One Night

  ONE NIGHT

  Debbie Macomber

  To Chris Beckham and his staff

  for simplifying my life

  and holding off the IRS.

  You haven’t got a prayer of

  confiscating my QVC card.

  Contents

  1 “You’re fired,” Clyde Tarkington announced.

  2 Kyle had mapped out the route he planned to take…

  3 “Kyle.” The name came out of Carrie’s throat more like…

  4 Kyle paced the confines of his jail cell until he…

  5 “We’re asking that you contact the Secret Service if you…

  6 “I swear if you breathe a word of this to…

  7 “Why don’t we ask someone for directions?” Carrie suggested.

  8 Kyle was furious. He’d made an ass of himself over…

  9 “What do you mean she disappeared?” Clyde Tarkington bellowed.

  10 Carrie was trying to rest, but that was impossible. The…

  11 “Where?” Kyle searched the crowd, but he didn’t see anyone…

  12 Across the street from Harris’s house, Sanders hid behind the…

  13 “Carrie, is that you?”

  14 “That would be me,” Kyle said, stepping forward without the…

  15 The phone was ringing when Kyle walked into the house…

  16 “But it just says they sell fishing and hunting licenses…

  17 Kyle needed to think, and he was having a hard…

  18 Kyle immediately placed himself between Sanders and the two women.

  19 “Sit down, ladies,” Nelson instructed, motioning with the gun toward…

  Epilogue

  “There’s a letter from your mom and dad,” Carrie said. Kyle…

  Acknowledgments

  Praise

  About the Author

  By Debbie Macomber

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  “You’re fired,” Clyde Tarkington announced.

  Carrie Jamison looked up at the station manager for KUTE radio and blinked back her shock. She opened her mouth, but words refused to come. “I don’t understand,” she managed finally.

  “Which word?” Clyde asked, shuffling his fat cigar to the other side of his mouth. “You are canned, out of a job, unemployed, terminated.”

  “But…” It took her a few more moments to collect herself. “Who’ll take over the morning program?”

  Clyde chewed on the end of the fat cigar. “I haven’t decided that yet.”

  Carrie noticed he didn’t seem overly concerned about finding a replacement. She focused her attention on the scarred wood desk and resisted the urge to argue, to list her accomplishments, the success of her ideas.

  “May I ask why?” She already knew the answer: Kyle Harris. The newscaster had been a thorn in her side from the first. But it wasn’t all her fault. Kyle didn’t like her either.

  “You can’t seem to get along with Kyle.”

  Naturally the good-ol’-boy network would fire her instead of the man. Carrie was surprised at Clyde. She’d always thought of him as fair. Now she knew otherwise; men stick together.

  “We rub each other the wrong way,” was all Carrie was willing to say.

  “It’s gotten much worse lately,” Clyde said.

  Carrie agreed. The tension between her and Kyle Harris had grown so thick in the last few weeks it could have been sliced, toasted, and served with coffee. It had came to a head when she tricked him into shaving off his beard. He’d never forgiven her, and to be fair, her tactics had been slightly underhanded. But she never would have believed she’d lose her job over it.

  Clyde sat down, crossed his stubby legs, and seemed to wait for her response.

  Carrie was fond of Clyde. He was the fatherly type, with a receding hairline, deep blue eyes, and a head and a heart for radio that she’d long respected. He was her boss and her friend—or so she’d once believed.

  “How long do I have?” she asked, in a weak, almost unintelligible voice. “Two weeks?”

  “That sounds fair,” Clyde said.

  He took the cigar out of his mouth and stared at the end of it. As long as Carrie could remember, she’d never seen him light one.

  “Unless…” He paused, and his gaze met hers with the force of something physical.

  “Unless what?” Carrie asked, eager now. She scooted to the edge of her seat, hoping, praying he would offer her a reprieve.

  “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “It’d never work.”

  “What?”

  “I was thinking you two might come to some sort of agreement. But”—he released an exaggerated sigh—“you’ve worked together for nearly a year and haven’t been able to get along in all that time. Nothing’s likely to change now.”

  “We started off on the wrong foot,” Carrie said, remembering when they’d met. One glance had told her they were headed for trouble. Her morning show consisted of bells and whistles, jokes and pranks. The newscaster was a stuffed shirt; to him the news was a somber business. Carrie had suspected Kyle Harris wouldn’t be amused by her brand of comedy. And she was right.

  From the first day, Carrie felt Kyle’s mild contempt. It might have been her imagination, but she doubted it. He thought of her as silly and artificial, and she viewed him as a curmudgeon. The fact that he shared the same political views as her father hadn’t endeared him to her either.

  “Is this all because of Kyle’s beard?”

  A shadow of a smile quivered at the edges of Clyde’s mouth, but he suppressed it. “In part,” he said. No amusement leaked into his voice.

  “It was all in fun.”

  Carrie wanted to shake herself for the things she’d said. She hadn’t meant to insult Kyle by suggesting he had a face made for radio. It was a joke. She should have known better.

