Something About Eve

by Debra Salonen

  His spontaneous denial was so like him, Ashley burst out laughing. Her dad hadn’t dated anyone in six months—not since he and that physiotherapist, Karen, broke up. Ashley had known from the start that wouldn’t last—no sparks.

  “I told you before I left, hon, this is business. She’s not well, and I’m here to make sure she gets some help.”

  Ashley read the Enquirer; she knew what that meant. “A dry-out clinic, huh?”

  “No. Absolutely not. She’s ill, not on drugs.”

  Ashley wasn’t sure she believed him, although she’d never known him to lie to her. But celebrities were always messed up on drugs or booze.

  “So, what then? You’ll, like, take her to a hospital and then come home?” If her mother had her way, Ashley wouldn’t get to see her dad or any of the Ross family before she left for California.

  He didn’t answer right away. “Honey, I know you’re worried about Christmas. I barely had a chance to talk to your mother about this, so I don’t know the whole story—”

  Ashley interrupted him. “The story is, Dr. Al’s got a chance to make a zillion bucks doing chin tucks on Hollywood’s fading beauties. So I may have to leave my horse and my dad and move three thousand miles away.”

  His low chuckle made her wish she could crawl into his arms and cry. “Did I just get second billing below a horse?”

  Ashley choked on her laugh. “Sorry, Daddy. You know I love you and Jester the same,” she teased.

  He made a gasping sound as if he were having a heart attack.

  More serious now, she said, “I might not get to go to the arena Sunday because Mom said if she could talk you into switching, we’d fly out Christmas Day.”

  “Where do you want to spend Christmas, honey?” He paused a second then added, “And don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. I’m a grown-up, I know all about disappointments and reality. You’re the kid and you get to be selfish. So you tell me what works for you.”

  Ashley sighed. She halfway wished he wasn’t so darned accommodating. Part of her wanted him to fight for her, demand equal time. But she also knew she had to live in this household—her mother’s house—and when Sonya was upset, everybody was upset.

  “I don’t know, Daddy. I guess I’m kinda sick of this turning into a big deal. Maybe what would be best is if I could see you and Grandma and Grandpa Christmas Eve.”

  “Done.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “And tell your mother I said I was willing to share my day with that big ugly horse of yours. Go riding in the morning, and either Grandma or I will pick you up at the stables at two, okay?”

  Ashley’s throat was tight, and her voice cracked again. “Okay. Love you.”

  “I love you, too, Ashley. Sweet dreams.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MATT WENT from sleep to total awareness in under a second. His sleep pattern had become erratic since the accident—some nights were a gruesome recounting of crash sounds and flashing lights. But the noise that woke him now wasn’t a memory.

  He rolled to his back and opened his eyes, letting his pupils adjust to the dimly lit room. He’d left a light burning in the bathroom across the hall to provide enough illumination to navigate to Eve’s room if she needed him. Was that where the sound had originated?

  Holding his breath, he strained to hear.

  Click. The noise, though faint, reverberated in his awareness. Something metal. A key in a lock.

  Nerves primed, he sat upright and drew on the T-shirt and sweatpants he’d laid out. One ear cocked toward the foyer, he squatted by his flight bag for his gun, but after a few seconds of fruitless searching, remembered that he’d left it behind—not wanting to be hassled by airport security.

  “Damn,” he muttered under his breath.

  Barefoot, he rose and silently walked to the doorway. Little bits of packing material stuck to his feet. One foot at a time, he brushed them off while peeking around the doorjamb. The position of the hallway gave him a clear view of someone entering the apartment.

  A man dressed in black pants and a bulky parka. At least Matt hoped that buff silhouette was the product of down stuffing, not muscle. He hadn’t tried hand-to-hand combat in quite a while. But his instincts were still sharp. Like a cat targeting an unsuspecting mouse, Matt watched the intruder.

  Out of habit, he checked the time. Three-sixteen. What kind of hospitality was expected at three in the morning?

  Not the purely social kind, for sure, he decided.

