After Midnight by Diana Palmer Page B

scowled and turned the wheel, tacking suddenly and sharply, so that the sailboat leaned precariously.
    â€œWatch it!” Jake cautioned. “We could capsize, even as big as we are.”
    â€œI hate anniversaries,” Kane said heatedly, hurt in his deep voice. “I hate them!”
    Jake laid a heavy, warm hand on the broad, husky shoulder of his friend. “Peace, compadre,” he said gently. “Peace. Give it time. You’ll get through it.”
    Kane felt sick inside. The wounds opened from time to time, but today was the worst. The sea spray hit him in the face, and the wind chilled it where it was wettest. He stared ahead and tried not to notice that there were warm tracks in the chilled skin.
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    Chris was waiting for him in the beach house when he returned. He didn’t like her assumption that she could walk in and boss his people around whenever she felt like it. She was giving ToddLawson hell because he was drinking up Kane’s scotch whiskey. Ironically, she was sharing it with him.
    What, he wondered, was Lawson doing here?
    He walked in, interrupting the argument. They both turned toward him. Lawson was tall, just over six feet, very blond and craggy-faced. He was an ex-war correspondent and had the scars to prove it. He also had a real problem with career women, and his expression as he glowered at Chris punctuated it.
    â€œI see you’ve met,” Kane remarked. He went to the bar and poured himself two fingers of scotch, adding an ice cube to the mixture.
    â€œWouldn’t collided be a better choice of words?” Chris asked testily. She glared back at Lawson. “Shall I leave, so that you men can discuss business?”
    â€œWhy?” Lawson asked innocently. “Don’t you consider yourself one of us?”
    Chris’s face went an ugly color. From the severely drawn back hair to the pin-striped suit and bralessness under it, she felt the words like a blood-letting whip. She whirled on her heel and departed, so uncharacteristically shaken that she did it without even a word to Kane. Normally, Kane might have taken up for her. But today was a bad day. His grief was almost tangible.
    â€œNo purse, either,” Lawson drawled, watchingher empty-handed departure. “Don’t tell me. It’s a sellout to carry something traditionally female.”
    Kane lifted an eyebrow. “What do you want?” he asked, irritation in the look he bent on his family’s star reporter.
    â€œTo tell you what I’ve uncovered.”
    Kane’s hand stilled with the glass of scotch held gingerly in it. “Well?”
    â€œYou take your scotch neat,” Lawson remarked, moving closer. “I suppose you can take your bad news the same way. Seymour is after you. The rumor is that he’s got something he can use to get you on environmental charges. Since that little incident last month, he’s confident that he can find something.”
    â€œThat incident was an accidental spill into the river,” Kane said curtly. “We weren’t charged.”
    â€œNot for that, no. But evidently Seymour thinks where there’s one accident there are bound to be others.”
    Kane ran his hand through his windblown hair. He knew there were problems with his plant manager being absent so much, and there was a new man in charge of waste control. The new man had been responsible for the sewage leak. He was just new, that was all. He told Lawson so.
    â€œNew or not, he’s clumsy. You can’t afford to let this go without looking into it.”
    â€œWhy is Seymour on my tail?”
    â€œBecause your family’s tabloid is crucifying him over his support for the loggers, because your brother Norman is Sam Hewett’s new executive administrative assistant for his campaign, and because your whole family is endorsing Hewett, Seymour’s major Democratic opponent. But I think Seymour’s ex-brother-in-law is behind this