Authors: Dawn Atkins
He stapled the print-warm pages, then folded the story into his bomber jacket pocket to take to Janie. He owed her some peace of mind after grinding her through the mill of his skepticism…and his own career doubts.
The truth was that he hadn’t been himself since Miami. Being around Jane was the first time he’d felt good in two years. She showed him how wrapped up in himself he’d been, how lonely and downright bitter.
When she read the story, she would forgive him and they could take it from there. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she read the part about her being a starry-eyed romantic with a steel spine of practicality. She’d love that. That said it all.
He was still grinning when he pulled into the Personal Touch parking lot and spotted the Eye Out For You SUV with its garish eyeball logo. What the hell was going on?
He parked beside the van and hopped off his bike.
“You don’t get it!” Gail shouted from the front door at two guys headed his way—one in a blazer, the other with a camera on his shoulder. “And furthermore, if I can give some poor slob a better way to spend his Friday afternoons than chokin’ the chicken, I’m a saint, not a pervert.”
Seth loped closer. “What’s going on?” Seth asked them.
“Just doing our job,” the guy in the blazer said.
“You’re working on a tip about a dating scam?” he asked, backing up to keep even with the guy. He was aware of Gail watching him from the doorway.
The reporter stopped to look him over.
“Because it’s a mistake. This place is legitimate.”
“Tell that to the pissed-off woman I interviewed yesterday. Former client.” He started moving again.
The camera guy had opened the back of the truck and was detaching and twining cords.
“Listen, this is my story. I called it in to Phil,” he said, catching the guy on the passenger side of the vehicle.
“And Phil assigned it to me. Sorry.”
“No. You don’t get it. There’s no story. I told Phil’s assistant it didn’t pan out.”
“We taped a woman last night who got cheated out of her money, and just now in there the owner went white as a sheet when I told her about it.” He shrugged. “I’d say that’s a story. It runs tonight at ten. Check it out.”
The guy pulled the door shut with a firm click. The camera guy had taken the driver’s seat and they pulled away, leaving Seth furious and frustrated. They’d ambushed Janie, no doubt, and who wouldn’t freak at that? Pretty scummy technique, now that he thought about it.
Seth galloped toward the office to get to Janie, but Gail blocked his way, arms crossed. “Come to see the devastation you wrought, Mr.
Inside Phoenix
?”
“What happened?”
“Exactly what you intended. They treated us like pimps and perverts and liars. Janie’s in tears. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I told the producer there was no story. This is a mistake. Let me talk to her.”
She blocked him. “You’re the last person she wants to see right now. Really.” There was a flicker of sympathy in her face.
He had to make this right. The thought of Janie crying her eyes out because of him made him sick. He fished his piece out of his pocket. “I’ll fix it for her. Give her this.”
“Promise me you’re not a Wounded Loner.” She took the story with reluctance. “Or a Stubborn Single.”
“Not if I can have Janie in my life.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” She surprised him by yanking him into her generous bosom. “Now ride like the wind and kill that story, Mr. Hot Shot Journalist. The light of your life is counting on you.”
He couldn’t believe that he knew exactly what she meant and it didn’t even make him cringe.
“Sounds great,” he said, though he knew it was a mercy beer. McKay, his chief rival, felt sorry for him. More bad news.
They walked to the hotel across the street and entered the bistro to order a pair of Coronas with lime.
“So, Tuttleman asked me on the golf weekend with the execs from Valley Rentals,” Trevor said, shoving the green wedge into the neck of the bottle. “You’re the golden boy he usually takes. What gives?”
He shrugged. “I’m not so golden these days. I’ve been distracted.”
“The hot thing from the other day?”
He nodded miserably.
“If you’re going to run with the big horn dogs, Sullivan, you gotta pace yourself.”
“How do you do it, anyway?”
“I have my rules.”
“Like what?”
“Never two weekends with the same woman. Never date her friends. Watch the alcohol. When I start dozing at my desk on a Monday, take a week breather.”
