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out, determined to be friendly but unaffected by him.
    “Good morning,” he said when he spotted me. He gave me a wide smile that put the hot Southern sunshine to shame. A sunny smile. I’d always thought that was such a ridiculous description, but I could see it now, as if he carried a bit of the bright California sun with him from his home state. No doubt he’d thawed many a female heart in Minnesota where he’d last worked. Not here, Buddy . This was one girl who was going to stay chill.
    His gaze swept over me from my jersey knit wrap top to my black pencil skirt and pumps, seeming to take inventory of every detail. When his eyes met mine again, the clear green of them was so striking, I almost forgot to respond to his greeting. Chill. Right.
    “Hi,” I finally managed. “It’s afternoon, you know.”
    He huffed a slight laugh. “I guess it is. I’m still kinda wiped out from the drive and moving in and stuff. I didn’t get up till about an hour ago.”
    Now that he mentioned it, I noticed his hair was still damp from the shower, darkening its color slightly. He carried a garment bag that must have contained his suit because he was wearing a golf-type shirt and flip flops with a pair of long shorts. In the daylight, my assumptions from last night about his volleyball muscles proved true. Long, lean, and muscular, he would look right at home among the athletes he’d be reporting on. He moved like an athlete, too, fluid and confident.
    Butterflies began hatching and testing their wings inside me. I didn’t understand myself—I’d seen hot guys before. The MSU campus had been full of them. Hale was handsome. So what was it about this guy? He fell into step beside me, and I worked to keep my high heels from wobbling in the gravel lot and to keep my voice from betraying my absurd awareness of him.
    “Well, I hope you’re rested up because I think we’re going to be putting in some serious work this weekend. Mr. Aubrey doesn’t exactly keep a full crew on hand. See this?” I motioned between the two of us as we walked across the parking lot to the building. “This is pretty much it.”
    “Yeah, I figured. It was the same in Mankato.”
    Normally there was a skeleton staff on weekends—a meteorologist, one news anchor who also served as reporter and producer of the ten p.m. newscast, the sports anchor, who’d spend the day driving from town to town gathering highlights from the major sporting events across the area, and one poor photographer who scrambled all day long picking up video and sound bites to help flesh out the thirty minute show. Today there would be some extras on hand—Dennis, to teach Aric the ropes, and Allison, to help me learn producing and get me through my first show as weekend anchor.
    Honestly, I was less concerned about the producing part than the anchoring part. Sure, I was used to being on camera—as a reporter, I’d gotten pretty good at it over the past year. But that was mostly recorded. Anchoring the newscast was live TV. And that was a different story.
    At least with anchoring there was a bathroom nearby, which was a plus. Out in the field, I’d had to use a trashcan or go behind a bush to throw up before going on air for every live shot. Every. Single. Time. That was another little thing I’d have to get a handle on before I could move on to a bigger market.
    Once we got inside, the day felt like I’d stepped onto a NASCAR track. I went out and one-man-banded two stories then came back in and worked with Allison on producing the show. Producing the weekends involved writing everything in the show that wasn’t written by a reporter, ordering the stories for the newscast, and making sure all the content timed out to fit into the twenty minute news block. The rest of the time would be filled by weather and sports.
    Mara, bless her heart, was in and out all day shooting stories. “You owe me, sister.” She pointed at me. “If Hairspray Queen Colleen was here, you’d