soon as he was gone, Tyler asked, “Is this better?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Another silence stretched between them and again Kristen had to wonder why he’d brought her to dinner. Not once on the way over in the car had he mentioned the crash, and from the sober expression on his face, she wondered if he wasn’t regretting his invitation.
Finally, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For your having to sit in here. You can’t hear the music.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t come for the music.”
“Why did you come?” she couldn’t resist asking. “Or maybe I should ask why did you bring me?”
His eyes met hers. They looked uncertain, something she was convinced was a rarity. Tyler Brant appeared to be a man who knew what he wanted. “Maybe I just don’t like to think of anyone eating soup for one.”
She lowered her eyes. He felt sorry for her. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. “I’m usually not alone. You forget I have a fiancé.” She waved her diamond solitaire in front of him.
“Then the crash hasn’t delayed your wedding plans?”
“No. Why should it?”
“KC’s column in the paper said—”
“Do you always believe what you read in a gossip column?”
“I usually don’t read the gossip column.”
“Good, because it’s very often just based on hearsay.”
“Then you haven’t put your personal plans on hold?”
“No, nothing’s changed,” she answered, knowing perfectly well that her answer wasn’t the truth. However, her relationship with Keith wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with Tyler Brant. She lowered her eyes, worried that what she was thinking might be reflected in her eyes.
“That’s good,” he answered.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed with a false confidence. “What about you? I know that you were on your way to Hibbing to survey the damage from a fire to one of your plants that day. Is your life back to normal again, too?”
“Yes. Busy as usual. Never enough hours in a day, it seems.”
“You have a daughter, right?”
“Yes. Brittany. She’s six.”
“What’s she like?”
He smiled affectionately. “Precocious. Knows far too much for a six-year-old.”
“Does she know about the plane crash?”
He nodded grimly. “She saw my picture on the front page of the newspaper when she was at the grocery store with my mother.”
“Did it have any lasting effect on her?”
“No, she’s fine,” he answered.
“What about you?”
“I’m fine, too.”
Kristen felt a wave of disappointment. She’d been hoping he’d give her some hint that he, too, hadn’t completely recovered from the emotional trauma of the crash.
“You’re lucky,” she told him.
Any warmth that might have been in his face disappeared. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “No. I wouldn’t exactly call myself lucky.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but the appearance of the waiter preempted any further conversation. At Tyler’s suggestion, Kristen chose the evening special along with a cup of clam chowder.
When the waiter left, Tyler asked, “Do you know when you’ll return to work?”
“Is that your way of asking me if what KC said about my losing my job is also true?”
He gave her an apologetic smile. “Is it? Is there a chance you might lose your spot on the news?”
She shrugged. “I shouldn’t, but working in television is not like going to work in an office.”
“Are you saying they can replace you because you’ve had to take some time off to recover from the accident?”
“No. But as I said before, I don’t know how viewers will react to the way I look now. And in TV that’s what counts. The viewing audience can be fickle. And no station manager likes to see the ratings drip.”
Again, she wasn’t being quite truthful. But she was reluctant to admit that the issue wasn’t simply one of whether or not the station would replace her, but rather one of her own loss of confidence in her ability to be successful in the anchor spot.
“However, my boss assures me I have a job whenever I want to return.”
“I’m glad to hear that. You’re good at what you do.”
His compliment gave her a warm, tingly feeling. “So you’ve seen me on the air?”
He smiled then—a wonderful smile that turned the tingle into a shiver of pleasure. “I doubt there’s anyone in this area who hasn’t. You look like you were born to sit in that chair.”
“I guess it’s really a dream come true. As a child, I always wanted to work in television. I just never thought it would happen.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, for one thing, I was very shy.”
“Now that I find hard to believe.”
“It’s true,” she assured him. “My mother had to drag me by the hand to school. That’s when she decided to have me enter child beauty pageants. She figured that competing in the pageants would give me self-confidence, make me more outgoing.”
“And did it?”
She shrugged. “It did help me get used to being in front of an audience and I did learn how to be comfortable in an interview, but I never really enjoyed the competitions the way some of the girls did. I would gladly have traded the crown, sash and trophy for a chance to be a regular kid. One who went in-line skating in the street and played softball in the park.”
“You didn’t get to do those things?”
She shook her head. “Mom was always worrying that I’d skin a knee or bruise a shin. Besides, there wasn’t much time for play. There were dance lessons, piano lessons, voice lessons, sessions with a personal trainer, costume fittings...” She sighed wistfully at the memories. “I guess it probably wasn’t any tougher than what athletes go through when
