LOVING HER SOUL MATE (38 page)

The emotion in John’s voice
stunned Ed Barrington.
 
He knew John had
the hots for Shay, but he always assumed it was only just a sexual thing.
 
Even Ed, on occasion, had the hots for Shay
Turner.
 
He attempted to smile.
 
“Damn, John,” he said playfully, “that pussy
still that good after all this time?”

John grabbed Ed by the catch of
his robe so hard that he feared he could crush him.
 
“You listen to me you sawed-off
sonafabitch!
 
If you ever even think
about disrespecting Shay Turner again, I will personally kick your ass.
 
Do I make myself clear, Barrington?”
 
When he didn’t immediately respond, John
slammed him against the back of the storm door.
 
“Do I make myself clear, Barrington?” he asked again.

“Yes,” Ed said quickly.
 
He knew making an enemy of the chief of
police would be a nightmare for his newspaper.
 
When he gave Shay the boot, he had no idea they would still be this
tight.
 
If he had known, he realized, he
would have hired Shay on the spot.
 
“Look, I’m sorry, John.
 
I didn’t
mean to---”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry.
 
You tell it to Shay.
 
Understood?”

Ed hesitated.

John slammed him again.
“ Understood
?”

“Yes!
 
I understand, dammit!
 
I’ll, I’ll take care of it tomorrow.
 
Now if you like.”

“Not now, it’s late.
 
She’s asleep.
 
Tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Ed nodded, wondering
lustfully if John had just left the sleeping Shay.
 
And if John had just put a
pounding on her that caused her to have fallen asleep.
 
The idea of a dick inside of Shay Turner, a
woman he’d always wanted to get his dick inside of, was giving him a
hard-on.
  
“I’ll take care of it,” he
said.

John exhaled, and released Ed.

Then John hesitated.
 
“For the record,” he finally said, “she had
nothing to do with what happened in my marriage.
 
Nothing.
 
And if you ever say to anybody that she did,
you’ll have to answer to me.
 
Understood?”

Ed nodded his head, amazed that a
hard-hearted man like John Malone could actually care for somebody.
 
“I understand,” he said.
 
But this time he seemed to mean it.

John was a little embarrassed by
his strong arm tactics, he already had a reputation for being too brutal with
people, but those tears in Shay’s eyes broke his heart.
 
And he was serving notice that she was not
going to be their whipping girl this time around.
 

He left.
 
And this time he did take himself home.

The next morning and Shay was on
the road early.
 
It was her first day of her
new job and she was already antsy.
 
The
mechanic had already said that her Beetle wouldn’t be ready for another few
days, so she ended up with John’s Porsche again.
 
Not that she mind driving it.
 
She loved driving it.
 
It was just that she wasn’t all that crazy
about the attention driving it would automatically bring on her.

But she wasn’t trying to live her
life for other people now.
 
She had too
much to lose now.
 
She therefore drove it
proudly and drove it into the first free parking space she could find outside
of the Brady Beast newspaper building.
 
Her cell phone started ringing just as she did.

She answered before she stepped
out.
 
When she heard Ed Barrington’s
voice, she frowned.

“Good morning, Shay,” he said so
casually that it stunned her.
 

“May I help you?” she asked, still
wondering what nerve he had calling her at all.

“I know you’re wondering why I’m
phoning.”

“It has crossed my
mind,
you’d be right about that.
 
Now what is it?”
 
Her patience, and respect for him, flew out
the window during that so-called meeting yesterday.

“I was calling to see if you were
still interested in the job.”

Now she was really baffled.
 
“Excuse me?
 
What job?”

“The job
here, at the Tribune.
 
I’m offering it to you.”

Shay frowned.
 
“You’re offering me . . . wait a minute.
 
Yesterday I wasn’t worthy to step foot in
your precious building, but today I not only can step foot up in there, but I
can work there too?
 
Is that what you’re
telling me?”

“That’s what I’m saying, yes,
Shay, I’m offering you your old job back.”

This man must be out of his
mind.
 
What was wrong with people?
 
Did they think she was made of stone and
their insults didn’t hurt her to her core?
 
“I don’t get your point,” she said.
 
“Why would you be offering me a job you told me you wouldn’t allow me to
have if I was the last journalist on earth, Ed?
 
What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did say that.”

“Now look, I’m not going to argue
with you.
 
I’m offering you the job,
okay?
 
Now you can take it or leave it.”

“Fine,” Shay said, amazed that it
wasn’t already obvious.
 
“I leave it,”
she said, and slammed shut her phone.
 
And then she turned the whole thing off.

She just sat there, to compose
herself.
 
What the hell, she
wondered.
 
How could he think that she’d
want anything to do with him or his newspaper ever again?
 

Then she thought about John.
 
She cried on his shoulders once again and he
held her just like he used to do.
 
Put
her to bed too.
 
And knowing John,
knowing how enraged he could sometimes become, she could just see him driving
right over to Ed’s house and threatening him with bodily harm if he didn’t
what?
 
Give her the job?
 
That made no sense.
 
