Critics are hooked on
Jennifer Crusie

“Crusie has a gift for concocting nutty scenarios and witty one-liners…genuine laughs.”

—People

“Few popular writers handle light romantic comedy as deftly as Jennifer Crusie.”

—Boston Globe on Bet Me

“Crusie seems incapable of writing a boring page, or one that’s not aglow.”

—Kirkus Reviews on What the Lady Wants

“A beach book for your brain…a sexy intellectual read.”

—Redbook on Faking It

“A nontraditional couple (he’s 30, she’s 40) and a dog with a true personality make this one of the funniest, sexiest romances of the year.”

—Library Journal on Anyone But You

“Ms. Crusie has written a funny, sexy tale about two strong, loving, but completely opposite characters…not to be missed.”

—Paperback Forum on Strange Bedpersons

“Crusie displays a real knack with witty dialogue and develops a fun relationship with engaging sexual tension.”

—RT Book Reviews on Manhunting

Jennifer Crusie
Charlie All Night

Dear Reader,

The ideas for books come from strange places. This book began when I read (in the nineties, remember) that people assumed they’d be sleeping together by the third date. I am not a prude (see my books), but it did occur to me that three dates didn’t give people much of a chance to get to trust each other. Want each other, yes, even fall in love…but trust? So I told my editor that I wanted to write a book in which the hero and heroine sleep together the first night they meet only to become platonic friends and then fall in love, so I could write the difference between sex without love and sex with love (both of which work out fine, thanks). And because my editor, Birgit Davis-Todd, is fabulous, I got to do the book the way I wanted.

One of the best comments I ever got on this book was from someone who overheard me introduce myself, and said, “Oh, you wrote that book Charlie Up All Night.” And I thought, Well, that’s a good title, too, considering Charlie. Here’s hoping Charlie keeps you up all night reading!

Jenny Crusie

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

ALLIE MCGUFFEY KNEW A yuppie bar was a lousy place to find a hero, but she was desperate, so she had to make do with what she had on hand.

Unfortunately, what she had on hand was pretty pathetic.

She shoved her horn-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of her nose with one finger and peered at the row of stools at the bar. Businessman. Businessman. Empty seat. Businessman. Businesswoman. Empty seat. Empty seat. Thug. Businessman.

She swallowed the lump that had been in her throat for the past fifteen minutes. Okay, fine, if that’s what she had to work with, she’d work with it. But it was going to have to be the thug, because she was never going to have a relationship with a suit again as long as she lived. Even a relationship that was only going to last five minutes.

And he really wasn’t a thug. Allie tried to drum up some enthusiasm before she made her move. His dark blond hair was shaggy over his collar, and his brown leather jacket had seen better days, and his jeans were authentic grunge, but he was big and clean and most important of all, he made a nice contrast to all the charcoal suits that looked like Mark. And what Allie wanted more than anything right then was a not-Mark.

She knew she was behaving like an idiot, but given the bomb that had just exploded in her face, the fact that she was not sitting in a trance was a step in the right direction.

It had not been a good day.

Allie had hit the radio-station doors that afternoon at her usual clip, banging them open like saloon doors. If they ever locked those doors, she was going to seriously hurt herself, but they never did since everyone had to be buzzed in from the street level four floors below. So she’d gone charging through as usual, happy to be there. As usual, what seemed like forty people converged on her.

Allie beamed as they pounced, loving the feeling that WBBB couldn’t run without her, that without her there would be dead air and dust. This was who she was, Allie-the-producer, Allie-the-brains-behind-The-Mark-King-Show, Allie-the-savior. She knew she was probably a little whacked to depend on a radio station for her identity, but compared to all the other psychological problems running loose at the station, she was in relatively good mental health, so she didn’t dwell on it.

At first it was just Karen, the receptionist, who called out “Allie!” but that alerted Lisa, her former student intern, who popped out of the hall looking miserable and said, “Allie, I—” and who was promptly pushed aside by Albert the financial manager, who said, “Allie, the ratings—” and who was overrun by Marcia, the two-to-six-time-slot barracuda, who said, “Allie, I heard—” and who was shouldered aside by Mark, Allie’s ex-lover and present boss, who said, “I need to see you in your office. Now.”

Allie pushed her glasses back up her nose so she could see him better. The silence that settled over the reception area was a tribute to how bizarrely Mark was behaving. Usually, he made his presence known through talking too loudly, dropping names and laughing heartily in the wrong places. Allie had once felt sorry for him, but she didn’t now, having been dumped as his lover two months ago when he decided he’d look better standing next to Lisa than he did with her. He was right, of course, but it still hurt to look at him now. He stood in the entrance to the hallway, quietly superior, and it was such a change that everybody shut up and she followed him to her office without question.

Once inside, he closed the door behind her, went around to her desk chair and sat.

Allie fought back a snarl. All right, she wasn’t territorial, but this was her office, no matter how tiny and cluttered, and her desk, and that was her desk chair, and he was making her a visitor in her own domain. So she scowled at him and said, “What is this?”

Mark crossed his arms and leaned back in her chair, which tilted so that he was almost horizontal to her vertical, and then he said, “There’s no good way to tell you this, Allie, so I’ll just say it. I know it’s going to be hard, but I also know you’re an adult and you realize that things change. People grow. Change is good.” He let his head fall back and addressed the ceiling as he began to wax philosophic. While Allie waited for him to get to the point, assuming he had one, she considered how amazingly good-looking he was, and how mad she was at him, and how much she wanted him back.

This was the great mystery of her life. He was an insecure twit. So why had she fallen for him and why was she still hung up on him? Why did she miss going to dinner with him and lying in bed with him, all the while listening to him talk about himself? Of course, that had been research for the show, but still… As he droned on and she automatically began to edit his speech for broadcast purposes, the possibility dawned on her that what she’d fallen for was the edited Mark King she’d created on the radio, not the real Mark King who sat in front of her now, boring her to tears. And that what she was most mad about was that she’d created him, and then he’d taken her work to another woman.

Mark was still waxing. “So that’s why—”

Allie cut in, more exasperated with herself than with Mark. “Look, I’ve got things to do here, so if you’ll just cut to the chase, I’ll get back to keeping you a hit.” Okay, that was below the belt, but he’d started the fight by sitting in her chair, the louse. Not to mention dumping her for a younger woman.

Mark sat up straight and put his palms flat on her desk. “All right, here it is. You’re not going to be working on my show anymore.”

The room spun. Allie dropped into the remaining chair in the room and said, “What?”

“I’ve sensed a certain hostility since our breakup, and it’s affecting my performance. So Bill and I have decided it’s best to put Lisa in your place since you’ve trained her. That way, the show won’t suffer at all.”

Allie sat stunned.

Mark smiled at her and spread his hands, fait accompli. “Lisa is producing the show, starting now. It’ll be better for all of us.”

“All of us who?” She took a deep breath. “Not all of us me. You have the drive-time show. I’m the drive-time producer. Unless I get the slot while you and Lisa move someplace cozy, this is not better for me.”

“Well, of course I’m not moving.” Mark sat up straighter in the chair. “I’m the talent.”

He was the talent? Then what was she?

“And you’re not fired or anything like that. We do appreciate what you’ve done,” he went on, and Allie jerked her head up, anger finally evicting her panic.

“Of course I’m not fired. Why would I be fired? This makes no sense.”

He plowed on through her anger. “And Bill’s going to give you another show to produce. I made sure of that.”

Good old Mark. Taking care of her. What a pal. She stood up, refraining from killing him where he sat only by Herculean effort. “Well, gee, Mark, thanks for the support and good luck in the future. Now get out of my chair.”

He stood, doing what she’d said as if by instinct. After two years of doing everything she said, it was probably a hard habit to break. He moved toward the door, brimming with patronizing goodwill. “Look, why don’t we go out for a drink? Just to show there are no hard feelings.”

She wanted to scream at him, Of course there are hard feelings, you jerk. If I could, I’d beat you senseless with one right now. But she was too adult for that, and too rattled, so she lied instead. Mark might have kicked her in the teeth, but she still had her incisors.

“Sorry, I’ve already got a date. In fact, I have to go now. Maybe some other time.” She ducked out into the hall in front of him, trying not to cry. That would be a real mistake because she never cried. If she did, people would probably assume somebody had died. And then she’d have to tell them that, tragically, Mark still lived.

Mark followed her, so she speeded up.

Karen yelled “Allie” again as she went past the receptionist’s counter, and this time shoved an envelope at her. “Bill—”

Allie took the envelope without slowing down, flashing the best smile she could under the circumstances, and bolted for the elevator with Mark still in pursuit.

Then Karen called out to him, too, and stopped him, and Allie caught the elevator and escaped to the street.

She’d been fired. She still had a job, but her career was gone with Mark. Allie stuck her chin out and tried to fake defiance—well, big deal, she’d just build another great show—but it was no good. She’d spent two years making Mark’s show a hit, taking surveys, researching topics, devising contests, doing everything she knew to showcase Mark’s strengths. She’d majored in Mark King, and now he’d expelled her.

