LITMIR.BIZ

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from the den.

      “I’ll go see what he wants,” Kasey said immediately. As she hustled down the hall, she could hear Stan revving up the language, the kind of swearing that made her squirm when she was a kid—not because his temper was directed at her but because it was directed at her mother.

      The instant she showed her face in the den, though, her dad’s bark turned into an instant smile. “I didn’t know you were here, sunshine! Come on, gimme a hug, I’ve missed you so much….” And then, “Damn it, your mother knows I can hardly walk with this ankle, and here I was calling and calling—”

      Swiftly Kasey rushed to play peacemaker. “What can I do to help? Do you want a drink? A snack?”

      “I need ice for my ankle. And a little nip. And the TV— I can’t find the remote—”

      “I’ll fix it all, Dad, and in the meantime tell me all about what happened to your ankle.”

      Kasey charged around, well aware that the time was clicking away, that Tess would be hungry soon and she had a dinner party for sixteen to prepare for. Still, it wasn’t that easy to escape the old daughter roles—placating her dad, and then hearing out her mother’s stream of advice and criticism.

      “You’re pale, what is this, no makeup? You know how washed-out you look without foundation. It’s a mistake too many new mothers make, Kasey, letting themselves go. Marriages don’t survive by accident. They take work. And so do men.”

      Kasey washed the tea dishes, brought a fresh ice bag for her dad, changed Tess. Graham had gotten her parents a new television, the new couch in the living room, bought them a satellite dish. To Ellen and Stan both, he was a god.

      “I still don’t know what he saw in you,” Ellen said frankly.

      “Hey! Thanks a ton!”

      “I wasn’t trying to be cruel, Kasey. But you surely realize there’s something odd in your relationship? I know you’re wonderful because you’re my daughter, but Graham was rich and smart and should easily have been able to pick a woman from his own circles. He had to see something in you that he couldn’t get elsewhere. And that doesn’t have to be bad—but it could be. No one is this lucky without having to pay a price. Don’t blow it.”

      “Mom, I love him. We’re happy. There’s nothing to blow.”

      “So go home. Put on makeup. Make yourself pretty. Sexy. And do something with that hair.” Both of them heard Stan yell for Ellen from the den, and Ellen got that worn-out look in her eyes again.

      Kasey left with that “Don’t blow it” still ringing in her ears. It took a full hour to drive home, primarily because I-94 turned into a gladiator den, and as if sensing her nerves, Tess started fussing.

      Kasey murmured the instinctive mom there-there mantra, but Ellen’s rantings were still smarting in her mind. She’d known for years why her mother carried such antiquated values about women. Her grandmother had been divorced and struggled, near desperation financially sometimes, to raise three daughters. Ellen had gone into her own marriage with a terror of divorce. She’d always catered to Stan, waiting on him, jumping for his every wish, running to avoid his anger.

      Ellen had relentlessly raised Kasey to believe that accommodating and appeasing a man were critical keys to a woman’s survival. Kasey got the shivers when she thought about following in her mother’s footsteps—that was never, ever, how she wanted to live.

      Yet she did try to please Graham. That wasn’t being a doormat, was it? Didn’t every woman want to please the man she loved? Give up things, cater, try to show her love in ways that made him happy?

      Which reminded her of the dinner coming up tonight. As she turned off the expressway, she gnawed on a thumbnail. Technically the dinner was just a neighborhood gathering, yet she sensed it was important to Graham.

      He wanted their life to return to normal, to start entertaining and doing business functions together the way they had before the baby. Life wouldn’t end if this dinner didn’t turn out perfectly, but Kasey still felt uneasy. Their marriage had changed the minute Tess was born. She’d sworn that she wouldn’t let Graham feel neglected…but of course he did.

      Tonight was a chance to make it up to him.

      Kasey had been looking forward to the evening, yet that flash of uneasiness made her shiver again. She shook her head, laughing at herself loud enough to make Tess suddenly chortle from her infant seat. “Yeah, love bug, Mommy’s just being silly, huh? Our whole world couldn’t be better, and here I’m seeing shadows in the corners. How goofy can you get!”

      At six-thirty the lobby of the weekly newspaper office was deserted. One lonely fluorescent light illuminated the hall, but the central office was as quiet as a tomb. During the day, phones and printers and faxes and people yelling made for a noisy bedlam. At this hour, the place looked like the aftermath of a riot, with wastebaskets overflowing with half-dead doughnut parts and reams of coffee cups, and the floor littered with paper and clips and everything else.

      Jake sat at the far desk—his coat on, because he’d intended to leave some time ago. But he got studying a medical tome, and ended up concentrating so hard he never heard his boss approach his desk.

      Barney couldn’t walk or talk without an unlit cigar chomped between his teeth. Wearing boots, he was conceivably five-four and had to weigh a good 250. The chin was grizzly with whiskers by five o’clock; the breath invariably smelled of old coffee, and the narrow eyes had a born-mean glow. He was so ornery that he couldn’t hire reporters fast enough to keep up with their quitting, and when he parked in front of Jake’s desk, he clearly had his bristles up.

      “What the hell is this? Six o’clock, and you already got your coat on? You got here when?”

      “Six o’clock this morning,” Jake answered.

      “So. Twelve hours, and you think you can just go home. Knowing what I pay you for overtime?”

      Barney hadn’t paid overtime in his life. What he did pay for a functional eight hours made slave wages sound good. “I’m leaving in ten. My dad needs me to take him to a neighborhood dinner thing. Until my mother can go with him, I’m the self-elected volunteer.”

      “Like I asked you about your private life.” Barney took out his half-bitten cigar, only to stick it in the other side of his mouth. “So when you gonna tell me what the hell you’re working on so late these last weeks?”

      “Nothing.”

      Barney purposefully blocked the egress to the door—not hard to do when your stomach took up an entire aisle. “It’s something about kids. Babies. You got books and articles in here to the ceiling on medical crap. Somebody assign you a story I don’t know about?”

      “No.” Jake marked the spot in the book he’d been reading, and carefully closed the tome.

      “You are writing a story, aren’t you?” It was difficult to evaluate Barney’s expressions, but the sudden twist in his mouth was kin to a smile.

      “I’m looking into an idea, but there’s nothing to tell you until I’m sure I’ve got something.”

      That was all it took to make Barney start crowing. “Did I tell you you’d get into this job or what? Two years ago you walked in here with your hands shaking. Eyes looked like your best friend was a ghost.”

      “Come on, now. You know I’ve heard these compliments before.”

      “You told me you were a drunk. Couldn’t promise me you’d last a week. I know you secretly thought you were gonna bite the bullet, now, didn’t you, dimwit?”

      Jake sighed. He refused to get embroiled in this conversation. Not again.

      “But I told you you’d get your life back. And that you wouldn’t be happy just pushing out legal articles from the back desk, either. I wasn’t sure—hell, you were a lawyer, and who the hell can trust

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