Read Online Morning Glory by Diana Peterfreund - Free Book Online Page A

you any good, because there is absolutely no way that Mike Pomeroy is going to help your morning show. And that show needs help. Desperately.”
    I swallowed. Make nice. Make nice, make nice, make nice.
    “So I should say no,” Jerry went on. “Because what you really need to be doing right now is either finding someone new from one of the affiliates, or finding some way to woo back Paul McVee. It might involve a push-up bra.”
    I crossed my arms over my chest. Make nice . “You should say no?” I repeated.
    “Yes.”
    “But you’re going to say yes?” I refrained from clapping my hands.
    “I just did, didn’t I?” He whipped out his BlackBerry to send in the order for Mike’s contracts. “Hail Mary, Becky Fuller. But either way, you get an anchor in there by Monday or you’re through.”
    “Yes!” I cried. “I will! Thank you!”
    Mrs. Barnes rolled her eyes at both of us.

 7 
    I had it on good authority that ever since Mike Pomeroy had started getting money for nothing on his IBS contract, he’d stepped up his hunting schedule. Apparently all the rumors about his guns were truth. Today, his quarry was the pheasants on a small farm outside the city. Hardly my old stomping ground. No, I liked my meat packaged in convenient containers made of Styrofoam and plastic wrap. Mike obviously liked his still wrapped in feathers.
    Quite an interesting hobby for a guy who’d once gone ten rounds with the head of the NRA on live TV. Though I supposed that he made allowances for hunting tools that he didn’t for assault rifles. There was also a decided difference between shooting game and shooting people.
    Perhaps I should have donned one of those bright orange vests?
    I found Mike Pomeroy down by the river, clad in a muddied field jacket with worn elbows and clutching a shotgun. His face was upturned as he scanned the mottled gray sky for pheasants.
    The field was pockmarked with rocks and divots in the soil, which made it hard to pick my way across the soft, muddy turf. I should have considered sneakers for this little errand. Oh well, too late now. Besides, I doubted Mike Pomeroy cared about appropriate footwear.
    Though you never saw him from the waist down on TV. He could be addicted to wearing huaraches, for all I knew.
    “Excuse me, Mr. Pomeroy?”
    He whirled around, gun in hand, and I jumped back. All of a sudden, he bore a much closer resemblance to the armed soldiers he’d been embedded with in Afghanistan than to the besuited nightly news anchor.
    “Who the hell are you?” he growled. “You’re going to scare the birds!”
    “I’m Becky Fuller,” I said quickly, raising my hands in surrender. “We met the other day in the elevator?”
    “Nope.” He returned his attention to the sky.
    Well, maybe it would be a benefit to me that he couldn’t recall my humiliation. I took a deep breath and tried not to think of Dick Cheney and the statistics of accidental shootings. “I’m the producer at Daybreak , and, um, we’re looking for a new anchor at the moment.”
    “Then what,” he asked without looking at me, “are you doing here?”
    “It’s funny you should ask—”
    He spun and marched off. “Go away.”
    “Just hear me out.” I followed him. “The show has a lot of potential.”
    He snorted.
    “We’re starting over, basically. With an anchor as esteemed and respected as you—”
    “Go away, go away, go away,” Mike said, still looking up.
    Since I was practically a foot shorter than him, I didn’t know what to do to get his attention back. Grow wings, maybe? Perhaps if I’d rented a plane and done a flyover. The sky banner could have read: “Hey, Mike: Ever thought of Daybreak ? Call Becky!”
    Or not.
    “And we’re putting together a new format, some—”
    “Hey, fangirl,” Mike whispered, and stopped.
    I smiled at him expectantly. So he did remember me from the elevator. Maybe he was even flattered?
    “I said go away .” He took aim and fired his gun into the