

ELLIE scrambled to a sitting position, in a panic. The baby. Where was the baby?
For that matter, where was she?
Then the room began to come into focus, the pieces assembling themselves in her mind. The leather sofa. Mahogany table. Stone fireplace. She was in Dalton's house. On Dalton's sofa.
Dalton?
Oh God. She hadn't. Ellie racked her brain, then relief hit her. No, she hadn't. Still, where was Sabrina?
Ellie got to her feet, running a hand through her hair, and padded through the darkened downstairs rooms. "Dalton?"
No answer.
"Sabrina?"
No answer on that end, either.
Ellie headed into the kitchen, but that room was as silent and empty as the living room. A single light burned over the sink, but that was it. No one in the dining room or bathroom---not that she'd expected anyone there.
That left upstairs. Ellie hesitated a moment on the bottom step, listening, but she heard nothing. "Dalton?"
She took one step up, another, then a third, calling his name every few steps. Finally, she reached the landing, and the first bedroom on the right. The door was slightly open, but she paused to knock against the door frame. "Dalton?"
She heard him stir, then call her name in a way that seemed so soft, so intimate, it was as if they were married, and she had just come home at the end of a long day. Come home to him. "Ellie."
"I...I, ah, woke up and I was..." She forgot what she wanted to say. Forgot why she was here. Forgot everything except the fact that she was standing outside of Dalton Scott's bedroom, acutely aware he lay a few feet away.
"You were here," he finished for her. She entered the room the rest of the way. He was sitting up in his king-size bed, against stark white sheets and a stack of white pillows. A thick dark comforter lay over the bed, seeming to invite her in. But most of all, there was Dalton, bare-chested, and very, very sexy.
Whoo.
She inhaled, but couldn't seem to let the breath go, nor catch the next one. "How.... I mean...why am I still here?"
"You fell asleep on the sofa. I didn't want to disturb you. I'm sorry, I probably should have left you a note." He slid off the bed and stood. Much to Ellie's relief---and a little disappointment---he had on a pair of sweatpants. He crossed the room, his eyes seeming so much larger and darker, more mysterious, in the near dark of the room. "You were like an angel, laying there. It seemed a crime to make you move."
"Where's Sabrina?"
"In the room across the hall. Sleeping in the portable playpen." The darkness draped around them like a blanket, cozy and soft, drawing her closer. Enticing her to enter his bedroom, but she held her ground, even as she wanted to slip into his arms and feel his warm skin against hers.
"How did you get her to sleep?"
He had winnowed the gap between them, and now, Ellie really couldn't breathe. She could barely even think. "She must have been as sleepy as her mother, because she fell asleep on my chest."
"She did?" Surprise raised the notes in Ellie's voice. "And you...well, you let her?"
Dalton might have thought she hadn't noticed, but Ellie had. The way he remained standoffish with Sabrina, how he tried not to hold her too long or too close. How he avoided opportunities to play with her.
He was a competent babysitter, simply not an involved one. She'd chalked it up to inexperience, to him being a guy, to him not knowing Sabrina very well.
But deep down inside, Ellie knew there was something more. Something that circled around to Dalton's problems with writing emotions in his novels. What that was, Ellie didn't know.
Told herself she didn't want to know, because that would entail getting closer to him. Getting to know him, seeing inside his heart.
"The kid's not so bad," Dalton said with a shrug. "She's got a cute little laugh."
Ellie's jaw dropped. "You made her laugh."
"I played a little game of Peek-a-Boo." He shrugged, like it was no big deal, but Ellie knew it was. A very big deal. This meant Dalton had done more than tend to her daughter's basic needs---he'd interacted with Sabrina.
"Peek-a-Boo."
He grinned. "Are you going to repeat everything I say tonight?"
"I just can't believe you did that. I mean, all you've done is feed her, and rock her. Lay her down for a nap."
He narrowed the gap even further, one hand sneaking around her waist, pulling her to his hips. She gasped, her hands automatically rising to touch his chest, warm hard planes beneath her palms. Oh how she wanted to kiss that skin and taste every inch of him. In the dark, his touch became ten times more intimate, more...
Like something a husband would do. Ellie's pulse quickened, her heartbeat accelerated, and her brain sputtered.
"What can I say?" Dalton said. "I guess you two are starting to grow on me."
