Morning Man (9 page)

He reached the bottom of the basement stairs and shouldered the production studio door open. “All right, all right, I’m here.”

Elliott, producer extraordinaire, wheeled his chair from one side of his high-tech soundboard to the other, snatched two scripts and handed them over. “I can’t believe it! Tack Collins is gracing my studio with his presence. Wow, can I get your autograph? Huh? Pretty please?”

“Right after you kiss my ass,” he sneered, skimming over one script for the Ford dealer and the other promoting his weekly appearance at the Roadhouse’s Suds ‘n’ Spuds Night. He scanned it closer and realized it had been written as a two-voicer with Dayna. “Uh…El? This isn’t the usual copy.”

“Nope, ’cause it ain’t your usual spot. You’re cutting it with your better half.”

He grumbled. “As usual, I’m the last to find out anything around here.”

“Let’s just lay down the first script now and I’ll call her down in a few.”

Tack set down his mug and trudged into the recording booth. He picked up the headphones on the wooden stool next to the boom stand, put them on and took a seat. Positioning himself a dollar bill’s length away from the microphone, he cleared his throat and did a quick read-through of the dealer ad. Elliott flicked on the talkback switch. “Sounds good in here, Tackman. Whenever you’re ready.”

The script in one hand and his stopwatch in the other, he sat up straight, puffed out his lungs and put on his official announcer voice, running flawlessly through the thirty-second commercial. His stopwatch froze at thirty-two-point-seven seconds. “Shit.”

“You dragged a bit on that middle part,” Elliott said. “Let’s go again.”

The second time, he stumbled over the enunciation of a sticky word near the bottom of the copy, but nailed it on the third take. He blew out a gust of air and his posture slackened as Miss Cook wafted into the studio like a perky puff of cotton candy.

With a silly grin, Elliott did a three-hundred-and-sixty degree spin in his seat. “Dayna, Dayna bo-bayna…banana-fana, fo-fayna…fee-fi-mo-mayna. Dayna!”

Her face lit up. “Hello, Smelliott. What are we doing?”

He pointed through the glass. “Climb into the cage with the big bear. But be careful, he’s a snarly one today.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she said. “He gets kinda grumpy when he’s hungry.”

Elliott laughed. “I should put up a sign:
Do Not Feed the Animals or Announcers
.”

Tack clucked his tongue as he adjusted his headphones. “You two do know that I can still hear you, right?”

Her eyes twinkled as one corner of her soft, pink mouth turned up in an alluring half smile. If it was some feminine tactic meant to throw him off guard, it worked. Sucker.

“If I come in there, you’re not going to bite me, are you?”

He considered that distinctly sweet possibility and cocked one eyebrow. “Only if you want me to.”

She laughed before disappearing from sight, reemerging a moment later through the door on his side. “Hey,” she said somewhat guardedly.

“Hey.” He unhooked a second pair of headphones from the boom stand and handed them over.

“So, I found out from Bonnie that I’m doing Suds ‘n’ Spuds on Friday night with you. It’s the day our billboards go up.”

He waved the script. “Yeah, just read the news.”

“She also said we’ll also be hosting the Hot Zone for the Rascal Flatts contest winners in August.”

“Cool.” He nodded with a smile.

Relief washed over her face. “Yeah? You’re okay with us doing appearances?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re all right to hang with. I mean, for being a yucky ol’ girl and all.”

She stuck out her tongue and then took the Roadhouse script from his hand, examining it with a frown. “No, no, this won’t do at all. Got a pen?”

He passed her a stubby pencil sitting on the black metal stand in front of him and watched with interest as she bent over with the paper flat against her leg. She scratched out some words and scribbled in new ones. “It still has to fit for time,” he said.

She turned around and glared. “I have done this once or twice in the past eleven years, you know.” She went back to editing before she propped up the newly-revised script on the stand where he could read it. “Whaddya think? Better?”

Her changes actually had improved the copy. And it hadn’t escaped his notice that since she arrived, everything seemed a little sunnier, brighter. Better. “Yeah, it’s all good,” he said. “You want to sit down here?”

She parked her arm on his shoulder. “I don’t mind standing if you don’t mind me snuggling up a bit.”

“Sugar, you practically gave me a lap dance this weekend. I don’t mind you snuggling up.” He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. He breathed in her gentle fragrance, an intoxicating scent of cherry-vanilla shampoo, fresh flowers, sunshine and pure woman that got his pistons pumping. Maybe it was her warm breath on his neck, or the mind-blowing sensation of her breast squashed against his chest, but suddenly, having her in his personal space was making him dizzy.

“Mmm…much better,” she said, the words escaping her like a little sigh. He suddenly wanted nothing but to make her do it all over again.

Elliott leaned into his mike on the other side of the window. “Jeez, are we going to cut this spot or do you two want me to dim the lights and leave the room?”

Dayna toyed with the hair that curled out the back of his cap, looking down with a man-slaying grin. “I dunno, might be kinda hot if he stays to watch, don’t you think?”

Tack swallowed. She really was awfully good at being bad. “I think we need to voice this ad before the blood completely drains away from my head,” he said, only half kidding. If she kept this up, he was going to lose his grip on reality. Or his mind.

Chapter 5

By the way her heart wildly thumped, Dayna feared she might be in the midst of a massive coronary. In shock, she immediately pulled her car over to the curb lane and hit the brakes so she could stop, get out and take a better look.

