Midnight Hour (16 page)

With as much pretended interest as he could muster, he asked, “Mercy, now why would another station send you their movie?”

“They’re not sending us
their
movie. Television stations don’t own the movies we show. We have to pay whoever owns the rights if we want to run a movie. Well, sometimes we get them for free.” When the corridor branched in two directions, Mercy tossed him a look over her shoulder to make sure he was following. Her gaze landed somewhere in the vicinity of his third shirt button.

Instead of grabbing her and tilting her chin up until she had to notice him, as he wanted to do, he reminded himself of their surroundings and stuck to shoptalk. “Why would someone give you a movie for free if you usually pay for them?”

“Because we agree to run the national advertising spots they’ve already sold and that are already on the tape. It’s sort of a package deal.” She turned right and climbed a flight of stairs.

He trailed her up the steps, wondering how long they could drag out this conversation before resorting to small talk about the weather. “I might not know
much about television, but even I know it’s damn hard to make money if you don’t sell advertising.”

She latched onto his interest like a man mired in quicksand grabbed hold of swamp vine. “The national ads only fill about half of the advertising slots. We make our money by selling the remaining ten or so minutes of commercial time.”

“Ah.” Nick nodded, suppressing a grin at Mercy’s game effort to pretend that this was a perfectly natural conversation for two people who’d recently been necking on her front porch.

Mercy was trying so hard to ignore the chemistry between them that she only succeeded in increasing the tension swirling in the air currents. Being ignored was beginning to grate on his nerves. He controlled his irritation by reminding himself that this trip to the station was for the fund-raiser and had nothing to do with their relationship.

Noting the stiff carriage of her body, he swatted the conversational ball back into her court. “And what do you do with the movies when you’re through with them?”

“That depends on how we get them. The program exec does all the buying, and he decides how we take delivery of the programming.” She rattled on, not bothering to wait for a question this time, picking up speed as she went. “Sometimes we pull them off the satellite and then erase the tape. Sometimes we get a tape from whoever owns the film, which we then have to send back or bike it on to the next station that has the window to show that film.”

When she paused a fraction of a second for breath, Nick knew he had to stop her before she stripped her
vocal cords. Besides, she still hadn’t
looked
at him, and she obviously wasn’t going to unless he forced the issue. “Okay, that’s it. Mercy—”

She cut him off as she paused in front of a door and announced, “Here we are.”

“All right,” he muttered in surrender. “Lead the way. I am perfectly willing to follow you to the ends of the earth, and it looks like that’s what it’s gonna take to get your attention,” Nick told her earnestly, hoping the line would rattle her composure a bit. It did.

Mercy stopped right in the middle of knocking, and turned to truly look at him for the first time since he’d left her house the night before. Her baby blues widened, rounded, and blinked once before they settled into staring at him with apprehension.

“Looks like I won’t have to go to the ends of the earth after all. I seem to have your attention. If your eyes were brown,” Nick mused quietly, “you’d look like a deer caught in headlights.”

She blinked again and found her voice. “You’re mistaken, Nick. This is my impression of a silent-film heroine, strapped to the railroad track, and with no choice but to watch the shiny black, smoke-belching train barrel down on her as she struggles vainly against the inevitable.”

“Then why worry? The hero always saves the heroine just in the nick of time.”

“In the
nick
of time?”

“Bad pun?”

“Yeah. Really bad.”

“Cut me some slack,
chère.
I haven’t had to be clever in a long time. I’m out of practice.”

“I thought we settled this last night.” She knocked on the door and said, “You’re wasting your time, Nick. You should practice on someone who cares.”

“Oh, but I am!”

Mercy didn’t have time to answer because a gruff voice from beyond the door ordered them to stop standing around the hallway shootin’ the breeze. The door was jerked open and filled by a mountain of a man who topped Nick’s six-foot three-inch height by several inches.

“You must be that Cajun doctor with the emergency.”

“That’d be me,” Nick allowed.

“You’ve got twenty minutes to sell me on this shindig of yours. But I’m telling you straight out, the station has already slotted more public-service programming and PSAs than last year. I’m going to take some convincing.”

