Our Husband Read online

  Natalie's eyes brimmed. If Raymond Carmichael had performed a single deed to warrant grace in the afterlife, it was bringing the three of them together.

  They dropped their roses on the new gray marble headstone that read simply "Our Husband." As they walked away arm in arm, Ruby halted abruptly, looked down at her wet shoes, then lifted a beaming smile. "Twenty percent of firstborn babies arrive early."

  The End

  Page forward for more from Stephanie Bond

  Excerpt from

  Whole Lotta Trouble

  by

  Stephanie Bond

  Chapter 1

  Dear Mr. Blankenship,

  My name is Richard Wannamaker. After retiring from the IRS, I decided to write a story about my roller-coaster life as a cost accountant. Enclosed please find my 500-page autobiography, a volume I have fondly entitled Journal Entry—get it?

  Tallie winced. She got it, and about twenty others like it on her desk every week. Reams of paper containing stories utterly inappropriate for the mystery and romance fiction lines for which she acquired. It wasn't that she didn't admire the man for creating the tome, but if he'd researched Parkbench Publishing at all, he would have known they weren't looking for autobiographies. And that she wasn't a Mr., but a Miss. Miss— as in unmarried and unlikely to be in the near future. If only Richard Wannamaker had been on her mother's Christmas card mailing list, he'd have been privy to that tidbit, courtesy of her mother's annual Blankenship Bulletin, complete with pictures, favorite family recipes, and news. This year's headline:

  YES, OUR BEAUTIFUL, SUCCESSFUL DAUGHTER IS STILL SINGLE!

  It was almost February and she was still recovering from that one.

  Tallie sighed and forced her attention back to the cover letter in her hand.

  My brother-in-law is a tax attorney and will be handling the contract negotiation—

  A rap sounded at her office door and Tallie glanced up to see her assistant, Norah, stick her fair head inside. "Is this a bad time?"

  "No—please save me."

  Norah gestured to the mound of curled manuscripts on Tallie's desk. "Wading through the slush I flagged?"

  Tallie nodded and rubbed her eyes. "And a few you didn't. Ron tripped over one of my floor stacks the other day, so I thought I'd better do some housecleaning. What's up?"

  Norah looked apologetic. "Ron wants you in his office. He seems... agitated."

  Tallie's stomach convulsed. Executive Editor Ron Springer was always a handful for the editorial staff to deal with, but lately he'd been wound as tightly as his name implied, snapping at the least provocation. Tallie had secretly wondered if the health of the company was in jeopardy, or if Ron himself was experiencing personal problems, but she wasn't about to put her middle-of-the-road job on the line by asking. She had rent to pay, and a three-meals-a-day habit to support.

  "Tell him I'll be right there."

  Norah disappeared and Tallie pulled a mirror from her desk drawer, quickly checked her lipstick and her teeth, then smoothed a couple of dark strands back into her chin-length bob. Her hand stopped suddenly, and she yanked the mirror closer in disbelief.

  Her first gray hair. She almost choked on the irony. While she was home during the holidays, her mother had accused her of letting her childbearing years slide by, and right on cue, here was an outward sign that her innards were aging. She knew that at thirty-four, she had no reason to complain, but it was still a blow... and it would remain her best-kept secret lest she give her mother another headline for the holiday newsletter.

  OUR SPINSTER DAUGHTER IS GOING GRAY!

  She replaced the mirror and slammed the desk drawer. Hoping that Ron wasn't about to deliver news to add more silver to her head, Tallie grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, then walked in the direction of her boss's office.

  The bullpen was its usual beehive of activity, keyboards clicking and printers whirring, voices raised to be heard over cubicle walls. Although grateful for her ten-foot-by-ten-foot office with an actual door, she missed the camaraderie that she'd shared with her coworkers when they'd all been interns and assistants, still in awe of the publishing process and of the movers and shakers in the industry. All of the women she'd started with nine years ago had moved on to positions at other publishing houses or had left the industry altogether. She, on the other hand, had found a home at Parkbench and had managed to grow a stable of prolific and modestly successful writers. No New York Times best sellers yet, but she had high hopes for two books coming out in the spring.

