If Winter Comes (16 page)

Carla stared down at
her black boots. “You’ll print everything, including how Moreland was set up?”

Edwards looked at her
with a compassionate smile. “Yes. And it might be enough to convince him to
drop the lawsuit. We’ll run another banner headline. ‘Moreland Innocent of
Kickback.’ How’s that?”

“Will it please
you-know-who?” Peck asked, tongue-in-cheek, gesturing toward the ceiling.

Edwards frowned. “God?”
he asked.

“The publisher!” Peck
burst out.

“Oh, him.” Edwards
shrugged. “Nothing ever has before. I’m not sure it will. But it may save my
job, and Carla’s.”

Peck grinned. “I’ll
settle for that.”

But, it appeared, Bryan
Moreland wouldn’t. Edwards called Carla into his office two hours after the
paper was on the streets, looking uncomfortable and vaguely ill.

“Sit down,” he said
gruffly.

She perched herself on
the edge of her chair and sat up straight, her hands clenched in the lap of her
burgundy plaid skirt. She could feel the ominous vibrations, like the growing
chill of the weather.

“Get it over with,” she
murmured. “I hate suspense.”

He jammed his hands in his
pockets and studied his feet. “Moreland called me.”

Her heart jerked, but
she didn’t let the emotions dancing inside her find expression in her face.
“Oh?”

“He’s willing to drop
the lawsuit, especially in view of our efforts—your efforts—to clear his name.
But I couldn’t get across to him that it was your investigation that cleared
him,” he added apologetically. “When I mentioned your name, he blew up.” He
sighed. “What it boils down to is this. He’ll drop the lawsuit if I fire you.
That’s my only option.” He shuffled angrily. “Johnson says if I don’t fire you,
we’ll both get the boot.”

She felt every drop of
color draining out of her face, but she forced a smile to her lips. “I expected
it, you know,” she said gently. “I was looking for a job when I found this
one.”

“Yeah,” he said curtly.
His eyes studied the expression on her pale face. “I’m sorry as hell.”

She shrugged. “It’s
been an experience. How long have I got to clean out my desk?”

He sighed bitterly.
“Until quitting time. I’m giving you two weeks’ pay, maybe that’ll get you
through to another job.”

She tried to mask her
apprehension with a smile. “I’ll be okay. If things get too tight, I can always
go home toGeorgia ,” she reminded him. “The editor of Dad’s old paper would
give me a job on the spot. All I have to do is ask.”

That, at least, was
true. But how was she going to leave this city, and Bryan Moreland behind, when
the picture of them would haunt her until she died? If only she could see him
once more, touch him…

“I said, you might have
a shot at the radio station,” he repeated, interrupting her melancholy
thoughts. “I hear they’re looking for a leg person.”

She smiled and rose,
offering him her slender hand. “Thanks, Eddy. I’ve enjoyed working here.”

“You’re one hell of a
reporter,” he said with grudging praise. “I hate to lose you. If it weren’t for
that damned lawsuit—the truth is, our budget won’t stand it, and he’s got every
law in the books on his side.”

“It was my fault…”

“And mine,” he said
firmly. “Nobody held a gun on me and made me print it. The evidence was there.
I didn’t know it was engineered any more than you did. By the way,” he added,
“there’s every indication that Ed King is going to be recalled even before his
case comes up,” he grinned. “That ought to make you feel a little better.”

She returned the smile.
“It does. See you around, Eddy.”

Bill Peck sat, perched
on the edge of his chair, watching Carla clean out her desk, an enigmatic
expression on his face. He ignored the phone that was screaming insistently
beside him.

“Where will you go?” he
asked gruffly.

She shrugged. “Back to
my apartment to wallow in self-pity.”

He chuckled in spite of
himself. “Hell, does anything get you down?”

“Crocodiles,” she
murmured as she put the last of her notepads into a brown bag with her other
possessions. “I never go near swamps for that reason.” She closed the bag and
turned, her eyes soft as they met his. “Thanks for everything, my friend.”

His face tightened.
“Thanks for nothing,” he grunted. “I helped cost you your job. If I’d
interfered at the beginning…”

“I believe in fate,”
she interrupted. “Don’t you?”

“Suppose I called
Moreland, and told him the truth?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she replied,
turning to face him. “What happened betweenBryan and me…it’s nothing to do with
anyone else,” she finished weakly. “If he wants to think that it was all my
fault, let him. I’ll be gone soon, anyway.”

“Gone where?” he asked.

She smiled. “Home. I’ve
missed it.”

“Not a whole hell of a
lot,” he replied doggedly, “Or you wouldn’t have stayed this long.”

“I’ve learned things
here that I could never have learned in a small town,” she reminded him. “And
you’ve shown me the ropes. I’ll never forget you.”

