DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (12 page)

Now Herb was being accused of not
treating her right, and Daniel could tell he didn’t like it.

“All right,” Herb finally said.
 
“She won’t have to apologize.
 
But tell her to take it easy in the future,
will you?
 
Too many more displays like
that and she won’t give me a choice.”

Daniel sighed and nodded his
head.
 
“That’s fair,” he said as he
stood.
 
“And thank you.”

“I’m glad to do it for you, you know I
am,” Herb said, slapping Daniel on the back.
 
“Because you’re my friend and I appreciate our friendship.
 
But goodness gracious, man.
 
How do you put up with her?”
 
He said it with a chuckle, to lessen the
sting, but it didn’t work with Daniel.
 
“She’s too much lady for me,” Herb added.
 

Daniel held his tongue.
 
Getting Nikki back on a job she loved was the
goal here.
 
He held his tongue.

“But while I have you in front of me,”
Herb went on, “the weather’s supposed to be unseasonably decent Saturday.
 
At least that’s the forecast now.
 
How about we meet over at the club and see if
we can get in a few rounds of golf?
 
I
want to talk to you about getting Dreeson to contribute to this foundation my
wife is starting.”

Daniel knew the drill.
 
Since Herb just washed his back, it was his
time to wash Herb’s.
 
It was a brutal
business.
 

“Sounds good,” Daniel lied.
 
“Check back with me later in the week.”

“Great, Danny, thanks,” Herb said,
they shook, and Daniel was gone.

But as soon as he arrived back at
Dreeson, ready to begin his day with no more detours, he also had to deal with
his boss.
 
Wayne Murdock, the company’s
president and CEO, summoned him to his office less than three hours after he
returned from Herb’s.
 
He wanted answers,
he said, about the chairman of the board.

“What about the chairman?” Daniel
asked as he stood in front of the old man’s desk.

“What’s he up to?”

Daniel just stood there.
 
Murdock was sixty-three years old, with milky
blue eyes and snow-white hair, a man brilliant in business but eccentric as
hell.
 
Daniel was second in command
behind Murdock, and many of their senior executives often ran to him when
Murdock and his ways were just too crazy for them to abide.
 
But Daniel never went to the board.
 
Murdock was no prize, but he had given
Dreeson forty years of his life.
 
That
should account for something, he felt.

“I don’t understand what you’re
talking about, Wayne,” he said.

“The chairman, Daniel.
 
The chairman!
 
You know.
 
What’s he up to?”

“I have no idea what he’s up to.”

Murdock looked at Daniel.
 
Daniel was a muscular, strapping, almost
unusually handsome man, with that smooth tanned skin, those large hazel eyes,
and hair, not like the wild styles of the day, but neat and soft and trimmed
low.
 
He was a thirty-nine-year-old
dynamo who Murdock knew was going places.
 
He was, in Murdock’s eyes, the best they had.
 
But Murdock also knew that he was loyal to
him, and that very loyalty could be his undoing.

“You don’t know, do you?” he asked
him.

“Don’t know what?”

“They’re keeping you in the dark too,
I see.
 
Never a good sign.
 
Never!
 
That’s why you keep your enemies closer.
 
Your friends close, but your enemies closer.
 
But thanks for coming by anyway, Danny.
 
Have a nice day.”

And that was that.
 
A one minute meeting about absolutely
nothing.
 
And absolutely everything.
 

Once back in his office, after signing
off on emergency press releases that couldn’t wait, he got to work on an
enormous stack of files waiting his review.
 
By the time Phillip Grayson phoned and asked for an audience with him,
he was preparing for an upcoming meeting.
 
But Phillip was his eyes and ears around Dreeson, the man who kept him
in the loop.
 
Oftentimes in corporations
the size of Dreeson’s , the top two players, Murdock and Daniel, were often the
last two to know.

Phillip entered Daniel’s massive
office with a stride that bespoke arrogance more than confidence.
 
He was in his late twenties, with short,
slick blond hair, small, blue eyes, and narrow, almost nonexistent lips.
 
