Heart in the Field (4 page)

           
Her college professors laughed at
her expectations. Happy endings weren’t news. Therefore, she’d had no choice
but to go with the flow. After a stint at freelancing, Serena landed her first
job on a local TV station that wanted the sensational, the fires, the murders,
the muggings, the fatal highway crashes. She rode a news van for the station,
wearing jeans and toting a video camera. Sometimes she experienced the
excitement of the story, the thrill carried her along. But she longed to be in
the studio, where she could report the news from a distance.

           
When Serena saw no chance for
advancement in her first position, and when Steel opened its doors from radio
to TV, she was accepted into the Steel fold. Steel TV was a news and
information station, with an intelligent worldwide slant. Serena had found her
slot. Presenting mostly international news didn’t give her happy endings, but
the events weren’t happening in her city, they were happening across the other
side of the world, thus there was even more of a distance. Sometimes she even
interviewed a visiting dignitary or an entertainment figure to add more human
highlights to her programs. She’d become quite a local personality, even though
she felt this might be due to her mother’s political prominence in the
community, and felt her career had gone well.

           
She hoped everything would continue
to go well. This new show was, in Don’s words when he first asked her to do it,
‘a coup. She had to remember that.
Even if Nick Fraser did
mess with her head.

           
Meeting Nick had scrambled her brain
so much that she didn’t fall asleep right away, and she was awake for the storm
that began after midnight. She watched lightning flash on her wall,
then
cringed while waiting for the crash of thunder.
When it was still again she heard other noises that weren’t in this
house.

           
Slamming doors.
Raised voices.
Giggling laughter.
Lusty moans. Her mother crying, “Don’t go this time, Stu.”
The
weeping that never stopped.

           
Some images stood out from
childhood. And that was one of them.
Those times when her
father was home.
Nick reminded her so much of her father that she
couldn’t stop thinking about either one of them.

           
When the rage of the storm ended,
all that was left was the gentle patter of the rain on her wooden deck, but she
couldn’t go to sleep again. She was out of bed early, feeding Pascal and
slipping into jeans and a white Steel T-shirt. As she braided her hair she knew
she was keeping herself busy to stop herself from thinking about the list of
things she didn’t care to think about. That list now had an addition: Nick
Fraser.

           
By nine-thirty Serena had stuffed
her briefcase into the car and was on her way to Toronto. She pulled up in the Steel Tower
parking lot at ten thirty-seven, hopefully at least thirty minutes before Nick.
She wanted to see Don before she met Nick again.

           
She took the elevator straight to
the tenth floor. Don’s red-haired assistant, Patty-Jane Barker, sat in the
middle of a huge foyer and she called through to Don to let him know Serena
wanted to see him.

           
Serena tapped on the door and
entered the office. Even Don could appear small in the luxurious gold and
burgundy surroundings.

           
He gave her a huge grin. “Hi. How’s
it going?”

           
Serena pushed her hands deep into
her rain jacket pockets. “Thanks to you, I have a co-host I don’t particularly
want.”

           
“Ah, but he’s good, Serena. You have
to see his merit. Come here, with me.” Don beckoned her over to his computer.
He tapped a few keys. “Look at this. I got the rights to the film clip to show
it in the commercials.”

           
Nick’s face appeared on the screen
and he was relaying a news report. “Pro-government troops.” there was a slight
lurch of the picture, but Nick continued with his story. Blood dribbled from a
wound on his face.

           
Serena remembered the scar that made
Nick appear heroic. She also remembered seeing her father reporting similar
stories, with conflict raging around him.

           
Don
paused
the video. “Battle
scars. Nick won’t cave in.”

           
Serena clenched her fists inside her
pockets. “You’re comparing him to John?”

           
“No.” Don looked sheepish. “But he
has got an advantage.”

           
“It’s not John’s fault that he’s
ill.”

           
“I know that. But he is, so we have
to do what we can to replace him, and Nick’s an excellent replacement.”

           
“I hope you’re right.”

           
“I’m always right.”

           
Serena laughed and went down to her
own office to meet Nick. He was outside her door, hands jammed into the leather
jacket pockets, faded jeans hugging his long legs. A large paper cup of coffee
stood on the carpeted floor.

           
He leaned down to pick up the
coffee. “You’re almost late.”

           
“I went to see Don.”

           
“To yell at him about me, I suppose.”

           
“No. He showed me a video.”

           
Nick chuckled. “Sounds like fun.”

           
She held her key ready to open her
office door. “It starred you.”

           
“Yeah?”

           
She glanced at his scar. “It was a
How-to video.
Keeping a story going with a bullet wound.
Don’s got the rights.”

           
He touched the scar. “The main thing
was we got the story and the world saw it.”

           
“What about you?
Afterward?”