She'd come over here earlier tonight to lay down some ground rules. No more kissing. No more physical interaction. She was supposed to be keeping her distance, because that was the only way she could do this.
And here she was in his arms, her entire body wishing he would kiss her, wishing they were married, and this was their bedroom, and they were done with talking, and they could just head over to that bed, and end this aching, demanding need inside her.
"Sabrina and I...we should go home," Ellie said.
"It's three in the morning," Dalton replied. "Too late to be waking the kid and then trying to get her settled again. Stay the night."
Stay the night, she thought. Oh, how she wanted to. But where. Here? With him? Did she dare? Did she want to?
"You can sleep in the guest bedroom with Sabrina," he went on, as if reading her mind. "There's an alarm clock on the nightstand. Fresh sheets on the bed."
"Stay here. With you."
His hand came up to cup her jaw, thumb tracing over her bottom lip. Tempting, oh so tempting. She wanted to curve into his body, to forget every intention she'd laid out earlier, as neatly as the freshly ironed linens across the hall. "With me," he whispered, "but not with me, as much as I would like that. Because I'm trying really hard---" and with that, he danced a kiss across her lips "---to be a gentleman here, and I'm not often one. Or at least not a very good one."
She rose on her toes and kissed him, her fingers making waves in his hair. He was warm, and tasted of sleepy desire, the kind that she knew she'd find if she rolled over in bed and woke him up, wanting to make love at some odd hour. "What if I don't want you to be a gentleman anymore?"
He groaned, and his grasp on her waist tightened. "Oh, Ellie, don't...because it wouldn't take much for me to forget all the reasons I had for spending the night in my own bed. Alone." He bent down and kissed her again, this time deeper, harder, longer, his tongue tangoing with hers, raising a heat in Ellie's body that refused to be quenched. "I want you, Ellie, believe me. But you deserve so much more than I can give right now."
Then he broke away, and stepped back into the shadows of his room. "Go to bed, Ellie. I'll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams."
Oh, she'd be dreaming, all right. But she doubted any of her dreams would be sweet. Or about anything but what had just happened.
Dalton spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, pretending to sleep. Acutely aware of the woman across the hall, and how close he'd come to having her in his bed.
Damn. He'd either made the best decision of his life tonight or the worst one.
Finally, at six, he gave up on sleep and went down the hall to the third bedroom that served as his office. He powered up his computer, worked a little on his book, following his normal morning routine of writing a scene before getting to the carrot of checking his e-mail. He'd learned long ago that the Internet could be a huge time waster, so the best thing to do was to get some work done---and then allow himself the reward of getting to his messages.
"Good morning."
He spun around on his chair, to find a sleep-rumpled and sexy as hell Ellie at his door. "Good morning." He smiled. "Wow."
"What?"
"You're...gorgeous."
"And you are blind. I look awful in the morning."
"If that's awful, then I need to check my dictionary, because I've been using that word the wrong way." Dalton took a moment to process Ellie's presence. He hadn't had a woman wake up in his house in, well...forever. Odd didn't even begin to describe the sensation, but coupled with that was a nice sense of hominess, of completeness.
Alarm bells clanged in his head. Dalton was treading awfully close to a danger zone he'd vowed to steer clear of.
Ellie stepped inside the office. "What are you doing?"
"Working. Or trying to, anyway. More like buying time until I check my e-mail."
She laughed. "I do the same thing. Only with me, it's coffee. I'd stand there and inhale the entire office coffeepot and not get any work done in the morning if I didn't pace myself."
"If you want coffee, there's a pot right over there." He grinned. "I have the same problem. So I made it easy, and brought the pot to me. No more excuses to hang out in the kitchen and avoid work."
She laughed, and crossed to the carafe, filling a mug for herself. While she did, Dalton turned back to the computer. Right now he was stuck. He'd come to the scene with the female detective, where she was supposed to react to the horrific crime scene. A murdered family, not one she had known, but an event which brought up a painful event from her past. And thus far, this morning's writing had been---
Terrible. About as emotional as a philodendron.
He typed a few words. Hated them. Backspaced them into oblivion. Typed a few more, hated those twice as much, and repeated the delete. His gaze strayed to Ellie.
"Can I pick your brain for a minute?"
