ROMANCING MO RYAN Read online

  Helen stared at Nikki, as if waiting for her to respond.

  “Well?” Helen asked.

  “Well what?” Nikki said.

  “You dress provocatively, Nikki.”

  Maybe to a fifty year old woman, Nikki wanted to say.

  “Well?” fifty-year-old Helen said again. “Why should a man buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?”

  “Maybe he’s buying the cow,” Nikki replied, “for the hamburgers and steaks he can get out of it, too.”

  The men in the newsroom laughed. Helen looked at Nikki angrily, and then turned back around to her own desk.

  But Nikki ignored them all and turned on her computer. She didn’t come all this way to Florida to pick fights with Helen Jones or anybody else. She just wanted to do her job and prove to the Gazette, and to Phil Lopez, that hiring her wasn’t a bad decision. That was why she did everything they asked her to do without batting an eye, even though all of her assignments had gone nowhere fast.

  But she was already, three weeks in, well accustomed to the jabs. And not just from Helen, either, but from the other handful of females who worked for the paper.

  One of them, Andrea, came up to her desk and put her two cents in later that same morning.

  “I agree with Helen,” she said quietly. “You’re always showing cleavage, always wearing those short skirts. That’s why these men be trying to hit on you. It’s your own fault. All you have to do is cover yourself up, and then they’ll leave you alone.” She said this as if she really believed that. “They don’t bother me and Helen.”

  Nikki glanced down, at the woman’s long, flower-child styled dress that draped down to her swollen ankles, at her hair pulled back in a severe bun, at her thick glasses. Nikki knew she could have gotten cute, and said, I see why they don’t, but she didn’t go there. She respected her elders. It was her elders who didn’t respect her.

  “The point is,” Andrea went on, “you dress too provocative for me.”

  “I’m not dressing for you,” Nikki replied.

  The woman gave Nikki a harsh look, although Nikki was only stating a fact, and then went on about her business. Nikki could never understand why they seemed so obsessed with her appearance. Were they coming from a good place of helpfulness, or an ugly place? Was she really dressing as provocatively as they claimed, and she just didn’t see it? Or was it pure jealousy they were spewing, merely because a young woman like her was suddenly on the scene? Nikki didn’t know, but she went on about her business just the same, which included re-reading the article she wrote on Nathan Crump. She hoped that that would be the end, at least for today, of these southern females and their obsession with her style.

  But it wasn’t the end.

  Still another female reporter approached her when she went into the break room to freshen-up her cup of coffee.

  “You’re young and pretty,” the aging southern belle, a former cheerleader, said to her. She was known for her rigid personality and her tight but tasteful wardrobe. “And you have an attractiveness about you,” the older woman went on as if she was shouting a cheer. “But you don’t have to dress like it. Pull down that skirt. Pull up the low-cut section of that blouse. Give these men something to fantasize about. Look at me, I’m stylish. You can be like me!” She added this as she pulled and tugged on the tight skirt of her tight suit that barely fitted her tight ass.

  Compared to the others, she did have some style. But not the kind Nikki was interested in emulating.

  She barely made it back to her desk, however, before that loud, grating voice of their city editor could be heard over the newsroom intercom.

  “Nikki Tarver!” he yelled. “In my office!”

  Nikki sipped the last of her coffee, sat the cup back down, and hurried to his office.

  Phil Lopez was a stern, no nonsense man who chain-smoked cigars and complained endlessly about the sorry state of journalism in today’s society. The twenty-four-hour cable news shows drove him nuts. And the tabloids? Forget about it. They didn’t practice journalism, but hedonism, in his view. Although he was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, the son of a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father, he was most proud of his Puerto Rican heritage, even to where he would lay the accent on thick when anybody had any doubts about his true ethnicity.

