Shockwave (Calendar Men: Mr. May) (2 page)

“I only included my best.”

“So, what you’re saying is, your best doesn’t include feel-good stories?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Did you not say, Ms. Sawyer, your samples are of your best?”

She opened her mouth and he lifted his hand, cutting her off.

“I don’t need an article on war orphans.” He turned another page and froze. Leo stared at the photo for what seemed like forever. Lannie squirmed. Seconds later he turned the book around and jabbed his finger onto the image. “I need him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Him. What part of ‘I’m doing a calendar shoot’ do you not understand?” Leo gave her such an intense look, she had to force herself to remain seated, instead of slinking away with her tail tucked between her legs.

“He....”
Doesn’t like me
.

“I assume you know him. He is the star of your Pulitzer-winning story, right? You even took the picture—am I correct?”

“Yes, but he....”
Told me if he saw me again, he’d have me served me with a restraining order
.

“Great. We need heroes like him. I’ve seen him on television, in the papers. I’ve left messages, but he doesn’t return them. I need an in, someone who will get him to say yes. The women love him, he has an international following, and his presence could boost sales through the roof. If he jumps onboard with the charity calendar, you’ve got the job. You can have an exclusive, interviews with all the men, the whole bit.” He reached into his desk and held out his card. “As soon as he agrees, call me.”

She took the card and swallowed. Great. She needed this job. There was no way in a million years Tanner North would agree to the shoot, and even less of a chance she’d get close enough to ask without him making good on his threat.

Lannie grabbed her portfolio and shook Leo’s hand. After all the award-winning stories she’d written, one would think she wouldn’t be facing bankruptcy. But her grandmother lived in a private nursing home, and every dime she’d saved up in the last five years had gone toward her care.

If she didn’t secure a better paying job soon, she’d have to look into some state facilities, which weren’t as suitable as Sunny Glen. Transferring her last living grandparent to a place she didn’t trust created a whole different kind of stress to add to her already over-taxed life.

A state facility wouldn’t give her grandmother the one-on-one care she deserved. Desperation had driven her into Leo Russo’s office, vying for a job working on building hype for a male calendar shoot, and she’d almost dropped to her knees and begged.

Almost.

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam
—I’ll either find a way or make one—her mantra for tough times reminded her of the military saying, ‘adapt, improvise, and overcome.’ Sometimes you had to switch up your tactics—own the situation—and that’s what she planned to do.

Time to gird her loins and kick some ass. Tanner North didn’t have an option because she didn’t have an option. Lannie had always been a fighter. She had to get Tanner North to agree. No alternative. The write-up on the calendar shoot didn’t pay great. Charities never did, but the job could get her foot in the door for some of the more respectable magazines and papers in the city, leading to steadier, better-paying, not to mention serious, journalistic employment.

Her Pulitzer winner cost her a job that paid what she needed. Her boss claimed their covering the story instead of getting back as ordered, could have led the bomber to detonate, killing the woman passenger. She’d tried to explain war correspondents went to the action and faced danger, to report the news then listed several of the more prominent reporters.

He agreed the journalists she’d mentioned had risked their lives to get their stories, and some had even lost them, but their actions hadn’t put others’ lives in danger, as hers had.

Fired and ostracized from the ranks of her credible peers, she’d stooped to a new low and joined the ranks of the gossip rag reporters. Then, when even that less than favorable employment failed to pay the bills and get her out of her downward spiral, she’d written another, less than flattering piece on the same war hero who’d earned her a Pulitzer, and sold the article to the
Star Chaser
. She’d even interviewed his ex when he refused to talk to her time and time again. But, her tenacity paid off. She’d gotten a quote from him, and, boy, she’d run with it.

After her article, Tanner rose from hero to star and every woman in the city lusted after him. The
Star Chaser
even offered her a full-time job, but she had no inclination to move to California, not with her grandmother living upstate—not after it took her months to find the perfect home and even longer to get her a room there. And she didn’t want a better-paying gossip magazine job at all. She had to find a way off of the lower level and back in the penthouse of correspondence jobs, reporting real news, making a difference. And scrambling from one rung on a rotted ladder to the other wouldn’t get her what she wanted, regardless how high she climbed. What she earned paid pennies compared to what she’d made before, and couldn’t compare to the adrenaline rush of the hard-core reporting she craved.