  “The ratings for my show doubled that week,” she reminded him.

  “Are you suggesting we give you an award?” Clyde’s voice rose half an octave in irritation.

  “He hasn’t grown it back,” Carrie said, wanting to make light of the event. She found Kyle’s clean-shaven face to be surprisingly appealing. Her perception of him had changed. Without the beard, his jaw was lean and strongly defined, giving him a distinctly rugged appeal she would never have guessed was there. She hated to admit how curious she’d been to discover the man behind the mask.

  Clyde couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to stand or sit. He got out of his chair as if he were suddenly uncomfortable, walked over to the window that overlooked downtown Kansas City, and gripped his hands behind his back.

  “Have my ratings gone down?” she asked nervously.

  “No,” Clyde admitted. “Don’t misunderstand me, Carrie, you’ve done a good job. That’s not the problem. The reason I’m terminating you is because of what’s going on between you and Kyle. The rest of us aren’t blind. We all work together, and we can’t be one big happy family with the two of you constantly at each other’s throat.”

  “I’m not the only one to blame,” she said, to defend herself. It wasn’t as if she’d started a one-woman war against Kyle Harris. He’d tossed out his own fair share of innuendoes and insults.

  “It’s become an issue with the staff,” Clyde said. “In the beginning it was like a game; everyone got a kick out of the way you taunted each other. It isn’t amusing anymore. What started out as fun has become destructive to the entire station.”

  She had no defense. “But—”

  “I don’t have any choice,” Clyde said, cutting her off. He shifted his feet as if struggling to find a comfortable stance. “I did what was necessary. I canned you both.”

  “You fired both of us?” Carrie bolted out of the
chair before she could stop herself.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” Clyde said, fixing his steady gaze on her. “This isn’t something I wanted to do, but it’d be impossible to keep one of you and let the other go. Not unless I wanted a mutiny.”

  Carrie appreciated his predicament; she just didn’t happen to like it. “But you’re willing to reconsider if Kyle and I can reach some sort of agreement?” she asked, sinking back into the hard wooden chair. It would be easier to negotiate peace talks in the Middle East, but she’d try anything in order to keep her position at the station. This job meant the world to her.

  “I don’t expect you to be bosom buddies,” Clyde said. “Getting along shouldn’t be that difficult. If you didn’t work so hard at disliking each other, you might discover you have several things in common.”

  “I doubt that.” Frankly, Carrie couldn’t see how it would be possible for them to agree about anything. She was twenty-seven, with limited radio experience. Finding another plum morning position, especially in the Kansas City metropolitan area, would be difficult. All right, it would be next to impossible.

  “May I go now?” Carrie asked weakly. She stood, her shoulders slumped forward with the weight of her troubles.

  “I’ve already spoken to Kyle,” Clyde said as she moved toward the door.

  “What did he say?”

  Clyde rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “His reaction was about the same as yours. He was shocked.”

  “I see.”

  “He wants to talk to you, OK?”

  She blinked at him from the doorway. “What choice do I have?”

  Clyde set his cigar in a crystal ashtray. “None. Really, it’s a damn shame you can’t get along,” he muttered. “You’re both hard-working, decent people.”

  Carrie hadn’t gone more than ten feet down the long, narrow hallway that led to her tiny office when she came face to face with Kyle Harris. Neither spoke for several long moments.

  Carrie tried to think of something witty, but her brain had deserted her. For someone known for her quick repartee, this was serious.

  She looked up at Kyle, who towered a full eight inches above her, and tried to view him from a fresh perspective. His shoulders were broad and tapered down to lean hips and a flat stomach. From the office scuttlebutt she understood he kept trim with regular exercise. He often participated in ten-K fun runs, sometimes to benefit charity.

  Carrie hated exercise. If ever she was tempted to join an aerobics class, she would lie down and take a nap until the notion passed.

  Kyle’s dark, intense eyes were studying her as thoroughly as she was him.

  Carrie couldn’t help wondering what he saw. She was small, a paltry five feet four inches tall, and slender, although she never understood why since her appetite was monstrous and she was often hungry as a bear. She wore her long dark hair piled on top of her head, because she felt she needed the height. Unfortunately, more often than not, her tottering hairdo resembled Bart Simpson’s mother’s.

  No one was likely to suggest she model swimsuits for Sports Illustrated. When it came right down to it, her best features were her breasts, not that she’d been really generously endowed. They were normal size when everything else about her came in miniature.

  “I take it Clyde’s talked to you?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?” he asked.

  “Not really. What about you?”

  “I have some free time.”

  She was about to say they would soon have nothing but free time unless they could come up with a plan to convince Clyde they were about to change their ways.

  “Could we meet for lunch?”

  “That sounds like a good idea.” Were they capable of spending time together without trading insults?

  “You think we can manage to get along that long?” he asked. Apparently he had the same doubts.

  “I don’t know,” she said with a half smile, “but I’m willing to try if you are.”

