Truth or Dare (3 page)

And he had the most incredible green eyes.  Jungle cats all over the world were probably jealous of those eyes, and the long, thick, dark lashes that curled over them.

What in the world she was doing speculating about her boss's looks was beyond her.  Flustered, both at her thoughts and at being caught relaxing when there was work to be done, Rachel straightened in her chair.

"Do you always sneak up on a person that way, Mr. Morgan?" she asked in self
–
defense.  She regretted it immediately.  That wasn't exactly the proper way to endear herself to her new boss.  When he just shrugged, she continued, letting her smile return.  "Actually, that wasn't a viewer on the phone.  It was your mother calling to see if you were still alive."

"Damn."  Jared laughed and shook his head.  "That woman is always two steps ahead of me."

Rachel found herself smiling with him.  "She'll forgive you for not calling if you'll at least write her a letter."

When he knew her better, Jared intended to ask Rachel Fredrick why the hell she deliberately tried to make herself look dowdy.  It had to be deliberate.  No one with a smile like that, and such a sexy voice, could possibly come across as a nerdette without some real effort.

That subject, however, was for later.  He took the papers she handed him and thumbed through them, amazed by what he saw.  "You got all these done this morning?"

"Yes.  It won't take me so long after I've figured out the word processing software on the computer."  She patted the side of the monitor before her.

"That damned thing," Jared cursed.  "What's the matter with it?"

"Nothing that I know of," she answered, one brow quirked in surprise above the rim of those hideous green glasses. "I just haven't learned what all these whistles and bells do.  I've never used software with this many features before."

"If it doesn't do what it's supposed to, or if you don't like it, we'll send it back."

"Don't you dare.  It's a great system."

Rachel laughed, and the sound of it sent shivers down Jared's spine.  It felt smooth, like warm pudding oozing over his skin.  It also relieved his ill humor, and he smiled as he strode toward his office.  "Any other calls besides my mother?"

As she followed him to his desk, Rachel scolded herself.  She wasn't supposed to be laughing and friendly.  That only led to unpleasantness in the long run.  She was supposed to be cool and efficient.  A top
–
notch secretary.

"Yes," she replied briskly, all business now.  "Todd Hargrave stopped by and said when you get time, come back to engineering and he'll detail for you what happened last Friday that put the station off the air, and Susan King from the sales department came to ask you to speak at next month's AWRT meeting."

"Did she say what I'm supposed to speak about?" Jared asked warily.

"They'd like you to speak about how more women can get into upper management in broadcasting.  They want the male viewpoint.  I take it AWRT is a women's group?"

"American Women in Radio and Television," Jared supplied.  "How women can get into upper management.  How would I know?  Who else called?"

"Ted Parson's secretary called to remind you about the Oklahoma City Broadcasters' meeting this Thursday morning.  Then Peter Michaelson in news called to let you know he's ready to start looking for a new reporter to add to his staff."

Jared nodded in acknowledgement and motioned for her to continue.

"Harve Kennedy called," Rachel said.  "The corporate meeting is three weeks from tomorrow.  I put a note on your calendar as a reminder.  He said the rooms are all booked at the
Bellagio
in Las Vegas, but you should make your own travel arrange
ments."

"Damn," Jared muttered.  "They've moved it up two weeks.  That means you and I will probably need to put in some late hours to get all the reports ready that I have to take with me.  Will that be a problem for you, working late?"

"No," Rachel replied. 
It'll make me wish I got paid by the hour, instead of by the month, but maybe you'll appreciate my efforts so much you'll give me a raise.
  "It won't be a problem."

"Good.  Any other calls?  I hope there are no more meetings for me to attend."

"No other calls, no more meetings that I'm aware of."

"Good."  Jared pushed his chair back from his desk and stood.  "I'm going down to engineering to talk to Todd.  I'll be back before long.  Just hold down the fort.  If anything terrible happens, circle the wagons and page me on the inter
com."

"In case of attack, you mean."  Rachel tried to keep a straight face, but it was impossible to keep her lips from twitching.

"Don't laugh," Jared warned with a smile.  "It happens sometimes."  When she looked at him skeptically, he said, "Just wait until our Sales Manager's aunt brings her class of forty
–
five third graders in for a tour of the studio."  As he walked out the door, he winked at her. 

Winked!

It was impossible to tell which one of them was more surprised.  Jared hurried down the hall frowning.  He'd definitely been alone too long.  Now he was winking at nerdettes.  And this one happened to also be his secretary!

CHAPTER TWO

If Jared Morgan had any doubts about hiring Rachel Fredrick, they disappeared over the next three weeks as she helped him prepare for the upcoming corporate meeting in Las Vegas.  She may not have known anything about broadcasting, but she under
stood reports and statistics, and she proved herself invaluable as she helped him assemble the required information.

She also turned out to be the most easy going woman he'd ever been around.  Long hours, delayed meals, missed meals, updating the data on the same report for the fourth time because he'd left something out, nothing seemed to faze her.  Not even when he left for a few hours in the late afternoons while she had to stay and work.  Being General Manager, with no one for him to answer to, did have its perks.

He didn't tell her he was coaching his daughter's softball team
—
she might not be quite
that
under
standing, knowing he was out in the sunshine, playing ball with a bunch of kids, while she was chained to the desk.  But she never asked where he went when he left, only when he expected to return.