For a moment, outside the restaurant across from the station, Allie felt a moment of pure fear. What if she couldn’t do it again? What if Mark was right and he was the talent? What if she really was a loser? Nobody coming to her for help, nobody relying on her.

No. She’d find a way back. She gritted her teeth and went into the restaurant.

The hallway divided the restaurant from the bar, a sort of DMZ that separated the eating yuppies from the drinking yuppies. Allie stopped there and opened the envelope Karen had thrust at her. She found the kind of note the station owner was famous for: short, tactless and to the point:

I’m taking you off Mark’s show and giving you to Charles Tenniel, the man taking over for Waldo Hancock. Meet him tomorrow, Tuesday, five o’clock, my office.

Bill

Weird Waldo had the 10:00 to 2:00 a.m. spot. She’d just been demoted from producing the radio equivalent of Oprah to the radio equivalent of an infomercial.

She shoved the note back into the envelope and looked around the hallway. Her roommate Joe who was supposed to meet her wasn’t there to comfort her. The hell with it. She was going home.

She turned around to go back into the street, but outside the door was Mark, greeting people who greeted him back as if he were a celebrity. Which, of course, he was.

And he was going to come into the bar and find her alone after her big talk about a date because Joe was late again. Not that Joe would have been very impressive as a date, but he would have been more impressive than no date at all.

So she went into the bar to find a date, and there were all those suits and the thug. She couldn’t face another suit, and at least the thug looked like a change of pace, so she went over to the thug and said, “Hi!” as vivaciously as she could. She wasn’t vivacious by nature, so she sounded as if she’d been sucking helium, but he turned and looked at her anyway.

Allie didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Maybe some fantasy guy who was even better-looking than Mark, which, in all fairness to Mark, would be impossible, but this guy wasn’t even in the running. He had the kind of face that the big, good-natured kids in the back of high-school English classes always have, slightly dopey and comfortable.

He looked nice. That was about it, but after Mark, it was pretty good.

Allie plopped her bag down on the bar. “So! You meeting someone?” she asked, still on helium, and looked over her shoulder to check on the Mark situation. All she had to do was keep the thug in conversation until Mark walked in, saw she was with him and left.

Mark didn’t like competition.

“So, are you?” Allie smiled like a telemarketer. “Meeting someone?” She sat down beside him, praying Mark wouldn’t come in.

And he said, “No. What are you doing?”

SHORTLY BEFORE ALLIE picked him up, Charlie had been contemplating his future. It looked complicated and possibly dangerous, so his best plan was to lay low, not make waves, do the job and get out. Investigating the source of an incriminating anonymous letter to a radio station in Tuttle, Ohio, couldn’t be that hard. The station wasn’t that big. Hell, the town wasn’t that big. His biggest problem was going to be pretending to be a disc jockey, and how hard could that be? If his brother had done it stoned, he could certainly do it straight. And he’d made it clear to everybody concerned that he was only around for six weeks, tops. He had things to do, he’d told them, places he had to be in November.

He hadn’t decided yet exactly what place he had to be in November, but he was positive it was somewhere uncomplicated and remote. Especially remote from his father who had taken to asking weird favors lately. Like “Check into this radio station for my old friend Bill…” This was what came of going home for his father’s birthday. From now on, he’d just send a card. And as soon as he was done, he was out of here and someplace else. Someplace where he could do something simple for a while, like raise pigs. No, too complicated. He’d raise carrots. You didn’t have to feed carrots.

He’d stopped thinking when somebody had squeaked, “Hi!”

Charlie had blinked at her, mildly surprised. She didn’t look like the vivacious pick-up-a-guy-in-a-bar type. Her sharp brown eyes gleamed behind huge, round, horn-rimmed glasses, and her glossy gold-brown hair swung in a tangled Dutch-boy bob. There was nothing wrong with her nose or mouth, either; good standard-issue all-American-woman features. She just seemed sort of scrubbed to be trolling for guys. The long flowered skirt and oversize vest weren’t right for a pickup, either. She looked like a nice, clean kid. Well, she was no kid. Early thirties easy.

She raised her eyebrows so high they disappeared under her bangs and batted her eyelashes. “So! You meeting someone?” She looked over her shoulder and flopped her bag down on the bar. It looked as if it was made from very old blue flowered carpet. Charlie had never seen anything quite like it so he poked his finger into it. It was fuzzy.

“Are you?” She smiled at him again, a sort of strained, too-many-teeth, trying-too-hard smile. “Meeting someone?” She sat on the stool beside him.

“No.” Charlie looked at her with interest. “What are you doing?”

“Picking you up?”

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think so. What are you really doing?”

The artificial smile morphed into a genuine scowl, and her perky voice dropped an octave. “I don’t believe this. Can’t you even pretend on the hope you’ll get lucky?”

“I never pretend. I’m the natural, open type.” Charlie considered moving away from her and then rejected the idea. If he left her, he’d never find out what she was up to. And besides, when she’d scowled at him, her voice had gone husky. She had a great low voice. He smiled down at her, trying to make her talk again. “Why don’t you just give me the drift, and then we can take it from there.”

She lowered her head a little and stared at him over the rims of her glasses. “Look, the drift will take too long, and besides, it makes me look pathetic. All I ask is that you pretend to be having a drink with me.” He must have looked skeptical because she added, “I swear that’s it.”

Right. Charlie had been wandering through the world long enough to know that wouldn’t be it, that there would be complications. There were always complications, which was why Charlie had spent his thirty-four years learning to be light on his feet and fast out the door.

On the other hand, she wasn’t part of his current problem so there weren’t likely to be long-term complications. He had a free evening before he had to go poking around in other people’s business, so he might as well poke around in hers for a while. At the very least, he’d get to listen to her talk. He shrugged. “Hell, it’s worth one drink just to find out what happens next.” He motioned to the bartender.

“I’m quite sure he won’t come over here.” She looked back over her shoulder again.

The bartender came and Charlie said, “The lady would like…” He turned back to her.

“The lady would like to pay for her own amaretto and cream, Max.” She took a couple of bills out of her carpet bag and handed them to the bartender as she looked over her shoulder again.

“You got it, Allie,” the bartender said and moved away.

“Amaretto and cream?” Charlie frowned. “That’s disgusting.”

“At least the cream part is good for me.” She turned back to him. “Well, it should be skim milk, but bars never have skim milk.”

“That’s true.” Charlie drew back a little. “You know, you have the weirdest pickup line in North America.”

“Pickup line?” She swiveled on the stool and faced him. Her eyes sparked at him and her cheeks glowed rosy with outrage. Outrage looked very good on her. “This isn’t a pickup line. The pickup line was before, the one that didn’t work.” She swiveled again to keep lookout. “Oh, great.” She swiveled to face him again. “There he is. Okay, here’s the deal. We’re together. Try to look like you haven’t just insulted me.”

“I didn’t insult you. I made an observation.”

“Well, stop.” She looked back over her shoulder again. “Oh, no.” She closed her eyes. Charlie saw her lips moving and leaned closer to hear her, but she wasn’t talking to him. “He’s going to go by. I’m sure he’s going to go by. I’m sure…”

A male-model type stopped on the other side of her. “Allie! There you are. I—”

She jerked as if she’d been shot. “Mark! What a surprise. To see you. Again. So soon.” She looked at Charlie and said, very softly, “Oh, hell.”

Then she stuck her chin out and turned to smile at Mark.

She was doing pretty good, Charlie thought. Good smile. Pretty lame answer, but the smile and the chin would probably make up for it. He looked at the guy. Tall, dark and handsome, if you liked really pretty men. Very expensive suit. Toothpaste grin. And the jerk was smiling that grin at her as if he knew she was in agony. Charlie shook his head at the situation and finished his drink. Good thing he wasn’t involved in this one. It was a mess.

“Let me buy you a drink, Al. It’s the least I can do.” Mark the jerk motioned for the bartender.

Max wandered back and put Allie’s amaretto in front of her.

“No, no.” Allie’s mouth went lipless with stress. “I have one. Thanks, Max.”

“Amaretto and cream.” Mark laughed. “Good old Allie.” He sat down beside her at the bar and patted her on the back.

“Grrrrr.” It was a very faint low growl, locked behind her teeth, almost indiscernible in the babble of the bar, but Charlie heard it because she’d turned to him as she made it. “I’m sorry about this,” Allie whispered to him.

Charlie leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Try not to look like a wounded basset hound.”

Allie flashed Mark a brilliant smile over her shoulder.

“I didn’t realize the two of you were together.” Mark paused for an introduction.

Allie kept on smiling like a half-wit, so Charlie took pity on her and extended his hand past her nose. “Charlie Tenniel.”

Allie started, but Mark took his hand with enthusiasm, gripping it in a he-man clasp. Charlie let his hand go limp. Mark smirked.

What an idiot, Charlie thought.

