Forsaking All Others by Lavyrle Spencer Page B

year, and if I give them what they want, chances are I’ll have my foot in the door. It’d be wonderful to know where my next month’s grocery money was coming from . . . and the next, and the next.”
    “I know the feeling well and I admire your guts, but I’ll still have to see it to believe it—a lake, a beach, and a bonfire?”
    “Do you doubt me, Mr. Lang?”
    “I have the feeling I shouldn’t, but I do. It sounds impossible.”
    “Nothing is impossible if you want it badly enough, and I want this to be the best damn cover Hathaway Romances sees between now and June, so they beat my door down to get me to do a hundred more.”
    Rick Lang was beginning to admire the lady more and more. He couldn’t wait to see how in the world she would build that lake. “So what about the bricks? Could I help? I haven’t got a forklift, but I’ve got two good hands.”
    “Listen, you’ve done enough already, helping me get that log up here. I can handle the rest myself. The only thing is, if it takes me longer than I thought, we might have to delay the shooting for a day. But I’ll call you and let you know when the set is ready. If we can’t shoot Thursday, could you make it Friday instead?”
    “Sure . . . whenever.”
    There was a pause in the conversation, and Allison suddenly felt reluctant to end it. Rick Lang was turning out to be one of the most congenial and warm men she’d ever met.
    “Well . . . thank you again for checking on me, but as I said, there’s no need to start cooking chicken soup.”
    “My pet hen will be glad to hear that.”
    They laughed together for a moment, and the line seemed to hum with expectancy.
    “I’ll call,” Allison promised. “See you either Thursday or Friday night, six o’clock.”
    “Right. Bye.”
    But after the word was spoken Allison waited for a click, telling her Rick Lang had hung up. A full ten seconds passed, and she heard nothing. A curious throat-filling exhilaration tightened her skin, like back in high school when the boy you had a crush on stared at you across the classroom for the first time. Five more seconds of silence hummed past, and at last Allison heard the click. As if the phone had turned hot, she dropped the receiver onto the cradle, jumped back, and jammed her hands hard into her pants pockets, staring at the instrument with her heart hammering in her temples.
    Scott, you’re a giddy fool! she harped silently. Go get your load of bricks!
    She drove the van to the lumber yard, where she bought a roll of strong, black plastic and the partial pallet of bricks. When she started loading them single-handedly, the men at the loading dock felt sheepish enough to lend a hand.
    Back at the Genesis Building it took almost two hours to round up the head janitor and locate a freight dolly, and by that time Allison’s temper was flaring again. At this rate she might as well wait and shoot the scenes at Lake Calhoun, come summer!
    By four o’clock in the afternoon it was cold and windy in the canyons between the tall buildings as she backed the van up to the dock platform. The alley was dismal, foreboding, and the cold was no palliative forher temper. Allison shivered, then pulled on leather gloves and began the arduous task of transferring the bricks two at a time from the van to the wide, flat dolly. According to the radio, the windchill had sent the temperature down to minus forty. Allison tugged the thick knit cap lower over her ears and forehead. The icy air caused a pain smack between her eyes. As she bent and stooped, the wind seemed to swirl and chill and find every hidden path into the breaks between her layers of clothing.
    Damn that stingy lumberyard! she cursed silently, thunking down two bricks and turning back for two more. Allison’s nose was drippy, and her fingers had turned to icicles. She looked like a disgruntled kodiak bear, bundled up in an ugly old army-green parka with her hat covering her eyebrows.
    “Ms. Scott, you’re