by Tara Mills
“You know Kelli would love to have you and your brother over for dinner,” said Hal.
“Dad.”
“I just thought that since we’re mending fences you might be ready to handle my wife.”
“Not yet.” Jackson pulled off his glove and pocketed it.
“Do you have time for a drink?”
“No, I’ve got to get to work.”
“Another time.”
“Sure.”
An attendant hurried over and took possession of the cart as they climbed out. “We’ll take care of your clubs,” he said.
Jackson stopped him before he could drive off. “Actually, I’ll take mine now. I have to get going.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jackson pulled his golf bag out of the back and shouldered it. He faced his father, still not quite comfortable with the man, but he was working on it. It had only been two years, after all.
“So, next week?” his dad asked hopefully.
“Set it up.”
“I’ll do that,” he said with relief.
“See you.”
“Looking forward to it.”
****
Jackson popped his trunk and laid his clubs inside. Closing the back, he got into his BMW M3 and turned her over. He loved the purr of his engine, the perfect seal of the door, the way his leather seats fit his body like a fine glove. It still had that new-car smell, and he inhaled it. It was one of his favorite smells, a pleasant childhood memory, courtesy of his dad, who always turned in his cars after a year and brought home a new one. They were invariably plush and luxurious, and they floated over the roads like a hovercraft—smooth rides on backseats as long as their couch, and that smell, that new-car smell, better than fresh-baked cookies.
Jackson liked to trade in, too, though rather than going for big Cadillacs he preferred something sporty, quick and responsive. His cars were an extension of his body instead of the ocean liners his dad bought, though Jack did opt for the higher-end varieties because, once accustomed to luxury, you didn’t willingly take less.
Kelli. Just the thought of the woman made him snort unexpectedly. She was thirty-two years old, two years younger than he was, for crying out loud, and a walking advertisement for a famous doll.
Truth be told, she wasn’t a bad person, though she should have steered clear of a married man. That said, so should all of the women who’d heated the sheets with his dad over the years. Hal’s infidelities were common knowledge, yet off the table for as long as Jackson could remember. His mother had turned a blind eye to the truth in order to safeguard her home and maintain the superficial appearance of a normal family life for her sons.
But what Helen Murphy couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge, Jackson and his brother Rob condemned every chance they got. They chose sides early, distancing themselves from the man who sired them in favor of their neglected mother. Of course, it was easy to distance themselves from Hal Murphy, since he wasn’t home much anyway, always finding excuses to work late, take business trips, and be generally unavailable even when he did favor them with his presence.
It wasn’t merely his father’s philandering that Jackson found so offensive, nor was it Hal’s parental negligence. No, he held his dad accountable for failing to meet his commitments. That wasn’t something Jackson found easy to excuse.
No one held a gun to his father’s head and forced him to order off the menu when he so obviously wanted to gorge at the buffet instead. Hal didn’t have to offer Helen a ring and the promise of monogamy. Had he remained an unfettered bachelor and simply admitted he had a roving eye and a taste for variety, no one would have been hurt or betrayed when he indulged. That’s why forgiveness was so difficult for Jackson. The pain, the dishonesty, was so unnecessary.
Jackson wouldn’t have made the effort to reopen his life to his father if his mother hadn’t pushed it. For reasons still foreign to him, it mattered to her, and Helen asked her son repeatedly to try and salvage that relationship. Golf was a cordial if not amusing metaphor for the way they approached each other. There were roughs, sand traps, and water hazards, with the occasional long drive down the fairway that left them feeling tentatively optimistic. If they could just stay clear of the trees, they might both survive the ordeal. Only time would tell. Jackson wasn’t about to put money on a golf game, analogy or otherwise.
Surprisingly, it was Jackson’s father who made him want a family of his own someday, if only to prove that he could do everything better. Jackson would dote on the woman who eventually accepted him, and he would read to his children at night, play games with them during the day, and wake them with waffles in the morning. He had time, though. No need to rush that happy ending.
