They looked like any other pair in the first blush of romance, holding hands and whispering on a chintz-covered love seat. But the cozy couple on the porch of local TV news anchor Chuck Scarborough's house in Southampton, N.Y., on Aug. 19 were hardly unknowns. Dating steadily since June, the Today show's $7 million cohost Katie Couric -- breezily attired in a shoulder-baring summer dress -- and high-powered multimillionaire TV producer Tom Werner chose the gala for the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, hosted by Scarborough, to go public with their courtship. "It was charming," says Hamptons society columnist R. Couri Hay, a fellow guest. "It was as if she were saying, 'I'm okay. I've got a beau. I'm having a great romance.' "

Two days later Couric, 43, and Werner, 50, reaped the benefits of the charity bash by showing up joined at the hip again, this time at the Fund's Wainscott shelter, to retrieve Couric's cairn terrier Maisey, who had run off and gotten lost. "Oh my God!" Couric exclaimed to one of the workers as Werner gave the pup a hug. "We've been sick with worry!"

A lost dog can have that effect. But there's nothing misguided about Maisey's master of late. With a new guy, a new look (she has lightened her hair, toned her body and acquired a racier-than-usual wardrobe to show it off) and a career upswing that includes cohelming Today into a third hour, Couric seems stronger, fitter and -- judging by Today's record 256 consecutive weeks as the top-rated morning show, including an unprecedented 12.5 million viewers the morning after the Nov. 7 election -- more talked about than ever.

Lost weight, worked out

Still mourning the loss of her husband, attorney Jay Monahan, who died of colon cancer at 42 in January 1998, Couric took a deep breath and stepped cautiously back into the dating game last year, briefly seeing Nabisco executive Steve Rudnitsky, 42, and plastic surgeon Cap Lesesne, 45, among others. Then in May her manager Alan Berger -- egged on by his matchmaking wife, Phyllis -- introduced Couric to Werner. Coproducer of such TV megahits as The Cosby Show and 3rd Rock from the Sun, Werner had just that month appeared as No. 46 on the Los Angeles Business Journal's list of the city's 50 Wealthiest People, with a net worth of $600 million. And he was newly single, having separated the month before from his wife of 28 years, Jill. Lightning struck, and before long Werner began regularly jetting to New York City from Los Angeles. He and Couric were spotted out and about in Manhattan and the Hamptons; in September Werner spent four days in Sydney as a guest of NBC while Couric was broadcasting Today from the Olympics site. "We've just been going out and having a nice time," Couric said to TV Guide of her relationship with Werner. "It's just been a few months. We see each other when we can. And I think he's a terrific guy." His friends, naturally, concur. "What's not to love?" says one Werner pal, Washington political lobbyist Liz Robbins. "He's one of the warmest, nicest, fun guys. His whole personality is a smile."