  The man paused beside the bar area where Matt had piled the mail. The intruder pushed it aside with a negligent shrug. I’ve seen this guy before, Matt told himself, but he didn’t have time to think about it because the fellow started down the hallway. His size blocked the light from the bathroom, but Matt decided, friend or foe, the guy was going down. When the man was even with him, Matt reached out, grabbed a handful of ski jacket and yanked him sideways. Off balance and startled, the man crashed clumsily to the floor. Two seconds later, he bounced to his feet like a yo-yo, sputtering, “What the hell…”

  Matt flicked on the light switch. Since he was prepared, Matt wasn’t blinded the way the other man was. Barry LaPointer danced skittishly. Blinking in panic, his jaw hinged open and shut like a bigmouth bass. Matt slugged him in the gut.

  Barry doubled over with a loud grunt and dropped to one knee.

  Matt smiled at his knuckles. Any jerk that’d run off and leave a sick woman all alone deserved a punch.

  Cursing like a street punk, Barry lumbered up. “Who the f…? Wait. I remember. You’re that reporter. What are you doing here? Why’d you hit me?”

  Matt stepped back. He rested one shoulder negligently against the door frame. “One reason and one reason only—Eve. How could you leave her here, you low-life bastard.”

  Barry put an extra two feet between them. “What are you talking about? She was getting better when I left for Chicago,” he said, his voice taking on a whining, self-righteous tone. “She had pills.”

  Matt said nothing.

  “When I talked to you at the office today, you got me thinking. I became worried so I came to check on Eve.”

  “At 3:00 a.m.,” Matt said dryly.

  Barry shrugged. “This was the first chance I had.”

  “Well, here’s a news flash—she’s asleep. So…crawl back into the same hole you slithered out of. And don’t forget to leave your key on the counter.”

  Barry’s eyes narrowed haughtily. “Who the hell are you to give me orders?”

  “I’m Eve’s new best friend.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me,” a small voice said.

  Both men reacted as if a bomb had gone off beside them. Eve stood directly behind Matt, one hand on the doorknob, the other at her throat, gripping the fabric of her robe, which Matt had run across while hunting for her medical records. He’d draped it on the foot of her bed.

  “Eve, you shouldn’t be up,” he gently scolded, noting the grayish color around her cheekbones.

  She shifted her gaze from Barry to look into Matt’s eyes. Fatigue was there, but so was an element he recognized as pure Eve. Newscaster Eve. The Eve who could make a president sweat.

  She lifted her chin, then looked at Barry. “This won’t take long.”

  She took a breath. Matt saw her knuckles whiten on the doorknob. “You’re scum, Barry. You lied to me. Get out of here and don’t come back. If Communitex wants to sue me for breach of contract, then so be it. I could care less.”

  LaPointer snorted. “Don’t try to make me the bad guy here, Eve. You snapped up Communitex’s offer faster than a catfish in my daddy’s pond. ‘Give me editorial control and I’ll follow you anywhere,’ you said.” His nasty falsetto made Matt want to punch him again. “You’re a face, Eve, a very famous face. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You had to have your little dream show—the story behind the news. Like that would ever fly.”

  Matt saw Eve shudder. Before he could
say anything, she regrouped. Her eyes narrowed and she said, “You wouldn’t recognize the truth if it flew out of your nose and danced for you. Get out of here. Now. If you ever try to contact me again, I’ll invite one of my journalist friends to sit down and listen to the horror story of your business practices and your personal cowardice.”

  Her voice faltered slightly. Matt moved to her side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Hopefully, the move looked more like a gesture of friendly support than a move to prevent her from crumpling to the ground.

  “Well said. Let’s step over here so the man can vamoose.”

  They walked to the bed Matt had been sleeping in. When he was confident she was seated comfortably, he turned and faced the man who seemed to be preparing some kind of verbal defense. Matt wasn’t interested. “In case you’re not familiar with Eve’s background, Barry,” he said, “her ex-fiancé is a judge. A man of considerable power and influence. In fact, I’m not a reporter. I’m a private investigator.

  “Judge Bishop hired me to find Eve. The judge is very upset by all this, and believe me, once Eve’s well enough to give a deposition, he’ll be asking for a full investigation into your role in this matter.”