“Well, it’s really Mercy’s party,” Nick said. “I’m just sort of coming along for the ride. She can explain how the station can help much better than I can.”

For all his grizzly-bear posturing, Dan Harris, the station manager, was a pushover. Nick enjoyed watching Mercy play him like a two-bit piccolo. The meeting lasted far longer than twenty minutes and ended with a handshake and his promise to “get behind the project in every way possible.”

“That was painless,” Nick commented as soon as they were out of earshot of Dan.

“I told you it would be”—she allowed a little pride to creep into her voice—“if we did it my way.”

“Let’s hope the meeting with Kentucky Parents will be as easy,” he cautioned, tossing out the baited hook.

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because they’re a volunteer group.”
Wiggle the hook and see if she’s interested.

“And …”

She’s interested. Keep it casual Don’t scare her off.

Nick rubbed the back of his neck as though he were perplexed by a huge problem. “I called them first thing this morning, but it looks like we’re gonna have some trouble getting everyone on their board together. The president’s a very busy family-law attorney.”

“I’d guess custody would have to come before charity.”

Wait and let her take the bait, Nick cautioned himself. “Yeah. Her schedule during the day is pretty tight for the next month.”

“Well, mine’s not.” Even in such a short time, Mercy knew she had invested too much effort in the project to let little details bog it down. “If they’re willing to help, the least I can do is make myself available whenever their board can meet.”

Hook, line, and sinker! Time to reel her in.

“Good. I thought you’d feel that way.” Nick checked the time on his wristwatch. “I didn’t think the meeting with Harris would last this long. We’ve got to get moving if we’re gonna make it across town in time.”

At his cryptic words, suspicion clanged noisily in Mercy’s head. She should have known that Nick was up to something. He’d let her off much too easily today considering how they’d parted last night, and now she knew why. All along he’d had Plan B waiting
in the wings. Bracing herself, she asked, “In time for what?”

“Dinner. Our meeting with Susan Alastair, the busy attorney, and the Kentucky Parents board.”

Mercy stopped before they reached the door to the reception room and crossed her arms. “You’ve scheduled a meeting without even checking with me?”

“Yeah. I’m a nineties kind of guy. I have opposable thumbs and an independent thought process. Let’s go.

Pulling away from his extended hand, she told him, “Maybe I have plans.”

“What happened to ‘I’ll make time’?”

“Maybe I made plans before I said that!”

Nick frowned and decided that jealousy was a forgotten emotion that he didn’t particularly care to recollect. Her blue eyes held his, but their depths didn’t offer the slightest hint as to whether she was bluffing or if she really had someplace to go. Someone to go to.

“Do you have plans?” he asked bluntly.

When she hesitated, Nick made a frustrated snort and rolled his eyes. “I’m not asking you to endure torture, just dinner.
Mon Dieu!
We won’t even be alone. There’ll be four other people, one of whom is a peace cop … a police officer. If I try anything funny, you can have me arrested. So do you have plans or not?”

“No. Not really,” Mercy admitted. As soon as that smug, confident smile lit up Nick’s face again, she wished she’d lied. Not that lying would have done much good. He always seemed to be able to tell.

“Good.” He nodded in relief and approval. “We’ll go in my car.”

“No!” Going with Nick to dinner felt too much like accepting a real date. Separate cars would be a better idea. “You don’t seriously expect me to ride in that loud, dangerous, adolescent contraption? You said no torture.”

Nick pushed open the door to the reception area, which was empty now that quittin’ time had come and gone. As Mercy passed him he said, “I wasn’t aware it was torture to sink into leather seats and let your body soak up the vibration of power beneath you. It’s an experience, I’ll grant you. But not torture.” Nick slapped his forehead. “Aw, I forgot you’re not much on new experiences.”

Having endured enough shots to her ego in the last week and a half, Mercy whirled in the middle of the lobby, ready to fight. “Is there anything about me you do like? I mean, you’ve taken potshots at my plumbing, my dining-room chairs, my house, my lack of garlic, and you call me a coward every time I see you! It’s like you’re trying to get a rise out of me!”

“Seems only fair. You sure as hell get a rise out of me!”

