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“I’ll try. Tell Vera Mae not to hold dinner for me, will you?”
Heather stopped. “Mom.”
“Please don’t say it. I’ll eat here, with your father, and be home later. Besides, the pastor is coming this evening, and I don’t want to miss him.”
Heather sighed. She understood Nora’s need to spend as many waking moments at Wallace’s side as possible, but these past weeks had taken a toll on her, too. She had started to look brittle and fragile. Still, convincing Nora Hamilton not to give her utmost to her family was easier said than done. In the end, Heather left her mother just as Nora wished.
She knew that staying busy would help keep her own mind off her father’s health. Nevertheless, once she was alone in her car in the hospital parking lot, with the air conditioner humming against the mid-June heat, Heather took the time to formulate a cogent and purposeful prayer, one that included family unity during this difficult time.
Her family truly loved one another, but Wallace’s illness had upset everyone and exacerbated their differences, especially those between Jeremy and Tim. It didn’t help that this crisis had come just after Curtis Resnick’s embezzlement had been uncovered.
Heather agreed with Jeremy’s decision not to prosecute Curtis and to demand restitution instead. Tim, however, did not. Amy claimed not to care so long as the money was recouped. Chris had taken no position, and only spelled out the likely consequences of prosecuting Resnick when asked to do so by Jeremy. Thankfully, Wallace had left the decision to his eldest son, who seemed determined to be generous as well as fair. After all, he and Curtis had been very good friends at one time.
Whatever opinion any of them held, however, no one wanted to be dealing with the aftermath of embezzlement while Wallace was fighting for his life. It was added stress that none of them needed just now. Yet, they’d get through it.
They were Hamiltons, and Hamiltons might bend, but they didn’t break. If Heather hadn’t learned anything else from her father, she’d learned that much. It was one more reason why going on without him was almost unthinkable at this point.
“Oh, Lord,” she prayed aloud, “I don’t know what Your purpose is in all this, but I do know that You have one. I just hope that when all is said and done, it includes healing my father and bringing our family closer together. I won’t ask for things to be the way they were before. We’ll never be the same after this, but we can be better. Isn’t that what You always want for us, Lord, to be more like You? Use this, then, toward that end.”
She went on with her prayer, fervently seeking God’s will and claiming His mercy. Afterward, as always, she felt better, strong enough to face whatever awaited her at the office.
As features editor of the magazine, she was always dealing with some crisis, stepping in to settle differences and adjust priorities, choosing projects, making sure all the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed—whatever it took to get each feature and column brought in under deadline. She just never dreamed that today of all days she would become the feature.
Chapter Two
Heather walked into the stately three-story brown brick building on the corner of Main Street and Mill Road in the very center of the city and smiled at the elderly pair sitting behind the reception counter in the small lobby.
The Gordons had been with Hamilton Media since the days when the Davis Landing Dispatch had been a weekly, rather than a daily, newspaper. Since then they had each “retired” from one position to another, finally winding up as self-proclaimed “gatekeepers.”
Stooped and gray, they resembled nothing so much as someone’s great-grandparents, which they were. They were also sweetly formidable, and as such had earned the nickname “The Gargoyles.” It was virtually impossible for an outsider to get past either one of them and into the building without an appointment, let alone into the offices of the newspaper on the ground floor, those of the magazine on the second or those of the corporate center on the third.
Without missing a beat, Mr. Gordon hopped up from his stool and swiftly crossed the polished marble floor to the elevator, punching the up button, so that the door stood open and waiting when Heather strode into it, her flowered skirt belling out as she turned on the toes of her sensible pumps. Mrs. Gordon, meanwhile, was already on the phone, alerting whoever had inquired about her return that Heather was once again in the building.
As the old-fashioned elevator, sumptuously appointed in dark paneling and gleaming brass, rose laboriously toward the second floor, Heather took a moment to straighten the square oversize collar that all but obliterated the fitted bodice of her dress, which was short-sleeved in deference to the weather.
As the door slid open once more, Heather greeted the secretary to the head of advertising, who shoved a clipboard and pen at her as she stepped out of the elevator.
