Free Falling Star by Diana Dempsey

singing
"Desperado." She chuckled softly. That man was never in tune, in or
out of bed.
    Maybe she should have become an actress.
Lazily Kelly reached for Howard's khakis, in a heap next to the
glass coffee table with the jockeys still inside. TV news and
acting were a lot alike, but the payoff to succeeding as an actress
was bigger. The competition, though, was hell. Kelly shook out the
khakis and pulled the wallet from the back pocket. Those girls were
to-die-for beautiful and there were so damn many of them. There
were a lot of good-looking girls in TV news but few true babes. In
that group she was a clear ten.
    Howard had a twenty, two tens and four ones.
She lifted the tens and two of the ones and returned the wallet,
idly poaching a cigarette from the crumpled pack in the other
pocket. Howard's voice carried from the shower. "Why don't you come
to your senses? You been out ridin' fences for so long now." Man,
he was happy now. She lit the cigarette. Morons always were. It was
like that news director in Bakersfield who told her everybody in
his newsroom had an IQ of a hundred fifty plus. Then what were they
doing in California's armpit?
    The water stopped. Howard must be clean
enough now to go home to Sally, or whatever her name was, who was
apparently so stupid she couldn't tell her boyfriend had just done
the nasty with his favorite coworker. Kelly fingered the khakis
again, pondering taking the twenty before he came out. She could
use it.
    "So you'll be more careful from now on?"
Startled, she pulled her hand back when Howard emerged from the
bathroom wrapped in a towel, his legs sticking out from the thick
white fleece like hairy tree trunks.
    "I'll be careful," she lied.
    "I can count on you to get script approval in
the future? Show up to meetings? And do your level best not to get
the station sued?" He bent to towel his feet. "I don't want to have
to cover for you again."
    Kelly ground out her cigarette. He hadn't
minded covering her twenty minutes ago. "Will you do something for
me?"
    "Again?" He tossed the towel in the general
direction of the bathroom. It landed in a heap in the hall.
"What?"
    "Will you tell Tony you think I should do
some fill-in anchoring?"
    "You mean for Natalie?" He laughed and pulled
on his jockeys. "Get in line."
    "But I never get a chance." She shimmied
closer. "It's not fair."
    "Life's not fair." He stepped into his
khakis.
    "I hope you're not telling me you won't talk
to Tony." She couldn't stop an angry note from creeping into her
voice.
    "I'm not saying that." He pushed her away and
reached for his shirt, finally glancing up to meet her eyes. "It'd
be great for you to do some anchoring, Kell, but I can't just make
it happen,"
    She arranged her full lips into a pout.
"Couldn't you just help me, Howard? I do so much to help you." She
batted her long lashes at him. "And I could do even more." She
brought her mouth close to his ear. "Didn't you tell me you have a
fantasy about two girls at one time? Who could pull that off better
than me?" He blinked. "You do for me," she whispered, "and I do for
you."
    Slowly Kelly turned and strolled back to the
couch, chuckling softly. That should keep him on good behavior
through the July sweep. She flipped open a People , the face
of the actress on the cover stained a light amber by the spilled
beer. Out of one eye she watched Howard make three attempts before
he finally succeeded in attaching his watch to his wrist. She gave
him a coy wave from the couch when he let himself out.
    *
    Geoff switched off the speaker phone, his
brow creased with worry. No way even he, the Aussie with the
perennially sunny disposition, could put a positive spin on the
afternoon's events.
    He scanned his computer screen, reviewing the
scrupulous record he'd kept of the dozen calls he'd placed. Four
were to news directors in Los Angeles. Another eight were to their
counterparts in other major television markets, selected for their
superior news departments. But no matter