She stopped stirring sugar into her coffee, and glanced over at him, her tousled hair seeming to beg a man to run his fingers through the brunette locks. "Sure. What do you need?"
You. Me. Alone for a long weekend.
Dalton cleared his throat. "If you came across two dead bodies in a bedroom, throats slashed, their guts splashed on the walls, and you'd seen this killer's work before, back when you were---"
She paled. "Uh...what are we talking about?"
"Sorry. My book."
"Oh. You had me worried there for a second. It's a little early in the morning for the whole guts splashed on the walls thing."
He chuckled. "Forgot not everyone lives in my world."
She crossed to him, the carafe in her hand, and refilled his coffee mug without him asking. Dalton sat back, amazed at that small gesture---and how nice it made him feel to be taken care of. How he could get used to that. And how he shouldn't even be thinking about such a thing, not with a woman like Ellie.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." She pulled up the second chair and sat beside him, sipping at her coffee. "So you want to know how I'd react to such a scene?"
He nodded. "My heroine has been through something similar in her past. So this brings up a lot of really painful memories. She sees the same murder, in her mind, when she walks in and sees this dead family."
"Dalton, I don't know if I can help. I mean, what we've been doing up until now has been pretty simple, but I've never seen anything like that and I don't know anything about crime scenes or murders."
He pushed off from the desk and spun toward her. "You don't have to. Think about it in terms of an experience you have had. Like..." He searched for a word, waving his hand vaguely.
"Like losing my husband," she said softly. Pain marched lines across her face, into her eyes.
What was he doing? Why was he opening this door? Just to write a book? He should back away, stop this right now. She mattered more than some stupid book. "Listen, Ellie, forget I said anything. I'll be fine." Dalton turned back to the computer.
She laid a hand on his arm. "No, really, it's okay. I want to help you."
"You don't have to talk about this."
"Yeah, I do." And in her voice, he heard that she did. She drew in a breath, then let it out. "I haven't talked about this to anyone, not really. Everyone around me has said I need to deal with it. So I can move on."
He waited.
"I need to move on. Not just for me, but for Bri. To do that, I have to talk. As much as I'd rather do anything else." Another breath, in, out, then her gaze met his. "I never told you how he died, did I?"
He shook his head.
"Car accident. Not one of those mercifully fast ones, either." Ellie ran a hand through her hair. "He was hit crossing the street. Heading to work." Her voice dropped into a softer range, grief tempering the words. "You just never know when you're going to die. And for Cameron, it was as simple as that. Some moron on a cell phone running a red light."
"I'm so sorry, Ellie." Damn. Should he let her continue? Or cut this conversation off now, before it hurt her anymore?
But she kept going, as if now the water faucet had been turned on, and there would be no shutting it off. "At first, we thought he'd be okay, but it turned out he had all these internal injuries, and a few days later, he was gone. Thank God we had those days, because at least we could talk about us, about Sabrina. We had those conversations, the ones so many people don't get to have." She lifted her gaze to his and he saw the tears welling in her beautiful green eyes, tears he couldn't make go away, not this time. "At least we got to say goodbye."
"Oh, Ellie..." What could he say? What could he do? He reached for her, but she stepped back, as if saying, don't touch me now, not yet, not until I've said it all.
"Cameron left me with a mortgage...and nothing else. No life insurance, no plan. It wasn't his fault, I mean, he was young. Who thinks they're going to die at twenty-nine? He kept meaning to get life insurance, to set up a will, but..."
"It's just not something you think about at twenty-nine," Dalton finished.
"Yeah." She paused a long moment, her gaze in some faraway place, and gestured toward his computer. "It wasn't a horrible crime scene like your heroine had, but it was horrible to me. And it hurt." She drew her gaze back to his, the tears spilling onto her lashes now. "It hurt so bad, Dalton. So bad. I never thought I'd move on. Or get out of bed. Or breathe again."
A crack ran through his heart, breaking it like thin ice. He stepped forward, not letting her escape this time, and reached out, taking her hands in his. "Ellie, I wish I'd known. I'd have...well, I don't know what I'd have done, but I'd have done something."
"There was nothing anyone could do. It was all on me." She looked down at their clasped hands. "I had to force myself to get out of bed every morning. To put one foot on the floor. To leave the house. And do you know why I did it?"
