LITMIR.BIZ

      For the unsung, everyday heroes who often put their own

       lives on hold to care for a loved one in need.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Once upon a time I was four feet ten inches tall, like my character, Dina Wexler. I even have vague recollections of climbing up the kitchen cabinets to plunder Mom’s stash of Brach’s milk chocolate stars and brushing my teeth with my chin hovering a skosh above the basin.

      A now-five-seven adult’s memories of a time when much of the world was beyond my reach and everyone was literally looked up to weren’t enough. Huge thanks go to Veda Boyd Jones and Mary Guccione for insights on the grown-up and short-statureds’ daily frustrations and creative adaptations and the fact that larger than life has everything to do with heart and nothing to do with height. I am in their debt and stand forever in their shade.

      Thanks also to John Bragdon, consumer assistant at Jacuzzi, Inc., in Dallas, Texas, for product information critical to my homicide scenario. Darrell L. Moore, Greene County (Missouri) Prosecuting Attorney, keeps the legalities straight and factual, and lets me pick up the lunch tab once in a while. Pat LoBrutto, dear friend and opera buff, filled in on the finer points of Pagliacci and sang a few bars of an aria on the phone. Without Jean Edwards, Comair customer service representative at the Springfield-Branson (Missouri) Regional Airport, I’d have flubbed my plot-oriented flight plans six ways of Sunday. The mythical Park City, Missouri, has several more connections elsewhere than available in fact, but the beauty of fiction is getting the basics right and taking it from there.

      Lara Hyde and Mary-Margaret Scrimger at MIRA Books were excellent, devoted editorial glitch finders; any remaining are mine. A hearty salute also to Robin Rue, Writers House, LLC, for the past twentysomething books. Thank you, team. You rock.

      As does Dave Ellingsworth. One day, maybe I’ll find the words to tell him how lucky I am to be his wife, best friend and forever partner in real life.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      1

      “Aw, c’mon, Cherise. Be reasonable.” Jack McPhee’s lips pulled back in a grimace. The heel of the hand not holding the telephone receiver clunked his temple. Too little, as recriminations went, and definitely a couple of words too late.

      “Be reasonable” was number nineteen on the list of sixty-two things to never say to a woman. Any woman, whether you were dating her, sleeping with her, married to her, called her Mom or she knew “the usual” was Chivas on the rocks with a twist.

      Therefore, it was hardly a surprise when Cherise Taylor’s normally dulcet drawl could have etched granite. “So,” she said, “it’s unreasonable for me to be upset about being stood up for dinner. Again.”

      “No, no, of course it isn’t,” Jack said, tired of reciting dialogue from a familiar script and the revolving cast of leading ladies. Any second now, she’d say…

      “We haven’t seen each other since Thursday at lunch.”

      “When I told you I had an out-of-town job to take care of.” An off-the-books, expenses-only one for a friend, Jack might have added, but what was the point?

      “Yeah, and I stayed home all weekend, in case you called.” A derisive snort, then a plaintive, “You’ve heard about floors clean enough to eat off of? You could take out somebody’s spleen on mine.”

      Jack tapped a pencil end over end on the desk blotter. He’d flown to Seattle by way of Dallas and Denver, logged twelve hours’ sleep in seventy-two and the majority of those after he fell into his own bed last night. “If I’d had a chance to call,” he said, “and you weren’t home, I’d have tried your cell phone. If you didn’t answer, I’d have left a voice mail.”

      “Oh? Then it’s my fault I was bored out of my mind all weekend.”

      Pretty much, he thought. A bit harsh, maybe, but before he came along, Cherise volunteered on Saturdays at a library teaching English as a second language. Sundays, she’d meet her married sisters for a girls’-day-out brunch, then hit the flea markets, catch a chick flick or zip north to Kansas City to shop at malls identical to those in Park City.

      Sniffling now, Cherise went on, “And you don’t even remember what day this is, do you?”

      The obvious trick question disqualified Monday as the correct answer. Jack’s eyes cut to his page-a-day calendar. July 7 was blank, apart from a sticky note to remind him to drop his suit at the cleaners before the bloodstains set.

      “Who cares if tonight’s our anniversary?” Sniff-sniffle. “No big deal.”

      Jack pulled away the receiver, examining the sound holes as if the pattern would reveal what the hell she was talking about. Anniversaries commemorated wars, major battles, natural and unnatural disasters and wedding ceremonies. None of those applied, yet all of a sudden, the commonality seemed oddly significant.

      “For six months, I’ve put up with your weird hours. With dates canceled at the last minute and knowing your mind’s anywhere but on me sometimes when we are together. But have I complained? Uh-uh. Not even once.”

      I wish you had, Jack thought. Repeatedly and often.

      On a shelf above the microwave at his apartment was a framed sampler that read: “The lower the expectations, the higher the probability a man will tunnel under them.” His ex-wife had cross-stitched it and given it to him for a divorce present. Whether she’d coined the phrase, or copped it from Gloria Steinem, a louse with good intentions should have it tattooed on his forehead.

      “I’m sorry, Cherise,” he said. “I really am.”

      A lengthy silence acknowledged the subtext. “Me, too.” Cherise’s sigh implied a middle-distance stare at the ceiling, select memories scrolling behind her eyes, her head shaking in futility. The image skewed somewhat at her muttered, “Honesty in a relationship, my ass.”

      Jack scowled. “Hey, now wait a sec. I have been honest with you. A hundred percent from the first time we went out.”

      “Sure you were,” she agreed. “But how was I supposed to know that?”

      His mouth fell open. Bereft of an intelligible response, he raked his fingers through his hair and wondered if a lapsed Episcopalian was eligible for the priesthood.

      “First date,” she said. “Between the beer course and the pizza, I asked you to describe the perfect woman. I expected the usual answers—Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek. If you’d said your mother, I wouldn’t have stuck around for the cinnamon

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