by Nancy Warren
In spite of himself he was impressed. “Salary?”
“Twenty percent raise.”
“Thirty.”
“Twenty-five.”
“The thing is…Oh, hell.” He sucked in a deep breath and did something he’d never, ever in his life done before. “Put a double byline on it.”
“A what?”
“Tess Elliot wrote it with me.”
There was a wheezing chuckle down the phone line. “Elliot and Grundel, the new Woodward and Bernstein.”
“Yeah, very funny.”
Damn interfering woman. How could Tess do that? He was giving her everything she wanted, leaving her the story, and she had to give it back to him on a silver platter. Suddenly he saw her as she’d been that first night in her apartment when she, the cub reporter, had challenged him, a seasoned journalist, to that front-page story contest. He shook his head. She’d been challenging him, one way or another, ever since.
A gift on a silver platter? He chuckled softly. Hell, no. This story was another gauntlet slapping him in the face. There were two things in life he simply couldn’t resist. One was a challenge. The other had turned out to be Tess Elliot.
He gazed at the packing in progress and had to sit on the bed, his knees were shaking so badly. He’d almost left. He’d almost run away from the woman he’d been looking for all his life.
He glanced at his watch, calculated deadlines, and started typing.
16
Have you ever felt a longing so fierce, it lives inside you like a howling wind, or a crying child? That’s how…
TESS FELT. Her hands halted above her keyboard, then she lifted her right hand to wipe a tear. That’s how she felt, not how the character in last night’s dismal movie felt. All the elation she’d experienced at yesterday’s meeting had dissipated. She’d rewritten Mike’s story and sent it to his editor, certain that would get him his job back. But she’d heard nothing. Obviously he didn’t want his job back. Or her.
She’d lost her best friend and her lover and…and…
She rose and ran to the bathroom for a tissue. Darn it, the box was empty. She’d plucked it dry of tissues just as she had the one in her bedroom and the extra box she kept in the linen closet. She grabbed a wad of toilet paper and blew her sore nose.
Mike hadn’t been there last night. It was the first movie she’d seen in months without him by her side. The Star had sent a stringer—a snotty freelancer with a degree in film who clearly saw himself as the next Spielberg—not even a real reporter to take Mike’s place. As if anyone could.
She sniffed. Mike was going to hate California.
Maybe he was already there.
She sniffed again. Her review was about as exciting as the damp Kleenex crumpled on her desk. She’d have to work on her article at the office this morning. Not that it mattered.
It was time, as Mike Grundel had so eloquently put it, to move on. She dressed with care and applied extra makeup to hide the puffy eyes and red nose. If she was going to go, she’d go in style.
So, she wore a defiantly perky bright yellow dress and held her head high when she entered the Standard newsroom.
“Hey, great story, Tess,” Steve from sports said.
She smiled at him. Everyone knew Steve wasn’t the brightest bulb. Had he just got around to reading her story about Jennifer Cadman’s engagement party? “Thank you, Steve,” she said, polite as always.
“Good work, hot stuff!” someone else called.
Jonathon Kushner wandered past her desk and shook his head at her. “You and Mikey, huh? I knew he’d fallen for you big-time, but I never would have believed this.”
Feeling more and more dazed, she reached her desk and grabbed a copy of today’s Standard. The banner headline across the top read, “Eagles Win Over Casino” by Tess Elliot and Mike Grundel.
A strange sound escaped her. A combination moan, sigh, gasp and hiccup. She’d written the story for Mike, why had he thrown her gift back in her face? She scanned the first couple of paragraphs and her eyes bugged. This wasn’t the story she’d written. And if she hadn’t written this, then that meant…
“Hey, Tess. Earl wants to see you.”
“Later,” she said. The managing editor would have to wait. Her heart hammered with hope as she grabbed her bag and fled.
Within ten minutes she was at the Star offices, racing up the stairs, hope and dread warring in her chest. She burst into the newsroom and then stopped, hope crashing. Mike’s desk was clean, stripped bare of everything but a phone and a computer. It was as clean as a blank page, an empty apartment, a barren love life.
She took a step back, turning the way she’d come, hoping the tears would hold off until she got to her car, when a familiar voice stopped her.
“Hey, princess. Come see my new office.”
She turned, hardly believing it was him. But it was. Mike, larger than life and twice as cocky, grabbed her hand and pulled her into a small office in one corner of the newsroom. News Editor, it said on the door.
“You didn’t leave?” she said stupidly.
“Couldn’t,” he replied. It was hard to see through the film of her own tears, but his eyes didn’t look quite dry, either. He pulled her to him and she threw her arms around his neck, kissing him for all she was worth.
A ragged cheer went up from the newsroom, and she blushed and giggled, trying to pull away. Mike kept her hand in his. “Staying here was the scariest thing I’ve ever done.” He dragged in a breath. “But I’m about to do something scarier.” He touched her face with his palm and gazed into her eyes. “I love you, Tess.”
She needed to hold him, and he sure looked as though he needed holding, so she threw her arms around him. “I thought I’d never…”
“I never thought I’d say them.” He hugged her tighter, and whispered right into her ear. “There’s more. I want to marry you.”
She pulled back just enough to see his face clearly. “You do?”
“Yeah. That way my name will always come first on double bylines.”
She chuckled shakil. “No it won’t. I’m keeping my own name after we get married.”
“Are you going to write our wedding up in the society page?”
She stopped and stared at him. He stared back. Then he began to laugh, building to a full belly laugh. “Mike Grundel on the damn society page.”
“With his wife, Tess Elliot.”
“Now look, I don’t mind about you keeping your own name, but let’s be reasonable. Why should our double byline always be in alphabetical order?”
“It won’t,” she assured him. “It will be ladies first.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7177-0
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Copyright © 2003 by Nancy Warren.
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