Causing A Commotion

by Lynn, Janice

  The man shrugged. “It’s more likely that something snagged the cord.”

  “I’ve never noticed a rough spot in the past.”

  The man gave him a so what look.

  “When was the last time this was checked?”

  The other guy frowned. “Routine maintenance is monthly, but it could have been overlooked.”

  “What would have rubbed against this, or snagged it, to strip the coating off the wires?” Colin knew the answer. Nothing.

  Both men looked perplexed. “Beats us.”

  Jessie grabbed his arm, drawing his attention. “Let it go. It was an accident. It’s not like they frayed the wire.”

  Her eyes met his and Colin looked away, unwilling for her to read his thoughts.

  Someone had frayed the wire. He was sure of it.

  * * *

  “Mr. Smith, I just have to tell you how moved I was when I read your writing,” Jessie cooed to the beaming, skinny man who made Colin think of Ichabod Crane, right down to the thin ponytail tied with a ribbon. “Tell us about the writing contest you won.”

  The high-cheeked man blushed under Jessie’s attention, but managed to throw the words together to tell about the erotic literary contest he’d won. The piece Colin had fought to keep off his show.

  Only this wasn’t his show any more.

  Not in any shape form or fashion.

  And as much as he wanted his old, safe show back, not like what happened today. What idiot frayed those wires? The thought they’d been intentionally stripped sent his blood pressure through the roof.

  Marian had come to him to get rid of Jessie, had she grown impatient and hired someone to do the job in a more permanent way?

  “Colin?”

  He blinked at Jessie, cursing his stupidity for getting lost in his own thoughts rather than pay attention to their guest. How was she remaining so calm? She’d almost been killed. He’d have expected her to play the accident for all it was worth, work it to her advantage. “Yes?”

  “Yes, you’ll read an excerpt from Mr. Smith’s The Blooming Rose? Oh, goody.” Her eyes lit, and she rubbed her hands together.

  Him? Read that pornography on television? “I think you’d do Mr. Smith’s prose more justice than I.”

  “Oh, please do.” Ichabod took Jessie’s hand. “I’d love to hear The Blooming Rose spilling like a drop of dew from your petal-like lips.”

  He just bet the guy would. Colin rolled his eyes. The purple-prosed pervert.

  Jessie giggled. “Okay, so maybe I would do a better job at reading erotic poetry than Colin, but come on, admit it, ladies,” Jessie winked at the camera conspiratorially, “yummy Colin reading erotic poetry was worth trying for, now wasn’t it?”

  Yummy Colin? The electricity had fried her brain. Why anyone would want to hear him read erotic poetry he couldn’t fathom.

  “Like the softest rose petal,” Jessie began to read from the paperback she held, “her skin lured me with its softness, urging me to stroke my fingertip over the silky smoothness, urging me to bring her bud to full bloom.”

  She looked up, met Colin’s gaze, then read more. He decided right then and there that he’d been wrong about Ichabod and his talents. Or perhaps it was the way Jessie’s sultry voice caressed each word the man had written and made it feel as if she were a part of the story, as if she were the blooming rose.

  Tension filled the studio. A tension Colin could almost wrap his fist around. A tension that twisted itself in his gut and reminded he was a man and Jessie was a woman. A woman like no other.

  The tension seduced each and every person in the audience. It was as if they, along with the crew, held their breath, waiting for Jessie’s next word, waiting for her to blossom.

  Hell, someone should give Ichabod a Pulitzer or something.

  “Wow, Mr. Smith,” Jessie gushed. “That’s beautiful.”

  The man’s cheeks glowed a bright red. “Thank you.”

  “Tell me, the woman who inspired this, you love her that much?”

  Ichabod nodded, shifting in his seat.

  “What does she say about this wonderful dedication?”

  “Oh, she doesn’t know,” Ichabod assured, looking quite disturbed.

  “No?” Jessie’s eyes widened. “You haven’t told her that she inspired this?” Jessie turned to the audience. “Can you imagine a passion so strong it inspired this beautiful work and yet she doesn’t know how you feel?”

  Ichabod squirmed in his chair and Colin felt sorry for the poor guy. Enough so that he came to Ichabod’s rescue, by asking a question about the writer’s future works.

  Ichabod sighed relief and answered Colin’s question.

  The moment the show ended, Jessie turned on him. “Why did you interrupt? Mr. Smith needs encouraged to tell this woman how he feels.”

  “That isn’t your place to decide.”

  “True, but an attraction that strong shouldn’t be hidden away.”

  “There could be other factors, reasons that make it better for his affections to be kept hidden.”

  “Like what?”

  Colin shrugged. “What if the woman is married? Has children?”

  “I never thought of that,” Jessie admitted. “Still, it’s a shame if they could be together that he hasn’t told her how he feels.”

