“Then I’ll have to try it,” he said, giving their order to the waitress when she came.
Now that they’d been left alone without the menus to occupy them, Sarah shifted uneasily across from him, her gaze on everyone in the room except Travis.
“Am I making you nervous?” he asked, trying to hide his amusement.
“No, why?” she asked, looking flustered.
“You just seem a little jumpy.”
“My nerves are shot in general,” she said candidly, then looked embarrassed by the admission. “To be totally honest, you should know that the launch scares me to death.”
“Trust me, you have nothing to worry about. The shows you’ve taped have been fantastic. There’s no reason to think you won’t be just as amazing when we go live.”
“You were only there tonight,” she said, clearly not believing him.
“But I’ve listened to the other tapes,” he said.
“Really? Why?”
“Because I wanted to hear your voice,” he admitted before he could censor himself. He scrambled for a less personal explanation. “I mean, to make sure you’re getting the knack of doing an interview. Bill told me you were doing fine, but I wanted to check it out myself.”
She looked at him as if she didn’t entirely trust his response, then said, “And? How was I?”
“Stop fishing for compliments. I’ve already said you’re fantastic. Bill’s said so, too. Stop worrying.”
She sighed. “You’ll have to say it a lot more before I’ll believe you,” she said, then groaned.
“What?” Travis asked, gauging from her reaction that something had upset her.
“My ex-husband’s here, and he’s heading this way.”
She looked so disconcerted, Travis impulsively reached over and covered her hand. “Do I need to beat him up for you?”
As he’d intended, she laughed. “I don’t think that will be necessary, but you have my permission if this doesn’t go well.” She looked up as the man reached their table. “Hi, Walter. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking all over town for you,” he said, barely sparing a glance for Travis.
Alarm flashed in her eyes. “Is it the kids? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. Raylene’s with them, and I’m heading back over there in a couple of minutes.” He finally turned to acknowledge Travis’s presence. “Could you give us a minute, please?”
Travis didn’t want to give the man two seconds alone with her, but after a glance at Sarah, who gave him a subtle nod, he stood. “I’ll be right back.” He leveled a meaningful look into the other man’s eyes to make sure Walter understood that he wouldn’t be far away.
“Thanks,” Walter said easily, then took Travis’s spot at the table.
On his way to the booth closest to the kitchen, where he’d spotted Ronnie, Travis turned back to make sure everything was okay. Whatever the man was saying, he was pretty intense about it, but Sarah didn’t look upset. He was surprised to discover just how interested he was in knowing what they were discussing.
“Everything okay?” Ronnie asked when Travis reached his table. “I see Walter’s shown up.”
“You know him?”
“We’ve met a time or two,” Ronnie said carefully. “The first time, I wrote him off as a hot-tempered jerk, but from what I hear he’s been on good behavior recently.”
In Travis’s experience only one thing made a man change his stripes that dramatically. “Do you think he wants Sarah back?” he asked, unexpectedly bothered by the idea.
“Maybe,” Ronnie said, then gave him a consoling smile. “The good news for you is that she’s not even remotely interested.”
“You sure about that? They do have kids together.”
“That’s not enough,” Ronnie said confidently.
Travis gave a nod of satisfaction. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he hoped like hell that Ronnie was right.
“You have something going on with that hot-shot ballplayer?” Walter asked Sarah as Travis left them alone.
His tone grated on her nerves. “First of all, he’s no longer a ballplayer,” she told him, unable to keep a defensive note out of her voice. “And second, it’s none of your business what I’m doing or with whom.”
He frowned at her. “Don’t get all worked up. I was just asking.”
“Really? You weren’t about to launch into a full-scale assault on my judgment?” she asked skeptically.
“No. I just came looking for you to congratulate you on the radio thing. Raylene showed me the article. It sounds like a great opportunity for you.”
Sarah’s mouth gaped. “That’s it? That’s why you tracked me down?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “Not used to hearing much positive from me, are you?”
“Not much,” she agreed. “I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually stunned, to be honest.”
“I can’t blame you for reacting like that, but I want you to know that I am trying to change,” Walter said, his expression earnest. “Ever since I had that blowup with my dad, I’ve been taking a fresh look at my life. I don’t know if I’ll get up the courage to make a clean break from the mill or my folks, but I want to be a better dad to Tommy and Libby and a decent ex-husband to you. No more lectures, no more fights, if I can help it.”
Sarah regarded him quizzically. “What’s really behind the sudden change? Have you met someone?”
“No. Haven’t been looking, to tell you the truth. Of course, predictably my mother has a few candidates from among the socially appropriate women back home,” he said wryly.
Sarah found herself chuckling. “Yes, I’m sure she does. And I’ll bet none of them are a thing in the world like me.”
“Afraid not,” he said. “More’s the pity.” He hesitated, then met her gaze. “I wish I’d appreciated you more when we were married, Sarah. I have no idea how I let things get so far off track.”
