Blake gives me a sideways glance and ventures gently, “You’re really nervous, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why? These are the same people you’ve worked with for years. Well, except for one...” Blake grimaces a bit, and I notice his grip on the steering wheel is becoming more intense. I’m sure he’s thinking about Sarah, the Chronicle’s former managing editor and the reason why I have been on medical leave for the better part of two months. Long story short, our mild-mannered boss Sarah turned out to be a psycho-killer. She had this tangled, evil plan which included killing me to get Blake all to herself, even though he and I weren’t technically dating at the time. She wanted to use him to get her old boyfriend, Jed, back—after having taken care of murdering both Jed’s wife and his former mistress, plus badly burning his current mistress and accidently badly burning him. Unfortunately for Sarah, I didn’t die when she pushed me down a flight of stairs and stabbed me, and Blake figured out what she was doing in time to save me and get her arrested. In hindsight, it was a pretty crappy evil plan. I’m sure she has plenty of time to think about what she could have done differently now that she’s rotting in jail. Bitch.
It’s bad enough that I broke a ton of bones, but the worst part is that Blake feels so responsible. Yes, Sarah intended to kill me to get me out of the way so she could have Blake, but it was only so she could use him to make that cheater Jed jealous. It is totally not Blake’s fault, but he insists on beating himself up about it.
“Don’t do that,” I say, shaking my head.
“Do what?” I know he knows I know what he’s thinking.
“Strangle the steering wheel.” I nod my head toward his hands, which are both completely white-knuckling the wheel.
He looks down and, with an obvious effort, releases his death grip on the steering wheel. “I wasn’t—”
I interrupt, “You know this is why I won’t go out with you until I’m completely healed up.”
Blake has made it abundantly clear that he wants to date me, and nothing would make me happier than to date him. The problem is that he realized he was ready to start a relationship with me after nearly losing me to Sarah’s attempted (and, luckily for me, thwarted) murder. Every time he looks at my injuries, he makes this horribly sad face, his eyes full of pity and anguish. I can’t stand it. I need to know if he wants to be with me because he likes me or if he is confusing his interest in my recovery with actual attraction to me. The only way to find out for sure is for me to be back to normal, with every bandage and brace removed and hopefully forgotten.
“You’re close enough.”
“No, I’m really not.” My broken shoulder still hurts, as opposed to my stabbed shoulder, which is quite a bit better. My broken ribs are only tender if I stretch in a weird way, and the gash on the back of my head has healed nicely. As for my ankle, I think it’s OK—it’s hard to tell if it is sore from the injury or sore from dragging this big-ass boot around. I’m also irritable from the incessant pain. “Can’t you drive any faster? It’s 9:03 now.”
“Wow. You are wound tight today.” Blake flashes me one of his killer smiles and reaches over to squeeze me on the knee. Oh, how I wish he wouldn’t do that. Doesn’t he realize it drives me wild? Knowing him, that’s probably his intent. He gives me a steamy look and says, “You know I could probably help you with that.”
He still has his hand on my knee, which is making me all fluttery on the inside. Being in serious danger of jumping over the gearshift and throwing myself on him, I carefully clear my throat and reply, “Down, boy. You know our deal.”
He sighs dramatically. “I know, I know. Eight weeks.”
“Yep. Eight weeks. I’m not healed yet.”
He looks me slowly up and down. “You look fine to me.”
Blushing slightly, I reply, “Did you miss the giant boot?” I try to lift my booted broken ankle in reference, but there’s not enough room in Blake’s tiny sports car, so I point to it instead. “I’m not making a fashion statement here. Can we change the subject, please?”
“OK. What are you nervous about at work?”
My stomach does a slow flip-flop. “Not a good subject change.”
“If you tell me, I can help you.”
“It’s just…I…I’m worried that people will, like…ask me a bunch of probing questions or something. I haven’t seen most of them since…” I trail off.
“You know I’ve been there practically the whole time you were off, so I’ve fielded most of their probing questions already.”
