Sophie's Playboy (6 page)

"Really," Parker said, "I guess since the topic of the day is pets, I should start things off with a rave about pets. But I don't know what to say."

"Oh, there's plenty to say. Pets lower high blood pressure, de-stress the most stressful days, provide companionship to lonely people, give kids an opportunity to learn responsibility—"

"—ruin neighbors' lawns, chew your good shoes, leave presents where you don't want presents."

"We covered all that last hour. Come on, come up with something nice to say or I'll have to disconnect you."

"Let's see. Something nice to say about pets. Let me think."

Sophie heard a distinctive whine as he downshifted and knew he drove an expensive car. She'd been in enough performance vehicles to recognize the sounds. He was definitely rich.

The silence stretched. "Tell me, Parker, do you find pleasure in courting resistant women in twilit gardens?"

Oh, Lord, where had that come from? She had had no intention of confronting Parker
or
Biff with her suspicions, but the need to prevent dead air had loosened her control on her brain. Before she could recover, though, he responded.

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"Depends on the woman. And the circumstances. Are there pets around?"

"None."

"Thank God!"

She took the opportunity to redirect the subject. "So you don't like pets?"

"They're okay. My sister has a dog. A hot dog."

"A dachshund."

"Yeah, he's tiny. Named him Moose. He loves the kids, but take one step toward him and he goes flying up the stairs.

Coward."

"He sounds sweet. Dachshund's are my favorite, especially the miniatures. Can a dog
get
any smaller?"

Sophie saw that four minutes had passed. That was too much time for one caller when she had six lines waiting. And she was probably boring the listeners to death.

"Well, thank you for your call, Parker. It's always interesting talking to you."

"Ditto, babe."

"Babe!" She disconnected his line. "That guy needs some tutoring on political correctness. Not to mention a reduction in his flirting hormone."

She went on to other callers, but the short conversation stayed in her mind all afternoon and into the evening. It had almost been a "getting to know you" kind of chat. She wondered what kind of guy courted a woman on the radio.

A guy who wasn't her type?

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CHAPTER 4

Parker dissected their conversation the rest of his way home from New Haven, Connecticut, where he'd spent a few days on business. He had missed the first hour of Sophie's show before he came within range of the signal, and that had disrupted his plan completely. She'd especially floored him with her question about courting resistant women in twilit gardens.

She was on to him.

On to what, though? What was he really trying to accomplish with these phone calls? A chance to get to know Sophie, let her get to know him, without their preconceived notions in the middle?

Okay,
her
preconceived notions. He'd been intrigued by her for a long time. She thought he was an empty-headed jerk who couldn't be serious about important things.

But he wasn't like that, and he wanted her to know it. The only way he could see showing her was anonymously.

Maybe he'd start sending her flowers at the station. Or...

He grinned, spinning into his parking garage with an extra flourish. He had just the thing.

* * * *

"Yes, Pamela, I think we can all agree that's rare. Thanks for calling. Our next caller—"

Sophie was cut off as the door opened, an action punishable by the honey-on-an-anthill torture. She stared at 51

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her boss when he came into the studio, making no effort to be quiet. She'd never seen such a gleeful smile on Stevie's face.

Mindful of the open mike, Sophie leaned back to it, keeping her eyes on the hole-punched box Stevie held. It was wiggling. "Sorry folks, we got distracted here a bit. Our program manager just came into the studio with something

... odd."

Stevie stepped closer to the guest mike. Sophie quickly flipped the "on" switch. "Sophie, a present just arrived for you, and I thought your listeners would like to hear you open it."

An ominous scratching sound came from the box. Stevie rounded the console and set it on Sophie's lap.

"Well, I'm speechless."

Melina cut in. "First time since the show began, I think.

No, wait. There was one other time, wasn't there?"

Sophie glared at her. She didn't need to be reminded of her glandular responses to their most frequent caller. "The present Stevie handed me is in a plain brown box, about the size of a picnic basket. It's very light. And it moves." She tugged at the interlocked flaps on the top of the box. "I'm opening the top."

What Sophie at first thought was a kitten burst out of the box, bounced off her shoulder, and landed on the counter next to her with three excited yips.

"It's a puppy!"

Both excited and trepidatious, Sophie took the card Steve had retrieved from the box. "Oh, you're sweet, aren't you,"

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she cooed, as much for the audience as the tiny puppy. "He looks like a dachshund. Who, I wonder, could have sent this?"

She pulled the card out of its envelope and read it out loud.

"'He won't get much bigger, but at least he won't get smaller.

I suggest you call him Babe.' He added a winking smiley face after that. Yes, I say he. It's signed, 'your favorite listener, Parker.'"

She bundled up the box and stroked the puppy, who'd promptly jumped into her lap and fallen asleep. "Babe's a ridiculous name for a puppy." She remembered that Parker's sister's dog was Moose. "I think I'll call him Hippo. Rant or Rave? Tell me what you think."

She abandoned format for the rest of that show. There were an equal number of callers on both sides of the fence, both regarding Hippo's name and what she should do next about Parker. By the end of the show, though, consensus seemed to be that she should give him a chance.

"Sorry, folks, but you've got to remember. I have no idea who this guy is." Well, maybe she didn't. "He's going to have to contact me. We'll see what happens next."

"Speak of the devil," Melina said from the producer's booth. "Guess who's on the phone."

Sophie shook her head. "Too bad, we'll have to leave you all with that cliffhanger. Time's up!" She did her end-of-show spiel, Melina cued the jingle, and Sophie was off the air.

On cue, Hippo bounced off her lap onto the floor and attacked the buckle on her shoe.

"He's still holding."

