Back when I was tooling around on a toy tractor?” Ryan didn’t seem to realize that she had tensed at his questions. “Uh, no. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. An astronaut, I remember that. And, um, let’s see…a doctor who discovered the cure for cancer.” “Aimed high, didn’t you?” “I guess. I wound up going to college and majoring in journalism. So I guess I wanted to be the next Woodward or Bernstein. But…it didn’t happen.” “No?” Ryan took another bite of chicken. “I worked at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for a while, and then with the Associated Press for a bit longer—loved the travel—but then I started my own magazine. I’d been at it for maybe two years and was making some real headway in my initial loan when—” She broke off. The memory of the lawsuit and the misery it had brought down on her still stung. “Yeah?” “A guy didn’t like a profile I’d done. Said he thought it was supposed to be a puff piece, but…it was part of an investigative series, you see.