“And I’m sure the first thing you did was gather everyone around and tell the whole sad story, especially the part where you swooped in and saved the day,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“You know I did. So, thanks to me, everyone knows the whole story, so they should probably leave you alone,” he says as he rolls into the parking lot. “Probably. Are you ready for this?”
I only answer with a grunt as I open the car door and heave my heavy boot out onto the pavement. Blake, ever the gentleman, is already there lending me a hand to help me out. As I steady myself, he grabs my purse and shuts the door. “Wait a sec,” I wince. “I need my crutches.”
He hands me my purse and looks down at me with a frown. “No you don’t. You only use them when you need a crutch.”
“Hence the name ‘crutches’.”
He laughs. “I mean a mental crutch. You can walk just fine without them, and you need to get that through your head.” Before I can object, he makes a face and looks around. “Do you smell that?”
I sniff the thick, humid air. Eww. It smells like dead cat or something. October in Liberty can be every bit as hot and muggy as the middle of summer, and road kill can get pretty ripe on days like this. “Yes. Yuck. Let’s get inside.”
As I hobble through the door, I hear a lot of shush-ing noises. Oh, great. Here we go. Everyone’s already gossiping about me this morning, and now that I’m here they have to act like they’re not. This is exactly what I was afraid of—people in my business. I don’t like it! That’s my thing. I don’t like it when people pry into my personal life, so much so that I apparently have a little commitment problem where relationships are concerned. I tend to pull away when anyone gets too close for comfort, and a similar kind of feeling is overwhelming me now.
As I’m trying to duck my head and make a run (limp) over to my desk, the room erupts in a unison, “Welcome back, Lizzie!”
Gah! I suck in my breath, feeling my heart stop for a second. I look up to see the friendly, smiling faces of my co-workers. So maybe I was being a teensy bit dramatic about worrying over all of the gossip and questioning. My friends gather around me, offering hearty handshakes, gentle hugs, and genuine happiness that I’m better and back at work. I don’t know what I was so worried about!
My best friend, Julia Simmons, gives me a pat on the arm and says, “I’m soooo glad you’re back. I’m tired of having to go to lunch with Hank.” She looks over at our friend Hank Abshire and punches him in the arm.
“Back at ya!” he barks. He turns to me. “Without you around, I’ve been forced to eat the entire fried appetizer platter at Sam’s Tavern all by myself, and this one’s been henpecking me about it worse than the wife!”
I giggle. Julia always henpecks both of us when we eat that heavenly platter at lunch. “Well, I’m happy to be back. Working from home just wasn’t the same without you guys and your bitching.”
Ronald Mason, the Chronicle’s publisher and owner, breaks through our conversation and descends upon me. I almost forgot. This was one of the things I was worried about. He loudly announces, “Lizzie! On behalf of the Chronicle staff, I want to officially welcome you back to work!” He starts clapping loudly in my face. Oh, here we go. Mason’s nice enough, and he’s really bent over backward to make sure any extra expenses I had as a result of my manager putting me in the hospital have been paid so I won’t sue the Chronicle (which I wouldn’t have anyway), but he’s such a blowhard. I have a fe
eling that this is going to be the part where he starts publicly patting himself on the back for something.
He continues, “I have organized a breakfast to celebrate your first day back with us! We are so happy that you are recovered and ready to work. Now you can put what happened behind you and return to normal life. How about a speech?” He looks at me expectantly.
Oh. Shit. I am not a talker. Especially when it comes to talking about myself or anything personal. My heart starts racing, and I can feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I’m sure I have a blank look on my face, because I’m drawing a complete blank on what I would even talk about, if I were to talk, which I have no intention of doing.
Mason puts on a fake smile and presses, “An anecdote, maybe, about working from home? A touching story about your miraculous recovery?”
