by Cathie Linz
4
HEATHER WAS RELIEVED that Jason seemed in no hurry to get home to that work he’d said he had to do. She had to confess she was enjoying talking to him, even if he was too good-looking for comfort.
Just when Heather started to relax and enjoy herself, Jason made use of a pause in their conversation to suddenly ask, “So are you ready to tell me what you wanted to talk to me about yet?”
What would he do if she said no, she wasn’t ready yet and never would be? Maybe she should just throw herself at his mercy and tell him the truth. Gripping her coffee cup with her nervous hands, she shot him a hopeful smile. “How do you feel about betting?”
He frowned. “I don’t approve of it.”
Scrap that plan. “Then how do you feel about dinner? At Andre’s. To discuss…” She racked her brain for something they could discuss, but her mind suddenly went blank.
Jason took pity on her. He placed his hand over hers. Then he smiled. The man had dimples. A flash of one, anyway. “You don’t do this very often, do you?”
“Accost strange men and ask them out? No. And trust me, I wouldn’t be doing it now if not for…”
“Yes.”
An idea suddenly came to her. More like an excuse, really. The additional research she’d done on Jason came back to her just in the nick of time. “If not for our mutual interest in Safe House and domestic abuse victims. I know you’ve supported the organization in the past and I’d like to do something on my show, maybe help them raise some funds along with awareness.”
Now that she thought of it, it did sound like a good idea. Why hadn’t she come up with it before, before she’d bumbled around like a tongue-tied idiot, practically telling him her life history? Maybe because she did her best speaking behind the safety of a microphone in the solitude of a broadcasting booth. Where no one could see her face or her body; where they could only hear her voice.
She was all set to continue her pitch when Jason said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You sound surprised that I agreed.”
“I am,” she said frankly, before hurriedly catching her verbal slip. “I mean, I am delighted that you agreed. When would be good for you?”
“Tomorrow night too soon?”
Any night would be too soon as far as she was concerned, but better to get this over with as quickly as possible. “That would be fine. I’ll meet you there at eight.”
THE PHONE BEGAN RINGING the moment Jason let himself into his north side loft. He was subletting the place from an old law-school buddy who’d been transferred out of town.
The advantage of living here was that the open floor plan with its minimalist furnishings allowed for plenty of elbow room, leading up to floor-to-ceiling windows showcasing an impressive view of the city’s skyline. The disadvantage was that noises reverberated in the open space like an echo chamber and the phone was no exception. Grabbing it, he tossed his briefcase onto the black S-shaped couch.
“So have you forgiven me yet?”
“Who is this?” Jason said, wincing as his keys fell to the floor, creating another sharp burst of sound.
“Very funny. It’s your sister.”
“Oh, right.” He kicked off his shoes before sitting on the leather couch, his gaze automatically focusing on the blinking lights atop the John Hancock Center out the window. He liked its constancy. Every night the same. Off on. Off on. “The one who sent in my photo without permission.”
“Give me a break.” She had the gall to actually laugh at him. “I’ll bet you’re secretly enjoying all the attention from being labeled one of Chicago’s sexiest bachelors.”
“Not until tonight,” Jason let slip, and then cursed himself as his sister immediately picked up on his words. He could practically see her antennae vibrating, honing in on what he might be up to.
“Really? Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Work?” She sounded very disappointed.
“That’s right.” Swinging his briefcase onto the coffee table, Jason opened it and started thumbing through the stack of file folders inside.
“I thought you said something about enjoying the attention.”
“That’s for tomorrow night,” he said absently, balancing the phone on his shoulder while his main attention was on the stack of paperwork still to be completed that night.
“Aha! You met a woman.”
It was not a question, Anastasia said it as if it were fact, which irritated the heck out of him. For as long as he could remember she’d taken great pleasure in irritating him, saying it was her way of repaying him for being so bossy, which was ridiculous. He was not bossy. As a kid, he’d just been trying to keep order in a household that valued chaos.
Reluctant to give her the satisfaction of being right, Jason calmly said, “I meet women all the time.”
“Not women who catch your attention or whose attention you want,” she replied, sounding positively smug. “So, what’s her name?”
Jason sighed. While he was reluctant to give his sister even the tiniest bit of information, he knew from experience she’d just hound him until he did. “Her name is Heather.”
“Hmm. Sounds like a fluffy name.”
“Right,” he scoffed. “Like Anastasia isn’t a fluffy name?”
“Hey, it’s a regal name. Mom’s been telling me so ever since we were kids. But let’s get back to Heather.”
“Why this sudden interest in my love life?”
“It’s not sudden,” Anastasia denied.
“No, that’s right. You’ve always been nosy,” he grumbled.
“I like butting into your life as much as you like butting into mine.”
“Not that you ever listen to me anyway,” Jason retorted, running his hand through his hair, feeling increasingly frazzled by the second.
“You’ve got that right.”
“So why are you calling me? Just to generally harass me? Or did you have something specific in mind?”
