Only Brianna and their mother were brave enough to stay.
Elyse settled back at the table with a thermal carafe of decaf coffee and a sympathetic expression.
"Do you want advice, honey? Or are you not as adrift as you seem?"
Sophie sighed and rested her arms on the table. "I don't need advice. Not yet. I'm plenty adrift, but I'm finding my anchor, bit by bit." She sipped her coffee. "I'd rather talk about you and Daddy."
Elyse's glance toward the basement door was affectionate and happy. The knot of worry in Sophie's gut that was dedicated to her parents relaxed a bit.
"Daddy and I are fine, dear. We have been for a long time."
"I know, but when you came out of your cocoon, it wasn't a slow fluttering. I keep needing to make sure no one was hurt in the explosion."
Elyse eyed her two younger daughters speculatively. "Did I hurt you two?"
Brianna spoke first. "We were concerned, but I wouldn't say hurt. I felt guilty for being a burden to you for so long."
"No, never that!" Elyse leapt up and rushed to hug Brie. "It had nothing to do with you! It was all me. I tried to tell you 65
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that." She sat in the chair next to Brianna and sighed. "You're all so like your father."
It had been commented on as long as Sophie could remember. All three sisters matched their father in appearance, tall and fair where their mother was short and dark. But Sophie knew that wasn't what she was trying to say.
"Gruff and self-centered and blusteringly loving when the occasion calls?" she asked.
Her mother smiled gently. "You're all worrywarts."
Sophie and Brianna burst out laughing. "If we are, Mom, then we're like you, not Daddy!" Brianna choked out. "He doesn't worry about anything."
"He does. He worries quietly. You're all the same way. Kira deals with it by trying to parent." She turned to Sophie. "You deal with it by joking and demanding. Brianna hovers."
"I do not hover," she protested.
"You do, sweetie. You were over here every day when I was gone. You didn't think your poor father could handle being alone."
But he had, Sophie knew. Kira had been home, but consumed by morning sickness and her own dilemmas.
Brianna had hovered, quite ineffectively, and Sophie had come home every weekend. Just about the only thing any of them had to do, though, was be company for the man who hadn't been alone for longer than a day in nearly thirty years.
Which meant her mother hadn't been alone, either. Sophie prized her own space, and didn't have to struggle to get it.
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She finally understood why her mother had needed the escape.
The knot in her stomach loosened entirely and slipped away.
"Okay, Mom. We'll stop hovering."
Brianna looked back and forth between them. She didn't look convinced, but her mother's obvious happiness and Sophie's reassurance seemed enough. She shrugged. "I'll try."
"Now, dear, tell me all about Parker/Biff."
Sophie stared at her. "Mom, you just said—"
"But I'm your mother. It doesn't apply to me. I have to worry. Tell."
The only way to escape would be heading back to Boston.
Sophie sighed and told.
* * * *
Two weeks went by, and Parker didn't call the show.
Sophie spent four hours each day on tenterhooks, wondering if the next caller would be him, or the next, or the next. It made her more suspicious than ever that Biff and Parker were the same guy. She told Biff to get lost, and Parker did.
She tried to come up with a plan. She couldn't find him at The Club, because she didn't belong anymore. She'd always attended events as representative or guest of her bosses or other members. As familiar as the staff was with her, they wouldn't let her just wander in, knowing her new status.
Calling wasn't an option, either. She'd looked up Cornwall in the phone book and come up empty. Of course, rich people 67
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rarely had listed numbers. She found the Cornwall Foundation, but got lost in a voice mail maze. And Chuck wouldn't let her borrow his Club Directory.
"You betrayed me," he complained, "and now you want me to help you? You've got to tell me what you're looking for, at least."
That, she couldn't do.
She didn't have much better luck with the name Parker. An Internet search yielded only four people with that first name, and none were her Parker. Again, of course, he was probably unlisted.
She'd just about given up—and given in to the restlessness that had started to build again—when she got called into the program manager's office.
"The show's gotten a little flat." Stevie seemed to have been elected to give her the bad news. Sophie sat in a chair facing Stevie, the station manager, and her producer, and tried to act professional. Her first canning. She'd only made it two months.
Make them say it, she thought, though her motor mouth wanted to make excuses or beg for another chance or just say thanks for the memories and lead her body out the door.
She waited.
"You're fine," Stevie said, holding a hand up in her direction. "Don't get me wrong, you still have a rapport with the listeners. But the last couple of weeks haven't lived up to the expectations the listeners have developed since the show started."
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"What expectations?" The only thing different was that they interwove the rant and rave.
Stevie started to speak, but Melina stopped him with a hand on his arm. She leaned forward. "There is a spice that has been lost. We think we know how to get it back. But for it to work, it must be done on the air. We just didn't want to blindside you."
"What, another puppy?" Sophie threw her hands in the air.
