by Nancy Warren
Then he sauntered toward her and she noticed the black motorcycle helmet swinging from his hand, assuring her that he was flesh and blood and no hallucination. Beneath the formal elegance of the tuxedo the cocky Mike showed through. He hadn’t tied his hair back, but left it to swing, black and slightly curly at the ends, against the satin lapels. A diamond stud glittered in his ear to suit the formality of the evening. In spite of herself, Tess found a smile tugging at her lips.
Those blue, blue eyes of his were traveling from her satin pumps, up her legs, over the silk sheath dress. They hovered briefly at her underwired cleavage before making their way to her face. Their kiss had changed things, she thought, noting the frankly carnal expression in his eyes. That unspoken sexual attraction was out in the open now. She wondered what they’d do about it.
“Wow,” he said. “You look fantastic.”
If he started being nice to her, this man could be dangerous. “Thanks. You clean up pretty well yourself.” With his panther-like grace and dark good looks, he was both exotic and exciting. He had the blue eyes, glossy black hair and a certain tousled poetic look of the Irish, but the lean cheeks and tawny skin of a Spanish pirate. The combination was mouthwatering and just a little scary.
“So, you’re covering the opening, too,” he said. “Maybe you can help me out with my French.”
“La Traviata is in Italian.” She said it automatically, before she noted the disturbing twinkle in Mike’s eye. She was beginning to wonder if he was quite as primitive as he made out. “But I’m not covering the opera, we’ve already done our story. I’m here socially.”
He rolled his gaze to the lofty domed ceiling. “You’re one of the benefactors?”
“My, um, friend is.”
At that moment her friend reappeared across the foyer, holding the silk shawl that matched her dress. And with him was Ty Cadman. Like everybody else in town, Tess knew Mike had tried to bring Cadman down and failed. His allegations of an unfair bidding process and secret payoffs in the construction of this very building had been fascinating reading.
Even more interesting was the apology the Star was forced to print after the one quoted source, a disgruntled competitor, claimed he was misquoted. According to her father, only that retraction and Mike’s demotion had saved the Star from a libel case.
But Tess had known Mr. Cadman most of her life, and she didn’t think it was civic-mindedness or a generous spirit that had caused him to let the newspaper off so lightly.
She wondered why he hadn’t sued the paper. Was he, perhaps, more unwilling to go to court and let all the facts emerge than he had let on?
He’d tried first to have Mike fired, but the Star had, in its way, stood by their top news reporter, demoting him instead. Mr. Cadman had had to content himself with knowing he’d humiliated the man who’d set out to humiliate him.
The reporter in question stiffened as he, too, noted who was coming toward them. All the humor drained out of his eyes.
Tess’s stomach tightened. If she’d been him, she would have slunk away to avoid a confrontation; Mike, of course, lived for confrontation. He moved a step closer to her, whether to annoy Mr. Cadman or in an unconscious protective gesture, she had no idea.
His nearness certainly had an effect on her. He was so near she could feel the heat coming off his body, smell the dry-cleaning solvent on his rented tux, count each line of disdain that carved itself onto his face.
Harrison and Mr. Cadman chatted easily as they approached. When the latter spotted Mike, she saw him pause and an ugly look flashed across his narrow face.
An uncomfortable pause fell over the group. Harrison Peabody took refuge in Tess’s silk shawl, fussing it around her shoulders.
Ty Cadman paused a stride away from Mike. Animosity crackled like dry lightning. She was certain she felt her blood pressure rising. She probably could have eased over the difficult moment but she chose, instead, to watch the confrontation.
“Seen any good movies lately?” Mr. Cadman sneered.
“I heard Saul Feldman got a plum job in your Seattle office,” Mike countered. Saul Feldman was the source who’d changed his story. If Mike had kept tabs on his source, he must still be digging. Still hoping to bring Cadman down.