“The lifestyle column has to be cut,” she stated unceremoniously, “and they’re holding print until you okay it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“A larger than normal advertisement.”
Heather sighed inwardly. Carl Platt, the author of that particular column, would be screaming.
“Which advertiser?” Heather asked, glancing swiftly over the reedit as she moved past the receptionist’s desk and into the warren of cubicles that made up the magazine offices.
A popular Nashville restaurant that was both a regular and valued advertiser was named. Heather didn’t like cutting short one of their most popular features, but she knew too well on which side the Hamilton bread was buttered to kick up a fuss, not that she would have anyway. She added her initials to those of her sister Amy’s, endorsing the change, and passed the clipboard back to the twentysomething secretary, who promptly disappeared.
True to form, Carl Platt, whom Heather thought of as a rotund prima donna in a bow tie, pounced the moment she turned the corner. She nodded distractedly as he ranted.
“I know, I know,” she murmured sympathetically, tsking at the injustices Carl Platt heatedly recounted. “I’ll tell Amy as soon as I see her.” For all the good that would do.
Amy made decisions based on the overall needs of the publication and its parent company, but Heather didn’t bother pointing that out to Platt.
No sooner had she mollified him than another clipboard appeared beneath her nose. This one involved a title font change.
Heather liked the looks of the original, but it appeared to be impossible to center on the page. The proposed substitute was more uniform in the space required for each letter.
She added an exclamation mark for balance and kept the original font. Then she spent several minutes perusing a paragraph in an article that she was going to edit in its entirety at a later date anyway, before finally reaching her assistant’s desk.
In her forties, with teenage children and a husband crippled by a rare form of arthritis, Brenda was efficient, reliable, professional and not at all shy about voicing her opinions.
“Ellen’s in a panic. Like that’s anything new,” Brenda announced, handing over half a dozen phone messages. “Honestly, someone ought to give our beauty editor a personality makeover.”
Heather smiled without comment. Ellen Manning was something of a character. Physically stunning with long, perfectly styled ash blond hair, meticulous makeup, vibrant blue eyes and fingernails like manicured talons, Ellen approached her job as if beauty and fashion were the be-all and end-all of human existence. Consequently she was very good at it, which was reason enough so far as Heather was concerned to put up with her high-handed, overbearing methods and short fuse.
Holding up three of the messages in one hand, Heather commented in surprise, “These are from Ethan Danes.”
Ethan was the staff photographer currently working with Ellen on a photo shoot at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Tall, dark and breathtaking, Ethan was the new office heartthrob—and for good reason. He had a quick, million-watt smile and a smooth, masculine charm that oozed from his pores.
“Yeah, I guess Ellen’s meltdown is justified this time,” Brenda conceded. “To hear Ethan tell it, we may not have a Makeover Maven feature this month.”
Frowning, Heather pushed through the door into her small office. Not much wider than the single window at its end, the room had just enough space for a file cabinet, a desk, a table wedged into one corner, an extra chair and the small potted plant perched on the windowsill. A large dry-erase board took up the whole of the wall behind her desk, leaving the wall opposite it for a series of framed covers and family photos. Only the ceiling fan, circling lazily overhead, kept the tiny room from becoming a stifling closet in the sultry June heat.
Heather reached immediately for her desk phone and dialed Ethan’s cell phone number. He answered on the first ring.
“Crisis central, this is the shutterbug speaking.”
“Ethan, what on earth is going on down there?”
“Well, let’s see. The makeover candidate is a no-show.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, this time she’s the one with the flu. Guess she got it from her kid. Anyway, the Opry says we can’t reschedule. Again.”
“Hasn’t Ellen explained the circumstances?”
“Let’s just say that Ellen is making enemies and influencing no one,” Ethan quipped. “Meanwhile, the window is closing. You’d better get down here and apply some of that patented Heather healing balm before we’re permanently barred from the most popular venue in town.”
Heather healing balm, was it? She tamped down a spurt of pride and made a quick decision. Well, she’d wanted to stay busy today.
“I’m on my way.”
“Come around to the side. I’ll be there to let you in.”
