by Jan Hudson
“Even you?”
She laughed. “Especially me. Have you ever seen a news reporter worth his or her salt who didn’t thrive on excitement?”
“But I thought you were a weathergirl, not a newsperson.”
“Weather reporter,” she said, her irritation with the term shading her words. “And the weather can be exciting sometimes, especially when a hurricane howls into the Gulf. But I don’t intend to spend my life doing the weather. I have bigger plans in mind.”
“Oh?” He looked mildly amused—at least that’s what she surmised from the faint movement of his lips. It was hard to read a face that was about as animated as those of the Mount Rushmore quartet.
“Believe it. I have a real nose for news. Julie Chen and Robin Meade had better move over and make room for Sunny Larkin,” she said, laughing and giving an exaggerated strut as she left the kitchen.
She thought she heard a snort behind her, but she ignored it. She wasn’t about to let some sourpuss cynic rain on her parade, even if he was a high-profile muckety-muck with the network. He simply didn’t know how determined she was to reach the goals she’d set for herself.
In the entry hall, she headed for the table Ravinia had acquired the year before. The table, standing in the center of the impressive foyer, was big and circular with a mosaic top of polished malachite and a base formed by three large elephants intricately carved from some sort of exotic wood.
Sunny picked up her shoulder bag from the table and searched for her keys. They were missing. She knelt on the floor and peered amid the legs. “Dumbo, did you eat my keys?”
“Who’s Dumbo?” Kale asked from behind her.
She stroked the tummy of one of the elephants. “This fellow. Estella and I dubbed this piece ‘Dumbo and Friends,’ but Ravinia thought the table was divine, a true work of art. I suppose it is. I understand that a couple of museums bid against her. Some guy on a mountain somewhere spent his entire life creating this thing.” She shrugged. “To each his own, I suppose.” She patted around under the table.
“Looking for these?” Kale jingled a set of keys in front of him.
Sunny jumped up and grabbed them. “Where did you find them?”
“In the refrigerator beside the strawberries.”
“I wonder how they got there.” She shrugged. “Oh, well. I’m off to work. See you later.” She waved as she hurried out.
Kale followed her to the driveway. “Mind if I ride along?”
“I’m not going directly to the station. I brought home one of the KRIP vans, and I’m meeting Carlos at the heritage society do.”
“Who’s Carlos?”
“Carlos Mondragon. He’s my crew.”
“A one-person crew?”
Sunny laughed. “Foster put us on a strict budget. I can drop you off at the station if you’d like. Or you can drive Ravinia’s car. It’s in the garage.”
“I think I’ll tag along with you. I can’t remember when I’ve been to a heritage society do.” He looked down at his clothes. “Think I’m dressed appropriately?”
Was he actually joking with her? She scanned his face for any sign of a smile, but there was none. She glanced at the pink shirt and chinos he wore. They were considerably cleaner and slightly less rumpled than the clothes he’d had on the day before. “I think you’ll pass. Corpus is a pretty informal place.”
“Want me to drive?” he asked.
“Nope. It’ll do you good to relinquish control for a few minutes. Climb in.”
After they had pulled away, Kale scowled at her. “What did you mean by that ‘control’ remark?”
“Sorry, boss, but you strike me as the type who likes to be in charge. If I’m wrong, accept my apology.”
“Apology accepted. And cut out that ‘boss’ stuff. You make me feel ancient.”
“Right, boss—I mean, Kale. And I haven’t worn training bras since I was twelve. That’s fourteen years ago. By the way, since we have plenty of time, I hope you don’t mind that I need to run a couple of errands on the way.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Personal business on company time?”
Was he teasing her? Who could tell with his perpetually grim expression? “The company van needs gas,” she shot back. “And,” she added with a saucy grin, “since I have only two dollars and six cents in my purse, I have to stop by the ATM at the bank. You gonna fire me, boss?”
“Not unless you rear-end that Buick.”
She slammed on her brakes. “I saw it.”
“Ummm.”
