Flash and Fire (36 page)

Anyway she looked at it, she was in a catch-22 situation. If she continued to pursue the case and won back her position, Pierce would be out of a job; at the very least, he would lose the high-profile position that anchoring the six o’clock news afforded. The worst-case scenario was that he’d leave the station altogether and go off to God knows where. The very thought made her melancholy.

Career moves aside, there was the matter of his pride to deal with. His pride was at once both very delicate and steely. Could Pierce handle being bested by her in public? It would have been a difficult enough matter to deal with in private, much less having it splashed across the newspapers.

She thought of the small boy he’d been. His pride had been all that had seen him out of that backwater town in Georgia. Amanda didn’t relish going up against it.

And that was what it all boiled down to, in the absolute sense: him against her. More than anything, she didn’t want it to be that way.

Amanda closed her eyes. She could just hear the
feminists railing against her, vilifying her for the way she
felt. But being old-fashioned had nothing to do with it. It was a matter of being logical and facing reality. Where could a relationship go after a man felt he’d been humiliated by a woman? She didn’t know and she was afraid of finding out the answer.

All she did know was that she wanted this relationship to grow, to thrive.

Despite the case, despite anything he might or might not have had to do with it, she knew she loved Pierce. After Jeff, she’d been sure she would never fall in love again. But she had. Deeply. Did she want to win her case more than she wanted his love?

But would she ever even have his love? At least her career was tangible. Pierce had gone out of his way to tell her that he couldn’t love anyone, that he didn’t want to. Then again, for that matter, neither did she, and here she was, hip-deep in it anyway.

But Pierce was different.

His actions indicated that he cared for her, but maybe that was just his way. The bottom line was that he’d never told her he loved her. And even if he did say the words, could she risk believing him?

He had, after all, accepted her job. If the tables had been turned, she knew she would have never done that in his place, no matter what the reason. By turning the job down, he would have given her a show of support.

But taking it was just a smart move on his part, she reminded herself. His rationalization throbbed in her brain.

Damn, but she was confused.

She looked listlessly around the living room. She had too much time to do nothing but think, to do battle with shadows and vacillate. She was on the telephone to Stone’s office three times a week. Stone continued to tell her the same thing—to leave everything in his hands, to do nothing. And the one thing he had instructed her to do, she hadn’t done: She hadn’t stopped seeing Pierce.

Amanda sighed. It wasn’t going well.

She wasn’t meant to just sit around and watch life pass by without her. She had a need to be out there, amid the stories, amid the pulse of the city, at least once in a while.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on top. Maybe she should just quit this whole thing and go back to journalism. Amanda turned the idea over in her head, toying with it. She could find a little newspaper somewhere in a small town and write columns for it.

The hell she could.

She wasn’t the small-town type any more than she was a big-league baseball player. What she was was a newscaster without a news program.

Amanda watched Christopher begin to destroy the city they had spent the better part of an hour building out of large Lego blocks.

Forcing her problems to the back of her mind, she laughed as Christopher toppled a blue skyscraper. Turning, she raised her voice so that it would carry into the kitchen. “I think we’re raising another Rodan, Carla. All he likes to do is smash things.”

Christopher grinned at his mother over his shoulder and then demolished a squat orange building that Amanda had designated as a firehouse.

Amanda leaned against the back of the sofa and watched him continue to reduce the rest of the city to rubble, squealing with delight as he did it. It was wonderful seeing him look so healthy. He’d taken only three days to bounce back from his bout with the croup.

Even that reminded her of Pierce. It seemed as if Pierce was taking over all the corners of her mind, forcing everything else into the background. A small, niggling voice whispered that maybe he wanted it that way. For his own reasons. Amanda dragged her hands through her hair, wishing she could clear her mind just as easily.

“I can’t wait to see what he’s going to be like when he grows up,” Carla called from die kitchen. Her statement was punctuated by the clatter of a pot being loudly placed on a burner.

“I can.” Amanda scooted closer to her son again. “Don’t grow up too fast, Christopher,” she whispered to him, “no matter what I say when I’m upset. Okay?”

