by Kara Isaac
“Coffee, then. After the breakfast. Just ring Jeff and get him to change our flights to late morning. Lucas darling, work it out with Rachel. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Lucas opened his mouth, but Donna stopped his words with a raised hand. “No need. I remember where the ladies’ is.” Donna bustled past Lucas before he even had a chance to respond, pausing in the doorway and mouthing “be nice” to her furious niece.
• • •
DONNA DISAPPEARED faster than a whirling dervish, so Lucas turned his attention to her assistant, who looked ticked off, to say the least. She stared at the empty doorway, rosy lips pursed, then heaved a sigh.
Well, that made two of them.
He wasn’t even sure what she was doing here. Ethan had called him in the morning saying that Donna’s PR person wanted to set up some promo shots before the show. Hardly an assistant-worthy event.
“Look, I don’t want to cause any difficulty. We can just—”
“It’s fine.” Rachel cut him off with the flick off her wrist.
“I know a nice—”
“Just give me a sec, okay? I need to look at tomorrow’s schedule and see if we can make this work.”
Fine. If she was going to be snooty, he’d just leave her to it. The photographer was still MIA, so he settled himself down on the couch and pulled out his phone. Scrolled through CNN to see if there was anything in the sports news that he could lever into the show. Just because Donna would be there didn’t mean he was giving up without a fight.
Rachel pulled an iPad out of her purse and tapped the screen a few times, lips pursed and brow furrowed. Then she got on the phone and paced. Her beige dress was about the same shade as the couches. She almost blended into the furniture as she walked behind them. Though even the unflattering cut couldn’t hide long legs and a slim waist as she lapped the reception area, debating connection times and layover airports with the person on the other end.
He forced his attention back to his phone, but the words on the screen couldn’t hold his attention.
Behind all that Midwestern nice-guy shtick is probably just another DJ playboy who thinks he’s God’s gift to women.
The comment burned at the back of his brain. He wasn’t unaware of the reputations of some DJs. Even at WFM, the breakfast and drive-time crews had a reputation for enjoying the benefits that came with fame. If you could even call it that when your so-called celebrity existed only in Madison and the surrounding counties.
But that wasn’t him. And he’d worked really hard to never do anything that might give the appearance or perception that it was. So hearing his name besmirched by some woman who didn’t know him from the back end of a bull got to him.
Lucas looked up from his phone as she ended her call and dropped down onto the other couch, tapping something into what looked like a calendar app. “I’m not.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized he was speaking.
“I’m sorry.” The assistant looked up from her screen. “Was that directed at me?”
Might as well finish what he’d started. “Yes. I just wanted to clarify. I’m not a player.”
She studied him for a second, then shrugged. “Okay.” Her gaze returned to her screen and she tapped a couple of times.
“I’m sorry. Was that a sarcastic ‘if you say so’ okay? Or an ‘I believe you’ okay?” What was he doing? He sounded like a teenager on his first date, overanalyzing every little detail. What did it matter? He’d never met this woman before and given he was in this thing under extreme protest, why would he give a dime about what she thought?
Rachel lowered her device and looked at him properly. She tilted her head, as if considering a curiosity. “Why does it matter to you that much? Surely you’re used to people assuming things about you that may or may not be true?”
She had brown-blond, kind-of-wavy hair unraveling from a bun. Long oval face, nose slightly too large, lips slightly too small. No one would call her beautiful in the conventional sense, but she was definitely striking.
And she was right. He shouldn’t care. People believed far worse things about him. Every day there were trolls on social media casting all sorts of aspersions and downright slander, keeping the station’s PR people employed.
“You’re right. Forget it.” The doors of the elevator behind him swooshed open and he turned his head to see Ben the photographer walk in, large Canon slung around his neck and phone pressed to his ear. Lucas stood. He lifted his hand in greeting.
Rachel stood too. “No, you’re right. That was unfair of me. The fact that I didn’t intend for you to overhear me doesn’t make it okay.” She took a couple of steps toward him. “Can we just start over? It’s been a long day.”
He studied her for a second, then held out his hand. “Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Lucas Grant.”
There was something in the way her gaze flickered that made him feel like he’d said something wrong, but it was gone the same second she pressed her palm to his. “Hi. I’m Rachel Somers, Donna’s assistant.”
“Nice to meet you, Rachel.” He gestured toward the door beyond the reception desk. “We should head to the studio. Donna knows where it is.”
Swiping his card, he stepped back to let Rachel and Ben go ahead of him. The photographer strode on ahead, but Rachel paused until he caught up.
“So, how long have you worked for Donna?”
“Since the beginning.”
“Wow. So you’ve seen it all. The rise and rise of Dr. Donna.”
He opened the door that led into the production booth for Studio 1. The largest studio, where they hosted guests with any kind of stature. He normally used Studio 3, but its small, cramped quarters were only suitable for when it was just him and Ethan.
Rachel looked around the booth and through the window into the studio, taking it all in. “I have. But then this isn’t exactly Y92 Arkansas, either.”
His first gig. Right out of college. Even he’d almost forgotten about that. He groaned. “I can’t believe you know that. Please tell me you never listened.” It made him cringe just thinking about what an earnest do-gooder he’d been back then. Seeing the world in only black and white.
