Love on the Air(41)

Rick's eyebrows lifted. "You're not going to tell me you're a woman who actually likes camping."

"I love it. I just went a few times, with my boyfriend in college."

"And this manly man had you setting up the tent?"

"Well, I helped." She giggled at the memory. "Although one of us didn't do a very good job. One night in Yosemite, the tent fell down."

"I see." He studied her. "The tent just sort of fell down. " His face was a perfect deadpan, but his eyes glimmered, implying all sorts of tent-shaking shenanigans.

"It did! We weren't-I mean-" She felt herself blush, and knew any further protests would only make it sound worse. "The point is, it was raining, and it was too dark to fix it-"

Rick nodded wordlessly. Instead of smiling, he kept looking at her with that mock seriousness, which was even worse.

"So we spent the night sleeping under flat, wet plastic," she finished awkwardly.

"Mm-hmm. Well, at least it doesn't look like rain." Rick handed her the second speaker and stood close by as she secured it into place. "So, what happened?"

"I told you! Nothing."

He burst out laughing, and Christie steadied the speaker. She'd only thought she was embarrassed before.

"I meant, to the boyfriend," Rick said. "Did you bury him out in the woods, or what?"

Oh. Christie waited for her face to cool. It was still a fairly personal question. But there wasn't anything very personal in the answer; like most of her past, it was pretty mundane. "He graduated. Moved to Washington, D.C. Last I heard, I think he was working for some congressman or other."

Actually, he'd asked her to marry him. Christie had been shocked. They'd dated for three years, but he'd been her first serious boyfriend, and at that point in her life, a long-term future had never entered her mind.

Her answer seemed to satisfy Rick. He was busy checking wires. Apparently he hadn't been that curious after all.

By the time they were done setting up, it was nearly noon. Christie realized she'd had precious little chance to be nervous. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy herself. It was almost time to start, and she felt the now-familiar thrill of panic. Rick made sure she knew how to work the equipment that connected her with the jock back at the studio, so she could broadcast her breaks. Then he stepped back. "It's all yours from here," he said. "I'm just here for backup in case you run into trouble."

His hand brushed her arm, just barely a touch, as he turned away. Christie felt an unexpected shiver of goose bumps and looked back over her shoulder to see if Rick had noticed. But he was walking away, toward the canopied sidewalk of the little strip mall that was home to the new Bonker's Burgers.

At the weekend disc jockey's cue from the studio, Christie spoke brightly into the microphone: "Hi, this is Christie Becker with KYOR, broadcasting live at the grand opening of Bonker's Burgers. And if you're hungry, come on down ..."

Dollar burgers were quite a draw, thank you very much.

In no time, Christie was besieged by listeners who didn't know her from Adam, but who were very interested in one dollar hamburgers and any prizes they could get their hands on. She staved them off with station bumper stickers, but on Rick's advice, held on to the movie passes until the mania subsided. She felt dwarfed by the crowd, so when she was making announcements, she adopted a perch on a three-foot-high block of cement at the base of a light pole. Rick was hanging back as promised, but from the sidewalk of the little strip mall, she thought she caught a grin.

She was standing on the light pole base, about to bait the crowd with the first pair of movie tickets, when the speakers abruptly stopped playing the radio station. Christie glanced around and spotted the trouble: a baby stroller had pulled loose the power cord near the restaurant's entrance. Before she could jump down to correct the problem, Rick was there, plugging the cord back in before the song on the air had finished the chorus. Christie caught his eye and nodded her thanks.

Click.

There it was again, she could have sworn it. From halfway across a busy parking lot. Professional chemistry, she reminded herself, as Rick faded back into the crowd.

The lunch crowd had thinned out, and the remote was in its last hour, when Yvonne pulled up. Christie went over to greet her as she climbed out of her car. "I thought I'd try a burger," Yvonne said.

Christie hugged her with a grin. "You lie like a rug. This remote has more reinforcements than the SWAT team."

"Okay, you win. I wanted to see how you're doing. You sound great."

"Thanks. It was a madhouse for a while, but it's been fun."

Yvonne's eyebrows arched. "Any trouble with Rick?"