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She blinked, not missing the double entendre. “On the air, you mean.”
“Of course. What else would I mean?” Then he smiled slowly. “Oh, that. Gee, Jones, you don’t waste any time, do you?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Don’t panic, Jones. I probably won’t last a week.”
“Why not?”
He smiled, holding his arms out to his sides. “Look at me. Your boss was right the first time. I’m not anchor material.”
She did look at him. He was wearing faded jeans that looked sinfully good on him, a khaki polo shirt with a Syracuse Orangemen logo patch on one side of the chest, a baseball cap and an olive drab jacket that looked like army surplus. He hadn’t shaved this morning, so there was a sexy whisper of prickly stubble on his face. He did look more like one of the photojournalists than an on-air reporter—and she had already known that was where he’d started, behind the camera, not in front of it.
He was right. He didn’t look like an anchor. What the hell could Allan have been thinking, hiring him for an on-air spot?
“I figured you’d blackball me if you could,” he said finally.
It made her realize that she’d been looking him over pretty thoroughly for several seconds now, and that he was fully aware of it. Maybe even enjoying it.
“I would have, if I’d had a clue they were even thinking of hiring you,” she said. Then she sighed and moved behind her desk, sinking into her chair, hugging her coffee mug between her hands, even though it was nearly empty. “Might still try it, though I think Allan’s mind is made up.”
He sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk, pulling it closer as he did. “Assuming they don’t fire me in short order, I meant what I said before. I think we could make this work for both of us.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And look, if it’s last night that has you worried, you can relax. I’m not going to say anything about your little snafu at that crime scene. I’m not out to get you fired.”
She lifted her brows. “Why not? Wouldn’t that give you the anchor seat all to yourself?”
He probed her eyes with his. “Don’t trust me as far as you can throw me, do you, Jones?”
“Less than that, even.”
His jaw tightened. “Okay, we’ll put this on terms you might believe. I want to succeed.”
“So?”
“So every marketing study out there shows that viewers prefer news shows with male-female coanchors. Your boss was right about that when he hired you as Jim’s partner three years ago. If I get you fired, they’ll just hire someone else. I already know you’re good. And for some inexplicable reason, you’re popular. The viewers love you. The fact that your ratings have dropped since Jim retired isn’t because of you, it’s because he’s gone. The other shows have coanchors, and they’re picking up your audience because of it.”
She lifted her chin. “My ratings haven’t dropped that much.”
“You were number one in Central N. Y. Now you’re number three.”
“The difference between one and three is only a few points.”
“The difference between one and three is the difference between winning and being the second runner-up, kid. WSNY wants that number one slot. And now that I’m on board, we’re going to give it to them.”
She lowered her head, shook it. “Maybe I’ll just quit.”
He pursed his lips. “No, you won’t. That would be unprofessional, and you might be a whole lot of things, Jones, but you are not unprofessional.”
She pursed her lips.
“Why do you hate me so much, anyway?”
“I don’t hate you, MacKenzie. I couldn’t care less about you. Don’t flatter yourself by taking it personally. I’d feel the same way about anyone who was after my job.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“Name one other journalist who went up against you for that anchor chair three years ago. Just one.”
She frowned, looking around the room as she searched her memory for names and found none. MacKenzie drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, glanced at his watch, whistled an uneven tune.
“Well?”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Proves one thing,” he said, getting to his feet. “Proves it is personal. Hell, Jones, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re working so hard to hate me just to hide what you really feel.”
“Oh, please. This I’ve gotta hear. What does your warped little imagination tell you I really feel?”
He smiled at her. “You want me.”
She stared at him for a long moment—at his smoky gray eyes and full lips. And she said, “You’re right. I do want you—in so many ways.”
“Yeah?” He looked surprised, and maybe a little bit turned on. “God, tell me more.”
She began counting on her fingers. “I want you drawn, quartered, gelded without anesthetic, beheaded and spit-roasted. But for now, I just want you out of my office.”
His smile didn’t disguise the look of relief that flooded him. “Damn, I’m gonna love working here,” he said, and he turned, whistling off-key, and walked with a spring in his step out of her office.
But not, she feared, out of her life.
Chapter Five
When Sean returned to the newsroom, he noticed three things. First, the early-morning bustle of the place had slowed to a hum. Reporters were making calls from their partition-separated desks, and several had already left to cover stories. Second, his office door was marked for him by the handful of foil balloons tied to the knob. It was just past the newsroom on the right. An office hadn’t been part of the initial offer, but he’d insisted on one as part of the deal, then been surprised that WSNY had agreed readily to that and everything else he’d asked for. Jones would probably be livid when she found out.
The third thing he noticed, after walking into his new digs, was the new suit hanging from a hook in the wall. A red tie, white shirt, navy jacket. They’d even included the pants. He pursed his lips and leaned back into the hallway, glancing toward the glass-enclosed office attached to the newsroom. The news director was inside at his desk, the phone to his ear. He gave Sean a smile and a thumbs-up.
Sean took two steps in that direction before his beeper went off. “Hell.” He took it out, glanced at it and read the text message. Then he sighed and hurried across the hall to Jones’s office, reminding himself that now that they were partners, scooping her was no longer the goal. Getting dirt on her would still be fun, but it would be purely for entertainment purposes. He walked in without knocking.
She looked up from her computer as if irritated. “What now?”
“Blackwood’s name is being released. We got the go. They’re holding a press conference in…” He glanced at his watch. “Forty minutes.”
“Call them, get the details and meet me in the studio.” She was already around the desk, pushing past him into the hall and running for the newsroom, shouting Allan’s name.
