Flash and Fire

by Marie Ferrarella

  She wiped off another trickle with the heel of her hand.

  Maybe, if she just let the emotion and the tears flow, she could get them permanently out of her system.

  No such luck. Besides, tears and regrets were for the weak. She had time for neither.

  Amanda balled her hands up into fists and continued pacing. Continued going nowhere.

  She loved him. God help her, after everything was weighed and considered, she still loved the miserable bastard. Talk about being a glutton for punishment, she thought, looking at her reflection in the computer’s monitor.

  But whether she loved him or not, it obviously wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between them. That sort of optimism was for romantic movies and insipid greeting cards. Love didn’t conquer all. In the real world, all it had managed to conquer was her.

  If she needed any proof of his lack of regard for her, she had it now. Pierce hadn’t bothered to see her since the incident at the restaurant. Nine days. Nine whole days without a call, without a word. Nothing. He had completely cut himself off from her. Just like that.

  Maybe her angry accusation had been right on target. Maybe he had called that photographer, tipped him off. Nothing like a little splashy publicity to keep him before the public’s eye.

  If he wasn’t guilty as charged, where was he?

  It was obvious that she’d been creating rainbows where there weren’t any to be found. He didn’t care about her. It had all been just a trick, a plan to get her to give up her suit. When she’d made it clear to him that she intended to go on with it, he’d dropped his ploy and disappeared from her life.

  Left her.

  God, it felt awful.

  She took a breath, as if that could somehow cocoon her against what she was feeling. As if it could shield her from this huge, cavernous hollowness inside.

  Amanda clenched her hands, fighting for control over herself. Damn it, she had survived this pain once before, and she could do it again. And this time, she’d remember. Really remember.

  She had Christopher and, by God, she was going to have her career. That would be more than enough to fill her days and her nights.

  If that meant her bed and her soul remained empty, so be it. She still had more than most people, and it was a sin to ignore that, to mourn over what she didn’t have. Over what she’d never had.

  Determined, Amanda opened the door and walked out into the rest of her life.

  The next morning, Amanda received a call from Stone. It sounded urgent. It annoyed her that the lawyer had refused to give her any details over the telephone. He’d merely told her to come down to his office as soon as possible—now, if she could. His tone gave her no clue as to whether the news he had to tell her was good or bad. Amanda’s nerves were stretched like a string over the bow of a violin.

  She had agreed to come right down.

  Nerves hopscotching over one another, she entered the neo-rustic glass and wood two-story structure that housed Stone’s legal practice. It had taken her almost an hour to get here, forty-five minutes longer than usual. A truck had jackknifed on the expressway, turning the short trip into an ordeal.

  As if she didn’t already have enough to deal with.

  Startled, Amanda caught her breath when she saw her father leaving the outer law offices.

  Stone wouldn’t have been attempting to arrange some sort of a reconciliation between her and her father, would he? One that was aborted because she had arrived late? No, that was absurd. It wasn’t in the man’s makeup to play mediator on a personal level. Besides, her father would never allow it.

  Henry Foster saw his daughter the moment she entered the building’s foyer. He paused, scrutinizing her for a moment. She’d filled out in the last few years, lost some of her gangly edges. She’d turned out to be a handsome woman, like her mother. But she had tenacity, determination, so unlike the woman he had taken as his wife.

  In a perverse way, he took pride in the way Amanda had turned out, even though she’d failed to follow in his footsteps.

  Her loss, he mused. She’d find that out in time, if she hadn’t already. His hands were tied if she refused to listen to reason.

  “Amanda.” He nodded as she approached.

  The best way to deal with this was just to get it over with.

  “We just must stop meeting like this, Father.” He stared at her. Amanda tried to remember if she had ever heard her father laugh. Not a single memory materialized. “Humor, Father. Sorry.”

  In far more ways than one, Father, she added silently.

  Henry Foster had never felt any awkwardness or social discomfort in his life. So it was difficult for him to properly identify the sensation he was experiencing at this moment. He just knew that he didn’t like it or approve of it.

  But this had to be said. He was not one to shirk a duty when he saw it, even if it was unpleasant.

  “Since I have this opportunity to see you,” he began, as if he had planned this meeting instead of it being the result of a mishap in timing, “I’d just like to go on record as saying that although I would have never chosen your path, you’ve shown yourself to be a Foster by sticking to your convictions.”

  Go on record. She wasn’t going to accept half statements from him anymore. “Is that your way of saying you’re proud of me, Father?”

  He shifted ever so slightly, without being aware of it. But she was. “Perhaps.”

  Amanda sighed. Well, well, well.

  “I suppose that’s the best I can get out of you.” She looked at him. “It would have been nice to get more.” But all that was long in the past, and there was no malice in her voice.

  He didn’t understand. “More?”

  He didn’t know, did he? she thought. Didn’t know how much he had failed to give her, except the will to succeed just to spite him. “Encouragement,” she pointed out.

  She was talking nonsense. “I encouraged you to follow the right path.”

  The right path. Like Galahad going after the Holy Grail, except in this case, it had meant going after a law degree and following in his footsteps.