  He was an older man with brownish gray hair that shagged down to his neck, watery brown eyes, a kind but aged face, and a body thin and frail from too much attention to his work and too little to himself. Although most of the reporters found Phil’s almost ultra-liberalism a liability to the paper, Nikki found him to be a kindred spirit.

  “Sit down, Nick,” he said, and she quickly obliged.

  He leaned down from his five-nine frame and sat on the edge of his desk. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was tired, as usual, from too many fifteen hour days, and simple matters, like giving an assignment, appeared to be exhausting.

  “I liked your article on the death penalty,” he said.

  “Then why did you return it?”

  “Because, like most everything you write, it’s too judgmental.”

  “You didn’t agree with it?”

  “I agree with every word you wrote. But that’s not the point. You were supposed to be writing a balanced story on the grievances of the inmates on Florida’s Death Row, not an opinion piece on why the death penalty should be abolished.”

  “But it’s the truth, Phil. How can anybody be in favor of the death penalty in light of the fact that DNA is turning once condemned men out of prison left and right? And the fact that minorities are over-represented isn’t an accident either.”

  “Okay, okay,” Phil said as he threw up his hands. “Just tighten it up a little and I’ll run it. I didn’t bring you in for a sermon. I’ve got an assignment.”

  “Good,” Nikki said eagerly.

  Phil smiled. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? I tell my other reporters they have an assignment and they ask why I’m not giving it to the other guy.”

  “Unless it’s something major league.”

  “Right,” Phil agreed. “Well this one is with a major leaguer in our town, although it’s just another feature story for our Local Heroes series.”

  Since her last assignment didn’t go so well, she was game. “Who is it this time?”

  Phil reached for a packet on his desk and handed it to Nikki. “A local judge. Montgomery Ryan.”

  Nikki was about to open the file but stopped mid-open when she heard that name. Her heart pounded. She looked at Phil. “Judge Ryan?” she asked him.

  “Yeah, why? You know him?”

  If a man holding her in his arms all night long constituted knowledge. . . “No, not really,” she said, attempting to shield her shock. “But I thought he was a south Florida judge.”

  Phil nodded. “He was. He moved here about a year ago when they appointed him senior judge of the criminal courts division. I can’t stand him, to tell you the truth, and trust me, you won’t either.”

  Nikki could hardly believe it. Mo Ryan lived in Jacksonville too? She opened the dossier. “Why won’t I like him?” she asked casually as she saw, on the very first page, that gorgeous mug of the man that still haunted her dreams.

  “He’s a conservative asshole, that’s why. They call him Judge Maximum around here.”

  Nikki looked at Phil. “Judge Maximum? Why? Harsh sentencing?”

  “Exactly.”

  Somehow Nikki never thought of Mo as harsh.

  “If he’s so harsh, what’s so heroic about him?” she asked.

  Nikki could tell Phil thought nothing was heroic about him, and his response dripped with sarcasm. “Mr. Lawrence Dinkle, our great managing editor, thought it would be a neat idea if we were to include him in our Local Heroes series anyway.”

  “But why would Mr. Dinkle want his inclusion if he’s such a lightning rod in the community as you claim?”

  “I claim my ass. You read that dossier, you’ll see. This isn’t just any claim. He shows no mercy. But as to your question, the why is because our boss believes he’ll add some texture, as he calls it, to what everybody declares is our unabashed liberal bent.”

  “Texture?”

  “Yes. And our boss has furthermore pointed out,” Phil continued, “that Judge Ryan happens to be a close, personal friend of Marshall London, the publisher of this very newspaper, and our boss’s boss. So whether we like it or not, Ryan will be included.”

  Nikki closed the file and stood up. “When is he expecting me? Did you tell his office it would be me?”

  “Why would I tell them that? They wouldn’t know you from Adam. You just got here, remember? But he’s expecting one of our reporters at eleven. Which will be you.”

  Nikki nodded, her heart still pounding. “Okay,” she said.

  “And Nick,” Phil said and she turned back around. “Don’t let his good looks throw you.”