He was a well-connected staunch Daniel
supporter who saw all and heard all and hoped that someday his hard work would
pay off with the ascension of Daniel Crane into the CEO’s chair, and Phillip
Grayson into Daniel’s chair.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Phillip said
eagerly.

“What’s up?” Daniel replied without
looking up.
 
Daniel didn’t just have one
meeting to attend, but a series of meetings to attend, and he was still
reviewing notes.
 
The few minutes Phillip
requested was about all the time he had to give.

Phillip helped himself to a seat in
front of Daniel’s desk and sat on the edge of that seat, with his hands between
his knees.
 
And he got down to it.
 
“You came to Dreeson, what?
 
Ten years ago, right?”

“Six, but go on.”

“When the chairman brought you on
board as second in command, there were rumors even then.”

Daniel smiled.
 
This kid, he thought.
 
“There always are, Phillip,” he said.
 
“That’s the nature of our business.”

“Sure you’re right.
 
But these particular rumors wouldn’t go
away.
 
It was assumed that Wayne Murdock,
longtime CEO though he may be, was on the way out.”

“And?”

“And you were on the way in.
 
That’s why you were brought here.
 
To replace Murdock. Those were the rumors
anyway.
 
And according to my sources,
those rumors are true.”

If Phillip was expecting some rise out
of Daniel, he was disappointed.
 
“I’ve
been hearing about Murdock’s dumping since I got here,” Daniel said.
 
“It’s just good old-fashioned water cooler
gossip, and nothing more.”

“No, sir.
 
This is different.
 
They’re prepared now to ask for Murdock’s
resignation.
 
No more talk about it.
 
They’ve got a timeline.”

Now he had Daniel’s attention.
 
Daniel looked up, and leaned back in his
chair.
 
“Do they?” he asked.

Phillip smiled.
 
“They do.
 
And they want him out soon.
 
Very
soon.
 
Murdock will claim he wants to
spend more time with his family, and it’ll all be sold as if it was his idea to
begin with.
 
But this is the real deal
this time.”

Daniel thought about Wayne Murdock and
he couldn’t help but empathize with the man. Murdock had worked his way up that
corporate ladder and given Dreeson forty years of his life.
 
Forty long years.
 
And how does it end?
 
With rumors and gossip and everybody knowing
more about his fate than he probably did.
 
But that was the name of the corporate game.
 
Do it to them before they do it to you.
 
He’s
old and used up now, so let’s get rid of him.
 
It was a game Daniel hated.
 
Because it was a boomerang.
 
Because just as surely as it was Murdock’s
day, his day was coming too.
 

“The search is on for a successor,”
Phillip continued, so excited about the misfortunes of a fellow human being
that it sickened Daniel, “and from what I hear the search is already over.”

Daniel didn’t say anything.
 
He did as he normally did when news came too
quickly.
 
He listened.

“My sources tell me that you, not
anybody else, but you are the heir-apparent.”

Daniel still did not respond.

“Say something, man, come on.
 
I’m telling you what I know.”

“I don’t think so, Phillip.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I may be on their short list, but I
doubt seriously if I’ll make the final cut.”

Phillip nearly jumped out of his
seat.
 
“Are you kidding me?
 
I’m telling you CEO is yours to lose!
 
You’re the best man in this entire organization!
 
You’ve been practically running the place
anyway, and everybody knows it.
 
They’ll
be merely going through the motions with other names.
 
It’ll just be for show.
 
Trust me on this!”

Phillip had a way about him, an almost
death-defying way, of drawing others into his web of excitement.
 
Daniel could feel it coming on too.
 
He could feel that surge of energy that
excitement required, where the impossible was suddenly possible.
 
But there were still too many unanswered
questions.
  
Still too many variables for
Daniel.
 
“How many others are in
contention?” he asked Phillip.

“Just window dressing.”

“How many?”

“I’m telling you they don’t stand a
snowball’s chance in hell---”

“I asked you a question.”

Phillip looked at Daniel and wondered why
he even bothered.
 
Daniel never treated
him as an equal, not even when he was bending over backwards to sing his
praises every chance he could.
 
