LITMIR.BIZ

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      Her heart beat a rat-a-tat. Could it be? Were her dreams about to come true?

      She leaped out of bed, whirled back to save the data she’d gathered on a diskette to take with her to the office and then darted toward the shower. She had exactly thirty-nine minutes to make herself presentable and beat Cabot to the agency. It was going to be a stretch.

      CABOT PACED UP AND DOWN in front of Wycoff’s Worldwide wondering why no one was there at two-and-a-half minutes before nine. How could you start working at nine if you didn’t get there well beforehand, have your coffee, go through your In box, be ahead of the game before the day actually began? He’d e-mailed his agent that he’d be there at opening time. He’d expected her to be waiting at the door.

      He’d wanted her to be waiting at the door.

      What was he doing here anyway? Now that he’d seen who he was working with, now that he’d decided to trust her, why hadn’t he just relied on the telephone. He did everything else on the telephone. Well, almost everything else. At this stage in his life, he didn’t do much that couldn’t be done on the telephone. But it was too late now. He’d said he’d be here and he was here, and where the hell was she?

      Exactly at nine, it all happened in a perfectly synchronized fashion. A portly man came to the door and unlocked it at the same time two women and two other men materialized on the sidewalk. Neither of the women was Faith. The group outside forged to the inside, carrying Cabot along with them as they said good-morning to each other and the portly man, then the Wycoff group paused expectantly, waiting.

      A minute later Cabot found out what they were waiting for. He heard the squeal of worn tires, the roar of a car engine that needed a new muffler, the grinding of brakes that needed new linings. And in another moment Faith flew through the door, her hair surrounding her face like a golden cloud, her eyes as wild as pearl-gray eyes could get and her silky gray pantsuit in need of a pressing.

      A ray of sun shot through the window and straight through her hair, and for a second, Cabot was blinded. He stared at the apparition, trying to still the pounding of his heart.

      He strongly felt that he ought to fall to his knees and repent for something or other, and he’d gotten so hard so fast that he actually had something specific to repent.

      But the cloud of fire and mist that was Faith Sumner rushed toward him, smoothing her suit with one hand and her hair with another, and gradually reality seeped back.

      “Oh, Cabot, sorry you had to wait. Mr. Wycoff—” she turned to the portly man “—sorry to be late. I…”

      “Don’t waste time apologizing,” Cabot interrupted her. He gestured toward her desk. “My plans have changed and I have exactly seventeen minutes to explain the situation.”

      He observed with satisfaction that the other travel agents immediately began slinking toward their work stations. Wycoff opened his mouth, then closed it and went through a doorway into what was undoubtedly his office, a private one where he would be protected from the hustle and bustle of the actual work.

      Faith simply sat down at her desk and gazed at him with a peculiar light in her eyes. So he sat down, too.

      “When did you get here?” she asked testily.

      “Eight fifty-seven.”

      “Were they already here?” She gestured around the room at the other agents.

      “No, they all sort of appeared at once just as that guy unlocked the door.”

      “How do they do it?” Her expression pleaded with him to understand. “How do they get here exactly at nine, not a minute early, not a minute late? I swear some alien power beams them to the front door.”

      “You were only one minute late.” He didn’t know where his forgiving attitude had come from. He supposed it was coming straight from his groin, which still hadn’t stopped acting hopeful.

      “When I’m one minute late they’re all standing in the center of the waiting area staring at me when I come in.” Her shoulders drooped.

      She was wearing mascara, but only on one set of blond lashes, and her lipstick, something pale pink and shiny, was crooked. He was fascinated, but he couldn’t let on.

      “I don’t care,” he said gruffly. “Here’s my problem.”

      “Oh, yes,” she said, “your problem.” She whirled and reached down to her computer. After she’d pushed several wrong buttons, she finally got the right one and the monitor began to show signs of life. Next she reached into her handbag, fished around, began hauling things out—a wrench, a sandwich, a paper-clipped bundle of coupons, a tube of stain remover, a romance novel—and eventually pulled out a diskette in an ordinary white envelope. “Got it,” she said, waving it at him before she tried to jam it into the CD slot, then into the Zip drive slot and at last, with only the one alternative remaining, slid it smoothly into the A drive.

      He waited, tapping one finger on the arm of his chair, trying not to notice the tilt of her perfect little nose, her pale, creamy skin, her small, slender hands as they wreaked their havoc.

      She turned back to him, looking triumphant. “Now,” she said. “You mentioned a change of plans.”

      “Yes. Don’t make the July reservations yet.”

      “No? Are you sure?” Her voice softened. So did her face.

      “Yes. Make them for the second weekend in February.”

      Inexplicably, her face fell. “Of course. Certainly. If I can get reservations. You’re, ah, moving the wedding back? Oh,” she sighed as a calendar mysteriously appeared on the monitor, “that’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day! Instead of skyrockets, you’re going for hearts and fl—”

      “No,” he interrupted her. “I’m doing a dry run.”

      “A dry run. Of your honeymoon.”

      “Anything wrong with that?”

      Faith could think of about a million things wrong with that. She considered listing them. Then she considered the new muffler she needed and the funny way her car sounded when she put on the brakes. Her final consideration was the most important. This was her thirteenth job since she’d finished undergraduate school with a degree in languages and no skills beyond French, Spanish and Italian. She had to make this one last.

      “Of course not,” she said smoothly.

      “Okay. So book me a honeymoon suite for the nights of the eighth through the tenth.”

      She hesitated. “It may not be easy so close to Valentine’s Day.”

      “Don’t anticipate trouble.” That impatient growl again.

      Something about his voice sent her whirling to the screen. “The hotel I’ve chosen…” she began.

      “Just make the reservation.”

      Silently, feeling oddly sulky, Faith punched at the keyboard, moved the mouse around on a mousepad that had the word Focus! printed on it in capital letters. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but they’re fully booked for…Oops!” Startled, she drew back. “Somebody just broke up.” A slot, in fact a deluxe theme suite, had opened up before her very eyes. “Our most popular theme room,” they described it on the Web site. She cast a sideways glance at Cabot, feeling he’d somehow done it himself, broken up a couple who had a reservation in his hotel for his room.

      “So grab it!” He was half out of his chair, reaching for the mouse.

      She grabbed it.

      He heaved such a sigh she was sure he was wondering what error in his otherwise impeccable judgment had led him to walk up to her workstation yesterday when all around them automatons were chatting with contented-looking clients while quietly doing everything perfectly, serene, unharried smiles painted on their faces.

      With

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