"Who Needs Decaf?"

Luckily, most of the other calls had been pleasant and productive. Two years ago, with Brad’s wholehearted approval and their accountant’s assurance of tax write-offs, Sheryl had organized a community Christmas festival that helped to raise money for area families in need. Other sponsors had joined in with HGS, and the event had become an annual tradition. School counselors had been calling all morning with this year’s updated list of needy families.

So far, it looked as though the turnout for the HGS Holiday Festival on the nineteenth would be even bigger than it had been the past two years, which meant more people would be assisted. It felt great to be Santa Claus, and the festival couldn’t have come at a better time, publicity-wise. Sheryl and her assistant, Grace, had already lined up local performers and food vendors, and a volunteer committee of HGS employees was devising different contests for kids of varying ages. Brad himself would act as the final judge for all the competitions.

Pleased with her accomplishments, Sheryl consulted her to-do list of everything she wanted to achieve before lunch, and her mood took a sharp bah-humbug turn. Call Nathan Hall’s office and arrange appointment. She should do that immediately to give him the most advance notice of the Christmas party and increase his chances of being able to attend. Squirming in her seat, she admitted to herself that she should have called yesterday. But she’d just been so busy…

Her fingers reached for the phone with all the enthusiasm she usually reserved for doctors’ appointments that involved stirrups.

But the receptionist who answered was a cheerful woman who easily accommodated Sheryl with a meeting first thing Tuesday morning, so maybe Nathan’s schedule wasn’t quite as jam-packed as he’d insinuated. Which confirmed her suspicion that his refusal to talk with her had been a power move—very annoying, even if she had shown up unannounced for the same reason.

No sooner had Sheryl disconnected than the persistent red light for line one flashed again, a mere second before the distinct buzz that indicated a call was coming through. If it’s Mom again, I’m asking Brad to authorize a new extension for me. “Sheryl Dayton.”

“Ah, um, Sheryl, I hope you don’t mind, but Tameka gave me your personal ex—oh, this is Jonathan Spencer. We, ah, met last night.”

“I remember,” she assured him.

They’d sat next to each other through the two-hour movie, then joined Tyler and Meka for a late snack at a local diner. Jonathan had seemed nice enough, though to be honest, not particularly memorable, which, judging from his nervous tone, he realized. But she was sure there was more to the man than she’d glimpsed last night. He was probably a wonderful guy just waiting to be found by the right lucky woman.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t usually call women this soon after first meeting them—didn’t want you to think I was desperate or, ah, you know, a stalker—but this morning a client gave me two tickets to The Nutcracker tomorrow night. I thought if you’re not already busy, you might like to go with me?”

Well, since Meka wasn’t available for that girls’ night out this weekend, Sheryl didn’t really have plans. Besides, she needed to work on her holiday spirit this year, and she hadn’t seen the ballet since she was a little girl. Maybe Nutcracker was just what she needed.

“That sounds great Jonathan, thanks for thinking of me. What time’s the show?”

He answered promptly, as though afraid she’d change her mind if he didn’t, and volunteered to pick her up. “Would you like to have dinner beforehand?”

Sheryl did a quick mental analysis. He’d been awfully quiet last night. Maybe just because he was too polite to talk during movies, and Meka and Ty had monopolized conversation afterwards. Still, if Jonathan were as silent Saturday evening, it could make for a long dinner.

“I have a ton of shopping that I’ll be doing tomorrow,” she demurred, “and it may run into the early evening. Why don’t we just go to the show and maybe coffee afterwards?”

A good compromise, she thought. And in case of a true dating emergency, like he belched to the melody of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy or excused himself during intermission to call his wife, she’d claim unforeseen exhaustion and ask to go straight home. Of course, she seriously doubted he’d do either of those things, but a smart single gal didn’t overlook a possible escape route on a first date.

THE DOORBELL RANG at seven sharp. Whatever else could be said about Jonathan Spencer, he was punctual. Sheryl opened the door with a welcoming smile.

“You look nice,” Jonathan said immediately, as though he’d rehearsed his greeting.

Almost as an afterthought, he ran a quick glance down the forest-green, ankle-length velvet sheath she wore under a matching mock duster of green-and-black velvet. The long jacket was edged in black satin at the cuffs and lapels. She’d be plenty warm, the outfit just wasn’t very water-resistant. Those weathermen who’d promised a clear, starry night with a record-breaking lack of precipitation had better have known what they were talking about.