You would
think the man would show him the highest respect.
 
But he didn’t.
 
Sometimes Phillip felt as if Daniel Crane
didn’t respect him at all.

“Two other men are in the running,”
Phillip said.
 
“Both are outsiders, long
resumes, little personality, window dressing like I said.
 
The position of CEO, I’m telling you, is yours
for the taking.”

Daniel, however, wasn’t ready to dunk
that ball.
 
Yes, it was promising news to
be sure. He figured he would be on a short list of maybe eight, ten names if it
came to that.
 
But one of three?
 
It was some damn good news if it was
true.
 

But Phillip could assure him until he
was blue in the face, could tell him a zillion times that the victory was in
the bag, that the position was his for the taking.
 
But Daniel wasn’t about to spike that ball
just yet.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nikki’s firing was rescinded that same
day.
 
Herb Poindexter personally phoned
and told her to return to work immediately.
 
He admonished her for being disrespectful to the mayor, but he didn’t
order her to apologize, which would have been the deal breaker for Nikki.
 

She was so elated that as soon as she
hung up the phone with the publisher, she picked it back up and phoned
Daniel.
 
But he was tied up and would
have to phone her back.
 
A response that
didn’t surprise her at all.

But she was beyond surprised when she
arrived at the Wakefield Gazette newsroom an hour later, and walked into the
editor’s office to see if she had an assignment.
 
But Joe Paulson, she was quickly told, was no
longer there.

“No longer here?” she asked the man
behind Paulson’s desk.
 
“You mean he
doesn’t work here anymore?”

“That’s usually what it means,” the
man said.
 
He was stooped down removing
files from a box on the floor and had not bothered to look up.
 

“So you’re taking his place?”

“He’s out and I’m in.
 
Like Project Runway?
 
Sometimes you’re in, sometimes you’re out?”
 
He pointed to the nametag on the desk.
 
Luther
Finley
, it read.
 
Assistant Editor
.
 

“That’s me,” he said.
 
“Except I’m Editor now.
 
You can drop the assistant.
 
And everybody calls me Luke.”

But this was all so strange to
Nikki.
 
She didn’t quite know what to
say.

He glanced up at her, but had to
quickly look back down again when a stack of folders he had on his desk almost
collapsed to the floor.
 
He grabbed them
and began stacking them into the bottom desk drawer.
 
“Sit down,” he said as he stacked.
 
“It’s not that surprising surely.”

Nikki didn’t know what he meant,
because no longer having Joe Paulson as her editor was damned surprising.
 
But she sat down anyway.
 

Then he finally stood up, and looked
up.
 
Although he was handsome, he was
what Nikki would call ruggedly handsome, with his five-o-clock shadow facial
hair, his long, straggly blond hair, his tall, slender body in jeans and a
dress shirt that appeared rumpled on purpose, and his blue eyes against his
beautifully tanned skin.
 

But what mainly caught her attention
was his age.
 
He couldn’t have been much
older than she was.
 
And he was her new
editor?

“You’re Nikki Graham, aren’t you?” he
asked.

“Yes,” Nikki said.
 

But Luke couldn’t stop staring at
her.
 
He even walked from behind the desk
and moved to the front edge, without once taking his eyes off of her.
 
He couldn’t believe it.
 
He just couldn’t believe it.

Nikki was perplexed, and then plain
annoyed.
 
“You’re staring, sir,” she
said.

He folded his arms and leaned against
the desk, with his legs spread out and folded at the ankles.
 
A look of amazement was now on his unshaven
face.
 
“I remember you,” he said.

Nikki stared at him.
 
She didn’t remember him.

“You went to Brannon, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Nikki said.
 
“We met at Brannon?”

“We did.
 
I attended there too.
 
You were a couple years behind me, but I
remember you.
 
Nikki, right?
 
They called you Nikki.
 
If you weren’t on campus handing out leaflets
about some cause of the week, you were in town handing them out.
 
You used to always tell guys to get lost when
they tried to get your number.”

Nikki smiled.
 

