Strangers When We Meet

by Marisa Carroll

  Emma looked at her hands. They were shaking. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and it showed. “I’ve lost it,” she said, glad at last to get the words out into the open. “I’m not taking calls because I don’t know what to say to people who want my advice on solving problems with their love lives when mine is an absolute, unmitigated disaster.” Horrified, she felt tears run down her cheeks, and ten seconds later a forlorn little sob seeped between her lips. “And I especially don’t want to take any calls from Blake—because I don’t care how many hundreds of guys there might be in this city with that name, he’s the one I’m in love with.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Armand said reverently. “You lost me way back there.” He pulled up a chair and swiveled hers to face him. “You’re in love? What happened to old Daryl? Not that I’m sorry to see him go. And if you’re in love with this out-of-the-blue guy named Blake, why won’t you talk to him?”

  “Because it can’t be love so soon after Daryl and Heather. Not real love. Can it?” She couldn’t help asking the question, because, dear heaven, she wanted the answer to be yes. You didn’t hurt this bad if it wasn’t real love, did you? No wonder some of her callers sounded as if they were in true physical pain. Heartache. There ought to be some kind of pill you could take, a cure-all like her grandfather’s hangover elixir.

  “You’re in love with a guy you met just over a week ago and that you won’t talk to?”

  “I’m Emma Hart. Queen of Late-Night Talk. The woman with all the answers about your love life.” The tears were coming harder. “I’m nothing but a fake and a phony. I can’t do this job anymore. How can I tell other people how to live their lives when mine is such a mess?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BLAKE SLID INTO the booth of the neighborhood pub that was housed in the street-level corner of his building. He was still stiff and sore, but the dizziness and most of the weakness of shock and blood loss were gone. That was good, because he was going to need all his wits about him tonight.

  In less than ten minutes he was supposed to meet with Emma’s producer, Armand Williams, and he had the suspicion that if it didn’t go well, his battle plan for getting Emma back was going up in smoke. And he might end up with a split lip and a black eye, to boot.

  Williams hadn’t sounded too friendly and he was more than a little protective of Emma—to the same degree as a mother grizzly bear for her cub. Blake wasn’t surprised Emma inspired that kind of loyalty in her friends. It had also been evident from the man’s first words over the phone that Blake’s routine of calling Emma’s show every night wasn’t going to fly much longer, either. He’d listened every night this week, and she was stumbling badly. And that was his fault, too. Maybe he’d played it wrong that first night back in the city. Maybe he should have gone after her right away and kept her with him until she’d come to her senses and admitted she loved him as much as he loved her.

  But it was too late for what ifs now.

  He’d made it past Williams’s screening process three nights running. He should have known the other man would be suspicious when Emma refused to take his call every time. Tonight Emma’s producer had called him by name, rattled off his address and threatened to inform the cops Blake was stalking his boss if Blake didn’t tell him just what the hell he was up to. Blake didn’t waste the time or energy trying to feed Emma’s producer some line of bull about old high school friendships or practical jokes. He told Williams the truth.

  The other man had agreed to meet him at the pub after Emma’s show without telling her, but his cooperation was grudging, to say the least. Blake was obviously going to have to do some fast thinking and fast talking to get Williams on his side. The waitress stopped by, interrupting his internal strategy session. She was dressed in an off-the-shoulder frilly white blouse and full, dark green skirt. The bar’s theme was an Irish pub complete with dartboards, leaded glass and dark paneling. Thankfully the jukebox was playing good old rock and roll instead of treacly Irish folk songs. Blake ordered coffee. He could use a beer, but he needed his wits about him.

  He leaned his head against the high padded back of the booth and watched the door. Exactly five minutes later a tall, coffee-skinned man with a battle-scarred face and a nose that had been broken more than once walked into the bar, gave the half dozen patrons one quick glance and headed straight for Blake’s booth.

  “Weston?” he asked without preamble.

  Blake attempted to stand, but the other man waved him to his seat. He didn’t make any effort to shake hands but slid into the booth, opposite Blake. He also didn’t waste any time getting to the point.

  “All right. I’m here. Now you’ve got precisely fifteen minutes to convince me why I should go behind Emma’s back to help you get to her? Or better yet, why I shouldn’t drag you out the back of this place into the alley and beat the hell out of you for making her cry.”

  “I’m surprised you’re giving me fifteen minutes,” Blake said, refusing to rise to the other man’s bait.

  Williams’s expression didn’t change. “Let’s just say I’m feeling generous.”

  Blake nodded. “Fair enough. I love Emma and I want her back.”

  “Want her back? Hell, as far as I know, you’ve never had her. How the hell can you say you’re in love with her? You’ve known her just over a week. And from what she told me, you were in the hospital half-dead for three of those days.”

  So she had told Williams about him. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. Williams had said he’d made her cry. Blake hoped it was from longing, not out of frustration and fear. He pushed the niggling doubts out of his mind.

  “I didn’t say it made sense.” Blake leaned forward until their noses almost touched. Williams was two or three inches taller, but Blake figured he outweighed him by twenty pounds. The other man never moved a muscle. “But it’s the truth. And what’s more, if she wasn’t so screwed up from her time with that bastard Tubb, she’d know she loved me, too.”

