LITMIR.BIZ

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into the dining room, telling the group that dessert was on its way. “Okay now,” she said on returning. “You refused to come back to the lifestyle. Which means…?”

      “Which means that I used to be a high-paid corporate lawyer. Not anymore. I took a job with a newspaper—not because I knew anything about newspaper work—but because that was the only place that would hire me at the time. Truthfully, the paper didn’t want me either, but they had a hole in their staff—they needed somebody who could wade through legal jargon and convert it to something human beings could understand. That’s what I started out doing—for which they were paying me pigeon feed.”

      “Yet you’ve stuck with it?”

      “Yeah, in spite of the pigeon-feed wages.” Jake shook his head. “I’m not sure why. In the beginning, I was just happy to be holding a job. I needed to prove myself. Prove that I could stay sober. That I wouldn’t fold. For a long time, that’s all I was looking for—something to do that didn’t stress any seams.”

      Kasey couldn’t fathom why he was sharing all this personal history, but she sensed he was determined to be honest—determined not to put himself in a good light, for that matter. Whatever his motivation, she was interested. “It’d seem to me that you’ve proven your share if you’ve stuck it out for two years.”

      “Yeah. I didn’t expect to like it. But I also thought the job was going to be no challenge, no risk…and somewhere along the way, it started to get interesting. The newspaper’s owned by a character named Barney Mendenhall. He’s an overbearing bully and a real tyrant.”

      “Something in your voice tells me he’s a good friend.”

      “That’s the problem. He is. He took a chance on me when everyone else was fed up, which is a real hard thing to forgive him for. And then the damn man kept telling me that writing stories would get in my blood, that one of these days I’d find a story I’d need to write, and then he’d own me, heart and soul.”

      Fascinated now, she started to ask another question. Only, damn, Jake had finished loading up another tray of desserts, so she had to quit talking and ferry it into the dining room. “Sponge cake,” she announced to the group. “But in case anyone isn’t fond of that, I’m bringing in a fruit bowl next.”

      She raced back into the kitchen. “So? Was your boss right? Have you found a story you can’t let go of?”

      He’d been working like hired help, putting stuff on plates and wiping up. But now he looked at her in a way that made her pulse still. A quiet look. The way a man looked at a woman when he was through with the bullshit. “Yeah, I have. I’ve been looking into some malpractice cases affecting some of the local hospitals. Kasey, I have to ask you something…”

      “Sure. Shoot.”

      “Just tell me straight. Is your baby okay?”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Your baby. She’s totally okay, right?”

      Kasey felt as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of her lungs. There was nothing in Jake’s quiet, gentle eyes to cause such panic, yet it was there, slamming in her heartbeat, drying up her throat. It was as if he’d known how secretly she’d been worried about the baby. “Tess? Tess couldn’t be more perfect. She’s beautiful and healthy and the whole world keeps telling me how lucky I am. And, God, I couldn’t love her more than my life. Why on earth are you asking? What made you—?”

      When Jake first asked the question, she’d just opened the door to the dining room, carrying a tray with the fruit bowl and small bowls—but now she heard the baby’s faint wail from upstairs.

      She forgot Jake, forgot the question, forgot everything. The baby monitor was right next to Graham. It should have gone off if the baby had made any sound—but right then, the monitor wasn’t the issue, simply Tess. The baby never cried unless there was something wrong. Kasey plunked the tray on the dining room table, gracelessly enough to make a clatter. She saw Graham shoot her a dark frown, but he probably hadn’t heard the baby’s cry. “Everyone help yourself to the desserts, okay? Don’t wait—I just heard the princess, so I’m going to run upstairs and make sure she’s okay. I’ll be right back.”

      The instant she was out of sight, she shot upstairs to the baby’s room. The jeweled nightlight illuminated the crib. Her heart didn’t stop slamming until she scooped up the baby and snuggled her close. “Are you hungry, sweetheart? Wet?”

      Yet the answer to Tess’s distress was much simpler than that. A burp erupted from the rosebud lips, and that was it, the end of the fretful tears. Still, Kasey patted and rubbed and cuddled, unwilling to put the baby down, unwilling to leave her. She’d felt better after talking to her mother, but now Jake had aroused her worry level again. It was dumb. Just new-mother jitters. Anyone with a brain could see Tess was the most beautiful baby in the universe. There wasn’t a single sign of illness.

      What could her maternal instincts possibly be worth? She had no experience at all with newborns.

      “You want to go back to sleep, dumpling? Or go join the party?”

      The baby would have lain contentedly in the crib, but she also didn’t look remotely sleepy, so Kasey voted to carry her downstairs. When she ambled into the dining room, she had to chuckle for the chorus of “Oh, you brought the darling!” and “Let’s see her!”

      Several minutes passed before she happened to glance up—and catch Graham looking rigid as stone and glaring at her.

      “What’s wrong?” she mouthed silently.

      But then she realized that others might have noticed his tight mood—in fact, Jake was looking directly at Graham. This was obviously not an appropriate time to try and talk to him.

      An hour and a half later, the company was gone, the lights turned off, and the door closed on the disaster in the kitchen. Kasey checked on the sleeping baby one last time before walking into the master bedroom.

      Graham was already there, standing at the window. At a glance, Kasey could see his shoes were already neatly lined in the closet, his cuff links and tie on the bureau, his shirt already sent down the laundry chute. Sometimes she teased him that he was so anal he’d line up Campbell’s soup cans by the label—but tonight that kind of joke didn’t seem wise.

      “The dinner went pretty well, don’t you think?” she asked lightly. She slipped off her shoes and dress inside her walk-in closet.

      “Fine.” His voice was shorter than a bite.

      “I couldn’t love the necklace more, Graham. I thought Karen was going to rip it off my neck. Everyone noticed. It was so generous of you.”

      He didn’t respond.

      She scooped on a nightgown, shooting him worried looks in the mirror as she carefully undid the necklace. Her fingers were unsteady. She’d never seen Graham in a temper, but she knew when he was unhappy with her. She hated confrontations, never seemed to know what to do, what to say.

      From under the nightgown she peeled off her panties. When she caught her reflection in the mirror—the still baby-pudgy tummy, the wreath-sized circles under her eyes, the wild hair—she moved away from the mirror. Her stomach was starting to churn.

      “Graham,” she said carefully, “I know you’re annoyed with me, but honestly, I don’t know why—”

      “I’ll tell you why! Can’t we have one night without the baby taking center stage!” His change clattered on the bureau. Then he stalked over to the bedside light and snapped it off.

      In the darkness, Kasey frowned. This was about Tess? He was mad somehow about Tess? “I only brought her downstairs because she was crying—”

      “And if you’d hired a nanny—the way I’ve urged you to, over and over—you wouldn’t have had to interrupt the dinner party. For that matter, if we just had an in-house nanny, you wouldn’t be so tired in the evenings,

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