by Susan Kyle
For a few seconds she was submerged in the drowsy aftermath of pleasure. Then came reality and shame and self-contempt.
They hadn’t even undressed. She’d given herself to a man to whom she wasn’t married. She’d committed adultery.
She began to cry.
Ward righted their clothing, murmuring soft words of apology the whole time. “God, I’m sorry, Dora,” he said miserably, holding her close. “I’m so sorry! It’s been years since I had a woman!…”
She swallowed, dabbing at her wet eyes with the back of her hand. “Doesn’t your wife sleep with you?” she asked through her tears.
“No,” he replied. “Not for years and years.” He lifted her face to his eyes and grimaced. “I’m sorry. You’re so sweet, Dora, so much a woman. I’ve watched you and wanted you… but I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
She gnawed her lower lip. “Edgar,” she began, stopped, and tried again. “Edgar can’t… in bed,” she whispered.
“For years and years?” he asked softly.
She hesitated. Then she nodded and lowered her head to his chest. His shirt was damp with perspiration, but he felt comfortable and familiar. “I enjoyed it. I’m so ashamed!” she wept.
His hands were hesitant as he patted her on the back and then began to caress her. “I enjoyed it, too.” He groaned and bent to kiss her, softly. “Will it really hurt anyone if we make each other happy?” he asked miserably. “They don’t want us, and we do want each other. It would just be that, you know. I wouldn’t make any trouble for you or try to break up your marriage. And no one would ever know. Only the two of us. Who would it hurt?”
“No one, I guess,” she said, rationalizing it because she wanted him, too. She wanted to be loved, needed, adored. She wanted to feel like a desirable woman. She wanted to experience sex as a delightful form of communication instead of as an unpleasant duty.
Ward hugged her close, his eyes closed, trembling at his good fortune. He had Dora, for a little while, at least. He had a woman who enjoyed him, who didn’t rage at him in a drunken frenzy or deny him her bed. It was such a pleasure to hold a woman who smelled of perfume and flowers instead of a bony shadow of a woman who reeked of sour whiskey.
“It will be all right,” he said, clinging to her. He felt the cold chill of desperation as he formulated how they could keep their secret from their spouses, hold on to their little oasis of hope in a desert of despair and hopelessness. “We’ll manage.”
Dora hoped they would. Guilt was riding her, but surely she deserved something besides work and duty and service!
Later Ward walked her to the parking lot, very correct in the distance he kept between them. He didn’t pretend that what they were doing was either all right or noble. He knew that it could easily lead to shame and public disgrace and even tragedy. But he was too weak to fight it. Apparently so was she. He remembered lines from a song or poem, about people leading lives of quiet desperation. He understood now what they meant. He was stealing a few hours’ pleasure to escape his hopeless loneliness. He hoped the price he and Dora would ultimately have to pay wouldn’t be too high.
Amanda sensed a different atmosphere in the office the next day. It wasn’t something tangible, but there was a strained, almost forced reserve between Ward and Dora. In fact, they seemed to have trouble not looking at each other.
When they went out to lunch, Amanda pretended not to notice that they got into the same car, but immediately she figured everything out. She didn’t approve, and she knew Josh wouldn’t. But she could hardly tell him something that was only a suspicion. After the way they’d parted, perhaps he wouldn’t even speak to her. She couldn’t remember ever having a serious argument with Josh before. She didn’t like being at odds with him.
She stared at the computer screen, determined to concentrate on the matter at hand. She noted with an accountant’s keen accuracy the changes Ward had made in the sheets he’d faxed to Josh. These reflected a wholesale percentage rise in classified ad prices and display ad prices, and even job press prices, in increments that were barely noticeable unless someone saw the books on a daily basis and recognized the bulk rates for the ads and various printing jobs. But she did. She glared at the spreadsheet, wondering if Ward Johnson really expected to pull off the deception.
