She laid a hand on Mitch’s shoulder, as if trying to communicate to him that she wasn’t angry with him. He saw Dan Phillips register the gesture and frown before she was out the door, leaving it swinging shut behind her.

13

EVE COULD ONLY be grateful that watching the video cut into segments for her by the show’s editor required every ounce of her concentration. The script for their male/female communications show, which she’d been working on this morning, didn’t need much support from her. She’d structured the show so that Dr. Birdsall’s commentary on these video clips would be the highlight.

She was glad that for once, the focus wouldn’t be on her.

Sitting in one of the station’s three editing booths, she and Cole approved the segments they would send to Dr. Birdsall, which had been promised by 8:00 p.m. Try as she might, though, every time the editor finished a clip and saved it into its own file-“Cole, don’t let me forget to follow up and see if Nicole got that stripper housewife booked”-the anger and guilt bubbled up out of the cracks in her concentration.

If she’d been alone, she could have fumed at Dan aloud. But as it was, she had to stuff him in a box in the back of her mind. She’d take him out later and yell at him in private-in her imagination.

Or better yet, she could call Mitch and they’d yell at him together, in absentia. Maybe she’d do that, as soon as she and Cole were finished. Any excuse to hear that voice one more time.

“Four clips, right?” The editor ran the digital counter under the last frame and clicked the mouse. “One for each five minutes?”

“I think so. If we keep them to two minutes each, that gives Dr. Birdsall time for her analysis and me time to elaborate. Plus a minute each for the opening monologue and my close.”

“Have I told you lately how brilliant this idea is?” Cole watched the editor save the four clips up to the production server, where two of their five camera operators would run them at the times Eve had indicated in her script. “It’s something new. I bet that you’ll get a boatload of letters asking that the town halls be moved permanently to Thursday. The chance that an audience member can star in their own segment will be a big draw. Reality TV comes to Atlanta.”

“We’ll see. If the lines get any longer, we’ll have to hire bouncers.”

Cole thanked the editor for his work, and when the kid had made his escape, he opened an e-mail screen. “What’s Dr. Birdsall’s addy?”

She gave it to him, and watched him type a message letting the psychologist know where she could view the clips. When he hit Send, she glanced at the clock. Eight-fifteen. A little late to call Mitch. She’d make it an early night. Lord knew she could use it, after getting next to no sleep the night before.

Had it only been the night before? It seemed a week ago.

“Everything okay with you, Evie?” Cole asked, leaning back in his chair as the e-mail went off into cyberspace. “You seem…preoccupied.”

What a sweetheart he was. He had his own problems with being a single dad, not least among them the fact that he’d had to arrange child care in order to stay here with her tonight. And still he could take the time to show her his concern, the way he had since the earliest days at the station when they’d both been green as beans.

“I am,” she admitted. “I didn’t mean for it to show, though.”

“About the buyout? Or about…other things?”

“Both.”

“I figured so.” He stretched his big frame, making the chair squeak. Not for the first time, Eve wondered what kept him in this industry when he was so much happier bushwhacking around the wilderness or loading his kids and the dog into a canoe in the north woods. “Word in the halls is that Dan’s got his panties in a twist about us choosing CWB.”

“Word in the halls is right. But what’s worse is that SBN and CBS have come back and said that they’ll let us stay in Atlanta, too.”

Cole lifted an eyebrow. “And this doesn’t make us jump for joy because…”

“Because I don’t think they mean it. I think it’s a bait and switch to cut CWB out before any signatures go on paper.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. From what you said, they seemed pretty adamant about New York in the beginning.”

With a sigh, she said, “I have to admit this is getting to me. I thought we had a decision we could all be happy with. Now I have to call another meeting and present the new offer to everyone. And goodness knows how that will go. It’s pretty hard to turn down more money plus staying here if that’s all you see.”

“I think Nicole sees the big picture. And Jane and Zach would, too. But yeah, it’s still a risk.” He paused. “Word in the halls didn’t stop there.”

“Oh?”

He grinned at her. “You have that innocent look perfected. It’s me, remember?”

Someday, some lucky woman would convince this guy that she could be trusted. Eve looked forward to that day.

“I never forget,” she said, smiling back. “Come on, out with it.”

“It’s kind of personal.”

Obviously it was. It had probably gone around the station at the speed of light. “I can handle it.”

“Word is that you and the CWB guy have a thing going on. That being the reason you want to go with them instead of the big guys.”

“Is it, now?” Keeping something on the down low around here was like keeping M &M’s in your desk. It wasn’t a matter of if someone would find them, but when. “Are people saying he’s romancing me to get the deal? Do they know how insulting that is?”

“I don’t know, Eve. It seems too pat that he’d appear out of nowhere like this and sweep you off your feet, just when they need you on their roster.”

“And I’m ripe for the picking, being totally inexperienced where good-looking men are concerned.” Her tone dripped sarcasm, but Cole only reddened slightly. She had to give him credit. He wasn’t ducking and running.

“You know that’s not it. You have a good head on your shoulders-not to mention more knowledge about the subject than any ten women. Besides, God help any guy who hurts you. After you’re done with him, the rest of us will run over his remains with the camera dolly.”

“You think Mitch is going to hurt me? Are you giving me relationship advice, Cole?”

“No, I’m passing on the dirt is all. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Well, if it should come up again, you can let the hallway gossips know that if-and I stress the if- there were anything between me and Mitchell Hayes, it would have occurred after the team agreed to the deal, not before.”

“If?” Again that questioning eyebrow.

“So maybe there might be now. I don’t know.”

“No kidding.” A slow grin, different from the previous one, spread across his face. “Good for you, Evie.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “What they’re saying.”

“Who cares? If the guy honestly makes you happy and he’s on the up-and-up, it’s nobody’s business. I’d be careful, though. You don’t want to compromise the deal.”

“I’m not giving anyone any ammunition. We don’t see each other very much, and when we do, we keep it private.”

“Except for those lunches in the park.”

“Where we sit at opposite ends of a hard bench and talk. Good grief, are people saying we’re at it like rabbits under a bush?”

He laughed, the sound burying itself in the egg-carton walls of the editing booth, which was part of the recording suite. “I wouldn’t go that far, but there was much interested speculation. Not everyone is suspicious. Some of us are happy for you, Eve. We think you work too much.”

Maybe that was true. “Y’all will be happy to know I’m not working on the weekend, then.”

“Got something fun planned? The girls and I are taking the boat out.”

“I was thinking of Mirabel.” At his puzzled look, she elaborated. “It’s a plantation house south of Social Circle.” She hesitated and then decided to go on. This was, after all, the man she trusted day in and day out with her public self. Why shouldn’t she trust him with a glimpse into her private self? That’s what she planned to do with Mitch, right? “A hundred years ago, my family used to own it.”