Free Break of Day by Mari Madison Page B

and, afterchecking my email, loaded it up to the National Weather Service website. Why not, right? After all, I was going to need this stuff once I started my new job tomorrow.
    I read through some of their forecasts and climate predictions. Then I clicked over to the NOAA website—the home of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—and I kept going from there.
    Some of it was easy to understand. Other parts felt like Greek, which made me feel a little nervous about my upcoming assignment. Was I really going to be able to do this? To just become a weather producer with no experience at all? Asher said it wasn’t rocket science, but then he’d been born into the job. He’d probably learned half of it before he could even walk, listening to his father. I, on the other hand, would be starting at ground zero.
    But you can do this
, I told myself.
You’ve faced challenges before. And you’ve always met them head-on. Why should this be any different?
    I glanced over at the motivational sign I’d placed to the side of my bed.
What would you attempt to do
, it read,
if you knew you could not fail?
    I closed my laptop. I settled back in bed. I forced myself to close my eyes and think about my new job. But surprisingly, instead of radars and weather charts, my mind kept wandering to something else.
    Namely the guy who reported on them.
    The really, really hot guy who was basically now my new boss.
    Or should I say new partner? After all, normally a producer would be considered more of a partner than a subordinate to her reporter. But clearly Asher held all the strings in this particular scenario. I thought back to our encounter in the newsroom office when he’d first told me about the job. Where I had basically accused him of sabotaging the position I thought I was supposed to get. I was lucky he hadn’t changed his mind right then and there and said forget it.
    Still, the question lingered. Had he really promoted me because he thought I could do the job better than anyone elsethere? Or was it just a pity play he’d made on impulse after seeing my desperation at the wedding? Or, a more troubling thought: Could this just be an elaborate ploy for him to get me into bed?
    Don’t flatter yourself, Piper. This guy has women lining up for him. He doesn’t need a casting couch.
    But he
did
need a producer. A good one, according to Richard. Someone to keep him in line. Someone who was responsible and dedicated and good with details.
    Someone like me.
    I may not have known anything about weather. But I did know something about making irresponsible people accountable for their actions. After all, hadn’t I done that for years with my own mother? Not that she wasn’t still a frustrating work in progress. But she had a job now. A home. And it was all thanks to me.
    Asher said he had chosen me because I wanted it more than anyone else. He hadn’t been wrong about that. However it had happened, this was a chance of a lifetime and I was planning on taking full advantage.
    One way or another I would prove to them all that even if I hadn’t deserved to be given the job in the first place, I deserved to keep it. And no one—not even Asher himself—would be able to stop me.

nine
    Â 
ASHER
    B
ang, bang, bang!
    I groaned, pulling my pillow over my head as the incessant rapping bore into my brain. What was that? Was someone at my door? I peeked out from under the pillow, squinting at the early morning sunlight peering through my window from the gap in my blackout blinds. What the hell time was it anyway?
    I’d admittedly stayed up way too late the night before, hanging with Jess and her bartender girlfriend at their new place in Mission Beach, watching them do tequila shots until nearly sunrise. I hadn’t set my alarm on purpose, wanting to sleep it off before heading into work. Sure, I was technically supposed to be at work at nine, but I had done most of