Hers By Request

by Karen Ann Dell

  He’d tossed and turned for two hours, before he’d given up and taken a shower, then stripped the tangled, sweaty sheets from his Murphy bed. He put clean linens on and folded it away.

  He’d never been a particularly neat guy, but the tiny studio apartment forced him to clean up after himself or there would be no place to sit or walk around without tripping. Dressed, he opened the heavy drapes he used to block the daylight. The watery winter sun washed the walls and cast pewter shadows into the corners. It was only after his meeting with Amanda, who brightened his office with her warmth and laughter, that he realized how drab and colorless his apartment—hell, his whole life—had become.

  He’d figured he might as well use the time he should be sleeping to catch up on his laundry. Dev hated going to the town’s only Laundromat where half the women with wild-eyed toddlers regarded a male washing clothes during the day with the scorn reserved for shiftless, jobless slackers, and the other half saw him as lunch. He generally started three loads then escaped to the diner down the street and drank coffee till it was time to move them to the dryers.

  Now, watching the seconds tick away toward midnight, he finished the can of Red Bull he’d bought at the 7-Eleven along with a turkey sandwich. Hopefully it would help keep his exhaustion at bay till morning. He’d skip the pain-easing Jack Daniels tonight. The ever-present ache in his arm would help to keep him alert.

  No request from Amanda tonight. He hadn’t expected one. He faded out “Take the ‘A’ Train” and into “The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else”.

  Shit. Who was he kidding? He’d hoped Amanda would call with all the futile expectation of a high-school nerd waiting for the beautiful cheerleader to notice him. That was why he didn’t tell her who he was when he’d had the chance. He’d wanted her to like him. And that wouldn’t happen if she knew the role he’d played in Danny’s death. Down the road, when the reckoning came, she would undoubtedly despise him, but then he knew that going in, so how much worse could it be if he waited a couple of weeks?

  He’d pay her for the accounting work, which would help her out in the near term, and give her all the assistance he could with this party to get her second business off to a good start. That left only one thing on his promised list. Somehow during the next few months he had to encourage her to get past Danny and consider someone else to spend the rest of her life with. Someone who could appreciate not only her beauty, but her intelligence, kindness, and humor. The man would have to be damn near perfect to deserve her. Luckily finding the guy wasn’t his job. He just had to convince her to start searching.

  The light on the call-in line began to blink. Less than a minute to midnight. Dev punched the button.

  “Dev’s Dream Machine. You just made it under the wire. What can I play for you?”

  “‘Someone to Watch Over Me’, please, Dev.”

  Ouch. She was back to that song again. He swore he could see a faint reflection of Danny’s smiling face in the glass window of the broadcast booth.

  “Sure thing, Amanda. Any dedication this time?”

  “No. It’s really for two people, and they’ll know I’m thinking about them.”

  “Okay, you got it,” he said, trying to sound the same as he would to any caller’s request.

  “Thanks, Dev,” she murmured, the warmth in her voice demolishing his pitiful attempt to keep his distance. “Sorry I called so late. I’ve been working like crazy on to-do lists for the party, since we landed the job this afternoon.” Her happiness bubbled through the phone. “The song request is kind of a thank you, but I wanted you to know I’m definitely going to need you.”

  And I’ll be here for you. Whenever . . .

  “Well then, I’d better do that research on my fee pretty quick. Congratulations on landing the client, Amanda.”

  “Thanks. Zoe and I are really pumped about this. Anyway, I don’t want to take up any more of your time tonight. I’ll see you at the station tomorrow around nine, okay?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, Amanda. Sleep tight.” The vision of her in bed, her long blond hair spread out on the pillow and those perfect breasts peeking above the sheet had him hardening to the point of pain.

  He cued up “Someone to Watch Over Me”—no surprise it was out and ready to go. Then he picked Cindy Walker’s great tune, “You Don’t Know Me” to follow it.

  He checked the time. Nine hours to go. At least he was wide-awake now.

  Amanda was a woman of her word. At nine-oh-one Rosemary buzzed him on the intercom. “Miss Adams here to see you, Dev.”

  “Send her on back, Rosemary.”

  Dev stood up as she came to the door.

  Her cheeks were rosy from the crisp morning air and a few tendrils had already escaped from her neat French braid. She set down her briefcase and started to untie the belt on her camel hair coat.

  He came around the desk to help her off with it and hung it on the coat rack next to his. He nodded toward the conference table, its surface now pristine except for the five boxes lined up down the middle. When she turned to inspect them, he took a few seconds to admire her endless legs in black tights and the rose-colored sweater dress that hugged every curve and barely made it to the middle of her thighs. Sweat broke out at his hairline as his eyes traveled over her perfectly sculpted derriere. The woman was going to kill him before he even got a chance to do her party gig.

