Sarah had known Dana Sue Sullivan almost all of her life. Annie, Dana Sue’s daughter, had always been one of her two best friends, along with Raylene. She’d had sleepovers at Annie’s. She’d eaten at Sullivan’s more times than she could count, especially when Dana Sue and Erik had been fine-tuning the menu. Back then, Annie, in the throes of her anorexia, hadn’t touched more than a bite, but Sarah had savored every mouthful, then answered every painstakingly detailed question Dana Sue and Erik had about her opinion of each recipe.
Despite all that, sitting across from Dana Sue in the studio at the station made her palms sweat. There was a lump the size of a prime ribeye steak lodged in her throat. This would be the third test-run she’d taped before the official station launch, and it wasn’t getting any easier. How was she ever supposed to enjoy doing a show every morning if all she wanted to do was run from the studio and throw up? Worse, so far all the guests had been people she’d known forever. What on earth would happen when she had to interview some stranger or a real celebrity?
She glanced through the glass partition into the control room and got a thumbs-up from Bill. “We’re starting in one minute,” he said, just as he’d told her he would for the real thing.
Her gaze darted to the clock on the wall as the second hand ticked off the time way too quickly.
“Sweetie,” Dana Sue said in a commanding tone, “look at me.”
Sarah’s panicked gaze locked on her friend’s mom. They were both Sweet Magnolias, for heaven’s sake. That ought to make this easy. And maybe it would if they’d started with a margarita. Stone-cold sober, Dana Sue’s familiarity didn’t seem to make a difference.
“You’ve known me way too long to look so terrified,” Dana Sue said, keeping her own gaze steady. “You were there when I tossed all Ronnie’s things onto the front lawn, remember? You were there the night Annie collapsed and nearly died. We’re friends, Sarah, and all we’re doing is chatting, okay? Just the way we used to do around the kitchen table at my house.”
Sarah gulped in a deep breath and nodded. “This is ridiculous. I should be reassuring you that I’m going to make it painless. We’re just going to talk about how you started Sullivan’s, the rave reviews you’ve had.”
Bill cut in. “We’re going live in five, four, three, two and…” He signaled for her to begin.
Swallowing hard, Sarah found her voice. “Good morning, it’s Carolina Daybreak and I’m Sarah Price, coming to you from the heart of Serenity, right on Town Square. Today my guest is Dana Sue Sullivan, the mastermind behind Sullivan’s restaurant, known all over the state for its Southern cuisine with a contemporary twist.”
Once the words started flowing, her nerves seemed to settle. Dana Sue’s reassuring smile helped, too. The questions, which she’d spent all last night preparing, kicked off the conversation. Dana Sue did the rest, answering with the sort of lively, self-deprecating humor that everyone in Serenity expected from this one-time rebel who’d grown up to be an innovative chef and businesswoman.
They’d taped for nearly an hour, pausing where commercials would be inserted when the show eventually ran on the air, when Sarah looked up and saw that Travis had joined Bill in the booth. When he winked at her and gave her a thumbs-up, she nearly lost her place on her list of questions.
Something on her face must have given her away, because Dana Sue turned around to catch a glimpse of Travis, then turned back to Sarah with a broad grin. “Oh my!” she mouthed silently.
Sarah blushed. Bill’s whispered reminder in her headset that she needed to wrap things up finally steadied her.
“That’s it for today. I’d like to thank our guest and suggest you all stop by Sullivan’s to try out the tempting new menu items we’ve been discussing this morning. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. I’ll be back in a minute with more of Carolina’s favorite music.”
“And we’re out,” Bill said. “Good interview, Sarah.”
Though his praise meant the world to her, Sarah’s gaze immediately went to Travis. It was the first time he’d heard one of her tapings. The broad smile on his face said everything.
Stepping into the studio, he swept her up in his arms and twirled her around. “You were fantastic!” he said. “Even better than I was expecting.”
“If I was, you can thank Dana Sue. She provided all the entertainment.”
