He frowned at her. “Don’t get all worked up. I was just asking.”
“Really? You weren’t about to launch into a full-scale assault on my judgment?” she asked skeptically.
“No. I just came looking for you to congratulate you on the radio thing. Raylene showed me the article. It sounds like a great opportunity for you.”
Sarah’s mouth gaped. “That’s it? That’s why you tracked me down?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “Not used to hearing much positive from me, are you?”
“Not much,” she agreed. “I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually stunned, to be honest.”
“I can’t blame you for reacting like that, but I want you to know that I am trying to change,” Walter said, his expression earnest. “Ever since I had that blowup with my dad, I’ve been taking a fresh look at my life. I don’t know if I’ll get up the courage to make a clean break from the mill or my folks, but I want to be a better dad to Tommy and Libby and a decent ex-husband to you. No more lectures, no more fights, if I can help it.”
Sarah regarded him quizzically. “What’s really behind the sudden change? Have you met someone?”
“No. Haven’t been looking, to tell you the truth. Of course, predictably my mother has a few candidates from among the socially appropriate women back home,” he said wryly.
Sarah found herself chuckling. “Yes, I’m sure she does. And I’ll bet none of them are a thing in the world like me.”
“Afraid not,” he said. “More’s the pity.” He hesitated, then met her gaze. “I wish I’d appreciated you more when we were married, Sarah. I have no idea how I let things get so far off track.”
“It’s hard to go against the parents who’ve raised you and given you everything,” Sarah said, finally understanding at least some of what had turned Walter into such an overbearing, critical spouse. “I probably should have called you on it the first time you started taking potshots at me, but I was already feeling overwhelmed
by living in an unfamiliar place with a baby on the way. It didn’t take much for me to believe I didn’t measure up.”
Walter shook his head. “You know, when I think about it, our problems started with the wedding. I should have stood up to my mother right then, when she insisted on a small family ceremony at home. I should never have let her get away with making you feel ashamed that you were pregnant.”
Thinking back to how disappointed she’d felt when Walter had acquiesced to his mother’s wishes, she agreed it had been the first step on a very slippery slope toward destroying the two of them.
“And I think the reception she held for us was even worse,” Sarah told him. “Were you aware that she trotted out all these beautiful, suitable women so I’d know what you’d lost by coming home with me on your arm?”
He looked bemused. “I knew there were a bunch of old friends there that night, but I didn’t know they were there to torment you.”
Sarah shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t. For all I know I was the one who made too big a thing of it. All those sly little comments your mother made about my background were starting to take root. It didn’t require much to make me feel even more insecure.” She waved off the discussion. “None of this matters now. Our marriage is over, and we’re both moving on. It’s all good.”
To her surprise, she actually meant that. Ever since she’d started working at the radio station and preparing for the launch, the confidence she’d once had in herself had been returning, bit by bit. That Bill and Travis were
both free with their praise had been like pouring water on a parched plant. She felt herself blossoming.
It didn’t hurt that she’d caught Travis looking at her as though she was an attractive, desirable woman, either. Maybe those kinds of looks and the flattering talk were just part of his flirtatious charm, but it was all music to her ears. Not that she dared to let herself get too caught up in it. She was working for the man, not dating him. It was a distinction she couldn’t let herself forget.
Now Walter was studying her with an expression filled with regret. “You really are getting it all together, aren’t you? I’m glad. You deserve it, Sarah.”
She met his gaze. “Yes, I do.” And for the first time since their awful sham of a wedding, she honestly believed it.
Travis waited until Sarah’s ex had taken off before returning to the table. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the smiling woman who greeted him.
“I take it everything went okay,” he said.
“We had a good talk,” she said. “The first one in a long time.”
“He doesn’t object to you doing the radio show?”
“Not that his opinion counts, but he’s all for it,” she said. “Frankly, I was a little surprised by that, but I guess his parents haven’t heard the news and had time to tell him he should hate the idea.”