  Amanda sighed. “Some of us are weak, Father. We choose lesser vocations.”

  He nodded, obviously agreeing with her assessment. “Oh, you might be interested to know that I arranged to get Whitney a commuted sentence this morning.” He didn’t have to add, “Against all odds.” He was good, but then, Amanda had always known that, just as she’d known, at an early age, that the man had no love in his heart. He had been born without that capability.

  “That’s wonderful. Tell Whitney I’m very happy for him.” She made a mental note to call him as soon as she returned home. This was cause for celebration—if only she felt like celebrating.

  He had said what he’d had to say and now it was time to leave. “Good luck.”

  Yeah, you too. She turned around to face him again just before entering the office. “Oh, Father.”

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder, anxious to be leaving. “Yes?”

  She smiled. The man was chiseled out of granite. “Christopher has your eyes.”

  “Christopher?”

  He didn’t even remember, but then, she hadn’t expected him to; Christopher wasn’t a client. “Your grandson. Possibly you’d like to see him sometime.”

  He merely nodded, though her words planted a seed. “Possibly.”

  Such enthusiasm, she thought. It would have been humorous if it wasn’t so sad. “Good. My address is in the book.” With that, she entered Stone’s office. The secretary showed her right in.

  “Ah, Amanda. I was just conferring with your father about a case.”

  “Yes, I know. I just saw him.”

  “The man has a brilliant mind. But I suppose you already know that.” Stone gestured toward the chair in front of his desk. “Sit down, sit down.” He waited until she did before continuing. He looked pleased. Amanda began to relax. “I wanted to see you in person to tell you this.”

  “You have a court
date,” she guessed. That in itself would be a feat; the court calendar was notorious for being overcrowded.

  “No.” A smile filtered into his eyes. “Better.”

  What was better than a speedy court date? She had no idea. “Which is?”

  Stone steepled his fingers together and looked at her over the pyramid they formed. “It seems that Grimsley not only gives heart attacks, he has them.”

  Amanda gripped the arms of her chair as she slid forward to the edge. “He’s dead?”

  “No,” Stone corrected her without emotion. “But he’ll be out of commission for a long time. After he recovers, the station is forcing him into early retirement. Harold Abrams is taking his place.”

  Amanda felt a flood of relief. She could deal with Abrams. Stone’s next words bore out her thought.

  “Abrams wants you back. They’re anxious to put this whole ugly incident behind them at the station. Lawsuits are always costly, not to mention that the publicity has not been favorable for them. Public support, it seems, is on your side.” He drew a breath and made his announcement. “You officially have your job back.” His eyes twinkled just a little. “If you still want it.”

  Her job back. That meant Pierce was out and she was in. She tried not to think about that. Pierce had proven his true colors. It served him right.

  So why wasn’t she happy?

  “Of course I want my job back,” she said, trying to make it sound convincing. “But there is another point now. Paul Rodriguez was fired because of me.”

  Stone nodded. “I’m well aware of that. But you have to understand, Miss Foster, that Mr. Rodriguez is an entirely different matter. He appropriated something he shouldn’t have.”

  Amanda wasn’t about to be put off by semantics. At this point, it was all or nothing. She couldn’t just leave Paul in the lurch, not because of something he’d done for her.

  “’Something’ that should have been available to the parties involved in the first place. Grimsley was hiding the real copies of the Q reports. He doctored the others. That’s part of’ ‘ugly’ business, isn’t it? I want Paul back or we go on with the case and go to court.”

  “Miss Foster—Amanda,” Stone amended, feeling that the situation demanded a stroke of familiarity. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “Yes I do. I’m saying that Paul Rodriguez went out on a limb for me and now I have to return the favor. That’s what makes me different from people like Grimsley.” She smiled at the lawyer. “And that’s why you took the case to begin with.”

  He nodded, understanding. And admiring her for it. “They’re anxious to smooth things over, as I had hoped they would be. I’ll see what can be done to reinstate Rodriguez as well. In the meantime”—his lips curved just the smallest bit—“you’ve won. Congratulations.”

  Stone rose and leaned over his desk to shake Amanda’s hand.

  She grasped it and smiled because the man expected it. But she wasn’t exactly sure what she was experiencing at the moment.

  She thought of Pierce again, though she didn’t want to. It was an odd sensation to have won and lost in the same stroke, by the same stroke. She’d won her case and lost Pierce irrevocably. Her good fortune had a flip side to it: Pierce’s misfortune.

  Losing Pierce was something she was going to have to learn to live with, along with a broken heart. She had always known the day would come.

  “Thank you,” she said to Stone. “Thank you very much.”

  He laughed then. It was a dry sound. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t cause Grimsley’s heart attack. Years of being a type A personality did that. Which is why,” he said mildly, leaning back, “I never get excited about anything.”

  It was a good trait, Amanda thought. One she would probably never acquire. Or miss. She enjoyed getting excited about things. Enjoyed feeling.

  Even miserable? she asked herself.

  For that, she had no answer.

  Chapter Forty One

  It felt strange to be back at the studio, as if she’d been gone for months instead of just a few short weeks. She felt as if she’d lived an entire lifetime during those weeks, while everyone else had remained the same.