His palm hovered over the last remaining building in the city. “Okay, Mama.” The blocks toppled, to his obvious satisfaction.

The doorbell rang. Amanda hurried to her feet, glancing at her watch. It was too early for Pierce and too late for the mail. Her life had been reduced to a waiting game. Like a prisoner behind bars, she was waiting for people and things to come to her.

It had to stop. She needed to get back among the living, and soon.

Hoping it was Pierce even though the odds were against it, she unlocked the door. It wasn’t Pierce.

“Paul, what are you doing here?” Amanda opened the door wider to let him in. She smiled as he entered. “Taking the day off?”

He strolled in, a little more cocky than usual. “Yeah, permanently.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Amanda slowly closed the door. “What do you mean?”

Paul hooked his thumbs on his belt. “Grimsley’s pretty uptight about the lawsuit. Seems he has more eyes and ears than we thought he did, people desperate to hang on to their jobs.”

“And?”

She was afraid she knew what was coming. Out of the
corner of her eye Amanda saw Carla walking into the room, drawn by the sound of Paul’s voice. The woman’s wide smile dissolved when she saw Paul’s annoyed expression.

“And someone told him that I was the one who copied the Q status reports and gave them to you.” Paul shrugged as if the incident was too insignificant to bother with. As if what had happened didn’t bother him. “He fired me.”

Guilt slammed into her. “Oh, Paul, I’m so sorry.”

Carla ran up to him, concern mirrored in her wide brown eyes. Paul slipped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed, grateful for Carla’s support. He looked at Amanda and saw her guilt.

“It’s no big deal, Amanda. I’ll find another job.” A wide grin slashed his dark face. “Hey, lady, haven’t you heard? I’m good.”

“I know that. That’s not the point.” Anger nudged aside her remorse. “He shouldn’t have fired you. He did it to get back at me. It has nothing to do with you.”

Miserable bastard! For two cents, she’d shoot Grimsley and face the consequences. He had no right to take things out on her friends.

Paul was already bouncing back from the blow, though his pride had been stung at first. “He shouldn’t have fired you, Amanda, but he did.”

Amanda knew that it would be an empty promise to say that she’d get his job back for him when she won the case. She wasn’t entirely certain that she would win. Being in the right wouldn’t automatically make her a winner. And the stakes had escalated. Amanda was demanding a public apology from Grimsley and a restraining order against any further harassment. That might take some time and some doing to accomplish.

But she had to deal with the immediate problem first, not with what might be. Amanda looked at Paul. “What are you going to do?”

His expression was mild as he considered the question. “I’ve got some money saved up. And I’ve always wanted a shot at Channel Seven.” His voice took on enthusiasm. “They’ve got this guy in the editing room that’s an absolute wizard. I could learn a lot from him.” He grinned at Carla. “I heard from Manuel that they’re hiring.”

At least it was something to go on, Amanda thought with relief. “Pierce can write you a recommendation. God knows mine wouldn’t get you very far right now.”

It was his turn to comfort her. Paul laid a hand on her shoulder. “It will when you win.”

“Yeah, when I win.”

Pierce or no Pierce, she had to go through with the lawsuit now. She had no choice anymore. She was in too deep. It wasn’t just her problem any longer. Paul had lost his job helping her. She owed it to him to win.

Carla linked her arm through Paul’s and took him into the kitchen. Their heads were together and they were talking in whispers.

Amanda sighed. At least he was taking it well. If there
were any ruffled feathers, Carla would see to smoothing them out. And Amanda would ask Pierce to give Paul that recommendation as soon as she saw him.

While they were still speaking to each other.

After this went to court, she didn’t know if he’d ever want to talk to her again. And part of her couldn’t completely blame him. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She couldn’t back out now.

Amanda sank down on the floor again next to Christopher and mechanically began rebuilding the city he’d just toppled. Christopher began talking to her, but her responses didn’t go beyond “Uh-huh” and “Yes.”

Her mind was elsewhere.