He shook his head.
"For her," Ellie said, her voice so soft, the words were a breath. "If I didn't have that baby growing in me, that life on the way, I don't know how I would have made it."
He didn't know how she'd done it, either. What a hell of a woman. He admired her a hundred times more now than he ever had before. She'd gone on after an incredible tragedy, a real life heroine, stronger than any of the women he'd created on the pages of his novels. And she was still doing that every day of her life.
"You're stronger than you think, Ellie. You'd have been fine."
A smile worked its way across her face. "Maybe I would have."
He brought her closer to him. "I'm serious, you would have been fine."
She tipped her chin. "All I know is that having Bri saved me. She got me through a really hard time, but..."
"What?"
"Nothing, really. It's just hard to have a loss like that and a lot of changes afterward." Then she glanced at his computer screen. "So you asked me, how I'd react if I saw a death that reminded me of a horrible death I'd gone through before, and I can tell you, at first, I'd be frozen, all over again. I wouldn't act. Not for a little while. I'd be picturing all I'd lost, and be so afraid of losing that again, even if it wasn't the same situation. There's so much at stake when you get close to someone, but so much more when you lose them. Because you can't ever say those words you meant to say. You can't ever give that hug you wanted to give. Those moments are gone. They're gone." The last words added in a whisper that nearly broke Dalton's heart.
Dalton closed his eyes for a brief second. He thought of all the words he'd go back and say, if only he could. All those words he'd kept to himself and missed speaking, because he'd been young and scared. "I know what you mean."
"But then, after that moment of fear passed, I'd have to act. I'd have to be busy, to have something to do, like a bee flitting from one thing to another."
"Why?"
"Because," she said softly, her voice catching before it regained its regular strident tones, "if I didn't keep busy, if I stopped for even a second, I'd break down and cry. And I..." She paused, and in that pause he saw the Ellie he knew, the one who could do it all, who held a wall between herself and him, between herself and a relationship because she had to protect her daughter above everything else. "I couldn't afford that second."
Dalton had the words he wanted. He had the emotion he wanted. And he had the heroine he wanted.
But she was here, in the flesh, and no longer on his page.
Ellie had gone downstairs to make them some toast, leaving Dalton to write, but he found his fingers wouldn't work. He stared at the screen, and thought about what Ellie had said. How much she'd opened her heart to him.
While he'd sat here and kept his own closed. He'd had his opening---he could have told her why he, too, knew all about hugs that could never be given, words that could never be said.
But he'd chosen only to speak that one lame sentence instead.
He had better avoidance tactics than a covert military operation. Which was exactly why he closed his book file and opened his e-mail program instead. So he could avoid some more. Boy, had he perfected that technique.
"Your breakfast, sir," Ellie said, placing a plate with two pieces of toast, topped with hearty slices of cheddar cheese.
After he thanked her, she took a piece off her plate, then turned away, wandering his office, looking at the titles on his shelf. "I only have a few more minutes. Then I have to get Sabrina up and ready for the day. I definitely have to go in to work today. It's our mandatory Thursday morning production meeting, so no playing hooky or calling in sick to help you write." She paused and turned to face him. "Actually, that's what I came over to talk to you about last night. I know you had offered to babysit Sabrina for only a day or two, until I found someone else, but do you mind watching Bri until whenever Mrs. Winterberry gets back? I mean, I know it's a lot to ask, and I wouldn't even be asking it if the babysitter thing hadn't been such a debacle last night, but---"
"I don't mind."
"Really? I thought I'd have to beg you." She smiled. "I can offer you unlimited dinners for the rest of your life."
The words "rest of your life" seemed to bounce off the walls of his room. Images of her sleeping on his couch, waking up in his house, filling his coffee mug, flitted through his mind. He could have that---
If he was that kind of guy.
For the first time in his life, Dalton wondered---could he be that kind of man? Had enough years passed, had he changed enough that maybe...
He shrugged off the thought. It wasn't like he could experiment with Ellie, and say, "Hey, let's give this a whirl. I'm not so sure I'm cut out for this kind of life, but let's try." What if he wasn't ready? What if he was terrible at commitment?
What if he let her down as badly as he had Julia?
Better to stay uninvolved and let Ellie find someone else, even if the thought of Ellie in another man's arms made Dalton want to crush a car in half. "You can still make the dinners," Dalton said. "I won't turn them down. Bologna wears on you after a while."
