Sound of Secrets (15 page)

A middle-aged woman who appeared to be in a great hurry nevertheless stopped to say a few words to Mr. DeBerg before she bustled into the newspaper office. A young man who looked in awe of the columnist murmured a greeting as he passed going the opposite way.

"That’s right," Gray’s father said when they were alone again. "With the paper growing like it is, I’m not sure who deals with finances. I told Gray last night that Curtis can probably answer your questions."

"I’ll ask him."

"You do that, son." Mr. DeBerg nodded and cocked his head to one side. "Is it two o’clock yet?"

Tyler checked his watch. "It’s half past."

"Late again," the old man said. "I guess I better be moseying along."

Tyler smiled, remembering all the times he and Tyler had waited for Mr. DeBerg during their childhood when he was supposed to drive them somewhere or pick them up. Gray had celebrated receiving his driver’s license as though he’d won the lottery. "See you around, Mr. DeBerg."

"I can guarantee that, son," he answered before slowly making his way to his car.

Ten minutes later, after Curtis Rhett directed him to the community relations department, Tyler stood outside Karen Rhett’s office and watched her talk on the phone. In his hand, he held a cashier’s check for twenty thousand dollars, the exact amount they needed to cover the down payment on the clubhouse.

As always, when he looked at Karen, he couldn’t help smiling.

She’d painted her lips to match her hot-pink suit, and she leaned so her hair brushed the back of her chair while she tapped the desk with pink fingernails. He couldn’t see her feet, but he guessed she wore spiked pink heels to match the suit.

She looked flamboyant and stylish and utterly desirable. Tyler had long ago realized he would have desired her even if she’d been wearing men’s overalls, a long-sleeved flannel shirt and not a touch of makeup.
 

Faint creases appeared in her forehead. He could make out enough of the telephone conversation to determine she was talking business to one of her reporters. He waited until she hung up to call attention to himself.

"When I saw those flowers, I thought they'd suit you.” He nodded toward the showy red blooms on her desk. "I was right."

Her head jerked up, and her cheeks turned as red as the petals of the hibiscus. "If you’re waiting for me to thank you for flowers I didn’t want, you’re going to wait a long time," she bit out.

He cocked his head. The vase he’d picked out at the florist was taller and thinner than the one on her desk. "Isn’t that a different vase?"

"And your note made no sense,” she said, ignoring his question. “You can't forgive me for slapping you when I'm not sorry."

Sparks shot from her eyes and pierced his soul, electrifying his smile. She was so full of life and energy, he’d never tire of looking at her.

She scowled at his growing smile. "What do you want, Tyler?"

He pulled her office door closed and walked slowly toward her, anchoring his hands on her desk. He grinned down at her and suggestively raised his eyebrows. "Besides the obvious?"

Before she could deliver another stinging retort, he held up the cashier’s check. "I want to thank you."

"Thank me?" Caution entered her voice, nudging aside the exasperation. "Thank me for what?"

"For making a donation to the community center."

Karen slammed her hand down on the desk so hard that her paper-clip holder rattled and her papers rustled. Her mind worked while she thought about how he could have found out about her donation. She zeroed in on the newspaper's one-woman community relations department.

"I am going to kill Cindy Lou Baxter," she said through her teeth. "That was supposed to be an anonymous donation."

"Aw, don’t blame Cindy Lou, honey. You went to high school with her, too. She’s sweet as sugar, but she never could keep a secret. It’s a part of her nature."

"Don’t call me honey," Karen snapped even though her heartbeat had sped up when he’d drawled the endearment. Dear God, what was happening to her? She actually thought he looked sexy standing there in his blue jeans and the T-shirt that accentuated how wide his chest was.

"Besides, why wouldn’t you want me to know about your donation?" He grinned again, his teeth white against his tanned skin, his eyes so soft they reminded her of melted taffy that should be savored. "I thought it was downright generous of you."

That was exactly why she had made the donation anonymously, Karen turned away from him and pushed her chair back from her desk. She wasn’t generous. She was selfish and self-serving, and she didn’t want anybody — and especially not Tyler Shaw — thinking differently and holding her up to expectations she could never fulfill.