The mammoth billboard lit up on the side of the road featured her laughing as she sat astride Tack, wearing a dirty-dog grin as if they’d been caught tussling at a private pajama party. The Hot Country 103 logo was splashed up there along with the headline:

Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy to Work

Wake Up Weekdays with Tack and Dayna

Well, day-um, that would bring the station some attention. Thank God and Maybelline that she actually looked half decent on a larger-than-life medium. Of course, any girl lucky enough to be straddling a shirtless hunk with magnificent guns like those ought to be happy she was alive.
Cheese and rice, we really do look hot together.
Her eyes traced repeatedly over the image. With a little smile, she pulled out her phone and snapped a photo to send to her girlfriends back home.

* * * *

Tack passed two billboards on his way in to work. Dayna’s radiant smile, tousled hair and come-hither red lips reminded him of a sex-kitten screen goddess like Brigitte Bardot. Yet, as seductive as her charms appeared a hundred feet off the ground, it didn’t touch her magnetism when she shared the same space as him.

He pushed that out of his mind as he drove up to the station. Every morning that week, he’d gone back to the Dumpster to look for the homeless man. Although Tack hadn’t seen him since their first meeting, he’d been leaving a bag containing a couple of breakfast sandwiches and a few bucks in the same spot for the past four days straight. Whether or not the same guy had been taking it, it had disappeared without a trace by the time his shift was over.

Before he reached the dimly-lit corner, he heard telltale mumbling in the alley. “Hey there,” he said holding up the food, before remembering he was talking to a person, not coaxing a timid animal out of hiding. “I brought you a little something.”

The man he’d been hoping to see was the same one smiling back at him. “Ah, my friend is here.”

Tack felt enormous relief as he offered the bag. “I’m really glad you’re here,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

By the way he enthusiastically tore open the bag and dove his hand inside, it was obvious the man had been expecting that precise delivery. He quickly pocketed the few singles before peeling back the foil wrapper and devouring the first egg-and-cheese sandwich. Tack shoved his hands in his jeans and stood off to the side, wanting to make small talk but realizing that eating would take precedence over table conversation. He waited a few more minutes before speaking up. “My name’s Tack. What’s yours?”

The man looked at him incredulously. “Tack? Your mama named you Tack?”

He chuckled. “It’s a nickname I got when I played football as a kid.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding. “Well, I’m Abel.”

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere
. “Nice to meet you, Abel. Hey, I wanted to apologize if I made you hurry off the other morning.”

Abel shrugged and Tack eyed his shopping cart next to the Dumpster.

“Look, I work in this building. Do you want to come inside and warm up or anything?”

“It ain’t so cold out.”

“I guess you’re right. Mornings aren’t so bad now that summer’s here.” He shuffled his feet. “So, do you normally come by at this time? I mean, is this your usual neighborhood?” Shit, that sounded bad. “What I’m trying to say is do you live around here?”

“Yeah, I live around here,” he said, pointing to the Dumpster. “Sometimes I live right there. Sometimes I live over there.” He pointed up the street. “Sometimes I stay at the St. James Mission.”

“Good.” Tack heard the sound of Dayna’s car pulling up. “I mean, it’s good that you have a place to go when the weather’s bad and all.”

Abel reached into the bag for the second egg sandwich. “Thank you for being so kind, my friend. It does my heart good.”

It was just a sandwich. Staring at the ground, he choked back the sizable lump in his throat making his eyes water. “I gotta go to work now. But I’ll see you sometime soon, okay Abel? You take care of yourself.”

He nodded as he bit into the sandwich.

Tack waved at him and then started back before bumping into Dayna at the corner.

“Hey, is he back here?” she whispered, pointing curiously toward the alley.

“Question is, what the hell are you doing back here?” he asked gruffly, grabbing her by the arm and spinning her around in an about-face. “This is not a place for you to be at this or any other time of day.”

“I heard your voice,” she explained. “Plus, the station door is locked, but your truck is here, so I figured you had to be in the alley.”

His hand was still shackled above her elbow when they arrived out front. “You never, ever go in that alley alone, you hear me?”

With a smirk on her face, Dayna looked down at his meaty paw. “Okay, okay. You wanna let go of me now, Dad?”

He loosened his grip. “Sorry.”

She pulled away and straightened the rumpled sleeve of her blouse. “No, it’s okay. While your delivery method definitely needs some finesse, I do appreciate the protective sentiment behind it,” she said. “So? Did you find him?”

He fished the keys out his pocket. “Yeah, he was back there today.”

“That’s great.” She smiled. “What did you find out?”

He focused on unlocking the door with trembling hands, unsure why he was so shaken by that morning’s encounter in the alley. “His name is Abel.”

“Hmm. Okay, that’s a start.”

“And he’s definitely homeless. But he told me he stays at the St. James Mission sometimes.”

“That’s good. I mean, that he has a safe place to go if he needs it.”

“I just wish there was something more I could do, you know?” He pushed the door open and held it for her. She brushed against him when she slipped inside and it instantly centered all his senses again.

“Hey,” she stopped suddenly. “For what it’s worth, I’m real proud of you for making an effort with this guy. Most people would just look the other way. But not you.”

He stared down at the floor and shrugged.

She lowered her head to catch his eye and gave him a gentle smile. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He sniffed away the last bit of emotion with manly-tough resolve and cleared his throat. She stood right in front of him, staring into his eyes as if seeing right through the facade. “What? I said I’m fine.”

She dropped her bags to the floor, closed the gap between them and threw her arms around his neck, pulling herself up an inch or two. “You are a real decent man, Tack Collins. A real decent man,” she whispered into his shoulder.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her back, warmed from the inside out by the ray of sunshine he held against him. “Now don’t you go tellin’ anyone, sugar. This stays between us.”

* * * *

The phone lines lit up like Christmas over the sexy billboard campaign, further propagated by the unmissable ad Bonnie placed in the
Dispatch
using the same provocative pajama-party pose.