"Deal." She smiled, and it seemed like Dalton's entire world righted itself.
Oh, he was in trouble. He kept wrapping himself tighter around this woman, a woman who deserved everything---and he had nothing to give.
A ping sounded, announcing new e-mails. Like being saved by the bell, Dalton took the opportunity to return to his desk. He scrolled through the few dozen messages, until he got to the one he'd been both dreading and expecting. Reuben's. Dalton clicked on the message, and it sprang open, displaying only six words.
THIS IS BRILLIANT! GIVE ME MORE!
Dalton jumped out of his chair, as excited as he'd felt the day he'd gotten the call from his agent, telling him he'd sold his first book. "Yes!"
"What? What happened?" Ellie asked.
He spun toward her, and grabbed her by the waist, hauling Ellie to him. "He loved it. My editor loved the new pages. You know, the ones I fixed after we worked on them? I sent them over to him yesterday."
"He did? Oh, Dalton, that's wonderful!"
"And I have you to thank. If it wasn't for you, Ellie, I wouldn't have been able to turn those pages from bad to...'brilliant,' as Reuben called them."
"Well, I'm sure---"
"No, you were the key, Ellie. You." Then he became acutely aware of her body against his, of the feel of her in his arms. Of how sharing his joy had become something much more.
Something much sweeter. Something he should be avoiding, something he'd vowed to avoid during those sleepless hours last night, but knew he couldn't stay away from her any more than he could avoid eating or drinking or breathing. Time slowed, the world closing in to just the two of them.
"Thank you," Dalton said, his voice low and gruff, his mouth drifting closer to hers with each syllable.
"You're...welcome."
Her eyes were deep, dark pools that drew him in, held him tight. Called to him in a way nothing else ever had. "You know, I don't know if words are enough." He leaned down, and stopped resisting the urges pounding in his brain---and kissed her.
She responded in an instant, curving tighter against him. Her arms went around his back, as if trying to narrow a non-existent gap. Her breasts arched against his chest, and the flame that had been a backyard firepit became an all-out inferno.
Dalton tangled his hands in Ellie's hair, lifting the dark brown tresses with his fingers, letting them slip through his fingers, a silky mahogany waterfall. Then his palms drifted against her cheeks, the warm, soft skin that he had thought of, fantasized about, a thousand times since their last kiss. She'd become nearly the only thing he thought about. Wanted. Needed. Even if he knew he was all wrong for her.
She was soft against him, a perfect fit for every part of him that had been lacking, filling in those dark recesses, those empty holes. The months, the years he'd spent in relationships that had gone nowhere, thinking he could live with this pit in his gut, never needing to fill it---
He'd been wrong.
His hands drifted down, sliding over her curves, along the soft fabric of her sweater, and the silky edges of her skirt. She let out a soft moan, and pressed even tighter to him, their kiss deepening, tongues exploring, tasting, teasing.
Her kiss deepened, the hunger erupting in Ellie, one echoed by his body, multiplied by every taste of her lips, every caress of her skin. He cupped her jaw, and enjoyed every ounce of kissing Ellie Miller.
Thoroughly.
When Dalton finally drew back, leaving one last lingering kiss along Ellie's lips, he knew one thing for sure.
Saying goodbye to Ellie at the end of all this, and going back to being just neighbors who waved to each other across the expanse of fresh-cut grass on Saturday mornings or said hello over their mailboxes on Tuesday afternoons was going to be a hell of a lot harder than he'd ever thought.
"Well, if that's how you thank me for helping you with a few chapters, I can't imagine what would happen if I helped with a whole book." She smiled.
He chuckled, then took a few steps back, giving both of them some distance. "Actually, I was wondering..."
Ellie had crossed to his bookcase, as if the idea of distance appealed to her, too. "Wondering what?"
"What would you think about making this temporary arrangement a little more permanent?"
A look of panic filled her face. It took Dalton a second to realize why, then he replayed his words in his head. "Oh, no, I meant permanent in the way of you working for me. Your help was invaluable. I don't know if I can finish the revisions without your help. So I'd like to offer you a job."
"A job? Doing what?"