Cadman glanced up from under perfect silver eyebrows. “Don’t believe every rumor you hear. It could get you in trouble.” Then he turned and gave Tess an avuncular smile. She blinked at the blinding brightness of his smile. He’d had his teeth bleached. Straightened, too, she was certain. He turned his back on Mike as though the reporter didn’t exist. “You’re looking lovely tonight, Tess. You’re turning into a beauty like your mother.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cadman. The opera house is lovely. I understand the marble was brought in specially from Italy.” She was gushing. She ought to throw in a few snarly journalistic jabs of her own. But somehow it was tough to snarl at a man who’d known her since she wore diapers. Besides, there was enough non-verbal snarling going on between Mike and Mr. Cadman, and it put her nerves on edge.
“Yes. It’s Carerra marble. I like the best. Well, enjoy the performance.” He glanced once more at Mike. “Don’t hesitate to call my office if you need to check any facts.” And with that Parthian shot, he strode off to chat with the next group.
She introduced the two men still with her. They shook hands and the suppressed amusement in Mike’s eyes told her he thought her pale-skinned, pale-eyed escort was perfect for her.
She wanted to scream, “It’s not a date!”
“It sure is a beautiful building,” Harrison said with hearty joviality, almost wiping his brow in relief that the unpleasant confrontation was over.
She helped Harrison out by rolling the ball back. “Yes, isn’t it? The arches and pillars give a very neoclassic look.”
Harrison took a nervous sip of champagne before coming up with another conversational gem. “I wonder if he’ll use the same construction team for his wilderness retreat.”
“Wilderness retreat?” she murmured politely. She had no idea what Harrison was talking about. Ty Cadman was the most urban person she knew. He loved people, parties, nightlife, dining, theater. He certainly didn’t strike her as the wilderness type.
“He’s bought land on Pasqualie River. Lots of it. He’s a nut for privacy.”
Pasqualie River? Tess had hiked the area; it was a haven for outdoor types, bird and wildlife watchers, and guys who liked to wade up to their thighs in the river to go fly-fishing. It was also thick with mosquitoes in summer, wet and boggy in winter. Why would a man who hated the outdoors buy a wilderness retreat?
Tess could feel a tingling sensation at the end of her nose; it always happened when she was onto a story. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of hard news experience, but she’d earned her spot at the top of her journalism class by following her instincts.
She opened her lips to question Harrison further, then shut them tight. She shot a glance under her lashes at Mike, but he was staring thoughtfully over to the other side of the marble foyer where Mr. Cadman was now chatting with her parents and Harrison’s. Presumably Mike hadn’t heard Harrison, or didn’t know Mr. Cadman well enough to think such behavior odd.
An idea, startling in its brilliance, occurred to her. What if she could scoop super-reporter Mike Grundel on his own story? Perhaps this proposed wilderness retreat was worth investigating. If Mr. Cadman was a crook, whether he’d seen her in diapers or not, she’d have no hesitation in uncovering the truth.
Gleeful butterflies were line-dancing in her chest.
While she was wondering what kind of vegetables one served with crow, she heard her name called. She came back to earth to find one of the most beautiful women on earth, and her best friend, Caroline Kushner, and her husband, Jonathon, the publisher of the Standard, approaching.
Caro, a retired supermodel, hugged Tess warmly even though they’d seen each other only the day before when Caro was in working on a fashion story for the paper.
Te
ss pulled out of Caro’s expensively scented embrace to find Jon and Mike lobbing insults at each other in one of those male bonding rituals she never grasped.
Only Harrison Peabody seemed not to know anyone, so she introduced him to the group.
It had felt strange at first when she went to work for the Standard, knowing the publisher was married to her best friend. But Tess had relaxed when she learned Jon stayed out of the editorial department’s way and never interfered with personnel issues. He was a brilliant administrator and savvy marketer who’d managed to make an already-successful paper thrive. He owned a couple of cable and radio stations, as well, but his heart was obviously in the Standard. What heart he could spare from Caro.