  Nikki stared at Phil. Did he know? But he couldn’t. “Why would his looks, good or otherwise, throw me?”

  “Mo Ryan is a good looking guy, I’ll give him that, and most of these female reporters around here just melt whenever they interview him. Consequently, they never get squat out of the guy. Lance told me you’re a tough cookie totally focused on doing your job. I expect you to live up to your reputation.”

  Phil was right, Nikki thought. Even though she and Mo Ryan had this history together, it really only amounted to a week of friendship and a one-night stand that wasn’t even completely sexual. She had a job to do, and history or no history she was going to do it right.

  But as soon as she left Phil’s office she hurried for the bathroom, just in case somebody could hear the pounding of her heart.

  THREE

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; The Duval County Courthouse was located on the east end of Bay Street, about ten blocks from The Gazette building. Nikki decided to walk. It was a chilly morning in downtown Jacksonville, as the wind blew across the Saint Johns River and rammed into the shoreline, creating a cool breeze that penetrated the inland and pounced against her brown face. This was her kind of weather, cool and comfortable, the remnants of a winter that never really materialized, and now, here in February, was nearing the end of its’ run after only a handful of really cold, churn up the heater days.

  The courthouse stood like a tall, stone monument within a hundred yards of the river’s edge, and she arrived at the door of Mo Ryan’s office with her notebook and pen tucked inside her hobo bag, and her confidence buried even deeper. Would he remember her, or that night they spent together? Or would he give what they call in politics some plausible denial: I remember your name, but I don’t remember you?

  The office of the senior judge, criminal courts division, was two doors down from a broom closet. A fitting location, Nikki thought. She knocked on the door and, when no response was forthcoming, walked in.

  It was his secretary’s office, an office almost as big as the small apartment she rented. The secretary, however, had apparently stepped out, as her large hollow desk seemed metaphorically in tune with how Nikki felt at that moment in time. She looked ahead, and there was his inner sanctum. Montgomery Ryan, Supervising Judge it read. She walked up to the door and knocked.

  She looked down, at her cardigan and her skirt. Were those old biddies right? Was she dressing too provocatively for a journalist? But she answered her own question. She dressed in a way that was comfortable for her. And if she wanted to unbutton an extra button on her blouse, she would. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t. She kept her cardigan just as it was, and knocked on the judge’s door again.

  Just as it was at his secretary’s door, there was no response to his door. So Nikki, being the judicious reporter that she was, walked on in.

  And there was Mo Ryan, walking back and forth behind his desk like some wounded animal, moving in one direction and then reversing course harshly, quickly, his every movement appearing to make him more agitated, his thoughts seemingly buried deep inside as if he were wrestling with himself.

  He was an odd sight to behold, to say the least, so different than the Mo Ryan she met in Cleveland two years ago. But Nikki didn’t delay. She closed the door firmly behind her, certain that the sound of the door slam would make him aware of her presence and he’d slow his behind down. But he didn’t even skip a stride. He was too wrapped up in his own little world. A bomb could have exploded and he would have missed it. Nikki shook her head. Not only were his views crazy as hell, but so was he. She wasn’t getting any breaks.

  “Judge Ryan?” she finally called out. To her relief, those words alone stopped him on a dime and he looked at her. The intensity in his face as he turned her way, a face that seemed spooked, not by her presence, but by unseen threats far more menacing than she could ever pose, caused her to shudder.

  And she didn’t think he recognized her.

  “Yes?” he asked, his face frowned and irritated. “What is it?”

  And for the first time in Nikki’s entire life, she didn’t know what to say.

  “Well?” he asked. “What do you want?”

  She remembered those eyes. She remembered those bright blue, oval shaped eyes that seemed to penetrate hers; eyes that didn’t seem to embody the views of the man, because they were too soft, too caring, too damn sexy! And his arms. She remembered those powerful arms that stayed around her all night long. She was naked and in his bed, but as soon as he found out that she was a virgin, he didn’t touch her that way again. And they call this wonderful, caring man of her memory Judge Maximum? It seemed so inexplicable to her.

