Hers By Request

by Karen Ann Dell

  She had held the answer to her life in her hands right there in that living room. She admitted her love for Dev and even though she was talking to Zoe, she was glad he had overheard, because when she turned and found him standing behind her, dumbstruck, she was sure he loved her too. And for the space of a few short hours she was the happiest of women.

  Now that joy had turned to ashes, her happiness burned to the ground by Dev’s revelation. How could she have been so careless? After Danny, she had sworn she’d never fall in love again. She knew what a risk it was to give her heart into another’s keeping. Her father . . . gone. Danny . . . gone. And now, Dev.

  Zoe gave her arm a little shake. “Mandy? Come back, honey.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’ll take a while to get past all this. But you will, honey, you will.”

  Amanda nodded. “You are so right.” She set her jaw and angled her chin. “We never did go out and celebrate the way we should have.” I was too busy crying into my pillow or cursing the man who’d broken my heart. “Why don’t we go out for dinner tonight and drown my sorrows while we toast our success with a few Margaritas?”

  “Fabulous idea! It’s great to have enough money in the bank to be able to splurge without worrying about next month’s rent. Where shall we go? Donatelli’s?”

  “No. Bad choice.” She could only imagine how Mario would greet her—with lots of questions about Dev, no doubt. “Want to check out that new seafood place that just opened down at the end of First Street by the public dock?”

  “Okay, why not? It’s got to be better than Joe’s Cheeseburgers and Fries,” Zoe agreed, referring to the burger joint the new restaurant had replaced. “That place was the pits.”

  “Lord, yes. How can you mess up a hamburger?”

  “I don’t know, but they did.” Zoe grimaced. “Let’s hope Belle’s Shells is an improvement.”

  Amanda dumped her pile of shredded scone into the trash and grabbed her purse. “I’m sure you have lots to do getting ready for Jeff’s show, so I’ll be back around six to pick you up for dinner, okay?”

  “I’ll be ready. And, Amanda? Bring your appetite, for Pete’s sake. Pretty soon you’ll weigh less than me, and that’s not good.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll eat. See you at six.”

  Back home, Amanda wandered around her property thinking about planting some flowers now that the weather had warmed up. She sat at the end of her dock and savored the last few weeks of peace and quiet. Memorial Day weekend was only two weeks away when the floodgates would open and the summer tourists would descend upon Blue Point Cove. While most of the merchants in town happily anticipated the deluge of thick-walleted visitors, Amanda’s income was little different summer or winter.

  And, unlike Zoe, she didn’t have the financial cushion the bonus from Mrs. Wyndham provided. She’d used her share to pay Dev back for the work he had done to her house, not wanting to wait until September as their original agreement stipulated.

  She was still furious every time she thought about all he had done. She’d thought he’d helped her because he liked her. No, because he loved her. These past few months they’d done everything together. Even chores as mundane as grocery shopping had seemed fun when Dev was with her. They had found that tiny cove, so secluded that they were sure no one knew of it but them. It’d become their go-to place to talk and dream and kiss.

  She got up and stomped back up the dock. The check she had mailed him on Monday hadn’t hit her bank account yet, but it was only a matter of time. Lucky for her, the news of her party’s success had quickly spread throughout their bayside community and she had already received two inquiries about family reunion parties on the fourth of July weekend.

  She rounded the corner of the house as a delivery truck stopped in front. She frowned as the driver hopped out and opened the rear doors to retrieve an arrangement of long-stemmed red roses in a crystal vase. If Dev thought that was all it would take to get back in her good graces, he was a bigger fool than she thought.

  “Miss Adams?”

  At her nod, he presented her with the bouquet. “Then these are for you, ma’am.” He touched the bill of his ball cap.

  “Well you can take these right back to the man who sent them. I don’t want them.” Amanda clasped her hands behind her back.

  “But, Ma’am, I can’t do that. If I bring these back, my boss will skin me. You can throw them away if you don’t want them, but you gotta take ‘em.” He held them out to her again.

  Feeling foolish to take her anger out on the hapless deliveryman, she finally took the vase. “Wait here and I’ll get you a tip.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. That’s okay.” He slammed the rear doors and headed for the driver’s seat. In thirty seconds he was back on the road, leaving her standing in a cloud of dust holding a dozen roses.

  “He was probably afraid I’d throw them at him,” she muttered to herself as she went inside.

  The card on its little plastic stick was too much for her to resist. Cursing her weakness, she slipped it from the envelope and read aloud, “It was great working with you. Next time you need a bartender, please call me. In fact, next time you need anything, please call me. Bill Leonetti.” The word anything was underlined.