Tess wasn’t jealous of her friend’s stunning looks, or her professional success. But when Jonathon gazed at his wife, Tess experienced a sharp twinge of envy. She wondered what it would be like to have a man look at her that way, and very much hoped she’d find out. Caro had retired from professional modeling and now spent her time writing for the Standard’s fashion section, which she did as a favor to Jon, and lending her name and considerable energy to charity projects, which she did for love.
“How’s the fund-raising going for the children’s after-school art program?” Tess asked.
“Great. Thanks for writing the media release.”
Since Jon and Mike were currently deeply into sports talk, and Harrison was struggling to keep up, Tess said in a low voice, “Are Jon and Mike friends?”
Caro laughed. “It surprised me, too. They’re best friends.”
“But, how did…” Tess didn’t know how to phrase the question.
“How did a kid born with a silver spoon and a kid who’s dad was an unemployed drunk end up friends? Sports. Baseball. They both made the city team. The way Jon tells it, they went head to head right away, bloodied noses, and ended up friends.”
“And to think we bonded with no bruises or bleeding. Amazing.”
At the signal indicating the performance was about to start, the group broke up and went to their respective seats. From her position in one of the private boxes, Tess had a great view of Mike, head back against the seat, his eyes closed.
He could be in rapt contemplation of the music, but she had a feeling he’d fallen asleep.
She’d learned a couple of things tonight that had the muscles in her stomach clenching with excitement. One was that Mr. Cadman was up to something—what it was she didn’t know, but she was determined to find out.
The other was that Mike Grundel looked fantastic in a tux.
She’d have to tell him to wear it when she cooked him dinner.
4
Once in a while a movie comes along that revisits the golden age of witty repartee, when women were glamorous and men actually noticed….
TESS SIGHED, and her mind wandered from her movie review. She’d been glamorous at the opera house opening, and Mike Grundel had definitely noticed. Of course, his witty repartee was more like a bloodbath with broadswords, but still, he intrigued her with all his contradictions.
Perhaps if he hadn’t kissed her the other night she could get him out of her mind. But that was impossible. That kiss had changed things, and she didn’t know what she wanted to do about it. Nothing for now. She had a career to get off the ground, and no sexy bad boy was going to stop her.
She hoped.
Mmm. His kisses were a bit like his movie reviews, outrageous and yet compelling. She got shivery just thinking about how his glances had scorched her at the opera opening, and how the civilized veneer of a tux only emphasized the uncivilized male animal beneath. It made her blood sizzle wondering how all that elemental energy would feel if completely unleashed on her. Still, she needed to win the bet and to establish her career more than she needed a complicated affair with a competitor.
First she’d feed Mike Grundel crow, then she’d think about seducing him. She chuckled. In the meantime there was the small matter of scooping him at his own story.
She thought about Harrison’s comment as she approached city hall shortly after it opened Monday morning. On the way home from the opera house she’d grilled Harrison, but he’d only overheard somebody talking about Ty Cadman’s wilderness retreat on Pasqualie River. He couldn’t remember who’d said it or where he found out about it. As a source, Harrison was just this side of pathetic. He wasn’t great at paying attention, but he didn’t usually get things wrong, either, and she decided his hazy information was worth following up.
She wondered what, if anything, a supposed wilderness retreat had to do with bribery on a civic building project. She’d lain awake last night trying to find some connection, but she’d come up blank. According to Mike’s discredited story, Cadman had obtained an advance peek at the rival bids to construct the opera center. It had then been a simple matter for him to come in as the low bidder. The mayor’s name was never mentioned in the Star article, but everyone in town knew he and Mr. Cadman had been friends for years. Tess’s father couldn’t stand the mayor, and only tolerated Cadman, and her father was a pretty smart man.