Mark was positively jovial. “Well, this is a coincidence. I’m Mark King. You’ve inherited my producer, you lucky dog. I’ve taught her everything there is to know about radio. You’re in good hands.”

Allie made that low growling sound in her throat again, and Charlie blinked at them both and then let Mark babble on about his own many successes, ignoring him for heavier thoughts. So much for diverting himself with Allie. Allie worked at the station with Mark the jerk. They were probably both in trouble up to their necks.

Allie certainly looked as if she was in trouble. She turned bleak, questioning eyes on him. “Is this true?” she whispered. “You’re my new DJ?” He nodded at her and she closed her eyes. “We were just discussing that,” she lied as she turned back to Mark.

Charlie picked up her glass of cream and handed it to her. “Here you go, boss. Glad to meet you, Mark. This the place everybody at the station hangs out?”

“Pretty much. Convenient. Right across the street, you know.” Mark smiled broadly while he sized Charlie up with obvious confidence. “Have you two known each other long?”

Allie put down her newly empty glass. “Oh, it seems like it.”

Charlie brought his mind back to the problem at hand. “Don’t chug cream like that.” He took the empty glass from her. “This isn’t skim milk, you know. This is the real thing, the hard stuff. Max, another amaretto and cream for the lady. In fact, just bring over the bottle and drive in the cow.”

“A comedian.” Allie nodded her head. “Five guys sitting at a bar, and I pick the comedian.”

“What?” Mark leaned closer to catch what she was saying.

“She thinks I’m funny.” Charlie put his arm around Allie and gave her an affectionate squeeze. She was a lot softer than he was prepared for, so he left his arm where it was for a while. “Funny is the basis for any good relationship.”

“Maybe that’s what was wrong with us, huh, Allie?” Mark looked soulfully at her.

What a goof.

“You two were once…” Charlie wiggled his eyebrows at Allie. “You never told me that.”

“It never came up.” Allie glared at him from the curve of his arm.

“You’re a lucky man, Tenniel.” Mark was still trying to recapture Allie’s attention, but she missed his meaningful looks because she was busy glaring at Charlie.

Charlie beamed at them both, enjoying the situation. “That’s what everybody keeps telling me. Actually, it’s not luck, it’s skill.”

Mark tried again. “So how did you two meet?”

“In a bar,” Charlie said. “She picked me up.”

“Allie did?” Mark looked astounded.

“She begged me to buy her a drink.”

“Allie did?”

Charlie nodded. “Happens to me all the time. Animal magnetism.”

“Oh, a joke.” Mark looked relieved. “How did you two really meet?”

“I picked him up.” Allie took a deep breath. “The truth is…”

Charlie pulled her tighter, momentarily shutting down her lungs. “The truth is, she sat down next to me, and I looked at her and thought, ‘This is a good-looking woman,’ and we started to talk, and we’ve been together ever since.”

Allie jerked her head up and stared at him. Then she smiled, and Charlie smiled back by reflex, caught by the intelligence in her eyes and the warmth in her wide, soft mouth. She leaned toward him, and he bent to hear what she said.

She was almost nose-to-nose with him. “You are a good person. I forgive you for insulting me.” She patted his sleeve and then disengaged herself from his arm.

Charlie missed her warmth. “I didn’t insult you.”

“How long have you two known each other?” Mark asked.

“Eternity,” Charlie said.

“But it seems like only a few short minutes.” Allie glared at him again and then she leaned back, her attention caught by something over Charlie’s shoulder. She signaled someone away, and Charlie turned just in time to get the impression that someone was doing a fade from the doorway into the hall.

So, Allie had a secret. Life just got more interesting all the time. And of course that meant that he was going to have to stick with her until he discovered her secret. He’d been hired to find all the secrets at the station. It was his job. It was his duty. He looked at Allie, her hair shining like old brass in the warm light of the bar.

It was his pleasure.

“So, where’s Lisa tonight?” Allie leaned on the bar in an attempt at languid unconcern. “What a shame she’s not with you. We could all have dinner together.”

Careful, Allie, Charlie thought.

“Lisa’s at the station.” Mark frowned. “You’re right. It is a shame. This would be a great chance to meet Charlie.”

“There’ll be other chances.” Charlie finished his drink. “I’m not going anyplace. Except to the top of the ratings.”

Mark decided that was a joke, too. “Heh, heh, heh.”

Mark had a laugh like an asthmatic horse, and Charlie wondered if that was why Allie had left him. Listening to that laugh would certainly be reason enough for anybody to leave him. Which brought an ugly thought. He’d have to be very careful because if Mark was any indication of his radio competition, he would go to the top of the ratings. That would be bad. One of the basic tenets of undercover investigation was not becoming a household word.

“Well!” Allie slid off the stool. “We’ve got to be getting in to dinner. Wonderful seeing you again, Mark.”

Mark leaned forward to kiss her goodbye, and she tripped backward to get away from him.

Charlie caught her. “Falling for me all over again, huh?” He tightened his arm around her automatically. Allie was soft and round against his shoulder, and she smelled like flowers. He was in no hurry to let go. “Try to restrain yourself,” he told her. “We’re in public.”

She looked into his eyes and swallowed hard. “It’s your animal magnetism. I’m restrained now. You can let go.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, and kissed her.

He’d only meant to kiss her quickly and let her go, mostly to annoy Mark and, all right, because she had a great mouth. But she clutched at him in surprise and fell into his arms so the kiss was a lot more than he’d planned, a lot more warmth and softness and weight, and her mouth was cool and sweet from the cream. He was a little dizzy by the time he remembered where he was and came up for air.

“What are you doing?” Allie sounded more breathless than annoyed when she pulled away from him.

“Making my move. Come back here.” Charlie reached for her, and she stepped back.

Mark looked disgruntled. “Well, really, Allie, you’re in public.”

“That’s lust.” Charlie smiled at him happily. “She can’t keep her lips off me.” Allie took another step back, and Charlie stood up to follow her. “Well, it looks like we’re moving on,” he told Mark. “Tell Lisa we said hi.”

When they were in the hallway, Allie shook her head. “Who are you really? Satan? I’m being punished, right?”

“I’m Charlie Tenniel.” He held out his hand. “I work with that stuffed shirt you used to date. I assume all you did was date. I’d hate to think that any woman I’d kissed in a bar actually went to bed with somebody like that.”

She looked down at his hand and sighed. Then she took it and shook it once and dropped it. “I’m Alice McGuffey, your producer at WBBB. It was nice meeting you, and thank you very much for helping me with Mark, but I have to go now. We can talk again tomorrow at the station.”

She turned to go into the restaurant, and Charlie stepped around her to block her. The last thing he wanted now was to get dumped. There were too many things Allie could tell him about the station. He could probably get the information from other people, but other people didn’t have Allie’s voice. Or Allie’s mouth. “Where are you going?”

“To dinner.” Allie gestured to the dining room. “With my dinner date. The only perfect man I know.”

“Ah.” Charlie nodded at her encouragingly. “Your father. We should meet so he can see the kind of guy you’re working with.”

“No.”

“No, he shouldn’t see?”

“No, he’s not my father.”

“No?” Charlie thought faster. “Gee, I’ve never met a perfect man.” He tried to look wistful. “I’ve always wanted a role model.”

Allie looked at him with disapproval, but he smiled at her and finally she gave up. “Okay, I owe you. You want to eat dinner with Joe and me? If you can’t, it’s perfectly all right.”

“Thank you.” Charlie held the door to the restaurant open. “I can’t wait to meet Joe, the perfect man.”

“Terrific,” Allie said.

Charlie followed her into the restaurant, a big room with too much mahogany and not enough light. Allie looked around the dimness and then smiled when a man across the room stood up and waved at her.

Charlie narrowed his eyes a little. This guy might actually be the perfect man. He was tall, even taller than Charlie’s six-two, and classically handsome without being obnoxious about it. His jaw was strong, his blond hair gleamed, his blue eyes were warm and the smile he had for Allie was real and loving.

“Your brother?” Charlie asked, and Allie said, “No,” and walked away from him. He followed her, trying to find something about Joe that wasn’t perfect and feeling vaguely annoyed.

Allie introduced them at the table. “Joe, this is Charlie Tenniel, the new ten-to-two DJ. I’m producing his show.”

“I heard. Karen called.”

Joe shot Allie a look that appeared to be sympathy, but Allie had already turned back to Charlie. “Charlie, this is Joe Ericson, my roommate. He’s the station’s accountant.”

She sounded like a well-behaved child, but she didn’t look like one. Charlie began to wonder what Allie was like when she wasn’t behaving well in public. No. That sort of thought would add those complications he’d been avoiding.

“Charlie Tenniel.” Joe’s smile was open and admiring as he held out his hand. “Are you the one they call Ten Tenniel?”

Ouch. He hated lying, but it was better than “No, that’s my brother, the drug-dealing DJ.” He shook his head. “Call me Charlie.”

Joe kept going. “I’ve heard about you. I’ve got a friend down in Lawrenceville who was very upset when you disappeared. I’m looking forward to hearing you myself now.”