  They set a time and place, which took another five minutes. He suggested a restaurant with linen tablecloths and waiters in starched uniforms. Carrie preferred a well-known and beloved barbecue place with blue-painted picnic tables that sat outside around an open pit, but she decided against pushing it. Someone as fastidious as Kyle Harris wouldn’t enjoy getting barbecue sauce under his fingernails.

  Instead they compromised on a generic place not far from the radio station.

  Carrie arrived first, fifteen minutes early, choosing to sit out on the sun-dappled patio under the shade of an umbrella. A breeze cooled the summer afternoon. She drank iced tea and waited. It went without saying that Kyle would be on time.

  The afternoon was lovely, filled with bright sunshine. Thin wisps of clouds scooted across an expanse of bold blue sky. Carrie had moved to Kansas from Texas a year earlier and had come to love her adopted state. Kansas was like a rainbow with its wide spectrum of colors. Much of the state was filled with woods, rolling green hills, and amber meadows. The land was crisscrossed by clear streams and rushing rivers. Although she wasn’t much for sports fishing, she’d heard that Kansas yielded some of the best in the United States. Kyle fished. At least she’d overheard him bragging about a recent trip. She might have misunderstood, but it seemed he had the use of a cabin on some lake that he liked to escape to on weekends. She pushed that information to the back of her mind, because it didn’t fit her image of him. She couldn’t imagine Kyle relaxing. She couldn’t ever imagine Kyle without his three-button vest and silk tie.

  Carrie’s family hadn’t been keen on her leaving Texas, but the farther away she was from her headstrong father the better. Carrie was certain she was a disappointment to Michael Jamison. He’d wanted her to major in education rather than communications. The two hadn’t seen eye to eye since Carrie turned thirteen. If the truth be known, she saw a good deal of her father in Kyle. Michael Jamison was a pillar of the community, a deacon of the church, and as opinionated as they came.

  Kyle arrived and squinted into the sun as he pulled out a padded chair and sat across the table from her.

  “I don’t suppose I could talk you into dining inside?” he asked, shading his eyes with his hand.

  “Didn’t you bring sunglasses?” she asked impatiently.

  “Obviously not.”

  Already they had started, and he’d barely sat down. This didn’t bode well. “Let’s trade places,” she said, willing to swallow her pride.

  “Never mind,” he muttered, squinting at her while he removed the napkin from the white enamel tabletop. “Forget I said anything.”

  Carrie stood. “Please,” she said. “I’d be happy to swap seats with you.”

  They did this graciously, and once she was settled again she looked over at him and smiled. He returned the smile. Maybe they could work matters out with a little effort.

  “There, now,” he said, smoothing the napkin across his lap. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

  “Not in the least,” she admitted, looking at the top of the menu. It was going to be difficult to choose what she wanted for lunch. She was in the mood for a Cobb salad, but the French dip sandwich sounded good too.

  It took Kyle all of three seconds to decide on roast beef with mustard and tomato. The waitress came for their order and Kyle asked that it be put on one check. “I’ll buy,” he said.

  If he was treating, Carrie decided to order lobster, but she didn’t find any on the menu.

  “Carrie?” Kyle said, looking toward the waitress, who was waiting, pen and pad in hand, for her to decide.

  “I’ll have the Cobb salad.” She wasn’t keen on the way he’d rushed her. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have let him intimidate her into making a snap decision, but in the interests of goodwill she let it pass.

  “All right,” Carrie said, relaxing against the back of the chair. “Clyde has fired us both.”

  “But I believe he’ll hir
e us back if we’re willing to put our differences aside and start over.”

  “That was the message I got too,” Carrie said. “It shouldn’t be that difficult, should it?” She was optimistic they could find a common ground, if for no other reason than in order to remain employed.

  “I agree. This may be a first for us.”

  They both punctuated his statement with a smile.

  “I’m willing to call a cease-fire if you are,” Kyle said next.

  Carrie nodded. So far so good.

  “Maybe we should start by getting to know each other a little better. I don’t know what I did right off that set you—”

  “You didn’t do anything,” Carrie interrupted. She reached for her iced tea. “It was—oh, I don’t know, the way you first met everyone in that three-piece suit like you were some big dignitary.”

  “At least I choose to dress as a professional,” he snapped.

  They both paused as if simultaneously recognizing they’d stumbled upon dangerously thin ice.

  “I believe we’ve established that our first impressions of each other were negative,” she offered after a stilted moment.

  The tops of Kyle’s ears had turned bright pink. She’d seen it happen before, so she knew he was struggling not to show how much she irritated him.

  “Perhaps you could tell me what it is about me that troubles you so much.” Even as she spoke, Carrie was aware that she was placing her neck on the chopping block. It was a generous gesture aimed at proving her sincerity in working through their animosity.

  “You’re a damn good deejay.” Kyle sounded a bit hesitant. “Your wit is quick, and you have a way of making even the most mundane things interesting. The segment ‘The News That Shouldn’t Have Made the News’ is very clever.”