One-Off Page 3

  “If I’d only been going to three classes a week, I might have had time to flit around like you.”

  My teeth ground together on their own. I had to consciously unlock my jaw to keep the sound to a minimum. I’d had a full course load, but in grad school that meant one three hour class a day three to four days a week. Her undergraduate schedule was more grueling. She was always complaining that my study groups, which were required for some of my classes, made too much noise for her to study. If a study group wasn’t around, then she’d complain that our TV viewing was interrupting her concentration. And on and on the grumbling went.

  “Thought you were a double major, chief?” one of the associate producers asked.

  I nodded but kept my eyes focused on Ainsley. Her hair was pulled back and twisted into a sophisticated knot. Even the refined style couldn’t contain the fullness and frizzy curls.

  “How’d you have any free time to socialize?”

  “Study groups and I made time.”

  “You’re not forgetting that she’s a genius, are you?” Dallas appeared beside me and slung an arm around my shoulders.

  “Must be,” one of the crowd said and turned to Ainsley. “So what’s Scotland like?”

  “That’ll take a month to answer,” I mumbled.

  “You’re asking the foremost authority on Scottish history. Buckle up if you really want an answer.” Colin’s words were filled with pride.

  So, she’d done it. When I knew her, she was simply a European history major. She planned to get her MPhil in British history at Cambridge, and move on to complete a dissertation on Scottish history at the University of Glasgow. Watching her study habits and listening to her dazzling intelligence, I knew she’d get her PhD. I just didn’t know she’d made it to such expert status. I felt strangely happy for her, proud almost.

  “Excuse me,” I said, hoping that by startling her she’d stop talking about me and I could slip back to my office.

  “You’re going to dinner and to meet the planner with us,” Dallas told me.

  “Working.”

  “Planning.”

  “Not tonight.”

  Her hands punched at her hips. “You accepted the post of MOH. You’re with us tonight.”

  “I’m sure you’re capable of making decisions on your own.”

  “I know where you live.” That was always Dallas’s best argument.

  “I won’t be there. I need a night off.”

  “Ooh, got a date?” Dallas goaded.

  My eyes darted around the group. As a whole they were watching our interplay as avidly as a tennis match. Dallas was the only one who talked to me, the big boss who ruled with an iron fist, like this. It was my mistake for getting friendly with her to begin with. And now that she was the best friend I had, I couldn’t exactly shut it down at work.

  “Bring her,” Colin said of my supposed date.

  My head whipped around to stare at him. Now he was becoming overly familiar with me. I was a senior level executive. My private life shouldn’t be discussed in the workplace. Several people sucked in an audible breath and Ainsley’s eyes bulged. I wasn’t sure if she was shocked that Colin spoke to me that way or that everyone in the group seemed to be hanging on every word that was said.

  “Have a good evening,” I said to them and made a beeline for the door. I’d leave Dallas to lecture Colin, even though it was her fault that he felt he could say something that personal in a room full of my subordinates.

  “I think you not to have said that, laddie.” Ainsley’s voice was quiet but firm.

  If I didn’t think sticking around would only open up more discussions about every aspect of my personal life, I might have turned back at her comment. Her out of character comment. That almost sounded like she was siding with me.

  Four

  Slowly, my mouth nudged open into a full blown gawp. I could feel my eyes blinking and hear my brain whirring, but I could do nothing to stop the incredulity that must be dripping from my expression.

  “Isn’t that just the most precious thing you’ve ever seen?”

  Precious. This from a guy. A guy who was a wedding planner, but still, a guy who wasn’t an evil mastermind petting a cat in some film. Oh, he looked and sounded like he belonged in a film, as if someone went to central casting and said, “Give me a gay male wedding planner complete with a lisp.” I kid you not. Hence the gawp on my part.

  Currently we were looking at a picture of an elaborate ice sculpture that recreated a scene from a sappy ‘70s movie about a blind ice skater or so the seemingly endless description he’d given indicated. The wedding planner loved the movie and thought the sculpture was precious and he wasn’t being ironic or sarcastic. My eyes slid to Colin, whose expression mirrored mine. His cousin broke into an eerily familiar fit of silent laughter. I’d always been jealous of that ability of hers. If I could laugh silently, I’d probably get into a lot less trouble.

  “Yes.” Dallas avoided looking directly at Ainsley for fear of laughing out loud. She didn’t have a lot of patience for sappy movies from any decade. “We definitely want an ice sculpture, but something unique.”

  “I have loads of ideas.” He snapped his fingers and someone young and pretty appeared beside him. So far I’d only seen pretty people working here, including the wedding planner who could almost rival Colin in handsomeness. The assistant took the tablet from him and replaced it with a leather bound notebook. “I wanted to give you a little teaser of what I can bring to the table as your planner.”

  An ice sculpture of a skater kneeling on the rink amid roses. Most excellent teaser. Hire him, now.

  “As you know we’re working on a bit of a time constraint here,” Dallas told him, reaching for Colin’s hand.

  “That’s right, you said three months? I’ve worked with several celebrities. Of course I can’t tell you who, but let’s just say I’ve had to plan two weddings just to keep the paparazzi confused about which was the real ceremony. I can easily plan one in three months.”

