What about Kurstin? It was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
He’d never expected what he had with her. Women were for use. Recreation. They weren't for getting under your skin like a rash that can’t be scratched. They sure as hell weren’t for...ever.
If he ran with this story, he was going to lose her. That was a simple truth. If he didn’t run with it, he would be flushing his entire career down the crapper. And what the hell would he have to offer her then?
Zip, brother, nada. He would be just one more loser in a world already overcrowded with the species.
His mouth twisted bitterly. Hell, he could visualize the whole thing now. He could see himself, the coal miner's spawn, coming to call, cap in hand, on the oh, so elegant blonde daughter of Gravers Bend's richest man. The chitchat over brandy played through his head. What do you do for a living, young man?
I’m unemployed at the moment.
Do you have any prospects?
Not really, sir. At least, none currently.
Her daddy would probably run his West Virginian ass out of town on a rail.
When it came right down to it he had two choices, only one of which was viable. The other was a fucking pipe dream that had been sweet while it lasted.
Ty reached for the phone.
Blinking against the glare of the tungsten lights blinding her the following evening, Hayley thought dully that the speed with which her life could change between one moment and the next should no longer have the power to catch her by surprise.
Yet it never failed to do so.
The bar was dim and mellow two minutes ago. She had been filling a desultory trickle of orders and listening to the band. Watching Jon-Michael.
Then the front door banged open and reporters and camera people poured through with their lights and their microphones, yelling questions at her that drowned out the Muddy Waters cover Ragged Edge was performing.
At first the words themselves were incomprehensible. All she heard was a babble of voices, chaos coming not only from the journalists with their lights and mics and avid expressions, but from patrons voicing their confusion as they looked on. Then little by little the meaning of the shouted questions sank in.
And her heart began to pound.
"Hayley!" They surged nearer, squeezing customers out of the way until only the width of the bar stood between her and their ravening curiosity. "Is it true you strongly oppose the death penalty? How does it feel to know you could be directly responsible for sending a man to his death? Hayley! Look over here! What is your opinion of capital punishment?"
Oh God, Oh God. The pitcher she was filling hit the counter with a thud, and the beer tap snapped back as her fingers went lax. Her vision grew white and a harsh buzzing sounded in her ears, as if she had suddenly stepped into a swarm of angry bees.
Only vaguely aware of someone issuing terse threats of bodily harm, she registered without real interest the agitation of a crowd being jostled. The journalists directly in front of her were shoved roughly aside and Jon-Michael appeared.
"Take a deep breath," he ordered the minute she focused on him. With a hard elbow to the ribs, he fended off the reporter jockeying for position next to him. "Back off!"
Vaulting over the bar, he wrapped his long-fingered hand around the base of her skull and pressed. "Head between your knees, darlin'." He pushed it there himself when she did not immediately comply. "Dammit, Hayley, breathe!"
She sucked in air and the buzzing faded from her ears and color slowly reemerged in her vision. She tried to order her thoughts.
Jon-Michael's intervention had momentarily diverted the journalists. But they were sharks whipped to a feeding frenzy and she was the hemorrhaging chum. Hayley didn't fool herself his presence would be enough to divert them for long. Not this time.
Is it true you are strongly opposed to the death penalty? She felt naked, exposed, and she remained seated on the floor behind the bar, her forehead resting on her kneecaps. Logically, she understood her violent, gut-felt opposition to the death penalty was not of monumental import. At least not in a sane world.
But this was the world of New Age media, where a senator from the other side of the country traveled all this way to confer with the victim’s wife about the same man’s execution. Where a woman's beliefs—in lurid juxtaposition to the testimony responsible for convicting a killer—would be reduced to a thirty second sound bite and accorded the same sensationalism one might expect had she sold national security-sensitive secrets.
Hayley knew exactly how it would work. The journalists would examine and reexamine her convictions on the five o'clock, six o’clock and eleven o'clock news. Newpapers would do likewise, if not as often, in more depth. Until not a single nuance escaped their combined scrutiny.
She was so damn tired of her every thought being afforded its own notoriety. And emotionally, this public airing of privately held views felt like the worst sort of violation.
How on earth did they even know this?
She was aware of Bluey emerging from his office, demanding to know what the hell was going on. The babble of voices increased.
“I’ve told you folks before not to bring it in here," he rumbled in his deep, bad-tempered, cigarette-raspy voice. "Now, get out or I will call the sheriff."
"Would that be Sheriff Brutus, Mr. Moser?" one of the journalists demanded snidely and several snickered. They had obviously learned Bluey had snowed them the last time he’d wanted to rid himself of their presence.
"No, son, that would be Sheriff Benson," Bluey snarled right back. "And it's a funny thing about our Paulette: she is a real stickler for the law. For instance, she upholds my right to deny service to anyone I deem a disruptive influence in my establishment." The false jocularity in Bluey's voice dropped away. "Now take it away from my property, or be arrested for trespassing," he said flatly. "Your choice."
The journalists grumbled, but they went. Hayley knew the reprieve was temporary at best, but at this point she was grateful for whatever she could get. She had to pull herself together. She held up her hand for Jon-Michael to pull her to her feet and immediately turned to her employer. "I am so sorry, Bluey. I know you didn't anticipate anything like this when you hired me. Do you want my resignation?"
"Don't be an ass, girl," he snapped and went back into his office.
"How did they figure it out?" Dazed, she turned to look up at Jon-Michael. "How the hell did they figure it out?" She felt raw and bruised and thought she had surely hit a personal low point.
Mercifully clueless it could get much lower.
Fighting her way through the gamut of reporters outside the bar at closing time was like wading upstream through a river of molasses. She felt surrounded by an omnipresent malevolence determined to attach itself to her. To feed on and suck out every ounce of energy she had left.
Which was pitifully little.
Jon-Michael shoved and pushed, trying to clear a path for the two of them to his Harley. But for every journalist he displaced, two more immediately filled the void, each and every one of which was loud and intrusive, buffeting her with the press of their bodies and their glaring lights and cameras, demanding answers to their questions.
She was shaking by the time the bike roared to life. Jon-Michael gave the throttle some gas and wheeled the Harley out of its slot. She buried her face against his damp back and clung to his waist as he swore and shoved encroaching reporters away with his feet, ruthlessly keeping the bike moving forward, daring all comers to stand in its path.