  Well, that’d teach her to be so sure of herself. Had the expectation that the flowers were from Dev been wishful thinking? Or had she merely wanted the opportunity to spurn another gift from Dev? She wanted to throw something at him, that’s for sure. The man had the gall to play “Someone to Watch Over Me” last night. Granted, it was the song she’d wanted to hear, but how annoying was it that he could read her so well? She wasn’t sure which made her more angry—the fact that she did listen, or the fact that he knew she’d listen.

  Dev lay in bed, his hands stacked behind his head. He wondered if today would be the day when complete exhaustion claimed him. It had to be soon. What was the Guinness record for hours without sleep? He ought to find out—he might be getting close to breaking it. Since last Saturday night, the sandman sat in a shadowy corner of his apartment sporting an evil grin and mocking him.

  The endless debate circled around in his head. If he had told Amanda who he was from the start, would she have accepted his role in Danny’s death and still been willing to get to know him, at least long enough for him to have fulfilled his promise to Danny? Or would she have politely told him to never darken her doorstep again?

  And if she didn’t brush him off, would she still have asked him to do her party? Agreed to be his accountant? Got to know him well enough to act on the sizzling attraction that had crackled between them from the first moment they met? Maybe there wouldn’t have been any attraction—on her part at least—if she’d known who he was from the get-go. It could have all been one-sided in that alternate universe.

  Of course the way he’d played it hadn’t worked out well, either. The blame was all his, due in large part to his selfish inability to give up knowing the beautiful, funny, charming Amanda Adams. No matter how superficial their relationship might be, it was better than none at all. Or so he had thought all those weeks ago, the first time she sat in his office and completely enchanted him.

  The debate was strictly academic at this point. He’d fucked up—and hurt her in the process. Something he’d never envisioned happening. Accepting his own pain at their inevitable break up was no problem. Those weeks of bliss were worth the payment. But more than his regret over Danny, it was having been the cause of Amanda’s pain that ate at him now.

  When he walked into the broadcast booth to take over from Andy, Dev began to think he really had entered an alternate universe. Andy signed off and cued in the eleven o’clock news feed. He swung around from the mike. “It’s all yours, boss. Anything you need before I bug out of here?”

  Dev frowned. “Did you get a
haircut?”

  “Yeah. Well, it was kinda gettin’ in my way, you know?” Andy rubbed his hand over the one-inch stubble, all that remained of the style that had earned him the nickname Andy J., for Jesus.

  Dev glanced around the studio. “Okay, who are you and what did you do with Andy Phelps?”

  “Cute, boss. You’re a barrel of laughs lately.” He coiled up his ear buds and stuck them in his shirt pocket.

  “Hey, sorry, Andy. No offense meant.” Dev scanned the room again, still expecting a gremlin to hop up on the table and yell “surprise!” “You just threw me a curve here. The haircut is great. And I really appreciate you keeping the studio so clean. Guess my comments haven’t been falling on deaf ears after all.”

  “Yeah, you’d be surprised at how much attention we pay around here.” Andy nodded at the control booth. “You’re on in thirty seconds, boss. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He squeezed Dev’s shoulder on the way by. “Have a good one.”

  Bemused, Dev watched him go. He glanced into the control room to see if Lance was still the man he remembered. He was, thank God. Although he was gesturing urgently for Dev to step up to the mike and say something.

  Dev hit the switch and did his regular introduction. No calls lit up the phone lines immediately so he slid “Stormy Weather” into the player and let Billie Holiday’s distinctive voice fill the studio.

  Soon the call lights did light up, one after the other, and he was on a roll. He fielded three more in the same ballpark, before a caller asked him if his girl had just dumped him.

  Dev denied even having a ‘girl’ in keeping with his usual method of withholding personal information. But it gave him pause. Seemed like a lot of folks out there were feeling the blues tonight. Or had he unconsciously been fueling the airwaves with his own troubles? He slipped in “Thou Swell” and “Night and Day” to break the mood and his listeners responded with some more cheerful requests. He worked at sounding upbeat all through his show—right up till it was time for the last song. He doubted Amanda listened any more, but he always dedicated the final play to her. Tonight it was “Nevertheless”.

  He flipped the call lines over to the canned answering machine. “We’re sorry. The request hour is over. Please call in again next Friday night . . .” yada, yada, yada. For the remainder of his shift he kept his comments to a minimum and let the music float him along while the earth spun toward dawn.

  By the following Wednesday, the normal easygoing atmosphere around the studio was history and his crew walked on eggshells and spoke in hushed voices around him. His desk was clear of paperwork. He’d written employee evaluations on every one of his employees, met with each of them to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and bestowed raises where he felt they were deserved. He’d started a three-year business plan aimed at increasing revenues enough to make the station self-supporting. He’d jotted down the numbers for accountants, but had yet to call any of them.