His smile was genuine, and Charlie liked him.

“Who in Lawrenceville?” Allie had already seated herself and picked up the menu. “I’m starving.”

Joe sat down next to her. “Rona. Remember? From that seminar we took?”

Charlie took the chair across from her so he could watch her.

“Right. You kept in touch with Rona?” Allie ran her finger down the menu list. “Pasta.”

“I keep in touch with everybody.” Joe tapped Allie’s menu. “Not pasta. I’ll do pasta tomorrow night. Get something here that’s a pain in the butt to make. You like pasta, Charlie?”

Charlie started. Joe and Allie were so in sync in their conversation, he was a little surprised to be suddenly included. “Yep.”

“Come to dinner tomorrow night.”

Charlie beamed his best smile at him. “Thanks.” Another contact at the station. First Allie, then Mark, now Joe. And he’d only been in town a couple of hours. God, he was good.

Allie glared at Joe.

Joe mock-glared back. “Don’t look at me like that. I want to get to know Ten Tenniel.”

“Charlie,” Charlie said. “Just call me Charlie.”

ALLIE WASN’T SURE how she felt about Charlie. He’d done a nice job of saving her from Mark, but he’d laughed the whole time he was doing it, which made her feel like a dweeb. Of course, he had a point: panic was not a good look for her. Don’t do that again, she told herself and turned back to the problem at hand.

She now had to work with a guy who’d kissed her in a bar. This was not a good way to start a professional relationship, especially since he was quite a good kisser. It would be hard to say no if he ever suggested they try that again, and of course she’d have to say no because sleeping with the talent was not a good idea. Look what had happened with Mark. No, forget about Mark. Socializing with Charlie was not a good idea, which was why she’d tried to look quelling when he suggested he eat with Joe and her, but Charlie didn’t quell easily. In fact, Charlie didn’t quell at all.

He did seem taken aback when he saw Joe for the first time. Allie considered her roommate as she sat beside him. Part of Joe’s impact came from the fact that he was such a good man, so everything he was sort of infused his face, and his face was perfect, so people just felt good just looking at him. She felt good just looking at him now. She’d talk this whole job mess out with him later, and everything would make sense.

But Joe did have his faults. Food, for instance.

He’d picked up his menu and was studying it as if there’d be a quiz at the end of the meal, which actually there would be. He’d say, “Too much oregano. And where was the basil? Obvious seasoning. Sure sign of a clumsy chef. What about the asparagus?” He could go for days on just a side dish. But for right now, all he did was gesture at the menu and ask, “What do you think?”

Allie prepared for the usual battle. She was still nauseated from the stress of the afternoon, so a large slab of dead animal did not appeal. But she had to eat or she’d pass out, and she had to choose something that Joe hated to make, or he’d be insulted. “Manicotti,” she decided. “The last time you made that, you bitched about stuffing all that pasta.”

“Not manicotti. Mine’s better than here. Get a steak.”

“I don’t want a steak. I want pasta.”

“Well, don’t come home tomorrow and say, ‘Pasta? We just had pasta.’”

Charlie looked from one to the other. “You guys been together long?”

Allie laughed at the annoyance in his voice. “You sound just like Mark.”

“Yeah, and speaking of Mark, what was that?” Joe frowned at her. “You and Mark having a drink together after he fired you?”

“Yeah.” Charlie frowned at her, too. “What was that? I was there, and I didn’t understand it.”

Allie slumped back in her chair, her lousy day returning in full force. “That was my worst nightmare. That’s why I picked up Charlie. I didn’t want Mark to think I still…you know.”

“We know.” Joe looked at Charlie. “She’s usually not this wimpy. In fact, she’s usually very confident. It’s just Mark that makes her act like she’s twelve again.”

Charlie nodded. “You should have been at the bar. She was practically incoherent.”

“I was not.” Allie stuck out her chin and tried to look strong and defiant, and Charlie snorted. She gave up then and dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, hell.”

Joe patted her head. “There, there. You have me.”

“Oh, good,” Allie said without raising her head. “That’s a comfort.”

“Now order,” Joe said. “And don’t screw up.”

Allie finally got Joe to agree that she could have the chicken fettuccini since he wanted a taste of it himself. Chickens weren’t really dead animals, she reasoned, ready to contemplate anything except her future. They were more like protein with feathers. Joe and Charlie ordered prime rib, and Joe gave the waitress lavish instructions on their side dishes, which she copied down word for word, having served him before. When the waitress was gone, Joe remembered that he hadn’t designed Allie’s vegetables, and Allie argued that she wanted hers plain, and he said that was no way to live, and they were off on one of their usual arguments with lots of laughing, when Charlie interrupted.

“So, how long have you known each other?”

“Four years,” Joe said. “Ever since she came to the station.”

Allie relaxed and smiled at Joe. “I was new in town and didn’t have a place to live, and he was at the station picking up the books, and his roommate had just moved out, so he said I could borrow the spare bedroom until I found a place.”

Joe grinned. “And then she came home with me, and we talked and laughed until two in the morning, and I said, ‘Don’t find another place,’ and we’ve been together ever since.”

Charlie looked from Joe to Allie, and he didn’t look happy. Allie stopped smiling, wondering what she’d said that was wrong, not really caring as long as it wasn’t another major trauma to deal with. Then Charlie said, “I don’t get this. If Joe is the perfect man, why did you ever get mixed up with that clown, Mark?”

Joe blinked at him. “I’m the perfect man?”

“That’s what Allie says.”

Joe raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m flattered.”

Allied tensed. “Well, almost.” She shot a look at Charlie, prepared to jettison him permanently if he said the wrong thing.

Joe looked at Charlie. “I’m gay.”

Charlie relaxed and beamed at him in what looked like relief. He picked up a bread stick. “Good for you, but that doesn’t justify Mark. There must be other men in this town almost as perfect as you who like girls.”

Allie blinked at him. She had obviously missed something there, but since it wasn’t homophobia, she didn’t care what was going on in Charlie’s brain. It was a male brain. It was probably incomprehensible, anyway. Look at Mark.

Joe sat back. “I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t happy about Mark, either.” He turned to Allie. “Why did you pick him?”

“I didn’t.” Allie tried to look unconcerned. “He picked me. I don’t know why.”

“I don’t, either,” Joe said. “You’re not his type.”

“What is his type?” Charlie asked.

“Lisa.” Allie stuck out her chin in defiant unconcern, but unfortunately, she stuck her lower lip out farther.

“Don’t pout.” Joe bit into a bread stick.

“You owe Lisa, whoever she is,” Charlie told her. “She saved you from a man worse than death. You say thank you very much the next time you see her.”

“Which should be any minute now.” Joe pointed his bread stick behind Charlie. “That’s them by the door.”

Allie looked up in time to see Mark wave and take Lisa’s hand and tow her toward them through the crowd.

The day from hell would never end. Well, she’d asked for it.

Charlie evidently thought so, too. “It’s a shame Lisa’s not with you,” he mimicked. “We could all have dinner together.”

“I know.” Allie pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and steeled herself for the mess to come. “I know. If I’d behaved like an adult, I wouldn’t have picked up Charlie in a bar and lied to Mark. I deserve this.”

“Nobody deserves this.” Joe handed her a bread stick. “Eat. I’m with you. We can take them.”

“Hell, yes.” Charlie relented and patted her hand. “The odds are in our favor.”

“You in this, too? Good.” Joe handed him a bread stick, too. “We can always use another foot soldier in the fight against yuppie scum dweebs.”

“That bad?”

“Lisa! Mark!” Joe stood up. “I was just telling Charlie all about you.”

Someday, Allie told herself, I’ll look back on this and laugh.

But not yet.

CHAPTER TWO

ALLIE SAT NUMBLY WHILE MARK beamed at all of them. “Isn’t this terrific. Can we join you?” He pulled out a chair for Lisa without waiting for an answer, and Lisa sat, giving Allie a cautious look under her lashes.

She had beautiful lashes. Actually, Lisa had beautiful everything. No wonder Mark had wanted her instead. There was no point in hating younger, more attractive women just because they existed. You had to wait until they did something to you to hate them. And Lisa hadn’t fired her, Mark had.

Allie gave up and smiled at her. “Hi, Lisa. Congratulations on your promotion.”

Lisa leaned forward, caution gone, her words tumbling out in her happiness. “It’s so exciting, Allie. I can’t thank you enough. Mark told me it was your decision—”

Allie’s eyebrows almost hit the ceiling. “Oh?”

Lisa stopped. “It wasn’t?”

Allie looked at Mark as if he were fish bait. “I’m really looking forward to working with Charlie,” she lied. “Have you met Charlie yet, Lisa? Charlie Tenniel, Lisa Mitchell.”

Charlie smiled at her and took her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Lisa smiled back, using her lashes on Charlie this time. “Welcome to the station. You’re going to love working with Allie. She’s—”

“So.” Mark broke into the conversation loudly, and Lisa jerked her hand back. “Where are you staying, Charlie?”