After they stopped for gas, which Kale insisted on pumping and paying for himself, they drove to the small branch bank where Sunny kept her account. As they pulled into the parking lot, she had an eerie feeling—not a weather feeling, but a general, more pervasive sensation, a news feeling that twitched her nose and put her on guard.
“Were you serious about a change in the news policy at KRIP?” she asked.
“Very.”
“Then grab the camera from the back.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a funny—” A commotion erupted in front of the bank. “Robbery in progress!” she shouted.
As Kale reached for the video-cam, two men with paper bags ran from the bank. A guard at the door leveled his gun and fired as they scrambled for the backseat of a waiting car. A third robber, a watch cap pulled low over his eyes, stumbled, dropped his bag, then lifted his gun and fired at the guard. Two shots pinged off the archway pier the guard used for cover.
When the robber reached for the paper bag, Sunny floorboarded the van. “Hang on,” she yelled at Kale, who was halfway out the window shooting the scene. She rammed the getaway car from the rear.
The robber squeezed off a shot toward her, and a spiderweb cracked across the passenger side of the windshield. The holdup man threw himself in the front seat of the old Chevy, and the car burned rubber, with the door still hanging open.
Sunny tore out behind him, shouting to Kale, “You okay?”
“I’m okay. Stop the van.”
“Not on your life.” She gripped the wheel and stomped the accelerator harder.
“Dammit! I said stop the van! You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Forget it, Hoaglin. This is the lead story on KRIP tonight. Keep filming.” She heard the distant whine of sirens and grabbed her phone, punching in 911.
She stayed on the robbers’ tail, squealing around corners, until another shot rang out. She dropped back but kept the car in sight until she could describe its route to the police. “It’s an old maroon Chevy. We’re on Gollihar Road just past the Parkdale Plaza. Wait! They’ve just turned left on McGregor.” She hung a left behind them.
Two white Corpus Christi Police Department cars—sirens screaming, lights flashing—roared out from a side street and passed the van. Sunny could see another police car approaching from the street ahead of them as residents of the neighborhood stood on their porches, craning their necks to watch the ruckus.
Trying to avoid the inevitable, the maroon car whipped around a corner and crashed into the rear of a garbage truck parked at the curb. A screaming mother yanked her child from his tricycle on the sidewalk and ran in the opposite direction. Three patrol cars, in a chaos of whipping red and blue lights and a cacophony of wailing sirens, converged on the smashed car, which spewed steam from the crumpled hood.
Sunny screeched to a stop at the corner, and Kale, the camera on his shoulder, jumped out and ran toward the cluster of vehicles. Snatching a mike and a battery pack from the back of the van, she strapped the pack around her waist as she ran behind him.
Another patrol car roared to a stop, blocking their path as five officers, guns drawn, spilled from the three other police units and took positions of cover.
“Throw down your weapons,” one of the cops called, “and come out with your hands in the air.”
For a moment everything was so quiet that the only thing Sunny heard was the hiss of the damaged radiator, the rattle of drie
d palm fronds, and her own ragged breathing.
First one, then the other door opened slowly. Three men emerged, hands atop their heads. The fourth stumbled out, whining, “Hey, man, I’m hurt. My leg is bleeding.”
“Well, well,” one of the older cops said, “if it isn’t Amos. Got shot up some, did you? You and your friends are in bad trouble again, buddy. Hands on the top of the car.”
While the group of robbers was searched and handcuffed, Kale kept filming and asked, “Can you identify these men, officer?”
“Later,” the cop said gruffly, scowling at the camera. “Check with the station.”
Sunny hurriedly hooked up her mike and stepped forward, smiling. “Sergeant”—she glanced at his name tag-—”Murdock, I’m Sunny Larkin, KRIP News. Could I ask you a few questions, please?”
The cop’s scowl changed to a grin. “Sunny! Was that you chasing these hombres? Hey, I watch you on TV all the time. What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow? I promised to take my boy fishing.”