“I did not,” Dana Sue corrected. “You asked all the right questions. You’re a natural, Sarah. I couldn’t be more proud of you. I know this was really just a dress rehearsal of some kind, but I hope you air it one of these days.”
“First chance we get,” Travis promised, his arm still securely around Sarah’s waist. He gave Dana Sue a considering look. “You know, speaking of natural, you were great on the air. Sarah was right about that. I don’t suppose you’d want to do cooking tips or something like that on a regular basis? Sullivan’s could sponsor it. It would be great exposure for the restaurant. Maybe I could even get it into syndication around the state.”
Sarah’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Dana Sue, do it. It’s a great idea.”
“How often would you want it on the air?” Dana Sue asked, though she looked skeptical. “I don’t have a lot of spare time.”
“I’d like once a week, maybe an hour-long show for Saturday morning,” Travis suggested. “You could tape it whenever it’s convenient.”
“I’ll think about it,” Dana Sue promised. “Now I have to run. The restaurant opens for dinner in a half hour. Why don’t you all come over? Your meals will be on the house to celebrate the launch of the station.”
Sarah wasn’t sure what to say. Dinner at Sullivan’s was a big deal to most people in town. Going there with Travis, even if it was mostly a business thing, would feel an awful lot like a date. Of course, Bill would be along, too.
Travis met her gaze. “How about it, Sarah? I think we deserve a celebration.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Sure.”
Bill shook his head. “Unfortunately my wife’s expecting me, and she hates it when I don’t turn up after she’s cooked. You two go and enjoy yourselves. I want to spend a couple of minutes editing this tape. We ran over by sixty seconds, and I think I know where I can cut. I’d like to do it now, while it’s all fresh in my head. Then this will be ready for air whenever you need it.”
“Okay, then,” Travis said to Dana Sue. “Count on the two of us. We’ll be there shortly.”
After Bill had gone back to the control booth and Dana Sue had left, Sarah looked at Travis. “We don’t have to do this. Dana Sue was a sweetheart for asking, but we both have a million things to do before the launch. I should probably get home and have dinner with the kids for a change.”
Travis held her gaze. “Don’t try wiggling off the hook. I don’t have anything to do that’s more important than taking my best on-air talent to dinner. I need to keep you happy.”
The flattery went straight to her head, just like a glass of champagne. Because she wasn’t used to such compliments, Sarah couldn’t let herself trust it. It was smarter to treat it lightly.
“Besides Rick the Rocket, or whatever his name is, I’m your only on-air talent,” she reminded him. “So I don’t think I’ll take your compliment too seriously.”
“Hey, what am I?” he demanded.
She grinned at him. “That remains to be seen. I’ve heard you chattering away to yourself in the studio, but you haven’t done the first rehearsal or made a single note about your program, as far as I can tell.”
“Sugar, I’m relying on my charm and spontaneity to win over the audience.”
“I suppose that’s one way to go,” she said. “I think I like my way better. At least I won’t be floundering around like a fish trying to come up with something to say.”
A grin spread across Travis’s face. “You ever known me to be at a loss for words?”
“No,” she conceded. And that was precisely the reason she knew she didn’t dare let her guard down. Because when words flowed that easily, so could the lies.
* * *
Travis knew that even a couple of hours with Sarah in the low-lit, cozy ambience of Sullivan’s was probably dangerous. On his own, he probably wouldn’t have issued such an invitation, at least not for a while. But when Dana Sue had offered, he hadn’t been able to say no.
The past couple of weeks had been hell on his libido. All it took was one of Sarah’s shy glances or the casual brush of her hand across his and he’d been on fire. He hoped like crazy it was because he hadn’t been dating for a while now, because otherwise it suggested he was falling hard and fast for a woman he needed to keep at a distance. He’d figured that out in a hurry. Sarah was all about forever, and he was mostly about what felt good tonight.
During his years playing ball, finding a woman who wanted to play by those rules had been easy. He’d never once been tempted to change the rules by which he lived, the same rules that had finally forced his mother to kick his daddy to the curb. Travis had sympathized with her, but he’d known intuitively that he was a chip off the old McDonald block. Settling down just didn’t appeal to him, mainly because he knew firsthand how badly someone would get hurt if he couldn’t make it last.
