“My guess? The mayor.” Joe picked up his coffee cup. “The word is that the new city building is dead. You cost that man a lot of money. And then there’s Roger Preston who is pretty sure to be indicted on price-fixing.” He frowned. “You really did tell the world you were sleeping with Allie? That’s not like you.”
“It slipped.” Charlie stared down at the paper. The mayor and Roger Preston were good guesses, but there were also these drug rumors about the station he kept tripping over. Anyone who wanted him fired would figure that bad publicity would make Bill get rid of him. Maybe he had another enemy. “Suppose it wasn’t the mayor or Preston. Suppose it was somebody else who was mad at me. Who else would have this kind of clout?”
“I don’t know.” Joe stood up and carried his coffee cup to the sink. “I should think the mayor and Preston would be enough for anybody. Why did you tell the world about Allie?”
Charlie groaned, remembering. “We have a bet. We’re going to be celibate for a month and see who gives in first.”
Joe snorted with laughter. “That should be a close call. Whatever possessed you to do something like that?”
“Allie,” Charlie said gloomily. “Ever since I met her, I’ve been doing one dumb thing after another.”
“A smart man would leave her alone,” Joe pointed out.
“Well, that’s what I’m going to be doing for the next month,” Charlie said.
Then Allie shuffled out, her hair all tousled. “You know, it took me forever to fall asleep last night. This is all your fault.”
Charlie winced. “Thanks, I needed that.” He tossed the paper to her and stood up to go. “Here. Read this. Things just keep getting better and better for us.”
CHARLIE WAS SLIGHTLY more cheerful when he went on the air that night. “And a great big thank-you to all of you folks who called in last night to say that my significant other has rocks in her head and that men are much stronger than women. And for the other half of you who supported Allie, hey, just wait.
“I’d also like to thank Allie for wearing the most disgusting bathrobe she could find this morning and for not combing her hair before breakfast. Say what you will about the little lady, she plays fair. And now, just for Allie, here’s the Pointer Sisters.”
He shoved the slide up and “Slow Hand” began.
Harry ambled in on his way home. “You might want to keep your joviality level down a little,” he said, passing over Charlie’s coffee. “That way, when you get crazy later in the month, the change won’t be so noticeable.”
“So, you’re on Allie’s side,” Charlie said. “I’m hurt.”
“In general, no,” Harry said. “In this case, yes. You’ll never make it.”
“Hey,” Charlie said. “Look at me. Do I look tense?”
“It’s only been forty-eight hours,” Harry said. “Give it some time. I got a lot of money on Allie, but I’m not worried.”
Charlie jerked his head up. “Money? They’re making book on this in the station?”
“The hell with the station. They’re making book on it on the street.”
“Oh, great.” Charlie slumped back into his chair. “So how am I doing?”
Harry shook his head. “You’re a very long shot, my friend. If she gives in first, there are going to be some very rich gamblers in this city.”
“What if we both make it to the thirty-first?”
“Practically no one’s taking that one.”
“A month is not that long,” Charlie said.
Harry turned to go, grinning. “Tell me that on the thirtieth.” He stopped at the door. “I probably shouldn’t do this, since it might screw up my bet, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to crack. So, if it gets bad, living with her, you can come stay at my place. I’ve got lots of room.”
“This is going to be no problem,” Charlie assured him.
“Yeah, well, the offer stands,” Harry said.
Charlie watched Harry stop to talk to Allie on the way out. She grinned up at Harry and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and Charlie felt the old warmth that he always felt when she was around. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t going to see her. It was just sex. He had things to investigate, anyway. He really didn’t have time for her. No problem.
“No problem at all,” Charlie said to the empty booth.
AFTER THE SHOW, Charlie went home and tried the couch again, lasting until four-thirty this time before he climbed into bed with Allie again, closing his eyes as he felt her body warm and soft next to his. And waking up with her was doubly painful the next morning when she stirred next to him, and he felt dizzy even though he was lying down.
