Not Precisely Pregnant Page 7
"Who are you calling an old maid?" Pearly asked. She got up and toyed with Paige's hair.
Paige felt the older woman's fingers still as Pearly said, "Uh-oh." The gray-haired beautician picked up the bottle of developer she'd squirted on the hair.
"Uh-oh, what?" Paige asked.
"Um, honey, how soon do you have to be to the station?" Pearly asked.
"Why?" Paige had a sinking feeling that she wasn't going to like the answer.
Pearly picked up a bottle and looked at it. "Because your beau walked in just as I picked up the developer for your highlights, and maybe I was a bit distracted, because I used forty-volume developer instead of twenty volume."
"What does that mean to us non-beauticians?" Riley asked.
"Well, let's just say Paige's highlights aren't quite the subtle blond we were going for," Pearly said.
"What are they?" Paige asked, not quite sure she wanted to hear. "Because I have to be back at the station in half an hour.
Pearly shook her head as she toyed with the highlighted strands.
"What are they?" Paige asked again.
"Orange," Riley said.
"HI, I'M PAIGE MONTGOMERY, filling in for Dana Marcus tonight. . ."
Somehow she made it through the show with her slightly orange highlights. Pearly swore she'd fix them tomorrow, but there just hadn't been time tonight if Paige was going to make it to the station in thirty minutes.
Paige's choices had narrowed down to being late, or doing the news with orangeish hair.
She chose orange.
Pearly and Josie had tried to convince her it wasn't as bad as she thought, but Paige wasn't buying it. Riley, the cause of her hair disaster, didn't say a thing.
The fink.
When the show was over, she stormed toward her cubicle.
Riley Calhoon was responsible for her hair. He'd come into the salon and distracted Pearly, resulting in her stunningly orange highlights.
He'd wanted to get even, and he had. He'd gotten even and then some.
"Paige," called Penny, the receptionist. "You have a message from Riley—"
"Don't use that name around me ever again. If he calls again, tell him I said. . ." Paige drew in a big breath. "Never mind. Just take a message and toss it in the garbage."
"But—"
"Thanks."
Riley Calhoon had had his revenge. He blamed her for all sorts of things, from pushing him into a puddle that saved him from a rampaging truck, to a near miss at a hockey game, which was in no way her fault.
But he'd revenged himself.
She ran her fingers through her orange-streaked hair. He'd revenged himself in a very public way.
RILEY HAD CALLED the studio. He'd called Paige's house and all he got was an answering machine and no return call. He'd spent the entire evening trying to contact her. Finally, this morning he'd given up. He was going to have to corner her, face-to-face.
She was never going to believe how bad he felt. . .bad enough to apologize.
He almost didn't believe he was about to say the words. I'm sorry. They were two words Riley Calhoon tended to avoid. The Major used to say, Never apologize, never explain. It had been part of the Major's parenting guide.
Never apologize, never explain. Riley had adopted it as his motto as well—until now.
He couldn't believe he was standing here in the WMAC lobby, waiting to apologize to Paige Montgomery.
"Mr. Calhoon," the receptionist said, "Paige asked me to show you to her office." She got up and held the door open for him, and Riley followed her down the hall.
"It's not really an office," the woman explained. "It's more of a cubby, a hole in the wall. WMAC spares no expense for its staff, let me tell you," she added with a soft laugh.
It was a laugh designed to make a man sit up and take notice, but the only thing Riley noticed was that the woman kept talking. He barely even noticed that she was a knockout and that the view she presented, leading him down the hall, was one that should make him thank God he was a man.
That he'd only noted the woman's attributes, and certainly hadn't appreciated them with the depth of devotion they deserved, was Paige's fault. Normally he'd not only have noticed, but he'd have made a move to see if the woman was available. Now he really didn't care if she was available. He just wished she'd shut up. He wanted to concentrate on what he was going to say to Paige.
I'm sorry.