“It’s hard to go against the parents who’ve raised you and given you everything,” Sarah said, finally understanding at least some of what had turned Walter into such an overbearing, critical spouse. “I probably should have called you on it the first time you started taking potshots at me, but I was already feeling overwhelmed by living in an unfamiliar place with a baby on the way. It didn’t take much for me to believe I didn’t measure up.”
Walter shook his head. “You know, when I think about it, our problems started with the wedding. I should have stood up to my mother right then, when she insisted on a small family ceremony at home. I should never have let her get away with making you feel ashamed that you were pregnant.”
Thinking back to how disappointed she’d felt when Walter had acquiesced to his mother’s wishes, she agreed it had been the first step on a very slippery slope toward destroying the two of them.
“And I think the reception she held for us was even worse,” Sarah told him. “Were you aware that she trotted out all these beautiful, suitable women so I’d know what you’d lost by coming home with me on your arm?”
He looked bemused. “I knew there were a bunch of old friends there that night, but I didn’t know they were there to torment you.”
Sarah shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t. For all I know I was the one who made too big a thing of it. All those sly little comments your mother made about my background were starting to take root. It didn’t require much to make me feel even more insecure.” She waved off the discussion. “None of this matters now. Our marriage is over, and we’re both moving on. It’s all good.”
To her surprise, she actually meant that. Ever since she’d started working at the radio station and preparing for the launch, the confidence she’d once had in herself had been returning, bit by bit. That Bill and Travis were both free with their praise had been like pouring water on a parched plant. She felt herself blossoming.
It didn’t hurt that she’d caught Travis looking at her as though she was an attractive, desirable woman, either. Maybe those kinds
of looks and the flattering talk were just part of his flirtatious charm, but it was all music to her ears. Not that she dared to let herself get too caught up in it. She was working for the man, not dating him. It was a distinction she couldn’t let herself forget.
Now Walter was studying her with an expression filled with regret. “You really are getting it all together, aren’t you? I’m glad. You deserve it, Sarah.”
She met his gaze. “Yes, I do.” And for the first time since their awful sham of a wedding, she honestly believed it.
Travis waited until Sarah’s ex had taken off before returning to the table. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the smiling woman who greeted him.
“I take it everything went okay,” he said.
“We had a good talk,” she said. “The first one in a long time.”
“He doesn’t object to you doing the radio show?”
“Not that his opinion counts, but he’s all for it,” she said. “Frankly, I was a little surprised by that, but I guess his parents haven’t heard the news and had time to tell him he should hate the idea.”
Travis regarded her curiously. “Is that what went wrong in your marriage? He was still tied to his folks by the apron strings?”
She nodded. “It was hell to live with,” she said candidly. “They never approved of me, but I can see why Walter had such a hard time taking a stand against them. His dad’s a powerful man, at least in their hometown. He owns the cotton mill that provides the work for many of the people in town. Walter was brought up knowing that he would take over one day. He was supposed to marry well, then ease right into the role of big man around town. Instead, he turned up with me.”
Travis regarded her with shock. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked incredulously.
“According to Mrs. Price, there was very little right with me. My clothes, my hair, my social graces. All lacking. Worst, of course, was that I was already pregnant.”
“I assume she’d figured out that her son had something to do with that,” Travis said.
“Actually I don’t think she much liked thinking about how it happened,” she said, grinning. “It was enough of an embarrassment that it had. Of course, that didn’t stop them from wanting to raise Tommy to follow right along in his daddy and granddaddy’s footsteps. I suspect Walter’s parents would have been holding a party on their front lawn to celebrate my leaving except for the fact that I took Tommy with me.”
“They sound like awful people,” Travis said, hating that she’d been through all that.
“They were just…” She hesitated, then said, “I suppose they were just traditional.”
“They were snobs,” Travis corrected. “And people with as much breeding as they apparently thought they had don’t make other people feel small and insecure.”
She gave him a surprised look. “How would you know a thing like that?”
“How much do you know about Tom’s family, the McDonalds?”
“I know he’s from Charleston, but that’s about it.”
“Well, the McDonalds, despite some financial setbacks and misbehaving through the years, rank pretty high up there in Charleston social circles. My daddy was a black sheep, but I still grew up around all that highfalutin nonsense. I was told on more occasions than I can count that McDonalds don’t do this or McDonalds don’t do that.” He grinned. “Which, of course, made it all the more essential that I do all of those things.”
“You broke the rules?” she asked with feigned surprise. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”
“Broke a few that hadn’t even been written, because folks thought it went without saying,” he said. “I liked shocking people. I figured it was my obligation to stir things up, keep them from getting too stuffy. It also took some of the heat off my daddy, who had a tendency to be the center of a lot of gossip.”
“Why was that?”
“Let’s just say he has a well-developed appreciation of women, and they tend to reciprocate. It caused no end of embarrassment to the family in general and to my mother in particular.”
There was an expression on Sarah’s face he couldn’t quite read. He had a feeling it had something to do with what she’d heard about him.
“Before you ask,” he said, deciding on a preemptive strike, “some say I’m a chip off the old block.”
Though she looked startled by his admission, she leaned closer, studying him intently. “Are they right?”
