Mixed Signals (17 page)

It wasn’t guilt money. Not really. It sure wasn’t blackmail. She’d never asked him for a penny. He used to tell himself it was the price he paid for being a Cahill. Nobody expected him to be responsible, so he had to go out of his way to prove them wrong.

Eight years ago he considered it a matter of honor.

Now, listening to Pastor Curt every Sunday, he wondered if it wasn’t something else altogether: pride.

Not the good kind of pride, the sort that came from working his muscles or his mind and knowing it pleased God. No, the kind of pride that
made him feel superior to other guys, thinking himself a hero when he was a long way from Lancelot.

What was he trying to buy with all that money, anyway?

The answer bubbled up from a deep well inside him:
respect
.

The new, improved David had a little. Not much, but a little. The old, impulsive David had had none and was paying through the nose for it.

He sighed and climbed the steps toward WPER, checking his watch as he went. The staff meeting started at eight, so he was right on time. Sure enough, Patrick was waiting at the head of the table, his suit jacket draped over the chair, his bright red suspenders and pearly whites on full display.

Heather sat by Patrick’s side. Dewy-eyed.
Oh, brother
.

Burt was hiding behind the latest issue of
Billboard
, the newspaper-size magazine extending from his Hoosier belt buckle to the eight remaining hairs on his head.

Rick, eyes bleary from a long night on the air, slumped in the chair at the opposite end from Patrick, clutching a can of Jolt.

Frank the Crank was on the air for another two hours.

Only one person was missing.

David poured himself a cup of black coffee and settled into a seat opposite the doorway as Patrick stood to call the small group to order. He noted Patrick’s gaze shifting back and forth between the staff and the glass doors.

He’s watching for her
. David smiled into his coffee cup. Something was going on with those two. They obviously had history together, but this was new. Judging by Patrick’s wary look, it wasn’t going too well.

The doors sprang open and here she came, her green coat open and flapping, her short, powerful strides the equal of any prowling jungle cat’s, her gold eyes snapping.

“Welcome, Belle.” Patrick wasn’t looking her direction.

“Morning, everyone.” She returned the favor, glancing only at her peers as she yanked out a folding chair and dropped into it in a small, graceful heap. “Sorry I’m late.”

For reasons he didn’t want to explore, David couldn’t take his eyes off her. How had he missed those lashes, a thick fringe of dark brown framing
her feline eyes? Her generous lips, painted the color of ripe pomegranates, were pouting at the moment. Pressed jeans were smartly tucked into freshly polished leather boots. The little lady was dressed to kill, and the boss man was clearly her mark.

Should be an interesting meeting.

The assembly held their collective breath as each eye—except Belle’s—turned expectantly toward Patrick, who exhaled on everyone’s behalf. “Let’s begin with a heads-up from the sales department.” He knocked on the partition and Cliff appeared, computer printout in hand, a crooked smile across his bony features.

“Have I got good news!” Cliff’s enthusiasm broke the tension that hovered over the table like wood smoke on a chilly morning. He spouted off the new clients he’d brought in their first week on the air, commended them for their voice work on the commercials, then jumped up to answer his phone. “That’s the sound of money, folks. Thanks for making it happen.”

“Now—” Patrick’s confidence apparently was returning—“Let me share a few faxes and phone messages from our listeners.” He pulled several sheets of paper out of his pocket with a flourish and read them aloud, using his rich voice to full effect, probably in part for Belle’s benefit.

Yeah, he’s got pipes, but he knows it
. It didn’t diminish Patrick in his eyes; it simply meant the man was human, with his own pride issues to deal with.

On cue, a verse David had recently memorized came crashing through his thoughts. Something about getting the log out of his own eye so he could help someone else with the splinter in theirs.
Okay, Lord. I’m listening
.

“So,” Patrick was saying, “all indications are we’ve got a hit on our hands, thanks to your collective efforts. We’ll crank up the Happy Together contest this afternoon on Burt’s show.” He rolled out the details, how listeners were invited to stop by the Court Street Grill and drop their names in four fishbowls featuring the station’s personality photos on the front. “We’ll do that until the first of January, then draw a name from one bowl every two weeks, read it on the air, and give ’em nine minutes and five seconds to call in and claim their prize—a date with their favorite WPER personality.”