  “Three weeks,” Colin corrected.

  “And a half,” Dallas added.

  Wedding Planner’s eyes bulged and for a second he lost his rigid posture and his lisp failed him. “Three weeks?” He snapped his fingers again and another pretty assistant appeared. He pointed her to an extra chair set up behind him. “Three weeks,” he said to her.

  Maybe this meant he didn’t have time to act like a wedding planner and just be a wedding planner. I looked up and caught Ainsley watching me. For the briefest moment her lips pulled wider as if she just figured out the same thing. Then she seemed to remember it was me she was having this wordless communication with and her eyes narrowed before looking back at the wedding guy.

  “Then we don’t have any time for my ideas. I need to know everything you want. If you need help, I can make suggestions.” Business wedding guy was much better than central casting wedding guy. His second assistant was hot as hell, too.

  Over the next hour of what was supposed to be my night off, we ironed out a schedule loaded with duties and assignments. At least Dallas and Colin were doing this right. As insane as it was to pull together a big wedding in three and a half weeks, hiring a wedding planner was the only sane move they’ve made so far. They hadn’t even been able to decide on a tux for Colin because of the whole kilt thing. As of today they had a venue, a dress—only one of them because, of course, Dallas was going to wear two—a best woman and a maid of honor. Everything else was still not done or decided.

  Colin’s phone rang. He reached into his jacket pocket but halted as soon as he caught Dallas’s death glare. This was what I remembered from when they first met. Dallas worried about her stance on the show with a new co-anchor, who was as beautiful as she was, and Colin was arrogant enough to think he could step right in to be her counterpart. I was never more glad than when I got my promotion to get me out of what had become a bit of a war zone at times.

  If I’d placed a bet on the couple least likely to
become a couple, they would have had all my money. It wasn’t the kind of arguing that belied interest. It was bickering to establish their positions and importance. After working on a particularly gruesome feature story a couple months ago, they’d gone for drinks. Since that night, they’ve been nothing but lovey dovey with each other. More than lovey dovey. In love and wanting to commit. The engagement surprised me because it came so soon, in eight weeks. Wanting to get married only a month after they’d gotten engaged worried me. I cared about Dallas and didn’t want to see her hurt. I wasn’t sure if she was rushing into this blindly, but it sure was rushed.

  “So that was interesting,” Colin commented as we exited the planner’s office.

  “We need help if we’re going to get this done. He comes highly recommended,” Dallas retorted, peeved that she was the only one who’d taken the guy seriously.

  “We’re not really getting an ice sculpture of a movie scene, are we?” Colin kidded her.

  “You could get one depicting a sheep herding competition,” Ainsley suggested.

  Colin snorted then tried to pull it back by responding, “Precious.”

  Now I snorted and Dallas glared at all of us. “You are not helping,” she said to both Ainsley and me. “We have to get cracking on this planning and Gaylord—”

  I gave a bark of laughter and received another glare. “Oh, come on. I will bet you my annual salary that is not his given name.”

  “Anyway,” she dragged out. “Gaylord is going to be a big help, but he can’t do everything for us.”

  “The timing doesn’t help,” Ainsley said then stepped back and look apologetic. “I didn’t mean…it’s just that three weeks isn’t much time.”

  Dallas let that hang in the air. It was a technique she used in interviews that made her subjects feel the tension. It didn’t work on Ainsley. She stayed silent and unapologetic. Dallas slid a glance my way, showing how impressed she was. This would be all the motivation she’d need to continue hounding me about exactly how well I knew Ainsley. “It isn’t, but we’re all highly intelligent so we can do this. Right?”

  “Right,” I agreed because arguing with Dallas right now could become hazardous to my health.

  “What’s next?” Colin recognized her mood.

  “We’re going to a different tux shop because you embarrassed us at the last one and we’re picking a tux.”

  “I still haven’t decided on the tux or kilt, honey.”

  “Tux,” Dallas practically growled. “These pictures will be in magazines.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a kilt.”

  “Why not both?” I offered, but it was swallowed up by yet another of their bickering sessions.

  Ainsley’s eyes sought mine before returning to watch the volley of comments between the happy couple. For a second it looked like she disapproved.

  “Both,” I said again, firmer this time and at a volume they couldn’t ignore. “You’re wearing two dresses. Let Colin wear a tux and a kilt.”

  “But there will be pictures,” she protested.

  “I’m sure you find Colin’s legs sexy.” The thought made me shudder.

  “Hairy, hairy legs,” Ainsley teased her cousin.

  I bit off a laugh at her tease. “Why not let everyone else see his sexy legs and be jealous?”

  “Super sexy,” Colin said to diffuse the situation.

  “Fine!” Dallas agreed and stomped off toward his car.

  “I guess we’re going to a tux shop,” Ainsley said.

  “We better catch up or she’ll go on her own,” I muttered.

  Five

  Van knocked on my office door moments after I’d arrived for the day. His weathered face showed excitement. I hadn’t even taken a seat yet, and I was still feeling the effect of the endless tux fitting session last night. Only the first step in the planning, I wasn’t sure I’d make it three weeks. And I knew damn sure I couldn’t take whatever Van was going to say first thing in the morning.