****
Damn it, her stupid dental appointment had run longer than Sabrina thought it would. Psyched about dodging a dreaded filling, Sabrina stopped off for a reward. She deserved it. She’d earned it. It was only one—fine, two, but who’s counting? Now she needed to make up time in a big way. Brushing flakes of donut glaze off the front of her shirt, she turned onto Heartland, her favorite shortcut, and scanned for cops. It looked clear. Still not sure, she chose to risk a ticket anyway and put her foot down. She barely touched the brakes at every intersection, if she could get away with it, but once she hit the busier Wilmot Boulevard crossroad, that was a different story. Traffic was backed up there, and she was forced to wait her turn. It irked the hell out of her. She couldn’t believe she actually wanted a traffic light here.
Sabrina inched forward a little at a time, so impatient she could hardly sit still. She blamed the traffic, but the sugar rush wasn’t helping. By the time she reached the intersection she was drumming rapidly on her steering wheel. With one quick obligatory tap on the brakes, just enough to qualify as a stop, she took off—and rammed the front end of the car coming from the right.
There was a lot of white showing in the other driver’s eyes, and they burned into her like lasers as he beat back the airbag in his face. Her stomach clutched painfully around the donuts as she stared back, frightened at how fast the guy’s mouth was moving. Then she recognized him.
“Oh, shit,” she said. “It can’t be.”
****
“Perfect!” Jackson growled, cutting his engine.
A horn blasted when he got out of his car to survey the damage.
“Cool it!” he barked back.
The conjoined cars obstructed the flow of traffic and forced the other cars to creep carefully around them.
“I’d move it if I could!” he yelled at a glaring driver.
Jackson was pissed at the blame he saw directed at him, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The other car’s bumper had crushed in his fender and bent the metal against his tire. On top of that, the bumper was hooked to his car so that neither could back up. They were stuck together. Then he felt a chill as he looked more closely at his tire. It was splayed out like the feet of a child ice skating for the first time. Great, that was just great! He wasn’t driving anywhere on that, even if they did manage to get the cars apart.
“Damn it.” He stalked around the other car and stopped abruptly when Sabrina climbed out from behind the wheel. “Of course it’s you!” he said, throwing up his hands at the irony. “Are you intentionally screwing with my life, or is this all just a bad joke?”
“Hey! I had the right of way!” she snapped back defensively.
“I had the right of way, you…twit! I was on the right and I reached the stop sign first. Clearly it was my turn.”
“You’re supposed to honor the ‘ladies first’ rule—duh!”
He stared at her with incredulous eyes and a slack jaw. “Say what?”
“Women drivers have the right of way. You were supposed to let me go through first.”
He laughed hard at that, utterly amazed by her bizarre logic. “Are you kidding me?”
“If you were a gentleman, you’d know that. It’s just common courtesy.”
“Give me yo
ur license,” he said, holding out his hand.
Sabrina backed up to her door, pushing it closed with her butt. “Forget it!”
“You know,” he said, shaking his head, trying his best to resist the temptation to throttle the woman, “there are tests in this state, written and behind the wheel, specifically meant to keep the roads safe from people like you.”
“I passed those.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“I don’t have to sit here and take your abuse.”
“Yes, you do, and I’m going to make sure the cops know exactly why we’re locked together, too. Maybe they’ll finally take your license. Letting you keep it constitutes criminal negligence.”
“This was an accident. Get it? Accidents by definition literally mean accident, you jerk!”
Sabrina glared at him, and Jack glared right back, folding his arms across his chest.
As the sound of sirens closed in, it was impossible to tell who hated who more.
****
Jackson stormed into his office forty minutes late and tugged open his center drawer in search of aspirin. He popped open the top and shook four tablets into his hand, tossing them back and chugging the entire bottle of water with them. He crushed the flimsy plastic one-handed and fired it into the recycling bin.
