LITMIR.BIZ

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she’d used to stir her abandoned coffee. “She must read my moods like a book.”

      “She’s one smart little girl. Imagine, a four-year-old figuring that her father was a war hero.”

      And suddenly they were back to where the conversation had begun, Ashley inventing excuses for the absence of her father. And Karen wondering how true they were.

      Funny how life had a way of regurgitating on you all at once. First yesterday’s phone call. And now this.

      “I thought I’d have a few more years before she started asking questions.”

      “Wished was more like it, huh?” Karen asked with understanding, in spite of the fact that Kayla’s father was very much a part of their lives. A software consultant, he traveled frequently, but when he was home, he belonged one-hundred percent to Karen and Kayla.

      “Ashley’s father isn’t dead.”

      The bald words fell into Karen’s sunny kitchen to lie, completely exposed, on the table between them. Karen had never asked about Jamie’s past. Jamie had never offered a word. This particular silence was an understood part of their friendship. A pact Jamie had needed in order for the friendship to exist-a pact she’d just broken.

      And she had no idea why. She couldn’t tell Karen about that time in her life. Not if she wanted to hang on to the life she’d made for herself since.

      “He didn’t want her?” Karen stirred furiously, staring at the coffee sloshing over her cup.

      “He doesn’t know about her.”

      “Oh.”

      “We were only...together...once.”

      Karen laid her spoon in her saucer and looked up at Jamie, her eyes still glowing with tenderness. Not with the condemnation Jamie knew she deserved.

      “The baby that resulted simply wasn’t an issue. Wasn’t part of that night.”

      “How can you say that if he didn’t have the opportunity to make her a part of that night?” Karen asked softly.

      Jamie remembered, very clearly, the wad of bills on the nightstand.

      “Let’s just say it was an unspoken rule. Any consequences were mine alone.”

      “The bastard!”

      “I went with him willingly.”

      “And I know you well enough to be absolutely sure that he’d touched your heart. You cared for him and thought he cared back. You never would’ve done it otherwise.”

      Ironically, concerning that one time, Karen was right. But Karen’s loving support was like bitter ashes in Jamie’s mouth. Because there’d been other nights, lots of them, when Karen would have been dead wrong.

      

      PUSHING his wire-rimmed glasses onto the bridge of his nose, Kyle Radcliff took the cement steps two at a time. The Archer woman was meeting him in his office in five minutes. And he wasn’t there yet. The semester was just starting, and already his resolution to stay on top of things had vanished. The one thing he could never seem to get right was time management. He bought planners—every kind known to man—he made schedules, he wrote lists. And he still ended up chasing his tail.

      But could he help it that a couple of his students got into a debate about Twain’s obvious disdain for the pseudoaristocratic antebellum South, as demonstrated in the thoroughly adult classic, Huckleberry . Finn? The relationship between biography and literature, between a writer’s life and time and his or her work, had always fascinated him. Kyle could no more have walked out on that discussion than burned his original copy of the novel. Some things just took priority.

      But he needed Jamie Archer’s help. With the move to Larkspur and now into his new home, some numbers needed to be crunched. Fast. He certainly didn’t have time for a battle with the IRS any time in the near future.

      Practically skidding around the corner on the second floor of the English building, Kyle slowed when he noticed the empty hallway outside his locked office door. He’d beaten her there.

      He was whistling as he juggled his leather briefcase, along with the couple of texts that hadn’t fit inside, to unlock his door. If his luck held out, he’d even have time to check over the paperwork he’d thrown in a manila folder before he’d left home that morning. Just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Now, where was the blasted thing?

      Five minutes later, Ms. Archer still hadn’t arrived, but neither had Kyle found the folder he was looking for.

      “I know it’s here,” he mumbled, tossing aside the class planner he’d forgotten to take with him to his American lit class. Not that it mattered. He could conduct his classes blindfolded and textless if he had to.

      Finding a couple more folders beneath his personal daily planner, he glanced through them. Nope. One was filled with maps of literary tourist spots on the East Coast The other was his gas-receipt file. Or what would be his gas-receipt file, if he’d ever get around to putting them all in there. He really needed to stick labels on his folders. That’d save him a lot of time. If he could only find the time to do it.

      He’d been through every folder on his desk twice, and none of them contained the tax receipts and W-2 forms he needed to give his new accountant. Looking up at the clock on his office wall, he frowned. They’d said 9:30. It was almost 9:45. He wasn’t going to be able to wait much longer.

      “The satchel!” He practically sang the words as he remembered where he’d put the tax folder. He’d shoved it in his satchel on the way out to his garage that morning, then promptly forgotten about it when faced with the more important matter of whether or not he’d heard a forecast of snow. He hadn’t driven his beloved mint-condition 1957 Thunderbird in more than a month. Not that he’d taken out the ‘64 T-Bird lately, either. No, he’d only risked the new and easily replaceable ’98 Bird with the maniacal winter drivers of Larkspur Grove.

      A quick search proved him correct—the tax papers were in his satchel—after which Kyle paced back and forth in front of his desk for another couple of minutes, waiting. Richard P. Adams. He was the critic who’d written so convincingly about Huck’s moral growth. Two minutes later, Kyle was seated at his desk poring over a text, anxious to meet again with his debaters.

      As he reached for a pen, Kyle’s gaze fell on the corner of an envelope that had come in yesterday’s mail. Jamie Archer. Tomorrow, 10:00.

      He read the note a second time, and, of course, remembered that he’d called her and asked to change their meeting from 9:30 to 10:00 when he’d realized how close he’d be cutting it to get from class back across campus to his office. He just hadn’t remembered to make a note of the time change on any of his calendars.

      In an attempt to make being a slave to his planner a habit, Kyle dutifully zipped open the leather book and flipped to the tabbed page marking that week. He was immensely relieved to find that he had changed the time after all. Hey, maybe he was getting the hang of this time-management thing.

      He’d covered a full sheet of the yellow legal pad on his lap, when he heard a light knock at his door.

      “Come in,” he called, his head bent as he hurriedly finished the note he’d been writing.

      In his peripheral vision he saw a slim figure enter the room. Judging by the way she hovered on the threshold of his office, like an intimidated freshman, he quickly determined that Ms. Archer was the shyest accountant he’d ever met.

      “Finished!” he said, looking up with a welcoming smile. He tossed the legal pad on his desk.

      Half in and half out of his chair, intending to offer his hand in greeting, Kyle froze. And stared.

      “I can’t believe it.” He didn’t realize he’d said the words out loud until he heard his voice mirror his thoughts. “It’s you....”

      Based on the shock in her

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