  “They confirmed the source.”

  My rump hit the seat hard. I thought I knew what he was talking about, but it was too early to use my brain. “They’ve got the general?” I asked of the story they’d pitched yesterday.

  “More than that. I’ll leave it to Colin and Dallas to share.” He stepped back and waved to someone down the hall. I wasn’t sure what was happening because there was no way Colin and Dallas were here this early. I was usually the only here this early.

  “Can you believe it?” Dallas swept through my doorway with Colin at her heels.

  I looked for the hologram machine because they couldn’t possibly be here in the flesh. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Colin got the call last night when we got home.”

  “From the right hand guy?”

  “Yep,” Colin said. “We have confirm that he’s still the kingpin of the criminal enterprise.”

  I sat back, taking in this information. Normally I’d be thrilled. When I was the EP, I would have been. As the person responsible for the network’s money being risked on a story that might not pan out, I couldn’t be thrilled.

  “He thinks he can continue to run a drug empire while running the country,” Colin reported.

  “And your plan?”

  “We gather B stories on the criminal activities, track the money, and confront him in an interview,” Colin said. “Dallas is working her contacts and can get stories on the effects of these activities on various groups.”

  “In South America?” I asked.

  “That’s where he is.”

  I waited a beat. They continued to smile as if nothing could go wrong. “And you think once you confront a drug and human trafficker on his turf that you’ll make it out of there alive because you’re on television?” I never used to be a news cynic, but once they handed the budget over to me, I had to become one. Plus, this was my best friend and her fiancé thinking they could waltz into another country to accuse someone of running a drug cartel.

  Dallas’s enthusiasm deflated. Colin paused beside her. It had been a while since either of them had done the field work on a dangerous story. They probably hadn’t thought the whole thing through.

  “We’ll get security,” Colin offered.

  “At a minimum,” I agreed.

  “He’ll be in Miami for a convention of Latin American leaders trying to shore up trade agreements with the U.S.” Van said. “We can head to South America to get the background stories then meet up with him in Miami for the interview.”

  “Perfect,” Dallas declared.

  “Better,” I confirmed. “He can’t decide to kill you on the spot if you’re in a hotel conference room in the U.S. It’s still dangerous having you collect these stories.”

  “We can handle it,” Colin said.

  This would be the story of the year. It could push their show to the top of the weekly news shows. A cable network at the top. It was also ten times more dangerous than anything we’d ever covered and ten times more expensive.

  “When’s the Miami trip?”

  “The end of the month,” Van said.

  My eyes flicked to Colin and Dallas. End of the month was their wedding date. Neither looked disappointed to have to delay that, which was the mark of a true newsperson.

  Numbers floated through my head. Flights, hotels, meals, transportation, bribes, and security, lots and lots of security. “When would you want to leave for the background stories?”

  “Tonight,” Van said.

  Lightning speed, but that was how things went in this business. I wanted desperately to run this by someone before authorizing it, but I was that someone now. “Go.”

  Dallas and Colin broke into matching smiles. Van looked on proudly.

  “We’re using different security,” I said firmly. “I’m not sending your entire show down there with just six retired cops. We need specialists and people who’ll blend.”

  “Agreed. I’ve got a firm in mind,” Van told me.

 
“Get that in place and you’re authorized.”

  “What do we do about next week’s show?” Van asked.

  “We’ll tape the host segments today and run with the banking feature for the extra content we’ll need.” It wasn’t what we’d planned for the second to last show of the season, but the banking story was the only feature we had at midweek. It would have to do. “That still leaves us a show short, but I think I can make it fly with the network once I tell them what you’re working on. Or we can bring in a sub for the week. Weekend Janie is dying for air time.”

  Dallas and Colin exchanged worried looks. Janie was hankering for a permanent anchor slot somewhere. She was five years younger than Dallas and prettier than Colin.

  “I like the idea of a rerun.” Van spoke up before they needed to. “It’ll lull the general into thinking this will be nothing more than our typical profile on a political leader.”

  “That should work,” I agreed.

  “We’ve got a lot of work to do, folks,” Van motivated everyone to get moving.

  I stopped Dallas before she could leave with them. “You’re sure about wanting to travel there and do this right now?”

  “It’s the biggest story of my life. I’m absolutely sure. If we can stop this guy and keep him out of government, it’ll be worth every sacrifice.”

  “Okay.” I admired her dedication. “Do you want me to call Gaylord and the venue for you?”

  Her brow crinkled. Unlike nearly every other female anchor at this network, she didn’t use Botox to keep from aging naturally. “What for?”

  Now I was confused. “To cancel the venue and postpone the need for planning.”

  “Oh, we’re not postponing.”

  I sat forward. “What?”

  “The church doesn’t have a weekend slot open for another year and a half. We can’t give up the date.”

  “How…how…what?” I was really slow this morning.

  “We’re getting married in three weeks and three days. We’ll get the interview with the general, tape the show, and be back with a few days to spare.”