"Exactly what you did the other day, and this morning. You help me write the emotional scenes, then you read them over, tell me where I've gone wrong, and give me pointers on how to strengthen my female characters."
She was shaking her head before he even finished the sentence. "I can't quit my job. I need to pay my bills---"
"I don't know if I can pay you exactly what you make now, but considering you won't be commuting or needing so much childcare, it should work out to about the same."
"I need my health insurance---"
"I'll put you on my plan. Believe it or not, but back when my career was doing well, I made a lot of money, and I was smart enough to put it aside. I can afford this, Ellie."
"We've only worked together once. You have no idea if this would last." She broke away from him, pacing his office, as nervous as a tiger in a cage. "I can't just up and quit my job over that."
"What's the worst that could happen?"
"What's the worst? I could throw my entire life into turmoil for something that doesn't work out. You don't get it, Dalton. I'm a single mother." Ellie stopped pacing and patted her chest. "I don't make decisions anymore on a whim."
He moved to the bookcase, leaning an elbow on the shelf, and waiting until her gaze met his. "But you used to, didn't you?"
"A million years ago, sure. Who doesn't?"
"True."
Hadn't he? Made stupid decisions on the spur of the moment?
And hadn't some of those decisions led to monumental regrets?
Regrets that still weighed on him every night when he was alone and thought about other paths his life could have taken. Regrets that told him he should have made better choices. Been a better man when he was younger.
"I understand your fears. But I need you, Ellie. I've tried everything short of starting sacrifices in my backyard to get my writing back on track, and here you come along, read some pages, say a few words, and wham---it's like I've found the magic cure."
She shook her head. "I can't take those kinds of changes, I just can't."
"Even if it means you could be with Sabrina every day. Working at home? Instead of leaving her here like you have to today?" He closed the space between them, peering into her eyes, trying to see past the wall she had up, a passel of bricks filled with fears and doubts, and cemented together by a thick independent streak. "With writing, you can make a difference, touch a reader's life."
"How?"
"The words you put on the page, the issues you choose to tackle. That kidnapping book, it generated so much reader mail, I almost couldn't answer it all." He saw Ellie consider his words, and knew she was thinking back over what they had worked on so far, thinking about the characters they had created together, and picturing the way the book might touch a reader. "Most of all, if you worked with me, you'd be here, with Sabrina. Isn't this exactly what you've always wanted to be doing, spending every day with her?"
He saw her sharp inhale of breath and knew he'd offered up the trump card she couldn't resist. She glanced past him, at the second bedroom across the hall, where her daughter lay sleeping, and in her eyes, he saw her torn between the life she had and the life she could have---
If only she'd take a chance on Dalton.
A bet even Dalton Scott wasn't so sure he'd make.
Ellie had just been handed everything she'd ever wanted on a silver platter.
The problem?
It came attached to Dalton Scott, a man who turned her world upside down and inside out every time she came within ten feet of him.
Oh, she could handle working at home, she could handle a change in jobs, she was sure. And he was right, she could definitely see where writing books could hold the kind of touch-the-world work she'd wanted back in college, unlike her current job. But a change from the busy TV station with lots of people to the quiet house with the loner, hermit-like writer---
That was a whole other kind of change.
Not to mention every time she got near Dalton, she didn't think about jobs or earning a living or paying bills, she thought about kissing him. Not exactly a good way to keep that mortgage payment in the bank or food in the refrigerator.
For the first time in weeks, she was grateful for the mandatory Thursday production meeting in Lincoln's office, one no one was allowed to miss, not unless "they were dead or in the process of a dismemberment"---Lincoln's words. The time at the office gave Ellie a good excuse to leave Dalton's house for a couple of hours, along with avoiding an answer to Dalton's job offer. Sabrina had stayed behind with Dalton, who had assured Ellie he'd be just fine getting the baby to play and go down for her morning nap.
"There you are," Connie said when Ellie got off the elevator. "The invisible woman."
"Sorry. At least I made it in time for the Thursday production meeting."
"Oh, I forgot to call you!" Connie said. "Lincoln canceled it." She leaned in, an inquisitive look on her face. "What have you been saying to the man lately? He's been...decisive. That is so not him."
Ellie laughed. "I got tired of going to meetings every five minutes, and when I wasn't at Lincoln's beck and call, I told him to make decisions on his own."
