Free DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN by Katherine Cachitorie, Mallory Monroe Page B

assignments they give me,” Val went
on.   “What does a brother like me look
like reporting on a coalminers strike?   What the hell I know about coalmining?   Yes, I’m from Indiana, and yes we border Kentucky, but I don’ know
nothing about no damn coalmining!” Nikki laughed.   Then Val added: “But a brother’s got to
work.”
    “I hear that.”
    “So I journey to the Kentucky’s of
this world and watch those straggly-haired men wipe the soot from their faces
and complain endlessly about how everybody wants to take their guns away from
them, and how they’re going to take their country back one buckshot at a time,
or whatever the hell they be saying.   And
I continue to report all of that.   While
you, on the other hand,” he added, as he looked at her with a concerned look on
his face, “continue to get thrown out of press conferences.”
    The waiter arrived with Val’s scotch
and soda just as he said that.   He
accepted the drink, waited for the waiter to leave, and then looked, once
again, at Nikki.   Nikki was staring at
him.
    “You know about that?” she asked him.
    “No you didn’t ask me that.   This is my hometown too.   I still have friends in this town.   Besides, I saw the tape.”
    Nikki continued to stare at him.   “But what did you think when you saw it?”
    “You called him out.   There’s nothing else to think.   Mayor Bainbridge gave every one of those
contracts for his road improvement plan to his friends and relatives.   Every one of them.   And not one of them went to any minorities
when he knew they were supposed to set aside some of those contracts so all of
the different businesses can get a piece of the pie.   He can’t abuse tax dollars like that.   And you called him out on it.”
    “I felt I had to.   He’s so corrupt it’s not even funny,
Val.   But nobody challenges him.   You used to work here.   You know where I’m coming from.”
    “You’d better believe I know.”
    “But he orders me to leave the press
conference because he claims I’m being disrespectful.   I’m asking the tough questions, which, by the
way, is what a journalist is supposed to do, but he calls that disrespect.   And he never answered my question.   He would never tell me what I was saying that
was so wrong.”
    “Because you told the truth and he
knew it,” Val said firmly.   “His ass is
even worse than what you said, if you ask me.   And you were absolutely right to call him out on his bullshit.   But what about Daniel, Nikki?   That’s the thing.   He is going to have a fit when he finds out.   If he hasn’t found out already.”
    “He’s still out of town and won’t be
back until later today, but I get your point.   He still could have heard about it.”
    “He’s going to be furious with you,
girl.”
    A troubled look appeared in Nikki’s
big, brown eyes.   “I know.”
    “He’s going to blow a gasket when he
finds out that his precious little Nikki got herself in a shouting match with
the mayor.”
    “It wasn’t a shouting match.”
    “But that’s how the local press is
playing it up.   They’re calling it a
shouting match.”
    “That’s ridiculous.   I asked him tough questions, that’s all I
did.   Anybody who watches that press
conference will see that I wasn’t even disrespectful like he claimed.”
    “But you’re not dating anybody .   You’re dating the senior vice president of the largest company in this
state, Nikki.   And he’s a conservative
man too?   And an older man?   Child please.   He expects his little princess to comport herself in a way befitting his
rank and status. And I assure you, my dear, going toe to toe with Mayor
Bainbridge is not the kind of comportment he means.”
    “Yeah, well,” Nikki said, that feeling
of regret coming over her in a wave of embarrassment, “it is what it is.   I wish I didn’t have to go there today, but I
had to do my job. Todd Bainbridge is ratchet, and somebody