The Woman in the News

by K. N. Casper

  “Whether I should even stay in this business. The past four months have taught me it’s an insecure source of livelihood.”

  “No argument there, but then, most jobs these days are unpredictable in the long run. The deciding factor is whether you like what you’re doing and if you’re good at it.” He tweezered a braised shrimp. “I can vouch for the fact that you’re good at what you do. Based on that, I’d say you enjoy it, but that’s something only you can decide.”

  “You used be a newscaster. Do you miss going on the air?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug. “Sometimes, but after ten years I found I wasn’t really in love with it anymore. I’m much happier behind the scenes in management.”

  She dipped a sushi roll into green wasabi mustard. “If you weren’t in the business, what would you want to do?”

  “I’ve asked myself that a few times. I think I might like to be an agent, a headhunter for media personalities.”

  “So you’d still want to be associated with the industry.”

  He nodded. “I guess it’s in my blood, for better or for worse.”

  While she sipped her green tea, he wrapped thin rice filo around a piece of chicken and a stalk of green onion.

  “Tomorrow is Saturday. Do you have any plans?” he asked.

  She glanced over at him, then smiled. “Critically important matters like laundry and grocery shopping. The larder is practically bare.”

  “Would you like to go sailing with me?”

  Her smile broadened.

  His pulse accelerated. “I thought we might go out on the lake for a couple of hours, then fix something at my place.”

  “Steak again?”

  He couldn’t decide if she was teasing him, if she wanted another steak, or if she was saying she didn’t.

  “Or chicken. Pork chops? Lamb chops? You name it.”

  “You cooked last time,” she finally said, after making him squirm. “I’ll bring the vittles.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MARLEE LAY AWAKE half the night, thinking about her sailing date with Renn the next day. Their relationship had certainly changed over the past three months, from mild hostility to compassion to conspiratorial alliance to a kiss—and now on to something more. The question was how much more. He’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in love and marriage—not with her, at least.

  She shot up in bed. Love and marriage? Where had that notion come from? If there was one thing they completely agreed on, it was that their profession didn’t lend itself to happy children and a contented family life.

  She thought, too, about the dilemma she was facing. Hang on and tough it out at KNCS-TV or move on. Fight or flee.

  She wasn’t happy with the thought of leaving Coyote Springs, though initially she hadn’t been thrilled at the prospect of returning to her hometown, either. She could have stayed in Austin and worked her way up, though it would have taken time. The major incentive for rejecting offers from several stations in slightly larger markets had been the opportunity to work with Clark. Now he was gone, yet she was reluctant to relocate. Maybe because Coyote Springs was familiar territory, and Audrey was here. Or maybe she still harbored hopes of getting the sports anchor job. She might even be entertaining a latent wish that her parents would come to appreciate her success.

  KNCS-TV was a stepping-stone, she reminded herself, not a destination. She had no desire to homestead and stagnate.

  Was that what Clark had done? He could have gone on to much bigger markets, advanced to the national scene, earned several times more money than he was making here. But he’d shunned those opportunities. When KNCS offered him his last contract, he’d already had a better offer from a station in Dallas. She’d asked him why he’d turned it down. His answer had been so prosaic it had stunned and baffled her: he was happy where he was; he was making enough money to provide for the people he loved; Coyote Springs was a good place to bring up a family.

  What about ambition? she’d asked. His response had seemed simplistic. He strove every day to do his best. Whether it was in Coyote Springs or Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco or New York, made no difference. Geography and money weren’t important.

  She’d loved and respected Clark, but on this issue she had disagreed with him. Moving up, making money, living better, being recognized by a bigger and wider audience were important, at least to her.

  Yet now she found herself hesitating about leaving KNCS-TV and Coyote Springs, and she was afraid the reason had nothing to do with her job.

  She punched down her pillow, trying to find a position that would allow her to drift off into dreamless slumber. But sleep didn’t come. She pictured Renn Davis. In casual clothes. In a tuxedo. In shorts and a tank top. She saw his frown of concentration, his smile of encouragement, the wistful, almost prayerful expression that came into his eyes when he’d bowed his head and kissed her.