  The department walls were lined with framed covers of some of the company's best-selling authors—Dewey Diamond, Grace Sharp, Linda Addison. It still gave Tallie a thrill to see the faces and signatures of writers she'd grown up reading.

  Parkbench had made its mark in the 1950s with film noir spin-offs, then they'd developed successful mystery series in the 1960s and '70s. In the '80s, the company had cashed in on the romance genre boom and continued to grow their line of thrillers. In the last thirty-plus years, Parkbench had become known as a boutique publisher, one of the few privately owned houses left after the merging madness of the late '90s. They were small, but mighty, with a reputation for being author-friendly. Some of their writers had been around for longer than Tallie had been alive.

  Kara Hatteras, aka Scary Kara—editor in the health and nutrition books section and Tallie's nemesis—came out of her office and arranged her Botox-puffy face into a smug expression. "Hello, Tallie."

  Tallie was forced to stop, since the Nordic giant towered over her and was standing with her legs wide enough for a child to walk through. "Hi, Kara."

  "Have you heard that my book The Soup to Nuts Diet is going to be featured on CNN?"

  Tallie bit the inside of her cheek; Kara never gave credit to her authors and bragged endlessly about "her" accomplishments. "Um, no, I hadn't heard. That will be great coverage for the company."

  Kara lifted her finger and wagged it precisely. "No. That will be great coverage for me." She dipped her chin. "I heard through the grapevine that our department is going to be reorganized. This little media coup might be just the thing for Ron to finally make me a senior editor."

  Ahead of Tallie, she might as well have said. Tallie managed a tight smile at the woman whose surgically enhanced lifestyle was the antithesis of the books she edited. "Good for you, Kara."

  Kara made a rueful noise. "Don't worry, Tallie—even though you haven't hit any home runs, I'm sure Ron appreciates the little things you do around here."

  Tallie gritted her teeth. But Kara's condescension aside, Tallie hadn't heard any rumors about a reorganization—because she was going to be reorganized out onto the street? Was that why Ron had been acting so edgy lately, because he was going to have to fire someone?

  Her?

  "Oh, Tallie," Kara said, leaning down. "Is that a gray hair?"

  Tallie froze. "No."

  "I think it is."

  "No, it isn't. I have to be going. Ron wants to see me." She hadn't meant to say that.

  Kara looked sympathetic. "Good luck."

  Tallie pushed past her and, with heart tripping overtime, headed toward the hallway where Ron's corner office was located. His assistant Lil was coming out of his door, and she gave Tallie a warning look when they passed.

  Tallie's stomach churned as she walked into his office.

  Ron glanced up from his desk where he was frantically scribbling in the margins of a memo, and frowned. "Close the door, Tallie."

  She did, truly worried now. Ron's handsome face was flushed, and his normally perfectly knotted tie was pulled to one side.

  "Sit," he ordered.

  She sat in one of two sleek Eames chairs that faced his desk. Ron collected chairs—he claimed they would be worth more than his stock portfolio when he retired. She herself would be sitting pretty if "some assembly required" furniture became collectible.

  While Ron finished his note-making, she glanced around his office, never failing to be impress
ed by his accumulation of industry awards and the achievement of his stable of world-class authors—Britt Manning, Gaylord Cooper, Stella Roundtree. According to her sources, Ron could have left Parkbench and taken a more prestigious position at least a half dozen times, but his dedication to his authors was legendary.

  Tallie adored him, and she'd wasted her first two years at Parkbench lusting after him from afar until one of her bullpen buddies, Felicia Redmon, had informed her that Ron Springer was gay.

  "He is not," Tallie had said, devastated. "He's in the Army Reserves, for heaven's sake."

  Felicia had scoffed. "Haven't you heard of 'don't ask, don't tell'? Oh, let me guess—there are no gay men in Circleville, Ohio?"

  Tallie, sensitive about her rural upbringing, had lifted her chin. "The man who owned the two car washes in town was gay... allegedly."