After hanging up, she headed back the way she’d come.
“If anyone needs me,” she said, breezing past Brenda’s desk, “tell them to ring my cell.”
“Better turn it on then,” Brenda called as Heather hurried away, mentally smacking herself in the forehead. Of course she’d turned off the phone while she was the hospital, and of course she’d forgotten to turn it back on again.
She dug in her bag on the way to the elevator and had the thing operational by the time she started her descent. It was ringing before she reached the street, and kept ringing for almost the entire next hour as she drove her deep blue Saab into Nashville and the Opryland complex.
After parking in the surprisingly crowded back lot, she made her way toward the side of the performance hall. To her surprise, Ethan was waiting for her outside the building, one scuffed brown loafer, worn sans sock, propping open a heavy metal door.
Tall and lean with that thick, black-brown hair falling rakishly across his brow, he wore not one but two cameras dangling around his neck on nylon straps. A third hung from his belt, a disreputable strip of cracked brown leather slung low around his lean hips.
As was often the case, he needed a shave. Yet even in comfy jeans and a snug black T-shirt worn beneath an open chambray shirt with the cuffs rolled back and the tail hanging out, he looked more like a model than a photographer. Dark almost to the point of black, his eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief as he smiled a stark white welcome at her, displaying killer dimples that cut long grooves in the square-jawed rectangle of his face.
“You’d better get in there,” he told her with a jerk of his head. “Ellen’s been snarling and howling since we got here. I’m surprised they haven’t tossed us out already.”
Heather glanced at her simple, utilitarian wristwatch as she moved past him into the shadowed interior of the building. “They can’t toss us. We’ve still got nearly three hours.”
“Fat lot of good that’s going to do us if we can’t find a makeover candidate and get her here ASAP,” Ethan said, following swiftly behind her.
“We’ll find one. We have to. We’ve already spent a small fortune on this shoot.”
“Not to mention the makeup artist, hairdresser and wardrobe shopper cooling their heels backstage,” Ethan added drily. “End of the hall and up the steps.”
Heather moved in the direction that he indicated, listening to the quick patter of their footsteps and the gentle clunking of his cameras as they bumped together. The half flight of stairs was surprisingly dark and narrow, which no doubt prompted Ethan to stay close and place a hand on her shoulder.
“Left,” he prompted at the top of the steps.
Heather quickly found herself in a back hallway onto which a number of dressing rooms opened. The strident sound of Ellen’s voice pulled her forward from there.
“What is it about this situation that you don’t understand?”
“Not a thing,” came a calm, masculine reply. “What you don’t seem to understand is that I need these premises vacated by 2:00 p.m.”
“I have a deadline!” Ellen shrieked. “I’ve got to have those photos!”
Heather walked into the room and straight into the conversation, her right hand extended.
“How do you do? I’m Heather Hamilton, features editor of Nashville Living.”
The poor fellow looked so relieved that Heather knew Ellen had seriously overstepped the bounds of civility. Unfortunately, the public relations manager didn’t have much to offer her.
“I’m sorry, we just don’t have another slot available within your time frame,” he said.
Heather laid a hand on his arm and walked him out into the hall and away from Ellen’s agitated mumbling, not to mention the avid interest of the makeup artist, hairdresser and wardrobe girl. As she squeezed past Ethan he grinned, though what he could find to grin about in this situation she couldn’t imagine. Then, at the last possible moment, he winked.
Heather felt color rise in her cheeks. As she took her leave of the public relations manager, she kept wondering what that wink meant. Surely Ethan wasn’t flirting with her. The instant she was free, Heather zipped back into the dressing room.
“Now what do we do?” Ellen demanded, folding her arms across the silky middle of the lilac-colored twin set that she wore with a short, straight off-white skirt and sharp-toed high-heeled mules.
“We’ve got to get another makeover candidate in here right now,” Heather stated emphatically.
Ellen threw up her pale lilac fingertips, speaking so forcefully that tendrils of her long golden hair shook free of its sophisticated up-sweep. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? I’ve called every homely female in Nashville!”
“There has to be someone,” Heather argued desperately.