“It’s going to be perfect fishing weather until about mid-afternoon. I hope you catch a big one.” She gave him a dazzling, dimpled smile. “Now, Sergeant Murdock, if I could ask you a few questions . . .”
Kale watched in amazement as Sunny charmed the socks off the seasoned veteran and got a damned good interview. He could hardly blame the cop; Kale probably would have told her everything down to the size of his shorts, if she’d fluttered those long, feathery eyelashes up at him.
When Murdock identified at least two of the robbers as hard-core offenders with long rap sheets, Kale shuddered. The reality of the danger Sunny had been in slammed into his gut. By the time the interview wound down and his adrenaline began to dissipate, he had to struggle to keep the camera steady. He was actually trembling. He hadn’t been afraid for himself—hell, he’d dodged bullets dozens of times to get a story—but the thought of this little slip of a girl getting one between her big blue eyes unnerved him.
When the interview was wrapped up and they’d promised to come to the station later with their statements, Kale strode to the van. The sight of the shattered windshield and the wrinkled front bumper shook him even more. It was a wonder she hadn’t been badly injured. He stowed the camera and waited, hands on his hips, as she bounded up, grinning and juiced up like some fool on high-grade coke, oblivious to the danger she’d been in. He wanted to throttle her.
“Wasn’t that fantastic?” she asked, beaming. “What a story! I could fly!”
She whirled around twice before he grabbed her by the shoulders. “I ought to beat your butt!” he yelled in her face.
Her smile died and her eyes flashed blue sparks. “I’d like to see you try it! What’s the matter with you? Did the sun in Bangladesh fry your brains?”
“My brains? Hell, at least I’ve got brains! Don’t you realize the danger you put yourself in? Don’t you understand that you could have been killed? Do you have some kind of death wish?”
“And I suppose the great Kale Hoaglin has never braved a few tight situations for a story.”
“That’s different.”
She gave a disdainful snort. “Because you’re a man?”
“Yes. No. It’s not because you’re a girl—”
“Woman.”
“—woman. It’s a matter of experience. Don’t ever try a damned fool stunt like that again.”
“Oh, chill out, Hoaglin.” She shook off his hands. “Didn’t you hear Sergeant Murdock? We’re heroes. And we scooped a story that’s going to bring KRIP back to credibility. Maybe that will soothe Foster’s feathers when he sees the van.” She fluttered her hand toward the damaged vehicle.
“Forget the damned van.”
She grinned. “Whatever you say, boss. We need to pick up some more footage at the bank and do a couple of interviews there. Do you think we should call the station and have them send someone else to cover the heritage society do?”
As she talked he watched the animated bobble of her head, the bright sparkle of her eyes, the enticing movement of her lips. Her skin seemed to glow. Its texture fascinated him. He ached to touch it, to feel its softness against the rough pads of his fingertips.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well, what?”
“What do you want to do?”
What did he want to do? Hell, he wanted to kiss her until she turned boneless. He wanted to hold her against him and mold her body against his and savor every sweet curve. He wanted to bury his face between her breasts and inhale the smell of her. He wanted to do things to her that would shock her bouncy little cheerleader sensibilities into the next state.
“Boss?”
“Don’t call me that,” he growled.
“Yes, sir,” she snapped with that saucy grin that seemed to goad him into wanting to kiss her all the more.
Dammit, he reminded himself, she was just a kid, a green, fresh-faced kid. The ten years that separated them were ten years of hard living, a chasm of ugliness and abhorrent experiences that had sucked the gentleness from his soul long ago. He didn’t have any business messing with someone like her. He almost had the feeling that the heinousness of life that had rubbed off on him over the past several years would defile her if he touched her.
“I suppose,” she said, “we could have someone from the station pick up our robbery tape for editing, and we could still make it to the heritage society function in time to catch the tail end of it.”
“Rule number one, kid,” he said, allowing himself to touch the tip of her nose, “is never, never let somebody else edit your big story.”
She beamed up at him. “Yes, boss.”