  Matt caught the look of surprise on Eve’s face and hastily stepped in front of her. “No decent human being,” he said as snidely as possible, “walks off and abandons a person who’s too sick to even call a doctor. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here tonight, but I wouldn’t mind calling the police and letting them figure it out.”

  Barry put on a good show—all puffy indignation and self-righteous denial, but he pitched his key on the bed on his way past. “This isn’t my fault. It’s Eve’s,” he snapped, pausing in the doorway of the bedroom. “She’s the one who made promises she couldn’t fill. She told me she’d picked up a bug. She’d also mentioned she suffered from anemia and all she needed was a little R&R. I’m the one who’s been juggling nervous executives and irate producers for the past two weeks.

  “I went to Chicago to finesse an extension, Eve. A reprieve so you could salvage your career. But do you take those pills I got you? No. You have to play the prima donna—just like every other beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

  His lips curled back in a grimace. “Only now, you’re not even beautiful. You’re a scarecrow. Who the hell would want to watch you on the news? You’re enough to make me puke.”

  Matt’s fist curled, but Barry backed out of reach. “You can tell Judge Bishop that if anybody does any suing around here, it’ll be Communitex.” He looked at Matt and sneered. “So help me, if I go down, I’m taking her with me.”

  Matt started toward him. “Great. If we’re going to court anyway, I might as well rearrange your face first. Whatta I gotta lose?” Matt faked his best Bronx accent.

  “No, Matt.” Eve’s soft whisper made him halt in his tracks. “Let him go. He’s not worth it.”

  No doubt recognizing a lucky break when he saw it, Barry fled. The door slammed with enough force to make Eve shudder.

  “I’ll be right back,” Matt told her. “I want to make sure it’s locked.”

  MATT CLICKED the dead bolt, making a mental note to get the locks changed before he left town. He hurried back to his room and found Eve curled on her side, sobbing. His heart twisted in his chest.

  “Eve, don’t cry. You said yourself, he isn’t worth it.” He walked to the bed and sat down beside her.

  She curled a little tighter, her chin tucked against her knees.

  “Are you upset about what he said? The heck with Communitex. Once you get better, you can probably get your old job back.” His tone sounded falsely bright—which it was. He’d caught the morning show twice this week. In Eve’s place was a stunning new anchorperson—too blond and cute and chipper for his taste, but Matt knew she’d appeal to a lot of viewers.

  Eve took a deep breath and rolled to her back. Her cheek was less than an inch from his hand. Eyes closed, arm across her forehead, she sighed, “Some of what he said was true. This is my fault. I refused to see my doctor in New York because I was afraid he’d tell me not to take the Communitex offer.”

  “I still don’t understand how you could risk your health for a job.”

  Her lips trembled and her long lashes fluttered against her cheeks. “I thought it was my chance for the whole ball of wax. Barry was so sweet and persuasive when we met. I actually believed we had a shot at something together, both professionally and personally.”

  For some reason, the thought made Matt ill.

  She shook her head. “When he first called me in New York, I thought he was a headhunter who lived in Atlanta. It wasn’t until later that I found out he not only works for Communitex, but his father is CEO. Snagging me was some kind of coup to show Daddy how brilliant his son could be.”

  Matt still didn’t get it. His image of Eve as the savvy news anchor just didn’t jibe with a woman who would bank on the slippery promises of a glib salesman. “Didn’t you check him out?”

  “Yes.” She nodded then frowned. “Some.” Her bottom lip trembled. “Obviously not enough.”

  It took her a few seconds to master her emotions, then she said, “I saw the risk, but at that point in my life, I was willing to gamble.” She looked at him, her eyes pleading. “I’m not normally an impulsive person, Matt. But something…a report—an issue I cared about—was edited badly and when Barry promised me editorial control of my own stories, I jumped at the chance. Physically, I was run-down. But I was just plain tired, too. Tired of my life, all the traveling. I listened to what I wanted to hear—blue skies, friendly people, editorial control, a chance to make a difference.”