“Don’t you want to settle down? The partners look for stability.” He found himself wanting to help the guy. This was new and it felt good. It was a relief not to be angling for an advantage. Since Kylie, he’d been thinking more about what really made for happiness.
“Me settle down? No thanks. I need my edge. Look at Trisha. She’d be nose-to-nose with us for partner, except she’s mommy track. She’s got a uterus, so she’s kicked to the curb. Sad.”
“She’s happy. She only stays late three nights a week.” He and Trisha had met to go over what he’d done for her in her absence and he’d probed her approach more carefully—curious and a little envious of her determination to keep balance in her life.
“Yeah, and the partners bitch about it.”
“She cranks out the billables, working through lunch, never stops to bullshit. She gets more out of sixty hours than lots of us get from eighty.”
“But perception is everything.” Trevor shrugged. “I guess she makes her life work for her. We all do. You make your choices and take your chances. Hey, that’s damned philosophical.” He lifted his beer to clink against Cole’s.
He liked the guy, Cole realized, now that he wasn’t looking at him only as a bump on the road to becoming partner. Maybe when he hung out his shingle he’d talk to Trevor, too. Trevor was thorough, for all his playful ways, and dogged.
If
he hung out a shingle, he reminded himself. Odd how he was thinking more about that way lately. Wanting to carve out his own spot on his own terms, not get pushed around by someone else’s idea of what mattered.
“As long as I have to work for it, I’m good,” Trevor continued. “Which is where you come in, my friend. You’re making it too easy on me.”
“Don’t worry. I blew it with the woman, so I’ll be living through my work again.” At least until he was ready to move on.
“Glad to hear it.”
He wasn’t giving up on making partner, but he didn’t regret the ground he’d lost at BL&T by leaving early to be with Kylie, letting Trevor take the lead on the Littlefield case. Kylie had enriched his life. Without her now, the hollow sound was back. And it would get bigger and louder once Radar and his opinions went home in two days.
Did he still want a wife? He wanted Kylie. Period. Though that was impossible. She either didn’t love him, or she didn’t love him enough, or she was afraid to love him, and that made him feel like shit.
This love stuff was hard enough to figure out without having to drag someone into it, kicking and screaming. She didn’t want what he wanted. And he was just now figuring out what that was.
He’d want a wife eventually, right? And he’d be ready this time, because he’d have his life in balance. Maybe he’d get a Cairn terrier of his own. Maybe he’d learn to cook. Mexican food. Flautas, guacamole, chile relleno…
First, he had to stop thinking about Kylie.
“Shall we head back?” Trevor said.
“How about a game of pool? It’ll clear our heads.” He hadn’t played in years. He intended to take it up again. Along with photography. And bike riding. He wasn’t giving up what he’d learned with Kylie. He wanted a life. A full one with pleasure and fun. No more would he mete out the pleasures in guilty increments watching Comedy Central.
He hoped Kylie had learned that lesson, too.
They were heading for the pool table when his gaze snagged on the television over the bar, which was showing a teaser for the 10:00 p.m. news. He was shocked to recognize a frightened, pale Janie Falls trying to block the camera. “Your Eye Out For You team follows the story of a dating service under fire,” the voice-over said. Then a shadowed woman spoke in a disguised voice. “She sent a woman to pretend to be me who slept with my supposedly perfect match.” Deborah. No question. Deborah had called a television station? She’d blamed Janie, he knew, but he never imagined she’d go this far.
“What are the warning signs that your dating service is ripping you off?” the voice-over continued. “We’ll tell you that and more in our Eye Out For You report tonight at ten.”
Damn, damn, damn. This was his fault. He grabbed his phone and dialed Kylie’s number.
“Hello?” Just hearing her voice sent a charge through him.
“It’s Cole.”
“Cole?” She sighed with soft longing and he had this flicker of hope that she would come around, want to work things out.
“I just saw a news thing about Personal Touch and—”
“I know. We get our rebuttal tomorrow. The magazine reporter—the one who called you?—convinced them to do a follow-up.”
“That’s good. Can I help, Kylie? They could interview me.” Lord, what was he saying? That would really fix him with the firm.