How hard could it be to say those two little words? Actually, I am sorry was three words, but if he made the I and am into a contraction, it was two. And he figured two words would have to be easier to say than three.
". . .and we won the award last year for. . ." the woman continued.
Riley barely registered her existence. His thoughts were on how to apologize.
He wasn't quite sure why he felt the need to say the words. After all, he was getting even with Paige. She'd pushed him into puddles, let her attack cat have its way with him, ruined a perfect sub, given him heartburn, made him miss a press conference, and got him an almost-concussion from basically falling on top of her.
All he'd done was distract a beautician and given Paige a few orange streaks in the process. They hadn't even been all that noticeable on television. He knew because he'd watched, just like he watched most nights.
Who had been injured the most?
Him. That's who.
". . .her office is back here. . ."
And yet, he'd seen the glow on Paige's face when Pearly was bragging about her filling in for the anchor, and then watched as her expression changed to horror when she looked in the mirror, he'd felt. . .bad.
Guilty.
Responsible.
So here he was, ready to venture into unknown territory and offer a heartfelt apology.
"Here you are, Mr. Calhoon."
It took him a moment to register that the receptionist had finally said something he wanted to hear. They stood outside a cubbyhole-ish cubicle.
"Thanks." He knocked on the side of the cubby. "Paige, can I come in?"
She was sitting at a cluttered desk—her hair once again a light brown with slightly blond highlights—glaring at him. "No. I had Penny show you here just so I could have the pleasure of kicking you out."
"Come on, Paige. I have something to say to you." He didn't wait for the invitation that obviously wasn't going to come. He stepped into the cubicle and looked around. "Nice place."
"Go away, Calhoon. I'm not interested in interviews or you. And I certainly apologize for ever thinking you were a hero." She paused a moment and sighed. "Just go away and leave me alone."
He moved a pile of papers from the small metal chair against the wall and dragged it in front of Paige's desk. "You know, you're not being very nice. I thought you prided yourself on being nice? WMAC, Where Nice News Matters. What would your news director say?"
"You seem to bring out the worst in me. Right now, I'm not feeling nice at all. People who know you would understand and support my less than nice attitude toward you. Just go away, Calhoon." She took the piece of paper she'd been writing on, crumpled it and threw it toward the wastepaper basket. Unfortunately, she wasn't a very good shot, and missed.
Riley absently noted that the paper had landed on the floor at his feet. Wondering what she had thrown away was easier than contemplating what he was about to do. But finally he looked up and forced himself to meet her eyes. A man could get lost in those dark brown depths, though Riley couldn't afford to lose himself. He had something to say—words that were choking him. "Listen, I wanted to say—"
"Save it. I've heard everything from you that I want to. Oh, maybe you could add a new refrain, something about having orange hair being my just reward. Well, maybe it is. Maybe I deserved to be humiliated on television yesterday because I thought there was something more to you than most people see. Maybe all the e-mails and phone calls from people asking what I did to my hair was what I deserved for being an optimist."
She sighed and ran
her fingers through her short hair. "Listen, when I said you were a hero I was wrong. You were right. Rescuing me was just an irregular blip in your surliness. So you don't need to follow me, don't need to try to prove that I was wrong. I admit it."
For some reason, hearing Paige repeat what he'd been saying all along bothered him. After all, why would he care if she saw him as a hero? He wasn't anyone's hero. He was simply a journalist doing a job. Having her acknowledge that was what he'd always wanted, and now he'd accomplished it. He should just turn around and leave. He should just. . .
He wasn't going anywhere, at least not until he said the words, so he took a deep breath and blurted out, "I wanted to apologize."
"What?" Paige stared at him. If he'd had to describe her expression, he'd have called it surprised.
No. Scratch that. Shocked.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry." There they were. Those two words. He'd said them and he lived to tell the tale.
On a roll, he continued, "I know I didn't actually turn your hair orange, but my tailing you to the beauty salon distracted Pearly and, well, I did instigate the situation. And I know you were excited about filling in as anchor, and I ruined the experience. I'm sorry about that, too."
