An Appetite for Passion by Cynthia MacGregor

seemed obvious to her that with two damaging incidents in two days, these happenings were not just accidents or carelessness. She was also sure that Jeff wouldn’t have spirited away the mailing on Tuesday or deleted the computer information.
    Or had he? Had she misjudged him? Was the fact that she enjoyed his company, was beginning to think of him as her newest friend, clouding her judgment? No! No, she was sure he was utterly innocent. Someone else was at fault...and in all probability, was trying to frame Jeff.
    But no, that sounded too cloak-and-dagger. This was the stuff of novels, not real life. On the other hand, though, if these things didn’t sometimes happen in real life, they wouldn’t work as believable novels. Then maybe she was misjudging Jeff...maybe he had done it? No! But how to prove his innocence? How to find the guilty party?
    “Got something!” Jeff sang out.
    Russ called from across the room, “Got the speech back?”
    “No, I can’t recover the speech. But I read the original, and I’m not too bad with words. I believe I can rewrite the speech. I’ve recovered part of the voters list. Some of it’s garbled, but, hey, this is a start. Half a loaf, and all that. Right?”
    He worked awhile longer, saving and backing, finally printing out what he’d recovered. It wasn’t complete, but as he’d said, some was better than none. He then went right to work on the speech, cobbling it together from bits of the original speech that he remembered and creations from his own brain that, Russ had to admit, were better than the original.
    Ron Larrimore himself showed up at the storefront office just as Kari was getting ready to leave. Looking over the speech, he declared himself impressed with Jeff’s facility with words. “Talk to me after I get elected,” he said to Jeff.
    Jeff shook his head. “I’ll never quit my day job for politics,” he said with a grin. “Too chancy.”
    “Uh—Ron....” Russ said, clearing his throat. Kari just knew that Russ was about to tell Larrimore not to offer Jeff any jobs if he was the one who had made the information disappear in the first place. On her way to the bathroom, a little while earlier, she had passed Russ’s desk and overheard him on the phone. “...probably did it himself to make himself look good. Destroy it, save the day, and look like a hero?”
    She didn’t believe that scenario either, but at this point, she had to admit that things certainly looked bad for Jeff.
    “I’ll walk you to your car,” Jeff said as Kari slipped into her coat. She wondered what was up. “You okay?” he asked when they were alone on the sidewalk out front.
    Remembering her earlier sadness again, she sighed. “Yes, I guess so,” she said wistfully.
    “If you need a friend...a shoulder....”
    “Thanks. I know you mean that.”
    “I do for real. You have my home phone?”
    “Right here in my purse.” She patted her large, black handbag.
    “Could you find it if you needed it? It might be lost in that cavernous bag. What do you women keep in those things?”
    “That’s a secret I’ve been sworn never to tell a man. Only women know what we keep in our purses.”
    “I know—you’ve got an elephant in there.”
    “No, clowns. Like in the circus? If I open the bag, five clowns will climb out.”
    “I doubt it. Now, midgets , maybe.”
    “Open it and see for yourself.”
    “Are you nuts? If I open it, who knows what’ll jump out and bite me. You may have a lobster in there.” He made a claw out of his hand and lightly pinched at Kari’s hand.
    “No, you were right the first time. It’s an elephant. It’s going to squirt you with its trunk.” By this time, they were both laughing.
    “That’s better,” Jeff said, tugging emphatically at the corners of her mouth with his two index fingers to exaggerate her smile. Lunging at him, Kari lightly bit one of his fingers. “Have you had your rabies shots?” Jeff teased.
    Kari opened the door.