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and that dislike was reflected in the older man's dark, piercing eyes.
"How do you do?"Ralley asked as if he couldn't have cared less, when Nikki
introduced them.
He held out his hand, but Cal hesitated a few seconds before he took it, treating it
like dead meat.
"This is the editorial office," Nikki said, jumping in. "Ralley is our news editor. He
does most of the editorial writing and substitutes for me at city and county council
meetings when I'm tied up elsewhere. He edits column copy, too."
"Nikki's never needs editing," Ralley murmured, giving Nikki his most ardent look.
He came around the desk to slide an arm affectionately around her shoulders,
grinning when she stiffened in shock. "She's a super little writer," he added, "and I
tell her so twice a day, don't I, darling?"
Cal didn't say a word; the expression on his broad face didn't change. But
something in the gaze he pinned toRalley's face made the younger man remove his
arm and back away.
"I'll show you around," Ralley volunteered. "Thursdays aren't too hectic, except
for phone calls protesting what people read when the paper comes out on
Wednesdays. The really bad day is Tuesday, when we go to press. That's when we
all scream and tear our hair out and curse the telephone."
"It rings like mad all day long," Nikki added with a tight smile. Cal was as remote
now as if he'd been shot to the moon. She couldn't understandRalley's brazen move
any more than she could understand Cal's reaction to it. Surely he didn't believe
there was anything between her and Ralley? Surely Ralley didn't think she
stillcared. . . .!
"This is where the type comes from," Ralley told Cal, indicating a computer with a
screen and a key-board like a typewriter, with two extra narrow key-boards on
either side. "It's a computerized system, brand new, just like the big-city papers
have. Report-ers mostly set their own copy, but we have Billie to set the filler stuff
and thelegals ," he added with a wink at the petite blonde behind the computer.
"Is the newspaper printed here?" Cal asked quiet-ly-
"No," Nikki told him. "We have to carry it all the way to Mount Hebron, thirty
miles away. At that, it's still less expensive than buying the setup we'd need to do
it here. We do all the makeup andpaste-up , get our own ads and make them up—
everything, in fact, but the actual printing. Mike drives the paper down there
Wednesday morning and we get it back by that afternoon. Then we all rush to the
back, run the papers through the mailing plate machine to put the names on the
local papers, bag the single wraps, and get it in the mail. It's in the boxes Thursday
morning."
"And nobody comes by the office on Thursday and Friday, because they don't want
to bother us while we're working on the paper," the redheaded report-er, aptly
named Red Jones, piped in, pausing to in-troduce himself and short, dark Jerry
Clinton to the newcomer.
"Nobody realizes that we do that on Monday and Tuesday." Clinton grinned. "It's a
deep, dark se-cret."
"These two handle the police beat and the adver-tising, respectively," Nikki said.
"We're all inter-changeable, of course, and we all do makeup and paste-up."
"And Jenny keeps the books," Mike broke in, join-ing them. "Came to see if I was
working, huh?" he teased Nikki.
Cal arched his eyebrows at the neat, orderly opera-tion. "I expected to find a desk
buried under reams of paper and old journalism books and yellowed back issues
stacked on shelves. I'm impressed."
"You should have seen the place when my father was alive." Mike chuckled. "He
used to inspect the office once a week wearing white gloves. God help the staff if
he found dust. Care for some coffee? We have our own snack bar in the back."
"No, thanks," Cal replied before Nikki could open her mouth. "I've got some phone
calls to make."
"See you at the house, then," Mike murmured, sensing undercurrents.
"Nice to have met you," Cal told the rest of the staff, his eyes stopping short of
Ralley.
They echoed the polite remark. Ralley, seeing op-portunity slamming at his door,
moved forward and tugged a lock of Nikki's hair in an old, affectionate intimacy.
"See you later," he said, keeping his tone uniform with the gesture. "Take care of
her, Mr. Steel," he added with a curt smile.
"Good-bye, Ralley," Nikki said, her glowing eyes promising retribution at the
earliest opportunity. "Thanks for all your help."
Ralley ignored the sarcasm. No way was he going to let that big-shot outsider swipe
his girl. He'd seen Nikki first, and he wasn't giving her up. He didn't plan to let her
slip through his fingers this time. He'd been a fool to let her go, but Leda's charms
had blinded him. He was older now, and wiser, and he wasn't going to hand Nikki
over to some expensive stranger. She couldn't be serious about that big man,
anyway; God knew he was years older than she was. Mike had mentioned something
about him being a tycoon, but Ralley was skeptical. Afterall the guy could have been
pretending. But even if he did have all that money, it wouldn't take the place of
love. Nikki still loved him, he told himself smugly. All he had to do was prove it to
her. He walked back into his office whistling.
* * *
"Are you going to ignore me for the rest of the day?" Nikki asked as she and Cal
sat down alone to a small lunch.
Cal glanced at her, dark-eyed and unapproacha-ble, over his coffee cup. He'd been
pleasant enough since that visit to the office, but it was all on the surface.
Cal was just as remote as he'd been on the drive home, and she wondered if a
sledgehammer would dent him.
"I won't be here for the rest of the day," he said quietly.
"You're leaving?" she asked, her eyes wincing, her disappointment almost a physical
ache.
"I'm a businessman. I've got too many irons in the fire to stay here." He finished
his coffee.
She'd noticed that he'd changed into a beige suit, with a matching tie, that he was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]