Yet, here he was with a forever woman, sitting down in a cozy booth, trying not to notice how soft the candlelight made her skin look or how brightly her eyes shone. Only a last-second burst of rationality kept him from sliding in right next to her, instead of on the other side of the table.
“Is this the first time you’ve been here?” Sarah asked him.
Travis nodded. “I’ve been meaning to come by, but my schedule’s been too hectic ever since I bought the station. It’s a nice place.”
“It’s wonderful,” Sarah said. “And the food really is as amazing as all the reviews claim.”
She studied the menu with an intensity that Travis couldn’t help wishing were directed his way. She even unconsciously licked her lips a time or two, which gave a real jolt to his system. Clearly his hormones had been shut down for too long.
“What do you recommend?” he asked eventually, too fascinated with Sarah to bother looking at the menu.
“I’m having the meat loaf,” she said at once. “I know that sounds ordinary, but trust me, Dana Sue raises it to a whole new level. It’s one of their most popular dishes.”
“Then I’ll have to try it,” he said, giving their order to the waitress when she came.
Now that they’d been left alone without the menus to occupy them, Sarah shifted uneasily across from him, her gaze on everyone in the room except Travis.
“Am I making you nervous?” he asked, trying to hide his amusement.
“No, why?” she asked, looking flustered.
“You just seem a little jumpy.”
“My nerves are shot in general,” she said candidly, then looked embarrassed by the admission. “To be totally honest, you should know that the launch scares me to death.”
“Trust me, you have nothing to worry about. The shows you’ve taped have been fantastic. There’s no reason to think you won’t be just as amazing when we go live.”
“You were only there tonight,” she said, clearly not believing him.
“But I’ve listened to the other tapes,” he said.
“Really? Why?”
“Because I wanted to hear your voice,” he admitted before he could censor himself. He scrambled for a less personal explanation. “I mean, to make sure you’re getting the knack of doing an interview. Bill told me you were doing fine, but I wanted to check it out myself.”
She looked at him as if she didn’t entirely trust his response, then said, “And? How was I?”
“Stop fishing for compliments. I’ve already said you’re fantastic. Bill’s said so, too. Stop worrying.”
She sighed. “You’ll have to say it a lot more before I’ll believe you,” she said, then groaned.
“What?” Travis asked, gauging from her reaction that something had upset her.
“My ex-husband’s here, and he’s heading this way.”
She looked so disconcerted, Travis impulsively reached over and covered her hand. “Do I need to beat him up for you?”
As he’d intended, she laughed. “I don’t think that will be necessary, but you have my permission if this doesn’t go well.” She looked up as the man reached their table. “Hi, Walter. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking all over town for you,” he said, barely sparing a glance for Travis.
Alarm flashed in her eyes. “Is it the kids? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. Raylene’s with them, and I’m heading back over there in a couple of minutes.” He finally turned to acknowledge Travis’s presence. “Could you give us a minute, please?”
Travis didn’t want to give the man two seconds alone with her, but after a glance at Sarah, who gave him a subtle nod, he stood. “I’ll be right back.” He leveled a meaningful look into the other man’s eyes to make sure Walter understood that he wouldn’t be far away.
“Thanks,” Walter said easily, then took Travis’s spot at the table.
On his way to the booth closest to the kitchen, where he’d spotted Ronnie, Travis turned back to make sure everything was okay. Whatever the man was saying, he was pretty intense about it, but Sarah didn’t look upset. He was surprised to discover just how interested he was in knowing what they were discussing.
“Everything okay?” Ronnie asked when Travis reached his table. “I see Walter’s shown up.”
“You know him?”
“We’ve met a time or two,” Ronnie said carefully. “The first time, I wrote him off as a hot-tempered jerk, but from what I hear he’s been on good behavior recently.”