She stood up and pushed her hands through her hair, trying to think. When she looked back at Tyler, he was gazing at her with a mixture of admiration and desire, as though she were Mother Teresa and Marilyn Monroe rolled into one. Fear kicked at her with frantic feet.

"Don’t get the wrong idea about me, Tyler," she warned. "I’m not who you think I am."

He shook his head, and he still wore that sexy half-smile. "You’re exactly who I think you are.”

His voice was so husky it seemed to reverberate inside her. She tried to think of something, anything, to detract him from the fantasy he was weaving. She cleared her throat and lifted her chin.

"I only donated the money because I thought it might be a point in my favor with Gray." That hadn't been her intention at all. She'd donated the money because she'd had it and the cause was deserving.

Tyler’s smile faded. She tried to harden herself against the disappointment on his face, but already a part of her wished he would smile again.

"When are you going to open your eyes and see what’s in front of them, Karen?" he asked softly. "When are you going to realize I’m right here?"

She deliberately turned her head, not wanting to see. Through the glass windows of her office, she spotted a familiar figure walking across the newsroom. Peering more closely, she saw it was Cara Donnelly. She moved toward the window, aware of the exact moment Tyler joined her.

"Who’s that?" Tyler asked.

"Her name’s Cara Donnelly," Karen answered, still staring at her. The Donnelly woman wore another of those shapeless dresses that hid her figure. This one, though, was a buttery yellow that made her appear soft and almost angelic. "She’s a journalist researching a story about small-town newspapers."

"Aah," Tyler said. "So that’s who Gray was talking about."

"What did he say about her?" Karen asked, grateful for the opportunity to change of subject. She had no intention of taking Tyler up on what he was so blatantly offering. She was interested in Gray.

Tyler shook his head. "I’m not Cindy Lou, Karen. I don’t carry tales from one of my friends to another."

Her temper flared, and only partly because she wasn’t going to get her way. She had another pipeline of information about Gray. She’d call Jane, his secretary, and pump her for information as soon as she got rid of Tyler. "You’re forgetting I’m not your friend."

"There’s no reason we can’t be lovers
and
friends." He touched the side of her face. "I’d prefer that."

She drew back as though his hand were oven-hot, and her traitorous body felt warm all over. "Get out of here, Tyler."

"I do have to be going, but I’d be much obliged if you’d have dinner with me this weekend." He was so close she could see the beginning of stubble on his chin, and she wondered how it would feel against her fingertips. "I’ll let you pick the night."

She could barely deal with Tyler in a business environment. She didn’t think she could handle him in a social setting. She made her voice hard even though her insides had gone marshmallow soft. "I’m not going out with you, Tyler Shaw. Not this weekend. Not ever."

He bent down and claimed her lips in a soft kiss so brief that it was over before she could stop it.

"You’ll say yes one of these days.” He walked to the door in that deceptively slow way he had of moving. He pulled it open, turned back to her and grinned his sexy-as-sin grin. "If you don’t close your mouth soon, Karen, I’ll think you enjoyed that as much as I did."

She reached blindly for something on her desk to throw at him, and her hand fastened on a box of tissues. She let it fly, but Tyler had already disappeared through the doorway. The box thumped against the door frame and fell harmlessly to the floor.

Mandy, her youngest reporter, breezed into Karen’s office a few moments later. She gave the tissue box a puzzled look and bent to pick it up.

"That Tyler Shaw is such a hunk.” Mandy pantomimed fanning herself with the box. "I think he has the best butt on any man in Secret Sound. And those eyes! They’re so dreamy."

"Then ask him out," Karen snapped, restraining herself from adding a hissing rejoinder that it would be at Mandy’s own peril if she did. Horror filled her at the treasonous thought. She couldn’t be jealous. She
wouldn’t
be.

Still, it took several more seconds before she felt in control enough to ask Mandy what she needed.

"I don’t mean to rush you," Curtis Rhett began, although Cara was quite certain he did, "but it would help if you’d get right to the point. My day is filling up faster than a tank at a gas pump."