  “I can’t argue with you there. Tubb was a real loser,” Emma’s producer said grudgingly.

  “We agree on something.”

  “We also agree Emma is one special lady.”

  “Special enough that I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

  Armand’s eyes were hard, and his gaze bored holes through Blake’s skull. Blake didn’t flinch. The other man put his palms on the edge of the table and leaned back slightly. “Okay. I believe you. But don’t think it’s because one look at you convinced me you’re Emma’s soul mate. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours checking you out. If Emma’s grandfather—”

  “You talked to Emma’s grandfather?”

  “Damned straight, I did. First person I called. He said he thought you’d be damned good for Emma. Said she sent Tubb packing the night you got shot up there in the wilds of the Berkshires.” For the first time, a hint of ordinary human curiosity colored Armand’s low baritone. “No shit, Sherlock. Someone shot you?”

  Blake gave a curt nod, then smiled. He couldn’t help himself. Emma’s granddad had vouched for him.

  “What’s so funny?” Williams took offense at the smile and balled one big hand into a fist on the table between them. “Don’t seem to me that someone taking you for a deer and drilling a hole through you is anything to laugh about.”

  “The old devil dog vouched for me?”

  “Devil dog? Emma’s grandfather. Yeah.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. He’s the first person I called to track down Emma’s phone number and address when I got back to town. He refused to give them to me. He told me to do my own legwork. If I wanted to marry his granddaughter, he said, I was going to have to do my own heavy lifting to get her.” It had taken his secretary at B, C and W about three hours to find the information he needed. He would have done it himself, if he could have gotten to the office.


  “If you have her home phone and address, how come you’ve been calling the show? Why didn’t you just go to her apartment, camp out on her doorstep, get down on your hands and knees and beg her to marry you?”

  “Because I’ve been listening to her show. She’s not taking any more calls than she has to. She’s lost her nerve. She’s afraid she’s lost her insight, right?”

  “She’s the best there is. But she’s running scared. I’ve talked until I’m blue in the face, but she won’t listen.”

  “That’s as much my fault as it is Tubb’s. I came along at just the wrong damned moment.” Blake caught the other man’s quick frown. “The wrong moment for her peace of mind. The rightest damned moment of my life.”

  “Ain’t life a bitch.” Armand uncurled his fist and signaled the waitress for a beer.

  He leaned against the dark pine wainscoting, and a slow, almost feral smile curled his lips. Blake decided Armand Williams was a man he definitely didn’t want to cross. But he would be a hell of a man to have at your back in a fight. The waitress appeared with the beer in record time. Williams picked up the bottle and clicked the base of it against Blake’s coffee cup. The smile turned genuine.

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’m going to stick my neck way out on this. You’re going to get your shot at talking Rapunzel down out of her tower. And you’re going to get the chance to do it on her show. I want you killing two birds with one stone, Weston. You win the fair lady, and you get her talking again. Take it or leave it. It’s my only offer.”

  Blake held out his hand. “One chance is all I need.”

  * * *

  EMMA STARED at the console, her fingers hovering over the familiar levers and switches as though she was afraid they had suddenly become electrified and would shock her to death if she touched them. She slid her damp palms down the sides of her slacks, then adjusted her headset. Armand was watching her from the producer’s booth, frowning at her ill-concealed show of nerves.

  “You’re on in ten,” he said into her earphones. The sound of her theme music came up as he used hand signals to count down the remaining few seconds until she was on the air. Emma wished time would stand still. She wished she was anywhere but where she was. She—

  “Hello, New York,” she said, amazed her voice sounded normal. “This is Emma Hart, and you’re listening to ‘Night Talk’ on WTKX, the voice of Extreme Talk Radio in the city that never sleeps. We’ve got a great guest for you tonight. He’s Barry Fitzhugh, the author of Dating Rules in the New Millennium. He’ll be taking calls after the interview, so have your questions ready. We’ll be right back after this quick commercial break.”

  Emma figured she could get through the first hour of the show without fielding any calls on her own. Most self-help authors were more than ready to pontificate for hours on their theories, which let her off the hook. She doubted Blake Weston would try to get through to talk with Barry Fitzhugh.

  Armand hadn’t been quite the sympathetic sounding board she’d hoped he would be the night before when she’d finally sniffled her way through all the twists and turns of her whirlwind romance with Blake Weston. He’d told her she might be right, that she couldn’t be in love with a man she’d known for such a short time. But she sure hadn’t been this upset breaking up with Daryl Tubb. If she wanted his two cents worth, he went on, this affair must be pretty damned serious. She was risking both their careers trying to run away from it.

  She knew he was right. And she was going to do something about it. Tonight. Or as soon as she could get Blake’s phone number and make arrangements to talk to him. She couldn’t show up at his apartment unannounced. She wasn’t that brave. It had to be someplace neutral, someplace where they could try to hammer out a plan for a cautious, low-key relationship that would give her the time and distance to figure out her true feelings. A flash of the two of them in the lean-to, the terror in her heart as she held him close and prayed he wouldn’t die, caught her unaware. That wasn’t love, she reminded herself sternly. And neither was the explosive, unplanned sex on his couch.