  Mo Ryan had so much on his plate that he didn’t know if he was going or coming. He had to preside over a sentencing hearing in a couple hours, another death penalty case, and he was still arguing within himself about what his ultimate ruling should be. Although there was something vaguely familiar about Nikki, he was too preoccupied to figure out what.

  “If you’re an out-of-town attorney here for a court appearance you’re in the wrong place,” he said. “Are you here for a court appearance?”

  Still no words would leave her lips.

  “Young lady? Did you hear me? Are you here for a court appearance?”

  Nikki still couldn’t speak. She just stared at him from across the room.

  “Now look,” Mo finally said. “Either tell me what you want or get out of my chambers. Where is my secretary anyway? And I mean get out now.”

  What? The way he spoke to her, using that same condescending tone she’d heard her entire career, woke her out of her trance-like stare and she suddenly had a lot to say. “I’ll be glad to get out,” she said, walking further into the room. “But you did agree to an interview. I’m from the Gazette.”

  He looked at her more intensely when she spoke, his tired eyes looking over her body and then her face as if she were an object on display. And the longer he looked at her, it seemed to Nikki, the less irritated his expression seemed to be. Did he remember her? She couldn’t be sure, especially since the fact that he wasn’t irritated with her anymore seemed to irritate him even more, and he pulled out his desk chair.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “You just got out of court,” she replied. “You’re late.”

  Again he looked at her, at her chest and then her face, for what seemed like an incredibly long few seconds. Then he motioned for her to sit down.

  She walked over and sat in the chair in front of his desk, crossed her legs, and pulled out her writing pad. She was literally shaking, but kept it together.

  His desk phone began ringing before he could sit down, and he quickly picked it up.

  “Ryan,” he said. And then he listened, and listened, his eyes seemingly looking Nikki up and down as if he was drinking up every inch of her. Nikki didn’t know if he was assessing her as some man would do a woman they found attractive, or if he was assessing her because he remembered her. She tried to ignore it either way, but those gorgeous eyes of his were too hard to ignore.

  Because he was still a sight to behold. He was still that tall, tanned, muscular man with those unforgettable baby blue eyes, with that thick crop of chestnut brown hair, with that sexual energy he exuded without even trying to be sexual at all. His jaw was square and wide, elevating his face from stern to sexy, and his smooth forehead overlooked thin eyebrows, a strong, straight nose, and warm, inviting lips. Whenever he talked his lip seemed to curl at the tip, and dimples would appear like sudden indentations on his cheeks.

  When the phone call ended, and he slowly replaced the phone onto its hook, an odd expression was on his face. He looked at Nikki again. She was certainly appealing. She had that smooth, mocha-brown skin he always found attractive, and perfectly formed lips. Although she was smaller than his personal preference in a woman, she still had some nice curves and the kind of large, firm breasts he could feast on all night. And her face was a plus. It was small too, and narrow, but was all eyes; all big, brown, gorgeously expressive eyes.

  And that was when it hit him. She was not some random reporter like all the others that had interviewed him in the past. He knew her. In the barest sense of the word, he knew her. It was those big, expressive eyes. It was that vulnerability veiled behind that toughness. It was that body, and those breasts. It was Nikki. It was Nikki Tarver. His heart rammed against his chest.

  And instead of sitting behind his desk, he walked around the desk and took a seat in the chair beside hers. Only he turned the chair to face her, which made her so uncomfortable that she thought her voice would quiver if she spoke.

  He was extremely well dressed, she noticed as he sat down, no slouch in his posture at all. He wore a dark blue Italian suit, tailored to perfection against his muscular body, a pair of wing tip Ferragamo shoes, and a dark red tie that highlighted his soft skin tone.