“Oh.” Her lips formed the word, but she wasn’t sure she’d actually said anything until Nick replied.

“Yeah. ‘Oh’ is right. Now stop fighting me every step of the way and just accept that I want to jump your bones. It sure will make conversation a helluva lot easier. We wouldn’t have to argue about every little insinuation that way.”

“We wouldn’t have to argue at all if you’d forget about jumping my bones,” she snapped.

“That ain’t gonna happen,
chère.
And neither is anything else until you’re ready.”

Mercy togged the blue silk jacket closed over her white camisole-style blouse and tried to figure out if Nick had the patience of a saint or if this was a clever ploy. Irritably, she said, “The only thing I’m ready for is to get this dinner over with. You drive if you want, but you’d better not so much as break the speed limit.”

“Slow and easy, darlin’. On that you have my word.”

A shiver rippled through her body at his promise, but she ignored it. Silently, she walked out to Nick’s sleek, black Chevelle, but it wasn’t until she’d settled back into the seat and Nick turned over the engine that she knew she’d made a major tactical error.

Nick’s car assaulted her senses in a way that was purely sexual and impossible to ignore, much like the man himself.

She heard as well as felt the rumble of power created by the engine, the heart of Nick’s sleek machine. An incredible leather seat welcomed her body as though the spot had been made for her. Nick’s strong bronzed hands handled the stick shift and the steering wheel so sensually that Mercy was forced to lick her dry lips.

Before she made a fool of herself, she took her eyes off his hands and busied herself inventorying the contents of the front seat. A small wooden crate designed to hold cassette tapes balanced precariously on the console between them. Not surprisingly, Nick’s taste ran to hot, electric jazz, and zydeco, which she knew was Cajun soul music. On the dashboard lay an opened pack of cinnamon gum, confirming her suspicion that Nick liked everything hot—from gumbo to gum.

His preference for “hot” explained why he’d been attracted to Midnight Mercy, but not why he spent so much time with Mercy May, fixing her plumbing and screen door, walking her dog, and cooking dinner. Sometimes when he didn’t think she was looking, she saw that sadness he tried to hide. He said she made him forget. Forget what? The pain of losing his family? Being a stranger in a new city? The pressures of his career?

As they drove she admitted to herself that Nick’s career was an unresolved emotional issue rattling around inside her. Her logical brain reminded her of rule number three—never trust a doctor with your heart—and her heart told her the time had come to ignore rule number three. Looking at his incredible profile, Mercy tried to drum up some of her ingrained prejudice against doctors as companions, but she couldn’t.

Even if she disregarded the great biceps, smoldering black eyes, and killer Louisiana smile, she could not manage to make herself think of him as a doctor. Nick Devereaux wasn’t like any doctor she’d ever met. In the last week and a half she’d spent more time with him than she had with her parents in four months.

If he was concerned about his reputation or image, he certainly didn’t show it. Despite his comment about making less money in emergency medicine than in some of the high-dollar medical specialties, Mercy knew he could still have afforded a prestige car if he had wanted one. Obviously, he hadn’t. Instead of a status symbol, he’d chosen to rebuild an old car that held fond memories of his youth.

He didn’t carry a beeper and hardly talked about
medicine at all. He’d seemed detached that day in the emergency unit, yet she knew he cared deeply about the hospital and his patients. Why else would a doctor devote this kind of time to a hospital benefit? Why else would Sister Agatha approve of him?
Whoa!
Mercy cautioned herself.
The man is not a saint.
She’d better remember that this fund-raiser killed two birds with one stone for Nick. He was providing the hospital with a much-needed influx of cash and providing himself with a dandy reason to place himself squarely in her life now that she had committed to helping.

“You okay?” Nick asked, interrupting her reverie.

Startled, she looked up guiltily and said, “Fine.”

“Fine? I don’t think so. You’re too quiet for fine, Mercy,” he told her with a shake of his head. “Papa Jack said, ‘Never trust a quiet woman. It’s only the calm before the storm.’ ” Nick paused to negotiate a turn before telling her, “All that silence on your side of the car has got me scared about the storm you’re busy brewin’ over there.”