  No more thoughts like that. Take it slow. One step at a time. That was the best way to get her equilibrium back, to be sure her heart wasn’t leading her into another emotional dead end. Tomorrow she would call him, even though she would have to ask Armand for the show’s call-in logs to get his number. There, see, another argument in favor of taking it very, very slow. How could you be in love with a man whose phone number you didn’t even know?

  “We’re back in sixty seconds.” Armand said into her headphones. “And brace yourself. Your author interview just called and canceled. You’ve got a twenty-minute segment to fill.”

  “Oh, crap. What should I do?” she asked, her chest tightening in sudden panic.

  “Take the damned calls.” Armand ground the words out. He wasn’t going to be any help. “That’s what you get paid for. That’s what your audience wants to hear.”

  “But—”

  “Thirty seconds,” he said heartlessly. “Here’s the first batch up. Do your stuff.”

  What stuff? Emma thought helplessly. She didn’t have any stuff. Not any longer.

  She focused on the computer screen just to her left, which held the name and a brief description of the callers on each line. All seven lines were lit. All seven lines carried the same name! She blinked, then rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A terrible suspicion jumped into her mind. “Fitzhugh didn’t cancel. You dumped him, didn’t you?” Her voice rose in panic. “I can’t do this.”

  “It’s every man for himself tonight, boss,” Armand said with a grin that was absolutely fiendish. “I’ve got a wife with expensive tastes, and two kids to put through college. I want this settled before we go into the syndication negotiations. Pick whichever line you want. You’re still gonna get him. Ten. Nine. Eight.” His fingers flashed the last five seconds in silence.

  She was trapped. No way out. Instinct and habit took over when the green light on her console blinked on. “We’re back,” she said, and swallowed hard to keep the nerves in her stomach from jumping into her throat and strangling her. “We’ve got a few technical problems here tonight and lost our connection to our guest. We’ll have to try to get Barry Fitzhugh back another evening. In the meantime, let’s go to the phones.” Which line should she take? It didn’t matter. Armand had seen to that. She stabbed the toggle and wished it was Armand’s heart. “Blake. You’re on ‘Night Talk.’ This is Emma Hart. What can I do for you tonight?”

  “Thanks for taking my call, Emma.”

  Her heart pounded in her chest, and she had to make herself take a breath. The sound of his voice was almost her undoing. She had never reacted that way to Daryl’s voice. She nodded, then scolded herself for the futility of the gesture on radio. It was time she pulled herself together. After all, she was the granddaughter of a man who had fought at Chosin Reservoir. She was the granddaughter of a woman who had traveled halfway around the world to make the soldiers’ lives a tiny bit easier. She could take a phone call from a man who had turned her life upside down in a matter of days. “You’re welcome, Blake. What’s your problem?”

  “I fell in love at first sight with a woman who’s afraid to trust her instincts when it comes to loving me back.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t say she loves you back because she just doesn’t know what real love is.” She had worried over that possibility night and day, so it popped out before she could censor the thought.

  “Maybe that’s part of the problem. She doesn’t trust her own instincts even though they’re right on the money about everything else.” He loved her. Emma felt a little smile curve her mouth, then told herself to stop being so easily distracted. This was F. Blake Weston talking, the Cartwright, Braxton and Wheeler golden boy, the Wall Street shark. A man with a mission. He wanted her, and he intended to have her. Love as a power
trip was as old as mankind.

  “A lot of people don’t believe in love at first sight. Especially if they’ve come off a bad whirlwind relationship in the past.” She forgot about Armand and the engineer in the booth. She forgot about the tens of thousands of listeners sharing this conversation with her and Blake.

  “That’s part of the problem,” he admitted. “For both of us. It’s made her skittish. I just need to know what advice you’d give me to help her see past the walls she’s put up around her heart.”

  “You’ve already told her you loved her?”

  “More than once.”

  “And you were sincere?”

  “Yes, Emma Martha,” he said, his voice calm with rock solid conviction. “I would have spoken those words to you if it took my last breath to do it.”

  Emma closed her eyes to hold back the tears. How could she have been so blind? He was still a stranger in many ways, but at last she admitted to herself that she knew Blake Weston well enough to believe what he said. She was there with him in the lean-to once more, could hear the same conviction in his voice. He had been facing death on that mountain, and he had told her what was in his heart.

  She had to summon the courage to listen to hers. “Blake.” The faint telltale click in her earphones was as loud as a thunderclap. “Blake?”

  Dead air.

  He was gone. She’d waited a pulse beat too long to reply. The screen in front of her blinked empty for a moment, then reappeared with a dozen new names flashed for her attention, none of them was Blake. “Armand, get him back,” she said into the open mike. She didn’t care who was listening.

  Her eyes flew to the glass partition that separated her from her producer and engineer. Armand lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “That’ll take a minute, boss. Why don’t you answer another call while I’m working on it.”

  Answer another call. She couldn’t do that. She had to find Blake. Nothing else mattered. The screen continued to blink. She didn’t want to talk to these people. Armand could do it.