Hers By Request

by Karen Ann Dell

  Oops. This tiptoeing around knowledge he wasn’t supposed to have made a conversation with Amanda a virtual minefield.

  “I’m good with voices, remember? Hmm. No way you could be thirty. If I had to guess,” which he didn’t, “I’d say you were no more than twenty-five.” Underestimating a woman’s age was always a good thing, right?

  “Close. I’ll give you two points for that answer, Mr. Dream Machine. And my taste in music comes from my dad. He played tenor sax. ‘Funny Valentine’ was his song for me.”

  His last selection was about to end. “Hold on for a sec, Amanda. I’ll be right back.”

  “No. That’s okay. I know you’re—”

  He pushed the hold button and cut her off, praying she had better phone etiquette than he, and wouldn’t hang up on him while he cued up the next song. Two seconds to think and he had “You Don’t Know Me” in the player. Would she make any connection? Probably not. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to, anyway.

  Her line still blinked. He picked up again.

  “Hey, I’m back. Thanks for holding.”

  “You’re welcome, but I know you must want to keep your phone lines open for other requests.”

  He glanced up at the clock and smiled. “Not really. You were the last caller for the hour. No more requests tonight.”

  How long could he keep her on the line?

  “Did your Dad play professionally?”

  This time the smile in her voice came clearly through the phone. “Oh yeah. When he was younger he played backup for some pretty well-known bands. By the time I came along, he’d been playing with the same combo for years all around Annapolis and even D.C. sometimes.”

  “No wonder you’re so into this music, then. Any other particular favorite I can play for you tonight?” Please, please do not ask for “Someone to Watch Over Me”.

  “Oh my. So many to choose from. How about ‘In The Mood’?”

  “Nice choice. I’ll cue it up right after your first request.”

  “Thanks . . .?”

  “Dev.”

  “Dev,” she repeated. “I really have to go now. It’s been nice talking with you.”

  “You too, Amanda. Call again. Anytime.”

  He cradled the handset, leaned back in his chair and took a thoughtful sip of Jack Daniels. One accident, two one-minute phone calls, and already the beautiful Ms. Adams enchanted him.

  “My Funny Valentine” began to play and Amanda’s eyes misted up. The night he disappeared, her dad was supposed to come here to the cottage after work, checking that the beach house had survived the winter and was ready for their summer stay. But there was no indication he had finished the trip. When the police investigated after her mother’s missing person report, the place appeared undisturbed since they had closed it up the previous fall.

  What happened to you, Dad? I still miss you so much.

  The song ended and, true to his word, Dev played her second request. The upbeat song dispelled her sadness. Gratefully she swayed to the beat and sang along with the Andrews Sisters.

  I wonder how old Dev is? She wasn’t as good at guessing ages as Mr. Dream Machine. With a voice as smooth as fifty-year-old cognac, she figured he had to be in his forties at least. Probably even older considering his love affair with music from the forties and fifties.

  Funny how your imagination pictured someone when you had only their voice to go by. Josh Lucas? Harry Connick, Jr.? No, someone a bit older. Pierce Brosnan? Mmm, yum. She laughed at herself. The guy was probably fifty and balding, with a paunch that spilled over his belt.

  She turned off the light and snuggled down in bed. That voice of his sure warmed up her insides though.

  Amanda parked in front of the red brick building. About two hundred yards behind it stood a tall metal tower with an antenna array on the top. A sign next to the door identified it as WMES.

  She’d come early knowing Dev’s shift ended at seven a.m. Hopefully he didn’t run out the door as soon as he was off the air.

  Inside, the front office was small and dimly lit by the morning light filtering in through half-closed blinds. The lack of overhead lighting helped to disguise furniture that had seen better days. Amanda’s hopes improved. Perhaps this deejay wasn’t beyond her budget after all.

  No one sat at the receptionist’s desk, so she tiptoed past and peeked through the doorway that led to the rest of the building. The long hall had a couple of doors on the left and a glassed-in studio on the right.

  “Hello? Is anybody here?” she called softly, taking a few cautious steps toward the first doorway. She heard the scrape of a chair and froze, considering a dash back to the waiting room. Indecision kept her rooted to the spot at first, then as a man stepped into the hall, surprise continued to hold her in place.

  The owner of the green SUV stared back, speechless, his own surprise mirroring hers.

  The long legs of his six-foot-two frame were wrapped in denim worn soft enough to outline his thighs nicely. He wore a long-sleeved white dress shirt open at the neck and casually stuffed his left hand in his pocket, bracing his right forearm high against the door jamb while he shook his head slowly. His dark brown hair curled slightly over his collar, a thick wave of it falling across his high forehead. Green eyes, the color of the bay before a storm, regarded her with an expression she couldn’t fathom.