If he planned to raise those prices to correspond with his figures, he might actually manage it.
The price increase had been Amanda’s idea, but Ward had made Josh think it was his own. She wanted to throw things and scream. Ward had outfoxed her. She could go running to Josh yelling foul, but that wasn’t her way.
She’d have a better chance if she slowly initiated other changes to improve revenues at the Gazette. And Josh would believe her when she finally told him whose idea it had been. He knew, if nothing else, that she never lied.
Amanda wished she’d never known what it was like to kiss him, to be held by him, wanted by him. Her nights were tormented, and her days were hill of thoughts of what their nights could be like. But she couldn’t continue to brood, or her mother’s family’s newspaper enterprise would go down the tube. There was no way Amanda would let her inheritance slip by her as easily as Josh had. At least the newspaper held the promise of a secure future.
She went to the back, where Tim Wilson was running the big Heidelberg press, its hydraulic action sounding like a jazz rhythm as it lifted each printed sheet into a neat pile. They used the offset press for most jobs, but there were still some that demanded the accuracy and precision of the Heidelberg.
“I want to talk to you about something,” she said, perching herself on a stool beside him.
“Sure,” he said, grinning. He was in his thirties, tall and slightly balding, and happily married with a brand-new son. Everyone liked him. “What is it?”
“When you set up a job, it’s before we’ve had the customer come in and read the proofs, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” he confessed. “I don’t like it, but Mr. Johnson says we’ve done it that way for fifteen years and he doesn’t want to make anybody mad.”
“The way we’re doing this isn’t cost-effective,” she said. “The cost of setting up the job is offset by having to do it all over again because it wasn’t proofread first. The same thing is happening with jobs we do on the offset press. Negatives and plates are expensive to make. We’re throwing away money.”
“That we are.”
“I want the customers to read proofs before we print jobs from now on. You or I can call and ask them to come in and look over the proofs and sign a paper attesting to that.”
Tim whistled softly. “Ward won’t like it.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Ward doesn’t have to know, if we’re careful,” she told him. “He’s always out of the office on Thursdays, and sometimes on Fridays. He involves himself with the newspaper, yes, but he leaves most of the printing decisions to you.”
“That’s true.” Tim smiled apologetically. “Stings, doesn’t it?” he asked gently. “This whole operation belongs to your family, and you don’t have any say in how it’s run.”
“That’s going to change,” she assured him. “If I have to fight Ward and Josh Lawson both.”
He chuckled. “You’re like your dad, aren’t you?”
“I never thought so before. Maybe I am, a bit. Will you do it?”
“If I get fired…” he began slowly.
“I know. You have a family to support. Tim, I can always appeal to Josh if I have to. Believe me, you won’t lose your job, even if I do.”
She looked and sounded sincere. He knew already that she never made promises she couldn’t keep. “Okay,” he said finally. “We’ll give it a try.”
“I want to do an inventory, too,” she added. He groaned, and she smiled. “Don’t panic. I’ll make sure we have help. But it’s overdue. I want to see what we have. Then we can decide what we need.”
“You’re actually planning to run this business to do more than break even, aren’t you?” he asked with p
ure delighted sarcasm. “Damn. There go my four-hour coffee breaks.”
She laughed. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“So they say. I’ll do my part. But it’s your funeral.”
“Then I’ll take my chances.”
As it happened, the implementing of the new system was done pretty much with Ward’s nebulous approval. Amanda caught him one day just after a very long lunch with a radiant Dora, and he agreed without any argument to Amanda’s casual suggestion that clients proof job work before it was printed. His involvement with Dora, which was becoming pretty obvious to his co-workers, might very well work to her advantage, Amanda mused. While Ward was indulging his libido, she had the time and opportunity to indulge her business sense and get the press back on its financial feet.