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Sophie looked up at Melina, then at the star of their evening show, who had just walked in the door. "Can I take it at my desk?" she asked her producer. She nodded.

Sophie gathered her papers and the dog, dumped them all in the box, and rushed out the door and across the main room to her oh-so-private cubicle. Melina had transferred the call to an interior line, and Sophie paused before snatching it up.

"Hello?"
Perfect
, she thought, just the right blend of disinterest and anticipation.

"So you named the poor dog Hippo."

As usual, his voice glided across her nerve endings and she shivered.

"It fits him."

"Sure it does." His next words were less playful, more uncertain. "Do you like him?"

Sophie eyed the little fluff-ball, who was trying his best to chew up her topics for the day—things she could use to jump-start any lags or encourage callers when they had nothing real to say. The dog lifted his head and looked at her so adoringly she couldn't resist.

"Yes, Parker. I love him. Aside from the fact that I have to now spend a fortune on food and supplies—a fortune I can ill afford on my reduced salary—aside from that, he's perfect."

"So are you."

That surprised her so much she snorted a laugh. "How the hell do you know? I'm just a voice on the radio."

"And a picture in the newspaper."

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"A blurry, tiny photo from page 13." The local business journal had done a story on the station's recent fiasco with the DJ-for-a-Day promotion and had mentioned her as potential salvage.

"A beautiful blurry, tiny photo," Parker corrected. Sophie could hear his smile and wished she could picture it. Biff Cornwall grinning at her flashed into her head.

"Do I know you, Parker?" she asked. He didn't answer right away.

"No, Sophie, you don't know me at all. But I'd like you to."

It was a comment that could have brought to mind stalkers and obsession, but instead of frightening Sophie, it thrilled her.

That by itself was scary.

* * * *

Sophie had stamped out her ennui well enough that by the time her mother called six weeks after her radio debut and begged her to come home for a weekend, she didn't argue.

But she did insist on staying at Kira and Jake's. She was satisfied with the new direction of her life, but her mother would not be. She was more eager than ever to settle her daughters, especially after she herself had
un
settled the year before.

"So, is Mom still in the business of creating uproars?"

Sophie asked Kira Friday night when they'd relaxed in the living room after putting the baby to bed.

Kira adjusted the baby monitor on the end table to a low hiss. "You could say that. Brianna would definitely say that."

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"Oh, Lord, I'm in for it," Sophie groaned. She leaned her head back on the couch where she'd flopped. "Can't you tell her to leave me alone?"

Kira shrugged. "I can't tell her anything. Her latest interest is kickboxing. She ended up in the clinic last week with a bruised hip after her side kick went too high."

"Is she all right? How come no one called me?"

"She's fine, and no one called you because you've been pretty removed from your family lately."

The reprimand was gentle, but Sophie felt it harshly. She picked at a snag in her cotton pants where Hippo had caught his toenail. "I've felt that way, until lately. Then I was busy."

"You've always been busy. But last year you could barely stay away from Brook Hollow."

Last year Kira and Jake had married after twenty-eight years of friendship and a gargantuan battle to salvage that and make it more. Last year her parents had blown up—not apart, just up—and her mother was acting completely out of character. It had been interesting then.

Lately it had just been painful.

Not so much tonight, though. Helping Kira put Joey to bed, Sophie had half expected to feel the same dissatisfaction, loneliness, and jealousy that had kept her away over the last few months. She had, but not strongly. Now it was more vague and indirect.

She tried to pass it off with a flip answer. "You guys don't need my help taming your lives anymore."

"Mom isn't tame."

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"Mom is beyond help. Besides, she's having fun." Their mother had dedicated her life to her husband and daughters until it became too stifling for her. Since a solo vacation last spring, she'd been cleaning out her life—which included closets, the attic, and her activities. She stopped just short of mania, in Kira's opinion. But Sophie figured she was just figuring herself out.

She sat up to sip from her glass of wine. "So what's she doing to Brie?"

"Remember the six boxes of your stuff I grumbled about having to bring to you?"

Sophie nodded. That was during their mother's cleaning out phase.

"Brie had sixteen. She's
still
trying to figure out what to do with everything. Mom won't let her throw any of it away.

Becoming a grandmother has made her ruthlessly sentimental."

The front door opened and Jake walked in. He smiled at Sophie but went straight to his wife, bending over her chair to give her a thoroughly tender kiss. A kiss that said not only how glad he was to be home, but how much he cherished the woman he'd dreamed of for years.

The vague ache Sophie had noticed earlier bloomed to sudden intensity in her chest. For a second she thought it was a heart attack. But heart attacks didn't cause a lump in the throat. The envy was back, less angry but more wistful.

She wanted what they had.

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Suddenly, unexpectedly, the image of Biff Cornwall flashed in front of her. His mouth moved, and Parker's voice came out. "Will you have dinner with me?"

What was wrong with her? Why was she shoving Biff Cornwall away? So he was a playboy. That had never bothered her before. She'd dated plenty of men who weren't serious about
anything
, never mind settling down, even since she decided that was what she wanted. She'd never been afraid of any of them.

Now she was. Why? Did she think she could get serious about him, then get hurt when he acted like she knew he would?

Could she get serious about a guy named Biff?

She could if his name was really Parker. If there was more to the man than money and fun. Unfortunately, he wasn't going to ask her to dinner again. She'd have to make the next move.

She watched Kira and Jake murmur to each other as if no one else was alive, much less in the room with them. She hadn't met anyone else with the potential for that kind of focus. Biff/Parker might not have it. If not, so be it.

It would be fun to find out.

* * * *

Parker wondered what had ever possessed him to bring Vanessa Whitehead to a family function. He spent the entire dinner at the French restaurant avoiding her wandering hands and promising glances.