Surely he didn’t think she would work for Ed
Barrington after the way he treated her.
 

Unless, she thought again, he
didn’t think she had any other prospects.
 
It wasn’t like
Brady
 
was
this big town loaded with newspapers.
 
There were only three.
 
And maybe he didn’t think she’d lower herself
to work for the other two.
 
He never knew
that she not only interviewed at both of those “lower” newspapers, but the lady
who interviewed her for the Brady Beast hired her on the spot.
 

Only she didn’t mention that bit
of news to John.
 

Especially since she knew he would
flip his lid when he did find out.

And although she was grateful for
his help, she had to remind him that she could fight her own battles.
 
Although, she thought as she got out of his
Porsche, you wouldn’t know it by the way she went crying to daddy last night.
 
As if she was some kid.
 
You also wouldn’t know it by the way she just
stepped out of daddy’s car.
 
She smiled
and shook her head.
 
This homecoming was
about as low-key, about as unassuming as a lion in the streets.
 

She continued to smile as she
grabbed her briefcase off of the backseat, her shoulder bag off of the front
seat, and hurried for the entrance of the large, rustic building.
 

Although the Brady Beast newspaper
was located on the building’s top floor, the fourth floor, the
dilapidated-looking elevator was out of order and she therefore had to walk up
stairs.
 
Or run, because she was running
late.
 
Running late for
her first day of work, at a newspaper that was her absolute last choice, in a
return to Brady that could only be described as unsettling.
 

Two years ago, or even two months
ago, working at a place like this would have been unthinkable.
 
But that maddening meeting with Ed Barrington
put an end to any illusions she had of returning to the way things used to be.
 
She left the Tribune after that meeting, sat
in her car in tears for nearly thirty straight minutes, this close to calling
John even then and telling him how badly Ed had treated her.
 

But she didn’t stay in that
weakened state very long.
 
Because Shay Turner was practical if she was anything.
 
She knew she had to eat, and had bills to
pay, so she therefore picked up her little wounded pride and drove herself to
some burger joints and restaurants around town, and then to the next newspaper
in town.
 
And finally
ended up at the Beast.

By contrast, the Brady Beast was
so thrilled to have a reporter of her caliber, so eager to have that
tough-as-nails reporter once known as No-nonsense Shay, that they hired her on
the spot.
 
And she was grateful.
 
Very grateful.
 
But to pretend to be overjoyed would be a
lie.
  
For a reporter with Shay’s
background and experience to accept a job at a small in every way daily like
the Brady Beast was akin to the president of a major university becoming its
janitor.
 
It was a job, yes, it was an
honest day’s work, but there was really no comparison.

But now, as she sat in the small
newsroom where paint peeled and water spots dotted the ceiling, as she waited
for the editor to come and meet her in person for the first time, she wondered
if she had made the right decision.
 
Was
it nothing more than foolish pride that caused her to thumb her nose at Ed’s
change of heart and turn down his offer?
 
Would that same pride cause her to want to work doubly hard to prove
some point to them?
 
She leaned her head
back and closed her eyes.
 
Her prayer was
that it wasn’t so; that she didn’t come all this way, take this decidedly
humbled position, just to prove a point.

When she opened her eyes, however,
she didn’t feel rejuvenated, or even at peace with her decision.
 
She was startled.
 
For standing before her was a tall, muscular
white woman who was staring unabashedly at her.
 
She had thick, red hair and a round, kind face.
 
She smiled a perfectly straight, perfectly
white, toothpaste-commercial smile.
 

“Hello there,” she said, extending
her hand.
 
“I’m Paige Kent.”

Shay immediately knew the
name.
 
She was the Brady Beast’s senior
editor and the woman who her interviewer said would be her supervisor.
 
She stood quickly, and shook her hand.
 
“Miss Kent.
 
Please to meet you.”

Paige smiled.
 
“No you didn’t call me ma’am.
 
How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Well, I’m thirty-one.
 
Which is, unless my math
fails me, a distinction without a difference.
 
The name’s Paige.
 
No more ma’am from you.”

Shay nodded.
 
“Yes, ma’am.”
 
Then, when she looked sidelong at her, Shay
smiled: “Just kidding.”

Paige smiled, too, and looked down
at Shay’s small but curvy body, up at her long hair made sleek in a straight,
layered style, and into her pretty, oak-brown face.
 
Her remarkably gorgeous face, she noted.
 
Then she pointed at her.
 
“I knew I was going to like you.
 
Now come,” she added, walking away from
her.
 
“Let’s talk.”

Shay quickly grabbed her briefcase
and shoulder bag and followed her rather masculine-walking supervisor across
the newsroom.
 
Other reporters glared at
her as she walked with Paige, as if her presence there meant instant
competition.
  
When she got into the
small, but neat office, Paige seemed to have picked up on that, too.

She leaned against the edge of her
desk,
legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, and
pulled up the sleeves of her sweat shirt.
 
“They won’t make it easy for you,” she said.
 
“Not because of anything you’ve done, but
because they know your history.”