“A date?”
Four voices groaned in unison.

Patrick held up his hands. “Relax, not a real date. Just a chance to be … uh, ‘happy together’ with our listeners. Frank will take his winner to lunch at the Hardware Company. Belle, you and your contestant will take off on a hot air balloon ride—”

“Balloon ride?” Belle stared at Patrick, clearly stunned. “But I—”

“Heather’s listener will enjoy a matinee performance with her at the Barter, and Burt will have front row seats and backstage passes for the Turtles concert next March. Stop by Leonard’s place downstairs and you’ll see your fishbowls in place, ready for action.”

David watched them grouse about the contest, glad he wasn’t part of the deal. Especially that hot air balloon.
No way
. Very little threw him, but heights came close. Ever since he’d watched a classmate at Virginia Tech come tumbling off a radio tower and injure his spinal cord, David had a healthy respect for the dangers involved with tower maintenance. He’d talked Patrick into hiring a service company to handle all the necessary climbing, inspections, bulb changes, and so forth.
Climb straight up three hundred feet above the ground? Not this guy
.

Patrick continued his description of the contest, never once looking at Belle. David, who knew all about wires and volts, would have sworn the atmosphere in the room had become electrically charged. The thickening air was unstable, a perfect environment for sparks to discharge without warning.

“Now—” Patrick’s voice was lower, his pace slower—“I’d like to hear your impressions on how our first week went.” He folded his arms over his chest, his eyes darkening as he trained them on the auburn-haired woman across the table. “Belle, we’ll start with you.”

Belle lifted her chin and glared back at him. There he stood, his feet apart in a stance she knew well.

It was the one that shouted, “Patrick Edward Reese, Complete Idiot.”

His pale yellow shirt clashed with the silver in his beard, his red suspenders were beyond loud, and his tie would ruin the appetite of most
people with taste. Manipulative, a troublemaker, with zero people skills … the man was a born loser.

And
clueless
didn’t begin to describe Patrick. It wasn’t an act, either. The man simply had more blind spots than he knew how to overcome.

She shifted her gaze to the rest of the staff.
What are they so bug-eyed about?
Surely they couldn’t read her mind or his, couldn’t know what had transpired Friday night.

It was bad enough that he’d abused her trust. Mangled her career. Broken her heart. But then, to abandon her in the street and run to Norah, looking for sympathy. It was pathetic. Disgusting.

And that hurts more than everything else put together
.

Which is why she’d gotten up early Saturday morning, thrown her tapestry suitcase into the Pontiac, and driven two hours south, home to Moravian Falls, North Carolina. Her parents were surprised but pleased, and she was grateful to be anywhere but Abingdon, far from Patrick and Norah and more heartache than she knew what to do with.

The cause of that pain was staring at her now, waiting for her to speak. She suspected the other perpetrator was busy baking brioches and thinking of new, more cunning ways to break her boarder’s heart in two. Patrick and Norah hadn’t seen
her
on Friday night, but my, had she seen them.

And to think I signed a two-year lease to live in that woman’s house!
She’d confront Norah later. Meanwhile, the tension around the table required immediate attention.

Belle cleared her throat. “Thanks to Burt’s hard work—” she nodded in his direction—“and David’s engineering expertise, the week went off without a hitch. Lots of positive calls from people in our target demographics. One listener said we were
almost
good enough to work in Bristol.”

Rick hooted. Burt shook his head. But Patrick, unblinking eyes trained on hers, didn’t move a muscle. His voice was low when he spoke. “Six months from now, Bristol listeners will be coming to us. And we’ll be right here where we belong, ready to entertain them.” He paused for one beat. “Won’t we, Belle?”

She smiled sweetly. “More like five months and three weeks, isn’t it, Mr.
Reese?” She turned to the wide-eyed blonde by his side. “So, Heather, how was
your
Friday night alone? On the air, that is?”