“Am I right?” he asked.

“You’re right,” she nodded.

But Luke already knew he was right
because he was one of those guys.
 
He
used to have a thing for her, in fact, but she wouldn’t give him the time of
day.
 
“Yeah, I remember you,” he said
again.
 
“I never forget a pretty face.”

Nikki didn’t know what to say to that,
so she didn’t say anything.

“And you’re our wayward reporter?
 
You?
 
The sweet little innocent activist from B.U.?”

Nikki laughed.
 
He made her sound like a nun.
 
“Yes.
 
I’m the wayward one.”

“You had that shouting match with the
mayor.”

It wasn’t something she was proud
of.
 
“Yes,” she said.

He nodded his head.
 
And looked into her bright brown eyes.
 
He also looked down, at her soft neck, her
attentive breasts, that crisp yellow blouse against her dark skin.
 
She still looked good, he thought.
 
“You’re
that
Nikki Graham?”

Nikki smiled.
 
“And you’re
that
new editor.
 
Which begs
the question: what happened to our old editor?
 
To Mr. Paulson?”

Luke shimmied his body until he was
seated on top of the desk, his feet off of the ground.
 
“He refused to reinstate you.
 
From what I understand he kept insisting that
a reporter should never become the story and when you made yourself the story
it crossed a line.
 
Then he started
blabbering on about his values and his integrity, as if nobody had them but
him, so Herb Poindexter gave him an ultimatum.
 
Either bring you back, or he can leave.
 
Remarkably, he chose to leave.
 
I
was an assistant editor at Poindexter’s newspaper over in Indianapolis when I
got the call.
 
He said I was now the new
editor and told me to get my ass here as fast as I could get my ass here.
 
I got my ass here.
 
And so I’m here.
 
At least for now.”

Nikki was actually pleased by this
development.
 
She and Paulson never did
get along.

“Yeah, they moved breakneck fast on
this one,” Luke went on.
 
And then he
smiled and nodded his head.
 
“You must
have friends in high places, young lady.”

And it wasn’t until he said that did
she realize Daniel’s role in all of this.
 
That phone call from Herb Poindexter wasn’t just because she was his
best reporter and he decided to do the right thing.
 
It was undoubtedly because Daniel had called
in yet another favor on her behalf. Daniel was the one with friends in high
places.
 
Friends like Herb
Poindexter.
 
Which meant Daniel had a
definite hand in her reinstatement.
 
And
which also meant that she, she now realized, had a definite hand in causing a man
to lose his job.

“Don’t worry,” Luke said when he saw
the sudden anguish on her face.
 
“Paulson’s own actions caused his firing.
 
Not you.
 
All he had to do was obey the boss and let you back on the job.
 
But he refused.
 
Yeah, you mouthed off at some press
conference, but so what? That didn’t give him the right to disobey an order.”

“Let me just say this about that,”
Nikki said in a tone she knew sounded defensive.
 
“I know I gave the mayor a hard time at that
presser, and I know you might think I was out of line too.
 
But I felt I was doing the job a journalist
is paid to do.
 
I was asking tough
questions.
 
I was forcing him to speak
the truth.”

“I know you were,” Luke said as if it
went without saying.
 
“Damn right you
were.
 
You don’t have to defend yourself
with me.
 
I already like your style,
Nikki Graham.”

Nikki smiled.
 
Was this guy for real?
 
Had she found a kindred spirit?
 
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
 
“That style is what almost got me fired from
the Gazette.”

 
“No almost in it,” he said with a
chuckle.
 
“It did get your ass fired from
the Gazette!”
 
She laughed.
 
“At least for a minute,” he added.
 
“But Joe Paulson and Mr. Poindexter were
wrong to begin with.
 
Firing you because
you questioned the mayor?
 
That’s
wacked.
 
Don’t even sweat that.
 
Your performance may have damaged you in Joe
Paulson’s eyes, but in my eyes I would expect nothing less from my reporters.”

Nikki appreciated that.
 
“Thank-you,” she said, heartfelt.
 
“Thank-you very much.”