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then my cell phone rang. I looked at it and groaned when I saw the name on the caller ID. Now was not the time to deal with a call from my dad, the perennial early bird. Usually I had my phone off when he called at the crack of dawn back home. I sent him to voicemail and put the phone in my purse.
    When I looked up, I saw a cute guy walking right at me.
    A very cute guy.
    “Are you okay?” he said. He was about six foot four with short, messy dark brown hair, tanned skin, and bright blue eyes. And he was smiling. Maybe even chuckling a bit.
    I looked up at him, but the candy in my mouth made it hard to speak normally—not that speaking normally to such a good-looking stranger would be easy for me under any circumstances. “Um, yeah, I’m fine,” I mumbled. Had he really just witnessed me putting a chewed-up, coughed-up Milky Way into my mouth?
    I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even stop. I just kept walking right on past him without even looking back. I turned the corner and headed back to the front of the JAG booth, where Kent was still standing.
    “Are you okay?” he said. “Your face is all red and puffy.”
    Great.
    “I’ll live,” I said.
    “This show is so cool,” he said. “I just saw Mia Hamm and Nomar Garciaparra, and I think I saw Wayne Gretzky, too, but I couldn’t be sure because he had a hat on.”
    Over Kent’s shoulder I saw a familiar face in the crowd. “Hey, there’s Scotty Ryan.”
    “Who?” Kent said.
    “Scotty, or Scott, Ryan. He’s a features correspondent for the Today show who used to work out of San Francisco. I actually saw him on TV this morning. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.” I raised my arm. “Hey, Scotty, over here!”
    Scotty turned his head, then said something to his camera crew and trotted over. “Why, Miss Waverly Bryson, what a pleasure to see your lovely face, although it’s looking a bit red and puffy at the moment. Are you okay?” He gave me a quick hug.
    “I’m fine, or I will be after a date with my makeup case,” I said. “Scotty, this is my coworker Kent Tanner from K.A. Marketing.”
    “Hi there, it’s nice to meet you,” Scotty said. They shook hands, and then Kent took off for the restroom himself.
    “I didn’t know you were going to be here, Scotty. Your name wasn’t on the registered press list,” I said.
    “It was a last-minute decision. We’re doing a story about all those protein bars on the market. They’re all the rage, you know.” He winked, his eyes more green than ever.
    I touched his arm. “Hey, while you’re here, do you want to interview Shane Kennedy about his new line of basketball shoes?”
    “Sorry, darling, I can’t,” he said, shaking his head.
    “Are you sure? It would really make us look good to score an interview with Today. ”
    “You know, for you I’d do anything, and believe me, I wish I could, because Shane Kennedy is one attractive man, but I’m flying out in a couple hours to cover a movie premiere in L.A. Then tomorrow morning I’m back to the home base in Dallas.”
    “A movie premiere? Man, you have the best life,” I said. “By the way, I saw your feature this morning on that guy with the cats. Nice piece of investigative reporting, my friend. What would your journalism professors at Northwestern say?”
    He grinned. “I know, I’m a sellout. But sweetheart, if you knew what they paid me for that fluff, you’d understand.”
    “Believe me, my credit card bills and I are very jealous,” I said. “So you’re really out of here today? I wish we could at least have dinner or something. And JAG is throwing a big party on Friday night.”
    “Yep, I’m on a noon flight to L.A, so unfortunately I’m going to miss all the fun. Hey, I’ve really gotta run now and film this story. Keep in touch, okay?”
    “Okay. Bye, Scotty.”

    Nearly ten hours later, we were all back in the press interview room, fully exhausted and fully complaining about it. In addition to the media, our booth had