  Embarrassment sent heat to her cheeks and the urge to flee almost had her turning around. Instead, she angled her chin up a notch.

  “I’m sorry to intrude. I’m here to see Dev. The late-night deejay? There wasn’t anyone out front, so I . . .” Thought I’d stand here and blither like an idiot. She pointed over her shoulder. “I’ll just go back out there and wait.”

  “I’m Dev MacMurphy, Miss Adams. What can I do for you?”

  His deep, mellow voice rolled around her like a hug and had her smiling at him like an old friend. She walked closer and offered her hand. “Hi. I thought your voice sounded more familiar the last few times I listened to your show.”

  His sensual mouth curved in a smile as he shook her hand, his grip firm and warm. “Miss Adams, it is a pleasure to see you again. Had I known you were one of my frequent callers the other day, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to leave.”

  “Oh, I am truly sorry about that. You must think I’m an idiot. I’m usually a good driver. I was just juggling too many mental balls at the time. Which is no excuse, I know. I’m glad you have fast reflexes.”

  Shut up, Amanda. You’re running on like a star-struck teenager.

  He gestured her into his office. “Have a seat, Amanda. What brings you here so early in the morning?” He dropped into a chair behind the massive wooden desk topped with stacks of neatly arranged paperwork.

  She sat, mentally comparing the reality of him with her imagined version—fat, fifty, and balding. Wow, was she ever off. Tall, young, and hunky. She blinked. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I wondered why you were here,” he said, his eyes wary.

  “Of course.” She couldn’t get over how perfectly sculpted his nose was or how the dark shadow over his unshaven chin made him appear a little dangerous. Dangerous . . . and sexy.

  Stupid woman. Do you want him to think you’re a fool? She ordered herself to ignore the physical package and concentrate on the professional inside.

  “I was hoping I might be able to hire you as a deejay for an event I’m planning. I wasn’t sure if I should ask you directly or if I should go through the station’s General Manager. Since I knew your shift ended at seven, I thought maybe I could catch you before you went home.”

  He appeared to be at a loss for words and spent several seconds studying the top of his desk. Maybe this was an unusual request. “Okay, should I have discussed this with your boss first? I admit I’m kind o
f new to this, so if I stepped on somebody’s toes or . . .”

  “No, you’re fine.” He held up his hand to stop her babbling. “In this case, anyway, since I am the General Manager. And the owner. And the janitor too, for that matter.” He leaned back in his chair, studying her with those bottle-green eyes. “Exactly what sort of event is this you’re talking about?”

  “My potential client, Mrs. Wyndham, is planning an elaborate seventy-fifth birthday party for her husband. Being the wealthiest woman in our little seaside community, she’s pulling out all the stops, and my partner, Zoe, and I hope to win the contract to produce it. Our theme is to re-create the glamour of the late forties and early fifties, when the Admiral was a young man and the world was his oyster, so to speak.”

  She stopped talking to allow him to make a comment, but he appeared totally engrossed in what she had to say, his gaze never leaving her face as he waited for her to continue.

  “We’ll contact a couple of local bands who have the kind of repertoire we need, but my hope was that you might fill in as a deejay during their breaks. So there would be continuous music for dancing . . .” Her voice trailed off as he shook his head.

  “I don’t do that sort of thing. Besides, I have a standing gig here every night, and I’m assuming this is an evening affair you’re talking about.”

  She bit her lip, her disappointment somehow sharper than she’d expected it to be. She hadn’t held out much hope during the drive here, but as soon as she saw him, she knew he’d be perfect. And she wanted him. For the job, she added to herself sternly. She wanted him for the job. She felt her bottom lip edging out in a pout.

  “Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?” she pleaded. She had no idea what she could offer him. It didn’t appear to be a money problem. He hadn’t even asked what she would be willing to pay for his services, so even if she had more room in her budget it wouldn’t matter. If it was only the timing conflict . . . “Couldn’t you get one of the other deejays to cover for you for a couple of hours? We expect the party to wind down by one a.m., so you could be back here by two for the rest of your shift.” Of course that would make it a pretty long workday for him but he should be able to handle it. He couldn’t be older than thirty, thirty-five, tops.

  The phone on his desk rang, startling them both.

  “Excuse me,” he said as he picked up the handset. “WMES radio, may I help you?” He listened a minute, his expressive mouth flattening into a grim line. “Listen, Mr. Coghill, I can’t put this off any longer. I’ve stayed here three times to meet with you and you’ve had some reason to cancel every time. And at the last minute, I might add. So let’s agree that you don’t need my business and I’ll find someone else to do the work.” He listened again, the phone propped between his shoulder and ear, drumming his fingers on the desktop. “No, no more appointments, Mr. Coghill. Three strikes are enough for anyone. Good-bye.”