“Harassing you would be reason enough, but I’m also calling because Mom and Dad are bickering worse than usual since he retired a few months ago.” Anastasia’s voice turned serious. “Mom says he’s driving her nuts being under her feet all the time, criticizing everything she does. I think you should give them a call and talk to Dad, before things blow out of proportion.”
“Our parents have been bickering for as long as I can remember and it’s never hurt their marriage. But I’ll give Dad a call sometime soon,” Jason promised in a preoccupied voice, his attention already centered on the file folder opened in front of him. “In the meantime, I’ve got work to do and not enough hours to do it in.”
“My brother, fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Sounds like business as usual to me.”
“Then keep your nose out of my business.” Jason was smiling as he hung up on his sister. It was childish, but he liked having the last word.
“WELCOME BACK to our final half hour of Love on the Rocks,” Heather said into the microphone, almost running over the swirling hem of her brightly-colored floral dress with the wheels of the chair as she quickly shifted her position. She’d already ripped several dresses with that maneuver, not to mention once running over her big toe. Each time she vowed to be more careful, but then she’d get involved with what she was doing, dealing with the hundred-and-one intricacies of putting on a show. The dim lighting in the booth was intended to keep her attention focused on the console in front of her—command central with enough blinking lights, slides, buttons and knobs to give NASA a run for their money. “We’re talking to Jane from Joliet. Before the break, you were telling me that you do and do and do for this new guy in your life and all you’re getting in return is doo-doo. Sounds like a bad deal to me, Jane. Kind of like trading in a Lexus for a Pinto, you know what I mean?”
“But he’s so cute.”
“Looks aren’t everything.”
“That�
�s what you think.”
Heather leaned forward in her chair. “Let’s get back to this guy. You said before that you had a great relationship with someone else who you dumped to go with this current man who makes you miserable, takes advantage of you, borrows money, sees other women. Do I have that right?”
“It doesn’t sound good when you put it that way.”
“That’s my point.” Heather’s voice was persuasive. “The final decision is yours, Jane. All I can say is that you might want to give that great-relationship guy you dumped a call and see if he’s moved on to someone else.”
“He wouldn’t!”
“Someone else might have snatched him up by now,” Heather added, feeling a definite affinity for the man. She definitely knew how it felt to be used.
“He’s not that cute.”
Heather’s affinity went up another notch or two as she said, “But he knows how to treat a woman right, and guys like that are worth their weight in gold. Am I right, ladies?” On cue, Heather added the sound of women chanting “Yes, yes, yes” by moving one of the slides on the console in front of her. She had several sound-effects cassettes all cued up and ready to go at a touch of her fingers. “There you have it, Jane. Good luck. And we’ll be right back after these words.”
During the commercial break, Heather sipped her coffee. Normally she was very focused on her work, checking in over the intercom with Nita, who was in the adjacent production booth, connected to the broadcast booth by a door and a big soundproof window.
But today, Heather was worrying about her dinner date with Jason. Miraculously, thanks to a last-minute cancellation, she had been able to get a reservation at Andre’s. But she still hadn’t decided what to wear.
She had a pink dress that looked good, but that was before she’d become a redhead and she didn’t think redheads were supposed to wear pink. She had a gorgeous lilac silk suit, but she never wore it while eating because she might spill something on it.
Oh, why had she gotten caught up in this mess? There was no way a woman like her could keep the attention of a man like Jason. She hadn’t even been able to keep Howard’s attention, and Nita had called him a “nerd extraordinaire.”
After all the bad luck she’d had with artistic types, Heather’s relationship with Howard had been a definite change of pace. He was a botanist, a rock solid scientific type. But even that relationship had blown up in her face six months ago when Howard came down with an early case of midlife crisis. Saying that he needed to find himself, he’d abruptly headed off to the South American rain forest with a curvaceous research assistant named Freedom.
Wherever Howard was, she hoped he was sweating and being eaten alive by mosquitoes. It was small of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself. Howard’s betrayal had hurt her the most of all because she hadn’t seen it coming. She’d been completely blindsided. Artistic types weren’t meant to be stable, but Howard had been the Rock of Gibraltar type. Or so she’d thought.
What was it with her and her taste in men? She always picked the wrong ones. While she might not have been crazy in love with Howard, she’d thought it was safe to care for him.
She knew it wouldn’t be safe to fall in love with Jason. Not that she had a track record of playing it safe as far as romance was concerned. But her heart had been broken enough times. She didn’t want to be disappointed yet again.
It took her a moment to realize that Nita was waving a sheet of white paper in front of the glass with the words “You’re on!”
Heather put her hands to her headphones. Dead air!
Frantically leaning into the mike and almost knocking out her front teeth in the process, Heather hurriedly scanned the screen of the computer display in front of her.
Nita was not only the show’s producer, but also the call screener, selecting which incoming calls would go on the air and typing the necessary info onto their computer link. Line 3, Wendy from Winnetka. Strange guy question. Wake up!!! Are you reading this?? Hello???
Checking the console to verify her mike’s volume, Heather hurriedly said, “Sorry about that, folks. Our next caller is Wendy from Winnetka. Hi, you’re on the air. What can we do for you today?”