Charlie leaned back a little. “I just got into town today.”

Mark narrowed his eyes at Allie. “You haven’t found him a place to live? That’s not like you. You organize everybody.”

What’s your problem? Allie thought. Jealousy? Good. “He’s staying with us,” she said, and Joe choked on his drink.

“What’s wrong with you?” Mark asked him.

“Nothing.” Joe smiled blandly. “Nothing.”

Mark frowned again at Allie. “You’ve only got two bedrooms.”

“Yes, I know.” It wouldn’t hurt Mark to think she was sleeping with Charlie. She looked at Charlie over the top of her glasses. Actually, it wouldn’t hurt her to think she was sleeping with Charlie. Bulky, friendly Charlie in shirtsleeves made a nice contrast to trim, tense Mark in a suit. In fact, the more she saw Mark next to Charlie, the less she missed having him around. Sleeping with Charlie might be the logical cure for her lingering case of Mark. Sort of like using penicillin to wipe out a bad bug that wouldn’t go away.

The analogy was certainly apt anyway.

Allie’s logic kicked into gear. She wasn’t infatuated with Charlie the way she’d been with Mark. With Charlie, she could have an intelligent, well-planned one-night stand. Then her last sexual memory would be Charlie, not Mark, and she could get on with her life. The more she thought about it, the better she liked it. As long as Charlie didn’t get hung up on her, it would be perfect. And even in her short acquaintance with him, it was fairly evident that commitment was not his byword.

Mark looked from Charlie to Allie to Joe, evidently reading Allie’s mind. “So who is he sleeping with?”

“Me.” Allie held up her hand like a polite child, her plan now in place. “Joe gets him tomorrow.”

“Very funny,” Mark said.

“Not so funny for me,” Joe said. “I have to wait twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t think that’s funny,” Mark said.

“Neither does Joe,” Charlie said, and Allie laughed, delighted he was part of them.

Lisa had been following the exchange, frowning as her head bobbed back and forth. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s just a joke, Lisa.” Mark put his arm around her. “Not a very funny one.”

Charlie shook his head. “You have no sense of humor, Mark. That’s why your relationship with Allie didn’t work, remember?”

Mark decided to take offense, something, Allie reflected, that any sane man would have taken much sooner. “I don’t know what Allie is doing with someone like you,” Mark told Charlie. “You’re not her type. Of course, I don’t know what she’s doing with him, either.” He jerked his head at Joe.

Allie did not take insults to any of her friends well, but especially not to Joe. “Look…”

“I’m great in the kitchen,” Joe said. “She loves my cooking.”

“And I’m great in the bedroom,” Charlie said. “She loves my body. Between the two of us, Allie has it all.”

Allie glared at them both. “Actually—”

Mark snorted. “Allie doesn’t like sex.”

Allie swung on Mark. “Well, actually—”

Charlie smiled at Mark. “No, she just didn’t like it with you.”

“She didn’t like your linguini, either,” Joe pointed out. “She said it was rubbery.”

Charlie frowned at Joe. “That’s funny. She said the same thing about his—”

“Oh, great,” Allie said.

“Don’t be childish.” Mark stood up, almost knocking over the waitress who’d come with their salads. “Obviously, we’ve intruded, and you don’t want us. Come on, Lisa.”

They watched him stalk across the room, Lisa trailing behind, throwing them curious looks over her shoulder.

“Feel free to discuss my sex life at any time in public,” Allie told the two of them when the waitress had gone. “Don’t mind me.”

“We won’t,” Charlie said around a mouthful of salad.

“I almost feel sorry for Lisa,” Joe said.

Allie picked up her fork and stabbed at her lettuce, shoving thoughts of sleeping with Charlie out of her mind to consider Lisa. She ate for a couple of minutes, looking at the situation from all sides. “I guess I do feel sorry for her,” she said finally. “This isn’t her fault.”

“She ended up with your boyfriend and your job,” Joe reminded her. “She has some responsibility there.”

“Nope.” Allie’s voice grew firmer as she grew surer. “This is Mark. Mark wanted me out and her in. And he got it. I just don’t know why.”

Joe shook his head at her. “It’s obvious. Mark’s jealous of you.”

“That makes no sense.” Allie waved her fork at him to end the discussion.

“Yeah, it does.” Joe pointed his own fork at her. “Everybody at the station knows that Mark’s success is because of you. He likes to think it’s because of him.”

Charlie stabbed another chunk of lettuce. “So, if he shoves Allie out and puts Lisa the newbie in, everyone will know that his success is—”

“His success,” Joe finished. “Except that’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?” Charlie shoved his empty salad bowl aside and reached for another bread stick.

“You eat like you’re starving,” Allie told him, amazed at the speed with which he’d destroyed his salad. “Don’t they feed you back home?”

“You should talk.” He pointed to her own half-empty bowl. “I’ve seen locusts move through vegetation slower.” He turned back to Joe. “Why not?”

Joe scooped up a forkful of his salad. “Because the only reason Mark is a success is because Allie plans out every second of his show. She even has his ad-libs on cue cards. You have to see it to believe it.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow at Allie. “How do you manage that?”

Allie shrugged. “There are only a dozen or so expressions that are really useful, anyway. I just pick the card that worked best. And he isn’t that bad. In almost two years, he’s never misread a cue card. Could we talk about something else?”

“Oh, that’s talent, reading cue cards,” Charlie agreed. “You were with him for two years?”

“Professionally.” Allie squirmed a little in her chair. “The other thing only lasted about six months.”

“Six terrible months,” Joe added. “Thank God for Lisa, or I’d have had to kill him just to set you free. And you’re right, Al, I do feel sorry for her. She’s going to pay.”

Charlie looked around the table for something else to eat. “Why? What did she do now?”

“Nothing.” Joe grinned at him over his salad bowl. “Do you remember the flack Deborah Norville got when she replaced Jane Pauley?”

“Yeah.” Charlie fished a pepper strip out of Allie’s bowl, narrowly avoiding her fork.

“Well, that’s going to be nothing compared to what happens when the station finds out Allie got screwed. Lisa is not going to have an easy time of it.”

Allie was afraid for a moment that Joe might have a point. She didn’t mind Lisa failing to keep Mark’s ratings up, but she didn’t want her to fail because everyone turned on her. She stared at her plate, not seeing the food. She didn’t need this. She needed all her energy to revive her career.

Which now depended on Charlie.

She stole another look at him over her glasses and began to really think about Charlie and the new show for the first time. Things weren’t nearly as bad as they’d seemed earlier. Charlie had potential. After all, he was intelligent. Verbal. Even occasionally funny. She could make him a star. All she had to do was study him, design a format that fit him and plug him into it. He and his mouth could take it from there, while she goosed the publicity along.

She could have him a household word by Christmas. Three months easy, and she’d be back on top.

She waited until the waitress had brought their dinners, and then she began her pitch. “You’re really verbal,” she told him, batting her eyelashes at him. “I like that in a man. Especially in a man whose show I’m producing.”

Charlie stopped, his fork in midair, and eyed her cautiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Allie smiled at him, hearty and encouraging. “I’m going to make you a star, Charlie.”

“The hell you are.” Charlie went back to his dinner.

Allie pulled back a little and exchanged glances with Joe, who shrugged. Okay, so he’d have to be convinced. No problem. She returned to Charlie and her career. “Look, I know your show was a sort of cult hit in Lawrenceville and you like to do things your way, but you’re starting all over here in a bad time slot. And radio is not exactly a secure career, as you well know. I can—”

Charlie pointed his fork at her. “No, you can’t. Bill should have told you. I’m temporary. I’m going to be here five or six weeks, tops, probably not that long. I’ve got places I have to be by November. And this guy whose show I’m covering, Waldo, right?” Allie nodded. “Well, Waldo’s coming back.”

Allie frowned at him and even Joe blinked. “Waldo’s not coming back,” he told Charlie. “He’s in San Diego with his sister. Resting comfortably at last report.”

Charlie shrugged. “Must be for a visit. Bill knows I’m just temporary.”

“Now what’s Bill up to?” Joe asked Allie, and she shook her head, clearly as mystified as he was.

Charlie’s eyes went from one to the other. “He’s not coming back?”

“Waldo shot the console his last night on the air,” Allie told him. “He said it was talking to him and wouldn’t shut up.”

“Maybe he just needs a nice vacation,” Charlie suggested.

“Maybe he needs to be away from stereo equipment,” Joe said. “He’s not coming back.”

“So that means,” Allie began, ready to make her pitch.

“So that means you’re going to be breaking in another guy in about six weeks,” Charlie told her. “Do not bother making me a hit. I’m temporary.”

He returned to his dinner and began to quiz Joe on Tuttle, and Allie sat back and regrouped. The problem wasn’t that he refused to help her make him famous. She could do that without him. She’d made Mark a success without any appreciable input from him.

The problem was that he wasn’t going to be around long enough for her to rebuild her career.

Unless she hit the ground running a lot faster than she’d intended.