“They were,” he said candidly.
“Were?”
“Let’s just say I’m finding the straight and narrow a lot more appealing recently.”
“Any particular reason?”
He loved that she had absolutely no idea that she might have anything to do with his recent desire to transform himself. And since he wasn’t sure he could stick to his resolve, it was probably best that she not figure it out.
“Time for a change,” he said with a careless shrug.
“Maturity?” she suggested.
He laughed. “You never know. Maybe so.”
He hoped not, though, because that would imply that he’d be able to control this increasingly powerful desire to take Sarah straight home to bed and make love to her till it was time for the station to go on the air. He was hoping like crazy he’d succumb to that desire—that they both would—before his freshly minted conscience kicked in.
8
Rick the Rocket was drunk. Oh, he did a pretty good job of covering it for the first five minutes he was in Travis’s office, but he wasn’t a good enough actor to hide it any longer than that.
Travis exchanged a look with Bill, then took a deep breath. “You’re fired,” he said, not hesitating for a single second over the decision.
The middle-aged man looked as if he was still trying to recapture his youth in a wrinkled T-shirt from a heavy metal group that had long since faded into oblivion. His shabby jeans were about a hundred wash cycles past trendiness. He regarded Travis with confusion.
“Fired? Why?”
“You’re drunk,” Travis said with exaggerated patience.
“So what?” Rick asked, looking genuinely bewildered. “I’m not on the air till tomorrow.”
Travis shook his head at the poor logic. “And I’m not taking any chances.”
“But you heard my tapes, man,” he said. “I’m good.”
“You were,” Travis conceded. “But I have no way of knowing whether you were drunk or sober then, or what you’ll likely be tomorrow.”
“This blows,” Rick said. “How are you gonna replace me before tomorrow?”
“Not your problem,” Travis told him. The headache was his, and most likely Bill’s. He’d seen the subtle nod indicating that Bill was well aware of the cost of firing Rick with so little time before the station’s launch. Bill’s fishing would be on hold until further notice. “Look, even though you haven’t worked a single day, I’ll give you a week’s severance for your trouble. I think that’s generous under the circumstances.”
“Where am I supposed to go now?” Rick asked. “I gave up a job to come here.”
“Maybe you can get it back,” Travis said. “I’ll call the station and tell them things didn’t work out.”
Rick was already shaking his head. “I burned that bridge, man.”
“Then I’d suggest rehab,” Bill said quietly, speaking for the first time. “Now’s the perfect time for you to get your act together. I remember you when you first hit the air in Columbia a couple of decades ago. Your morning show rocketed straight to the top in the ratings. That’s how you got your nickname, right?”
“I was something,” Rick acknowledged with absolutely no hint of humility. “Still am.”
“How long have you been away from Columbia? Ever since you got serious about drinking, I’ll bet,” Bill guessed. “How many other stations have there been? Two? Ten? Each one smaller than the one before?”
Rick regarded him with blurry-eyed animosity. “They didn’t know a good thing
when they had it. You hicks here are no better.”
“Maybe not,” Bill said, “but we’re giving you the best advice you’ve probably had in years. Clean up your act.”
Travis nodded. “You do that, come back here with proof you’re sober and we’ll talk. I agree with Bill. That’s the best advice anyone will ever give you.”
Rick stood up, wove a little trying to get his bearings, then let loose with a stream of profanity that topped anything Travis had heard in the locker room, even after a humiliating loss.
“That’s it,” Travis said, escorting him from the office. Fortunately Rick was too wobbly to put up much resistance.
He drove the deejay over to the Serenity Inn, rented him a room for the night and told him to sleep it off. By the time he got back to the station, Bill was filling Sarah in.
She turned to Travis with wide-eyed panic. “You fired the afternoon deejay the day before we go on the air? Are you insane?”
“Which part of drunk as a skunk did you miss?” Travis asked. “I wasn’t about to risk putting him on the air.”
“Maybe he only drinks when he’s not working,” she suggested.
“To all intents and purposes, this meeting was work,” Travis told her. “He was three sheets to the wind for it.”
She sighed. “Okay, I know you’re right, but that’s hours of airtime that has to be filled.”
“And I’m going to fill it,” Bill said. “For now, anyway. The fish haven’t been biting worth a damn anyway.”
Sarah’s obvious relief mirrored Travis’s.
“I’m going to owe you for this,” Travis told him.
“You’re doing me a favor,” Bill insisted. “I’ve barely been home lately and my wife is already sick of me. That doesn’t bode well for the peaceful retirement I was envisioning.”
“I’ll find a replacement as soon as I can,” Travis promised him.
“No rush. Next time, check more references. I guarantee you the ones Rick gave you were only of people anxious to have him gone. You dig a little deeper, say, where a prospective employee worked a couple of jobs back, and you’ll get more unbiased feedback. I imagine his old station in Columbia would have given you an earful. Also wouldn’t hurt to pay attention to the trajectory of a man’s career. Sometimes you can tell by the size of the stations if he’s heading up or sliding down.”
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