Light fog caressed her cheeks with cool, dewy fingers as she reached the door of the squat public building. If she could verify that Cadman had purchased land by the river she’d have the most important fact to back up Harrison’s story. If not, then maybe her tingling nose merely indicated she was coming down with a cold.
The roar of a motorcycle engine shattered the foggy silence, and she paused to watch a misty black form speed out of the adjacent alley.
The rider glanced to the left before making a right turn and she glimpsed his face. It was Mike.
Her heart jerked crazily.
She stood there, wondering what she’d do if he saw her and offered her a ride. Knowing she’d love to ride off into the mist and let him take her…
But he didn’t even see her. As he disappeared into the fog, and her heart rate returned to normal, she wondered what he was doing in the neighborhood.
She was still wondering as she made her way to the property registry desk and approached a clerk standing at the counter.
“Help you?” the woman asked in a bored voice.
“Yes. I’m interested in property on Pasqualie River.”
“Did they discover gold there?” The woman stared at her, no longer sounding the least bit bored. “You’re the second person who’s asked me about Pasqualie River this morning.”
“Really?” she said through gritted teeth. So Mike had picked up on Harrison’s remark the other night. Double damn. “May I see the property records?”
“Second floor.”
“Thanks.” Tess ran up the single flight of stairs and entered glass doors with Land Use/Planning stenciled on them in black lettering. A large survey map of the area hung on a wall, the incorporated area of Pasqualie in pink. She started with the map, using her finger to trace the river, her memory conjuring the properties she traced. There was the city’s waterfront park, with its riverfront boardwalk, picnic grounds, a play area for the kids. A little farther out, farmland, lush and green in the summer with livestock grazing contentedly beside the river, then the area she’d always thought of as wilderness, though it, too, was parceled and owned.
She marked down the tax parcel numbers of all the properties adjacent to the river then, with the help of a clerk, found herself with a box of microfiche and a reader. As she juggled from screen to screen, squinting to read the ownership information for each parcel of land, she cursed the municipal officials that Pasqualie didn’t get with the new millennium and put all this stuff on computer.
She scribbled herself a simple map and wrote in the registered property owners. The largest block of property out in the wilderness area was owned by a numbered company. Cadman’s? But many smaller properties adjacent to it had recently changed hands. And the new information was on computer. Mr. Cadman didn’t show up as a new owner, but Harrison’s mother, Margaret Peabody, did. A few of the other names of new owners were familiar as
well—three had been at the opera opening. Now that was interesting.
Deep in thought, she drove to the Standard building. Once at her desk, she pored over her list more carefully.
By far the largest property owner, apart from the numbered company, was an organization called Bald is Beautiful. Their land bordered that owned by the numbered company.
Was this Cadman’s land? Was the name a private joke? But he had a thick head of hair that was always meticulously groomed—she couldn’t imagine a man with his ego making that sort of joke on a property document.
Deep in thought, she drove to the Standard building. Once at her desk, she pored over her list more carefully.
Around her she heard the low sigh of running computers, the jangling of phones, and the back-and-forth kibitzing of reporters between stories or waiting for calls.
“What’s another word for ‘bereaved’?” sighed Anton from the obit side of the desk.
“Grieving?”
“I used that in the last paragraph.”
“Sorrowful?”
“Thanks,” he said, sounding sorrowful himself.
“Bald is Beautiful, what are you?” she wondered out loud.
“An engo. Out at the uni,” Steve Ackerman replied.
“A university environmental group?” She stared at Steve. He was a solid ten on the hunk-o-meter, but he had a reputation of scoring a lot lower in the brains department. Of course, he’d chosen to move to sports from hard news, which pretty much confirmed the rumor in her mind.
Steve paused at her desk and took off his glasses to polish them on his polo shirt. “Their mission is to protect bald eagle habitats.”
“Are you sure?”
He grinned. “I dated a B.I.B. member for a while. She used to drag me out in the woods with binoculars. I’m sure.”