"Wow." She looked bemused. "Wow," she repeated.
"If you tell anyone I apologized, I'll deny it," he said, but he smiled as he said it, and could see that Paige recognized the joke.
She shook her head and he thought he could hear the hint of a small laugh in her voice as she said, "Don't worry. I won't. They'd never believe me."
"I thought maybe. . ." Riley played with the collar of his shirt for a moment. It suddenly seemed tight and restrictive. Had someone moved the buttons in? That would be the kind of joke that would appeal to his colleagues.
"Well," he tried again. "Listen, I think we've both behaved like kids, trailing each other around town, trying to get the best of each other. What if we went to dinner and really talked this whole interview thing out?"
"Dinner? Talking? You do remember our last dinner, don't you?"
"Yeah." He was feeling hot and flushed. He took off his jacket and set it on his lap, hoping he didn't have sweat stains in the armpits of his dress shirt.
He was disgusting, sweating and stammering like some high school kid asking a girl on a first date.
Riley was no kid. He'd asked thousands of women out.
Okay, maybe hundreds.
Okay, maybe less than a hundred, but more than a few.
No matter what the amount, he'd never felt this nervous before. What was wrong with him? This wasn't a date as much as a business meeting.
"Are you the real Riley Calhoon?" Paige asked. "I mean, either you're a pod person, or the fumes in the beauty salon yesterday have affected you. Amnesia. That's the explanation. Because I can't imagine the real Riley remembering our first date and asking me out again, unless he'd in some way been altered or had his memory wiped."
"Listen, this was a mistake. Forget it." He stood and his jacket fell to the floor. He picked it up and, without even thinking, scooped up Paige's crumpled paper as well, then started toward the door.
"Riley, stop. Now I'm sorry. Don't go."
He turned back around, facing Paige.
"Really," she said, "I'm sorry. That wasn't like me. Except around you, I guess it is. Whenever we're together I get sarcastic and mean. And I'd like to apologize for that. That's not the kind of person I want to be."
She took a deep breath. "I'd love to have dinner with you and discuss whether an interview would work for either of us."
"When? I'll pick you up." His heart was beating so hard he wondered if Paige could hear it. And his palms were sweating.
"Can we do it tomorrow, about seven?" she asked. "You can pick me up at my place."
"That works for me. I remember where it is. See you then."
Riley hurried out of her cubbyhole before either of them said anything else that they shouldn't. He waited until he was outside the building to look at the paper Paige had tossed away.
It was his column. The one about renovating the Warner. The story was big here in Erie. The old theater had received a lot of television and print time. His column had nothing to do with Paige's report. Nothing at all.
Sections of the column were highlighted, but that's not what grabbed his attention. It was the picture the paper had run next to the column that caught his eye. He was standing in front of the Warner Theater.
Someone had drawn a dozen arrows throughout his body. One of the arrows hit a very intimate spot of Riley's anatomy that made the real Riley wince. But he noticed that it was the biggest arrow of them all and if you looked at it just right it looked like. . .
He grinned. Well, well, well. Pollyanna Paige wasn't as innocent or sweet as her viewers believed.
And for some reason, the thought made Riley extremely hot. . .not in his normal bad-tempered way, but in a hot-and-bothered, need-a-cold-shower way.
Pollyanna Paige was neither sweet nor innocent.
6
RILEY STOOD at Paige's neon-pink door and hesitated. What on earth was he doing here?
First he apologized, and now he was risking life and limb to take her out again.
"I must be insane," he muttered.
Pugsley voiced his gurgly, growly agreement.
Riley looked down at the dog. "And I don't know where we're going to go with you. You'll probably spend your evening in the car. You know that, don't you?"
Pugsley simply stood looking doggy eyed at Riley.