  "Well," Felicia had said gently, "let's just say that if Ron ever visited Circleville, he'd get his car washed."

  "But Ron doesn't have a car," Tallie had said.

  She cringed now when she remembered the conversation—her naiveté had been the butt of more than one joke among her friends.

  But that was years ago—before the accent reduction class and before getting mugged—twice. Now she spoke with shortened i’s and carried a personal alarm that sounded at twenty decibels above the threshold of pain. And she could generally tell if a man was gay.

  When she had heard Ron declare that Beaches was the best movie ever made, she had conceded that he was, indeed, gay. The problem was, before Felicia had informed her of his sexual orientation, Tallie had confided her crush on Ron to, of all people, her mother, who had gotten it into her head that Tallie and her "handsome boss" would someday wind up together. Tallie had elected not to divulge to her mother the extent of the impossibility of her and Ron's "winding up together," because it would have simply generated more drama. Besides, what was the harm in giving her mother a little hope that she would someday find a nice guy, fall in love, get married, have twins, quit her job, and move back to Circleville to live in a house on the same street as her parents.

  But if Ron canned her, she'd have to come clean with her mother, which might prompt a special mid-year edition of the Blankenship Bulletin.

  Ron sighed noisily, then looked up and seemed startled to see her sitting there. His gaze was unfocused, his expression slack. Panic blipped momentarily in Tallie's chest.

  "You wanted to see me, Ron?" she prompted.

  "Oh... right." He ran his hand through his immaculate blond hair, leaving it standing at all angles. He tossed down his pen. "Um...Tallie, how long have you been working here?"

  Oh, God, here it comes. "Nine years."

  "Nine years," he repeated, looking thoughtful. "In that time, I think we've become friends, haven't we?"

  She knew next to nothing about his personal life, but she nodded congenially.

  "Good, because I have a favor to ask."

  Her chin bobbed nervously. "Anything."

  He sighed, then leaned back in his chair. "Gaylord Cooper will be here Thursday to deliver his last book on his current contract."

  Tallie nodded. Gaylord was the darling of their publishing house—two hardcovers on the NYT best-seller list last year, both at number one. Ron had found the man's work in the slush pile fifteen years ago, and the rest was publishing history. The one drawback of working with Gaylord, though, was his... idiosyncrasies. The man mistrusted everyone, especially the government, and refused to use computers or telephones. He typed his intricate thrillers on an ancient Underwood typewriter and conducted all business face-to-face, including hand-delivering his finished manuscripts.

  Ron shifted in his chair. "I'm going to be away from the office for a few weeks, beginning tomorrow. Since I won't be here, I was thinking I'd have you take over the editing of this manuscript."

  Tallie felt her eyes go wide, but she schooled her face into a composed expression. "I-I'd be happy to, Ron, but—"

  "But?"

  "But how will Mr. Cooper feel about working with me?"

  "I'll give his agent a call and let him smooth the way. Do you know Jerry Key?"

  Her stomach crimped. "I know of him." And what she knew wasn't favorable.

  Ron sighed. "Yeah, Jerry has a reputation, but you can handle him."

  She tried to smile. "If you say so."

  "And I won't lie to you—Gaylord himself is one crusty customer. But once he realizes how much you respect his work, he'll come around. Just don't change a word of his manuscript, and he'll be fine."

  She started to laugh, but Ron's expression grew grave.

  "Seriously, Tallie, I can't stress enough how important it is that Gaylord remain pacified. He'll be negotiating a new contract after this book, and I know those bastards over at Bloodworth will be trying to lure him away. I've assured Saundra that you'll be able to pull this off."

  Saundra Pellum, publisher of Parkbench, emerged from her corner office on the floor above them only to reprimand, chew out, and fire. No pressure.

  Tallie wet her lips. "I understand, Ron. Do you have something going on with the Reserves?" Ron put in his time one weekend a month, but considering the state of the world, it was entirely possible that he was being called up.

  "Um... not this time," he said shortly.