  “Wow. You sorted through all that paperwork since Wednesday?”

  “Yeah, well, I had some free time.” Since I wasn’t sleeping. “I felt pretty bad blindsiding you with all that the other day. Rosemary helped me. I think that first box is already sorted by date. The others aren’t . . . yet.”

  “You’re wonderful. Thanks for the help.” She slid the first box toward her and started to sort through it. “Okay, this appears to be purchase orders and receipts.” She dropped the papers she’d scanned back in and went to the next one.

  “Those are invoices we sent to our advertisers.” His mouth quirked up at one corner. “As you can see, that’s the shortest pile.”

  She gave him a smile. “By next year, it’ll be a lot bigger. I have a couple of ideas on increasing your revenue.” She moved down the table, inspecting the rest of the boxes.

  By next year you’ll be sorry you ever laid eyes on me. “I’ll be glad to work on these other boxes—sorting them by date. And Rosemary can help today too.”

  “Oh, that will be great. Let’s ask Rosemary to do the sorting by date on those last two boxes. I’d like you to go through this first one with me and tell me what invoices are for routine operating expenses and what are for big purchases that you would call capital expenditures.”

  “No problem. Would you like a cup of coffee before we dive in?”

  “Mmmm, no thanks. Maybe a bottle of water?” she suggested.

  “I’m not sure we have any.” He pressed the intercom button. “Rosemary, do we have any bottled water in the building?”

  “Sure, Boss. I put a six pack in the fridge yesterday afternoon.”

  “Rosemary, you’re amazing. Bring a bottle for Ms. Adams and forward the phones to my desk. You’re going to be back here in the trenches with us this morning.”

  “Let me get my waders on, and I’ll be right there,” she said with a chuckle.

  Amanda removed her laptop and charging cable from her briefcase and checked for a nearby outlet. The closest one was about a foot too far away from the table. “Do you have an extension cord? If I work off battery I’ll be dead in the water in less than two hours.”

  “No extension cord, but don’t worry.” He picked up the end of the table and dragged it toward the outlet.

  “Wait, I’ll help—” Amanda started. Before she finished he’d moved it close enough to
for her cable to reach.

  Without a word, he took the cord from her and plugged it in.

  “Thanks.” She booted the laptop up while he arranged a pair of chairs close together.

  He slid the box of papers over, sat down, and started to separate them as she requested.

  Amanda took her cue from Dev’s body language. Her offer of help had been a mistake. She wasn’t trying to point out his handicap—hadn’t even thought about it, honestly. She would have offered to help Arnold Schwarzenegger move the darn table. On the other hand, she ought to be more considerate of how he must feel. Too bad he was so touchy.

  She had to remember this was a job, not a social occasion. Somehow those few times they’d spoken late at night made him seem much more a friend than he was. That voice of his was like a tractor beam, reeling her in, making her feel cozy and comfortable and welcomed into a private slice of the ether populated by just the two of them. Obviously his ‘on air’ persona was not the real Dev. She’d do well to keep that in mind.

  Rosemary brought her a bottle of water and handed it to her with a wink. “The boss cracked the whip about these files yesterday, Ms. Adams, so I got as much done as I could by five when he came back and finished up. What shall I start on today?”

  “Have you set up a filing cabinet for any of this yet?” Amanda didn’t want to suggest any system that might conflict with what was already in place.

  “Just the typical alphabetical kind,” Rosemary replied.

  “How about making one for the year and subdividing it into bills, advertising invoices, equipment purchases, that sort of thing. Keep correspondence and vendors under the system you already have, but anything you find that you think will be specific to last year’s income or expenditures should be together in one place. That will make it easier for me to find if I have to cross-reference anything.”

  Rosemary nodded. “I’ll start on this last box. It has mostly letters you won’t need to bother with. That way I won’t get in the way between you and the boss,” she added with a sly smile.

  She blithely ignored the glare Dev shot her and got to work at the other end of the table.

  They worked in silence for a while sitting close enough that her arm occasionally brushed Dev’s. The contact gave her a jolt every time, which she did her best to ignore. The faint aroma of his aftershave distracted her too. Its fresh, woodsy scent mixed with smell of clean linen from his starched white shirt. She realized he must have gone home after his shift and showered, shaved, and changed before she arrived.

  Last Friday when she had dropped by unannounced his jaw was shadowed and his clothes were rumpled. Had he gone to the trouble of cleaning up just for her? How sweet, she thought, smiling to herself. Maybe that was what Rosemary’s little smirk was about.

  After about half an hour, Amanda came across an invoice for something she had no idea how to classify. Touching his arm to get his attention, she leaned toward him and held out the paper. “Can you tell me what this is for?”