Travis regarded her curiously. “Is that what went wrong in your marriage? He was still tied to his folks by the apron strings?”
She nodded. “It was hell to live with,” she said
candidly. “They never approved of me, but I can see why Walter had such a hard time taking a stand against them. His dad’s a powerful man, at least in their hometown. He owns the cotton mill that provides the work for many of the people in town. Walter was brought up knowing that he would take over one day. He was supposed to marry well, then ease right into the role of big man around town. Instead, he turned up with me.”
Travis regarded her with shock. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked incredulously.
“According to Mrs. Price, there was very little right with me. My clothes, my hair, my social graces. All lacking. Worst, of course, was that I was already pregnant.”
“I assume she’d figured out that her son had something to do with that,” Travis said.
“Actually I don’t think she much liked thinking about how it happened,” she said, grinning. “It was enough of an embarrassment that it had. Of course, that didn’t stop them from wanting to raise Tommy to follow right along in his daddy and granddaddy’s footsteps. I suspect Walter’s parents would have been holding a party on their front lawn to celebrate my leaving except for the fact that I took Tommy with me.”
“They sound like awful people,” Travis said, hating that she’d been through all that.
“They were just…” She hesitated, then said, “I suppose they were just traditional.”
“They were snobs,” Travis corrected. “And people with as much breeding as they apparently thought they had don’t make other people feel small and insecure.”
She gave him a surprised look. “How would you know a thing like that?”
“How much do you know about Tom’s family, the McDonalds?”
“I know he’s from Charleston, but that’s about it.”
“Well, the McDonalds, despite some financial setbacks and misbehaving through the years, rank pretty high up there in Charleston social circles. My daddy was a black sheep, but I still grew up around all that highfalutin nonsense. I was told on more occasions than I can count that McDonalds don’t do this or McDonalds don’t do that.” He grinned. “Which, of course, made it all the more essential that I do all of those things.”
“You broke the rules?” she asked with feigned surprise. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”
“Broke a few that hadn’t even been written, because folks thought it went without saying,” he said. “I liked shocking people. I figured it was my obligation to stir things up, keep them from getting too stuffy. It also took some of the heat off my daddy, who had a tendency to be the center of a lot of gossip.”
“Why was that?”
“Let’s just say he has a well-developed appreciation of women, and they tend to reciprocate. It caused no end of embarrassment to the family in general and to my mother in particular.”
There was an expression on Sarah’s face he couldn’t quite read. He had a feeling it had something to do with what she’d heard about him.
“Before you ask,” he said, deciding on a preemptive strike, “some say I’m a chip off the old block.”
Though she looked startled by his admission, she leaned closer, studying him intently. “Are they right?”
“They were,” he said candidly.
“Were?”
“Let’s just say I’m finding the straight and narrow a lot more appealing recently.”
“Any particular reason?”
He loved that she had absolutely no idea that she might have anything to do with his recent desire to transform himself. And since he wasn’t sure he could stick to his resolve, it was probably best that she not figure it out.
“Time for a change,” he said with a careless shrug.
“Maturity?” she suggested.
He laughed. “You never know. Maybe so.”
He hoped not, though, because that would imply that he’d be able to control this increasingly powerful desire to take Sarah straight home to bed and make love to her till it was time for the station to go on the air. He was hoping like crazy he’d succumb to that desire—that they both would—before his freshly minted conscience kicked in.
R
ick the Rocket was drunk. Oh, he did a pretty good job of covering it for the first five minutes he was in Travis’s office, but he wasn’t a good enough actor to hide it any longer than that.
Travis exchanged a look with Bill, then took a deep breath. “You’re fired,” he said, not hesitating for a single second over the decision.
The middle-aged man looked as if he was still trying to recapture his youth in a wrinkled T-shirt from a heavy metal group that had long since faded into oblivion. His shabby jeans were about a hundred wash cycles past trendiness. He regarded Travis with confusion.
“Fired? Why?”