It would take a little stealth, but she was more than capable of that. Besides, she thought wistfully, it would keep her from brooding over Josh. He hadn’t called or written. Brad, however, was back in town, and he had called her. Neither of them had mentioned Josh, although he sounded belligerent. Amanda wondered if he’d argued again with his brother. They hardly did anything else lately, he said. She’d accepted Brad’s offer of lunch because she needed to hear about Josh, even if it was secondhand. She was dying to know if Terri had shown up, if Josh was falling into Terri’s arms again. She had no pride when it came to that question. She had to know.
They went out to lunch that Friday. He was less animated than usual, something she noticed immediately.
“Josh is in town, isn’t he?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. They’d just finished their salads and were waiting for the main course to be served.
“Does it show?” he mused.
“I’m afraid so. You look absolutely driven.”
“I am driven.” He propped his head on his hands and stared at her across the table. “You might as well know that I’m in debt up to my neck because I went a little overboard one night in a Las Vegas casino. The owner wants his money yesterday, but I can’t raise it.”
“Did you tell Josh?”
“Yes,” he said tersely. “I told Josh. He said that if he bailed me out again, I’d never stop gambling.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“But you agree with him, don’t you?”
“It isn’t what I think that matters,” she replied. Her green eyes were compassionate. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t raise twenty thousand dollars on my own within a month’s time. I certainly can’t borrow that much, considering how far I’m overdrawn. I can’t even mortgage my house—I’m still paying off the interest on the loan.” He smiled at her with a whimsical expression on his handsome face. “I don’t suppose you’d like to shoot me? That would solve my problems. Then at least I won’t get dropped in some river with lead shoes on.”
She chuckled. “I wouldn’t call getting shot solving a problem. I wish I could loan you the money,” she said, smiling at him gently. “I’d do it in a minute if Ward Johnson wasn’t in the picture. But, if I staked you, I’d stand to lose the paper. That’s what I’m fighting for right now.”
“I know.” It touched him that she was willing even to think about such a strategy. They had a long history, and she cared about him, even if it wasn’t with the same passion he knew she felt for his brother. He suddenly hated Josh. He didn’t deserve someone like Amanda. He wasn’t as concerned about her as Brad was. Brad would have loved her and cherished her and treated her like a queen. His eyes narrowed. Hold that thought, he mused, watching her lovely face intently. If he could straighten out his life and pull himself together, mightn’t she turn to him after all? He had overheard their last conversation and knew his brother had rejected her.
“You’re plotting something,” Amanda accused lightly.
“Oh, yes, I am,” he said softly. “I am indeed.”
“Well, stop,” she said. “We have to find a way out of your predicament. Don’t you have any assets that you could liquidate?”
He wasn’t really hearing her. He’d always liked Amanda, and it seemed to him that the more she blossomed in that job, the prettier she got. She was an exciting and interesting woman. Josh was a fool for not seeing it.
“Liquidatable assets?” she prompted.
“Oh. Yes.” He thought for a moment. “Nothing except some old stocks packed away at my late great-uncle’s house. I doubt they’re worth the paper they’re printed on. The company they backed went broke. When I saw them in the safe, I didn’t even have them checked out. I recognized the name of the bankrupt agency that issued them.”
“How about your Ferrari?”
He laughed bitterly. “Want to see the coupon book? I’ve only paid on it for two years. And the business belongs to Josh. I just work for it. I have stock in it, sure, but if I sell it, the family will lose control of the company. Josh would never let me sacrifice it to save myself.”
“Josh loves you.”
“He has one hell of a way of showing it,” he said brutally.
“Go home and get some sleep, why don’t you?” she said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Sleep late. Maybe you’ll come up with something.”
“I wish I could be that confident.”
“You really do need help, Brad,” she said seriously. “I care about you. You know that. I wouldn’t say it if I weren’t concerned. Gambling is just like alcoholism, they say. You get to a point where you can’t stop by yourself.”
“I can when I want to.”