Allie gave it a minute’s thought. All right, she could do that.

And in the meantime, the news made the penicillin project a lot more possible. If he was only going to be around a few weeks, she could have a one-night fling with him without any consequences. She wasn’t used to having flings actually, but she was thirty-six. Her flinging years weren’t going to last forever. She had every intention of getting married and having children some day, and then flings would be out of the question. This might be it.

She looked at the situation from all sides. There didn’t seem to be any serious obstacles, aside from Charlie himself.

“All right,” she said and began to eat her dinner.

Charlie stopped eating and looked at Joe. “Why do I have a bad feeling about her giving in so easily?”

“Because you’re a student of human nature,” Joe told him.

Allie ignored them both to put her plan into action as soon as they were finished eating. “Let’s take Charlie on a tour of the city on our way home. He should see Tuttle a little before he goes on the air tomorrow night. It’ll give him something to talk about.” And I can find out what he’s interested in and plan a program on it.

“The tour sounds great.” Charlie picked up his check. “But you don’t need to put me up. I’ve got a room at a motel. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Not good. She needed to get to know him fast if she was going to get the show moving right away. And then there was the Fling Plan. It was going to be hard enough for her to seduce him in her own apartment. A motel room would be impossible. Allie smiled at him. “I think you should stay with us. You told Mark you were.”

Charlie shrugged. “Who cares?”

“Mark won’t be mad if you’re not staying with us.” Allie batted her eyes at him again. It wasn’t one of her better skills, but she was desperate.

Charlie leaned close until they were almost nose-to-nose. “You know, I haven’t known you very long, Alice McGuffey, but I can tell you’re up to something.”

“As I said, a student of human nature.” Joe leaned back in his chair to watch.

“Joe will make waffles for breakfast if we ask him nicely.” Allie grabbed Charlie’s hand again so he couldn’t escape. His hand was broad and warm, and she was beginning to feel absolutely cheerful about seducing him. “We can talk about the station tonight. Where’s your suitcase? At the motel?”

“Just a duffel bag. It’s in my car.” Charlie frowned at her. “I still think you’re up to something.”

Allie tried to look innocent and guileless while she cast around for a selling point. “Joe puts pecans in the waffles.”

“I’m probably going to regret this.” Charlie looked at Joe. “What do you think?”

Joe shook his head. “I’m staying out of this. Although we do have a couch, and I do put pecans in the waffles.” He looked at Allie. “On the other hand, I do think she’s up to something.”

“They better be great waffles,” Charlie said.

“They’ll be unforgettable,” Allie promised.

CHARLIE WASN’T USED to struggling with his conscience, but then his life wasn’t usually this complex. His conscience said, stay away, lie low, don’t get involved with these nice people. But he never listened to his conscience, anyway.

He was going to do it, he realized as they got up to go. He was going to move in with Allie and Joe and pump them for background on the station, all the news and rumor that only friends would repeat to friends. It would be low and slimy of him, but it was a great opportunity, and he’d been around long enough to know that great opportunities in life were few and far between.

Just keep your hands off Allie, he told himself sternly. It was one thing to use her for information; it was another thing entirely to use her for… He glanced down at her, and she smiled, and he remembered how warm she’d been in his arms. Just thinking about her was a bad idea.

Waffles and gossip, yes. Allie, absolutely no.

He excused himself and went to find a phone to cancel his motel reservation. Remember, he told himself. Be virtuous.

It would be a nice change for him.

“WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?” Joe asked Allie when Charlie had gone.

Allie shoved her chair in, squaring her shoulders. “I’m going to seduce him.” It sounded pretty stupid when she said it out loud.

“What?”

“I have a plan. He’ll be like penicillin.” Joe looked at her as if she were nuts, so she elaborated, warming to her topic as she explained. “Mark’s just a bad habit, like a virus. All I need is an antidote. I’ll sleep with Charlie, and then I’ll be over Mark.”

Joe put his head in his hands. “Even for you, this is a dumb idea.”

“Why?” Allie blinked down at him. “It’s worked great so far. I don’t mind about Mark much at all when I’m around Charlie.”

“And what are you going to do to get over Charlie?”

“I won’t need to get over Charlie. From now on, I’m concentrating on my career. Charlie is just a fling.”

Joe looked at her as if she were demented. “Except you’re not the kind of woman who has flings. And you’re already concentrating too much on your career. That’s how you ended up with Mark, because he was convenient. And I don’t think Charlie is the kind of guy you forget.”

“Well, I’m thirty-six,” Allie said, exasperated. “If I don’t start having flings now, I never will. And I’m tired of getting all wrapped up in a guy and then trying to cope when he’s gone. I want a nice, simple, short, purely sexual one-night stand, and then I can forget about Mark. And Charlie’s out of here in six weeks, he said so. This is perfect.”

Joe spoke very slowly to her. “This. Is. A. Dumb. Idea.”

“Listen.” Allie fought back the anger that suddenly threatened her voice. “I know how dumb I am. I know Mark is worthless. I knew it when I was with him, but I kept making excuses. And now I’m stuck in this stupid thing where I want to be with him, and I don’t even know why. Haven’t you ever wanted somebody you knew wasn’t worth it?”

“Yes,” Joe said. “I imagine almost everybody has.”

“Well, all I’m trying to do is get over it.” Allie stuck out her chin. “Is that so bad?”

“No.” Joe stood up and the sympathy in his eyes almost laid her low. “No, of course not. But Charlie is…well…I don’t think I’d mess with Charlie.” He looked over her shoulder. “He looks like the kind of guy who makes an impression.”

“Not on me.” Allie turned and saw Charlie walking toward them. He looked wonderful: big and broad and solid and fun. But not permanent. She could take him or leave him. Or take him and leave him. No problem.

Charlie came back to the table and smiled at them. “Let’s go. You can tell me all about the station. Leave nothing out, no matter how disgusting. I’m braced for anything.”

“Good,” Allie said.

THEY GAVE CHARLIE a quick tour of old Tuttle in the late-September dusk. The town unfolded before him like a set of sepia-toned postcards: a white filigree bandstand in the park, a narrow Main Street mercifully free of aluminum storefronts, and a city hall that looked like a glowering, gargoyled sandstone castle.

“Historic preservationists, bless them,” Joe told him. “They fight tooth and nail to keep old Tuttle pure. Of course, over on the other side, new Tuttle is a symphony of aluminum siding, but who cares?”

“But even the preservationists can’t save city hall,” Allie said.

“They’re going to tear down that building?” Charlie craned his neck to look back at the ornate structure. He wasn’t a historic-building nut, but tearing down something that magnificently outrageous seemed a waste.

Joe shrugged. “I think they’re just going to abandon it. Too hard to heat or something. They’ve got a new building all planned. There’s a model of it in the basement of the old building. It’s awful.” Joe turned a corner and a few minutes later it was dark.

“What happened?”

“East Tuttle, better known as Eastown.” Allie pointed out the window. “See? Streetlights out, but nobody fixes them. This is not a Good Section of Town.”

“In defense of the city department, they try.” Joe slowed to let a weaving pedestrian cross. “The vandalism around here is pretty frequent.”

“Not that frequent,” Allie said. “These people get taken for a ride.”

Charlie looked around at the peeling paint and broken steps and a derelict corner grocery store, and tried to make it fit with what he’d seen of Tuttle before. “A lot of drugs down here?”

Allie shrugged. “Probably, but I hear the best place to score is right by the old bandstand in the park.”

Charlie started to laugh. “So much for Tuttle, the perfect small town.”

Allie sighed. “It used to be sort of like that. A lot of mom-and-pop businesses run by people who called you by name. Most of them are gone now, run out by the chains.” She peered out the window at another corner store left standing empty. “You know, I don’t think there are any independent groceries left in the whole city.”

“That’s a shame,” Charlie said absently. Tuttle was not a hotbed of crime. What the hell could be going on at a radio station in a town like this to make a man like Bill Bonner lose his cool and his father send him in as an amateur detective?

Something here didn’t make sense. And since his father and Bill were involved, two men notorious for getting their own way no matter what the cost, Charlie was especially wary. They were up to something.

He sat silently while Joe drove and talked and eventually they came to a slightly better part of town full of old frame houses with big front porches, and Charlie smiled in spite of himself. Tuttle was a nice little town, the kind of town he’d always liked when he’d driven through one on his way to someplace else. He avoided stopping in any town like this one on the grounds that if he really liked it, he’d stay, and then he’d take a permanent job. And if things went the way they usually did, he’d get promoted, and then he’d be in charge, and pretty soon he’d be his father.

No town was worth that.

Then Joe turned again, and in a few minutes they were in a more modern neighborhood, passing a mall.

“Tuttle has a mall?” Charlie asked, amazed.

“There’s a lot more to Tuttle than meets the eye,” Allie said, and Charlie wondered exactly how much more there was, how much of it Allie knew, and how long it would take him to get it out of her.