Oh, hell no. I don’t do anecdotes, and I don’t do touching. And, my recovery was not miraculous—I worked my ass off in therapy to be able to get around as well as I do, which is not really that good! What’s more, when you really get down to it, I was basically recovering from a nasty ass-kicking, which bruised my ego as much as anything. Why would Mason think I would want to share my feelings about it?!?
I look around pleadingly for some help from one of my co-workers, and I find Blake smiling at me. He gives me a wink and says to Mason, “You know Lizzie can’t tell a story to save her life.” He’s right. I can’t.
“Ain’t that the truth,” interjects Hank. Everyone chuckles in agreement.
Blake, with a total deadpan expression, continues, “Why don’t you give the speech, Mr. Mason?”
“Me?” Mason asks, looking around. His entire face beams with a gloating smile. “Well, if you insist…”
He starts droning on, and I immediately tune him out. I mouth, “Thank you,” at Blake, and he gives me a nod.
Surprisingly, Mason doesn’t speechify for long. I hear him shout, “OK, let’s get back to work, people!” Seeing my chance to get out of the crowd, I make a mad dash (slow hobble) to the breakroom.
Once inside I find a breakfast feast like I have never seen before. My co-workers have brought in everything from egg casseroles to fruit salads to coffee cakes. I grab a plate, but before I can begin to dish up, I suddenly lose my appetite.
Standing in the doorway is my work nemesis, Bethany McCool, looking at me all bug-eyed like she does. She saunters in to the breakroom and spits, “Hello, Lizzie.”
I sigh audibly, so not wanting to do this right now. I sneer in my best Seinfeld/Newman anti-greeting, “Hello, Bethany.”
The last time I saw Bethany, or “McUncool” as Hank and I call her, she was tossing a blue drink on my favorite white dress. She has a mega-crush on Blake (like half the women in town), and doused me at a party while I was dancing with him. When I ran to the restroom to wash out the stain (which didn’t work, and the dress is totally unwearable now), she cornered Blake to work her mojo on him. I need to point out that Bethany is easily the most unappealing, mojo-less person I’ve ever met, so it was all for nothing. Blake wants me, and I still have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure I’m not dreaming.
“I saw you made your grand entrance this morning,” she snaps.
Pretending to intently study the selection of muffins on the table, I grunt, “Hmm.”
“Always have to be the center of attention, don’t you?” That is so not true. Maybe if I ignore her she will go away. To my surprise, she abruptly softens her tone and asks, “Are you in a lot of pain?”
Wary of why she suddenly sounds like she cares, I answer, “I was, but I feel much better now. I still have pain, but it’s manageable. Why?”
The beginning of a smirk playing at her lips, Bethany explains, “Because you look like you’re in pain.” Yep. I knew it wasn’t genuine concern I heard in her voice. It was just a lead-in for a dig. She studies my face for a moment and shakes her head, saying, “Lizzie, in the short time you’ve been out you look like you’ve aged ten years.”
Understand why I hate her? She’s bent on accosting me, and unfortunately I won’t be able to walk fast enough to get away from her for at least the next couple of weeks. If I try to hit her, it will probably just hurt my shoulder and quite possibly get me fired. I’m going to have to fight with my words. Right now. And win.
I smile and set my plate down, mostly to ensure I’m not tempted to chuck it at her head. “Bethany, I didn’t take nearly enough painkillers this morning to be able to deal with you. Why don’t you just crawl back into—”
I’m interrupted by Blake bursting into the room, practically shouting, “Hey, there’s my girl!”
Bethany visibly perks up, turning to Blake and squeaking, “Blake! Yes! Here I am!”
Blake ignores her, brushes past her, and walks straight toward me. He grabs me around the waist and nuzzles my ear. What the? Ohhh. A tingle shoots through my entire body at his touch. As much as I’m enjoying it, I can’t help but wonder—what in the hell is he doing? And at work? Bethany is obviously traumatized by this, because she has her mouth hanging open, making strange choking noises.
