DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN Page 10

  “No longer here?” she asked the man behind Paulson’s desk. “You mean he doesn’t work here anymore?”

  “That’s usually what it means,” the man said. He was stooped down removing files from a box on the floor and had not bothered to look up.

  “So you’re taking his place?”

  “He’s out and I’m in. Like Project Runway? Sometimes you’re in, sometimes you’re out?” He pointed to the nametag on the desk. Luther Finley, it read. Assistant Editor.

  “That’s me,” he said. “Except I’m Editor now. You can drop the assistant. And everybody calls me Luke.”

  But this was all so strange to Nikki. She didn’t quite know what to say.

  He glanced up at her, but had to quickly look back down again when a stack of folders he had on his desk almost collapsed to the floor. He grabbed them and began stacking them into the bottom desk drawer. “Sit down,” he said as he stacked. “It’s not that surprising surely.”

  Nikki didn’t know what he meant, because no longer having Joe Paulson as her editor was damned surprising. But she sat down anyway.

  Then he finally stood up, and looked up. Although he was handsome, he was what Nikki would call ruggedly handsome, with his five-o-clock shadow facial hair, his long, straggly blond hair, his tall, slender body in jeans and a dress shirt that appeared rumpled on purpose, and his blue eyes against his beautifully tanned skin.

  But what mainly caught her attention was his age. He couldn’t have been much older than she was. And he was her new editor?

  “You’re Nikki Graham, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Nikki said.

  But Luke couldn’t stop staring at her. He even walked from behind the desk and moved to the front edge, without once taking his eyes off of her. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it.

  Nikki was perplexed, and then plain annoyed. “You’re staring, sir,” she said.

  He folded his arms and leaned against the desk, with his legs spread out and folded at the ankles. A look of amazement was now on his unshaven face. “I remember you,” he said.

  Nikki stared at him. She didn’t remember him.

  “You went to Brannon, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Nikki said. “We met at Brannon?”

  “We did. I attended there too. You were a couple years behind me, but I remember you. Nikki, right? They called you Nikki. If you weren’t on campus handing out leaflets about some cause of the week, you were in town handing them out. You used to always tell guys to get lost when they tried to get your number.”

  Nikki smiled.

  “Am I right?” he asked.

  “You’re right,” she nodded.

  But Luke already knew he was right because he was one of those guys. He used to have a thing for her, in fact, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day. “Yeah, I remember you,” he said again. “I never forget a pretty face.”

  Nikki didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.

  “And you’re our wayward reporter? You? The sweet little innocent activist from B.U.?”

  Nikki laughed. He made her sound like a nun. “Yes. I’m the wayward one.”

  “You had that shouting match with the mayor.”

  It wasn’t something she was proud of. “Yes,” she said.

  He nodded his head. And looked into her bright brown eyes. He also looked down, at her soft neck, her attentive breasts, that crisp yellow blouse against her dark skin. She still looked good, he thought. “You’re that Nikki Graham?”

  Nikki smiled. “And you’re that new editor. Which begs the question: what happened to our old editor? To Mr. Paulson?”

  Luke shimmied his body until he was seated on top of the desk, his feet off of the ground. “He refused to reinstate you. From what I understand he kept insisting that a reporter should never become the story and when you made yourself the story it crossed a line. Then he started blabbering on about his values and his integrity, as if nobody had them but him, so Herb Poindexter gave him an ultimatum. Either bring you back, or he can leave. Remarkably, he chose to leave. I was an assistant editor at Poindexter’s newspaper over in Indianapolis when I got the call. He said I was now the new editor and told me to get my ass here as fast as I could get my ass here. I got my ass here. And so I’m here. At least for now.”

  Nikki was actually pleased by this development. She and Paulson never did get along.

  “Yeah, they moved breakneck fast on this one,” Luke went on. And then he smiled and nodded his head. “You must have friends in high places, young lady.”