  “Sorry. Where were we?”

  She watched him mentally shift gears to focus on her again. And focus was the correct term to describe the full force of his attention. It reminded her of an experiment her dad had shown her one sunny afternoon, using her eyeglasses and a scrap of paper. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she had started to smolder from the intensity of his gaze. She met that intensity with a knowing smile.

  She might have some leverage after all.

  When she’d first arrived, Dev was afraid Amanda had found him out and was here to condemn him for killing her fiancé. Instead, she turned on a fifty-megawatt smile, greeted him like a long-lost friend, and he started to sweat for a completely different reason.

  Her slender hand in his had sent an electrical jolt up his arm that shorted out half of his brain cells. He’d missed most of her explanation for coming to see him, his remaining neurons being too preoccupied by the graceful way she crossed her legs when she sat and the fluid cling of her deep purple blouse. The neckline was the draped kind and he wanted to do something to make her lean toward him so he . . . Shit! He’d jerked his mind up from the gutter and tried to concentrate.

  The phone call from Coghill had given him a chance to regroup. The dirt bag had blown off their appointment for the third time and he’d had it with the guy’s attitude. The satisfaction of firing him was fleeting, though, since he now had to find a new accountant and bring him up to speed a.s.a.p. At least his anger had burned through the haze of desire surrounding Amanda Adams and enabled him to respond to her like an adult instead of a fifteen-year-old caught in the throes of a raging hormonal storm.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” she said. “You seem to be in need of an accountant?”

  The feline smile on her face was so smug he expected to see yellow feathers littered across the top of his desk. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Mr. Coghill? The man you just fired over the phone? He was your accountant, correct?” She tilted her head to the side, nodding a little to encourage him to confirm her guess, like a school teacher with a reluctant student.

  “How did you know?”

  He watched her toy with the idea of keeping him guessing, then she said, “His name comes after mine in the yellow pages. There are only about half a dozen accounting firms in this little community.”

  She grinned and his heart took another hit, forcing him to smile back into eyes that had taken on a lavender tint. His decision not to reveal his identity, made in the first thirty seconds as she stood at the end of the hall and stared at him in surprise, forced him to ask about things he already knew.

  “So, you’re an accountant, then?”

  “Yep. Bonded and certified. I don’t suppose I could interest you in my services, by any chance?” She worried her bottom lip with small white teeth and rounded her eyes in pretended innocence.

  Dev pushed his chair back against the wall to increase the space he would have to cover before he could snatch her out of her seat and taste her now slightly swollen lower lip. If he was going to use distance as a defense, he’d better get the hell out of the building. He took his left hand out of his pocket, the thin glove covering the mutilated digits a graphic reminder to stay away from temptation.

  “Why do I have the feeling that hiring you as my accountant will have some unwanted strings attached?” He kept his left hand in his lap, unready to deal with the inevitable questions its visibility would provoke.

  “Strings? No. I’d like to think of them as ribbons tying up a nice, neat, win-win package for both of us.”

  She leaned forward in her chair.

  Dev heard a faint echo of his father’s voice saying, “Be careful what you wish for . . .”

  CHAPTER 4

  “All right, Ms. Adams. Let’s talk turkey. I need someone to set up my books, make sure I’m following state and federal payroll laws, and figure out how much income I need each month to break even. Then there’s always income tax stuff. I’m completely at a loss in that department.”

  She beamed and he could tell she had already tied a big fat bow with those ribbons. This was going to cost him. In more ways than one.

  “First of all, please use Amanda. After my calls to your request line Ms. Adams seems unnecessarily formal at this point, don’t you agree?”

  He nodded, hoping she didn’t notice how her reference to their late-night phone calls affected him. She quoted him her hourly rate, and when he raised an eyebrow, she was ready with a package deal for the year, which included a substantial discount for the first quarter if he would agree to deejay her party.

  He had used a good chunk of his Aunt Edith’s bequest to buy the station and supplement its income to pay his employees, and he wanted to increase profits before that money was exhausted. Especially since his father showed no signs of releasing his trust fund in the near future. While he worked on doubling the station’s advertising revenue, Amanda’s discount would come in
handy. And helping her to succeed was part of what he’d promised Danny.

  The idea that she would have to spend more time at the station with him while she set up his books and made sure the IRS wouldn’t haul him off to jail, had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to hire her. He told himself he was only keeping his promise. He expected his pants to ignite any second from the magnitude of the lies he was telling by omission. What difference did it make? It was just one more reason for his eventual consignment to a fiery afterlife.

  “As you probably guessed from my conversation with Mr. Coghill, I’m in need of your help right away. I have last years’ invoices and payroll records but since I only bought this station recently, I’m not at all sure about how the whole tax calculation thing is supposed to go when I file in April.”