desperate Allie Dean was.

And how far she'd go to get what she wanted.

 

Lunch at her parents' house had been a bad idea. Allie had intended to avoid her family as much as possible, especially when Ma was armed with apple pies and mashed potatoes. She needed to resist temptation, not show up on its doorstep.

Yeah, and she'd done such a good job of that with Duncan Henry last night.

So far, she had about as much control over her willpower as a ninety-pound guard trying to hold back the tide of bargain-hunting brides-to-be at the annual Filene's wedding gown sale.

She'd already disappointed her mother by first refusing a meal. Then not giving her mother the opportunity to tell the entire town that her daughter was here representing a movie company—the biggest deal to hit Tempest since the media invasion surrounding the Henry/Whiteside Tire Company debacle—had made Ma petulant and sulky all weekend, which finally made Allie cave and agree to this meal.

“I had to bite my tongue—twice—at Joe's Sav-a-Lot,” Ma sighed as she sank onto one of the green vinyl and chrome kitchen chairs. “And you know how I hate to let that Eloise Connelly get the upper hand in a conversation. She was going on and on, blabbing her skinny little chicken head off. She heard from Pauline Clemens, who heard from Linda Crowell, who heard from Margene Whitfield that there was some federal-type in town, looking for illegal aliens at the gas station. They think you're with the
government,
Allison.”

“Must be those shoes,” Carlene said.

“What am I supposed to tell people?”

“Nothing, Ma. Just let them think what they want to think.”

“Allison Jean, this is Tempest. You can't let people actually
think
in this town or all hell breaks loose.” Her mother grabbed up a serving spoon and dug into the first dish on her right.

Allie inhaled some of the summer breeze that wafted in through the white eyelet kitchen curtains, trying not to inhale the tempting scents of dinner with it. “So, Ma, what's in this green bean casserole?” she said, trying to deflect the conversation.

“Oh, you know, the usual.” Her mother smiled, then cupped her hand beside her mouth. “And my secret ingredient.”

The never-divulged secret ingredient was, Allie suspected, sugar. Her mother had always said you couldn't add too much sweet to a dish, and given the way she went through the Domino, her theory applied to everything from cake to carrots.