  And it wasn’t until he said that did she realize Daniel’s role in all of this. That phone call from Herb Poindexter wasn’t just because she was his best reporter and he decided to do the right thing. It was undoubtedly because Daniel had called in yet another favor on her behalf. Daniel was the one with friends in high places. Friends like Herb Poindexter. Which meant Daniel had a definite hand in her reinstatement. And which also meant that she, she now realized, had a definite hand in causing a man to lose his job.

  “Don’t worry,” Luke said when he saw the sudden anguish on her face. “Paulson’s own actions caused his firing. Not you. All he had to do was obey the boss and let you back on the job. But he refused. Yeah, you mouthed off at some press conference, but so what? That didn’t give him the right to disobey an order.”

  “Let me just say this about that,” Nikki said in a tone she knew sounded defensive. “I know I gave the mayor a hard time at that presser, and I know you might think I was out of line too. But I felt I was doing the job a journalist is paid to do. I was asking tough questions. I was forcing him to speak the truth.”

  “I know you were,” Luke said as if it went without saying. “Damn right you were. You don’t have to defend yourself with me. I already like your style, Nikki Graham.”

  Nikki smiled. Was this guy for real? Had she found a kindred spirit? “Are you sure about that?” she asked. “That style is what almost got me fired from the Gazette.”

  “No almost in it,” he said with a chuckle. “It did get your ass fired from the Gazette!” She laughed. “At least for a minute,” he added. “But Joe Paulson and Mr. Poindexter were wrong to begin with. Firing you because you questioned the mayor? That’s wacked. Don’t even sweat that. Your performance may have damaged you in Joe Paulson’s eyes, but in my eyes I would expect nothing less from my reporters.”

  Nikki appreciated that. “Thank-you,” she said, heartfelt. “Thank-you very much.”

  Luke smiled too and stared at Nikki. She was beautifully dressed, in a gold and grey pair of pants, a yellow blouse that again he noticed illuminated her beautiful brown skin and bright brown eyes. And every time she smiled her cheeks lifted up. An African princess, he thought, as he stared at her. And he suddenly had an urge to know more. “How long have you lived in Wakefield?” he asked her.

  “I was born and raised here.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “So you went to college here at Brannon, and decided to stay here. What, you have sick parents that you have to stay around to take care of?”

  “No,” Nikki said. She wasn’t about to go that deep into her personal life with him. “I decided to finish college and stay in town.”

  “Now that’s a twist,” Luke said with a smile. “Most small town kids go away to college and never look back. Let alone come back to live. You stayed here for college, graduated, and then decided to stay forever. So you love this place that much?”

  “Not really, no.”

  Luke laughed. He didn’t expect that answer. “Okay.”

  Nikki knew she needed to explain. “It’s just that The Gazette was willing to hire me right out of school, so I figured I would get some experience in a community I knew, and then branch out into the big wide world.”

  “Now that’s smart. Most people our age aren’t patient enough to think that logically. So how long have you been working for the Gaz
ette?”

  “Over two years now.”

  He smiled. “Damn girl. That’s a long enough time, don’t you think?”

  Nikki thought about Daniel. She had every intention of going the normal, never look back route too. Until she fell hard for Daniel, who wasn’t about to leave Dreeson, and therefore not about to leave Wakefield. Since she wasn’t about to leave him, she stayed.

  “I get your point,” she said. “And yes, two years is plenty of experience. And to be honest with you, I had every intention of being long gone by now. But . . .”

  “Let me guess,” Luke said. “But your husband is a hometown boy who wants to stay put, so you decided to stay put too. Something like that?”

  “I don’t have a husband, but something like that.”

  Luke nodded. A boyfriend then, he figured, but he saw that to mean she was still fair game. He stood up. “So you’re one of our roving reporters?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well I’m glad to know it,” he said as he began walking back behind his desk. “Just keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll get along fine.”

  Nikki smiled. She was pleasantly surprised.