  He turned at her voice and she got her first real close up of his sea-green eyes, deep and mysterious and a bit haunted. Whoa, she said to herself. His eyes dropped to her mouth and she worried that she’d spoken aloud. She rustled the paper to get his attention transferred there so she could breathe again.

  He glanced at the invoice.

  “That’s for a piece of equipment Mike said he needed to calibrate the antennas. I think that would fall under capital expenditures,” Dev muttered. “At that price we’d better not be buying more than one of them.”

  He picked up a few other papers and handed them to her. “These are also what I’d consider capital expenditures. Mostly equipment I had to replace when I bought the place. We upgraded from turntables to CD players. I kept one turntable around in case we had to play an oldie that hadn’t been re-mastered onto a CD or DVD yet.”

  “Okay, good.” She tried to keep her expression merely pleasant but couldn’t stop a smile. Darn, she really liked this guy and hoped her earlier faux pas wouldn’t keep them from becoming friends. She’d bet he didn’t have many.

  When Danny was home on leave between tours, he’d talked with her about how some of his buddies had such a hard time at home after they were injured. Dev seemed relaxed and friendly on the air but even in the short time she’d spent in his company she sensed a certain solitary, withdrawn quality about him.

  She forced her attention back to the present and she and Dev worked steadily till noon, when they took a break for lunch. She had planned on going out somewhere to pick up a sandwich but Rosemary called the sub shop a couple of miles down the road in a little strip mall.

  “Bud’s our lifeline around here,” Dev explained. “We’re so far out of town his is the only place close enough to deliver. Since we all order from him, he’s willing to make the drive out here. Lucky for us his subs are pretty good.” He handed her the short, hand-written menu. “It’s not The Top of the Hub, but I’m buying, so knock yourself out.”

  The smile he sent her took five years off his face and the little twinkle in his eyes was almost mischievous. This more relaxed Dev gave her hope all was not lost as far as friendship was concerned. She grinned and effected a southern accent. “Why, you are too kind, suh. How can I evah repay you?” She batted her lashes at him.

  He came back with a passable John Wayne drawl. “Well, Ma’am, I’m sure I’ll think of somethin’. You aren’t leaving town anytime soon, are yuh?”

  That got them both laughing and Amanda heaved an internal sigh of relief. After she scanned the short menu, she ordered turkey and provolone on whole wheat. Dev chose roast beef and cheddar on rye. Rosemary went down the hall to see if Hank, the announcer doing the mid-day shift, wanted to order a sandwich too.

  “What’s the Top of the Hub?”

  “A very nice restaurant in Boston. It’s on the fifty-second floor of the Prudential Tower, so the view is terrific. Food’s pretty good, too. It was only a few blocks from where I went to school.”

  “So, you’re from Boston originally?” Amanda stood up and stretched to get the kinks out after sitting so long.

  “No. I was born in Virginia, moved to New York when I was twelve. Went to college in Boston.”

  Shorter replies might mean he wanted her to steer clear of this topic for some reason. Maybe she was misinterpreting the signal, though. She’d give it one more try. “What school did you go to?”

  The pause told her she’d been right. Still, it seemed a harmless question. She kept on, a friendly smile curving her lips.

  “Let me guess. B U? No. Harvard? No.” Little shakes of his head rejected each guess. “MIT?” That got her a bark of laughter.

  “Do I look like a techie to you?”

  “Well, you can’t always go by appearances.” She shrugged. “So tell me. Where?”

  He sighed. “The New England Conservatory.”

  The way he said it sounded almost painful.

  “Of Music?” she exclaimed. “You went to the New England Conservatory of Music,” she repeated, to confirm she hadn’t misunderstood. “Wow, I’m impressed. That school is really tough to get into. One of my friends from high school tried to get in there. She didn’t make it, though. You must be a fantastic musician,” she rattled on.

  Then it hit her and she winced.

  She couldn’t keep her eyes from going to his injured hand. And wanted to sink through the floor. What an idiot! She closed her eyes, too mortified to meet his. “It’s too much to hope for that you went there for voice, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  He swiveled around in his chair. “Piano. He gestured to include their surroundings. “But now I’m here. Providing music to a much larger audience.” He turned back around. “Nothing more than I deserved, anyway,” he mumbled under his breath.

  Good Go
d, what a tragedy. She was furious with herself for her thoughtlessness. She had to push it, didn’t she? Never did know when to leave well enough alone. Now what could she say? She reached out to him, but her hand slid off his arm as he stood up.

  “Excuse me. I, uh, need to get some coffee,” he murmured and was out the door before she could say another word.

  Well, guess that pretty much blew her chance to become his friend. Her heart ached for his loss. Damn it, I hate war.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Oh, Zoe, I can’t believe I was so insensitive,” Amanda groaned. “Really, my mother was right. Half the time I don’t engage my brain before I open my mouth.”