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At first she’d been surprised Shane knew how addicted she was to coffee, then she realized she shouldn’t be. He was incredibly observant...and they had spent one night together in her town house—and a morning after. She hadn’t been able to offer him much in the way of breakfast that morning, but she had brewed fresh coffee for him—her Café Du Monde coffee and chicory blend that she bought from a little Chinese grocery not far from her house. It cost her an arm and a leg because she couldn’t buy it most places—only in New Orleans’s French Quarter, online or in Chinese grocery stores almost everywhere, though at a premium price. But she’d fallen in love with the coffee the first time she’d visited New Orleans, and it was her only indulgence.
Shane turned toward her when they stopped at a stoplight and smiled the heart-stopping smile that had garnered him a few extra votes in the last election. “Awake yet?”
“I’ve been awake since you woke me at six...mostly,” she assured him. “But you’ll never make a morning person out of me.”
His smile turned wicked. “A challenge. I love a challenge.”
The light changed and he turned his attention back to the road, for which Carly was grateful. He wouldn’t see her flushed cheeks as the memory of how he’d awakened her this morning floated through her mind. Not to mention the memory of how he’d kissed her when he’d brought her home from the interrogation following the reception at the Zakharian embassy, and said, You’re dead on your feet. Sleepy, early-morning sex might be great, but not for our first time.
There’s no “might” about it, she barely stopped herself from saying out loud. Sleepy, early-morning sex with Shane was great. And if she had to wake up early, that at least made up for it.
* * *
Carly was kept busy reviewing video footage with her producer on a story that was about to break wide open: a police shooting of an unarmed black man in Philadelphia, which had been caught on dash-cam video that the Philly police had refused to release to the public until several networks—including Carly’s—sued under the Freedom of Information Act.
The dash-cam video had just been released that morning, and the story would air that night. The victim—who’d turned out to be a uniformed police officer on his day off, doing nothing more than picking up a pizza for his family—had miraculously survived despite being shot seven times, and Carly had snagged an interview with him in the hospital two months ago, along with his wife and children. Her initial interviews had aired at the time, but now the video of the actual shooting made the story explosive.
“Should I go up there?” she asked J.C. “Do we need something else to make the story pop?”
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “We’ve got enough footage of you on the street from when the shooting occurred. We can splice that in with your in-depth interviews with him and his family along with the dash-cam video footage—it’s black and white and kind of grainy, but I think our guys can enhance the image a little without damaging the integrity.”
“What about the renewed protests? Shouldn’t I cover that?” The initial protests had died down as the shooting had quickly faded from media coverage. But now they were flaring up again.
“The network’s sending Rafe Coburn out of New York to cover it.”
She didn’t like it, but she’d learned to pick her battles. This wasn’t one she could win, not when the network brass had already made the call.
After lunch Carly filmed the lead-in and the wrap-up, as well as two teasers that would run during the nightly news and the early-evening programming. At three she and J.C. watched the entire segment twice with a slew of staff members, taking feedback and making tiny tweaks here and there. By five they were done.
“Go home, Carly,” J.C. told her as everyone filed out of the room, leaving only J.C. and her.
“What about—”
“Go home. Nothing more you can do here.” His voice softened. “You did a good job on those interviews, by the way.”
“Thanks.” She stashed her notebook in her purse, then looked up again. “I just hope something comes of this.”