  And by the time she left Luke’s office, he was pleasantly surprised too. More than she would ever know. Like many of the guys at college, he had his eyes on her big time. There was something so refreshing and honest about her. So innocent. But she didn’t give him, or any of those college boys, the time of day.

  He’d heard at the time that she had her some sugar daddy somewhere, and therefore wasn’t about to waste her time on “boys” like them, but he never knew that to be a fact. And now it didn’t matter. Because she wasn’t married. Because whomever she was involved with didn’t have the good sense to marry her and take her off the market. Which meant she was going to be his for the taking. Which meant this shitty-ass assignment in this shitty little town just might turn out to be extremely interesting, after all.

  Daniel lived in the most exclusive neighborhood in Wakefield: Walden Woods. He lived in a big, sprawling, two-story colonial forth from the corner on Old Spanish Trail. Nikki drove slowly along the tree-lined streets of old-styled homes and mansions until she was pulling into the circular driveway of Daniel’s home and parking her Lexus behind his Jaguar. Inside his four-car garage were three additional vehicles, all three of which he almost never drove: a classic ‘62 Mercedes 220SE Cabriolet, a classic ‘42 Jaguar XK120, and a spanking brand new Ford F-150 pick-up truck. It seemed like such a waste to Nikki, to have that many virtually unused vehicles, but since he never asked her opinion on the subject of his car collection, she never gave it.

  Inside the home, Daniel was preparing dinner in a pullover V-neck shirt and a pair of Levis. After a grueling day of work he cherished his down time. And when he heard Nikki’s Lexus drive up, he felt even more relieved. He especially cherished the time he could spend with her.

  He did a quick stir of his boiling pasta and then sipped from the glass of wine he had on his center island. But once again, as he had been doing a lot lately, he wondered where their relationship was really headed. They’d been dating for four years now, and his feelings for her, contrary to what he expected when they first got together, was growing stronger, not weaker.

  But the idea of marrying Nikki, when she’d never even dated another man before, was unsettling to him. He knew he should have given her the green light to date other men long ago, so that she could be certain, after experiencing men her own age, if he was the one she truly wanted. But as their relationship evolved from a sexual attraction to an emotional attachment, and then to love, he couldn’t do it. He wanted her for himself and himself alone, and he kept it that way. He even forbade her from seeing anybody else, insisting that they were in a committed, monogamous relationship. Now it was four years later and decisions, he knew, had to be made. They couldn’t continue this way forever. It wouldn’t be fair to Nikki.

  At first he felt he was doing the right thing. When he first started dating Nikki she was only twenty years old. He was amazed he had allowed himself to date someone that young, but he was smitten with her. He took it slow on purpose then, to give her time to grow up and decide if she really wanted to go down a road with a man fifteen years her senior. Although she seemed certain by week two, he thought with a smile, he knew she was only impressed because he was such a cut above those dorky college kids she’d been around. So taking it slow in the beginning was understandable. But four years of taking it slow, especially since Nikki was no longer a kid and had developed into a magnificent woman, was hard to continue to justify.

  And in many ways he knew what he had to do. Because the idea of not having Nikki in his life was an impossibility at this stage. That wasn’t going to happen. He would be worried sick about her, and about her well-being, if she wasn’t in his life. But the idea of marrying her, of marrying anyone, was just as unsettling for Daniel.

  As he removed the boiling pasta from the burner to prepare it for tossing, the doorbell rang. He wiped his hands on the dishcloth and made his way up front. She had a key, but only used it when it was necessary.

  When he glanced through his massive living room window and saw her standing at his front door, he smiled. She was the one he wanted. And although it wasn’t always that way, he was now completely devoted to her. He opened the door.

  “You sure took your pretty time getting here,” she said with a smile as she walked up to him.

  He smiled too, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her with a long, lingering kiss on the lips.

  “You smell great,” he said.

  “You don’t smell like chop liver yourself,” she replied as they stopped embracing. “Pasta, but not chop liver.”