You’ve got to get out of here, he told himself as he headed to the shower. Dieters did not live at the Sara Lee factory. He picked up the phone and dialed Harry.
HARRY LIVED in a split-level in a housing development full of tricycles and swing sets. Charlie dropped his duffel in the living room and looked around at the chintz furniture and flower paintings.
“You know,” he told Harry. “This is not how I pictured you living. Flowered couches?”
“Sheila picked them out,” Harry said. “Want a beer?”
“Always.” Charlie followed him out to the kitchen. “Who’s Sheila?”
“My wife.”
Harry opened the refrigerator, and Charlie saw a twelve-pack, cheese spread and a piece of pizza. He spared one longing thought for the glory of Joe’s refrigerator, and then took the beer Harry handed him. “You have a wife?”
“Well, I used to. I came home one day and found a note that she’d gone to her mother’s.”
“Oh.” Charlie followed him back into the spotless living room. “Well, she must stop by to clean. The place looks great.”
Harry stretched out in the recliner. “That’s Mrs. Squibb. Comes by twice a week. Don’t leave anything lying around. She throws it out.”
“Oh,” Charlie said again. “So your wife is…uh…”
“Gone,” Harry said. “I waited a couple of weeks and called her, and she said, ‘See, Harry, this is just what I meant. You don’t even notice me.’ And I told her I noticed her. I was just busy. The divorce papers came the next week.” Harry shook his head. “I still think it was a mistake. And who knows, she might be back.”
“Well, sure,” Charlie said, still lost. “How long has she been gone?”
Harry frowned, counting back. “Uh, thirteen years.”
Charlie stared at him for a minute, trying to decide if he was kidding or not. With Harry, it was hard to tell. “No offense, Harry, but if I were you, I’d make a contingency plan.”
“I’m thinking about it.” Harry stretched out in his chair, obviously a happy man. “What about you and Allie?”
“What about us?” Charlie said guardedly.
“You still leaving in November?”
“Yep.” Charlie drank his beer. “What do you do for dinner around here?”
“Order out,” Harry said. “You want pizza, burgers, or Chinese?”
“Not Chinese,” Charlie said. “Anything but Chinese.”
CHARLIE DECIDED that the only way to stay sane was to stay away from Allie. The bet was an excellent idea since he was leaving in November, anyway, so all he had to do was avoid her for the rest of the month, kiss her goodbye on November first, and leave her with great memories. At least he hoped her memories were great.
His were phenomenal.
But that way lay madness, so he deliberately shut her out of his mind and avoided her for the rest of the week, waving to her from the booth and making sure any conferences they had were in public. In his free time, he tried to track down the drug rumor and find out who’d sabotaged his tapes. The favorite for the last one was Mark, and Charlie would have loved to pin the drug charge on him, too—those were awfully expensive suits he was wearing on a DJ’s salary—but he couldn’t see Mark as the brains of a drug ring. Actually, he couldn’t see Mark as the brains of a Jell-O ring.
Wh
en Saturday came, he took a day off from detecting and went fishing with Harry at Grady’s.
It was really too late in the year to fish, but as Harry pointed out, catching fish wasn’t that important, anyway. Grady’s was just a good place to unwind. They had to take their own beer because Grady’s place was nonalcoholic, but other than that, it was a bachelor’s paradise.
Grady lived outside Tuttle on several acres of deliberate wilderness in a geodesic dome he’d built himself. “My father thought I was nuts,” Grady told Charlie as he showed him around. “Now I think he kind of likes it. My mom thinks it’s great.” The interior was all natural wood and windows, and aside from a disquieting lack of corners, it was a very comfortable place, full of old, mismatched furniture and state-of-the-art computer and stereo equipment.
“Great setup,” Charlie said, looking it over.