“The reporter has agreed to do it, but thanks, anyway.”
“I’d like to support you,” he said, trying again.
“Please don’t,” she said shakily. “I’m fine. Really. And we’re here together—Janie and Gail and me—to watch the piece and be sure we’re prepared for tomorrow.”
“Can I apologize to Jane then?”
“She doesn’t blame you. I’ll tell her, though. And I appreciate your call. Really.”
I don’t need you. I don’t want you.
He got the message loud and clear, but still he said, “If you change your mind…”
“I won’t,” she almost snapped at him. “I need time, Cole. Time to remember who I am.”
“I know who you are.”
“I know. But…”
“But it’s not enough. Yeah. I got that.” And it hurt like hell. So what else could he do but say goodbye?
He climbed off his bike, scratched under his collar where bits of cut hair itched like hell, then grabbed the bunch of yellow roses he’d strapped to his seat. Yellow for apology, the florist said. He headed for the door, holding the flowers out like a shield. Hokey, but hell.
The TV truck wasn’t here yet, he was glad to see. Kylie, who’d prepped him over the phone, had asked him to come a little early to touch base. Besides, he wanted to talk to Janie. He hoped his story had convinced her to forgive him, but he had his doubts, since she’d ducked all his calls.
This snafu had made him realize a few things, like the fact that his uncle was right. He’d been living off old glories, at least in his mind, and acting superior to the job he’d agreed to do. So it wasn’t investigative work or even news analysis. It was worthy of his best efforts. And he had to stop living in limbo. This was his life, not a way station until something bigger showed up.
He had to start fresh in his heart, not just on paper.
And his fresh start had everything to do with Janie Falls.
Inside Personal Touch, he confirmed a few details with Kylie, then veered off to Janie’s office, taking in the faint smell of her perfume mixed with roses.
No Janie, but he took a slow turn in the utter pinkness of the room. It was so her, though she was more than rosy dreams. She was a butterfly with a steel spine and a snappy gaze. She was romantic and pragmatic and stubborn as hell. A mix that could keep him interested for a long time. Unlike Ana, who’d been too much like him to kick him out of his natural gloom. When he was with Janie, he’d felt lifted up…open…fresh as the roses shaking in his hands. And he wanted more of that. A lifetime of it maybe.
“Seth?”
He turned and found Janie standing there. She looked so different. She wore a body-hugging suit, not a loose, fairy outfit and her wavy hair was pulled back and tight. She looked so serious. And pale and nervous. Her smile was polite and there was no light in her eyes for him.
“These are for you,” he said, handing her the flowers.
She took them. “I still have the others.” He looked with her at the window table, where the red flowers seemed to droop. Was it a good sign she hadn’t tossed them?
“These are to say I’m sorry.”
Hurt sprang into her eyes, but she blinked it away and smiled. “I know you’re sorry. And you’ve intervened for us, so thank you. Being interviewed is probably the last thing you want to do.”
“I’m the best one to set them straight. Did you read my story?” That would tell her what she needed to know about what he believed about her.
“No.” Her gaze slid toward her wastebasket. She’d tossed it? “But Kylie and Gail told me it was positive. Thank you.” She clearly hadn’t forgiven him.
“It’s not the kind of story I usually write, but it had to be done.” That made it sound like a grim task. He didn’t really know what to say.
Forgive me. Don’t shut me out.
Then he noticed the tree he’d brought for the burned rug. “The tree’s sure grown.” He was an idiot.
“It’s only been a week, Seth.” A smile lit her face for an instant, making him want to make her smile again and again. For years.
“Everything grows fast around you.”
Good God, who
feeds you?
“Listen, Janie, I’ve been doing some thinking about us—”
She held up her hand. “Please don’t. I have the most important interview of my life coming up. I can’t think about anything else.”
“I understand. Sure. We’ll talk later.”
“We’ve said everything there is to say, Seth.”
“We’ll see.” He wouldn’t push, but he wouldn’t quit. He’d talk and talk and talk until he got through to her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his life from here on out, but he knew he wanted Janie in it.