“You, too,” she said, taking in his blue suit and pinstripe tie.

Jonathan was good-looking, she realized absently. Average height, he had coloring reminiscent of the beach—thick sandy hair and oceanic aquamarine eyes. So why was she only just now noticing he was attractive and even then in a detached, he’d-make-a-good-date-for-my-sister, kind of way? Here stood a reasonably handsome man with a good job, acceptable table manners and cultured enough not to feel like a sissy attending the ballet. Frankly, after a few of the bad dates she and Meka had discussed in their collective pasts, the table manners alone put him ahead of some of the men out there. But there was no sense of anticipation or attraction, no flutter of first-date nerves.

Nonetheless, she smiled brightly and grabbed her black handbag off of a hook near the front door. “Where’s the performance? I didn’t think to ask when you called yesterday. The Paramount? Mercer Arts Center?”

“Actually, it’s at a place I’m not familiar with, but I got the map off the Web.” He retrieved two tickets from his jacket pocket, studying one quizzically. She just made out the word Nutcracker before he folded the tickets back into his pocket. “The Backstage Pass?”

Sheryl could feel her eyebrows zoom up and disappear beneath her bangs. “The Backstage Pass, really?”

How many theaters in Seattle could there be by that name? She’d been there twice, once as a requirement for a college elective, and once in the pre-Ty days when Meka had been dating a would-be actor. Tameka would roll on the floor laughing when Sheryl told her she’d gone back.

The Backstage Pass specialized in bizarre, experimental performances, and while Sheryl wasn’t a regular theater buff, she also wasn’t a total neophyte to the Seattle arts scene. She’d seen a couple of truly wonderful alternative pieces in this city, but not at the Backstage Pass. The play she’d seen in college—billed as a “romance” —consisted of a man and woman standing on stage for a solid hour quoting verses from obscure poems on love while playing Ping-Pong. In the nude.

The program explained that the nudity represented men’s and women’s desire for true intimacy and no barriers, while the indoor tennis table was a metaphor for the games that people play anyway, preventing that very intimacy. Sheryl got all that, but she figured that if you had to explain the symbolism, it probably wasn’t working very well. Besides, though there was nothing at all vulgar about the tedious, vaguely pretentious one-act, some people just weren’t meant to be naked in front of an audience. Particularly if they were going to dive energetically to the left to volley an opponent’s serve.

The second time she’d gone—to support Tameka and watch the boyfriend who’d generously and inaccurately called himself an actor—the play hadn’t even aspired to something as lofty as symbolism. It had been simple shock theater, designed to offend audiences, and, if failing to raise that level of emotion, then at least gross them out.

What was a place like that doing with a traditional holiday ballet like Nutcracker?

“Anything wrong?” Jonathan asked, snapping her back to the present.

“Um…” He already seemed nervous about tonight; she didn’t want to say anything that might be construed as a complaint this early in the evening.

Maybe it won’t be so bad.

For all she knew, the place was under new management. The show’s title was at least the same, a good sign. If they were doing some sort of revisionist adaptation, didn’t they normally alter the name? The Wiz, for example, had been a jazzed-up version of The Wizard of Oz. If Jonathan had said the show was called Crackin’ The Nut, then she’d have reason to worry.

She kicked her smile up another notch, hoping she didn’t look like some phony, cheerful early-morning news anchor. “Nope, everything is just fine.”

Of course, two hours later, she wished that instead of being polite she’d advised Jonathan that they run, not walk, in the opposite direction of the theater to seek out other entertainment. Because “entertaining” certainly didn’t describe the evening she was being subjected to.

When they’d arrived, Sheryl had noticed that she and Jonathan seemed overdressed compared to most of the other patrons. But it wasn’t until they reached the ushers at the front of the auditorium that she noticed the billboard: Nutcracker! and then in much smaller print underneath, “A dark, urbanized retelling of the original tale.” Oh, good, just what Christmas needed—dark urbanization.

As Jonathan followed her gaze, he began to look nervous—even more so than before—and immediately retrieved the tickets from his pocket, squinting at the small print. “I had no idea,” he stammered. “A client gave…I saw the first word and just assumed…”

“It’s all right,” she told him, feeling guilty now for not having shared her misgivings about the Backstage. “Maybe it’ll be…” She hadn’t been able to think of a word, but it hadn’t mattered because then it was their turn to hand over their tickets and find their seats.