Norah paced the Silver Spoon, needlessly smoothing tablecloths and straightening tea canisters, keeping an eye on the door and both ears alert to the sound of bells.

And Belle.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. Aside from Belle’s falling out with Patrick, Norah sensed some friction in their own relationship. She hadn’t seen her, hadn’t spoken to her, but she felt the schism in her house and in her spirit. Something definitely was not right between them.

Belle had slipped out before dawn on Saturday morning without saying a word to her about where she was going.
Why should she, Norah? You’re not her mother
. Still, no note, no phone call, nothing.
Since when do your tenants need to sign in and out?

When she’d heard Belle on the air that morning, she knew she was safely back in town, but here it was after four and she still hadn’t heard from her.
Maybe if you put a bell around her neck …

It was no good. The guilt, deserved or not, was nibbling at the fringes of her conscience. No matter how Norah tried to justify things, the fact was she’d blithely stood in her shop kitchen, mixing muffins and listening to Patrick’s side of the story, while poor Belle sat by herself at the Barter, probably crying her eyes out.

Norah had spent the last three days replaying Friday night over and over, trying to convince herself she’d done nothing unseemly, that her behavior with Patrick had been in keeping with her faith, if not her feelings.

Yes, their hands had touched for a brief moment, but it was meaningless, really, and over before it started. She and Patrick were good friends, nothing more. If the man was attracted to anything about her, it was God’s love shining through her.

Oh? And what godly attraction does he stir in you?

It was a question she couldn’t answer without blushing. In fact, didn’t
want to answer at all. It was mortifying enough that she felt such things. Desire. Loneliness. A longing to love and be loved. Intimate memories from her brief but passionate marriage to Harry were no help at all.

She sank into a chair at an empty table, battling the tears that pooled in her eyes, preparing to spill over. After so many years content and at peace as a solo act, she felt anything
but
peaceful.

Concentrating on any task for longer than a few minutes was impossible. Books were scattered through the house, propped open, half read. Invitations to one social event or another remained stacked on the corner of her antique cherry secretary, unopened. The holidays were right around the corner and she had yet to give her menus a second thought, let alone cook up any decorating plans, upstairs or down.

Her mind and her heart were full of a yearning that refused to go away. She wouldn’t let herself call it what it really was—a hunger to be held, to be embraced by someone who loved her, a physical neediness that wasn’t about lust or intimacy, but was definitely about more than holding hands.

She’d held her desires at bay for so long, she was sure they’d died a natural death, snuffed out by time and a deliberate focus on spiritual growth. “I think I just shrank,” she mumbled to herself with a sniff. At her age, it was beyond humiliating to realize she could be so easily swayed by a charming man.

Yet no matter how strongly she was attracted to Patrick, and no matter how great her need, her desires had to be squelched for two very valid reasons:
He’s in love with Belle, not me
. The second mattered more.
I love God and it seems Patrick doesn’t
.

Simple as that.

Not simple at all
.

She stifled a sob, her chest so tight she could barely catch her breath. Her head slumped down onto her forearm, now stretched across the small table, as her misery filled the empty rooms of the Silver Spoon. “Oh, Father, help me keep my mind off Patrick and my eyes on you.”

“I could help you with that.”

The voice from the kitchen stopped her heart in midbeat. Norah sat up, nearly tumbling over in her haste, and turned toward the kitchen door.
Her chest tightened another notch as she felt a wave of heat flow up into her cheeks.

It couldn’t be
.

But it could.

In the doorway stood her wayward tenant, arms folded over her green wool coat, a look of accusation and pain clearly etched on her face.

“Hello, Norah.”

You should be ashamed of yourself!
And Belle
was
ashamed of eavesdropping on Norah’s anguished prayer. Ashamed, but not sorry. No, the few words she’d overheard had been most enlightening.
I need some discernment here, Lord
.

“The back door was unlocked, so I let myself in.” Belle slipped her coat off and draped it over a nearby table, mentally rehearsing the best way to proceed and determining to do so with caution. “Norah, I didn’t mean to interrupt your … uh, prayer.”