A memory of beady-eyed Sam Peckenbush sending her a malicious glare came vividly to mind. His fierce look was rivaled only by the one Stoney Gillick had leveled at her while he'd shouted his threat. Then again, Karen Rhett could glower with the best of them.

At least Curtis Rhett wasn’t glaring even if he’d hardly laid out the red carpet. He had the air of a man with a lot on his mind and even more to do. She’d only been in his office for a few minutes, and already a reporter had stuck his head in to ask advice on a story and the office secretary had passed on a ream of messages.

Considering the way the rest of her day had gone, Cara should be grateful to be here. She’d had the feeling Gray would have tried to prevent her from talking to the managing editor if he hadn’t been tied up with the aftermath of the harrowing domestic incident.

"I’ll make it as quick as I can, Mr. Rhett.” She tried to sound professional. She’d already asked for permission to tape the conversation with the recorder she’d purchased the day before. She set it on his desk and switched it on. "I’m interested in whatever you can tell me about how the Rhetts managed to make such a success of the Sun. I’m particularly interested in the period after Reginald Rhett Sr. died, when the operation of the newspaper changed hands."

Curtis sliced the air with a hand as though cutting to the heart of her question. "You mean you’re interested in why I’m still working here when my father left the newspaper to my brother?"

"No." Cara shook her head, surprised at his candor. "I didn’t mean that at all."

"Why not? An astute reporter would ask the question. An astute reporter would wonder how I deal with working here day after day, year after year, knowing I’d have nothing if my brother got it into his head to fire me."

"Oh, but, Mr. Rhett, surely that would never happen." Cara wanted this information, but she hadn’t intended to be confrontational. "I’ve heard you’re the main reason the Sun is as successful as it is."

The managing editor’s eyes, which reminded her of mahogany, seemed to grow even darker. He pressed together lips that were already too thin and scratched the thinning gray hair at his temple.

"An astute reporter, nevertheless, would wonder what’s in this for me." He paused and tapped his hand on the desk with a staccato beat. "I’ll tell you what’s in it for me. The satisfaction of knowing the people of Secret Sound know what’s going on in their town and the world around them."

The opening he had presented was so obvious Cara had to restrain herself from leaping into it.
Careful
, she told herself.

"So you’re saying," she began slowly, "that Secret Sound doesn’t have secrets of any significance."

"No." He shook his head with a decisive, curt movement. "Thanks to the efforts of the Sun, secrets don’t stay secret for long."

"That’s a curious thing to say considering the secret in your own family."

His eyes narrowed, and he stopped drumming his fingers. He held himself rigidly, as though every nerve in his body were on alert. "What secret?"

Cara swallowed. "The secret of how your nephew died. It seems to me nobody wants to talk about how a five-year-old boy managed to get hit by a car miles from his home without a grown-up in sight."

The words hung between them, heavy with challenge. Curtis stared at her hard, an assessing light in his eyes. Cara’s breathing grew shallow and she could almost believe that he held the key to the mystery. That he was another in the growing line of people who didn’t want her to find out what had really happened to Skippy Rhett.

She was tempted to stammer an apology and rush out of the office. Then she remembered the beseeching look the little wet-eyed boy had given her when he’d materialized in her hotel room.

He’d looked at her as though he believed she could help him.Cara lifted her chin and met Curtis Rhett’s stare with one of her own.

"It’s human nature to not want to discuss something as terrible as a little boy’s death." Curtis finally broke the silence, although he was still studying her so intently she had to fight not to squirm. He paused to take a breath, and Cara almost shouted encouragement for him to go on. "But—"

"Mr. Rhett." A tinny female voice came over the intercom. "I have Mayor Jenkins for you on line one. He insists you talk to him about the story we ran on the city manager taking bribes, and he won’t be put off."

"Put him through," Curtis said, then returned his attention to Cara. "I’m sorry. I need to take this call. We can continue this another time."

"Could I wait?"

"Wait?" He seemed surprised she had suggested the possibility. Then he shrugged. "I suppose that wouldn’t create too much of a problem."

She walked toward the closed door of his office, intending to give him privacy while he talked. He waved her off.