IT WAS LATE when they got back to the apartment. They’d picked up Charlie’s car at the restaurant and he’d followed them home, parking behind Joe on a side street away from the blare of the traffic. He joined them, and Joe gestured to a three-story white brick house. “This is us. Three apartments. We’ve got the second floor.”

The house was simple but elegant in its proportions, and Charlie felt good just looking at it. “Very nice,” he said and followed them up the wide stone steps and into the cream-walled hallway.

It was a great house. A comfortable house.

That made him uneasy. Getting too comfortable would be bad because he was leaving in November. Maybe he’d be better off in a really ugly motel.

“Come on up, Charlie,” Allie called to him from the stairway, and her voice was husky, and he began to climb the steps to her without thinking about it.

ALLIE SHOWED HIM around the apartment: a big cream-and-peach living room with two couches and lots of lamps and bookcases, a white kitchen big enough for a full-size oak table and a mass of cooking gear, a large sea-green bathroom about the size of the bedroom in Charlie’s last apartment with an old claw-foot tub about the size of his old bed, and two large bedrooms, one in gray and red for Joe, and one in peach and white for Allie. It confirmed all Charlie’s suspicions that Joe and Allie were wonderful, warm, generous people who shouldn’t be allowed out without a keeper.

“This is great,” Charlie said when they were back in the living room. “But you people are nuts.”

Allie flopped down on one of the overstuffed couches. “Why?”

“I’m a complete stranger and you just invited me into your apartment and showed me everything you own.” Charlie shook his head at both of them. “You’re asking to be ripped off.”

“Nope. We know Bill.” Joe headed back to the kitchen. “Want something to drink?”

“Iced tea, please,” Allie called after him, and Charlie sat down across from her.

“What does Bill have to do with it?”

Allie snuggled down into the couch cushions, and Charlie let his mind wander for a moment. Allie was as well-upholstered as the couch. A comfortable woman. The kind of woman without angles or sharp bones or—

“Bill owns the station,” Allie said. “And nothing or nobody gets in the station that Bill doesn’t know everything about. If he hired you, he’s seen your baby pictures.”

Since Bill was Charlie’s father’s college roommate, this was truer than Allie knew, but Charlie was still not convinced. “You’re telling me it’s impossible for Bill to have hired a creep? Then how did he get Mark?”

Allie grinned. “You’re biased. Mark’s not so bad. He’s a little insecure, and he’s ambitious for his show, but who wouldn’t be?”

“Me,” Charlie said.

Joe came back in the room bracketing three iced-tea glasses in his hands. “You’re not ambitious?” he asked as Charlie took one.

“Nope. I’m just here to have a good time.” Charlie leaned back and sipped his tea. It was full and rich, sun tea laced with just enough lemon and sugar. He settled more comfortably into the couch. “And it’s a good thing I’m not ambitious since I’m on from 10:00 to 2:00 a.m.”

Allie smiled at him brightly. It was a smile he was learning to associate with Positive Career Talk. “The time could be a lot better,” she told him. “But don’t worry. I’m going to make you a star.”

“No, you are not.” Charlie narrowed his eyes at her. The only thing that was going to save him was that he was on late enough that nobody would notice how inept he was. All he needed was Allie drawing attention to him as he stuck a microphone in his eye or something, and then questions would be asked. “Don’t you even think about holding up a cue card for me. I told you. I don’t want to be a star.”

Joe snorted. “You don’t have any choice. If Allie wants you famous, you’re going to be famous.”

“Forget it,” Charlie told Allie. “Wipe the thought from your mind.”

“We can talk about it later,” Allie said smoothly. “Now, tomorrow night’s your first show and I thought—”

“Don’t.” Charlie scowled at her. “Thinking is bad for a woman. Tell me about the other people at the station. I already know about Mark and Lisa.”

Allie sat silent with her tea, obviously regrouping, so Joe chimed in. “Bill owns the station and theoretically runs it as general manager.”

“Theoretically?”

Joe exchanged a glance with Allie. “His wife, Beattie, decided about six months ago that she wanted a career. Bill gives Beattie anything she wants, so she’s pretty much running the place now.”

Charlie quirked an eyebrow at Joe. This was news Bill hadn’t shared. “Is that good?”

“I think so,” Joe said. “She fired Weird Waldo.”

“He thought Martians were invading the station through the consoles,” Allie said. “He kept announcing during his show that they were getting closer. It was actually kind of interesting if you suspended logical thought. Beattie wanted him gone, but Bill said he was just being colorful.”

“And then he shot the console,” Charlie said.

“Yep, just last week. Blew the whole thing away.” Allie sighed. “At least we gained a new console. And lost Waldo, thanks to Beattie.”

“Wouldn’t even Bill have fired him at that point?” Charlie asked, incredulous.

“Bill’s ability to ignore anything unpleasant is legendary,” Joe told him.

“Great.” Charlie drank more of his iced tea. If Bill could ignore somebody shooting up a broadcasting booth, the one anonymous letter that had made him call for help must have been a beauty. He brought his attention back to Joe. “What else should I know?”

They talked on into the night, Joe and Allie filling him in on the rest of the station personnel, like Albert the anal-retentive business manager who recited ad prices in his sleep, and Marcia the ambitious afternoon DJ who was breathing down Mark’s neck for the prime-time slot, and Karen the receptionist who knew all the gossip not fit to print, and Harry the Howler who was on right before Charlie.

“Harry howls from six to ten,” Allie told Charlie. “He likes to think he’s wild and crazy, but he’s really sweet with the volume turned up. His real area of expertise is cars, so if you ever have problems with yours, ask Harry.”

“And then there’s me.”

Allie nodded. “Yep. Harry’s audience usually starts to fade about nine, nine-thirty, and then we had Weird Waldo.”

Charlie tried not to show his relief. “So, at the moment, my show has a listening audience of about…”

Allie grinned at him. “Oh, six or seven, tops. And they’re all listening because they’re concerned about the Martians, and they’re waiting for the update.”

Charlie started to laugh. “Oh, God. This is going to be awful.”

“Then at two o’clock, there’s Grady.”

“Tell me Grady’s normal.”

“Well…” Allie stopped, obviously searching for the words to describe Grady. “Grady is sweet. He talks about things like the life force and crystal power and personal auras, and then he plays classical guitar music and Gregorian chants and other…” She stopped. “I can’t describe Grady. His show is very soothing, and he has his own small but fanatically loyal following.” She shrugged. “I like him. Grady’s a good person.”

“If he has only a small following, why is he still on the air?”

“Because he’s Grady Bonner. Someday, all this will be his.”

“The son and heir? Then why is he on the graveyard shift?”

“Because his following is small. Bill gave Grady two to six to keep him off the streets.”

Charlie took a deep breath. “So I’m sandwiched in between Howling Harry and Grady ‘I Have Lived In Other Times’ Bonner?”

“That’s about it.”

It couldn’t be better. No one would ever hear him. He started to grin. “I’m in big trouble.”

“No, you’re not.” Allie leaned forward. “From ten to two, you have a lot of freedom. This is so all the really knee-jerk conservatives go to bed early so they can get up with the chickens, which means your audience, once you build one, will be open to new things. As long as you don’t do anything that upsets Bill, you can say anything you want. We can do this, Charlie. We—”

“No, we can’t.” Charlie hated to ruin her plans, she looked so cute trying to sell them to him, but he was not going to be a success. “I don’t want to be famous. I just want a nice little radio show for a few weeks. That’s all.”

Allie shoved her glasses back up her nose. “But, Charlie—”

“No,” Charlie said firmly.

Joe stood up. “I’d love to stay and watch this, but I have to go to work in the morning. Good night, all.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, and Charlie leaned back on the couch.

“I think we should talk about this,” Allie said.

“I don’t,” Charlie said, but Allie did anyway, explaining all the good things that would come his way if he just put himself in her hands.

She was a good persuader, and under any other circumstances he might have listened just because she talked such a good fight, but he was only temporary. He wasn’t staying. He wasn’t going to be a success.

He wouldn’t mind being in her hands, though.

He jerked his mind away from the thought when Joe came out of the bathroom in his robe.

“Bathroom’s all yours. Good night.” Joe looked at Allie and shook his head, and then he went into his bedroom and closed the door.

Charlie frowned at Allie. She’d abandoned her argument about his career and was now looking at him as if she was sizing him up. He had the damnedest feeling she was going to try a new attack. It wasn’t a reassuring feeling. “Why did Joe shake his head?”

“What?” Allie stood up and moved to stand beside him, smiling brightly. “Never mind. My bedroom, as you know, is on the left. Want to see it again?”

“Come here, McGuffey.” He pulled her down beside him, trapping her hand in his. “What are you up to? Tell me everything, now. I can take it.”

“I was going to tell you, anyway.” She sat stiff and straight. “I just wanted to be in my nightgown to do it.”

“Your nightgown.” Charlie clamped down on his evil thoughts and patted her hand. “Well, I’m sorry I’m going to miss that. Why your nightgown?”

She sighed. “Joe thinks this is a bad idea.”