She needed gritty and dangerous, the kind of assignment that would put her out in the field, covering the war on terror. Not one writing about photo-shopped celebrities made to look like they were doing something scandalous, or twisting their words to suit her boss’s agenda. And damn if she wouldn’t find a way to resume her career. Tanner North would not stand in her way. She’d hurdled bigger obstacles than the tall drink of explosive ordnance specialist.

Once in the parking garage, Lannie tossed her purse on the passenger side seat, buckled up, and headed to Watertown to visit Noni. She had until the end of the month, two weeks, to find lucrative employment, or her sweet grandmother would be turned out. The drive up and back would provide a little time to formulate a plan, the best strategy to get the NYC bomb squad hero to agree—after the heartbreaker article.

The trip north wasn’t too bad, but after eight hours on the road, she wanted to crash into a soft bed, even if the dash read six o’clock. She hadn’t seen Noni in a month and missed her. The need to check in on her grandmother’s wellbeing kept her from following through on the thought.

She couldn’t let her down. All her life, her grandmother had been there for her—after her mother had abandoned her for a drug habit, new boyfriend, and a Hollywood dream of becoming the next great starlet twenty-four years before. Days after her fourth birthday. Noni had been the only mother she’d ever known.

She’d been there for her first prom, when she took Best of Show at the state fair for her photojournalism display of a dying farm, and when her heart had been broken the first, second, and third time she’d fallen in love with the wrong man. No matter what event in her life, good or bad, Noni had always been there, and now the time had come to return the favor, give back some of the love she’d so generously shared.

Lannie stepped out and stretched, inhaling a deep breath of the crisp air. Snow and ice covered the parking lot, when the Big Apple’s streets had been bare. Weather upstate proved unpredictable. With Lake Ontario to the West, snow and ice were more common than not, so it shouldn’t surprise her to see a crusty layer coating everything, even though they were halfway into May. Lannie shivered and retrieved her suit coat from the back seat, having forgotten how big a temperature difference there could be between the two places, cursing she’d been in too much of a hurry to change into something less—professional. A big mistake.
Damn, the wind is cold
.

Halfway to Watertown, she’d stopped to use the bathroom and address a huge run in her nylons. Her toe had popped through the end, so she’d taken her pantyhose off, instead of putting up with the annoying nylon strangling her big toe whenever she stepped on the brake or gas. And since she’d forgone underwear to avoid panty-lines, not only did she sport bare legs, but had gone commando, too. As she looked at the glazed concrete, she kicked herself for not going to her room first to change.

Not one hour had passed after she left the city and her feet throbbed. She’d been forced to shell out good money for the ridiculous slippers. Too late to go home and change, she’d had to bite the proverbial bullet and get them from a gas station’s tourist corner. Big, furry orange feet. The slippers were a horrible attempt at looking like the SUNY mascot, Otto, complete with eyes, and ram’s horns.
Go Syracuse!

Bad enough she had to part with her hard-earned money for them, no way would she wear the monstrosities in public. One, they weren’t made for the outdoors and two, she didn’t want anyone to know she owned something so—juvenile.

She never did anything that would make someone take her less than seriously—other than work for a gossip rag, but that couldn’t be helped, and she made her stories as serious as they could be, given the circumstances. Public image had to be maintained at all times, because she intended to be back in a respectable position someday.

Which left her with one alternative. Walking in the stilettos across the ice would be interesting. She’d be lucky not to land on her ass and break a leg. Well, at least Noni wouldn’t have to worry about her wearing clean underwear.

She snorted back a laugh.

