Mack to make love to her. Her lips curved just thinking about Mick’s reaction to such a query.
Mick regarded her suspiciously. “What are you smiling about?”
“I was just wondering how far you’d be willing to take your meddling,” she said, studying him curiously.
“Meaning?”
“You pride yourself on getting all five of my cousins happily married. What do you think you could do to get Mack and me to the altar?”
At the immediate glint in his eye, she reconsidered her question. “Not that I’m asking you to intervene,” she said hurriedly. “I’m just wondering.”
Mick pulled up a chair and sat down, his expression suddenly serious. “Okay, let’s think about this. I imagine I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve that might work.”
The daring side of Susie’s nature failed her at the eagerness in his voice. The status quo might well be better than the disaster her uncle might unleash. “Never mind, Uncle Mick. I think I’d better deal with Mack myself.”
“You sure about that?” he asked, looking disappointed. “Like you said yourself a minute ago, I have a track record.”
Susie knew for a fact that most of her cousins had found true love despite their father’s interference, not because of it. “I’m sure,” she said.
He shrugged. “Up to you, but I’m around if you change your mind. It’s obvious your father’s no help, but you can count on me.”
Susie fought to hide her smile. Once again, her uncle’s competitive spirit had reared its head. She might not know a lot about what the future held with Mack, but she knew with absolute certainty that the very last thing they needed was having her father and Mick in the middle of their relationship, vying for control of their future. Somehow she’d just have to figure out a way to get Mack to stop seeing her as a pal and realize that she was a desirable woman.
As Mick left the office, Susie glanced ruefully at her reflection in the window. First, though, she had to learn to see herself that way.
Mack walked into the managing editor’s office at his Baltimore newspaper a week before Thanksgiving, took one look at Don Richmond’s face and sat down hard.
“You’re firing me,” he said before his boss could. He should have known that being summoned into the office this morning couldn’t mean anything good.
“I hate this,” Don said, which wasn’t an outright confirmation, but it certainly wasn’t a denial.
He met Mack’s gaze with an earnest expression that begged him to understand. “I don’t have a choice, Mack. You know how it is. We’re making cutbacks in every department. The newspaper business has been going downhill for quite a while now, and we’re not immune.”
Don scowled at the computer on his desk. “It’s because of this,” he grumbled. “Darn things are taking over. I know the world is changing, but I didn’t think I’d live to see the day when newspapers would be all but obsolete.”
Mack had been anticipating the possibility of being fired for a while now. His sports column was widely read and sometimes controversial. The publisher didn’t always like dealing with the fallout after Mack had called some local athlete or team management on a boneheaded move. He said it was ruining his digestion when he had to face those same people at some benefit or other and defend Mack’s words.
Worse, of course, was that Mack was the highest-paid writer in the sports department. By firing him, they could hang on to a couple of low-paid interns and turn them into reporters. as the theory went these days, what they lacked in experience they’d make up for in energy.
“I’m sorry,” Don said, looking miserable. “You’ll get a decent severance package that should give you some time to look around for something else. Not that someone as good as you are will need them, but I’ll give you glowing references and every contact I have in the business.”
“But the bottom line is that I’m going to run into the same cutbacks anywhere I go,” Mack said realistically.
He’d tried to plan for this. The handwriting had been on the wall for months, but getting the news was still a blow. And none of his ideas for the future so far had excited him.
Still, as Don said, he’d have some time. It wasn’t as if he was going to be destitute. He was, however, going to be unemployed. Even though it was through no fault of his own, it left him feeling like a failure. He wondered if this was the way his own father had felt when he’d been jobless. Was that why he’d taken off before Mack was even born?
“How soon?” he asked Don. “Will they keep me on through football season?”
“Nope. End of the week. The publisher thinks keeping people around once they’re fired is bad for morale.”
Or maybe he was just afraid that if the body count became obvious, the remaining employees would cut and run. That’s what a few had done immediately after the last round of cutbacks.
Mack wasn’t sure he had the stomach for finishing out the week, much less football season, anyway. “How about I write a couple of columns from home this week?” he suggested. “Wrap things up from there?”
Don looked torn. “You want to just slip away? People are gonna be real unhappy about that. You should at least stick around long enough for the kind of blowout party you deserve down at Callahan’s.”
“No, thanks,” Mack said, shuddering at the thought. Being fired sucked, no matter the reason. He didn’t want to wallow in the humiliation in front of his colleagues. He didn’t much want to commiserate with them, either.
“Okay, then, whatever works for you,” Don agreed with obvious reluctance.
Unfortunately, what worked for Mack was keeping a job he loved in a business that was disappearing practically overnight.
At home that night, as the news really sank in, along with all of the financial implications for the short term, Mack stared morosely at the black velvet box sitting on his coffee table.
He’d finally decided to take a huge leap of faith and ask Susie O’Brien to marry him, even though she’d always said she’d rather eat dirt than even go out on a date with a promiscuous player like him. He’d figured several years of dating without acknowledging it ought to just about equal officially courting her for a few months.
Maybe she’d overlook the fact that they’d shared only one memorable, bone-melting kiss in all that time. He doubted she’d forgotten it. He certainly hadn’t. The heat and sweetness of it were burned into his memory. He’d never anticipated falling in love, much less with a vulnerable bundle of contradictions like Susie, but it had happened. It had caught him completely off guard.
Now, however, with his financial prospects in doubt, proposing was out of the question. He couldn’t even think about marrying anyone until he figured out what he was going to do with the rest of his life. And right this second, with a couple of glasses of scotch dulling the pain of his firing, he didn’t even want to cross paths with Susie, who’d been telling him for weeks now that he was in a dying profession. Not that he’d ever contradicted her—how could he?—but he wasn’t quite ready for an I told you so.
When