“You’re drunk,” Travis said with exaggerated patience.
“So what?” Rick asked, looking genuinely bewildered. “I’m not on the air till tomorrow.”
Travis shook his head at the poor logic. “And I’m not taking any chances.”
“But you heard my tapes, man,” he said. “I’m good.”
“You were,” Travis conceded. “But I have no way of
knowing whether you were drunk or sober then, or what you’ll likely be tomorrow.”
“This blows,” Rick said. “How are you gonna replace me before tomorrow?”
“Not your problem,” Travis told him. The headache was his, and most likely Bill’s. He’d seen the subtle nod indicating that Bill was well aware of the cost of firing Rick with so little time before the station’s launch. Bill’s fishing would be on hold until further notice. “Look, even though you haven’t worked a single day, I’ll give you a week’s severance for your trouble. I think that’s generous under the circumstances.”
“Where am I supposed to go now?” Rick asked. “I gave up a job to come here.”
“Maybe you can get it back,” Travis said. “I’ll call the station and tell them things didn’t work out.”
Rick was already shaking his head. “I burned that bridge, man.”
“Then I’d suggest rehab,” Bill said quietly, speaking for the first time. “Now’s the perfect time for you to get your act together. I remember you when you first hit the air in Columbia a couple of decades ago. Your morning show rocketed straight to the top in the ratings. That’s how you got your nickname, right?”
“I was something,” Rick acknowledged with absolutely no hint of humility. “Still am.”
“How long have you been away from Columbia? Ever since you got serious about drinking, I’ll bet,” Bill guessed. “How many other stations have there been? Two? Ten? Each one smaller than the one before?”
Rick regarded him with blurry-eyed animosity.
“They didn’t know a good thing when they had it. You hicks here are no better.”
“Maybe not,” Bill said, “but we’re giving you the best advice you’ve probably had in years. Clean up your act.”
Travis nodded. “You do that, come back here with proof you’re sober and we’ll talk. I agree with Bill. That’s the best advice anyone will ever give you.”
Rick stood up, wove a little trying to get his bearings, then let loose with a stream of profanity that topped anything Travis had heard in the locker room, even after a humiliating loss.
“That’s it,” Travis said, escorting him from the office. Fortunately Rick was too wobbly to put up much resistance.
He drove the deejay over to the Serenity Inn, rented him a room for the night and told him to sleep it off. By the time he got back to the station, Bill was filling Sarah in.
She turned to Travis with wide-eyed panic. “You fired the afternoon deejay the day before we go on the air? Are you insane?”
“Which part of drunk as a skunk did you miss?” Travis asked. “I wasn’t about to risk putting him on the air.”
“Maybe he only drinks when he’s not working,” she suggested.
“To all intents and purposes, this meeting was work,” Travis told her. “He was three sheets to the wind for it.”
She sighed. “Okay, I know you’re right, but that’s hours of airtime that has to be filled.”
“And I’m going to fill it,” Bill said. “For now,
anyway. The fish haven’t been biting worth a damn anyway.”
Sarah’s obvious relief mirrored Travis’s.
“I’m going to owe you for this,” Travis told him.
“You’re doing me a favor,” Bill insisted. “I’ve barely been home lately and my wife is already sick of me. That doesn’t bode well for the peaceful retirement I was envisioning.”
“I’ll find a replacement as soon as I can,” Travis promised him.
“No rush. Next time, check more references. I guarantee you the ones Rick gave you were only of people anxious to have him gone. You dig a little deeper, say, where a prospective employee worked a couple of jobs back, and you’ll get more unbiased feedback. I imagine his old station in Columbia would have given you an earful. Also wouldn’t hurt to pay attention to the trajectory of a man’s career. Sometimes you can tell by the size of the stations if he’s heading up or sliding down.”
“Lesson learned,” Travis said. He turned to Sarah. “So, other than panicking over this minor little crisis, are you all set for tomorrow?”