She felt like Gary Cooper, pinning on a star after having initially tossed it on the sheriffs desk. High Noon was coming, whether she wanted it or not. And try as she might, she couldn’t see Pierce taking on the Grace Kelly role.

Chapter Thirty Nine

He couldn’t walk away from her.

It bothered the hell out of Pierce that he couldn’t just forget about Amanda. He told himself that it was all just a delusion. Of course he could walk away from her. He had always been able to walk away from a woman. Any woman. There was no reason in the world why he couldn’t walk away from Amanda, too.

After all, one woman was pretty much like another, and if he looked forward to seeing Amanda, to touching her, if his nights were filled with dreams of her and his days with yearning for her until he was with her, well, that would fade eventually.

He’d walk away from her and there’d always be another woman there for him. Or not, as he chose. That was the key word: chose.

No question about it. He would walk away from her. Maybe not as easily as from the others, but that was because she wasn’t really like the others. She didn’t ask anything of him.

Just his freedom, he thought cynically, although she had never said anything to that effect, never made plans. Never even referred to them as “us.”

Still, he’d have to go. And he could do it. Tomorrow. But not today. He couldn’t leave her now.

Now she was in the midst of an emotional upheaval and it wouldn’t be right to just go.

So he found himself, like a fool, standing on her doorstep. A fool walking into a quagmire that had a sign posted in front of it clearly labeled Quicksand.

But he could still leave, he argued. Anytime.

‘”Eese!” Christopher called as his mother opened the door. He quickly grabbed Pierce’s hand and pulled him into the house.

Pierce walked in like a man who didn’t even have a nodding acquaintance with tension. Like a man who hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes arguing with himself in the car. His smile was easy, lazy. It masked a great deal.

“Hi, kid.” Pierce glanced into the living room. It was in
its perpetual state of chaos. “Up to no good as usual, I see.”

Pierce turned to Amanda. He’d called and told her they were going out to dinner. She was wearing a dark blue sheath that simultaneously accentuated her eyes and her curves.

“You look good enough to eat.” His eyes had a certain glint to them that she’d come to look forward to. It made her feel decidedly feminine and sexy. Before him, it had been a long time since she’d felt like a woman.

Amanda picked up her clutch purse from the table and tucked it under her arm. “If you’re that hungry we’d better be going.” She bent down to kiss Christopher. As she did, she saw Carla approaching them from the kitchen. “We’ll be gone a few hours, Carla.”

Carla took Christopher’s hand to keep him from scooting out the door along with Pierce and Amanda. The little boy tugged hard, trying to pull her along.

“Go!” he demanded.

Pierce shook his head. “No go. Maybe next time.” He tousled the curly hair.

Carla began to close the door. “Paul’s coming over to keep me company later,” she told Amanda. Her brown eyes glowed when she mentioned Paul’s name. It wasn’t hard to see that Carla was in love.

“Make sure you don’t get too distracted to keep an eye on Christopher,” Amanda warned before walking out.

The rumors of a job opening at Channel 7 had been
just that, rumors. And Paul, after two weeks, was still very much unemployed. Amanda felt horrible about the whole
thing. If it hadn’t been for her, he would still be working.

Pierce opened the passenger door for her. “Paul’s been coming around a lot now that he’s not working,” Amanda told him, getting in. The restaurant he was taking her to wasn’t far, but it felt good to be getting out. “I think they’re getting serious.”

Without mentioning it to anyone, Pierce had attempted to negotiate with Grimsley to allow Paul to return to work. Grimsley had said, “No dice.” The failure frustrated Pierce. As did a lot of things.

He shrugged in reply to her statement. “Man can’t afford to pass up a meal ticket.”

How could he be so harsh? He knew Paul. Paul wasn’t the type to use people for his own gain.

“It’s not that,” she insisted. “He cares for her.”

Pierce was having trouble dealing with his own emotions. He wasn’t in a position to judge anyone else’s. “Sure, why not?”

Amanda felt her temper fraying. Maybe she’d been cooped up too long. But just when she was beginning to give Pierce points for being a warm person, he had to shut down on her.