“Don’t get mushy,” he
growled, moving forward to perch himself on her desk. “When are you leaving?”

“I’ve got two weeks
before I have to make a definite decision,” she told him, grateful for her own
foresight in keeping up her savings deposits. It would give her a little more
leeway.

“Then you may stay in
the city?” he probed.

She looked down at the
brown bag, testing its weight and rough texture. “I don’t know. I don’t want to
think about it right now. It’s been a rough week.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for helping
me do it,” she said fervently.

“I like the guy,” he
said, and his pale eyes smiled at her. “Keep in touch, okay?”

“Okay. If you hear of
any openings around town, let me know.”

“I’ll keep both ears
open.” The smile went out of his eyes. “I’ve gotten used to you. I won’t want
to look at this damned desk for a week.”

“Have Betty sit on it,”
she suggested with an impish grin.

“Two-ton Betty?” he
groaned. “Who’ll pay to replace it?”

“Definitely not me,”
she told him. She took one last look around the busy office, its rushing
reporters and ringing telephones and editors calling over the din. “How quiet
it is here,” she sighed.

“Good thing you’re
leaving,” he replied. “Working here has deafened you.”

“Don’t take any wooden
tips,” she cautioned.

“You, too.”

She turned and walked
out the door into the lobby. The temptation to cast a farewell glance over her
shoulder was strong, but she didn’t yield to it. With her head high, she walked
out onto the busy sidewalk and merged in with the crowd.

Not going to work was
new to Carla. Since her eighteenth birthday, she’d had a job of some kind, even
if it was only a summer one working for her father. But to see four walls day
after day, no new faces, no people, was like slow torture. She kept the
television on, but the soap operas were more than she could bear, and the radio
got on her nerves after the second day.

There was too much
time: time to regret her behavior, time to think about Bryan Moreland and his
ultimatum that the paper fire her. How he must hate her. Not only had she
betrayed him falsely, but he even thought her declaration of love was part of
that betrayal, that she’d pretended affection for him solely to get a story.

She almost laughed at
the thought. And he’d said that no normal woman would be interested in a
middle-aged man. Didn’t he realize how very attractive he was? How strong and
charming and exciting he was to be with? Didn’t he realize that she’d have
loved him if he’d been totally gray and walked with a cane? Age didn’t matter.
Time didn’t matter. She’d have given anything for just a few years with him—to
love him, to bear his children, to grow old with him.

Tears blurred her eyes.
The firing was a message, as surely as if he’d given it in person. He was
telling her, in the most deliberate way possible, that he wanted her out of his
city. And she had a feeling that if she approached any other news media for a
job, the doors would all be closed.

It must have come as a
tremendous shock to him, realizing that two of his most trusted friends had set
him up as the scapegoat for their land deal. And to top it all off, to think
that a girl reporter would lead him on and flatter his vanity just to get the
goods on him…

“But it isn’t true,”
she whispered tearfully. “Oh,Bryan , it isn’t true!”

She dropped down onto
the soft cushions of the sofa and cried like a lost child. It was the first
time she’d yielded to tears since her firing, but it seemed to ease the hurt a
little.

By the end of the week,
she was regaining some of her former spirit. She’d already decided that her
only course of action was going home, but she wanted to wait until her father
returned. That would be just another three or four days, and she couldn’t spend
them sitting in the apartment staring at the walls. She became a sightseer,
taking buses all around the sprawling city to visit the park, the museums, the
historic landmarks. It was all new to her suddenly, as if she’d gone around
blind as a reporter and was just now seeing the city without her blinders.

The days went by
quickly, and on the very last one she found herself retracing her steps through
the ghetto she’d visited with Bryan Moreland. The slums were already being
bulldozed down now, and signs were going up heralding the construction of new,
modern apartments for low-income groups. She couldn’t help feeling a surge of
pride for the man who’d fought so hard to bring this dream to fruition. If only
she could tell him how very proud she was.

Her slender figure
looked even thinner than usual in the gray suit she was wearing. A pale green
scarf around her throat emphasized her green eyes, and the braided coil of dark
hair seemed even darker against it. The black coat and boots she wore seemed to
fit in with the darkness of her mood as she walked aimlessly back toward the
downtown business district, her sad eyes on the dirty, cracked sidewalk. She
felt so miserable, so lost and alone. Her chest lifted in an aching sigh and
she didn’t notice where she was going until she ran head-on into another
pedestrian. Strong hands came up to grip her arms, and she looked up with an
apology on her lips. Then her heart leapt inside her chest.

Bryan Moreland’s dark,
angry eyes were looking straight down into hers, and she couldn’t even manage a
weak greeting, the shock of seeing him was so great.

Nine

S he stood there
looking up at him like a slender statue, without life or breath or strength.