Sarah nodded. “Grace is going to be my first guest. I think we can count on her to keep things lively.”
“Just try to keep her from spreading any gossip we can’t substantiate,” Travis warned.
“We’re going to stick to talking about the Fourth of July traditions here in town,” Sarah promised. “I won’t let her get off track.”
Travis regarded her skeptically. “Won’t that be like trying to corral a wild mustang?”
“I’m up to the challenge,” she assured him.
“Okay, then, I propose we all take the rest of the day off. I’ll be back here at midnight to sign us on and will stay through the night, along with the engineer, to be sure we’re not having signal problems. Sarah, you’ll be here early in the morning?”
“At least an hour before showtime,” she promised. “Given how nervous I am, it could be even sooner. I doubt I’ll sleep a wink.”
“Try,” Bill encouraged her. “You’ll want to be rested. It’s important to start off with a lot of energy, especially in the morning. People like to leave the house feeling upbeat.”
“I figure we’ll all be operating pretty much on adrenaline tomorrow,” Travis said. “I try not to let myself think about it, but I have a lot riding on this.”
“Your investment’s safe,” Bill assured him. “Your ad revenue’s solid, even better than I anticipated. Serenity was obviously ready for something like this.”
Travis looked toward Sarah, thinking about how much she was counting on him being right about
her.
“The money’s the least of it,” he said quietly.
Bill immediately understood. “No worries on that front, either. Your talent is highly professional.”
Fortunately, Sarah seemed to have no idea they were talking about her stake in the station’s success. In fact, for the past five minutes, she’d been totally engrossed in the notebook in which she wrote down a hundred little reminders a day. Going over them seemed to soothe her.
“I’d suggest a toast,” Travis said, “but given how I came down on Rick for drinking, it’s just as well I didn’t bring over any champagne.”
“Diet Coke suits me just fine,” Bill said, lifting one of the half-dozen cans he seemed to go through in a day.
“Works for me, too,” Sarah said, lifting her own can.
Travis popped the top on another one and tapped cans with his team. “Then here’s to a successful launch and many more years together,” he said. His gaze caught Sarah’s and held.
Eventually she blinked and looked away, but not before he’d caught the flash of confusion, then the glimmer of hope in her eyes. It was the hope that scared him, because as much as he was starting to want more with her, he wasn’t the least bit sure he had what it took to make it happen.
The Voice of Serenity, WSER, went on the air at 12:01 a.m. on July 1. Sarah and Raylene sat up to listen to it. When Travis’s low, sexy drawl came over the airwaves, Sarah felt a thrill wash over her that had little to do with the station’s official launch. It was all about that amazing voice and the heat it stirred inside her. Judging from Raylene’s rapt expression, she wasn’t immune to it either. He was, indeed, one sweet talker.
“Now that’s a man who could get me out of this house,” Raylene said, a poignant note in her voice.
Sarah immediately forgot about the station and Travis, and regarded Raylene with concern. “I know you’re only half-joking,” she said, seizing the opportunity. “Maybe it’s time to think about seeing Dr. McDaniels.”
Raylene was already shaking her head before Sarah completed the thought.
“I know you think you have to beat this on your own,
but staying locked up in here the way you do, it’s not good, sweetie,” she continued despite Raylene’s stubbornly set expression. “I get that a part of you is still scared that your vile ex-husband is going to come over here after you, but those days are over. He’ll never lay a hand on you again. In fact, once he finishes that pitiful excuse of a jail sentence they gave him for beating you, if he’s smart he’ll move across the country. I swear, if he hadn’t had all those connections, he’d never have gotten a plea deal like the one they gave him. Once he’s out, he should thank his lucky stars and head for someplace they’ve never heard of him.”
“Rationally, I know all that,” Raylene admitted. “But I can’t seem to make myself step across the threshold of the front door.” Her expression sober, she said, “And I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I love taking care of Tommy and Libby, but even though I only do it once in a while, I worry that they could slip out of the house and I wouldn’t be able to chase them down.”
