Christie's voice sounded carefully neutral. "What do you suggest?"
"I know a good repair shop in town. We can leave your car there, drop a key through the slot in the door and have them working on it tomorrow morning." Silence. He reiterated, "You can't drive this car over the hill. It's not safe."
Her hands were clenched on the wheel. "So how do I-',
Here was where it got tricky. "Well," he said, "I, for one, think better on a full stomach. Why don't we get a bite to eat?"
Silence. Except for the two cars idling in the background.
"Look," he said. "I know this is awkward. But I'm starved, and it'll give us a chance to sort this out."
Christie looked at him directly for the first time since this debacle started. Those pretty hazel eyes were still full of frustration, but at least not all of it seemed to be directed at him. "Rick, you don't have to do this."
He couldn't always read women very well, but at the moment, Christie was coming in loud and clear. She was stranded, a damsel in distress. And it galled the heck out of her.
He respected that need for independence, but somehow, it made him want to take care of her, too. A little warning bell sounded in the back of Rick's mind. He ignored it for the moment. The situation was getting touchy, but there were certain things he just wouldn't do. Leaving Christie stuck in an untrustworthy car was one of them.
"Look at it this way," he told her. "I was about to go home to microwave dinner-in-a-box. You're rescuing me.
"But. . ." She was running out of arguments.
"Besides," he said, "I've never known a woman yet who could resist Chinese food." He knew of a place nearby. It was brightly lit, and platonic.
At last, Christie relented. "Okay."
The restaurant was just a few blocks from the station and looked as if it had been there for at least twenty years. Most of the tables were empty, not surprisingly; it was a quarter to nine. By Christie's calculations, she had a little over two hours to fill before she could reasonably escape back to the station to do her commercials, and then her air shift.
She was still smarting from the meeting in Rick's office. Now she was also squirming over the new sit uation she found herself in. The drive to the restaurant, at least, had been fairly painless. It seemed as if the farther Rick got from the station, the less-well, managerial-he became. But Christie couldn't afford to forget he was the boss. This night had already taken enough twists as it was.
"I imagine they'll have your car ready by early afternoon," Rick said as the waitress brought their food. "I'll give Sid a call in the morning."
"You know them there?"
He grinned. "Intimately." He spooned rice onto his plate. "You should have seen what I was driving a year ago. I was over there almost every other week. I practically had my own parking space."
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah. But the car I drove when I first started in radio was worse." He shook his head, pleasant crinkles showing at the corners of his eyes. "The ugliest green rust bucket you ever saw."
Christie looked up from her cashew chicken, intrigued. It was hard to imagine this was the same man who'd trashed her idea so soundly a little while ago. His whole demeanor had warmed up about ten degrees sometime in the last hour. She had the feeling of some door being opened a little crack, and decided to try for a peek inside. "How did you get started in radio?"
"You could say I stumbled in." Rick gave the contents of his plate a light dousing of soy sauce. "I was in college. A music major. But for one of my electives, I signed up for the school paper. One of my first assignments was a story on the campus radio station. I wound up quitting the paper and joining the station. A year later, I got a full-time gig in Fresno and quit school." His smile glinted across the table, and he nodded at her. "Overnights."
"You left college to do overnights in Fresno?" It didn't fit her impression of him. He was too straightlaced, too well-ordered. The only male at the station, outside of sales or upper management, who wore shirts that buttoned down the front.
He nodded. "I told you, it's an addiction. There was no reasoning with me. For actors, they say it's the smell of greasepaint. For me, I guess it was the music and the microphone."
"So how long did it take before you were doing nights in L.A.?"
Rick's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. His eyes shifted away, as if he'd been caught at something. "How did you know that?"
"I heard you. I went to UCLA."
"And you remembered?" He looked flattered, she thought, and a little self-conscious. Then a new expression crossed his face-one of mock horror. "And you were still in college?" He clutched at his chest. "Oh, the pain."