  Two tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. Matt realized if he lifted his thumb, he could catch one tear before it landed on the mattress.

  Shaking his head, he took a gulp of air and forced himself to move. This wasn’t good. Totally unprofessional. He rose and walked to the door. “Can I get you something? Warm milk? Tea?”

  “No. Come back. Please. I need to talk to somebody and…”

  Her tone held such yearning Matt was powerless to resist. Since she was angled sideways—closer to the head of the bed than the foot, Matt took the lower half and sat down. He sank backward, using his elbows for support.

  “Hey, this isn’t over,” he said, trying to sound positive. “Tomorrow, we’ll get you hooked up with a doctor. If it is anemia, you can lick it. Right?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. It was never this bad. The first time it happened was when I started my period. I think my poor mother thought I was faking it to get out of gym class or something. She kept sending me to school, then I fainted in English class and whacked my head on a desk.” A tiny smile touched her lips. “The next time was in college. I had pneumonia one spring and couldn’t seem to get over it. They had me in the hospital for three weeks. They told my parents it might be leukemia. Finally, they gave me a transfusion and the next morning I was dancing on the bed. This time it could have been caused by the bug I picked up in Panama and couldn’t seem to shake.”

  Matt frowned. “If you knew what the problem is why didn’t you get help?”

  She looked at the ceiling and let out a long sigh. “Part of the Communitex deal involved a huge publicity push. Barry said if word got out about my illness I’d be viewed as a liability, and it might adversely affect the stock value.” She turned her face away. “And I really thought I’d bounce back once I was rested. So why risk everything? The public is fickle, Barry was right about that.”

  Her casual acknowledgment of her industry’s shallowness baffled him. How could anybody work in that kind of business?

  As if reading his mind, Eve said, “That’s one of the reasons I wanted this job. I saw it as an opportunity to make changes, enlighten people about the faces behind the camera images they see.”

  Matt winced sheepishly. He was just as guilty. He’d callously pigeonholed Eve right up to the minute he met her.

  She sighed
. “My main goal was to reach girls and young women. They’re the biggest demographic in the industry, but we fill their heads with complete and utter crap. Nobody talks about inner beauty, values, morality, health issues. When I was thirteen and I…” Her voice petered out, like a wind-up toy that had run out of steam.

  “I’d better get you back to your bed,” Matt said.

  Yawning, she said, “Maybe I should stay here. In case Barry comes back. He’s probably got a second set of keys.” She turned her chin to look at him. There was nothing flirtatious about her suggestion. Just something sad and lonely.

  Matt told himself the smart thing to do would be to carry her to her room and pray nothing else happened until he could get her to a doctor. But, heedless of his better judgment, he reached out to brush a stray lock of hair from her eyes. It refused to cooperate. He inched a fraction closer and used the tip of his finger to nudge the strand behind her dainty ear.

  “Okay,” he said. Matt twisted to his side, resting his cheek in his palm. Once Eve was asleep, he decided, he’d carry her back to her own bed.

  A smile flickered across her lips. She closed her eyes. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For punching Barry.”

  “What makes you think I punched him?”

  Her eyebrows constricted. “Maybe I dreamed it.” Her features relaxed and her voice started to fade like a bad connection on a cell phone. “A good dream…for a change.”

  Matt studied her lips. He wished he had some balm to heal them, but he didn’t. Tomorrow. He’d add that to his list.

  Her robe, a thick purple thing made of the nubby material he associated with bedspreads, exposed a V of pale white flesh that rose and fell with each breath. His blood stirred in a way that annoyed him. He had no business looking. He rolled away, sliding his elbow under his head as a pillow. He closed his eyes to plan the coming day’s agenda. First, I talk to Mom and get the name of the doctor, then…

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Matt set the ball in motion—once he’d recovered from the shock of awakening with Eve Masterson in his arms. He wasn’t sure how that had happened, but he promised himself a stern lecture once he got Eve settled. He called his mother for the number of a specialist, then made that call. The doctor wanted Eve to come directly to the hospital—a small, private facility that was known for its discretion. The man sounded gravely concerned about Eve’s condition.