No exag
gerated sighs of frustration, no sullen looks, no complaints.  Just total cooperation and a lot of hard work.

Jared smiled as he opened the refrigerator in his office kitchen.  It was the third week of what he referred to as Rachel's "trial by fire."  They had only a few days left to finish the reports he needed, and there was still a lot of work to be done.  He and Rachel had both worked until after ten the previous night
—
they'd been doing that a lot lately
—
but she had managed to go shopping and restock the refrigerator before he got to work this morning.

He sighed with pleasure as he poured himself a glass of orange juice from the new carton.  No one had taken such good care of him and looked after his interests so well since his mother had when he was a kid.

When he was seated at his desk a few minutes later, Rachel entered carrying an armload of papers.  She must have just come from the copy machine.  He set down his juice and rushed to relieve her of the burden.  "You're a secretary, Rachel, not a pack horse," he said.  "You're allowed to ask for help."

"Thanks," she said as he took the stack from her trembling arms.  "It didn't feel that heavy 'til I got halfway down the hall."

"Here."  He pushed her into the chair in front of his desk.  "Sit.  Rest.  You're going to collapse if you don't slow down a little."

"I can slow down next Monday and Tuesday while you're in Las Vegas, sitting through all those meetings."

Jared frowned at the thought of endless hours in
what would probably be a windowless
room halfway across the country.  He wasn't looking forward to it.  "Speaking of that, why don't you take Monday and Tuesday off?  You've certainly earned it."

"I can't do that," she protested.  "While we've been pulling everything out of the files to go into all these reports, nobody's been putting any of it back where it belongs.  I've got tons of filing to do."

"I thought you said you'd slow down while I'm gone.  What are you trying to do, run yourself into the ground?"

"No," she said with a slight smile.  "Just trying to make myself indispensable."

"Well you've done that," he said, answering her smile.  "In fact, when I get back from Vegas, remind me to give you a raise."

"No problem."  Her lips twitching, she reached over and pulled his desk calendar to her, then flipped the pages to next Wednesday.  "Give Rachel a raise," she quoted as she wrote the note.

Jared laughed.  "I put my foot in it that time, didn't I?"

"You certainly did."

Rachel went back to her desk and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Jared place a phone call.  Now she could have a few minutes to herself.  The hours she'd been putting in were long
—
she'd scarcely seen her children
—
and the work was hard, but she loved every minute of it.  And the pay was good, even if he was only kidding about the raise.

And working at Channel 3 was fun.  The people were among the friendliest she'd ever met.  Even at a quarter to five in the traffic department, when they rushed to get the next day's on
–
air schedule done, complete with programs, commercials, and everything else that had to account for every single second of air time
for the next twenty-four hour day
, they managed to crack jokes, despite the tension.

Most of those jokes, along with the ones coming from the other offices, were in the form of appropriately, or sometimes inappropriately applied advertising slogans.  Some of the results were hilarious.

But still, things weren't all rosy.  She had one slight problem that she didn't know how to cope with.  The problem's name was Jared Morgan.

Actually, the problem wasn't so much him as it was her reaction to him.  She could feel herself being drawn toward him, on a personal level, and it terrified her.  The last time she'd met a man she felt attracted to was when she was seventeen years old, that summer she'd met Hank.

She shuddered at the mere thought of his name.  She couldn't remember the good times any more.  It was as if they'd never happened.  All she could recall was the way their marriage had ended.

No.  She would
not
think of that.

It had ended five years ago, and she'd survived
—
barely.  Mike and Caroline had survived
—
barely. 

Rachel blinked and shoved the memories away.  She had put them all behind her a long time ago, and no man would ever get close enough to hurt her again.

And that's what bothered her about Jared Morgan.  Every day, despite her efforts in the opposite direction, she felt herself drawn closer to him.  He was warm and considerate, handsome and likeable.  He treated her with more respect than any man she'd ever known.  He seemed to genuinely like her, in spite of her tacky appearance.

Was that why she liked him so much?  Because he was the first man to be nice to her in years?  But then, if he knew who she was . . .  Other men had been nice to her, for a while, until they found out
 
.
 
.
 
.

But just because he was nice to her and seemed to like her didn't explain the way her heart fluttered when he came in every morning.  It didn't explain the way her breath caught in her throat when she got close enough to smell his subtle aftershave, which made her want to close her eyes and inhale deeply, knowing her knees would turn to water if she did.

All those things were purely physical, she knew, but that didn't make them any easier to deal with.  Was her body so starved for a man's touch that she couldn't keep him out of her mind?  If that was the case, her body and her mind were both wasting their time.

Rachel slipped off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger to still the sudden throbbing behind her eyes.

That part of her life, the physical side of love, was so far behind her that she couldn't even remember what it felt like to have a man touch her with tenderness, his desire tempered with love.

A big pair of warm hands settled on her shoulders.  Rachel jumped and cried out.

"Easy, there," Jared murmured, massaging at the knots of tension in either side of her neck.  "It's only me.  I knew you were working too hard.  You're stiff as a board."

And she was getting stiffer by the second.  She'd been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn't seen or heard him come in.  Now she panicked.  If his thumbs moved up an inch, he'd encounter the base of her wig.  Down a few inches, and he'd feel how deeply her too
–
tight bra cut into her flesh.