“Joe’s no dummy. If he thinks it is, it probably is.”

“I think so, too. Forget it.” She stood up, and he caught her hand.

“Oh, no, you don’t. Just in case you change your mind, I need to be prepared. Are we going to go Vaseline Mark’s car windows? Put Tabasco in Lisa’s diaphragm?”

Allie sat down again next to him. “All right. I have a favor to ask.”

Charlie tried to look encouraging. “Shoot.” Allie looked so uncomfortable, he was ready for anything.

She took a deep breath. “I want you to sleep with me.”

CHARLIE DIDN’T SAY anything, and she stole a glance at him.

He looked stunned.

She should have know it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t the seductress type. She flopped back against the couch, defeated. “I know it’s dumb, but I had this plan. I thought maybe if I slept with somebody else, I’d get over Mark permanently. Sort of like getting right back on the horse after you’ve been thrown.”

Charlie made a sound like a strangled laugh.

“What did you say?”

“I whinnied.”

Allie fought back a smile. “You laughed. Okay, go ahead. I just…” The words were too dumb to say out loud, so she shut up and shrugged instead.

Charlie leaned back beside her. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

Allie hesitated and then gave in. “Well, it’s hard to explain without sounding stupid. Everybody at the station thinks Mark is God. We were working together, making the show a hit, and when we started dating, it just felt right, I guess.” She wrinkled her nose as she thought. “And he was really good to me.” She turned her head to look Charlie in the eye, trying to make him understand. “I know he wasn’t impressive today, but he really was good to me. I’ve never been that anxious to settle down, but I thought we’d be together forever, working on the show.” She shook her head in disgust. “I was stupid. But it was still hard to give up. And I still miss it.” She stopped and frowned. “But you know, I think I miss the relationship more than I miss him.”

Charlie shook his head. “Everybody at the station thinks he’s God? They must be morons.”

“Not all of them. Just me.”

Charlie frowned at her. “If you’re going to feel sorry for yourself, get off my couch and go to your room.”

Allie relaxed back into the couch. “You know, I’m a very good producer. I just can’t handle my personal life.”

Charlie snorted. “You and about twenty million other people.”

She rolled her head sideways to look at him. “How do you do it?”

Charlie grinned at her. “Not very well. I have this commitment problem.”

“You and about twenty million other guys.” Allie grinned back. “Big deal. I bet once it’s over for you, it’s over. I bet you don’t go on obsessing about it afterward.”

“No. But then I’ve never loved anyone enough to obsess about it.”

“Well, that’s just my point.” She sat up again. “I’m not sure I loved Mark. I didn’t even like Mark much toward the end, which may be one of the reasons he dumped me. But I was used to being with him, working on the show, you know? I’m just…stuck in this stupid rut, and I need something to bounce me out of it.”

Charlie looked confused but not condemning. “So, your plan was that we’d sleep together, and then what?”

“Then I’d be over Mark, and we’d go to work.”

“A short-term arrangement.” He sounded noncommittal, which wasn’t encouraging.

Allie tried to get back to selling the idea. “Absolutely. A one-night stand. No strings. The last thing in the world I need right now is another relationship.” The thought of trying to keep another man happy made her tired all by itself. “I’m just sick of feeling like I’m going to throw up every time I see Mark.”

“You and about twenty million other people.”

Allie laughed. “No, really.” She tried to be serious. “He’s a nice guy. Lots of people like him. His show is very popular. And he takes a nice publicity picture.”

“Oh, that’s important in radio.”

Allie turned to look at him when she heard the scorn in his voice. “Oh? And what do you do in radio?”

Charlie tensed for a moment and then relaxed deeper into the couch. “Well, there used to be a really late show in Lawrenceville from two to six. After Two with Ten Tenniel.” He grinned down at her and she grinned back because it was impossible not to. “Strange people call from two to six. I’m hoping the ten-to-two people are at least half as bizarre.”

His voice was low but it kept his grin in it when he talked. That was one of things she liked best about him, although actually, there was a lot to like about Charlie. She leaned a little closer to him. “You like bizarre? Then you’re going to love WBBB.”

“I love bizarre. That’s why I let you pick me up.” He looked down at her, and she could have sworn she saw heat in his eyes. But then, what did she know about men?

Charlie stood up and pulled her off the couch. “Go to bed, Allie, so I can go to bed. You get the bathroom first.” He patted her shoulder. “I’ll help you with Mark tomorrow, not by sleeping with you, but now I’ve got to get some real sleep.”

Well, that was that. Allie walked back to her bedroom door. She should have known it wouldn’t work.

Rats.

Unless…

CHARLIE WATCHED HER walk toward her bedroom and tried to feel virtuous for turning her down. He did feel virtuous. He’d made a great sacrifice. There was nothing he wanted more than to be in Allie’s hands.

In Allie’s bed.

Oh, hell.

Feeling virtuous was a lousy trade for what he was giving up.

Allie stopped, and then turned back to him, a much too innocent look on her face. “How about a smaller favor?”

“Smaller than sex?”

“Yes.” She drifted back to him, and he felt wary again.

“What?”

Allie took off her glasses and lifted her chin. “Kiss me. So I can concentrate this time. I missed it the last time. In the bar.”

Charlie ran his fingers through his hair. All his instincts told him to run, but she was standing there with that great mouth, and he wanted it. “You really are something. You treat all the guys you meet like this?”

Allie shook her head, and he watched the light glint in her hair as it swung back and forth. “Nope. You just happened to hit me on a very unusual day.”

“Lucky me.” Charlie swallowed and surrendered. “Okay, pucker up, but this time, pay attention. I don’t want to have to keep on doing this.”

She nodded. “Right.”

Allie lifted her face to his, and he bent and kissed her. He meant to make it brief, but the softness of her mouth moved against his and took his breath away. I’m in big trouble here, he thought, and then he stopped thinking.

He felt her hand on his cheek, and he closed his eyes. She was intoxicating, and he opened his mouth and teased her lips with his tongue until she opened to him and he could taste her. Her body moved against him, and he held her close, moving his hands up to her shoulders and then back down to the small of her back, pressing her hips close to his, soft against him.

When he finally broke the kiss, they were both breathless.

“Thank you,” Allie said unsteadily as she stepped back. “That was very nice. Good night.” She backed away into the bathroom and shut the door.

Charlie sat down on the couch and tried to remember where he was.

He was not going to get involved with Allie. He had a job to worry about. He was going to lay low. He was going to not make waves. He was going to do his job and get out. He was going to forget Allie and get some sleep.

He unbuttoned his shirt and went to find his bag. He didn’t have pajamas, but with Allie flitting about making suggestions, he had to wear something. He found his sweatpants just as Allie came out of the bathroom in a long blue cotton nightgown. She looked very virginal.

“Here are your sheets and things,” she said, putting them on the end of the couch. “Do you need anything else?”

Charlie clamped down on his wayward thoughts. “No. Thank you.”

“Good night.” She hesitated, and then she went into her room.

He took his sweatpants and his toothbrush into the bathroom. Don’t think about her, he told himself. He got ready for bed, concentrating on not thinking about Allie, and then he went out to the couch and made his bed, concentrating on not thinking about Allie, and then he got into his bed, concentrating on not thinking about Allie.

It wasn’t working.

ALLIE LAY IN bed and thought about Charlie.

God, he was beautiful, standing there in the living room with his shirt unbuttoned. She’d never been turned on just looking at a man before, but he was so broad and beautiful. And dangerous.

If they were on TV instead of radio, she’d make him leave his shirt unbuttoned. Women would be clawing at the set.

And then there was his mouth. Kissing like that should be illegal. Or at least licensed.

She put her hands over her face and groaned. Sleeping with Charlie would not be penicillin. Sleeping with Charlie would be cocaine. Of all the stupid ideas she’d had in her life, this was the stupidest.

Why didn’t she ever listen to Joe?

She turned over onto her side, concentrating on not thinking about Charlie.

God, he looked good. And he kissed better.

She buried her head under the pillow and tried to think about her career.

CHARLIE ROLLED OVER on the couch. Sleeping with Allie would be wrong. She was emotionally vulnerable right now. By tomorrow, she’d be relieved he hadn’t taken her up on her offer.

Of course, by tomorrow, he’d be insane with frustration.

It was that damn kiss. If she hadn’t asked for the kiss, he wouldn’t be thinking about how soft her mouth was, how soft she was all over…

He rolled over again, trying to think about the anonymous letter and how he didn’t have a clue about what a disc jockey did and how tomorrow night he’d have to do it, concentrating on everything and anything but Allie.

She was probably asleep by now, anyway.

It was thinking about her mouth that was the worst.

ALLIE SAT UP in bed and put her arms around her knees.

Not thinking about Charlie wasn’t working. She was breathless with not thinking about him. She wanted him. She physically itched for him. This wasn’t the gauzy need she’d always assumed women felt for the men they lusted after. This was unpleasant and uncomfortable and would require full body contact to satiate.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.