Five minutes later, Sean headed into the studio with a sheet of scribbled notes.
Jones was at the anchor desk, a hand mirror propped in front of her, wielding a hairbrush with one hand and a makeup brush with the other. She dropped the brushes and dug in her bag. “Where the hell is my mascara?”
Amazing. A few minutes ago she’d looked scattered, sleep deprived and a little wild. Now she looked smooth, composed and flawless. She’d tamed her hair into a respectable bun and slapped on a coat of makeup so fast it made his head spin.
He handed her the sheet of notes and sat down in the chair next to her.
“Sean, you need to change!” called a fresh-faced kid he didn’t know, the one who’d given up his seat at that morning’s meeting and now stood nearby with the blue suit in his hand. “Just from the waist up. Hurry.”
From the control booth, a tinny voice announced, “Thirty seconds.”
Sean glanced at the kid, licked his lips. Might as well get fired now as later, he thought. “Look, you guys need to get used to this. I don’t do the suit thing. I’m not that kind of newsman.” As he spoke, he stuck a tiny microphone up underneath his shirt, out the neck and clipped it to his collar.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jones said, scowling at him. “You don’t need to be here at all.”
“Standby one.”
“I’m here, and I’m staying,” he said. “You just read the report and don’t sweat it.”
She frowned so hard he thought her face would break.
“Roll one!”
The transformation was instant and nothing less than amazing. Her frown vanished as she lifted her eyes to the camera in front of her. The monitor, which Sean could see off to the left, switched from a “News-Four Special Report” screen to her poised, elegant, no-nonsense face—a face that said “You can trust me” without a single word. She began to read almost without glancing down.
“This is a News-Channel Four Exclusive Special Report. Police have just confirmed the identity of the man found lying dead in an Armory Square hotel room last night as Harry Blackwood, brother of New York’s own Senator Martin Blackwood. The death is listed as suspicious and is under investigation. I was on the scene of this story last night,” she read, “with invaluable assistance from Team Four’s newest member, and my new partner, Sean MacKenzie. Sean?”
“Roll Two!” the control room announced.
The red light on camera one blinked out, and the one on camera two came on. Sean knew the monitor now showed both of them, and he tried to look serious as he recited the lines he’d planned on the way down the hall. “Thanks, partner,” he said. He saw sparks flying from her eyes, knew they were invisible to everyone but him and deflected them with a smug half smile. Then, facing the camera, “Team Four will have full coverage and late-breaking details of this tragedy as they unfold. Keep it here, folks. This is where you’ll get the inside stuff. Until then, this is Sean MacKenzie…” He looked her way.
“And Julie Jones for News Channel Four,” she said, not missing a beat.
The light went out.
“You’re clear.”
Jones yanked the microphone from her lapel, tugged it out from the back of her blouse—he hadn’t thought of running the wire up his back, good tip—and got to her feet. “Invaluable assistance?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“That was not necessary,” she told him.
“No, but it was perfect.”
“What the hell was that ‘inside stuff’ comment, anyway? I hope you don’t think you can bring your tabloid techniques here with you, MacKenzie, because we won’t tolerate that at this station.”
“Bullshit. Viewers are twice as intrigued now, and you can bet they’ll be tuning in later. As for my techniques, I’m pretty sure they’re what got me hired.”
She didn’t growl at him, but he thought it was close. Then she swung her gaze away, pinning the news director to the floor with her eyes.
Allan returned a slow smile while rubbing his hands. “You two are dynamite together. Now, grab a cameraman and get to that press conference, pronto.”
“Both of us?” Jones asked.
“Julie, from now on everything you do, you do together. You follow?”
She closed her eyes, clenched her fists and left the studio.
Sean had to give her credit for speed. She didn’t mess around—just dashed into her office, grabbed her jacket and a larger bag, and then joined him in the white SUV in the parking lot, sliding into the passenger seat, then turning to look at him as if he shouldn’t be there.
“You keep frowning every time you look at me and you’re gonna get wrinkles, Jones.”
“The photographers usually drive,” she said. “You’re going to piss off whoever is coming with us.”
“No chance of that.” He started the car, put it in reverse, backed out of the parking space. “No one was available. All out on assignment, and we haven’t got time to wait. Allan told me to handle it.”
She lifted her brows. “Sean MacKenzie saves the day, huh?”
He pulled into traffic. “You wanna hold the camera and let me do the report, I’ll be more than happy to let you.” He glanced her way. “Buckle up, Jones.”
She pulled on her seat belt as he drove. “Where’s the press conference? And who will be there?”
“Outside City Hall. Chief Strong, Senator Blackwood naturally, I don’t know who else.”
“Those cops from last night, I hope.”
He glanced at her. “No word on your keys yet?”
She shook her head.
“You ever get your car outta there?”
“Allan said he’d send one of the interns for it this afternoon. I left my spare set of keys with him.”
“So it doesn’t matter so much—about the other set, I mean.”
It did, he could see it did, but he didn’t know why. “No,” she told him, and he knew it was a lie. “Doesn’t matter at all.”
They arrived at City Hall. Several other news stations had reporters on the scene, setting up to cover the press conference, but none, he was pleased to see, had sent their evening anchors. To them, it had been just another murder in a year that had already broken the record for violent crime in Central New York. They hadn’t been prepared, and the press conference was being given on very short notice.
“Perfect,” he whispered, pulling the Jeep into a parking spot at an odd angle and jumping out. He opened the back door, yanked out the camera and balanced it on his shoulder. With his free hand, he snapped on the headphone.
“You just stay behind the camera where you belong,” Jones said, adjusting her earphone, picking up the microphone case and getting out, as well.