  She couldn’t say the first kiss had caught her completely by surprise. She’d been conscious of him studying her for a while, but she hadn’t been prepared for the tingling inside her when his lips met hers. The second kiss had given her time to think, to anticipate. A moan had escaped nevertheless when his mouth brushed hers. But it was the last evening’s kiss, and the silky sensation that rippled through her when he’d slid his tongue between her teeth, that was making her restless and conjuring up fantasies of his arms around her, of floating in his grip, of devouring and being devoured by him.

  RENN LAY IN BED, his hands clasped behind his head, and wondered what it would be like to come home every evening to a woman who intrigued and fascinated him at every turn. He had almost married once, but his engagement to Pamela had ended in tragedy. A few years later he’d had a live-in girlfriend, but that experiment had lasted hardly a month before he’d craved privacy. He’d concluded he wasn’t meant for the married life, even if he could find a woman he loved. He certainly hadn’t loved Tina. He’d liked her well enough. He’d enjoyed her company until he felt trapped by it. They’d definitely been compatible in bed, but even there, he’d come to realize, something had been missing. Not sensually, but emotionally.

  Which brought him now to Marlee. What made her different? He didn’t know. They had things in common. The wrong things. A dysfunctional family background, and a profession that inevitably strained and broke relationships.

  He admired her competence, her drive and ambition, her willingness to take chances, but he’d met other people, other women, who fit that pattern. Those same virtues could be said to describe Faye Warren, as well, though the two women were studies in contrasts. What made Marlee Reid so unique that he found himself intrigued by the idea of coming home to her?

  He flipped onto his side. Whatever the allure, he had better get over it. Inviting her to go sailing with him had been a mistake. In the loneliness of his bed, his mind and body were turned on by remembrances of the glow of welcome and acceptance he’d glimpsed when he’d bent to kiss her, the soft moan of pleasure when he’d parted her lips, the taste of her and the hot spike of arousal that had resulted when her tongue met his.

  He could hear her laughter when they talked, feel long-dormant cravings stirring when she touched him. His mind floated, whirled, when her scent invaded his nostrils.

  Pamela had bewitched him, but she’d never kept him tossing and turning in abject torment into the wee hours of the morning the way Marlee did.

  What would it be like to come home to Marlee every evening? As the sky in the east tinted with light, he rolled over again and waited for an answer.

  HAVING TAKEN so long to finally fall asleep, Marlee rose late, fixed herself a cup of coffee, compiled a list and went grocery shopping. Renn said he liked spaghetti; she decided to make lasagna. She bought the ingredients, assembled the cheese-rich pasta dish and placed it unbaked in the refrigerator. While she did several loads of laundry, she set about her other chores. She’d grown up in a house with servants. Her mother had always considered dusting and mopping beneat
h her and had never taught her daughter to regard them any other way. Sharing an apartment in college with a girlfriend had changed all that. Remarkably, she found she really didn’t mind the minor drudgery. Not that she was about to challenge Heloise or Martha Stewart. Her two-bedroom apartment was neat and clean, but it wasn’t immaculate. It was comfortable, but hardly a showplace.

  Her thoughts kept revolving around what Renn had said about the instability of the television business. The job was decidedly high stress and extremely competitive, which was part of its allure. Each story brought an adrenaline rush. Was this the big one? The one that would establish her name, make her famous? Even disappointment when it wasn’t motivated her to keep charging forward.

  The thrill of being in the public eye wasn’t all vanity. Well, maybe it was for Taggart, but Marlee saw it as affording her an opportunity to accomplish things she couldn’t do in less prominent roles. Look at what Clark had achieved with his celebrity. Alegre was a living testament to the goodness of his life. She wanted to have something to leave behind, too. If not children, then something.