  “As I said, that isn’t for you or me to decide.”

  “I still say he just needs a little encouragement.”

  “The guy was ready to crawl under his chair when you put him on the spot like that. Let it go.”

  Jessie sighed. “I should have known you’d say something like that.”

  Colin put his hands on his hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You figure it out.”

  * * *

  J.P. sank into his chair and watched Colin pace back and forth across the tiny office.

  “Those wires were tampered with,” Colin said. “You know it as well as I do.”

  “We don’t know anything. I’ve talked to the maintenance guy. He says any number of things could have stripped the cord.” J.P. bit into his cigar.

  “We should stop the show. Or at least have Jessie sit out until we know what really happened today.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hell yes, but this has nothing to do with my not wanting her to be a part of Causing A Commotion and everything to do with safety.”

  “I’ve ordered for the entire studio to be given a complete safety check. Everything’s fine.”

  “How can you say that after all the mishaps we’ve had over the past few months? Hell, things were going wrong before the show evolved into this massacre of a talk show. But missing schedules and damaged cameras don’t fall in the same league as intentionally frayed electrical wiring.”

  “You’re making some wild assumptions, boy.”

  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  Colin threw his hands into the air. “You know I’m right. Jessie could have been hurt. We’re lucky she wasn’t.”

  J.P. chomped on the end of a cigar, trying to suck some calm from the tasty Cuban. “If I thought for one minute that Jessie was in any kind of danger, I’d stop the show until the problem was solved. It was an accident.”

  “What if it happens again? Only Jessie isn’t so lucky?”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I said the entire studio is being gone over. Maxwell had a cow when he heard Jessie almost got fried. Them boys ain’t going to miss a thing.”

  “Unless one of them frayed the wire to begin with.”

  J.P. rolled his eyes. “You’d do well to keep your assumptions to yourself. The press gets any crazy notions, I’ll be looking for you.”

  Colin cursed under his breath.

  “Don’t go messing up a good thing. Today’s show was good. Damn good. I saw the look on your face while Jessie was reading that stuff. You know I’m right. Causing A Commotion is good.”

  Colin’s head
jerked around. “Forget Causing A Commotion. This is about keeping Jessie safe and continuing with the show when her safety is in question is wrong. My every gut instinct says so. Things have been happening on set, and we’ve ignored them, writing them off as gremlins and mishaps.”

  Giving up on getting any calm from the unlit cigar, J.P. twirled the Cuban between his fingertips, but didn’t speak. What could he say? Colin tossed out crazy accusations. Yet not so crazy that he could completely ignore them. However admitting anything would be a big mistake. The boy would run with any glimmer of problem to try to destroy the show. They both knew it.

  “I saw that cord. That wasn’t a mishap.” Colin stormed out of the office, leaving J.P. to ponder his parting remark.

  If not for the maintenance men’s assurances that the frayed cord was an accident, he might believe Colin, take his concerns more seriously, but Colin wanted Jessie gone.

  Question was how far was he willing to go to get her off the show?

  * * *

  Keeping her eye on the thick L.A. traffic, Jessie fumbled in her purse until she found her ringing cell phone. “Hello.”

  “We need to talk.”

  Colin. Insane joy filled her. Curiosity, too. Had her poetry reading gotten to him? She hadn’t been able to keep from imagining his voice saying the words to her while she read the piece. Especially as Colin had watched her with such hot eyes. She had been reading to him, despite however many viewers tuned in, and he’d been turned on.

  J.P. praised her efforts, but she still believed Colin should have been the one to read the excerpt. Of course, her desire to hear him say such words biased her.

  “Who is this?” she asked, just to be coy.

  “You know who it is.”

  She smiled, not admitting a thing.

  “We need to discuss what happened today,” he said.

  “You mean when my entire body tingled and not because you touched me? Or my debut as an erotic poetry reader?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Jessie.” No, Colin didn’t sound teasing at all. He sounded frustrated, ticked off. “Meet me.”

  Should she? Her heart raced at the thought of seeing Colin away from the studio. Since the night of the Wolf gala the only time she saw him was work. Despite her brevity about being a new age woman and not needing a man, she longed for time with Colin. Time away from the office.

  Because she was lonely? Or because it was Colin?

  “Because you want a private poetry reading?”

  “Jessie.”

  She sighed loudly.

  “There’s a restaurant,” he named the place and address. “Meet me in fifteen minutes.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No, I’m not meeting you.” She settled back into her car seat, appreciating the moving traffic.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I already have plans.”

  “Plans?”

  “I do have a life outside of the few hours I spend in your company.”

  He groaned. “This is important. For once can’t you just do what I ask without arguing? I’m worried about you.”

  She couldn’t take him seriously. To do so would throw her world off balance. Would raise hopes that didn’t need raising. Not if she didn’t want to get hurt.

