About That Kiss Read Online Free Page B

had enough. See you both in the morning.”
    “I’ve had enough, too,” Nick said. “I’ll walk up with you.”
    She looked over at him just once, as they walked toward the stairs. Had he been about to kiss her when Diana had walked in on them? No, Joy answered herself. So what had he been doing?
    “Are you tired?” Nick asked as they reached Joy’s bedroom door.
    “Uh-huh,” Joy answered, then moaned under her breath. “Aren’t you?”
    “Not really. But I guess since you’re tired I won’t try to persuade you to stay up with me a little longer.”
    Joy took a deep breath. Persuade! She was like putty in his hands.
    “Well, see you tomorrow,” Nick said with a smile.
    “Tomorrow is a workday for me.” Joy made herself open her bedroom door. “I leave early.”
    “I’m a pretty early riser myself.”
    “Even without much sleep?”
    “Even without much sleep.”
    “Good night,” she said.
    “Good night,” he answered.
    Joy took a resolute step into her bedroom. Not looking back, she closed the door.
    Nick stood in the hallway a second longer, wondering again what position she slept in.
    Her mother was flipping pancakes as Joy came into the kitchen the next morning. After noting that no one else was in the room, Joy marched straight for the coffee that was already brewed.
    Emily slipped a pancake onto a plate. “How many will you have? Two or three?”
    “I don’t have time for more than a swallow of coffee,” Joy said to her mother. “I’ve overslept as it is.” She hadn’t fallen asleep until the wee hours of the morning. “Put them in the oven for Diana and Nick.”
    “If Diana eats half a pancake that will be a lot, and Nick has already eaten and left.”
    Joy put down the cup of coffee that she hadn’t yet taken a swallow from. “Nick ate and left already? Where did he go?”
    “He didn’t say, dear.” Emily looked at her youngest child thoughtfully. “I must say he didn’t appear any less tired than you do this morning.”
    “I guess we were both attacked by pepperoni pizza.” Joy gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, then hurried off.
    *   *   *
    The newsroom of the Greenport News was buzzing when Joy arrived. It was never a quiet place to begin with, but this morning there was an unusually high-pitched quality to the chatter.
    Joy hung up her green reefer coat and glanced around. Even Arthur Dailey was in animated conversation with Bill Kellman. That was unusual. The two pressmen, both gray-haired, though Arthur had more on his pate than Bill, hardly ever spoke to each other. There was something about one having slighted the other sometime back. Way back. Joy suspected that neither man recalled the exact slight, nor which one of them had delivered it, or even exactly when it had happened.
    “What’s going on?” Joy asked, catching the ear of Pamela Cousins, a breezy forty-year-old blonde with an ample shape and a Ms. Congeniality personality. She manned the phone for the classifieds. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t like Pamela. Nor was there anyone who Pamela didn’t like back.
    “You know. The big news,” Pamela said, turning from Cal Peterson who reported weekly on the activities of the Greenport wharf.
    “What big news?” Joy asked.
    “Oh,” Pamela said. “I thought that was the reason you dressed up today. You know…to make an impression on him. “
    “‘Him’?” The only him she’d wanted to make an impression on in her short, slim, gray wool skirt; clingy, white, ribbed-jersey turtleneck; high-heeled black pumps; and black panty hose had left before she’d come down to the kitchen. “What ‘him’?”
    “Our new boss. The man Earl sold the paper to.”
    “Earl sold the paper?” Joy was amazed.
    “The new owner is in his office right now. Earl said he’ll be introducing us all once you’d arrived. They’ve been waiting for you.”
    “I’ll go tell Earl you’re here,” Cal said, breaking away.
    “Have you seen the new owner?” Joy