Flash and Fire

by Marie Ferrarella

  He frowned. Her father’s expression clearly indicated that he thought she was trying to intrude on his territory. “Well.”

  Just one word. No details, no embellishments. Not a single crumb to toss her way. He was more talkative with the caddies at his country club than he was with her.

  Let it pass.

  Amanda pressed her lips together. “Where’s Whitney?”

  “Right here,” a warm, familiar voice said.

  With a wave of relief, Amanda turned to see Whitney walking into the room.

  He held a book in his hand, which he passed to the older man. “Here, Henry, an F. Scott Fitzgerald first edition, as promised.”

  Turning, Whitney took both Amanda’s hands into his. “Amanda, what a pleasant surprise.” He released her. “Here to see the jailbird?”

  “You’re not a jailbird, and you won’t be. Clash of wills notwithstanding, you do have the best lawyer there is.” Amanda glanced toward her father. There wasn’t even an iota of acknowledgment on his face that she was speaking of him. So much for truce-making. “I came to see how you were doing. I heard about the indictment on the radio.”

  “The media is always looking for a new prominent citizen to crucify,” Henry commented. He didn’t bother to look up at her, but merely continued slowly paging through the rare book. Rare books were a passion with him. Not to read, but to own. For ownership meant control and control was everything. “But then, you’d know all about that kind of pulp journalism.”

  Whitney saw the way Amanda’s eyes darkened. He spoke quickly. “Your father thinks I can get off with a limited sentence, which might then be commuted to several hundred hours of public service and a hefty fine.”

  If anyone could find a way to arrange things, her father could. She was relieved for Whitney, and nodded enthusiastically.

  “Especially since you’ve already begun to repay the money.” In her eagerness for a commuted sentence, she forgot that she no longer held down her anchor position. She could only think of the fact that there were times when judges took popular support into account when they passed sentence. “I could try to drum up popular support for you.” The thought caught fire, feeding on itself. “A grass-roots type of thing. I could get petitions started and find a way to announce it on the air—“

  Her father cut in just as she remembered that there wasn’t anything she could do at present on the air, aside from having herself interviewed by someone else.

  “Amanda, I would appreciate it if you would leave the management of the case to me.” His voice dripped of acid. “You have no business interfering in something you know nothing about.”

  All the battered emotions that she had been trying to hold at bay erupted as she turned to look at her father.

  “I know about friendship, Father. About coming through for someone you care about. Of being there for them. That’s something you know nothing about.”

  In all the years that he had been a family friend, Whitney had never seen Amanda like this. He’d witnessed the hurting words and the demeaning looks Henry had given his daughter, but she had either borne them in silence or ignored them entirely. She had never lashed out before.

  He placed his hand on her arm and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “Please, Amanda, don’t get yourself excited.”

  No, her father wasn’t worth working herself up over. “Maybe I’d better go.” She looked into Whitney’s eyes. “I just wanted to—“

  Whitney nodded. No words were necessary. He understood what she was trying to do. “I know. Let me walk you to the door.” He glanced at his lawyer. “I’ll be right back, Henry.”

  Whitney placed his arm around her shoulder and walked her to the front door. “Don’t let him get to you like that, Amanda. Henry’s never going to change. He’s never going to open up to you.” He smiled down at her. “It’s his loss, you know.”

  She glanced toward the den, feeling sad and angry again. “He doesn’t think so.”

  “Maybe not, but I do.” He opened the front door and escorted Amanda out. “And I appreciate what you’re offering to do for me, especially since you’re not exactly trouble-free at the moment yourself.”

  Amanda stopped on the top step, surprised. “How did you—?”

  “I can still read, Amanda. The story is in the newspaper.”

  Of course it was. She’d forgotten about that. All she’d been thinking about since she’d arrived was Whitney. She smiled in spite of herself. “Newspapers? Huh. Never touch the stuff.”

  But Whitney wasn’t fooled by her blase attitude. He knew what her career meant to her. It was the brass ring she’d secured all on her own. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  She was touched that he could think of her at a time like this. “Yeah. Win your case.” She kissed his cheek. “I’ll be okay.”

  “I’m very proud of you, Amanda.”

  He walked her to her car. Her father’s driver turned his back to give them privacy.

  “You’ve turned out to be a wonderful woman. Someday the right person will come along who’ll appreciate all those good traits of yours, and the years you’ve lost with your father won’t hurt as much.” He held the door open for her as she slid in, then closed it. “He’s not a happy man, you know.”

  She thought of all the aborted attempts at reaching him. “He could be.”

  But Whitney shook his head. “He doesn’t know how. Take care of yourself and call me if you need anything.”

  Same old Whitney, she thought fondly. She merely nodded in reply. “Always.”

  She’d sooner die than burden him. But it was still nice to know he was there for her. With a smile and a wave, Amanda drove away.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  The house felt almost too quiet.

  Carla had left earlier with Paul to spend the weekend at his parents’ house. The senior Rodriguezes were celebrating their fortieth anniversary and there was going to be a huge party for the entire family. Amanda had been looking forward to spending some time alone with Christopher. She’d taken him to the park in the morning and then to a fast-food restaurant for lunch.

