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Would he have acted any differently if he’d known what the outcome would be? He sure as hell hoped not.
He knew better than to tell Gary any of that. “You don’t win Pulitzers with a telephoto lens. I needed to get close enough to capture the real story.”
“Close enough to take a bullet in the leg.”
“That was unfortunate,” Rob admitted. “I can still handle a camera though. I can still walk.” He made a big show of stalking across the carpeted office, scooting around the obstacle course of stacked back issues, piled newspapers and a leaning tower of reference books. If he concentrated he could manage to stride without a limp or a wince though he could feel sweat begin to break out from the effort.
“No.” The single word stopped him in his tracks.
He turned. “I’m the best you’ve got. You have to send me back out on assignment.”
“I will. As soon as you can run a mile in six.”
“A mile in six minutes? Why so fast?”
Gary’s voice was as dry as the North African desert. “So the next time you have to run for your life you can make it.”
Rob paused for breath and grabbed a chair back for support. He and Gary had been friends for a long time and he knew the guy was making the right decision even if it did piss him off. “It was pure bad luck. If I’d dodged right instead of left...”
“You know most people would be pretty happy to be alive if they were you. And they’d be thrilled to get a paid vacation.” Gary picked up his glasses and settled himself behind his desk.
“They patched me up at the closest military hospital. It was nothing but a flesh wound.”
“The bullet nicked your femur. I do know how to read a hospital report.”
Damn.
“Go home. Rest up. The world will continue to be full of trouble when you get back.” Rob knew Gary was still aggravated by the fact that he didn’t compliment him on his photos, which they both knew to be superb. Instead of getting the praise he deserved, he was being sent home like a kid who’d screwed up.
He scowled.
Home.
He’d been on the road so much in the past few years that home was usually wherever he stashed his backpack.
If he’d ever had a home, it was in Fremont, Washington, a suburb of Seattle that prided itself on celebrating counterculture, considering itself the center of the universe and officially endorsing the right to be peculiar. Fremont seemed a fitting destination for him right now that he was feeling both self-centered and peculiar. Besides, it was the only place he could think of to go even though everything that had made the place home was now gone.
“All right. But I heal fast. I’ll be running six-minute miles in a couple weeks. Tops.”
“You’ll be under a doctor’s care and I’ll be needing the physician’s report before I can reinstate you for any assignments in the field.”
“Oh, come on, Gary. Give me a freakin’ break.”
Once more the glasses came off and he was regarded by tired hazel eyes. “I am giving you a break. I could assign you to a desk right here in New York. That’s your other option.”
He shook his head. No way he was being trapped in a small space. He didn’t like feeling trapped. Not ever. “See you in a couple of weeks.”
Once he was out of Gary’s office and in the hallway Rob gave up the manly act and tried to put as little weight on his injured leg as possible.
“Rob, you should be on crutches,” a female voice called out.
He turned, recognizing the voice and mustering a happy-to-see-you smile. “Romona, hi.”
A print business reporter making the transition to television, Romona had the looks of a South American runway model and the brains of Hillary Clinton. They got together whenever they were both in New York. Neither had any interest in commitment but enjoyed each other’s company and bodies. “I heard you were hurt. How are you doing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Okay.”
Even though they’d never do anything as obvious as hug in public, the glance she sent him from tilted green eyes steamed around the edges. She dropped her voice. “Why don’t you come over later and I’ll kiss you all better?”
“I’m filthy. Haven’t shaved in days, had a haircut in weeks, my—”
“I like you scruffy. You look like a sunburned pirate.”
He knew he’d hit rock bottom when he realized he had no desire to spend the night with a passionate woman. His leg was burning, he had a vicious case of jet lag and he’d been pulled out of the field. He felt too worn-out tired even to get laid. All he wanted to do was hide out for a while and heal.
He shook his head attempting to appear more disappointed than he was. “Sorry. I have a plane to catch.”
She knew as well as he did that plane tickets could be changed and it was a measure of his exhaustion that this was the best excuse he could come up with.
She didn’t call him on it though, merely patted his arm and said, “Maybe next time.”
That was the great thing about Romona. She was a lot like him. He’d enjoyed any number of women over the years, loved sex, but had no interest in settling down. Career came first. Maybe it was shallow, and maybe there was a part of him that longed for a woman to comfort him, to listen to his stories, share his pain. The only woman who’d ever been like that, though, had been his grandmother. Ruefully, he suspected she’d been the love of his life.
And now she was gone.
He had so many frequent flyer miles that upgrading was no problem when he got to LaGuardia. He even scored an aisle seat so he could stretch his bad leg out a little.
Once airborne, he recalled that the family attorney had tried to talk to him about the Fremont house. What with getting shot and all, he hadn’t got around to calling back. He’d call him as soon as he got into Seattle.
It was something to do with Bellamy House, the old family place where he’d spent so much time with his grandmother.
He couldn’t imagine the place without her. As a stab of pain hit, he took out the paperback he’d brought and forced himself to read.
* * *
HAILEY FLEMING WAS a woman with an agenda. Two in fact. The electronic one that she relied on so heavily that she’d recently started keeping a backup paper day planner because the thought of somehow losing her electronic schedule made her feel too close to losing her mind for comfort.
She was nothing if not organized.
And both agendas told her that she was exactly on time for the best appointment of the day. An after-work glass of wine with a colleague who’d become a close friend, Julia Atkinson.
As she made her way into the bistro off North Phinney Avenue, a former record store turned trendy bar, she scanned the tables and was not surprised to find she was the first to arrive. She was always early.
And Julia was always late.
She settled at a table and ordered a glass of white wine then spent ten minutes going through tomorrow’s appointments and writing some notes on improvements she wanted to make on her website.
“Am I late?” a breezy, breathless voice said as Julia swished into her chair, a loose black garment that resembled a combination sweater, poncho and cloak settling in around her.
“Of course you are. You’re always late.”
Julia’s red hair was newly cut into a curly bob and her full lips curved in a smile. “I was at the opening of a new furniture gallery which has brought in several fantastic new lines from Milan. I got chatting, and there were these delicious cookies. I left after three. It was the only way I could stop myself. I don’t feel guilty. I bet you did a day’s work while you waited.”
“Half a day’s anyway.”
A waiter arrived and Julia ordered a vodka tonic. Which meant she was on another of her diets. Which meant...
“I think I’ve met someone.” She sounded so excited that Hailey leaned forward.
“Tell me everything.”
Julia unbuttoned the cloak thing and draped it over the back of her chair, revealing a black-and-red dress enlivened by one of the hundreds of chunky, glitzy vintage necklaces she owned.
“He’s an engineer who lives downtown. He was married, but his wife left him and broke his heart.”
“Wow. That was fast. I just saw you last week. Where did you meet him?”
Julia’s drink came and she took a quick sip. “I haven’t actually met him yet.”
“Huh?”
She shrugged, and the slight movement made all the rhinestones in her jewelry glitter under the bar’s chandeliers. “I met him on LoveMatch.com.”
“Oh. Online dating.”
“I’d never tried it before, but lots of women meet great guys online. So I figured, why not? It’s not like you meet men if you’re a home stager.” She thought for a second. “At least not straight men.”
“How do you already know so much about him?”
“We’ve been talking on the phone. He’s away on business in the Philippines, but I’ll be meeting him next Tuesday.” Her eyes were bright with excitement. “Do you want to see a picture?”