Blake murmurs, rather loudly, in my ear, “I’ve been looking all over for you,” then gives me a slow, deliberate kiss on the cheek. It’s so hot I think my face may burn off. You know, I’m starting to think my plan of waiting to go out with Blake until I’m healed is a really stupid one. The kiss must have sent Bethany over the edge, because she throws her hands up in the air and runs screaming from the room.
Blake, his arms still around my waist, whispers in my ear, “I think it worked.”
I’m a little too far into my second Blake-coma of the day to snap out of it this time. The sensation of his kiss has still not worn off my cheek, and it left me wanting more. Should I give into my urges or keep playing it safe to make sure I keep my heart from getting broken?
Before I have more time to think about it, Blake shakes me and says, “I said, ‘I think it worked’.”
I turn my head toward him, my face inches from his. I’m still a little light-headed and fuzzy from before. “Uh...what worked?” I ask.
Cocking his head to the side, he squints at me and explains, “I overheard your conversation with McCool. It sounded like you could use a little help.”
Oh! That’s what he was doing! I get it now. Blake knows Bethany has a thing for him, evidenced through the fact that she is known to stalk him on occasion. He was rescuing me from getting into a screaming match with her, which was most likely where we were headed. That’s just another one of the million things I like about Blake—he’s always looking out for me, even on the little stuff. It irked me at first, me being a firm believer in girl power, but nearly getting myself killed made me kind of OK with his blatant interest in my wellbeing.
I smile. “Thanks for saving me.”
He smiles back and lets go of me, heading for the door. He shrugs and says, “Eh, it’s part of my job.”
Ugh. I’m drained. This morning was more drama than I’ve had in the past few weeks put together. I hastily fill my plate with breakfast goodness and drag myself to my desk as quickly as my poor body will allow. I’m so happy I decided to work from home for a while to get back into the swing of things before I came back to work full-time. Here at the Chronicle we produce a newspaper daily, so we have some strict deadlines to meet, sometimes creating tension in the office when we get behind schedule. Being the copy editor, I don’t get the articles until they’re finished and ready for the next day’s edition. So, if the reporters get their articles to me late, that means I’m late getting them sent to print (or in the case of a controversial article, to the managing editor for final approval) and we all get into trouble. When I was working from home, I didn’t have my full workload. Julia was doing most of the last-minute editing jobs, so I haven’t had to deal with the usual stress of my job. As I log onto my computer, I’m a little apprehensive as to what today will bring and whether I’m mentally and physically ready to dive back into my life.
&n
bsp; ***
I’m able to get back into the groove pretty easily, especially since mornings are normally quiet and I don’t have a ton of copy yet to go through. The town news has gone back to being a snoozefest after the whole Sarah thing this summer. Sometimes I get so bored reading these articles I could bang my head against the wall. I’m in the middle of editing one of Blake’s pieces, this one about the upcoming election next month. Yawn. Don’t get me wrong—Blake is a fantastic writer. He used to be a pretty well-known reporter in Chicago before he came to Liberty to take care of his ailing grandfather’s estate and holdings. He can make even the boring news around here interesting just by the way he strings his words together. Brilliant as he is, he can’t spell worth a crap, and he either can’t or won’t use spell check (he says I’m a human spell check so why does it matter) so it often takes me a little longer on his articles to get them corrected.
I’m interrupted by what sounds like an elephant stampeding down the stairs near the back of our office. Alan from the Circulation Department upstairs bursts into the room, panting and screaming, “You guys! You guys! Upstairs! On the roof!”
“Slow down, Alan,” Hank says, getting up from his desk. “What’s going on up there? Is someone hurt?”
Alan swallows loudly, white as a sheet. “I think he might be…dead.”
Dead. As in there’s a dead body on the roof of my workplace. Aww, shit. Here we go again.
Read the rest of That Old Black Magic—get it here!
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Death Before Decaf
A Java Jive Mystery
USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Caroline Fardig’s captivating mystery novel takes readers behind the counter of a seemingly run-of-the-mill coffeehouse . . . where murder is brewing.
It's Just a Little Crush Page 24