  “Think I’m going to die from orgasm withdrawal?” she flippantly asked.

  “What?” His loud question echoed in her ear.

  “Oh nothing. Private joke.”

  “Another joke.” He sounded disgusted with her flippancy. “You aren’t taking this seriously.”

  No, she was doing her best not to. Reading poetry to Colin had provided a wonderful distraction, but to think that she could have died scared her. Made the panic monster claw at her throat too strong. She dealt with that panic how she could. Humor.

  “I was almost given the electric chair and hadn’t even committed any heinous crimes. It sucks, but it happened. Just be grateful it was me instead of you.”

  “It should have been me.”

  That got her attention. “Why would you say that?”

  “Those open wires were intended for me. Not you.”

  A whole new panic rose within her. Colin thought someone intentionally had tried to hurt him? Why did that scare her even more than the thought of someone trying to hurt her?

  “It was an accident.”

  “Meet me.”

  “Oh, all right.” She gave in, partially from curiosity and partially because she wanted to see Colin outside of work. “But you’re going to have to come to me.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it any other way.”

  Jessie gave him the specifics, hung up the phone, and wondered what the call was truly about.

  Colin sounded upset. Which didn’t make sense.

  She’d been the one to get shocked and he had to be joking about thinking it had been intentional. Or intended for him.

  Why would anyone do that?

  Goosebumps ran down her spine.

  Knowing J.P. and Maxwell had the studio thoroughly checked made her feel better.

  However, knowing Colin would be showing up at her apartment left her jittery, almost like she’d been hit by another jolt of high-wattage electricity.

  She glanced at the passenger seat of her car where a freshly autographed copy of The Blooming Rose lay.

  Private poetry reading indeed.

  * * *

  Beverly Gilley pushed the spoonful of applesauce into her mother’s unresponsive mouth. “Come on, Momma. Swallow.”

  The older version of herself stared back, not saying anything one way or another.

  Pretending her mother’s blank eyes filled with recognition,

  Beverly scooped up another spoonful from the baby food jar and put it in her mouth.

  The first glob still rested on her tongue, unswallowed.

  “Momma, you need to eat. Please swallow. It’s good for you.”

  The feeding tube provided the necessary nutrition, but the doctors advised to keep her mother taking in as much as possible by mouth. Something about the psychological value of actually eating.

  There was nothing Beverly wouldn’t do to help her mother.

  The thought watered her eyes, but then she sucked in a deep breath and spooned another bite of applesauce. This too would pass. Sooner than she wanted.

  “Here you go, Momma. Just one more.”

  Her mother’s mouth opened, the former glob partially gone.

  Moisture burned at Beverly’s eyes and the inside of her nose. “That’s right, Momma. Swallow your applesauce. It’s good for you.”

  “Is she eating much today?”

  Beverly shook her head at Sandy, the nurse she employed to sit with her mother while she was at work. Normally, she wasn’t able to sneak away to help with her lunch feeding, but today she’d been able to drive home. The studio had been cleared as soon as the show finished recording so maintenance could check everything. J.P. had told her to take a long lunch then meet him in his office at two.

  Not knowing how many more days she’d have with her mother, she cherished each moment, snuck away each chance she got.

  Some days her mother enjoyed their time. Others, like today, Beverly wasn’t even sure if her mother knew she was here. Alzheimer’s was a horrid disease. Especially these end stages when her mother’s health and mental faculties declined so rapidly.

  “Not much.” She sat the baby food jar down on a night stand that rested next to the hospital bed that occupied her mother’s bedroom. A hospital bed that hadn’t been cheap and hadn’t been covered on her mother’s insurance. Just as Sandy’s salary wasn’t covered.

  Only if she succumbed to the pressure and admitted her mother to the nursing home would her care be insurance paid for. Something Beverly was not willing to do.

  She’d promised not to do.

  Promises had to be kept no matter what the cost.

  The cost for keeping her mother at home came high. Sometimes she thoug
ht too high.

  Chapter Eight

  Colin had been a fool to come to Jessie’s apartment.

  She’d been a fool to invite him. Didn’t she know how affected he’d been by this afternoon? Too affected for him to be sitting alone in her living room with her. She’d gone to find them something to drink.

  He didn’t want a drink.

  He wanted her.

  That wasn’t why he was here.

  Leaning back against the well-worn sofa that sort of matched the other hodge-podge pieces in the room, he closed his eyes. So, why was he here? There wasn’t anything he had to say that couldn’t have waited until the next day.

  No, he’d had to see her so he could assure himself she was really okay. She could have died.

  His ribcage squeezed, constricting his lungs and making breathing difficult. Making his heart pound against the inside of his ribs. He sucked in a deep breath, fighting an unaccustomed wave of dizziness.

  He should not be here.

  He stood to leave. Now. While she was in the kitchen.