Free A Case for Love by Kaye Dacus Page B

It’s all I ever wanted to do since I was six years old. Once I became the weekend sports anchor, I was very happy to stay there until John decided to move on to Cannon Sports News so I could take over the sports director position. But John, of course, isn’t going anywhere. And once I got married to someone whose career is here in Bonneterre, I didn’t want to leave, either. Then, because the marketing department had created so much of an image for me, they started having me cover non-sports stories. When the morning show co-anchor position opened up, I gave it a lot of prayer—just ask my husband; I kept him up plenty of nights because I couldn’t sleep. Finally, I decided to take that step. And I’ve never regretted it.”
    “But do you miss reporting sports?”
    “Every day. But I’m content doing what I’m doing because I know it’s where God wants me. So you have to ask yourself this: Do you want to move into main news because you feel like it’s where God wants you, or do you want it because Alaine wants it?” Bekka shrugged. “Until you figure that out, you probably aren’t going to be happy no matter what happens.” Her cell phone buzzed. “Gotta go. See you in the studio.”
    “Thanks, Bekka.”
    Alaine trudged back to her cubicle and tossed the steno pad on top of the papers scattered across her desk. She sank into her chair, slumped over the desk, and dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her temples.
    Pray about it? She’d done nothing but pray about moving into main news for years. But for some reason Bekka’s words continued to niggle at her. Was becoming a news anchor what God wanted for her, or something she desired on her own? Wait. Wasn’t there a verse in the Bible somewhere that said something about how if she loved God, He would give her the desires of her heart?
    The phone rang, and she picked it up without looking at the caller ID window. “Alaine Delacroix.”
    “Alaine? This is Forbes Guidry. Are you okay? You sound upset.”
    How could someone she’d met only once be able to sense her turmoil through just the way she said her name when she answered the phone? “I think I just hurt a very good friend of mine here at the office—one of my few good friends, in fact.”
    “What happened?”
    “Oh, I seem to have lost my internal editor and spouted off at the mouth about something I had no business saying to her that was coming from a need to vent my personal frustrations on someone else.” Hey, wait a minute. Speaking of personal frustrations, what was she doing talking to Forbes Guidry—the enemy! “Look, now isn’t a good time to talk.”
    “Okay. When would be a good time?”
    She sighed. “Forbes, listen, I have a lot going on in my life right now, and...”
    “And you’re just not that into me. I get it. But you can’t blame a guy for trying, right?”
    Something inside of her broke in half—one side of it crying for her to recant and go out with the handsome lawyer, the other half screaming to get off the phone immediately and have no more contact with the man whose parents were trying to put hers out of home and business.
    “Right.” Her voice croaked; she cleared her throat. “I really have to finish up some stuff for my program.”
    “I’m not going to give up. But I’ll let you go for now. Bye.”
    “Bye.” She held the receiver to her ear until the dial tone sounded, then slowly lowered it to the cradle.
    She wanted to burst into tears. Wanted to bury her head in her arms and just sob like she hadn’t done since she was eighteen and Bobby Ponnier broke her heart when he laughed at her invitation to be her date to the Chi Omega Sadie Hawkins dance.
    Why was everything in her life falling apart all at the same time?

CHAPTER 7
    “Mr. Murphy. It’s nice to finally meet you face-to-face.” Alaine walked forward, right hand extended toward the young, African American man.
    Even as he clasped her hand in his, LeShon Murphy cocked his head and gave