Then his eyes rested for a moment on the Beanie Baby sea turtle draped over his computer screen. He’d named it Crush, after his favorite character in the movie Finding Nemo. Tapping it gently yet affectionately on the head with his fist, he whispered in perfect surfer-ese, “Dude.”
Van poked his head in the door. “They’re waiting for you in editing.”
Jackson took a deep, calming breath, with his hands spread wide across the top of his desk, as if he needed it to center himself. He finally nodded. “I’m coming.”
He picked up his usual shadow on the way to editing. Needing to vent aloud, Van’s presence was like balm on a burn.
“I tell you, she’s out to get me. I know it. I feel it. I don’t know when and I don’t know where, but she’s going to take me out.”
Van tried not to laugh but failed as they moved across the open studio. “I think you’re letting your imagination get away from you.”
“Am I?” Jackson asked in a voice shrill enough to draw several sets of eyes away from their work. “My days are numbered, Van, mark my words. You’re looking at a dead man.”
****
“So how’s your car?” Tanya asked Sabrina as they hurried past the large bustling kitchen.
“I was able to drive it away. Luckily it didn’t take much to get my car free, and other than a bent bumper it looks okay. I can’t say the same thing about Jerk-Off’s car, though. I crunched it good.” She sighed woefully. “I’m not looking forward to calling my agent about this.”
“But you said it was Jerk-Off’s fault, right?”
Sabrina rounded her desk and dropped into her chair, letting her purse plop to the floor right from her shoulder. “That’s how I saw it, but he got the police to agree to his side of things, and they gave me a ticket.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred dollars, at least!”
“Ouch.”
“Tell me about it. They nailed me for inattentive driving, failure to come to a complete stop, yada, yada, yada. It sucks, and I really needed that money for my security deposit.”
Tanya stared at her. “You’re moving again?”
“I have to. I can’t stomach Mrs. Starkey another second, and her nutso dog Muffin can take a long walk off a short pier for all I care.”
“Well, I’m not helping you move this time,” Tanya said firmly.
“I wasn’t even going to ask. I’ll just impose on my brothers. It’s what they’re there for, and they kind of get off on helping their weak and feeble little sister anyway. Besides, they owe me for all the years of grief I had to put up with. You think you had it bad with one older brother to boss you around, try three.”
Tanya laughed, knowing any argument would be futile. “So, do you have a place lined up yet?”
“I’m looking at an apartment tonight.”
“Good luck.”
“I’m getting awfully sick of moving.”
The apartment was on a dead-end street, which appealed to Sabrina, but the building wasn’t anything to rave about. It was older, the kitchen cabinets were shabby, the carpet dated and worn, and the walls were dull and dingy. How long since they’d gotten a fresh coat of paint? Still, the toilet didn’t wobble, and the bathroom tiles were newly re-grouted so they looked decent. Naturally the entire place needed to be cleaned from top to bottom before it met Sabrina’s standards, but that was a given whenever she moved. She never entered a new apartment without a fresh supply of sponges and at least three sets of long rubber gloves.
The rent was reasonable, the corridors didn’t reek from strange foods, and off-street parking was included. Sabrina signed a three-month lease, hoping she could bear the place that long. At least the building was “no pets,” so she wouldn’t be dealing with another psycho dog.
****
“Good show everyone,” Jackson said from the booth. “Justin, Tom, can I see you in my office?” He took off his headset and stretched before leaving the techs to close down.
He barely beat the two fresh-faced kids to his office. Their nervousness was apparent.
“Relax,” he said kicking back in his chair with an easy smile. “I’m not going to chew you out. You’re both doing great. I just wanted more time to go over the edits that I asked for earlier today.” He pointed to the chairs across from him. “Sit down.”
They sank slowly, waiting for the bad news.