  "Oh. When do you expect to return?"

  A pinched look came over his face, and he cleared his throat. "I don't know, but I'll be checking in periodically to answer any questions you might have." He stood abruptly, signaling the end to their conversation.

  Tallie pushed to her feet, her head swirling with questions about Ron's sudden leave, but so honored by his trust in her that she wasn't going to pry.

  "I'll make sure that Lil notifies you when Gaylord arrives," Ron said. "Depending on his frame of mind, he might want to have lunch. If so, take him to Spegalli's, because they receive consistent good marks on their health department inspections."

  "Right. Anything else?"

  He lifted his gaze, and something flashed through his dark eyes—alarm? "Watch your back, Tallie."

  Her jaw loosened in confusion. She was on the verge of asking for specifics when his phone rang. He snatched up the receiver. "Ron Springer." She turned to vamoose, and as she was closing the door, Ron said in a lowered voice, "I told you to never call me here—don't you think I'm in enough trouble?"

  Tallie bit her lip as she silently closed the door. It seemed reasonable to assume that the "trouble" her boss alluded to was the basis for his abrupt holiday. And for Ron to leave his responsibilities at Parkbench, even temporarily, the trouble had to be dire.

  On the walk back to her office, she nursed mixed emotions—concern for her boss, elation over her high-profile assignment, and fear that she would do something to alienate the company's biggest cash cow, Gaylord Cooper. She tingled with anticipation, thinking this could be a turning point in her career.

  Watch your back, Tallie.

  She worked her mouth from side to side, chalking up Ron's odd comment to his uncharacteristic state of mind. Then she released a dry laugh. Or perhaps he was talking about what Scary Kara might do when she discovered Tallie had been singled out to work with Gaylord Cooper. A gloating smile curled on Tallie's mouth, and she made a mental note to call her best friend Felicia to tell her the good news.

  But meanwhile... back to the slush pile reading. Her phone rang and she smiled—a reprieve.

  "Tallie Blankenship."

  "Hello, Tallie," said a deep, male voice—a hesitant deep, male voice. "My name is Keith Wages. We've never met, but our mothers are acquainted."

  Tallie squinted—Wages. "Sheila Wages in Ann Arbor?" She had met her mother's childhood friend once, years ago. She vaguely remembered a son in the pictures the woman sent at Christmastime, but she couldn't place his face.

  "Right." He gave a little laugh. "This is awkward, but I live in the city and when my mother found out that you live here, too, she suggested that I give you a call. You
know... have lunch or something."

  Red flags went up in her mind. WARNING: GEEKY SON OF MOTHER'S FRIEND DETECTED. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  "That sounds nice," she said carefully. "But I'm really swamped for the next couple of weeks."

  "Maybe we could grab a cup of coffee?" he suggested. "Something quick?"

  Her mind raced, but she couldn't think of a polite put-off. And if she didn't meet the guy, her mother would eventually hear about it and pester her to death.

  "Okay," she said, checking her calendar. "How about Wednesday at twelve-thirty?" She'd learned a long time ago that having to get back to work was the best way to escape an encounter-gone-wrong.

  "Sounds good—where?"

  Someplace not too close to her office and not a regular hangout, in case he turned out to be a psycho. "Are you familiar with Suspicious Grounds coffeehouse on Lexington Avenue?"

  "Yeah, sure. I'll see you there."

  "Um, wait a minute," she said, her pulse suddenly picking up for no good reason other than the fact that he had a nice voice. "How will I know you?"

  "I'll be wearing a Michigan State ball cap."

  Oh, great—a sports nut, and obviously badly employed if he could wear a ball cap in the middle of the day. "Okay. See you then...Keith."

  He hung up and she replaced the receiver, already dreading the meeting. The weirdo quota in her circle of acquaintances was full. With a sigh she picked up Mr. Wannamaker's cover letter for a quick skim to the end.

  Many people don't realize how interesting the life of an IRS accountant can be. There was the time I had a hit put on me for nailing a congressman for tax evasion. And the time I killed a man, and got away with it.