“On such short notice?” Ellen began to pace, throwing out her hands in every direction as she spoke. “I don’t think so! I’ve called every name on my list. I’ve called women we haven’t even screened. I’ve called my neighbors, for pity’s sake!” She spun on one heel, and the instant that her gaze dropped onto Heather’s face, her blue gaze lit. “Wait a minute. You! You can do it! You’re our makeover candidate!” As Heather’s jaw dropped, Ellen clapped her hands together in a self-congratulatory manner.
“Me?” Heather squeaked, inwardly cringing. Okay, she was no beauty, but she wasn’t homely. Was she?
“Oh, honey,” drawled Sheryl, the makeup artist, one hand flopping out in Ellen’s direction. “You are brilliant. She so needs a makeover.” This from a female with orange spiked hair and multiple piercings.
Ellen turned to the balding, ponytailed hairdresser. “What do you think, Fox?”
He sauntered forward, comb in hand, to slide his stubby fingers through Heather’s hair. “Hmm. Well, if we have time for a coloring and Sheryl can pull off her end, I can hold up mine.”
“You’ll have to work at the same time,” Ellen decreed, turning to Gayla, the wardrobe mistress. “Can we make it happen?”
The cadaverous woman tapped a finger against her protruding front teeth speculatively.
“It won’t be what we planned. She’s smaller than the other one, but I’ve got a few size sixes we can use.”
“Six!” Heather protested. “I wear a ten.”
“That doesn’t mean you are a ten,” Gayla told her.
Ellen clapped her hands. “Okay, let’s get to work, everyone!”
Heather backed up a step. “Wait a minute! I haven’t—”
A pair of large, strong hands closed around her shoulders and literally spun her.
Suddenly she was looking up into the dangerously attractive face of Ethan Danes.
“This can work!” he told her, his dark eyes burning with unusual intensity. “Think about it.” He lifted one of his cameras. “I’ll take some unflattering photos.” He shrugged. “Trick of lighting, you’ll see.” He waved a hand, setting the scene like a movie director. “The genius squad here will do their thing. I’ll do what I do best.” He grinned. “The ‘after’ photos will be smashing. Trust me.” He stepped closer. “I know you try to play it down—the boss lady and all that—but you’re really very pretty. It can’t fail.”
Heather could feel her jaw descending again, but all she could think was that he’d called her pretty—and how very tall he was, taller than she had realized, at least a couple inches over six feet. That made him almost a foot taller than her. Well, ten inches anyway, which meant that the top of her head would reach, oh, say that finely sculpted lower lip of his. Realizing that she was staring, she jerked her gaze away—and found herself swept summarily behind a dressing screen.
“Wait!” Ethan exclaimed, snapping on harsh florescent lights overhead. He appeared behind the screen, clicking away with the camera attached to his belt. Tugging and pushing, he moved her into the position that he wanted, then crouched and aimed the camera at her. “Tuck your chin.”
“What? L-like this?” She tilted her head down until it seemed to her that he was looking straight up her nostrils, and that’s precisely when he took the photos.
“Okay. That’ll do.”
Ethan disappeared with another wink. Gayla stepped up again and stripped Heather to her skin with a few swift movements. After hustling her into undergarments, Gayla handed her a simple cotton robe. As Heather shrugged it on and belted it, Gayla shook out the flowered dress that Heather considered her favorite summer outfit for the office. Holding it out at arm’s length, Gayla dropped the dress on a chair in the corner.
“Say goodbye to the 1980s and get ready to meet the new century.” With that she pulled Heather from behind the screen and pushed her into the tall chair stationed in front of a narrow counter and lighted mirror.
While Sheryl slapped gunk on her face and wiped it off again, muttering that if she wasn’t going to wear foundation she ought to at least use sunscreen, Fox began spritzing her hair with water, then sectioning and cutting it. Heather cringed and bit her lip, hoping she’d have hair left when the stylist was done.
Then Sheryl attacked her with a pair of tweezers. When her eyebrows had been shaped to the makeup artist’s apparently exacting standards, Heather’s hair was tossed forward into her face.