“My mom bought that stuff for me,” Grady said. “She says I’m tough to buy for, so if I want something, she goes all out.” He gazed around his dome lovingly. “It’s a great place.” Then he smiled at Charlie. “Come out anytime. Don’t wait for Harry to bring you.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said, but then he stopped, distracted by what he saw out the window. Hidden from the driveway by the dome and a stand of trees but in clear view from Grady’s back windows, was the biggest field of marijuana Charlie had ever seen. “Nice crop,” he told Grady.
Grady shrugged. “Personal use.”
You must have a habit the size of Texas, Charlie thought. If somebody was dealing drugs at the station, Grady had just moved up to the number-one suspect. But if he was doing it, what was he doing with the money? Aside from his stereo and computer, his place was furnished with hand-me-downs and Grady himself dressed like a bag lady. Charlie knew he was going to have to investigate it, but he hated the idea that it might be Grady. Grady was a truly nice guy.
But nice guy or not, if he was the problem, he was going down for it. That was what Charlie had come for. He spared a thought for Bill who would not be happy if his only son was busted, and then shoved the thought aside. He really didn’t believe Grady was building a drug empire in Tuttle. Grady didn’t believe in capitalism. He wasn’t even sure Grady believed in money.
Harry came in the back door with two poles. “You ready?”
“Yep,” Charlie said. “Lead me to them.”
“Too bad Allie couldn’t be here,” Grady said. “She loves to fish.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, shoving her firmly from his mind. “Too bad.”
AFTER A WEEK at Harry’s, Charlie was ready to crawl back to Allie on his hands and knees. And he’d have done it, too, if it had only been his honor at stake.
But the honor of all mankind?
Still, watching her sit outside the booth was torture. She had her hair yanked back in a ponytail, which made her face more moonlike than usual, and there were bags under her eyes as if she hadn’t been sleeping, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup for some reason, and he’d never wanted a woman more in his life. If he could have, he’d have taken her there on the production desk.
He closed his eyes at the thought of Allie round and warm, moving under him, his mouth on hers capturing her moans. Or Allie on top of him, her tongue caught between her teeth as she bore down on him, and his hand on the back of her neck bringing her mouth down to his. Or Allie sitting on the edge of the desk, her legs wrapped around him, her back arching her hips into him. Or—
The silence in his ears brought him back with a start, and he said something inane into the mike and punched in the next three songs. Then he took off his headphones and went out to see her.
“You look tired.” He sat on the edge of the desk next to her chair, using every ounce of self-control he had not to touch her. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She leaned back in her chair and stretched as if her muscles ached, and he watched her breasts move under her sweater and restrained himself from leaping on her but not from imagining leaping on her. “I miss you,” she said, and he snapped back to attention. “I miss you in my bed.”
“I miss you, too,” he told her when he had his breath back. “But I can’t climb in your bed and just sleep with you. It drives me crazy standing up fully clothed in public with you.”
“Really?” Her face folded into a smile, and he watched the lines there and reminded himself not to trace them with his finger. “That’s nice,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The line of her cheek was so smooth. His hand went out, independent of his brain, and cupped her cheek, and she leaned into his palm, and he found himself moving toward her mouth, the lust to taste her as inescapable as gravity.
And then his lips were on hers, and her mouth was warm and hot and sweet, and her lower lip slid against his tongue, and his entire being was in his mouth, finding her, at last.
ALLIE SAT stunned as he kissed her, her head heavy on her neck, falling helplessly into him as his mouth moved on hers. His hand was gentle on her cheek, and he breathed into her mouth and she lived in his heat, moving her lips against his, letting the dizziness take her like a drug. And then he touched her lips with his tongue, and the air left her lungs as she sighed with surrender, only to gasp when he licked farther into her mouth, tangling with her tongue. She felt his kiss everywhere, in her breasts and her stomach and hotly between her legs, and she pressed her mouth back against his, spurred by the moan he made as she invaded his mouth.