  She’d dreamed of having kids, once. A part of her still did. But the rational side of her brain said it wasn’t likely to happen. Love and marriage weren’t compatible with professional success. She didn’t imagine her chances of emulating Clark and Audrey were very high, especially since professionally she wanted more than what Coyote Springs and KNCS-TV had to offer.

  As she drove out to the lake, her stomach began to growl. She’d grabbed a piece of toast with her second cup of coffee, which obviously wasn’t enough. She glanced over at the covered roasting pan of unbaked lasagna on the seat beside her. They wouldn’t be digging into it for another three or four hours at least. Had Renn eaten lunch?

  She decided to stop off at the Grocery Emporium and pick up snacks they could munch out on the water. Her stomach growled again. If she could wait that long.

  In the deli section she purchased paper-thin slices of prosciutto, a round of smoked Gouda, water wafers and a tin of Greek olives. From the produce department she selected black seedless grapes, a bunch of icicle radishes and a couple of plump Anjou pears. On an impulse, she also snagged a bag of salty corn chips and a jar of spicy green salsa. If Renn’s tastes were markedly different from hers, she’d soon find out.

  Turning into his driveway, she caught a glimpse of him down on his boat. She shut off the engine, retrieved the casserole from the passenger seat and the plastic bag of groceries from the floor, then headed for the back door. She nearly tripped on a garden hose stretched across the redbrick path because her eyes were riveted on Renn climbing out of the car.

  He was wearing wine-red shorts and a sapphire-blue T-shirt. The afternoon sun cast tantalizing shadows on his sports attire, emphasized his lean muscles, set off the broad width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his hips. She deposited her burden on the glass-topped patio table and turned back toward the lake. He was trotting toward her, his long legs flexing in the bright sun.

  “Hi,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I was beginning to worry.”

  They’d agreed on three o’clock. She’d checked the dashboard clock on her arrival and was pleased to see she was only fifteen minutes off her schedule. Her heart lifted a little to know he’d been worried she might not show up.

  “I stopped off to get some nibbles,” she explained. The warmth of his smile sent her pulse racing.

  “You’re a saint.” His gaze never left hers. “I think my pantry’s down to peanut butter and popcorn.” He grinned sheepishly.

  “Might make an interesting combination.”

  He opened the back door and turned to relieve her of the film-covered pan of lasagna. Their fingers touched briefly. She hung on to the grocery bag and followed him into the kitchen.

  “Looks great,” he said. She assumed he was referring to the casserole in his hands, but his eyes were fixed on her.

  “For tonight,” she explained, and opened the refrigerator door. She could feel him watching as she bent to rearrange the contents on the middle shelf. “Just put it in there,” she said, straightening up.

  What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, she decided, and felt a ping of excitement as she studied the compact curve of his narrow buttocks and the cable-hard lines of his muscular thighs when he slipped their dinner into the designated space.

  Her words ran together when she began to list the things she’d bought. He heartily approved of her selections and added them to the chest he’d already stocked with ice and soft drinks.

  “No lake wind advisories in the forecast for today,” he assured her. They headed toward the dock, the cooler suspended between them. The surface of the water was wrinkled rather than rippled, the air sweet and warm.

  Renn had already raised the mast on the catamaran. Marlee stood by, captivated by his strong arms and broad back as he hoisted the sail. An indefinable something she wasn’t yet willing to name—was it merely lust?—pulsed inside her with the rhythm of his muscles bunching and releasing, bunching and releasing.

  When he turned to face her, she forced herself to tear her eyes away and concentrate on the horizon. The pale hues of early spring had matured to a deeper green. Budding trees and bushes, still shiny leafed, fluttered in the lazy breeze.

  Renn tuned in a light-rock station on the radio. They glided away from the dock onto the silvery lake; they drifted in silence with the wind. The sun played over their bodies. He studied her, contemplated the smooth curves of her long legs, the subtly alluring musculature of her arms, the way her shoulders straightened when she was deep in thought.

