Escapade. Diana Palmer

dead.

      Josh wondered how much of what Johnson had said was true. Amanda was an eager beaver, but she was sharp, too. There were plenty of holes in Johnson’s management theory. It was possible that Amanda was right about the job press. But the competition could be killing their business. It had happened to other print shops. Now that he had access to the entire operation—something he hadn’t had while Harrison was still alive—he could keep Johnson on his toes and hopefully keep Amanda’s inheritance solvent. He had a feeling the figures weren’t going to be particularly pleasing.

      Back in San Antonio, Ward Johnson was certain of it. He ran a hand through his sandy hair and stared with unhappy resignation at the figures as he produced them from the computer. He knew how to run the machine, although Amanda was a whiz at it. But he hadn’t bothered to analyze its performance. He just plugged along from day to day, secure in the knowledge that old advertisers would stay with him and a few new ones would come along. The paper was paying for itself. Barely. He’d had so much turmoil in his private life that he hadn’t wanted complications or problems on the job. He hadn’t wanted to rock the boat and upset people by offering a new price list.

      But after he’d studied the spreadsheet, he wished he’d listened when Amanda had first mentioned that things were getting out of hand in the revenue column. Prices had gone up everywhere else, she’d said, and needed to go up here. Ward had laughed at her and said that people would go elsewhere if he raised his prices now, for newspaper ads or job work in the print shop.

      But, looking at the figures, he realized that she was right. He was operating in the red because he’d been too involved with his own problems at home to go over the books regularly. Prices would have to be raised, for a certainty. That meant he’d have to put in some late hours working on them.

      In addition he had to send this proof of ineptitude to Joshua Lawson. He grimaced. No. He didn’t dare. He was thirty-four years old. He wasn’t in his dotage, but it would be difficult to get another job at his age, even if he wasn’t proven incompetent. Gladys would love it if they fired him. She’d laugh. His wife always laughed at his failures. She enjoyed them. She always had, even before she’d climbed too deep into her bottle of gin to get out again. He didn’t know which was worse, Gladys or his son. Sometimes he felt as if he were carrying the world on his broad shoulders. He couldn’t make enough to keep Gladys in gin and his son in drugs. The boy wouldn’t work. He wasn’t lucid enough to work.

      Ward carefully changed a few key figures. With any luck at all, before the next quarter’s figures went out, he’d have boosted them to this altered sum. It wasn’t dishonest. He was only buying a little time.

      “I need to ask a question, Ward,” Dora said, interrupting his thoughts.

      He looked up. She was so sweet, he thought. Pleasantly voluptuous, with a sweet smile and freckles and reddish-gold hair framing her very blue eyes. He wondered why she looked so sad. She had a successful husband, an educator, and two sons in grammar school.

      “Ward?” she prompted, flushing a little at his pointed stare.

      “Oh. Sorry.” He smiled, his brown eyes twinkling. “What can I do for you, honey?”

      The endearment made her flush even more, and he felt his chest swell. He still had an effect on her. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at her, a faint arrogance creeping over his face. He felt eighteen again, bristling with predatory masculine instincts. Although they’d never been really intimate in high school, they had spent a lot of time together.

      “I wondered if you needed me for anything else?” Dora asked. “I only work mornings, you know.” She smiled, seeing Ward as he had been at eighteen when he was captain of the football squad and she’d led the cheerleading team. In her eyes, he’d never aged.

      He looked at the computer and grimaced. “I could certainly use some help with this,” he said. “Can you operate a fax machine?”

      “Why, yes,” she said. “I did a little part-time work for an insurance company last year, and they had this same model,” she added, moving toward the machine.

      “Thank God,” he said. “Amanda Todd always works this one, and she won’t be back until Monday.”

      “Is she all right?” Dora asked. “I like Amanda. She’s always been so nice to me.”

      “It’s easy to be nice to you, Dora,” he replied quietly. “Yes, she’s fine. Sad, I imagine, but she’s got the Lawsons to pamper her for a week and a luxury island in the Bahamas to lounge on. She’ll manage.”

      “Mr. Lawson is very good to her,” she remarked.

      “Both Lawsons are,” he mused. “The families go way back.”

      He sat up. “Well, I need to get back in there and finish making up the paper. I’ll have to do a lot of this paperwork tonight. Would your family mind sacrificing you for an hour or two a couple of nights a week until I can catch up?”

      “I’m sure they won’t,” she replied with a faintly nervous smile. “Edgar is taking a college course on his lunch hour this semester. He’ll be home with the boys at night, grading papers or talking to students or tutoring,” she said with more bitterness than she realized. “And all my boys do is play sports and talk about them. As long as everyone is fed and the house is clean, my time is pretty much my own,” she added miserably.

      Ward couldn’t bear the thought of anyone as sweet and loving as Dora being taken for granted. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I can’t imagine any man grading papers when you’re in the same room. If you don’t mind my saying so,” he added, careful not to offend her.

      But she brightened and flushed a little. “No, of course not!”

      He smiled. He grinned. She made him feel like a man again. “Okay, then,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

      “Fine.” She nodded. She started to speak, hesitated, and then plowed ahead. “How...how about your family?” she asked. “Don’t they mind you working such late hours?”

      He sighed wearily. “Gladys is...well, I’m sure you’ve heard about her drinking. Everyone else here has. Half the time I don’t think she knows if I’m there or not,” he said. “And my son...” He let out a long breath. “He blames me for his mother’s drinking. They’ll both tell you I’m a total failure.”

      “That isn’t the Ward Johnson I remember,” she said gently. She smiled. “You could never be a failure.”

      He stared at her. “You really think so?”

      She nodded. “I really think so. I’m sorry things are so bad for you.”

      The compassion in her blue eyes made him hungry and vulnerable. He wanted that caring for himself. He wanted someone to give a damn that his life was an unbearable mess. Dora appealed to everything masculine in him, and his body reacted suddenly, sharply, to her nearness.

      “Can you come back about seven?” he asked.

      She nodded. “Yes. Of course. I’ll just paste up the rest of the personals.” She went out quietly.

      In the waiting room she hesitated, gnawing her full lower lip. She was going to get in over her head if she wasn’t careful. She was a married woman with young sons, and Ward was a drowning man looking for someone to jump in and save him. The problem with trying to save drowning people was that if you weren’t careful, they’d pull you down with them.

      She couldn’t possibly risk getting mixed up romantically with her boss. San Rio was a small community, despite being a cosmopolitan suburb of sprawling San Antonio. She and her husband went to the local Baptist church. He taught Sunday school. Her boys were involved in every sports activity they could find, which meant the family was very well known locally. She was a pillar of the community, as an educator’s wife had to be, even in these permissive times. She couldn’t afford any hint of scandal.

      But she’d known Ward forever. He