“They adore you, and you’re only alone with them for a little while when the sitter’s late or I’m in a bind. I’ll make sure they understand that they can’t go outside. The point is, though, that you need to do something to change what’s going on. For your own sake, Raylene. Don’t let this drag on. You’re missing out on life.”
“Look, this is my problem,” Raylene said. “We need to rethink this whole arrangement, Sarah. I probably should find some little apartment of my own, where I can hide out and not let my fears impact anyone else.”
“No,” Sarah said flatly. “You’re going to remain right here. And if staying with the kids for even an hour
worries you, we’ll find another way to handle that. But I will keep pushing you to see Dr. McDaniels. Annie and I both will go with you. Or maybe she’ll even come here, at least at first. Will you at least think about that?”
Raylene nodded, though with obvious reluctance. “In the meantime, I’d rather think about
him,
” she said, gesturing toward the radio, where Travis continued to drawl out the next best things to sexy sweet nothings that could be sent over public airwaves.
Sarah sighed as she listened. “He does have a way about him, doesn’t he?”
And increasingly, it seemed, he was practicing that sweet-talking technique on her. She wondered if they’d invented a vaccine that could protect her against it, because she knew with every fiber of her being that sooner or later, if she let herself believe even half of what he said, she’d wind up getting her heart broken.
On the Fourth of July, every business on Main Street was draped with red, white and blue bunting. American flags flew all around the square and in front of the Town Hall. The sidewalks were jammed with families eagerly awaiting the start of the annual parade. Heat seemed to roll off the sidewalks and streets in waves, but there was a hint of a breeze and the sky was pure summertime blue.
On the green, vendors were already setting up with arts and crafts and food. The aroma of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill filled the air. Given the soaring temperatures predicted, the snow cone and ice cream booths were going to do a brisk business. Sarah’s favorite had always been the icy snow cones with syrups
in every color of the rainbow and then some. It took her forever to decide between orange, cherry, lime and root beer. Then she’d spend the rest of the day regretting the ones she hadn’t chosen.
Barriers set up outside the studio kept the area in front of the station relatively clear, so Sarah could see everything happening on the green. She’d also be able to describe the parade as it passed by, just like those big-time announcers who were on TV for the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York or the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
Not that the Serenity Fourth of July parade was in the same league. Local veterans marched in rag-tag fashion. The ones who could fit into them wore their uniforms. A couple of area high school bands and majorette groups were interspersed with floats dreamed up by local businesses.
Traditionally, Wharton’s had the most lavish float, a flat trailer that this year was going to be decked out like the pharmacy’s soda fountain. They’d even re-created an old-fashioned jukebox which would be playing the same rock ’n’ roll music available inside the restaurant. A few high school kids, dressed up in sixties attire they’d borrowed from their parents or even grandparents, would dance as the float made its way along the route through town.
Inside the studio, Sarah was almost as excited as she had been two days ago, when Grace had joined her on the air for her first show. She gulped, though, when Travis walked into the studio and sat down opposite her.
The second they went to a commercial, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
He winked at her. “I thought I’d help out with the commentary on the parade.”
She frowned at that. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do, but having two of us in the booth will make things livelier. That is the way they do it on television, you know. Listeners will love hearing us bantering about what’s going on.”
“I suppose.”
“You’re not scared of being all alone with me in this cramped little space for a couple of hours, are you?” he asked, a taunting note in his voice that Sarah couldn’t ignore. “I promise I’ll stay on my side of the desk, unless, of course, you’d prefer me to cozy up next to you.”
“You don’t scare me, Travis,” she said emphatically, wishing it were true.
He grinned. “Good to know. Now, I hear the first band, so we need to get ready to go live, sugar.”
She scowled at him. “I know that.” Somehow she managed to keep the same sour note out of her voice as she told the audience, “We’re back live from Serenity’s Town Square, where I can already hear the Serenity High School marching band. They should be coming into view any second now.”