Night Shift by Nora Roberts(2).pdf

Chapter 1

All right, night owls, it's coming up on midnight, and you're

listening to KHIP. Get ready for five hits in a row. This is Cilia

O'Roarke, and darling, I'm sending this one straight out to you."

Her voice was like hot whiskey, smooth and potent. Rich, throaty,

touched with the barest whisper of the South, it might have been

fashioned for the airwaves. Any man in Denver who was tuned in

to her frequency would believe she was speaking only to him.

Cilia eased up on the pot on the mixer, sending the first of the five

promised hits out to her listeners. Music slid into the booth. She

could have pulled off her headphones and given herself three

minutes and twenty-two seconds of silence. She preferred the

sound. Her affection for music was only one of the reasons for her

success in radio.

Her voice was a natural attribute. She'd talked herself into her first

jobat a low-frequency, low-budget station in rural Georgia

with no experience, no resume and a brand-new high school

diploma. And she was perfectly aware that it was her voice that

had landed her that position. That and her willingness to work for

next to nothing, make coffee and double as the station's

receptionist. Ten years later, her voice was hardly her only

qualification. But it still often turned the tide.

She'd never found the time to pursue the degree in

communications she still coveted. But she could doubleand

hadas engineer, newscaster, interviewer and program director.

She had an encyclopedic memory for songs and recording artists,

and a respect for both. Radio had been her home for a decade, and

she loved it.

Her easygoing, flirtatious on-air personality was often at odds

with the intense, organized and ambitious woman who rarely slept

more than six hours and usually ate on the run. The public Cilia

O'Roarke was a sexy radio princess who mingled with celebrities

and had a job loaded with glamour and excitement. The private

woman spent an average of ten hours a day at the station or on

station business, was fiercely determined to put her younger sister

through college and hadn't had a date in two years of Saturday

nights.

And didn't want one.

Setting the headphones aside, she rechecked her daily log for her

next fifteen-minute block. For the space of time it took to play a

top 10 hit, the booth was silent. There was only Cilia and the lights

and gauges on the control board. That was how she liked it best.

When she'd accepted the position with KHIP in Denver six

months before, she'd wrangled for the 10:00-p.m.-to-2-a.m. slot,

one usually reserved for the novice deejay. A rising success with

ten years experience behind her, she could have had one of the

plum day spots when the listening audience was at its peak. She

preferred the night, and for the past five years she'd carved out a

name for herself in those lonely hours.

She liked being alone, and she liked sending her voice and music

out to others who lived at night.

With an eye on the clock, Cilia adjusted her headphones. Between

the fade-out of hit number four and the intro to hit number five, she

crooned out the station's number four and the intro to hit number

five, she crooned out the station's call letters and frequency. After a

quick break when she popped in a cassette of recorded news, she

would begin her favorite part of her show. The request line.

She enjoyed watching the phones light up, enjoyed hearing the

voices. It took her out of her booth for fifty minutes every night

and proved to her that there were people, real people with real

lives, who were listening to her.

She lit a cigarette and leaned back in her swivel chair. This would

be her last quiet moment for the next hour.

She didn't appear to be a restful woman. Nor, despite the voice,

did she look like a smoldering femme fatale. There was too much

energy in her face and in her long, nervous body for either. Her

nails were unpainted, as was her mouth. She rarely found time in

her schedule to bother with polish and paint. Her dark brandy-

brown eyes were nearly closed as she allowed her body to charge

up. Her lashes were long, an inheritance from her dreamy father. In

contrast to the silky lashes and the pale, creamy complexion, her

features were strong and angular. She had been blessed with a

cloud of rich, wavy black hair that she ruthlessly pulled back,

clipped back or twisted up in deference to the headphones.

With an eye on the elapsed-time clock, Cilia crushed out the

cigarette and took a sip of water, then opened her mike. The On

Air sign glowed green.

"That was for all the lovers out there, whether you've got someone

to cuddle up with tonight or you wish you did. Stay tuned. This is

Cilia O'Roarke, Denver. You're listening to KHIP. We're coming

back with our request line."

As she switched on the tape for a commercial run, she glanced up.

"Hey, Nick. How's it going?"

Nick Peters, the college student who served as an intern at the

station, pushed up his dark-framed glasses and grinned. "I aced the

Lit test."

"Way to go." She gratefully accepted t he mug of steaming coffee

he offered. "Is it still snowing?"

"Stopped about an hour ago."

She nodded and relaxed a little. She'd been worrying about

Deborah, her younger sister. "I guess the roads are a mess."

"Not too bad. You want something to go with that coffee?"

She flicked him a smile, her mind too busy with other things to

note the adoration in his eyes. "No, thanks. Help yourself to some

stale doughnuts before you sign out." She hit a switch and spoke

into the mike again.

As she read the station promos, he watched her. He knew it was

hopeless, even stupid, but he was wildly in love with her. She was

the most beautiful woman in the world to him, making the women

at college look like awkward, gangling shadows of what a real

woman should be. She was strong, successful, sexy. And she

barely knew he was alive. When she noticed him at all, it was with

a distractedly friendly smile or gesture.

For over three months he'd been screwing up his courage to ask

her for a date. And fantasizing about what it would be like to have

her attention focused on him, only him, for an entire evening.

She was completely unaware. Had she known where his mind had

led him, Cilia would have been more amused than flattered. Nick

was barely twenty-one, seven years her junior chronologically.

And decades younger in every other way. She liked him. He was

unobtrusive and efficient, and he wasn't afraid of long hours or

hard work.

Over the past few months she'd come to depend on the coffee he

brought her before he left the station. And to enjoy knowing she

would be completely alone as she drank it.

Nick glanced at the clock. "I'll, ah, see you tomorrow."

"Hmm? Oh, sure. Good night, Nick." The moment he was through

the door, she forgot about him. She punched one of the illuminated

buttons on the phone. "KHIP. You're on the air."

"Cilia?"

"That's right. Who's this?"

"I'm Kate."

"Where are you calling from, Kate?"

"From homeover in Lakewood. My husband's a cab driver. He's

working the late shift. We both listen to your show every night.

Could you play 'Peaceful, Easy Feeling' for Kate and Ray?"

"You got it, Kate. Keep those home fires burning." She punched

the next button. "KHIP. You're on the air."

The routine ran smoothly. Cilia would take calls, scribbling down

the titles and the dedications. The small studio was lined with

shelves crammed with albums, 45s, CDs, all labeled for easy

access. After a handful of calls she would break to commercials

and station promos to give herself time to set up for the first block

of songs.

Some of the callers were repeaters, so she would chat a moment or

two. Some were the lonely, calling just to hear the sound of

another voice. Mixed in with them was the occasional loony that

she would joke off the line or simply disconnect. In all her years of

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