Now, it was intermission, and Sheryl didn’t know how much more she could take. The play had begun with slightly altered characters Claire and Franz giving disturbed soliloquies on their relationships with their parents. Due to a dysfunctional home life, they joined a gang led by an underworld figure known as the Rat King. Then followed several violent, badly choreographed street-fight/dance numbers accompanied by an overpowering electric guitar. The program promised that in the next half of the show, the traditional dance of sweets was being replaced by Claire hallucinating that different narcotics had come to life.

As soon as the lights went up in the auditorium, Sheryl bolted for the main lobby, a dazed Jonathan following behind. Was there a polite way to ask him if they could just cut their losses and leave? He’d been the one to invite her, and if she suggested going now, she might make him feel worse. Please, get us out of here, she willed him, feeling the bright red walls around them closing in on her.

He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “Um, Sheryl, I was wondering if—”

“Yes?” she prompted, trying not to sound too eager while fighting the urge to shout, “Race you to the car!”

“—you’d like a drink?”

Damn. So close. “Yes, please. A drink sounds…” Necessary. “Refreshing.”

He told her he’d see if they served any white wines and shuffled off through the crowd of theater-goers, some of whom looked appalled, some of whom were raving about the “bold, new vision,” and some of whom were laughing hysterically and cracking jokes about how the play should end. Finding a few of the alternate endings humorous, Sheryl stood near the top of a stairwell and shamelessly eavesdropped, occasionally scooting over to make room for someone to get by, but not really paying attention to her surroundings until she experienced a little jolt. It felt like a mild, but not unpleasant, electric shock.

Glancing around to make sure there were no exposed wires anywhere near her, she caught the dark-roast gaze of Nathan Hall. The fact that his mere presence had given her a warm tingle was more disturbing than the on-stage spectacle.

Now what? She didn’t particularly want to speak to him, but since he was standing only yards away and they were staring into each other’s eyes…She blinked purposefully.

Nathan walked around the people surrounding him and strode toward her. Not as dressed up as she in her velvet or Jonathan in his suit, Nathan looked great in a long-sleeved graphite shirt and black pants that were mercifully baggier than the jeans she’d last seen him in.

Of course, instead of evaluating his sartorial choices, she should have been working on an opening line, because when he stopped directly in front of her, what she unthinkingly blurted was, “What are you doing here?”

His eyes narrowed as he scowled, and she immediately regretted her words. She shouldn’t further antagonize the very columnist Brad aspired to win over.

Before Nathan could retort to her rudeness, she hastily amended, “I didn’t mean that personally, it was more a what-would-any-right-thinking-person-be-doing-here kind of question.”

Oh, hell, had she just insinuated he wasn’t right-thinking? Worse, what if he actually liked this type of theater? How had she landed a job in public relations, anyway, if her communication skills were this bad?

But Nathan smiled at her comment, though unintentionally by the looks of it. His quick, genuine grin gave way to a slightly startled expression, then a carefully neutral mask. “You aren’t enjoying the ballet?”

She shuddered. “It’s awful.”

“I know. Kaylee’s gonna owe me big time for this.”

“Kaylee?” Maybe he had a sister, she thought hopefully. Annoyed for caring, she mollified herself with the rationalization that she had kind of flirted with him the other day and she would feel bad about flirting with another woman’s boyfriend.

“My date,” he said. “She writes for the Arts section and was sent to cover this nightmare. You can read all about it in the Sojourner.”

“As it happens, I don’t spend my money on that publication.” Too late, she bit her tongue, wondering what had happened to her resolve not to antagonize.

But he made the switch to antagonism without missing a beat. “I understand I have an appointment with you next week. I appreciate your going through conventional channels, but if you’re coming to grovel, I should tell you now your time would be better off picking out a Christmas tree or something. I’m not backing off your crooked employer.”

“Crooked! Brad Hammond is a great man. Not just as a business visionary and software genius, but a legitimately nice person.”

“If your definition of nice involves stealing,” Nathan retorted. “Are you telling me you honestly believe the similarities between Brad Hammond’s game and Kendra Mathers’s story—a story that first appeared on her site long before the public had any information on Xandria Quest—can be chalked up to coincidence?”