  As usual, Christopher had begun the day with an incredible surge of energy. But as the day wore on, so did he. By the time evening came, he was oddly subdued. His eyes were slightly red and he was sniffling.

  Amanda felt his forehead, but it was cool. “Would you like some hot chocolate, honey?”

  “Chocolate,” he agreed with only a shred of the enthusiasm the mention of that confection in any form usually elicited.

  “All right, you wait here. I’ll be right back.” Amanda left him sitting propped up on the sofa, blearily watching a cartoon she had turned on.

  In the time that it took to heat a mug of chocolate milk in the microwave, Christopher fell asleep. She found him slumped over on his side when she returned.

  “Poor little guy.” Amanda set down the mug on the coffee table. “I never thought I’d see the day when I wore you out.”

  She didn’t attempt to wake him. Instead, she picked Christopher up and carried him to his bedroom. Taking off just his shoes and socks, Amanda tucked her son into bed and pulled a sheet over him.

  Her plans for the evening altered, Amanda went back into the living room with nothing to do. She felt listless and out of sorts as she looked around the living room. Now what?

  For the longest time there had been a whole host of things she had been meaning to catch up on if she ever had any “free time.” Now free time was staring her in the face and she didn’t feel like getting to any of it. There were letters to answer, magazines to page through, and old movies that had long since faded in popularity as they waited for her to find the time to view them. All of it went untouched.

  Nothing appealed to her.

  Like the sea during a storm, she felt restless, as if there was no place for her here in the home she had chosen to hide in.

  This was ridiculous, she upbraided herself. A few weeks from now, she’d look back and
be annoyed with herself for allowing the time to slip through her fingers like this. She’d be back hard at work and all this time she’d wasted would be like unmined precious gems to her.

  Determined to enjoy herself, Amanda took down a book that had sat on her shelf for more than a year. She settled down on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, and curled her feet under her.

  Ten minutes on page one told her she wasn’t concentrating.

  With a sigh, Amanda closed the book and dropped it on the coffee table. Who was she kidding? This thing with Grimsley had robbed her of the ability to focus her mind on anything else for any real length of time.

  She was like an islander watching storm clouds gathering on the horizon and wondering if she could withstand the hurricane to come.

  Maybe, if she didn’t drop the suit, she’d never work again, just as Grimsley had threatened. Amanda shivered and ran her hands along her arms.

  Curious as well as antsy, Amanda turned on the news at six and watched Pierce. The screen seemed to come alive as soon as the camera panned his way.

  He had a presence, she thought, but then she’d always known that. Next to him, Ryan Richards had been reduced to the role of sidekick, like Donald O’Connor to Pierce’s Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain.

  She knew Ryan wasn’t going to be happy about this turn of events. His huge ego would balk at being shoved into second place.

  Amanda watched the newscast for as long as she could endure it. It wasn’t envy that had her switching off the television set; it was longing. With everything that had happened, she was still in love with Pierce. She still wanted to forget everything but the feel of his arms around her, his mouth on hers. God, she was pathetic, Amanda thought in disgust. You’d think that after all this time, she would have learned her lesson.

  She hadn’t learned anything.

  Desperate, Amanda found a documentary playing and told herself she was going to watch it. The scene came alive with colorful, exotic birds found in the forests of South America. Contrasting with the profusion of color was a droning voice in the background detailing each bird’s origin and mating habits.

  Amanda began thinking about mating habits of her own and lost the thread of the presentation, as hard as she tried not to.

  When the doorbell rang sometime later, she jumped, startled out of a semisleeping, semidazed repose.

  Maybe it was someone from the studio, finally offering support. A few people had called her at home. But most of them had steered clear of her. She was persona non grata at the studio now and any contact with her might be guilt by association.

  It was, she thought as she crossed to the door, as if she had suddenly developed leprosy.

  A moment before she turned the doorknob to pull open the door, she knew it was Pierce. Maybe she had even willed him to be on her doorstep. All Amanda knew was that her heart accelerated to a hundred RPM when she opened the door and looked up into his blue eyes.

  He didn’t know how it was, with so many different roads running in so many different directions through Dallas, that he kept finding himself taking the same old one, and then winding up at the same old house— Amanda’s.

  “Hi.” He nodded toward the interior of the house. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” She stepped back to let him in. “I saw you on the news this evening.”

  He crossed to the living room and sat down on the sofa before he said anything else. Laying his ankle across his thigh, he looked at her, waiting.

  “And?”

  She settled on the opposite corner of the sofa. “You were very good,” she said honestly, then smiled. She remembered how much flak Ryan had given her in the beginning, outlining exactly what he deemed his “territory” to be and what lines she wasn’t allowed to cross as the new anchor. “Ryan should hate you right about now. You make him look like a plastic Ken doll.”

  Her compliment about his work meant more to him than he guessed she probably realized. He knew he couldn’t show her. “Ryan might not have to worry.”

  Were they firing Ryan too? She leaned forward, as if to draw the answer out of him. “Why?”

  In the back of his mind, Pierce knew why he had driven this way, why he had come to her. He began to empathize with lemmings.

