Everything Gained Read Online Free Page A

they'd ever come - and would ever come - to separating, but sometimes his mind sought it out to worry it over, like a tongue finding a sore tooth.
    And it had been pretty much his own fault.

Chapter Three

    They had been blissfully married for five years. And blissfully wasn't a relative term; they were frighteningly compatible, and there had rarely been any raised voices in their tiny little apartment. The business was starting to come around, and their small business loan had just been paid off. They had a little more money, although not much because they were actively saving for their first house. They could have moved into a bigger apartment in the mean time, but Nina hated to move even more than she hated their cramped quarters, so they had mutually decided that they were going to just put up with it until they had enough in the bank to cover both the down payment and the inevitable fees involved in assuming a mortgage.
    They were both working extremely hard. Gain opened the shop on Saturdays and was absolutely flooded with work. Nina, who worked in the back office at a bank, and, despite the fact that Gain grumbled a lot about it, she also took a job working at the local paper, writing short, local color pieces.
    Nina had always loved writing, and she was born and raised in Hampton, Maine. She was ecstatic when she got the job.
    Gain was somewhat less enthusiastic.
    Gain really hadn't wanted her to take a second job. Heck, he hated the idea that she worked at all, frankly. It had been a small sore point that they had had to work through. Nina wasn't in love with the job itself in any way, shape or form, but she adored the people she worked with. They made trudging in there every morning more than worth it. It wasn't a particularly challenging job mentally or physically, and there was plenty of time for social interaction, plus it got them health insurance, which would have been absolutely astronomically expensive for them to get, otherwise.
    He knew how much she loved working with those people. Nina thought that Gain gave in relatively easily because this was a job that she enjoyed, and that wasn't too stressful for her. The people she worked with were all her good friends by now - their good friends, since she was always having them over or they were going over to their places for get togethers.
    The newspaper was something very different - a venture into a new area, and it had made him smile to see her so enthusiastic about what she was doing. She had a small expense account, and interviewed local people and went to local sites, then wrote about them. Her editor was apparently very impressed by her, and she began to spend more and more time there when she wasn't at work.
    Gain, who was working himself to the bone, too, began to see less and less of his wife. It didn't help that they were both exhausted when they crawled into bed, largely too tired to make love, and that was a big thing for their usually insatiable selves.
    He began to question what was going on between his wife and her editor - not that he'd been given any cause for concern, other than the fact that she was never home between her two jobs. He wasn't home much, either, but he missed her when he was.
    Gain knew Dunn "Moose" Plourde. They'd gone to school together. Gain had played football during high school - as a full back. Dunn had been the much-celebrated quarterback. He'd gone off to college while Gain was paying his dues and breaking his back in someone else's shop, learning his trade. Dunn had come back to take over the position of editor of their small town newspaper - a position he inherited from his father, who owned the paper, as well as one of the local television stations.
    Dunn hadn't had to work - really work and get his hands dirty - a day in his life, and he never would. The Plourde family fortunes would cushion him from any financial losses that might come his way.
    And the kicker was, that as much as Gain needed to be resentful of the