In Travis’s experience only one thing made a man change his stripes that dramatically. “Do you think he wants Sarah back?” he asked, unexpectedly bothered by the idea.
“Maybe,” Ronnie said, then gave him a consoling smile. “The good news for you is that she’s not even remotely interested.”
“You sure about that? They do have kids together.”
“That’s not enough,” Ronnie said confidently.
Travis gave a nod of satisfaction. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he hoped like hell that Ronnie was right.
* * *
“You have something going on with that hot-shot ballplayer?” Walter asked Sarah as Travis left them alone.
His tone grated on her nerves. “First of all, he’s no longer a ballplayer,” she told him, unable to keep a defensive note out of her voice. “And second, it’s none of your business what I’m doing or with whom.”
He frowned at her. “Don’t get all worked up. I was just asking.”
“Really? You weren’t about to launch into a full-scale assault on my judgment?” she asked skeptically.
“No. I just came looking for you to congratulate you on the radio thing. Raylene showed me the article. It sounds like a great opportunity for you.”
Sarah’s mouth gaped. “That’s it? That’s why you tracked me down?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “Not used to hearing much positive from me, are you?”
“Not much,” she agreed. “I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually stunned, to be honest.”
“I can’t blame you for reacting like that, but I want you to know that I am trying to change,” Walter said, his expression earnest. “Ever since I had that blowup with my dad, I’ve been taking a fresh look at my life. I don’t know if I’ll get up the courage to make a clean break from the mill or my folks, but I want to be a better dad to Tommy and Libby and a decent ex-husband to you. No more lectures, no more fights, if I can help it.”
Sarah regarded him quizzically. “What’s really behind the sudden change? Have you met someone?”
“No. Haven’t been looking, to tell you the truth. Of course, predictably my mother has a few candidates from among the socially appropriate women back home,” he said wryly.
Sarah found herself chuckling. “Yes, I’m sure she does. And I’ll bet none of them are a thing in the world like me.”
“Afraid not,” he said. “More’s the pity.” He hesitated, then met her gaze. “I wish I’d appreciated you more when we were married, Sarah. I have no idea how I let things get so far off track.”
“It’s hard to go against the parents who’ve raised you and given you everything,” Sarah said, finally understanding at least some of what had turned Walter into such an overbearing, critical spouse. “I probably should have called you on it the first time you started taking potshots at me, but I was already feeling overwhelmed by living in an unfamiliar place with a baby on the way. It didn’t take much for me to believe I didn’t measure up.”
Walter shook his head. “You know, when I think about it, our problems started with the wedding. I should have stood up to my mother right then, when she insisted on a small family ceremony at home. I should never have let her get away with making you feel ashamed that you were pregnant.”
Thinking back to how disappointed she’d felt when Walter had acquiesced to his mother’s wishes, she agreed it had been the first step on a very slippery slope toward destroying the two of them.
“And I think the reception she held for us was even worse,” Sarah told him. “Were you aware that she trotted out all these beautiful, suitable women so I’d know what you’d lost by coming home with me on your arm?”
He looked bemused. “I knew there were a bunch of old friends there that night, but I didn’t know they were there to torment you.”
Sarah shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t. For all I know I was the one who made too big a thing of it. All those sly little comments your mother made about my background were starting to take root. It didn’t require much to make me feel even more insecure.” She waved off the discussion. “None of this matters now. Our marriage is over, and we’re both moving on. It’s all good.”
To her surprise, she actually meant that. Ever since she’d started working at the radio station and preparing for the launch, the confidence she’d once had in herself had been returning, bit by bit. That Bill and Travis were both free with their praise had been like pouring water on a parched plant. She felt herself blossoming.
It didn’t hurt that she’d caught Travis looking at her as though she was an attractive, desirable woman, either. Maybe those kinds of looks and the flattering talk were just part of his flirtatious charm, but it was all music to her ears. Not that she dared to let herself get too caught up in it. She was working for the man, not dating him. It was a distinction she couldn’t let herself forget.
