Kara Lennox - The Good Father

The printer. Of course. What kind of idiots printed five hundred pink magazines and thought that was just fine?

Max had never worked with this particular printer; they were some outfit the artist had claimed was great.

Perfect Printing. Max checked the return address label. It was a P.O. box. He looked them up on the Internet and couldn’t find them. He called Dallas information. No phone listing.

What was going on here?

The situation disintegrated from there. By the end of the day, Max was forced to conclude that he’d been bamboozled. The artist had screwed up the job so badly that he’d gone into hiding. The printer was probably some friend or relative with a printing press in his garage who had no clue what he was doing. When they’d realized the job was far beyond their capabilities, they’d split the money and run.

Max felt sick. Not only had he wasted money he couldn’t afford to lose, his reputation would be in shreds once the client learned what had happened.

Was this it, then? Would he have to close the agency in disgrace and crawl home, begging for his old job back? He could just imagine what his older brother, Eddie, would have to say about that.

Jane felt terrible about what was happening. She’d tried to be as supportive as possible, calling people and chasing down information when she could, or sitting in her office working on the computer when she could do nothing else.

Now, at the end of the day, the news wasn’t good. It seemed Max had no way out of this dilemma.

“Do you have the original art?” Jane asked. She stood at Max’s office door, wanting to do something, anything, to take that look of utter defeat off Max’s face.

“I have the page proofs on my computer…somewhere.”

“We could find another printer.”

“Finding a printer who can do a job this size in under five days…it’s impossible. Even if we found someone, the expedite fees would be staggering.”

“Wouldn’t losing some money on the job be better than losing the client?”

“Sure. But the brutal truth is, I don’t have the money.”

“How much do you think it would take?”

He threw out a figure that made Jane nauseous. It rivaled her annual salary.

“Maybe we could get the money somehow. Or get a loan.”

“I’ve already reached my credit limit.”

Jane refused to be defeated. “You find the printer. I’ll try to find the money.”

“Jane, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but where would you find the money? Last I heard, you didn’t have enough to fill your gas tank.”

True enough. But that was her money. She knew lots of rich people. “Let me try.”

“I would need an answer quickly. Any printer who agreed to the job would give me a narrow window, and I would have to commit. I’m not going to commit when I know I can’t pay.”

“I understand.” She looked at her watch. It was after five. She would be late picking up Kaylee, but Mrs. Billingsly, the woman who ran the after-school program, was far more lenient than the school about tardiness, so she wasn’t too worried. “I’ll have an answer by tomorrow morning.”

Finally he smiled. “Thanks, Jane. You don’t have to take this on as your problem, you know. I don’t pay you enough for that.”

“But it is my problem. If your agency goes under, I’m out of a job.”

“The agency won’t go under.” But he didn’t sound completely convinced of that himself. “Listen, Jane, about what happened…” He nodded in the general direction of the kitchen, and she nodded back. “I was out of line. Way out. There’s no excuse for it.”

Jane swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry as old parchment. She’d been trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to put it out of her mind, to write it off as one insane moment to be forever cherished but never repeated.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“It won’t happen again.”

Was she supposed to be relieved? Because all she felt was supreme disappointment. “Are you sure about that?”

“No.”

She applauded his honesty, at least. Her heart lifted. She felt clueless in this situation, but apparently so did he. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She made a quick escape before she said or did anything foolish. More foolish.

Tonight, she would think hard about what to do with Maxwell Remington. After she swallowed her pride and called her parents to beg for a loan.

“M OMMY, WHO’S THAT MAN ?”Kaylee asked as she and Jane made their way from the parking lot to the dock.

Jane tensed. There was, in fact, a man loitering on the dock near the Princess II. After a few moments, he heaved a wistful sigh and moved on, stopping to look at another pretty cabin cruiser.

“I think he’s just admiring the boats,” Jane said, relaxing. The man’s interest wasn’t unusual; her boat had always attracted attention. It had certainly attracted hers six years ago when she and Scott had bought it. They’d gotten unsolicited offers on it several times-

Wait a minute. The answer to her dilemma was right under her nose.

Jane picked up the pace. As soon as she was inside her boat, she dropped everything and headed straight to the fold-down desk next to the galley where she kept all her papers.

“What are you doing?” Kaylee asked.

“Mommy’s had a brainstorm.” She rummaged around until she found the business card she was looking for. Dave Shenkler. He was the CEO of some Internet auction site, and he was rolling in money. A couple of weeks ago, Jane had discovered him and his wife standing on the dock, admiring the Princess II. He had offered to buy it on the spot, and Jane had automatically turned him down.

But the Princess II was worth a lot of money-enough to bail out the Remington Agency and then some.

Everyone had told her she ought to sell it and use the money to put a down payment on a nice little condo. She’d fought the suggestion time and again. She loved this boat. She had redone the interior with a loving hand, turning it into a cozy retreat that had always felt more like home than her big, echoing minimansion back in Houston.

Most of her happy memories from her marriage had to do with the boat. She and Scott had sailed it all along the Texas coast and to Mexico. They’d gotten their scuba certifications and gone diving on every coral reef they could find within the boat’s range.

Of course, all that was before Kaylee, back when Scott had still been trying to please her.

She took out her cell phone but hesitated before dialing. This was a big step. But then she remembered the look on Max’s face, and imagined how he would feel if he could make his real-estate client happy by reprinting the magazines. That was worth more to her than clinging to a few memories that had passed their expiration date. She dialed.

“Max, I found someone.” Carol stood at Max’s office door. For two hours last night and an hour this morning, both of them had been on the phone, trying to find a printer that could do the job within the required time frame. “Sharp Printing in San Antonio. They have a narrow window on Wednesday they can fit you in, but you have to commit by noon today.”

If Jane didn’t come through by noon today, he was sunk anyway. She was noticeably absent from work, and Max had chosen not to call and check on her. He hoped-perhaps irrationally-that she was out doing something to raise the ridiculous sum of money he needed.

“How much do they want?”

Carol stepped into the office and handed Max a slip of paper with the quote on it. Max winced, though it was pretty much what he’d expected.

“Good work, Carol.”