"Maybe we should just have a 'Surprise Sophie' feature every month." She stood. "Is that all? Until the big surprise? Can I go get ready for my show now?"
They nodded. The station manager remained as stone-faced as he'd been since the meeting started. Heck, since she'd met him. Stevie seemed trepidatious, though that was common for him.
Melina, who held the door for Sophie as she walked out, had the look of a woman helping her friend get ready for a hot date. Sophie gave her a "what is going on?" glare, and Melina just tilted her head and smiled.
Sheesh. She'd had no idea radio people could be so mysterious.
Luckily, she didn't have long to wait for her surprise.
Halfway through that afternoon's show, the call volume had dropped and Sophie had begun ranting about an article she'd clipped from the paper. A woman had caught a burglar in her kitchen, about to escape through the back door with a television. Weaponless, the woman had grabbed the sprayer from the kitchen sink and sprayed the ceramic tile under the crook's feet. He'd slipped and fallen. She'd called the police.
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The next day he filed suit against her.
"The jerk is suing for half-a-million dollars. Half-a-million dollars, folks. For herniating a disc in his back while breaking the law. Maybe he should have purchased workers'
compensation insurance."
The door opened quietly, but she didn't look up from her article. Stevie often came in to give her announcements or teasers for the hourly news. She was so engrossed in her papers and argument that she didn't notice a pair of hands slipping the extra headphones from their stand, then adjusting the microphone.
"The evil attorney—and I know, that's a redundancy—has been quoted as saying his client was not stealing the television, but relocating it. Relocating it where? Out the door? I swear, our litigious society is due to one thing. Too many lawyers. Remember five or ten years ago they kept saying we had more law stu
dents than practicing attorneys?
Well, those students are practicing now, and they don't have any work. They can't make the big bucks they dreamed of in law school. So they find new ways to get it."
She heard the click of the switch that turned on the second microphone and jerked her head up.
"Come on, Sophie, you can't put all the blame on the lawyers. They wouldn't pursue a case they couldn't win. Juries have to have some culpability."
Sophie stared at the man on the other side of the console.
Her surprise was a partner. A foil. Someone to argue coherently when her listeners failed her. It was perfectly clear, and a great solution to the "flatness" of the show.
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She doubted the station had realized just what a surprise they were giving her, though. Satisfaction welled right up there with excitement as he kept talking. She'd been right.
The voice coming over her headphones was Parker.
The man in front of her was Biff Cornwall.
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CHAPTER 5
"Stupid people," she murmured, still staring. He grinned back at her, clearly pleased with his effect.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
Sophie snapped back to herself. "Sure, juries give big awards for ridiculous lawsuits. I have a theory for that, too.
Too many stupid people. That's what a lot of problems boil down do, actually. Stupid people." She watched the board, lit up with calls. "None of my listeners are in that category, of course." A few of them went out, and she winked at Parker.
"So you think juries are stupid?" he asked.
"Well, think about it. Attorneys don't want to pick people who will think for themselves. They want people who are easily swayed. People who will listen to what they tell them, and that's all. Ignorant people. Uneducated people. Stupid people."
"You're harsh, Sophie."
"Well, there's one reason juries are equally to blame."
"What's that?"
"They hope to set a precedent so when they steal someone's TV and hurt their back, they can get lots of money they're not entitled to, too. After this commercial, we'll see what you think, listeners. 555-3246. Call now."
She closed her mike and leaned back in her chair. Melina was busy screening calls for the next set, so Sophie beckoned to Stevie through the observation window. He slipped in the door, but kept his hand on the knob.
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"How on earth did you find him?" She waved a hand at Parker. Biff. "And what do I call you?" She glowered at the guy she supposed was her sidekick. Great. Now she couldn't date him. She wasn't breaking that rule again.
Stevie tugged at his shirt collar. "Well, we had to search—"
"That's not important, Stevie," Parker interrupted. He didn't look at the poor guy when he dismissed him. "Sophie and I had better settle a couple things before the break's over." Stevie slipped back out.
Sophie stared at Parker. Biff. Whatever. "You are so arrogant." She would never talk to a boss as if he were an underling, and at the station, Stevie was their boss.
Biff had the nerve to look surprised. "Arrogant? About what?"
"Never mind." She waved her hand between them. "What the hell do I call you?"
"You can call me Parker."
"Where did Biff come from?"
Melina tapped on the glass and motioned five seconds.
"I'll explain later." Parker/Biff slid his headphones back on and Sophie prepared to take the first caller. As soon as the show was over—one of the best Rant and Raves ever, Sophie grudgingly admitted—she dragged Parker/Biff to the empty break room. Her show ended at seven and the offices were mainly deserted by then. Thank God.
"Okay. Biff. Parker. What is going on? Start with your name—which is driving me nuts," she said through gritted teeth, "and go on from there."