Now Walter was studying her with an expression filled with regret. “You really are getting it all together, aren’t you? I’m glad. You deserve it, Sarah.”
She met his gaze. “Yes, I do.” And for the first time since their awful sham of a wedding, she honestly believed it.
* * *
Travis waited until Sarah’s ex had taken off before returning to the table. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the smiling woman who greeted him.
“I take it everything went okay,” he said.
“We had a good talk,” she said. “The first one in a long time.”
“He doesn’t object to you doing the radio show?”
“Not that his opinion counts, but he’s all for it,” she said. “Frankly, I was a little surprised by that, but I guess his parents haven’t heard the news and had time to tell him he should hate the idea.”
Travis regarded her curiously. “Is that what went wrong in your marriage? He was still tied to his folks by the apron strings?”
She nodded. “It was hell to live with,” she said candidly. “They never approved of me, but I can see why Walter had such a hard time taking a stand against them. His dad’s a powerful man, at least in their hometown. He owns the cotton mill that provides the work for many of the people in town. Walter was brought up knowing that he would take over one day. He was supposed to marry well, then ease right into the role of big man around town. Instead, he turned up with me.”
Travis regarded her with shock. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked incredulously.
“According to Mrs. Price, there was very little right with me. My clothes, my hair, my social graces. All lacking. Worst, of course, was that I was already pregnant.”
“I assume she’d figured out that her son had something to do with that,” Travis said.
“Actually I don’t think she much liked thinking about how it happened,” she said, grinning. “It was enough of an embarrassment that it had. Of course, that didn’t stop them from wanting to raise Tommy to follow right along in his daddy’s and granddaddy’s footsteps. I suspect Walter’s parents would have been holding a party on their front lawn to celebrate my leaving except for the fact that I took Tommy with me.”
“They sound like awful people,” Travis said, hating that she’d been through all that.
“They were just…” She hesitated, then said, “I suppose they were just traditional.”
“They were snobs,” Travis corrected. “And people with as much breeding as they apparently thought they had don’t make other people feel small and insecure.”
She gave him a surprised look. “How would you know a thing like that?”
“How much do you know about Tom’s family, the McDonalds?”
“I know he’s from Charleston, but that’s about it.”
“Well, the McDonalds, despite some financial setbacks and misbehaving through the years, rank pretty high up there in Charleston social circles. My daddy was a black sheep, but I still grew up around all that highfalutin nonsense. I was told on more occasions than I can count that McDonalds don’t do this or McDonalds don’t do that.” He grinned. “Which, of course, made it all the more essential that I do all of those things.”
“You broke the rules?” she asked with feigned surprise. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”
“Broke a few that hadn’t even been written, because folks thought it went without saying,” he said. “I liked shocking people. I figured it was my obligation to stir things up, keep them from getting too stuffy. It also took some of the heat off my daddy, who had a tendency to be the center of a lot of gossip.”
“Why was that?”
“Let’s just say he has a well-developed appreciation of women, and they tend to reciprocate. It caused no end of embarrassment to the family in general and to my mother in particular.”
There was an expression on Sarah’s face he couldn’t quite read. He had a feeling it had something to do with what she’d heard about him.
“Before you ask,” he said, deciding on a preemptive strike, “some say I’m a chip off the old block.”
Though she looked startled by his admission, she leaned closer, studying him intently. “Are they right?”
“They were,” he said candidly.
“Were?”
“Let’s just say I’m finding the straight and narrow a lot more appealing recently.”
“Any particular reason?”
He loved that she had absolutely no idea that she might have anything to do with his recent desire to transform himself. And since he wasn’t sure he could stick to his resolve, it was probably best that she not figure it out.
“Time for a change,” he said with a careless shrug.
“Maturity?” she suggested.
He laughed. “You never know. Maybe so.”
He hoped not, though, because that would imply that he’d be able to control this increasingly powerful desire to take Sarah straight home to bed and make love to her till it was time for the station to go on the air. He was hoping like crazy he’d succumb to that desire—that they both would—before his freshly minted conscience kicked in.