Something he couldn’t decipher flashed across Rachel’s face. “I listened to all of Donna’s interviews the first couple of books. Part of the job.” Her mouth lifted in a genuine smile and it transformed her face. “I’ve always wondered. How was Mavis when you decided to move on?”
Mavis. His first-ever regular caller when he’d been covering the any-topic-goes graveyard shift. She’d rung almost every shift at one a.m. on the dot for three years. A spunky octogenarian who’d had an opinion on everything from gun control to birth control. Not that he’d ever asked her about either. But that hadn’t stopped her from offering it to him and his other ten listeners.
“She attached herself to my successor with equal vigor. Though she always claimed that was only because she couldn’t afford the toll calls to follow me to Wisconsin. But she’d still call me now and then. To keep me on my toes, she said.”
Rachel laughed. “I wonder what she looks like. In my mind she’s just like Sophia from The Golden Girls. White hair, big glasses, small frame.”
“Close.” Lucas leaned back against the console. “Minus the big glasses. She had this small pair that perched on the end of her nose and this way of peering over the top of them that always made me feel like I was a child who’d been summoned to the principal’s office.”
Rachel’s eyebrows lifted. “You met her?”
Lucas shrugged. “Yeah. A few months in she didn’t call for a few nights, so I checked up on her. She’d been in the hospital with pneumonia. It just went from there. Most of her family is far away and so was mine.”
Rachel opened her mouth. He hardly ever talked about his friendship with Mavis because people—women especially—usually thought it made him some kind of saint. Truth was, he’d gotten more out of it than she had. Which was why he hardly ever talked about it. H
e started to interrupt her, but she just said, “Okay, I’m going to go see what is taking Donna so long, then I need to make some calls. It was nice meeting you, Lucas.”
She flung the last few words over her shoulder as she disappeared back out the studio door.
Strange woman.
• • •
FOUR HOURS’ sleep. That’s what a restless conscience got you.
Rachel took a sip of her sugar-doctored coffee and tapped on her iPad, checking that their flights were on schedule. They had less than an hour before they had to leave for the airport.
She could get through this. Forget that Lucas Grant visited the elderly in his spare time. Just focus on the book. Maybe something on bad dates turned good? She could get some case studies on horrible first impressions leading to love. Dr. Donna’s fans loved that kind of stuff.
Bad enough that Lucas had accepted her apology. Bad enough that when she’d pulled herself together enough to return to the studio they’d been taking photos of him and Donna and his gaze had occasionally caught hers, and she’d felt her heart stumble every time.
The worst part was that while the photographer had snapped photo after photo she’d been online trying to find something, anything, that would confirm her desire for him to be just like every other good-looking radio host under forty. When that failed, she searched for evidence of a significant other. She would’ve taken either.
Nothing. No articles featuring drunken nights out or accusations from ex-girlfriends of rat-fink behavior. No feel-good articles with him and some gorgeous Wisconsinite showing off their stylish home and their perfect life. He didn’t even seem to be photographed on the Madison social circuit. Just a whole lot of industry-related events sprinkled with the occasional movie premiere of the latest action flick that any guy would have jumped at free tickets to.
“Rachel?” Her aunt clicked at her from across the table. “Earth to Rachel.”
“Sorry. What was that?”
“How did you think it went last night?”
“Great. It was great.” While listening to the show, she’d also completed a more thorough exegesis of Lucas’s career trajectory and online profile. Studying up. She knew times had changed since his late nights at Arkansas’s lowest-rating station, but she’d had no idea how popular he’d become.
After last night’s show she knew why. Sure, he started off his show talking about some sports team she’d never heard of. But the callers didn’t seem to care that that was what he wanted to talk about. They called in to ask him for his take on the men in their lives, and he answered them truthfully. If she’d been a lovelorn lady in Wisconsin, after a few hours of listening to his straight-talking yet compassionate, authoritative, no-holds-barred advice, she would have found it difficult to resist hijacking his sports show as well.
“If it was so great, why is your face sagging like it’s trying to fall off your skull?” Her aunt pulled a fluffy piece of pastry off her pain au chocolat and popped it into her mouth.
Rachel looked around. They were at an isolated corner table at the café facing the front door. There was no chance of anyone overhearing them. Or of Lucas surprising them with his arrival.
“How can you look so serene about this? He’s a genuinely decent guy. I knew it would have been better if I hadn’t met him. Now I feel even worse about being the one doing the rest of his shows. Not to mention totally stressed out that he’s going to figure out I’m not you.”
The guy had a phenomenal memory. Someone had called in and he’d remembered the details of her situation from three months prior. When he asked after her cancer-stricken mother, you could hear him capturing thousands of women’s hearts on air.
Donna chewed, then swallowed. “The way I see it, it’s a win-win. He gets ratings through the roof for the next few weeks, not to mention a huge boost to his profile from the tour. Both can only do great things for his career. And we, hopefully, get a book idea. Trust me. Lucas is not going to be looking that gift horse in the mouth.”