  “Because I’m going to quit.” He looked into her eyes before he added, “If you want me to.”

  This was a step up the ladder for him. It didn’t make any sense to jump off it right at the beginning. “Why would you do that?”

  He moved closer to her, but he didn’t touch her. His eyes did that for him. “Because I don’t want it between us,” he said impatiently. He’d always known where he was going before, always had a plan. Now someone had thrown water on his map and all the lines had gotten blurred.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Mandy. I can’t even sort it out for myself, which is annoying the hell out of me. But I do know that I don’t want this schism between us. I don’t want this anchor position driving a wedge between us before I have a chance to figure out exactly what ‘us’ is.”

  He sighed and stood up, chafing at the situation. “I don’t know how else to put it.”

  And he probably never would, she thought. It was the most he could offer her, and she was willing to accept it, knowing it was all he had.

  She rose to stand next to him. “There’s no point in you screwing up your career as well, Alexander. Grimsley won’t give me back my job just because you walked out. Like you said, it’ll just go to someone else if you don’t take it.” Her mouth curved. She knew saying this had been hard for him. “But I do appreciate the gesture.”

  His eyes darkened just a shade. “It wasn’t a gesture,” he said solemnly. “I mean it. I’m prepared to go through with it.”

  Amanda placed her hand on top of his. “I know.”

  Looking into his eyes, she knew he was serious. They might not be the windows to his soul, and they were usually closed against her, but there were times when she could look in and see the truth reflected there. He meant what he said. It was all she wanted. For him to make the offer. She didn’t need him to go through with it. She only needed him to want to.

  The rest she could take care of just as well on her own as with him.

  The only time he hadn’t thought of her today was during the actual taping of the broadcast. She’d been there, lingering in his mind, twining with his thoughts, ever)’ other moment of the day.

  And all he could think of now was having her again.

  Paul had told him that he was taking Carla to his parents’ home in Fort Worth for the weekend. That left them alone in the house. Christopher, Pierce assumed from the quiet, was sleeping.

  “Amanda, I—“

  The sound, half wail, half scream, had them both turning toward the hall. Less than a moment later, Christopher came running in. His eyes were wild as he clutched his throat, gasping.

  “Baby, what is it?” Amanda cried as she hurried to the little boy.

  But Christopher didn’t seem to recognize her. He continued to run around in desperate circles, crying, bleating, a frightened, glazed look in his eyes.

  Amanda looked anxiously at Pierce, not knowing what to think, what to do. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Pierce didn’t answer. He grabbed the boy and held him tightly in his arms. Christopher’s arms flayed out. Pierce stroked his face with the tips of his fingers.

  “Calm down,” he said in a soft, soothing voice. “Calm down.” Pierce chanted the words over and over. They seemed to penetrate and Christopher stopped thrashing so hard. But he was still wheezing.

  Amanda hovered over Pierce’s shoulder. “What is it?” She had never seen him like this before. Alarm vibrated through her. The feeling of helplessness was overwhelming.

  Pierce continued to hold the boy in his arms, rocking him. “Do you have a pediatrician?”

  What an idiot she was. She was falling to pieces instead of thinking. “Of course I—“

  “Call him,” Pierc
e ordered, but she was already opening her cell phone as he spoke.

  Three rings later, she was talking to the doctor’s answering service, struggling not to let hysteria enter her voice. Christopher had gone to bed with the sniffles; there was no reason why he should have woken up gasping for air like this.

  She looked at him. His eyes were still glazed and his breathing was labored and shallow. Amanda felt herself coming undone.

  The answering service promised to have the doctor get back to her. It seemed an eternity later, rather than five minutes, that the phone rang. Amanda had the receiver off its cradle before the ring was completed.

  “This is Dr. Hoi—“

  Amanda didn’t let the doctor finish saying his name. She immediately began to rattle off Christopher’s symptoms. Her eyes never left her son. Pierce was still holding him, still calming him down. She realized that there were fresh scratches on Pierce’s neck. Christopher must have clawed him when Pierce grabbed him.

  The mild, tranquil voice on the other end of the line assessed what Amanda said and told her that Christopher seemed to have the croup, a common children’s ailment. Dr. Holt advised Amanda to set up a cold mist vaporizer in Christopher’s room.

  “His breathing should be back to normal by morning. I’ll call in a prescription for him at your usual drugstore. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Call me if anything unforeseen happens. Good-bye, Ms. Foster.”

  Amanda hung up. She turned toward Pierce. “The doctor said to put him in a room with a cold mist vaporizer.”

  Pierce shifted Christopher to his other shoulder. “Do you have one?”

  She shook her head. There’d never been any need for one. “No.”

  He’d assumed as much from her voice. Gently, he transferred Christopher into her arms. “Most drugstores carry them. I’ll go get one for you.”

  She followed him to the door. “Pierce, it’s after midnight.”

  “Someplace has to be open.” He started to leave, then stopped. “Give me your keys. I don’t want to ring the bell in case he’s asleep.”

  Amanda nodded to her purse on the coatrack by the door. “They’re in there.”