"What's the big deal? That was only-" she hesitated-"five or six years ago."
Rick narrowed his eyes at her. "You're not making it any better."
"Oh, come on! How old would you have been then?"
"Watch it," he warned.
"I'd say right now you're about-"
"Careful," he said. "No buttering up the boss."
Uh-oh. Now she didn't dare guess too low. She took a guess and added a year for credibility. "Thirty-four?"
"Thirty-three," he shot back, then grinned. "Anyway, I don't think it's legal for you to ask me that."
Christie did the math. He was seven years older than she was. Or, six years and change. Not that it mattered. "So, when you were in L.A., you were about twentyeight. Two years older than me." She poked at her food. "I've got some catching up to do."
"Watch out for that brass ring," he said. "When you're aiming for that, it's easy to fall."
She met his eyes. He didn't seem to be joking. She'd wandered very close to something here, and she wasn't sure how hard to press. Curiosity won out. "What happened? You disappeared somewhere during my junior year."
His glance drifted away. Long, slim fingers ran up and down the side of his water glass. "I disappeared, all right."
She'd stepped on shaky ground. "Oh. Was that when ..."
"When the marriage blew up," he said matter-offactly. "I dropped off the radar for about a year after that." He ran a hand through his hair and straightened in his chair. Christie sensed that door closing. "Then I came here. Happy ending." He slapped his hand on the tabletop, as if to adjourn the subject. "Now, you, I'm still trying to figure out."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for one thing, you finished college, unlike me. And you seem sane enough. What made you want to go into radio?"
Back to that again. This time it wasn't a job interview question, but Christie still found she had to watch her answer. He didn't need to know what a mouse she'd been, or how invisible she'd felt. Six-foot-two males never needed to worry about disappearing. She bit her lip. "Well, if you stumbled in, I guess I groped my way in. I told you before, the loan business bored me to tears. I wanted something I could care about, and I've always loved music."
"I noticed. You're always singing up and down the hall like the happy sailors in one of those old MGM movies."
She felt herself blush. "I try to keep it down."
"I know. That makes it worse." Rick's eyes gleamed. "You walk past my door, I miss a line, and for the rest of the day I've got a song in my head I can't figure out. You know that's torture." She laughed at his mock exasperation. She'd known he had a sense of humor, but usually it was dry and acerbic. He'd lightened somehow tonight, and Christie found it dangerously appealing. "I never know what I'm going to hear out of you," he said. "What in the world do you listen to at home?"
"Oh, rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues, country, Frank Sinatra, a little classical. Stuff like that."
"Stuff like that," he echoed.
"And current music, too. But that, I can get in my car."
He was contemplating her with one of those hardto-read looks. "Wherever you go, make sure they know you like a broad base of music. It could keep you alive if there's a format change. That, and your production skills."
Christie flinched inwardly. She didn
't like to hear him talk about her going anywhere.
The high-pitched ring of a cellular phone interrupted them, and Rick fished in the pocket of his jacket. Christie hadn't realized he carried a cell phone. She listened with growing suspicion as he took the call. Most of his answers were monosyllabic, but she was getting the gist of it.
"Okay, thanks anyway," he said. "I'll try you next time."
Rick flipped his cell phone shut, took one look at Christie's face, and got ready for the coming argument. He knew he'd postponed it as long as he could.
"What was that about?" she asked.
"One of our part-timers," he said casually, pocketing the phone. "I did some calling around after we ordered, trying to get hold of someone to fill your shift tonight."
Here it came. Part two of the debate that had started in the parking structure. "Rick, you don't have to do that. I'm already here."
"No, think about it." Rick tried once more to make her see reason. "I can drop you off at the station. But who's going to run you home at 6 A.M.? I can take you after we're done with dinner, and you can get a ride back during the day tomorrow, after your car's ready."