“I guess.” He was real, genuine. Everything she was not. She hated herself for agreeing to Donna’s suggestion, but if she didn’t find some inspiration soon, it was over. And returning the advance was not an option.
“Here he is.” Donna nodded toward the doorway.
Shifting slightly, she lifted her gaze from the tabletop to see him approaching their table. Damp hair, fitted T-shirt, and a small person hanging onto the end of his arm.
A small person who looked like a miniature version of him. Wow. She did not see that coming.
“Sorry we’re late. Had a bit of an unexpected diversion.” Lucas pulled out a chair. “Here you go, buddy.”
Nothing. Not a single thing in all of her internet stalking had even alluded to Lucas having a son. That was some impressive privacy protection in the internet age.
A son meant a mother. Which meant a wife or a girlfriend. Or a husband or boyfriend. You couldn’t assume anything these days. And if he’d managed to keep a kid out of the limelight, who knew what else he had back there. So much for Lacey’s claim about him being an eligible bachelor.
“This is Joey.” Lucas slid easily into the other free chair beside Rachel while the kid—Joey—shrugged off his miniature backpack and climbed on his chair.
“Hi, Joey. I’m Donna, and this is Rachel.” Her aunt didn’t look in the least bit surprised by their extra guest.
“Are you the lady who writes the books?”
“I am. And Rachel’s my assistant.”
Joey looked her up and down with the openly calculating assessment that only small people could get away with. What was he, four? Maybe five? “Your top looks like our old curtains.”
Rachel looked down at her blouse. A perfectly serviceable floral number that she’d gotten for a bargain at 80 percent off. Now she knew why. “Um, okay. Is it better as a top?”
The boy looked at her seriously. “Not really.” And that would be two to small fry, zip to her.
“How about a milkshake? Or waffles? Or pancakes? Or some Angry Birds?” Lucas jumped in before the fashion critique could get any worse.
Donna smirked from behind her teacup. No help whatsoever.
“Sorry.” Lucas muttered the words to Rachel as he handed Joey his phone. “Five-year-olds apparently don’t come with a filter.”
“It’s okay. It’s old. I was planning to get rid of it anyway.” Three weeks old, and she certainly was now.
Lucas flashed a smile at her and Rachel was glad she was sitting down. “Look, his favorite sandwich is peanut butter and spaghetti, so he’s hardly a bastion of great taste.” He unzipped Joey’s backpack and pulled out a juice box, then expertly unwrapped the miniature straw and pierced the foil.
Donna snorted. “He is when it comes to this. That blouse looks like it belongs to someone named Mildred seeing out her sunset years in a rest home in Florida.”
“Hey! It’s not that bad. It’s fine.” Every clothing decision she made was about blending in. This top did just that. If she looked like a piece of drapery, so be it. Even better.
Though she could have done without being humiliated in front of Lucas, but whatever. Soon she would be thousands of miles away. “Anyway, we don’t have long before we need to head to the airport. So why don’t you two debrief while I go place our order. What will Joey have?”
“He’ll just have the kids’ waffles.”
“And you?” Rachel stood. Self-conscious—for the first time ever—of the way her shapeless forest-green skirt hung off her like a sack.
But he had a son. And if what he said on his show about commitment was true, a wife. Or at least a significant other. So who cared what he thought? The best ones were always taken.
“The best what?” Lucas tilted his head at her.
She had not said that out loud. She had not. She grasped onto the first thing that came into her mind. “Waffles! I’ve heard the waffles are really popular here. The best. So, um, often taken. But I’m sure it’ll be
fine.”
Across the table Donna grinned, eyes dancing. “Though the same also applies to men.”
Rachel gave her aunt a death stare. “What can I get you, Lucas?”
Lucas didn’t even glance at the menu. “Whatever you think looks good will be fine.”
How about you? Her aunt mouthed the words at Rachel as she raised her cup to her lips, and for a horrible split second Rachel thought she might have said them aloud.
She’d have to place that order fast. Who knew what else her aunt might say in her absence? Rachel took a step and tripped on her satchel. Feet tangling around its strap, she went tumbling. Right into Lucas’s lap.
On instinct, her arms lassoed around his neck. Which stopped her from sliding headfirst onto the floor, but wrenched his head forward so that it stopped only a breath away from hers.
Joey looked up from his phone. “Nice catch, Uncle Lucas!”
• • •
ONE SECOND Lucas had been mortified at his nephew’s observations about Rachel’s clothes and the next thing he knew, the woman was sprawled across him.
And back on her feet almost before he’d had a chance to realize what had happened.
“Sorry about that.” She swiped some hair away from her face. “It wasn’t on purpose. I tripped on the strap. Of my bag. I tripped on my bag’s strap.” She gestured to where a brown leather satchel was lying on its side between their two seats. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
“Okay.”
“It wasn’t!” Her shoulders straightened and she glared at him like he’d pulled her into his lap.
Lucas held up both of his hands. “Whoa, whoa, I believe you.”
She still looked at him skeptically.
“Look, if you’d done it on purpose, you hardly would have leapt off me like you’d landed on hot coals, would you?”
He knew what women trying to get his attention looked like. Even when they thought they were being subtle. Rachel was not one of those women.