Loving Him Off the Field (Santa Fe Bobcats #2)(63)

She thought for another minute, taking an extra long time to chew. “Maybe not. Part of me thinks I have to stand out somehow. My dream job is only partly talent. The other part is—let’s face it—physical attractiveness. I’m competing against tall supermodel-like women. They’re beautiful, they dress in things that show off their figure, and they get noticed not just because they’re good at their job, though . . . yeah, they’re good at their job, too.” With a self-deprecating laugh, she tore off a piece of crust and let it fall back down to the plate with a plop. “Maybe my subconscious realized I couldn’t compete in the looks department, so it draws me to clothes that contrast with that image.”

“So you’re judging them for looking good.”

She snapped her head up. “That’s not it. They can’t change their genes, and I’m not saying they’re better or worse at their job because they look good in a tight sweater. I’ve had several female role models who were very pretty. It’s just knowing that plays into it that sucks. Even if nobody says it, it’s true. So my inner-thoughts drift toward rocking the boat and not playing into that part of the game.”

He nodded slowly, understanding a little of what she was saying. She distanced herself from other women in the broadcasting business by dressing less attractively and forcing it to be one hundred percent her talent alone. “I still think you’re selling yourself short,” he said, laughing when she rolled her eyes. “And that wasn’t a short joke. At least, not intentionally.”

“So you’re not doing a story on Cassie Wainwright and Coach Jordan then, huh?”

Her eyes narrowed, but she shook her head resolutely and kept eating. He sensed she was a little offended, but he was working up to a point.

“I heard Stephen got a flower delivery. Know anything about that?”

She looked at him for a long minute, her cheeks heating.

“That was nice,” he said quietly. Especially when he knew she didn’t have the money.

“No biggie,” she said, mimicking his retort from earlier.

He reached for her plate and tossed a cracker at her. “That was nice,” he tried again.

Swallowing the handful of crackers she’d just put in her mouth, she took a sip of water before speaking. “He’s a sweet guy. One of the first to actually let me interview him. I did this really dumb piece on his bottle cap collection. Which in hindsight . . .” She trailed off, looking a little sad at the reminder of why Stephen was on sabbatical. “I hope he liked them.”

“I’m sure he did. I’m also sure he liked knowing his secret was still safe.” He waited for her to meet his eyes. “You’ve had two stories land in your lap in the past week, and you’re doing nothing about them. Why?”

“I promised,” she said simply. “My mom said your reputation as a journalist was your biggest weapon. If people could trust you to keep a source anonymous, all the way, they’d keep coming back to you. I don’t necessarily have the whole anonymous source thing on this side of the media, but I do have the trust factor.”

He itched to ask more, but decided one topic at a time. “So if you hadn’t promised, you’d be running with it.”

“Maybe. Depends,” she said, scrunching her nose at that. “Hard to explain. It’s a gut thing. I hate sensational stories just for sensation. I don’t like feeling like what I report on is trashy. If I would feel trashy for having found the story the way I did, I’m not going to run it. It will just feel wrong, even if it got me attention and better assignments.” She fisted a hand over her heart, and it made him smile to see a smear of peanut butter on one knuckle. “How I feel about my work matters.”

He waited for relief to pour through him. Relief that, if she ever found out about Charlie, she’d keep it quiet. It wouldn’t be her go-to story. She’d keep a promise to him to keep it under wraps.

But his son was . . . everything. There was no way he would risk it, even for someone he cared about more than was wise. Maybe, one day, he’d explain. Once she was past this White Whale kick she was on, once they’d seen how far they would go.

Pessimistic? Maybe. But for his son, he would play safe over sorry any day.

*

Aileen’s head was ringing. Sweet Christ, could she not get five minutes of sleep without waking up? She cracked one eye and stared blearily at the clock. It told her, in cheerfully glowing red numbers, it was almost four in the morning. She groaned and shut her eye again, praying the ringing would stop soon.

It did, then started right back up again.

With a grunt, she reached out one arm without looking and grabbed her phone. From memory, she slid the bar across the screen to answer without looking and mumbled a dark, low, “He-o?”

There was a pause, and then, “Daddy?”

She raised her head from the pillow long enough to see she’d grabbed Killian’s phone and not hers. Tossing the phone onto his abdomen, she heard the slap of plastic against flesh and his answering ooof.

He pushed at her shoulder and asked, “What the hell?” in a sexy, sleepy voice.

Without raising her head from the pillow, she waved around the area where she assumed the phone landed. “Call,” she said into the soft jersey fabric of the pillowcase. “Some douche asking for daddy. Make them go away. They keep calling. Won’t stop.”