He'd expected her to argue. He hadn't expected her to look as if he'd offered to give her a root canal using his own personal power tools. "No," she said. "I can work tonight. I'll get a ride in the morning." Christie frowned. "Where did you make the calls, anyway? From the men's room?"
"No, I stepped outside."
"Why?"
"For some reason, I thought you might argue with me about it."
"You were right."
"I see that. But seriously. What are you going to do?"
She bit her lip. "I've got a neighbor across the hall. I'll call in the morning, around seven, and ask her to pick me up. She's always around town on sales calls. She'll be able to work me in."
"That still leaves you stuck for at least two hours." He wasn't comfortable with it, but he was also aware that his phone wasn't ringing. Without a substitute for her shift tonight, the whole discussion would be irrelevant anyway.
"It's okay," she said. "Really. You've been too nice already."
"Too nice?" He gave up and shook his head. "You must have me confused with someone else."
None of the part-timers materialized to fill in for Christie at the last minute, so Rick resigned himself to that lost battle. Instead, they moved on to Starbuck's for coffee when the Chinese restaurant closed at ten. Another hour went by rapidly, filled with talk that moved on from music to life in general. In spite of its awkward beginning, he couldn't remember en joying an evening so much in a long time. Before he knew it, it was time to take Christie to the station.
There was no need to bother with the parking structure this time. Rick pulled up to the curb across from the entrance to the studio. He shut off the engine, ready to walk her to the door, but she stopped him. "You don't have to get out. It's right over there."
He supposed she was right. It wasn't like this was a date, after all. At least it shouldn't be.
But she wasn't getting out yet, and it was getting harder to remember just where this relationship was supposed to leave off. Did she feel it too? If she did, they were both in trouble. Christie smiled, her hand resting on the door. A safety latch? "Rick-this was nice of you. Really. Thanks."
"No problem." It would have been the most natural thing in the world to reach over, put his arm around her, even just squeeze her hand. But company policy frowned on doing what came naturally, at least with employees. It was a policy Rick had always agreed with. So he kept both hands on the steering wheel.
"See you tomorrow." Christie pulled the handle on the door, on her way to spend several hours alone in an empty building.
Before she could get out, he said, "Christie?"
She turned back, and their eyes met under the car's interior dome light. Rick silently sucked in his breath. "About overnights. Don't worry about what I said. No one does them for too long."
"You said there wasn't much turnover here," she reminded him.
"Which means one of these days you'll bail out on me." He said it lightly, but he didn't like the taste of the words. "Or, after you've been here long enough, Rob could get hit by a bus."
She laughed, then added hastily, "Don't say that. I don't want to wish anything bad on anybody." Christie glanced at the window of the studio, where Rob was. "Maybe his rich uncle could die and leave him a fortune."
"Oh? Pretty tough on the uncle."
She tilted her head, as though considering. "His rich, evil uncle."
He laughed, and then she was out of the car.
Christie couldn't shake a pleasant, lighthearted feeling as she walked into the studio. At the sight of Rob, she had a hard time keeping a straight face. She should tell him to watch out for buses. In spite of her efforts, a smile cracked through.
Rob saw it. "Okay. What's so funny?"
"Nothing." Christie moved past him as they traded sides of the counter.
"Uh-oh." Rob bent down to peer at her face. "If you say `nothing,' it must be me. What is it? Spaghetti on my shirt? Toilet paper on my shoe?"
She shook her head and waved him away.
"Laughing at me," he muttered in feigned paranoia. "I knew it all along. If you weren't so pretty-"
"You'd what?" she challenged him. In the past few weeks, getting hit on by Rob had become as much a part of her night as plugging in her headphones. But he was too good-natured to be offensive, and there was no pressure behind it. "Tell me the truth, Rob. If I ever came after you, I'll bet you'd run away screaming."
He propped his hands on the counter and leaned over the control board. "Try me."
Maybe in high school. Not now. "Dream on." A light bulb of inspiration flashed in Christie's mind. A way of answering a question she didn't dare ask outright. "It's probably against company policy, anyway."