  He laughed, slapped her on her tight ass, and hurried back to his pasta. “Close the door and come back here with me,” he said as he hurried.

  Nikki smiled at the idea of a domesticated Daniel Crane as she closed the door and walked further into a home that looked almost antiseptically clean to her. Like a showroom. His furnishings were all antique Victorian and seemingly untouched by human butts, and the artwork that hung on the walls, from Renoir to little known Otto Gellen, only enhanced the sterile feel. What this house needed was a woman, Nikki once joked to Daniel. But Daniel, being Daniel, she thought, didn’t even crack a smile.

  “You heard me?” she asked as she entered his kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Pasta,” he said, as he placed his pasta into a pan mixed with scallops and vegetables, and covered them for a slow simmer. “You already guessed it.”

  “Whatever you’re cooking,” she said as she sat up on the stool at the granite countertop of his center island, “I’ll eat. I’m just that hungry.”

  After covering his pan, he walked over to the island and poured her a glass of wine. “How was your day?” he asked as he poured.

  “It was great,” she said. “But I guess you already knew that.”

  Daniel smiled.

  “Thanks for talking to Mr. Poindexter.”

  “That was no problem.”

  “Except that they fired Mr. Paulson.”

  This was news to Daniel. He knew Herb would reinstate Nikki, but he never realized at what cost. “Did they?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and he could see the regret in her eyes.

  “It’s not your fault, babe,” he reassured her as he handed her the glass of wine. “You did nothing wrong.”

  “I know,” she said, accepting the drink. “That’s what Luke said too. He’s our new editor. But Paulson didn’t want to take me back, even when Mr. Poindexter said he had to. But he wouldn’t relent. He acted like it would be against his principles to have me working at the Gazette. Like I was some kind of unethical reporter or something just because I questioned the mayor’s motives.”

  “You and Joe Paulson never did click.”

  “You’re right. Paulson always felt like I was too young to be working at a prestigious paper like the Gazette, a
nd he never really believed in me. But dang. He knew my work ethic. I work harder than anybody else on staff and he knew it. But none of that ever mattered to him. I guess he figured because you got Mr. Poindexter to hire me to begin with, I must be illegitimate. They all seem to think that. Even after I prove myself over and over again. So he was fired today. But it’s just. . .”

  A sadness came into Nikki’s big, bright eyes. Daniel stared into those eyes.

  “I’m sure that man has a family to feed,” she continued, “and I just hate that it had to come to this. I’m sure he never dreamed he’d wake up yesterday morning and just because I got into it with the mayor, find himself out of a job today.” She looked up at Daniel. “Even though I know it’s his fault and he should have just followed orders like he was supposed to do, I still hate that it had to come to that.”

  Daniel wanted to pull her into his arms. She was all heart, he thought. “Want me to see what I can do?” he asked her.

  Nikki looked at him hopefully. “You actually think Mr. Poindexter will reinstate him?”

  “No. But if you want me to ask, I can ask.”

  He could tell Nikki was thinking hard about this. He was always taken by how serious she took her responsibilities.

  But then she shook her head. “You’d better not,” she said. “If he comes back I could become his prime target. He could sabotage me all kinds of ways, from giving me stupid assignments to giving me impossible ones and then declare I’m in over my head and shouldn’t be there myself. I may end up the one without a job.”

  Daniel nodded his head. “I’m glad you understand that,” he said. Then he pointed his glass of wine at her. “Don’t you ever feel sorry for a man who hates your guts. You hear me? He got what he deserved. You just continue to do your job and stay out of those office politics. Understand?”

  “I understand,” Nikki said. “Besides,” she added, “if Joe Paulson were to come back then we’d lose Luke.” Then she smiled. “I’d rather have Luke.”

  Daniel gave the silence time to say what else it needed to say. And, as he expected, Nikki spoke in the silence. “We were in college together, believe it or not.”