Then he pulled back, his breath coming heavily, and said, “I can’t stand this.” He kissed her hard once, quickly, and moved away from her, back into the booth, while she leaned on the desk and tried to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he said over the mike when the door was closed behind him. “I didn’t mean to. I just couldn’t—”
“I’m not sorry,” she told him. “But, oh, God, Charlie—”
“Go home,” he said, and there was an edge in his voice. “Go home. The rest is just music. I can’t talk to you anymore tonight. I can’t talk to anybody. Go home.”
AFTER A WEEK AND A HALF of sleeping without Charlie, Allie was ready to surrender. It wasn’t the sex she missed so much, although she missed that so much she ached with it, it was Charlie. Charlie warm and laughing and safe and just there. She couldn’t even face Chinese food anymore without getting turned on and feeling lonely.
They’d fought amiably over the end of Casablanca for that night’s program, and then Allie left the booth, and Charlie put “River of Dreams” on and she watched as he cuddled Sam to his chest and began to feed him. Sam was growing like a horse, getting into everything, and she’d caught Charlie lecturing him earlier about chewing on electrical cords. They’d looked so funny, the tiny puppy looking up earnestly from Charlie’s big hand, and Charlie scowling down at Sam, reasoning with him about electrocution, that she had to laugh. Charlie had looked up and grinned at her, and his grin hit her like a punch to the stomach.
She missed him.
This was a bad emotion, so she squelched it and went back to work, looking up again only when Charlie introduced a play for insomniacs. She could see Sam scampering over the console and Charlie reaching for him, tucking the squirming puppy under his chin while he punched up the next song. Then the Disney lullaby “Baby Mine” came up and he began to rock and pat Sam until the puppy curled up on his chest and went to sleep.
Watching a man pat a puppy was no reason to fall in love.
But she did, anyway, much against her better judgment and her will and her common sense. Not this, she thought. Not him. But there it was.
The phone rang and she grabbed it, grateful for anything that distracted her from this new disaster. She didn’t want to be in love with anybody, especially not with Charlie I’m-Leaving-In-November Tenniel, especially not like this.
“Charlie All Night,” she said into the receiver, and the caller said, “Yeah, let me talk to Charlie. I’m Doug.”
The song ended and Allie said, “You have a caller. It’s Doug, on one,” and
punched it in.
Charlie shifted Sam to his shoulder and spoke into the microphone. “Hey, Doug, what’s up?”
“Well, that’s what I was going to ask you. We were kind of wondering here why you keep playing ‘River of Dreams’ so much, and now a lullaby? We’d heard your station was wired, but this is weird.”
She saw Charlie sit up. “Wired?”
“Well, you know. What gives? You a Billy Joel freak?”
Charlie relaxed a little. “Not me. We’ve got a puppy here at the station who wasn’t doing too well at eating until we put on ‘River of Dreams.’ He really likes the rhythm. He’s doing pretty good now, but we still play it once a night so he feels at home.”
“You’re kidding. You got a dog there?”
Allie watched Charlie look down at Samson and grin. “Well, you could stretch it and call Sam a dog, I guess. He’s more like a Twinkie with paws and an appetite. And he was tearing up the booth a minute ago, so I put the lullaby on. Knocked him right out.”
“Try ‘Sweet Baby James,’ man,” Doug said. “My kid goes right to sleep when we play that.”
“Great idea.” Charlie moved Sam farther up on his shoulder and patted him as he stirred. “Maybe we should play a lullaby every night about this time. Put any kid who’s fighting it to sleep.”
Charlie talked on with Doug about rock lullabies, and Allie watched him, hopeless with love, until a nasty thought intruded.
He’d just announced the station had a dog to the listening public.
Bill didn’t know the station had a dog. Beattie didn’t even know.
They were in for another meeting.
And she couldn’t even go home and crawl into bed with Charlie and talk about it.
Charlie punched up a song and continued to talk to Doug off the air, and Allie took her glasses off and put her head down on her desk and tried to figure out how her life had gotten so screwed up when she’d been doing all the right things.