Love on the Air (4 page)

He sat back, coffee cup in hand. It was a much more
relaxed posture than she'd seen yesterday, although it
did put him at more of a distance. He'd cleaned the
top of his desk, or at least condensed it into one large
stack of papers in the far right-hand corner. A lone
manila folder sat at the center of the desktop in front
of him. She assumed her resume was inside, but he
didn't glance at it.

"Your tape surprised me," he said. "Your reads are
excellent. And whoever helped you out on the effects
did you proud."

"No one helped me," she said, trying not to sound
indignant.

"I didn't think so." He surprised her with a grin.
"Sorry. Trick question." He sipped his coffee. "First
off, I want you to think again about the hours. I mean,
really think about it. You'd be driving to work in the
dark; part of the year it would still be dark by the time
you went home. In between, you've got six hours
alone in the building. It's a strange schedule."

"I have thought about it. I wouldn't want to do it
for a million years, but to be honest, I don't plan on
doing overnights for a million years." Too outspoken?

He didn't show any reaction either way. "How do
you feel about the drive? Remember, it's two trips a
night, and you have to drive it with your eyes open
both ways. Do you live far from the station?"

"About fifteen minutes," she hedged. It was more
like twenty-five.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Excuse me?" She felt her cheeks warm. He was
way out of bounds with that one.

As if he'd read her mind, Rick held up a hand.
"Don't sic the labor relations board on me just yet.
What I mean is, the hours of this job can put a real
strain on personal relationships. The questions I'm
asking you right now, I want you to ask yourself. You
don't have to answer out loud if you don't want to.
Do you have a boyfriend, husband, fiance? Highmaintenance cat? Anyone who'd be affected by your
hours?"

"No." It wasn't any big secret, she reasoned. And,
dicey questions or not, she wanted this job.

"This gig also cuts down your chances of starting
up a new relationship, at least for those first million
years when you're doing overnights. Any problem
with that?"

"No."

He studied her for a long time, and a silence
stretched out. Christie found that having Rick's full
attention was no less nerve-racking than his preoccupied attitude the day before. He could look very serious when he wasn't smiling, and very intent. She
wanted to shift her eyes to his coffee cup again, but
didn't dare. It seemed important not to look away. In stead, she lowered her glance toward his full, firm
mouth, and found that didn't help at all.

Just when the moment began to feel like a long
freeze-frame, he took one more sip from his mug.
"Last question," he said.

Already?

"It's a biggy." Rick sat forward, setting his coffee
aside and resting his arms on his desk. "Here's where
I turn into the bad guy. But I have to. I've got to take
one last shot at being the voice of reason here."

Uh-oh.

"Miss Becker, you're about twenty-three years old-"

"You're not supposed to ask me that. It's illegal."

"I'm not asking you. I'm telling you."

"Twenty-six."

A smile flickered in his eyes. "Okay, you're roughly
twenty-six years old, and-I can't stress this enoughyou have a viable career. In a stable business. Broadcasting is not stable. We happen to be a privatelyowned station with a pretty low turnover, but that's
not the norm. Radio stations are bought and sold.
Music formats change. All of which can put you out
of a job. And since, as you mentioned, you're interested in advancement, there's a good chance it won't
be here. Remember-low turnover. So eventually
you'd probably want to move on, which means relocating, which means more instability." He paused.
"And the hours-nights, personal appearances on
weekends-can turn your personal life upside down.
Are you prepared-"

"You said that last one already."

"Right." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not getting
through to you, am I?"

It was the strangest interview she'd ever had, but it
was still better than the one yesterday. Today, at least,
he was really talking to her. Maybe that was what gave
her the nerve to ask, "I don't mean to be rude, but do
you always try to talk your applicants out of the job?"

"No. Most of them already know better. It's just too
late." He shook his head. "You see, Miss Becker,
besides everything else I just mentioned, radio's an
addictive job. If you don't crack in three months, you
may not want to go back to anything else. It's kind of
like the priesthood: if you can be happy doing anything else, you probably should."