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He somehow managed to maintain his air of arrogance even while he dropped change in the soda machine, then sat on a dirty plastic chair and set his arm and Coke can on the matching dirty plastic table.
"My name is Parker Cornwall. My father was Biff Cornwall, and passed the name on to me. Everyone calls me Biff, but I didn't want you to know who I was the first time I called."
Sophie sat next to him. She was still frowning, and Parker wanted to kiss the furrows in her forehead. That tendency toward tenderness was new, and kind of scary. It flowered when Sophie looked at him with sympathy instead of the frustration she'd flashed his way all afternoon.
"Your father is dead?" she asked.
The question seemed to come out of the blue. Parker forgot his contemplation of her sleek eyebrows. "What? Dead?
No."
"You said he was Biff Cornwall."
"Oh. We're not that close."
"So, should I call you Biff or Parker?" She tilted her head at him, the frustration back but tempered—he hoped—by excitement. Or anticipation. He thought they could make a beautiful talk show together.
And maybe more.
"Parker," he said, deliberately injecting intensity into the word. "I want you to call me Parker."
* * * *
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Sophie calling him Parker was special. Which made her special.
"Stop it," she ordered, marching up the steps to the station. "You can't go in there mooning over the guy."
She, Parker, Stevie, and Melina were meeting to discuss the changes that would be necessary to incorporate Parker into the show. What the station expected from them. What leeway they could have.
That dating was out of the question.
Sophie doubted that one was on the official agenda. If anyone else had thought about it, they wouldn't care one way or another as long as the ratings went up and stayed up. But there was no way she was dating someone she worked this closely with.
Not again.
The other three met her at the top of the stairs and turned her around.
"Am I late?" She glanced at her watch as they went down the steps and headed toward a diner down the street. She wasn't late. "What's going on?" She felt ganged up on. She hated being ganged up on.
"We thought it would be easier to talk at the diner," Melina explained. "Parker was here already to finalize his contract.
It's quite a madhouse in there today. New advertiser."
"Ah." Sophie got it. When a big new advertiser came on board, everyone turned cartwheels to keep them happy. The production booth ran constantly, recording promos and commercials. The talent practiced saying company names and taglines so they wouldn't flub them. The salesperson 75
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responsible for the account grabbed a team to brainstorm ideas for spending the client's money. They definitely wouldn't get anything done in there.
The diner, however, was quiet between the lunch and dinner rushes. They ordered coffee and pie and started to talk.
"Make sure you don't talk over each other," Stevie cautioned. "Give each other a little space verbally, or the listeners won't hear either one of you." He consulted a list.
"There's a lot of heat between you, so don't forget to take calls when you go on too long. Melina, you're in charge of that."
"We need a new hand signal," she joked. "Break it up."
She pantomimed breaking a stick in half.
"Never insult the listeners, Parker, that's one of Sophie's rules." Stevie's thin lips curled up at her in what she figured was a smile. "Though you came close with the stupid people bit."
"One of my biggest pet peeves," Sophie
said. "You'll hear it a lot, I'm sure."
Parker turned his attention to her. Sophie suddenly felt like she was sitting in direct sunlight, downtown, in August. She was glad she hadn't sat next to him, with the amount of heat he generated.
"Why do you care about insulting the listeners?" he asked.
"All the big names do it, and other listeners love it."
"I want a little higher-class audience than the so-called 'big names.' And the listeners are our bread and butter."
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Remembering his reputed worth, she amended, "My bread and butter, anyway."
"We have a promo to record for one of the clients," Stevie went on. "They love your banter, and as soon as they heard Parker was in the studio, they called and booked air time." He cleared his throat. "We think this is indicative of the nature of your chemistry, and how to make the show successful. So we want to build on it."
Uh, oh. "Build on what?"
Cough. "Well, on the theme, so to speak, of the nature of the advertiser's, uh, business." Grunt, cough. Poor Stevie must have a bone caught in his throat, Sophie thought.
"What, exactly, is the nature of the advertiser's business?"
Stevie flushed, then named a local hotel famed for its getaway weekends. For couples.
More than uh, oh, Sophie thought. "And the nature of the ad we're recording?" She was certain Melina, sitting next to her, was holding back laughter. Sophie had told her the night before about her no dating rule. Melina didn't think it stood a chance. Sophie feared her producer would do everything in her power to get her and Parker together.
Stevie shuffled his papers and avoided her gaze.
"Stevie. The ad?"
He sighed and slapped his papers onto the table. "The anniversary of your first date."
Sophie rolled her eyes. "If we just met, it can't be the anniversary of our first date."
"Well, it wouldn't be the real Sophie and Parker, you'd be acting," Stevie argued.
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Sophie finally agreed to do the ad—and there would be more, Parker was sure—as long as on the show she could counter the impression it would leave.
"Sophie, the audience heard Parker courting you over the phone," Stevie argued. "They know he gave you a puppy.
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