"I'm going out with a woman who's tried to kill me on more than one occasion, and bringing along a dog I never really wanted just adds to the fun. I think there's something wrong with me. Something that probably requires medication. I can't believe I'm doing this."
Before he could change his mind, he knocked on the door. The sooner this dinner started, the sooner it could end. The sooner it ended, the sooner he could get back to himself.
No one answered.
Fortune was finally smiling on Riley Calhoon.
"Look, Pugsley, she's not here. I guess we'll have to go home and—"
The door flew open and a less than ready Paige stood there in holey jeans and a Temple University sweatshirt. "Riley, you're early."
Fortune was a fickle mistress. His perfect escape, foiled by Paige Montgomery. Bowing to the inevitable, he tried to think of something to say.
"I'm not early. I'm right on time." It came out more surly than he intended, but that obviously didn't faze Paige.
She smiled and said, "Then I'm late. That's not entirely unusual. Well, come in and I'll go change. I—"
She looked down and noticed Pugsley. "You brought the dog on our date?" She bent down and patted the dog's head, and his stub of a tail wagged vigorously.
"It's not really a date. It's just a dinner to discuss a potential interview. I never used the word date." He wanted to be very clear on that point.
"And," he continued, "I didn't plan to bring the dog. But he misses me when I'm at work all day, and came to me with his leash when I started to the door. You know, I didn't even have to teach him that. He just knew it. He might be an old dog, but he's smart. So, anyway, there he was with his leash and. . .well, I couldn't say no. He can wait in the car while we eat, I guess."
He stopped talking, and in his mind replayed the words that had just tumbled out of his mouth. He'd been prattling. Running on and on at the mouth and not saying much of anything. Oh, maybe it wasn't as bad as that first day in the cab when he thought Paige was a pregnant woman about to give birth, but almost as bad.
Riley Calhoon didn't prattle. . .except, evidently, around Paige Montgomery.
Maybe she gave off some prattle-inducing pheromone?
"Or. . ." she said.
"Or?" What was she or-ing? What had he said? He couldn't remember. He had run on about such a large quantity of meaningless stuff all at once that he'd totally lost his train of thought and had no idea what he'd said.
Pugsley.
Relief flooded through his system. Pugsley. That's what they'd been talking about. The dog. Phew. Something to hang on to. He could talk about a dog without any elocution elopements. Without any discordant discourse. Without any bumbling babbling. Without—
He was pathetic.
". . .I could stay in my jeans, and simply order in a pizza, or Chinese, or something and we could eat here," Paige finished.
"You wouldn't mind?" he asked, surprised enough to rein in his rampaging thoughts and tongue.
Over the years he'd found most women wanted fancy restaurants and designer clothes.
"I don't mind at all. I prefer my jeans. If we eat in, I don't have to change. I had a long day, and probably would have canceled dinner with anyone else."
She'd have canceled dinner with anyone else but hadn't canceled on him. What did that mean? Riley wasn't sure, but the warm rush that flowed through his body at the thought made him nervous. More nervous than having dinner with Paige made him. He wasn't going to talk, or else he'd probably prattle again.
She shut the door with an ominous thud and ushered him into her still cluttered, loudly colored living room. "So what sounds good?"
A question. He had to talk. Talk, yes. Prattle? No. "It doesn't matter."
Doesn't. A contraction. He'd only said three words because he'd contracted does and not. Thank Webster's dictionary for contractions. He was learning to love them. You couldn't be prattling if you only said three words.
"Chinese then," Paige said. "What would you like?"
"Chicken and broccoli."
Three words again. Riley was king of short, succinct sentences. No prattling here. He was doing so well he could probably be a monk and take a vow of silence.
"Well, have a seat and I'll make the call, and then we'll talk."
She bent over and picked up a cordless phone from underneath a pile of newspapers on the table, exposing an excellent view of her backside and convincing Riley that there was no chance of monkhood in his future.
Desperately he tore his eyes away from her and concentrated on looking for a clean place to sit, while she dialed the number.