“Guys, seriously, you didn’t do anything wrong, but I need to get this out.” He rocked back in his chair and took a deep breath. “I know how the news has been trending over the years, trying not to take sides and giving fair air time to controversy.”
“The news shouldn’t be partial,” Justin said in a rush.
“Right,” Jackson said slowly, “but it’s important to draw a distinction between argument and fact.”
Both kids frowned at him.
“Meaning?” Tom asked.
“Meaning,” Jack went on, “I don’t want to provide a podium to every opinionated blowhard out there. They get plenty of free air time as it is.”
He sat forward and put his elbows on his desk. “Gentlemen, be seriously prepared before your interviews with more questions than we’ll ever have time for, and damn it, when someone like Richard Cummings drops an unsubstantiated number or an inflammatory statement in your laps, make him back it up. Put him on the spot and insist he provide credible sources. If anyone’s ass is going to be hanging out there, it’s going to be theirs, not ours. Got it? We have to be accurate and factual.”
“I thought that’s what I was doing,” Tom said with a frown.
“No. You gave him a sounding board to blast away at Proposition Four Twenty-Eight. You let him blur reality to further a political controversy, without calling him on it. That’s why we cut your piece so short, Tom. You started out fine, but you let him take it away from you, and you didn’t ask him the hard questions you prepared. I read your notes, remember. Don’t hold back next time. We can’t become part of the confusion. It’s our job, one I take very seriously, to inform and educate the public, and that means we will not be used as a means to distort the facts and muddy the water. Our position is neutrality, accuracy, and clarity. Anything less than that will get cut, okay?”
“Okay,” said Justin.
“Yeah. Got it,” said Tom.
A hint of a smile flickered at the corner of Jackson’s mouth. “I like the way you two work off each other. Keep it up. Oh, and by the way, we picked up another point in the ratings last night.”
“No kidding?” Justin asked, coming to his feet.
“Yep. Nice work, guys.”
He smiled as they walked out whispering excitedly. Tom didn’t have the st
ar quality that Justin had, but his instincts were surprisingly good for someone his age. The kid was smart, a stickler for details, fresh and hungry. He just needed to stand up to his elders and not be so respectful that they took control away from him. It’d work out. Jackson felt tremendously proud of his new crew. They were mixing well with the old hands and eager to learn.
The phone rang, effectively closing the subject.
“Jackson Murphy.” His face lit up with a smile. “I know. I’m pretty pleased myself. Thanks, I’ll be right there.”
He hung up feeling damned satisfied. Simon Yeager, the station’s general manager, had just asked him in for a glass of his excellent Cognac.
“Dude,” he said, grinning at Crush. Then he spun in his chair and acknowledged the bobble-headed turtle sitting on the corner of his desk with a gentle tap on the head. It nodded back at him knowingly. “Damn right it’s good,” he agreed, getting up and heading for the door with a spring in his step.
Chapter 4
Simon Yeager’s office appealed to the sensualist in Jackson. The satin-smooth high-gloss cherry suite was as much a pleasure to touch as it was to look at. There was a matching liquor cabinet against one wall, graced with frosted etched glass doors, and on the floor a sumptuous Persian rug pulled the gorgeous room together. If that wasn’t enough to delight Jack’s senses, the aroma of the fine leather chairs mingling deliciously with the bouquet of the splendid Cognac warming in his palm capped it.
They kicked back and talked shop, though it was clear these were two men who knew how to appreciate a quiet moment.
A knock on the door drew their attention. It opened slightly, and a stunning woman peeked in.
“Hope I’m not disturbing anything,” she said, her playful smile a wonder to behold.
Yeager waved her in, and both men came to their feet. “Not at all, I’ve been expecting you.”
She came around the door, and Jack’s shoulders went back and his spine lengthened as he tried hard not to stare, but she was, without question, the most beautiful woman he’d ever encountered.
“Jackson Murphy, I’d like you to meet my sister, Genevieve Fraser. Gen, Jack.”