Calling All the Shots

“I was coming after you,” he said. The light from the hallway shone down on his hair and brought out the angles of his face. He was truly a very beautiful man and a part of her was angry at him just for being so damned attractive to her. Life would be much easier if he weren’t. “You’re going to need this.”

She nodded and reached out for her coat but he held it up for her.

“Turn around,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

She did as he asked, sliding her arms into her coat. It had been a long time since anyone had helped her with her coat and the little gesture touched her. Made her remember the other caring things he’d done tonight.

If he was playing her … He had to be playing her, didn’t he?

He lifted her hair from the back of her neck where it had gotten trapped between her body and her coat.

“Damn,” he said under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I had a bet with myself that your hair wouldn’t be as soft as it looks.”

“And?”

“It’s softer,” he said.

He dropped her hair and then turned and went back into his apartment. All she could do was stand there feeling more confused and alone than she had in a long, long time.

Four

Peter Mullen was whipcord lean and had a grin that made you want to smile back at him. He wasn’t overly tall but then he was a race car driver. And the cockpits of those things weren’t made for giants.

“Do you know what Deirdre just said to me?” Kat said, coming up next to Willow where they’d set up their shot for the day. They were indoors at a charity event for the Children’s Diabetes Foundation. Peter was a major sponsor.

“What?”

“She said, ‘I still don’t get racing. I mean, they just drive around the track. What’s the point?’”

“What did you say to her?”

“That I grew up in the South. You know all we have down there is racing … go-carts, dirt bikes, you name it, guys race it,” she said with a grin.

Willow had to laugh at Kat. The woman was five years younger than her but they had the same sensibility. It was one of the reasons why Willow had hired her. She’d been grooming Kat—well, mentoring her would be a better way of putting it.

“You’re kidding me,” Willow said. It seemed as though Deidre was determined to not make the match with Peter work. A part of Willow wondered why she’d even gone to a matchmaker but she knew the other woman must have had a good reason.

“Do you think I should go and explain it to her?” Willow asked. She wasn’t too sure she could explain racing, having not really watched it herself.

“No. I already gave her an iPad loaded with the information. Told her if Peter could read all her columns the least she could do was understand what he did for a living,” Kat said.

Uh-oh. Kat had a way of shooting from the hip sometimes. “Did you say it like that?”

“What, am I stupid?” Kat said. “Of course not. But I wanted to. Why did she even go to a matchmaker?”

“I don’t know. I’ll go talk to her,” Willow said. She understood being reluctant—after all, everybody had their share of battle scars when it came to relationships and love. But Deidre had sought this out.

“Fine by me. I’ll go talk to Peter,” Kat said.

Willow had the feeling that Kat liked Peter more than just as a friend. Every time they were together on set Kat was over there batting her eyelashes and flirting with him. “He’s spoken for.”

“I know that,” the other woman said.

“Just make sure you remember it,” Willow said before walking away. She had a radio on her belt and an earpiece in her ear so she could hear whatever a craft or services person needed from her as they prepared to shoot the episode.

Peter and Deidre were the last couple featured in this first season of Sexy & Single. Willow just wanted them to make a spectacular ending to her show so that advertisers would come back and viewers would keep tuning in.

She walked into the large bathroom that they had commandeered as a dressing room/greenroom for the day. Deidre was sitting in front of a bank of mirrors alone. She seemed small and like someone who didn’t know everything in that moment. Willow cleared her throat and as instantaneously as a switch being thrown, Deidre changed.

Suddenly she looked like Ms. D, the advice columnist famous for her tough love approach to problems. But Willow had seen the woman behind the curtain and for the first time since Deidre had come on the show, Willow felt a bit of sympathy toward her.