“This guy I know does something kind of strange and I wanted your opinion.”
“Okay, but keep in mind that this is a show about relationships, not sex education. For that you’ll have to check out Dr. Ruth.”
Wendy giggled. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that, like he…um, he loaned me this book of poetry. I looked at it, but it was too heavy for me.”
“Too heavy, huh? How much did it weigh?”
“About five pounds,” Wendy replied with a smack of her chewing gum. “Maybe six.”
Dumb as a bunny! Nita typed on Heather’s screen.
“Anyway, I gave the book back to him. Then he, like, calls me up and tells me he found a strand of my hair between two of the pages. He said he smelled it and it made him think of me. This guy is, like, just my college study partner. I don’t see him that way, you know?”
“As someone you want smelling your hair strands, you mean? You’re saying you don’t feel an olfactory affinity with him.”
“A what? An old factory?”
Dumber than a bunny! Nita typed.
“Olfactory means having to do with the sense of smell.” Heather explained. “It sounds to me like this guy has a nose for romance.”
“But he’s sniffing hair. And it’s not like it was on my head. It was, like, dead hair, you know? Don’t you think that’s kind of gross?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what you think, and from the sound of it, you think this relationship with this guy is going nowhere.”
“Right.”
“Then you should tell him that.”
“But what if he stops wanting to be my study partner?”
“A risk you might have to take.”
“But then I’d, like, totally flunk English.” “Perhaps, but you’d get an A in humanity.” She gently noted. “Think about how you’d like it if someone used you just to get ahead. Trust me, I know how it feels.” Neil, the playwright, had wanted to use Heather’s contacts in the broadcasting business to get his work produced. “It hurts. So be gentle, okay? Thanks for calling, Wendy. And we’re out of time. Thanks for tuning in today. Until tomorrow, this is Heather Grayson stirring things up with Love on the Rocks.”
Miguel, the board operator in the production booth, added the show’s traditional closing of ice cubes hitting a glass as a carbonated beverage was added.
“So tell me again how it went with Jason last night,” Nita demanded as soon as Heather left the broadcasting booth.
“I’ve already told you ten times. It went well. I’m having dinner with him tonight at Andre’s.”
“Which means that Bud and I have to be there to witness the event.” Nita paused in the hallway to stick her tongue out at Bud’s PR picture hanging on the wall.
“Don’t remind me.” Heather rolled her eyes and groaned as she moved past Nita. “Like I’m not going to be nervous enough dealing with Jason.”
“You were thinking about him when you messed up after the commercials, weren’t you?” Nita asked, following Heather to her cubicle.
“Maybe.”
“No maybes about it. I could see where meeting a sexy hunk like Jason would be distracting.”
Heather gave Nita a reprimanding look. “I wasn’t sitting there fantasizing about his body, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Of course not.” Unrepentant, Nita perched on the corner of Heather’s desk. “You were probably fantasizing about his hands. He has great hands, long and thin but not too small. Powerful.”
Heather tried taking the high road.“Actually, I hadn’t noticed.”
“Liar. But hey, if you don’t want to admit how sexy he is, that’s your business. Just don’t go missing any more cues during your show. You almost gave me a heart attack there.”
Heather hung her head and looked suitably remorseful. “Sorry about that.”
“What you should be sorry about is your clothes.” Nita eyed the loose-fitting floral dress Heather was wearing. “I hope you’re going to change before you meet him.”
“You’re so good for my self-confidence,” Heather noted ruefully.
“What you’re wearing is fine…for work. Not for snagging. Snagging takes a different look.”
“Like the one that woman wore leaving Omar’s salon the other day?” Heather countered, rolling her chair away from Nita. “Sexy and strung out, you could call it.” She shook her head. “Sorry, not my style.”
“How about something black and clingy?”
The suggestion made Heather laugh. “Adorned with cat hairs? I don’t own anything black and clingy. I do, however, own something purple and sort of clingy, and I plan on wearing that tonight. I’m actually starting to sort of look forward to it. Andre’s is supposed to have really great food.”
“Forget the food,” Nita advised. “Concentrate on the man. And the bet.”
JASON WAS WAITING for Heather when she arrived at the restaurant. Andre’s was fashionably current with plenty of swirling glass and elegant greenery. Swagged burgundy curtains stood out against stylish stretches of bare brick walls. Even the indoor fountain in the elegant foyer splashed with dainty class rather than sloppy gurgles.
Jason fit right in with the high-class surroundings. He was wearing a black suit, complete with gleaming white shirt and conservative burgundy tie. With his glasses on, it was hard to see any signs of the Dark Knight who’d so sweetly wooed her with the sounds of his sax at the club last night. But when Heather looked beneath the surface, there was no mistaking the rock-hard jaw or the slight downward slope of his brown eyes.
He wasn’t waiting alone. Surprise, surprise.
A well-dressed blonde with big hair was hanging on his every word with more than casual interest. She was as perfect looking as he was, and it made something inside of Heather twist in painful awakening.