           
He sipped from the big cup. “I
passed out. My team panicked when they saw all the blood, and their clumsy
efforts were enough to revive me. But after getting patched up I spent the
night re-living the what-might-have-
beens
. And I have
to admit I’ve relived them quite often.”

           
She thought of her recurring dream
about her father when she relived the pain. Did Nick do the same? “Has it made
you less brave?”

           
“I don’t think I am brave, but I
wanted that story. I believe adrenaline kept me going.”

           
She eyed the big cup.
“Or too much caffeine.”

           
He chuckled. “This is my antidote
for jet lag. Are we going inside, or shall we conduct our meeting out here in
the hallway?”

           
Serena opened her door and they
walked into her office. She placed her briefcase down on her desk and hung up
her jacket. Nick put his cup on her desk, also hung his jacket on the coat
stand, and rolled up the sleeves of a dark green flannel shirt. Serena forced
her eyes away from Nick’s strong arms. Obviously colored shirts, jeans and the
black leather jacket were his favorite gear. “I’ve got the script for the first
series.” She opened her briefcase.

           
Nick chose a deep leather chair,
pulled it closer to her desk and sat down. Behind Serena, heavy rain pounded
against the window. She felt stifled in her office with Nick, as if they were
the only two people on the entire earth. To make sure that they had a
disturbance, she reached for the phone to call Jen, her assistant, to order
coffee.
Then stopped.

           
“I can’t order more coffee. I don’t
have an assistant anymore.”

           
Nick sank deeper into the chair.
“That’s okay. You were right. I’m on
a caffeine
high
anyway.”

           
Serena watched the spread of his
muscular legs, the tug of denim on his thighs, and knew why she didn’t want him
for a co-host. He was far too attractive. She shoved the pages forward. “Have a
look at this.”

           
Nick reached forward and lifted the
pages. He didn’t bother reading much of the first pages. He leafed through
them. Serena shifted uneasily in her chair, feeling rather like a kid handing
in her first essay to a teacher.

           
Finally he flung the pages on to her
desk. “How far have you gone with this, other than a pretty good title,
City Streets
?”

           
“We interviewed a number of street
people and some politicians. I figure we have enough for three weeks.”

           
Nick shook his head. “It’s not
powerful enough for the first show. Maybe we can slot it in later in the
season, when we’ve pulled the viewers.
But not to begin with.
We need something much more exciting. What else did you have on tap?”

           
“That was it for now.”

           
“You weren’t very well prepared,
were you?”

           
He did annoy her no end. She felt
her insides prickle. “John wasn’t very lively for the past few months. I guess
he was ill. I didn’t know.”

           
“But surely you have some ideas? You
weren’t leaving it up to John?”

           
She thought about the guitarist on
the street the other day. She did have that idea. “There’s something I came up
with, but I hadn’t discussed it with anyone.”

           
Nick shifted his feet.
“All right.
Let’s hear it.”

           
Serena leaned her elbows on the
desk. “I went to university with a woman whose brother went to prison. When she
visited him she met another inmate who was alleged to be in for murder. She
fell in love with him and this intrigued me. How could a woman love a man who
might have committed murder? I’m interested in why women would love men who are
so obviously wrong for them, and I think it could work because it’s a dark
subject, and Don wants dark subjects, hence the title
Neon Nights
. What do
you think?” She held her breath.

           
His mouth thinned.
“Sounds feasible.
How does Don work with proposals?
And what about Cam?
Where
does he fit in when it comes to story ideas?”

           
Nick hadn’t really answered her
question about whether he liked or disliked her idea. She wished she hadn’t
pushed it forward. The idea was precious to her and she didn’t want it wasted.

           
“How does Steel TV work?”

           
“Don doesn’t run a huge staff. We
have to get our hands dirty, which means we can write our own material. But for
this program Don wants us to pitch our new ideas to him. If he approves, then Cam will take over the production process. Cam has no input in the actual ideas.”

           
“Did Don like the homeless thing
City
Streets
?”

           
Homeless thing.
Serena felt she should stay loyal to John.
“He went for it because John’s quite canny, and in some ways his work appears
flatter on paper than when actually presented.”

           
“So it’s a go?”

           
“Well, we haven’t got much time for
anything else, have we?
Unless there is some world shattering
event.
Did Don
mention
that we have to be ready
any time to go on air with breaking international or national news stories when
they happen?”

           
“I’m not sure he did mention that.
Therefore, what it amounts to is that we have a schedule of programs we can
shift aside and reschedule for news breaking stories?”

           
“Exactly.”

           
“Great. So why not the first week
present an introduction to the program? We should give the viewers an
indication of what they might expect. Maybe we can go out on to the streets and
interview people and ask them what they want to see. Then we can lead in the
following week with your murder/love piece. That would give us another week to
work on it. I agree with the overall idea that the stories need to be darker to
correspond with the title.”

           
I
agree.

           
“Have you discussed any of this with
Don yet?”