  It was going to take her a while, Amanda thought as she looked around the temporarily quiet set they used to tape the newscasts, to fit in again, to overcome this feeling of alienation.

  It wasn’t long before someone noticed her standing there. A cameraman hailed her. As she answered, someone else came along. Within minutes, she was surrounded by curious well-wishers. Everyone seemed eager to congratulate her and acted as if they’d always been on her side.

  Maybe subconsciously they had been, she thought. Perhaps they’d just been too afraid for their own jobs to say anything. Except for Paul.

  She recognized that she was rationalizing, but it helped and that was all she needed now.

  Amanda was very glad that Stone had persuaded the station to review Paul’s situation. That had been her only condition. She wanted no raise in pay, no perks, had even given in on her demand for a written apology. All she had asked for was for Paul to get his job back, and for her to continue on in the six o’clock anchor spot. For its part, the station issued her a new contract, this one for two years. Amanda had been more than happy to sign it.

  After ten minutes, the crowd dispersed, disappearing as quickly as it had formed. Amanda stood a moment longer, alone, relieved, then headed to her office.

  Jon Fennelli caught up to her right outside her door.

  “Hey, stranger, welcome back!” He hugged her, then cupped her hands in his. He held them a little longer than she thought was necessary. “I’m really glad everything turned out this way, Amanda. I always knew you were a scrapper.” He grinned. “I was rooting for you the whole time.”

  So why hadn’t he come out in support when she’d needed him? There was no point in challenging him. Amanda merely smiled and nodded. “I knew you were. Thanks.” She eased her hands out of his.

  “Listen, maybe we can get together tonight, after the broadcast.” He assumed his best public relations smile. “You know, to celebrate your homecoming?”

  Amanda shook her head as she opened her door. “I don’t think so. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  He looked a little disappointed. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Maybe.”

  When hell freezes over. She was through taking chances, through with socializing. She just wanted to get back to work and get on with it.

  And heal.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, you know, to make it easier?” Jon genuinely liked Amanda, beyond the physical attraction he felt for her. He’d been sorry to see her treated so shabbily, but from his standpoint there had been nothing he could do.

  “Yes. Keep me out of any baseball games you’re planning for a while.”

  He laughed. “You got it, Amanda.”

  “Thanks.”

  Amanda shut the door behind her and sighed. She was relieved to be here and yet—

  And yet she wasn’t comfortable or quite happy.

  Maybe that was just the human condition, she mused, never to be completely happy.

  In her heart, she knew why she felt this unsettled, this out of place, but she refused to even so much as think about it.

  Amanda sat down at her desk. Surprisingly, the office had been basically untouched. Papers were piled high on one side of her desk: incoming mail, FYI bulletins. She began to leaf through them, separating items she wanted to review from her general mail.

  Preoccupied, Amanda jumped when she heard the knock on her door. She went on sorting and ignored whoever it was outside. She didn’t want to talk to anyone else right now. All she wanted was to gather herself together for the broadcast tonight.

  And to forget about Pierce.

  The knock repeated, more urgently this time. A third time had her rising to her feet. Whoever was there had to know she was inside and wasn’t about to go away. Maybe it was Fennelli with a
renewed offer for tonight.

  Amanda opened the door, and the smile she’d summoned to her lips faded.

  “I figured I’d find you here.” Pierce felt as if his legs were frozen and he had to force himself to move across the threshold.

  He hadn’t known how much the sight of her would affect him, how much he’d missed her, until this very moment, until he looked down into her face and saw the hurt shining there. More than anything, he wanted to sweep her into his arms, to crush her against him and never let her go.

  He resisted the urge. There were things that had to be cleared up first.

  Amanda couldn’t ignore the hurt. It swelled within her like a freshly opened wound. She’d known she was going to bump into him eventually. She had mentally prepared for this encounter over and over. She even had several curt remarks down pat.

  Nothing came to mind.

  Why was he here, plaguing her like this? And then she realized that there were probably still things in here that belonged to him.

  Like she once had.

  Amanda gestured toward the desk. “I suppose you haven’t cleared out your things.”

  Her face looked so impassive. He wondered if it was too late. “No.”

  She nodded, not looking at him. She was afraid she’d break down if she did, and then she couldn’t live with herself.

  “I can wait outside.”

  She started to leave, but he grabbed her wrist. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  Amanda turned, trying to summon the outrage that she’d felt all those days. She wanted to hate him. She should. By all rights, she should. Why couldn’t she?

  “Pierce, this is awkward.”

  “Awkward as hell,” he agreed, but he didn’t release her. “I’m not much on displaying emotions.”

  A smile quirked her mouth. Now there she had to differ with him. “You do anger very well.”

  He sighed and let her go. But he positioned himself so that his body blocked the door. She couldn’t leave, not until she’d heard him out.

  “You know what I mean.” He paused, wishing there were a way to say this without forming the words. He was never any good at expressing himself when it was a personal matter. Exposing his feelings was against everything he believed in. “You once accused me of having stalked you with an ulterior motive.”