"What about you?"

He paused a moment before he answered. "One
divorce," he said quietly. "Other than that, it's been a
piece of cake."

Oops. She hadn't been going for anything that personal. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"You're still here," she noted.

"Still here. But I'm an addict, remember?" If he was
any the worse for wear, Christie could see it only in
the faint lines around his eyes when he smiled. All the
lines really did was make him look a bit more complex
than a man in his twenties. And much more interesting. She bit her lower lip.

"Would you do it again?" she asked. "Radio, I
mean. Not the divorce."

"Hold on. I'm supposed to be asking the questions."

"You asked me to think about it. I'm just trying to
make an informed decision."

He grinned. "Okay." He shifted his glance just beyond her, drumming the fingers of his bare left hand
on the desktop as his smile faded. "Would I do it
again?"

Christie suspected she'd stumbled onto something.
She'd asked the handsome program director a question
he'd never asked himself. Whether that was good or
bad, she'd soon find out.

She didn't have long to wait. When Rick's eyes
returned to hers, they were decisive. "Yes," he said.
"I'd do it again."

In return for that honest answer, she tried for a few
seconds to consider everything he'd warned her about.
She couldn't. She wanted the job too badly. She went
out on one more limb. "Well," she said, "how about
if we make a bet on whether or not I crack in three
months?"

Rick didn't miss a beat. "That just happens to be
your probationary period." He picked up the manila
file folder in front of him and flipped it across the desk
in front of her. "You'll need to fill these forms out for
our personnel office before you start. And forget it.
I'm not betting against you."

Rick walked Christie through the station to give her
a brief tour before she went back to give her two
weeks' notice at the loan office.

He'd tried, he thought. No one could say he hadn't
tried. But he'd already known that trying to reason
with Christie was a losing battle. He knew that single minded, feverish look, because he'd worn it himself
over ten years ago when he'd quit college for his first
full-time radio gig. If her work ethic matched her obvious passion, he'd made a sound business decision.

But in the hall, Rick found himself fighting the urge
to guide her by touching her arm or her shoulder. To
anyone else, the gesture might not have looked out of
place, but he knew himself better. Her delicate build
invited him to touch, and it was bringing out a lot of
useless impulses-some of them protective, some of
them not.

Oh, well. She was working nights. He'd hardly ever
see her.

When he showed her the production room where
the commercials were recorded, Christie was like a kid
on Christmas morning. Most disc jockeys had to be
shoved in that direction, but she was admiring everything from the computer recording console to the voice
processor. Rick stayed back, leaning against the door
jamb as he watched her move from one discovery to
the next. "Better than the toys at broadcasting school?"
he said.

"I'll say." Christie was studying the CDs of background music and sound effects, mounted on their
large wall rack. She fingered the spines of the CDs
with a look that bordered on avarice. Dreaming of
commercials to come? Unusual, especially in a female
jock. But as she stood there, that soft-looking auburn
page boy framing her face, there was no denying how
female she was.

If she could get that worked up over a CD library,
maybe she did belong here. But Rick had something better in store for her than production discs. Already
anticipating her reaction, he cleared his throat.

She looked up, startled, and he held back a smile.
"You'd probably like a look at the on-air studio?"

The light in her eyes was even brighter than he'd
expected.

Christie wasn't sure her feet were touching the
ground as she walked down the hall to the last door
on the left. The studio. Her holy grail. Rick opened
the door and stood back for her to go in ahead of him;
he was polite about things like that, she noticed. Christie scrupulously checked the "ON AIR" light above
the doorway, but of course it was off. She stepped
inside and nearly walked into the black Formica countertop that took up most of the room, surrounding the
disc jockey on three sides.

