Fully Engaged

The clock on the wall of the TV studio's greenroom showed 6:55 a.m.--time for Sandra Jacobs to pour herself a third cup of coffee. Time to panic.

As she refilled her cup from the pot supplied by one of the Olivia Winton Show's many minions, Sandra's stomach growled a reminder that she hadn't had breakfast. She told her hips to be grateful, and took a scalding sip of the too-hot coffee to settle her stomach. Was it possible to feel both panicked and hungry? By rights, she felt the two shouldn't go together.

"Come on, guys, where are you?" she muttered as she resumed her pacing of the room. She'd set up the media coup of her career, and so far, she was the only person here to witness it. So much for her plan to impress the heck out of her client, Gideon Taney, the notoriously unimpressable boss of Taney Motorsports. Taney, as he was known to everyone, hadn't bothered to show up. Which might not be a bad thing, considering his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, Will Branch, the show's guest of honor, hadn't arrived, either.

The clock's unnaturally loud tick-tick marked the inexorable progress of Will's tardiness from inconvenience to potential disaster. Sandra couldn't afford to screw up in front of Taney. Not when another clock--the countdown on her business loan repayments--ticked constantly in the back of her mind.

The greenroom, where studio guests waited with their hangers-on, had no window to the outside, so Sandra couldn't tell if some freakish Chicago storm had held everyone up. But it had been fine, if dark, when she'd left her hotel earlier.

Behind her, the door opened and Sandra spun around, sloshing hot coffee over the rim of the mug onto her thumb. "Ouch! Where have you--" halfway through, she realized the new arrival wasn't Will Branch, the AWOL driver, and she tailed off like a winding-down action toy "--been?"

"All your life?" Gideon Taney completed her question as he strode into the room, six foot four of dark-haired, dark-eyed, I'm-the-boss-and-don't-you-forget-it masculinity.

Which, as always, started another little tick-tick inside Sandra. She figured Taney's brand of solid strength and sharp intelligence resonated in some primitive place inside all women, causing their biological clocks--everyone's, not just mine--to tick louder when he was around. He was the kind of perfect specimen of manhood that scientists would choose to procreate the species. She could imagine, after a nuclear holocaust, men like Gideon Taney being rounded up and kept in some top-secret, radiation-free zone, where they would be charged with rebuilding hu-mankind.

As if Taney would allow himself to be rounded up! She dropped her frivolous theories about human survival and focused on the hint of a smile that pulled Taney's mouth out of its usual straight line. And there was that little quip he'd just made. Someone's in a good mood. She might need that. But her own mood wasn't so great, and she sounded ungracious when she said, "I thought you were Will."

Taney's gaze sharpened. "He's not here?" The censure in his deep voice implied it was Sandra's fault.

"There's plenty of time." If you called half an hour plenty. She put down her coffee, grabbed a paper napkin, wiped her thumb. "He knows how important this is for him."

Will Branch's appearance on the Olivia Winton Show, America's most popular breakfast TV show, was even more important for Sandra.

She'd pulled every string, called in every favor anyone had ever owed her. She'd spent hours on the phone, she'd e-mailed, she'd sent autographed NASCAR memorabilia to anyone at the studio whose second cousin's stepdaughter's nephew was a fan. All to secure this coveted spot.

"You do realize," she told Taney, because a P.R. consultant whose business teetered on the brink of financial extinction couldn't afford to be shy of blowing her own trumpet, "Olivia hasn't interviewed a NASCAR driver before? For Will to get in first, when he's never even won a race..."

wasn't about to open wallets.