"Only if I was your supervisor. Or the other way around." He opened the door to leave. "So watch out."
After Rob left, Christie stared at the window blinds. In her mind, she saw past the window, to the curb where Rick's car had pulled away a few minutes ago.
That answered that question.
4 1 just don't know what I'm doing wrong," Christie said to Yvonne. "I try so hard to catch his eye, but he just doesn't seem to notice me any more."
"I know how you feel," Yvonne said. "I had the same problem with my boyfriend a few months ago. Our romance was going nowhere! Then I went to the beauty experts at Sensational Salon, and they gave me a total makeover." A smug giggle. "He's been all over me ever since."
"Shensational-oh, rats, I did it again." Christie dropped the commercial script to her side with an exasperated sigh. "Sorry, I keep tripping over the name. Who wrote this schlock, anyway?"
Standing in front of the production room's other microphone, Yvonne rolled her eyes in agreement. "Sales rep, probably. Or worse, the owner of the business."
"Sensational Salon." Christie forced her mouth around it, one syllable at a time. "I hope no one I know ever hears this."
"It could be worse. I did a commercial one time for some PMS remedy." Yvonne turned back to the microphone and said brightly: "Hi! My name is Yvonne Reyes, and I used to kill people on a monthly basis."
Christie laughed. "Hi!" she chirped into her own microphone. "My name is Christie Becker, and I used to be a hag."
Both of them broke down laughing, and the production room door opened. Rick leaned halfway in, his hand still on the doorknob. "Yvonne," he said, not waiting for their laughter to subside. Yvonne pulled her headphones down around her neck. "You've still got music logs to do, right?"
"Right."
Rick turned to Christie. "I'm shorthanded on news. Can I see you in the studio as soon as you're done recording this spot?"
Christie's eyes widened in alarm. She gave the only answer she could under the circumstances: "Sure."
Rick was gone, and the door closed behind him, before she could say anything else.
; Yvonne stared at the door. "I wonder what happened to Jonathan."
Jonathan Blair did the morning and late afternoon newscasts, as well as a two-hour air shift to fill the gap between Yvonne and Rick. "It must have been fast," Christie said. "He was on the air an hour ago." She held a hand to her suddenly-clenched stomach. "Oh, boy."
"You okay?" Yvonne studied her. "They taught you news at broadcasting school, right?"
"A couple of hours worth of class time. It's been a while."
"I've never seen you this nervous."
Christie grimaced. "You've never seen me when I'm about to talk for three minutes straight. In front of Rick."
"You'll do fine. He doesn't bite. Haven't you figured that out yet?"
Christie smiled weakly. Her dealings with Rick were more relaxed since he'd rescued her last week, but the thought of doing the news in front of him still rattled her. For this job, she would have cheerfully agreed to juggle knives. It was just her luck that Rick needed her, at a moment's notice, to do something she had almost no training in.
She finished recording the hideous commercial with Yvonne, then went off to the studio to meet her fate.
"Emergency?" she asked Rick, trying to borrow some of the phony cheer from the commercial she'd just finished cutting.
"And how." Rick circled the counter and led her down the hall. As they passed the production room, he leaned in once more, barely breaking his stride. "Yvonne? Cue the next couple of songs for me in the studio, okay?"
Christie could only assume Yvonne nodded. There wasn't any time to glance into the production room as Rick herded her down the hall. "I'm going to have to run through this really quick," he told her. "The first news break is twenty-five minutes from now. Nothing like a little pressure, huh?"
He led her into the tiny newsroom that neighbored the studio. There was barely enough room for the desk, which was crowded with a computer, printer and telephone. A microphone was mounted onto the edge of the desk. "You won't be using that," Rick said. "It's been dead for I don't know how long. We do the news from the guest microphone in the studio. It works better if we're face-to-face anyway."
Love on the Air Page 5