The woman on the other side of the counter was
about thirty, Hispanic-looking and very pretty, with
long, chocolate brown hair that stopped one shade shy
of black. As Christie and Rick entered, she smiled,
pulling off her headphones. "Hi, Rick. What's up?"

"Yvonne, this is Christie Becker, our new overnight
jock. Christie, this is Yvonne Reyes, our midday personality."

"A girl!" Yvonne's smile widened, and she offered
her hand over the large console that stood on the
counter between them. Christie scanned the enthusiasm for cattiness and found none. "About time, Rick,"
Yvonne said. "Now I won't have to be on every one
of the nail salon spots."

"Hi." Christie shook Yvonne's hand and peered over the console, trying to get a better look at the
sliding controls on the other side. Soon enough, she
told herself.

"Yvonne's also our music director, and my right
arm. Yvonne, I'll need you to train Christie for a couple of days before her first air shift."

"Great. She can learn from my mistakes. Nice to
meet you, hon."

"Yvonne Reyes," Christie said when they were outside again. "That's a pretty name." She caught herself
watching Rick for his response, wondering just how
attached to his right arm he might be. The woman was
certainly an eyeful.

No reaction that Christie could see. "Her last name's
really Reynaldo. She just tweaked it a little bit. Come
to think of it, we need an air name for you, don't we?"

"Christie Becker is it," she said. "It's my mother's
maiden name."

"You applied for work under an assumed name?
Good thing I didn't call your references." He blinked;
obviously he hadn't meant to say that. "But I will
now," he amended.

"It's okay. Everybody knows about the radio thing,
even at the loan office. I couldn't go to broadcasting
school for a year and a half and keep my mouth shut."

"Christie Becker." He said her name slowly, as
though he were tasting it. "Works for me." Christie
found herself watching his lips, and reminded herself
to cut it out. "What's your real last name?" he asked.

"Swensen."

"Becker, Swensen...German and Swedish?" She
nodded. "So where'd the red hair come from?"

"The mailman was Scottish."

He threw his head back and laughed-that wonderful, rich laugh she'd heard from out in the hallway
yesterday. And once again, something inside her responded to the sound. At times he seemed so cool and
reserved, but not when he laughed.

"So, what's your real name?" she asked.

"Foxborough." It sounded Scottish. It seemed best
not to mention that.

"Good," she said instead. "I was having a hard time
calling you Mr. Fox. It sounds like something out of
Peter Rabbit."

He chuckled again. "So that's why no one here calls
me `Mister.' " He shook his head, still smiling. "It's
Rick. First names around here."

He was leading her back out the way she'd come
in. By now the maze of hallways was starting to make
sense. The layout was basically a horseshoe, with the
programming offices on one side, including Rick's office, the production room, and the on-air studio. In the
center was a small break room, and now they were
passing by the sales and administrative offices on the
side where she'd first come in. Rick pointed them out,
but didn't spend a great deal of time talking about
them. It was obvious his main concern was at the other
end of the building.

At the front entrance, Rick stopped. "One more
thing. Before I forget." He rested a hand over the
frame of the glass door, and his blue shirt stretched
taut over a lean, firm-looking waist. She had to stop
noticing things like that. Rick's words pulled her back.
"I had one other reservation about hiring you, and I should have mentioned it before. I've never had a
woman working nights, and I'm not crazy about it, for
security reasons. I want you to be careful. You probably noticed the outside wall of the studio is one big
window. Keep the blinds closed. When you're walking
to your car, have your keys ready, and make sure you
park under a light. We've never had any problems, but
I don't want you to be the first."

The serious look had returned to his gray eyes. He
was about six-two, nearly a foot taller than Christie,
and for a moment she felt absurdly sheltered as he
stood over her. She could almost kid herself that his
protective attitude was more than gentlemanly concern.

It didn't matter. He was her boss, not her boyfriend,
and she could take care of herself. She decided to let
him know that. "And if someone does come after me,"
she said, "I go for the eyes and groin."