“Really?!” Mirri enthused. “How exciting!”
She was glad Mirri couldn’t see her telltale blush. “For a foothold at the newspaper, you idiot,” Amanda murmured with forced humor. She lay back on the green-and-white-patterned bedspread with a sigh, her long black hair radiating out from her face in soft waves. “I mean, it’s not going to be an easy road to upper-level management. My credentials don’t impress him.”
“All that brainwork wasted.” The other woman sighed. “Well, if at first you don’t succeed...”
“I didn’t really expect him to turn the whole enterprise over to me. He said that I don’t have the experience, and he’s right. But I can get it,” she added stubbornly. “I was at least hoping for partial control.”
“Don’t step on any toes,” she cautioned. “The reigning editor has chopped off more educated and talented employees than you know. He’s underhanded and unscrupulous when it comes to keeping his cozy nest. The only reason he keeps Joshua in the dark is because your new partner hardly ever has time to get a look in.”
“You’ve been working for the FBI too long,” Amanda pointed out. “You’re beginning to sound like an agent.”
“Don’t I wish.” Again she sighed. “I’m just a paralegal with big dreams and bad eyes. Do you know what Nelson Stuart told me? He actually said my red hair was too blatant for a government agent!”
“I didn’t think you were speaking to Mr. Stuart.”
“He’s the senior agent,” she muttered. “I have to speak to him. I thought I might try law school. He had something to say about that idea, too.”
“Well?”
“He said you needed a brain for that.”
“Maybe they’ll transfer him to someplace cold.”
“I volunteered him for Yuma, Arizona. I thought he’d feel more at home someplace hot.”
Amanda laughed. She’d seen the steely Mr. Stuart once. He was as dark as Joshua was fair, lean and cold-eyed and very much the lawman. He and the vivacious Mirri had been enemies from her first day at the San Antonio FBI office. The situation hadn’t improved much in two years. Mirri threatened to quit more often these days, of course. Mr. Stuart had asked that she be transferred. Neither one of them had had much luck. Or perhaps it was more a case of not wanting to have much luck. They were a very volatile couple, and Amanda often thought that it was as much due to a flaming attraction as it was to the hostility they camouflaged it with.
“When are you coming back?” Mirri asked. “You don’t have anybody to talk to over there, and I know Joshua can be hard on your nerves. Not that I don’t think a lot of him for taking such good care of you.”
“That’s for old times’ sake, I think,” Amanda said quietly. “I owe him a lot. He deserves so much more than a life of mergers and takeovers. It’s a pity that he never married and had children.”
“Joshua Lawson?!” Mirri exclaimed. “Married? Ha! That’ll be the day.” There was a pause. “On second thought, there was that South American heiress he was squiring around in New York last month. I forget her name, but they made the color insert in one of the grocery store tabloids. Josh is very handsome, isn’t he?”
Amanda didn’t want to think about Josh’s women. She knew he had them, all too well, but it was much more comfortable to keep her head in the sand and not confront the reasons it bothered her.
“I suppose,” she replied noncommittally. “Listen, I’ll be home at the end of the week,” she continued, changing the subject. “We can go shopping. Now that I work every day, I find I don’t have enough clothes to cover the whole week. When I was in school I could wear jeans and T-shirts.”
“Okay. I’ll go shopping with you, if Josh lets you come home so quickly. He may think you need more of a break, and I’d have to agree,” she added solemnly. “Taking care of your dad and working every day took its toll on you.”
“I figure that if you agree to take a job, it’s your responsibility,” she reminded her friend. “I like working. Dad had private nurses, thanks to Josh. He never paid much attention to me, even when he was so sick.”
“He never paid much attention to you, period,” Mirri said coldly. “Just like my father. If I’d had somebody to take care of me when I was in my teens, maybe I wouldn’t be the emotional wreck I am now. He turned me loose. He never cared that I went out at night alone, and I was too stupid to know the danger.” She paused, her voice thin with memories as they came back to haunt her. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered reverently, gripping the telephone cord, “what I’d have been spared if my mother hadn’t died. My life changed when your father sent you to my grammar school instead of a private school.”
“We had each other, Mirri,” Amanda said with a smile. “Even after I had to transfer to that private high school. Even when your worst nightmare came true.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have killed myself that night,” Mirri said soberly. She was silent for a minute, remembering the details of that horrible night. Too often they played through her mind. But Amanda was the only one she dared tell. “You took me home with you because Dad was out of town. I cried all night long after we got back from the hospital, and you sat up with me.”
“You should have accepted the counseling they offered,” Amanda ventured.
“Talk about...that...to a bunch of strangers?” Mirri asked, incredulous. “It’s bad enough to have Nelson Stuart looking at me as if he thinks I stepped out of a brothel. He thinks I’m one bad lady.”
“You might tell him that vivacious persona is a mask.”
“Are you nuts?!” Mirri burst out. “Anyway, Mr. Stuart’s opinion of me and fifty cents might buy me a cup of coffee.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“And getting worse. Look, I’ve got to run. You take care of yourself.”
“You, too. See you soon.”
As Mirri hung up, she became aware of dark eyes staring at her, glaring at her. She was wearing a colorful skirt with a red peasant blouse—wild colors that suited her and disguised the shamed severity of her soul. Her long red hair fell in natural waves to her shoulders, and her blue eyes were big and thick-lashed in a face dominated by pale skin and freckles.
“Using the company phone on company time, Miss Walsh?” he asked without smiling.
“It’s my coffee break, and I got called. I didn’t call anyone.” She propped her chin on her hands, supported by her elbows on the desk, and gave him a big-eyed stare. “May I ask you something, Mr. Stuart?”
One dark eye narrowed. “What?”
“Is that your real face, or one you glue on every morning?”
The glare got worse.
“It’s just that you never smile, sir,” she said with an irrepressible grin. “I only wondered if your face would crack if you tried.”
“Proper use of the telephone goes with your responsibilities,” he told her stiffly. “No personal calls on company time, whether or not you initiate them.”
“I still have—” she checked her watch “—two more minutes on my coffee break. And if you aren’t certain that I didn’t initiate the call, you can always check,” she offered. “After all, you whiz-bang FBI guys can get access to telephone company records, right?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “In addition, I would appreciate it if you could dress in an appropriate manner around this predominantly masculine office.”
She looked at herself, from her huge dangly gold circle earrings to her jangly gold