He sounded so much like Josh that she smiled wistfully. “All right. Be stubborn. I have to get home.” “I’ll drop you off at your office to pick up your car.” She touched his hand. “It will be all right,” she told him.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Amanda felt guilty that she couldn’t do anything to help him. The sad fact of it was that he’d yielded to his own weakness, and he was having to pay the price. It wasn’t bad luck, as he thought. It was just the way life was. Brad would learn a hard lesson, but it would ultimately save him some money. Or even his life.
CHAPTER
TEN
Mirri had been trying all day to work up enough nerve to approach Nelson Stuart and ask him to have coffee or a sandwich with her one evening after work. The situation between them had become so tense and explosive that he bit her head off for asking the simplest question. The other agents were beginning to murmur among themselves. It couldn’t continue. Mirri was going to have to gain his friendship or quit. There wasn’t any other course open now.
Nelson noticed her discomfort. He encouraged it. He was trying to make her leave the agency. His interest in her was becoming disruptive. She was efficient and skilled, but she had to go.
This day, though, she was more disorganized than usual, in a flushed frenzy of nerves. He got tired of asking for the same piece of information twice and having to answer his own telephone because she was too rattled to type and do that at the same time.
He called her into his office and pushed the door shut with such unusual force that heads turned toward his hard face before the door closed.
“Sit down,” he told her curtly.
She did, almost shaking with uncharacteristic shyness. She looked at him and colored, her fiery hair all disheveled, her blue eyes darker than usual and huge as she averted them from his angry face.
He perched on the edge of his desk, very attractive in a neat gray suit with a spotless white shirt and a neat gray-striped tie. His thick black hair was pulled back from his lean face, emphasizing the rawboned look of it and his high cheekbones. His equally dark eyes narrowed on her face. “What the hell is wrong with you today?” he asked without preamble.
She clenched her small hands in her lap and went for broke. “I’m trying to get up enough nerve to ask you to have coffee with me after work.”
He looked at the door and then at the carpet, to make sure he was awake. He was glad he was sitting down. He stared at her. “I beg your pardon?” h
e asked slowly.
She looked up at his rigid features. The almost whimsical expression on his face lessened her inhibitions. She sat forward on the chair. “I know you don’t like me,” she said quickly, “but could we… I mean, could we have coffee or something and just… could we just talk? Away from here,” she added.
He’d never dreamed of seeing her so unsettled that she had to work to make a coherent statement. One dark eyebrow went up. Her nervousness made him calm. He actually smiled. “Where?” he asked, his deep drawl oddly sensuous.
Her eyes brightened with hope. “There’s a cafe down the street from me,” she said. “It’s not fancy or anything, but they make the best spaghetti in town.”
“What time?”
Her heart ran wild. She’d never dreamed that he’d actually accept. Her lips parted on a rushed breath, and her face became incredibly radiant.
Nelson, watching her, was amazed at the change, at the softening of her features, the blaze of delight in her eyes. His body stiffened, and he almost laughed out loud at his headlong response to her. Unless he was badly mistaken, she was attracted to him! The thought went to his head and made him dizzy.
“I live on Ivy Street,” she said after a minute. “Number two fourteen. It’s an apartment house.”
“I’ll find it.”
She stood up. “I’m sorry about all the foul-ups today. I’ll do better. Scout’s honor.” She raised four fingers.
“Four fingers?” he queried.
“Martian scouts, sir,” she assured him. “I’ll look for you at seven, then.” She hesitated at the door. “It’s a sort of old-fashioned cafe,” she began. “They don’t serve beer or wine…”
“I don’t drink.”
“Neither do I,” she said, feeling a wave of relief spread through her. If Nelson had wanted even a glass of wine, she would have felt uncomfortable. That had been the one worry in her mind. Mirri had not been able to tolerate alcohol at even the most moderate level for years because of what had been done to her. She had never discussed her fears with anyone but Amanda, and now it seemed the matter wouldn’t even come up with Nelson.