Chapter Three
On Sunday morning, Sunny, engrossed in the front page of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, sipped her coffee and absently reached for another muffin.
“Wow! Look at this. We made the headlines,” she said to Estella and Kale, who were sitting at the breakfast table.
Kale mumbled something into his eggs, and Estella grabbed the paper. “Let me see.” As she read the page, her brows lifted and her mouth formed a silent whistle. ‘“KRIP NEWS TEAM FOILS BANK ROBBERY.’ Well, well, well. A color picture and the whole works. Sorry I missed being in on the ‘daring high-speed chase.’ Did I tell you that I thought your story on the news last night was dynamite?”
Sunny beamed, preening at the compliment. “At least three times, but tell me again.”
“I wouldn’t want you to get the big head.”
“Not likely, but it was a super story, wasn’t it? I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it. I grinned all night. But most of the credit goes to Kale. While we were putting the piece together, he taught me more about writing and editing and dramatic effect than I learned in four years of college. He’s brilliant. Kale, did I tell you that you’re brilliant?”
He nodded. “You did a good job.”
She wiggled in her chair, smiling and still feeling bubbly inside.
Estella looked over the paper at Kale. “Does this mean that KRIP’s good-news policy has changed to ‘if it bleeds, it leads’?”
Kale laced his fingers over his middle and leaned back in the oak captain’s chair. “It means that KRIP will present a solid, balanced broadcast.”
“Does that include dumping the tripe from the sports segment and putting some action into it?”
“Yes. Think you can handle it?”
She leaned forward with one arm resting on the table, a fist on her hip, and bobbed her head with exaggerated smugness. “Could Michael Jordan play basketball?” Her mouth curved into a playful smirk. “You bet your bankroll I can handle it. I know more about sports than all those clowns on the other stations put together.”
“At least you’re confident,” Kale said dryly.
“Oh, it’s true,” Sunny piped up. “Cherry Morris is her father.”
Kale’s eyebrows lifted. “Cherry Morris, the NBA coach?”
“The very one,” Estella said.
“She gr
ew up in a very athletic family,” Sunny added. “Her mother won an Olympic gold medal in track, and Estella went to college on a sports scholarship. Her younger brother won some special football award two years ago. What award was that, Estella?”
“The Heisman.”
“Morris.” Kale wrinkled his forehead. “Morris. Chapman Morris who plays for the Washington Redskins?”
“That’s my baby brother.”
“I’m impressed.”
Estella chuckled. “And as relieved as hell that the tall pregnant lady might know her business after all.”
Sunny hopped up and began clearing the table. “Estella, we need to get a move on if we’re going to Padre Island.” To Kale she said, “We’re going shelling. Want to come along?” When he hesitated, she added, “Oh, come with us. How long since you’ve walked along a Texas beach and did nothing more profound than look for shells? I’ll even treat you to a hot dog and a beer.” She grinned. “Besides, if you go, we can go in Ravinia’s convertible and put the top down.”
“Ravinia bought a convertible?” Kale asked. “I suppose that doesn’t surprise me, but she’s always driven a Cadillac.”
Estella and Sunny exchanged looks and laughed. “She didn’t change that habit,” Estella said. “Wait until you see it.”
With a bit more coaxing, he agreed to join them, and everyone went to change into shorts and sneakers.
Instead of her usual ragtag garb for shelling, Sunny opted for a new white cotton shirt and butter-yellow shorts that matched her straw planter’s hat, with its saucy chiffon band and streamers. She even applied makeup—telling herself that it was for sun protection and not because Kale was going along.
He obviously hadn’t dressed with any special pains, she thought when she met him downstairs.
He wore a pair of faded red madras shorts and a pale pink T-shirt. She did have to admit that the shorts showed off his nicely muscled legs and that the pink shirt complemented his tan and molded a chest that had probably set many hearts palpitating—not hers, of course. She was immune. Kale Hoaglin was only her boss and temporary housemate, she reminded herself. She wasn’t interested. He wasn’t interested.