Not about to comment on the case, she focused only on his first sentence. “My definition of nice sure as hell doesn’t involve making snap judgments about people I don’t know, but am more than happy to vilify in order to sell a few papers!”

“I do not make snap judg—” But Nathan cut himself off. She wondered if it was because he had in fact recently leapt to a conclusion about someone, or simply because he’d noticed people were beginning to stare.

Jonathan appeared at the edge of the group of onlookers, and muttering pardon me to several of them, reached Sheryl’s side. “Your wine. I hope white Zinfandel is all right?”

“Sure, thanks,” she murmured, annoyed with the effort it took to pull her gaze away from Nathan’s face and turn to her date. “Jonathan Spencer, Nathan Hall.”

“Oh, the reporter?” Jonathan asked brightly. “You did a great series on industrial effects on the water-front! How you took such dry statistics and presented both the pros and cons of commercialization…”

NATHAN NODDED and managed a gracious response to Jonathan’s words, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything other than Sheryl Dayton. She riled him, no escaping that, but it helped to know he had a mutual effect on her. He doubted that a woman who made her living in PR usually lost her temper.

How devoted to her job was she, he wondered? Would she defend her company even if she knew it was in the wrong simply because she was paid to? Nathan understood the necessity of a paycheck, but in his journalism career, he’d seen too many people sell out their scruples.

Not that he should care so much about Sheryl Dayton, but it bothered him to know he might be attracted to a woman with shady ethics. And he was attracted to her. Wrapped as she was in that slinky fall of soft fabric, which hugged her body and made her eyes glow, how could he not be?

To his right, the crowd parted like a sea before Moses, and a statuesque redhead made her way up the stairs, drawing admiring male stares as she passed. Nathan was used to the Kaylee Phenomenon, but he couldn’t remember his beautiful co-worker ever delivering the kick to his libido that Sheryl Dayton did.

Kaylee stopped at his side with a sigh. “I’m back from the powder room. I suppose we have to watch Act Two now?”

“Only if you want your column to be accurate and well-informed,” he kidded his co-worker.

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m pretty sure I could just turn in the words save your money and cover it. Oh, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

Nathan did so, watching Sheryl’s face as she met Kaylee. Most women looked intimidated or envious meeting the supermodel-caliber beauty for the first time, but Sheryl simply grinned and remarked on how awful the show was.

“Well,” Kaylee said, “as long as we still have a minute, I should probably excuse myself to call my—”

“You’d better hurry,” Nathan interjected. “I’m not watching this thing by myself.”

She nodded and stepped outside for a better cell connection. Moments later, the lights blinked to signal the second half, and Sheryl and her date disappeared inside the auditorium. Standing in the lobby, Nathan watched them go, wondering whether he’d interrupted his co-worker specifically so she wouldn’t have a chance to say she was calling her husband, who’d had to work tonight.

Had Nathan wanted Sheryl to think he was on a date just because she had been? Of course, Sheryl wouldn’t know how ironic the idea of his dating Kaylee was. Not only was his friend and co-worker very happily married, she was the person who routinely insisted Nathan should date more.

He changed the subject whenever Kaylee brought it up, but she’d made it clear that she thought Nathan distrusted women because of his mom walking out when he was young. Apparently, Kaylee had been exposed to too much Freud one semester in college. The problems Nathan had in relationships had nothing to do with the mother he barely thought about and everything to do with individual circumstance. Sheryl Dayton was a perfect example.

Yes, he was drawn to Sheryl, he was man enough to admit that. But the inconvenient desire he’d felt both times he’d been around her wouldn’t blur his principles. Her employer had boasted his aggressive company goals in numerous interviews, and if Nathan learned of concrete proof that the man’s ambitions had led him to take advantage of a struggling writer without the same corporate legal resources, all of Seattle would read about it.

Sheryl wouldn’t like it—wouldn’t like him—but that was just too bad. Nathan’s dad, a dedicated police officer, had spent hours lecturing him on integrity, and Nathan was determined to live up to his late father’s ideals. The very ideals that had eventually broken up his parents’ marriage.

Nathan would simply put Sheryl and his curiosity about which was softer, the velvety concoction she wore or her skin, out of his mind.

Although, he’d feel better about the sensible, uncompromising resolution if he weren’t already thinking about seeing her Tuesday.

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