  Tonight Andy had ducked out of the studio as soon as he signed off. Dev marveled again at the change in the kid. Andy and Lance were having a conversation in the control room and Andy kept glancing over his shoulder at Dev. Normally he would have wondered what was going on but tonight he was too tired to give a damn.

  He checked the clock. Ten-fifty-seven. He slipped the CD into the player, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to settle into the right frame of mind to respond to his callers.

  He opened his eyes to find Lance and Andy watching him closely from the control booth. Sitting here with his eyes closed, they probably worried that he’d fallen asleep. Fat chance.

  By the time seven a.m. rolled around, Dev was more than glad to hand off to Neal. Today was officially fourteen days A.A. He was bone-weary and aching. Chris Majewski was due for a visit and for the first time in months Dev would actually be glad to see him. He needed to talk to someone who might help him get through the despair-filled desert his life had become.

  CHAPTER 25

  Dinner had been a surprise in a couple of ways. Amanda was determined to enjoy their celebration, so she dressed with care, going with casual chic, and used makeup to camouflage the dark circles that had taken up residence under her eyes. The bright colors of her softly draping tropical blouse were perfect against her white jeans. So what if she was jumping the gun by wearing white before Memorial Day? That rule was for her mother’s generation anyway. They cheered her up and the strappy sandals on wedges added to her good humor. She left her hair long and loose and slipped a pair of big gold hoops in her ears.

  The new restaurant had open-air seating by the waterfront, a nice dining room with the expected nautical décor, a small bar up front, and a separate room furnished with picnic tables covered with brown paper where patrons used wooden mallets to beat steamed crabs into submission. The smell of Old Bay seasoning and beer combined to produce a distinctive aroma, and piles of empty crab shells were dumped into large trash bins at the end of each table. It was community dining at its finest and everyone seemed to be having a grand time.

  Amanda and Zoe opted for a booth in the main dining room and had barely had time to glance at the menu before their waitress brought over a pair of margaritas.

  “Oh, there must be some mistake,” Amanda told her. “We haven’t ordered drinks yet.”

  “These are compliments of our bartender,” the waitress replied, pointing to the bar. “He said if you preferred something else, he’d be happy to exchange these for whatever you’d like.”

  Zoe looked over Amanda’s shoulder to see Bill Leonetti wiping the bar and grinning. “It’s the guy you hired to work the Wyndham’s party. This is pretty nice of him,” she said, raising her glass in salute.

  Amanda turned and smiled. “Please tell him thank you,” she told the waitress. “I, for one, am perfectly happy with a margarita. How about you, Zoe?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m happy. This is the best margarita I’ve ever had. Tell the man to keep ‘em coming. We’re celebrating.”

  By the time they left, three margaritas and a delicious dinner later, they both had a nice buzz and a case of the giggles. On their way out, Amanda stopped at the bar to thank Bill for the drinks and the flowers.

  “No thanks necessary. That party helped me get this job for the summer. I hope that means I’ll be seeing you around often, Amanda,” he added quietly.

  “I’m sure we’ll be back,” she replied, dodging the unspoken meaning his words conveyed.

  At home later, she sat at the end of her dock hugging herself and gazing up at the stars. Far from the lights of a big city, they sprinkled the heavens with thousands of bright pinpoints, the fainter ones fading with the rising of the waning moon.

  That moon had seemed so magical a few nights ago.

  I know you meant well, Danny, but sending Dev to watch over me was a terrible mistake. I was doing fine. Missing you like crazy, but dealing with it. Standing on my own two feet without your help or anybody else’s. I didn’t need to be ‘looking after’.

  It was a particular one of those ways Dev ‘looked after’ her that so angered her.

  The repairs to her house were needed, true, but she would have taken care of them herself—eventually. She was coping with the cold weather just fine before she met Dev. A few more months would have been uncomfortable but not intolerable.

  The financial support was helpful, she had to admit. Especially with her car problems. But she came up with the event-planning idea on her own and had gotten Zoe to go along with it. That would have solved her money problems without Dev’s help.

  Even the pretense of friendship she might be able to accept, someday. But the pity fucks? No, she was never going to forgive him for that. It was too humiliating, the way she believed Dev actually cared about her, found her sexy and desirable. All the tenderness, all the passion—faked.

  Now my house is full
of memories of Dad and you and Dev. Everywhere I turn there’s something that reminds me of one of you. It’s just not fair. It’s not fair that I loved all of you and here I am, alone.

  Spook came padding silently down the dock and rubbed against her. She picked the cat up and snuggled her in her lap. Purring rumbled into the night. “Well, I guess I’m not all alone, kitty. Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll make tea, and you can have a little milk, okay?” Spook jumped out of her embrace and led the way.