Well, she was here now and had no intention of traveling the half hour to the hotel to change. By the time she got back, they would’ve shut down to visitors for the evening. Lannie eyed the parking lot. How hard could navigating the hazard be? In the city, women wore the spike heels all the time, and she’d never watched one land on her ass and she’d never found herself in that situation, but then again, the walk outside her brownstone had always been clear and salted, and she used the parking garage directly attached to her place of work.

Still, she needed to see Noni. Her grandmother always had a way of helping her figure things out and she needed her solid advice. So, she’d brave the next great ice age in her above-the-knee pencil skirt and five-inch heels—with or without panties.

Stupid choice. She’d worn the outfit hoping to score her bonus points in the interview. In the cutthroat world of male-dominated journalism, she’d learned to use every advantage available. If a girl had great legs, she made sure to show as much of them as she could, while still maintaining a professional appearance. She could get in the trenches with them, but crawling through the mud didn’t stop her from being female.

Dressing for the interview had been a delicate balancing act, and she’d thought she’d nailed it until she walked into that office and came face to face with a Greek god who could care less what she looked like, or that she’d won a Pulitzer Prize. He’d exhibited interest only in her connection with Tanner North—a man who despised her.

She should have told him to piss off, but the job held too much importance to let her ego get in the way. But she hadn’t expected Lucifer to be sitting at the desk, and she’d thought for sure she could sway him in her favor by leaving a button or two undone, showing a touch of her cleavage in the red lace of her two-hundred dollar demi-cup.

Yeah, her idea had gone well. He hadn’t even looked at her until he saw Tanner’s photo. All business. Leonidas Russo had taken her down a notch—hell, he’d knocked her off her pedestal and convinced her he didn’t care if she had legs to the moon, a nice set of ta-tas, or gasp-worthy awards.

Oh no, she wouldn’t get the job unless she booked Tanner North. There would be no schmoozing her way into the position. He’d given her a mission and, if she failed, there wouldn’t be a second chance.

Lannie picked her way across the icy patches on the parking lot, looking for any spot with crunchy snow that might provide a little traction. She didn’t want or need a broken ankle and had already stretched her budget enough to cover Noni’s medical expenses.

She stepped on what looked like a safe patch and her feet flew out from under her, sending her to her backside before she realized what had happened. It took seconds to realize the only damage done was to her pride. Lannie twisted to look at the car halfway across the lot, and back down at the shoes she’d chosen to wear over the safe slippers that she’d left tucked into the front, passenger-side floor. Stupid. What had she thought she’d accomplish? Only the elderly resided inside, and they could care less about how she looked.

Gah! She slapped the ice and bent to unbuckle the shoes, slipping them off. Barefoot, across the ice. Oh joy. Two minutes later, she arrived at the front door, frozen, her ass and toes tingling, irritated she hadn’t taken five minutes before leaving town, or a detour to the room she’d reserved to change into jeans, a sweater, and something with better tread on the soles. Such foresight would have made her trip to the front door easier, and less hazardous.

Worse, she would repeat her icy dance on the way out.

By now, almost seven-thirty, Noni would have taken her medications, and preparing to go to sleep, not coherent enough to talk about her granddaughter’s troubles. Lannie glanced at her watch and sighed. She should have called ahead, but she hadn’t anticipated the half-hour she’d spend navigating the obstacle course outside, and she sure as hell didn’t want to turn back until she said hello to the woman who raised her.

She slipped on her shoes, walked up to the nurse’s station, and smiled at an older woman with a salt and pepper pixie cut. “Hi, Peggy.”

Peggy looked up and smiled. “Hello, Lannie. I’d begun to wonder where you’d gotten off to. So used to seeing you every other week.”

“I’ve been busy, trying to find work.”

“Yeah, tough market out there.”

“Is Noni up?”

Peggy gave her the biggest shit-eating grin she’d seen to date, and Lannie began to wonder what she’d walked in on. “Oh yeah. You’ve never been here on a Friday. She’s always up late on the second Friday of the month. Every red-blooded female around here is. I was about to head over to the break room where all the action is.”

Lannie furrowed her brow. “Why? What’s the second Friday of the month? Bingo? Arts and crafts?”