  He caught the light southern breeze. They skimmed along the shorefront, dotted with houses that ranged from opulent brick-and-stone mansions to simple clapboard bungalows. Weekend anglers, dipping their poles for catfish and crappie, waved to them, so did kids and their parents engaged in land and water sports on green lawns and sun-bleached docks.

  He enjoyed the sense of freedom sailing gave him and took added pleasure in his view of Marlee in her modest two-piece bathing suit. When she started to apply sunscreen to her arms and legs, he locked the tiller, setting them on a lazy course to nowhere in particular, closed the distance between them and held out his hand for the plastic bottle of lotion.

  “I’ll do your back,” he said, hungry for the feel of her skin under his palm.

  She gazed at him. Her tongue swept across her upper lip. “Thanks.” She passed the sunscreen to him and spun around.

  He stroked her shoulders, the base of her neck, the bare planes of her naked back. He imagined unclasping her top, releasing her breasts, his hands encircling her from behind to caress their heavy warmth.

  “Do you want to go swimming?” he asked when he was finished.

  She sat down on the edge of the boat and dipped a toe into the water. “It’s pretty cold yet.”

  He wasn’t sure even an iceberg could cool the fire inside him.

  “Besides,” she said. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

  Over the next hour, they nibbled on fruit, hard-cured ham, salty olives, crunchy radishes and washed them all down with chilled bottled water. When she bit into a pear, juice dribbled down her chin. Renn reached out and with the pad of his thumb brushed it away. She clasped his wrist and licked the tip of his finger.

  “Sweet,” she said.

  His breathing hitched, his jaw sagged and his entire body went on red alert. “Come here,” he croaked out, patting the bench next to him.

  Smiling, she settled beside him. He draped his arm across her shoulders. “We should have gone sailing a long time ago,” he murmured, and swiveled enough to brush her lips with his. She angled her head to accommodate him. He deepened the kiss. She responded, her hands coming up and bracketing his jaw.

  Whistles and cheers from a passing boat brought them up for air. Neither of them seemed to know what to say, so they did the second best thing. They kissed each other with their eyes.

  They’d reac
hed the north end of the lake and had to turn around. He called out that he would be reversing course and would have instructed her to lean out of the way of the heavy sail as it reversed its orientation to the wind, but she’d already grabbed a line and was stretched over the side of the craft to counterbalance the shift in weight. The sweep and glide of the graceful craft, the view of Marlee’s strong young body suspended before him took his breath away and sent his testosterone level soaring.

  “Where’d you learn to sail?” he asked, when she rejoined him at the tiller, sitting not as close as before, but close enough to make him shaky with the desire to reach out, touch—and taste.

  “Right here.” She threw back her head so the wind caught her loose hair. “My father’s always had boats. He taught me how to swim while I was still a toddler and to waterski when I was in elementary school. It was the only time he ever felt like a daddy to me.”

  “What changed that?” He didn’t care about her father.

  She shrugged lethargically. “For a long time I thought I must have done something wrong. Eventually, I realized the flaw was his, not mine.”

  A rare bit of wisdom, but it didn’t make the pain of feeling abandoned any easier to bear. “Does your mother sail?”

  She gazed at the placid lake. “Mom’s very good at sunbathing and sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them. She prefers to do it on solid ground, however. The yacht they bought may change that, I suppose.”

  The wind picked up. Marlee laughed with childish delight as they tacked and yawed against the blast.

  “Do you want to go in?” he asked, when his house came into view.

  “Not unless you do,” she shouted back. “This is too much fun.”

  He agreed. The Calico raced past his dock, toward the channel that connected Big Coyote and Little Coyote lakes. They sailed its perimeter and skimmed at full tilt back through the narrow passage. Once returned to the larger body of water, he trimmed the sail and slowed their progress.

  The sun was lowering now in the cloudless sky. They’d been out on the water more than four hours. Navigating on the lake at night was no problem. The rising moon was big, full and yellow. Shore lights were plentiful, especially on weekends.