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  She clutched at him until even the tiny aftershocks inside her were gone, and when they were both breathing again, Allie whispered, “I don’t want you to move to the couch,” and Charlie held her tightly and said, “I’m not going to.”

  “BILL WANTS to see you,” Karen called to Charlie when he strolled in late the next afternoon.

  “I bet he does.” Charlie stopped at the counter and grinned at her. “Did you bake cookies?”

  “No, that’s Mrs. Wexman. She brings them in for Grady and he shares.”

  Charlie bit into the cookie. Chocolate chip with pecans. “Good for Mrs. Wexman. What does Grady do to deserve this?”

  “Drives her to chemotherapy.” Karen blinked up at him. “Grady does that a lot for the people his mom met while she was going through it. We get a lot of stuff in here because of it. You should taste Mrs. Winthrop’s almond cookies.”

  “He drives Mrs. Winthrop, too?”

  Karen nodded. “He helps out with other stuff, too. Mrs. Winthrop came in one day all upset about her grandson yelling at her, and I called Grady, and he told her not to worry, that he’d take care of it. The next day, she brought in a devil’s food cake.”

  “That’s what I like, grateful women who bake.” Charlie peered over the counter. “Where’s Sam?”

  Karen brought the basket up on the desk, and Charlie turned back the blanket to see Sam’s little black head. “How’s he doing?” He rubbed the puppy gently behind the ears, his broad index finger covering the back of Sam’s head by itself, and Sam moaned a little.

  “I’m scared for him.” Karen sniffed. “He’s so little, and he’s not eating much, and—”

  “I’ll pour the stuff down him tonight.” Charlie pulled the blanket back over Sam’s head. “He’s just getting the hang of it, that’s all.”

  Karen caught his hand. “Charlie, this is so sweet of you.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Charlie retrieved his hand and picked up another cookie. “You’d have to have a heart of stone to refuse to feed Sam.” He glanced at the clock behind her. “Which reminds me, I’ve got to go see Bill. Am I getting fired?”

  “I doubt it.” Karen put Sam’s basket back under her desk. “But you’re gonna have to listen to some yelling.”

  Charlie turned and almost fell over a stack of boxes next to the desk. “What’s this?”

  “Bumper stickers,” Karen said. “Mark’s idea. They’re really popular. The college kids from Riverbend love them.”

  Charlie frowned. “College kids listen to Mark?”

  “No,” Karen said. “They just like the stickers.”

  Charlie put his cookie down and pried open the top of the first box and pulled out a sticker. It was neon blue with a slash of orange lettering that said WBBB: Turn Us ON! He turned back to Karen. “You’re kidding.”

  She shrugged. “Who knows from kids?”

  Charlie started to laugh. She couldn’t be much older than twenty-five herself. “Well put, old lady,” he told her and she grinned back at him.

  “At least I’m not going nuts for a dumb bumper sticker,” she said.

  “Good point.” He folded the sticker and shoved it in his pocket as he turned for the hallway. “Now for the yelling. Wish me luck.”

  “You won’t need it,” she called after him. “I heard your show. You were great.”

  Terrific. Just what he needed. A fan. He was really going to have to get a grip on things or Allie would make him a star.

  “COME IN,” Bill yelled when Charlie tapped on his door. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Charlie folded himself into the chair opposite the old man’s desk, ready to listen to a litany of his faults. It would be like old home week, his dad all over again.

  Bill looked out at Charlie under bushy white eyebrows. “The papers are calling about that mess last night. Don’t talk to ’em.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Believe me, if I’d had any idea—”

  Bill flapped a hand at him. “I’m not blaming you. Alice already told me it was her fault.”

  “Well, I was there, too,” Charlie said mildly. “The city building was my idea.”

  “Yeah, but she called the mayor.”

  Charlie blinked. This was news. He and Allie were going to have to have a much longer talk than they’d managed the night before. He thought about the night before and stirred in his chair. A much longer talk out of bed where she couldn’t distract him. He frowned at Bill, trying to bring his mind back to the problem. “She called the mayor?”

  “Of course she called the mayor.” Bill scowled at him. “You think Rollie Whitcomb was up listening to your show that late? She called him.”

  “It was only eleven,” Charlie said. “I thought he might stay up that late.”

  “Only on poker nights.” Bill’s scowl deepened. “Which I won’t be going back to if you don’t stop stirring up trouble on the air. He wanted me to fire you, but I told him I couldn’t. Unbreakable contract.”

  “We don’t have a contract.”

  “Well, Rollie Whitcomb doesn’t know that. But you are going to shut your trap about the city building. I didn’t get you here to investigate political corruption. I got you here—”

  “Wait a minute.” Charlie sat up slowly. “You’re going to pull the plug on this thing so you can play poker?”

  “It’s politics, boy.” Bill leaned back in his chair. “You don’t understand—”

  “Sure I do.” Charlie shook his head. “You and my dad. The get-along gang.”

  Bill’s face turned dark. “Listen, boy”

  “No.” Charlie stood up. “I’m not going to shut up about corruption so you can play poker with the good old boys. I’m not going to bring it up, but if somebody calls in, I’m going to talk about it. Now, you can deal with that or you can fire me.”

  “Sit down,” Bill roared and Charlie sighed and sat down and listened to Bill’s tirade, impervious from long practice of listening to his father. It was, in its volume and contempt, the same speech his father had given to him after Charlie had left business school—“I didn’t raise my sons to be losers”—after he’d left the Air Force—“Damn good connections in the military, but you just piss ’em all away”—after he’d sold the computer-consulting firm that had become too fast-track for him—“You coulda been the Bill Gates of Lawrenceville, but no, you don’t like the work”—and after any of the half-dozen odd careers he’d wandered into and out of on the road since he’d left Lawrenceville four years before—“Bum.” Bill’s theme was more along the lines of “Too damn dumb to know your ass from your elbow,” but it was his father, all right.

  This was what he got for doing favors for his father. His Father, Part Two. Blow Hard and Blow Harder.

  “You understand me, boy?” Bill finished, his big white mustache quivering.

  “Completely,” Charlie said. “Now, are you going to fire me or are you going to let me talk to people about this tonight?”

  Bill sat back into his chair. “This is not what I brought you here for.”

  “No,” Charlie agreed. “This is a freebie. And I’m not interested in being Tuttle’s favorite son, so it won’t happen again. But I’m not walking away from this, Bill.”

  Bill stared off into space and tapped his fingers on the desk. “All right,” he said finally.

  Charlie relaxed an iota. “Now, about what you brought me here for. I found out Waldo isn’t coming back. You didn’t mention he’d shot up the booth.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Waldo.” Bill scowled. “I want to know that that letter was bull.”

  Charlie sighed. “It’s going to take a little while. I’m starting at ground zero since you didn’t save the letter. I can imagine Allie doing damn near anything if she put her mind to it, but I can’t imagine her as a crook. And Joe—” He broke off. “Joe’s gay. Could that have been it?”

  Bill waved the idea away. “Whole town knows Joe’s gay. That all you’ve come up with?”