Paradise Lost

sleeping in. Shy about showing a work in progress, Butch had refused to allow anyone to read the text while he was working on it, and that had included Joanna. Over the months she had come to regard his work on the computer as one of those things Butch did. In the process, she had lost track of the idea that eventu­ally his book might be done and that she might actually be allowed to read it.

Joanna sat up in bed. “You finished? You mean the book is really finished? That’s wonderful.”

“The first draft is done,” Butch cautioned. “But that doesn’t mean the book is finished. I doubt it’s what an agent or editor would call finished. I’m sure there’s a lot of work still to do.”

Joanna’s green eyes sparkled with excitement. “When do I get to read it?”

Butch shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’d rather you read a printed copy. That way, if you have any comments or suggestions, you can make note of them in the margins on the hard copy”

Joanna brimmed with enthusiasm. “But I want to read it now. Right away.”

“When we get home,” Butch said, “I’ll hook up the computer and run you off a copy.”

“But we won’t be home until Monday,” Joanna objected.

With Jenny off on a three-night camp-out with her Girl Scout troop, Joanna and Butch had some time to themselves, and they were prepared to take till advantage of it. They were scheduled to stay over in Page until Saturday morning. Leaving there, they would drive back only as far as Phoenix, where Butch was sched­uled to be a member of the wedding of one of his former employ­ees, a waitress from the now-leveled Roundhouse Bar and Grill up in Peoria. Drafted to stand up for the bride, Butch had been appointed man of honor, as opposed to the groom’s best man. The rehearsal dinner was set for Saturday evening, while the wedding itself would be held on Sunday afternoon.

“I want to read it now,” Joanna wailed, doing a credible imita­tion of a disgruntled three-year-old’s temper tantrum. “Isn’t there some way to have it printed before Monday? I’m off work the whole weekend, Butch. You’ll be busy with the wedding and man­-of-honor duties tomorrow and Sunday both. While you’re doing that, I can lie around and do nothing but read. I haven’t done something that decadent in years.”

“You’re quite the salesman,” Butch said, laughing. “No wonder Milo Davis had you out hawking insurance before you got elected sheriff. But maybe we could find a place in Phoenix that could run off a copy from my disk, although I’m sure it would be a lot cheaper to do it on our printer at home.”

“But I won’t have a weekend off when we get home,” Joanna pointed out. “As soon as we cross into Cochise County, I’ll be back in the soup at home and at work both, and you’ll be tied up work­ing on plans for the new house. We won’t even have time to sit down and talk about it.”

Between Joanna’s job and Butch’s project of herding their pro-posed house design through the planning and permit stage, the newlyweds didn’t have much time to spend together.

“All right, all right,” Butch agreed with a chuckle. “I know when I’m licked. Now look. It’s almost two o’clock in the morn­ing. What time is your first meeting?”

“Eight,” she said.

“Don’t you think we ought to turn off the light and try to get some sleep?”

“I’m not sleepy. Too much coffee.”

“Turn over then and let me rub your back. That might help.”

She lay down and turned over on her stomach. “You say you’ll rub my back, but you really mean you’ll do something else.”

He nuzzled the back of her neck. “That, too,” he said. “I have it on good authority that works almost as well as a sleeping pill.”

“Maybe you’re the one who should have been selling insur­ance,” she told him.

It turned out he was right. Before long, caffeine or not, Joanna was sound asleep. When the alarm went off at six-thirty, she reached over and flicked it off. She was still in bed and dozing when a room service attendant knocked on their door at seven-fifteen, bringing with him the breakfast Butch had ordered the night