Connie raised a hand in a high-five gesture. "Good for you. It's about time somebody made him grow up."
Ellie laughed and slapped Connie's palm. "Just doing my job, and apparently pulling off a minor miracle in the process."
"Well, good thing you did. You're invaluable around here, El. I don't know what we'd do without you."
"I've been hearing that from all sides today."
Connie took a seat on the edge of her desk and gave Ellie a knowing smile. "From the look on your face, I'd say the other person telling you that is an M-A-N."
Ellie felt her face heat. Geez. What was she, in sixth grade again? "He's a guy, but he's just my neighbor."
"Just a neighbor, huh?" Connie grinned. She reached behind her head and readjusted her red curls into the jaw clip holding her hairdo up. "Is he cute?"
"I suppose. He's tall. Dark-haired. Blue eyes." Ellie shrugged. "If you go for that kind of thing."
"Hello, if you have a pulse, you do. And how do you know Mr. Wonderful?"
"He's babysitting Sabrina while Mrs. Winterberry is taking care of her sister. He makes Bri laugh. And he likes picnics. We went on one the other day, just the three of us." She tried to bite back the smile working its way to her lips, but it came all the same. "He's a writer."
"He's sexy and he loves babies? Marry him now, Ellie, before the rest of the female population of Boston grabs him. And if he has a brother, hand him over, because I could sure use a good man, or even a half-decent one."
She was not going to discuss dating Dalton Scott and definitely not going to discuss marrying Dalton Scott. Ellie pulled her planner out of her bag and started flipping through the pages. "Tomorrow morning we shoot our first segment for next week's show. Are we all set for the guest? Did you confirm his appearance?"
"Checked and double-checked. I ordered in the soda he likes to drink, and we'll have those bagels he requested here a half hour before he arrives."
"Good. I'll zip down to the studio and go over the lighting and camera angles with the director. And make sure the set is ready, too."
Connie laid a hand on Ellie's arm. "It'll all go fine, just like last week's show. You can relax, you know."
"I'm sure it will. It's my job to worry."
"I know, but..." Connie worried her bottom lip.
"What?"
"Never mind." Connie waved her off. "I'm not even going to ask the question."
"Connie, you've known me the entire two and a half years I've worked here. You can ask me anything."
Connie let out a long breath, then gave Ellie's hand a squeeze. "You look so stressed every time you come in here. I know you're juggling a lot, and Lord knows I wouldn't trade lives with you for all the corn in Indiana, but I guess what I'm wondering is...are you having fun? I mean, any job is worth it if you're having fun."
"Fun?" Ellie let out a little laugh. She closed her planner, already worn so much the binding was threatening to break, and the year was only halfway over. "What's that?"
"Exactly, El. I think you stopped having fun about two promotions ago. And I'm not saying this to talk you out of working here, but I'd hate to see your whole life become about earning a paycheck. When I saw you talking about your neighbor and that picnic, I saw fun on your face, and I haven't seen that in ages. I kind of got jealous."
"Oh, Connie, it was just a picnic, it didn't mean anything."
"No, I mean, I realized I hate working here. It's like being a lobster in a boiling pot and every time you try to escape, Lincoln slams the lid on again." Connie smacked the desk to emphasize the point. "You made up my mind. I'm getting out the classifieds at lunch time." She leaned forward. "Do you know what my degree is in? Art. I'm happy painting, not fetching coffee for Lincoln and sitting through another one of his tirades."
"Good for you," Ellie said. "Hey, if any city is great for finding a job in art, Boston has to be it."
Connie nodded, resolve cementing joy on her face. "That takes care of me. Now, what's your excuse for being here so long?"
Ellie shrugged, realizing she had indeed been at the television station for much too long, working for a boss who was demanding and stubborn. A boss she didn't even really like. "I came over here when Cameron did and stayed after he died...because it was easier than facing one more major change. And I kept thinking, eventually I'd find my niche, and I'd find a way to create those stories I'd always dreamed of making."
"Instead, you're catering to soccer players with egos bigger than the Prudential building. And staying here instead of dealing with...well, everything."
Ellie laughed so hard, her stomach hurt. "Yeah, and I'm not any happier doing it than you are. Maybe you should pick up two copies of the paper at lunch."
Connie grinned. "You got it, Ellie. You got it."


