Free Button Holed by Kylie Logan Page A

imagine how I looked in that one instant.
    Then I realized that me looking like a fool . . . Well, that might not be the worst of it.
    “He didn’t . . .” I gulped. “The picture in the paper didn’t show Kate’s body, did it? That would be . . .” No word I thought of was sufficient to express my outrage.
    Kaz supplied one. “Obscene? You bet it would be, and you can bet the guy who took the picture will get it printed somewhere else, and no doubt make a fortune on it, too. But today’s paper . . .” I heard a noise, as if he was flipping through the pages of the newspaper. “The editors showed a little restraint. It pretty much just shows her shoes and a little bit of her legs.”
    “And a lot of me.”
    “You were upset.”
    I tipped back my head and closed my eyes. “Do I look that bad?”
    “You look . . .” He paused, and I knew that for once, Kaz was trying to spare my feelings. I might have marked the day on the calendar as momentous if there weren’t bigger, more important things to overshadow even this unusual occurrence. “Upset,” Kaz said. “And who can blame you? Except I was sitting here reading about the whole thing this morning and watching the news, and I’m thinking now that it’s all over . . .”
    A familiar prickle of suspicion tickled along my shoulders. “Now that it’s all over what ?”
    He gave in in the space of a heartbeat. “Heck, Jo, you’re going to be more famous than ever after this! I’ll bet the reporters are calling. Am I right? You’re going to end up making a lot of money off this, what with the movie rights and a book deal and—”
    What’s the definition of insanity? Doing things the same way and expecting a different outcome?
    I guess it was official, and I was truly insane, because the only thing I could think to say was no.
    “No?” I pictured Kaz with that same gee-whiz look on his face that I’d been tempted to smack off more than a time or two. “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about how this seems to be exactly the right moment for you to ask for money. My answer is the same today as it was yesterday. Yesterday, as you no doubt remember, it was no.”
    “But I have this friend who’s in trouble, see, and—”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “And yesterday, that was before—”
    “Yes, it was. Good-bye, Kaz.”
    “But, Jo, I—”
    He was still talking when I hung up.
    And I was still shaking my head in wonder at the audacity of the man when the phone rang again. I grabbed it. “What are you, a bonehead?” I demanded. “No means no, Kaz. Not maybe, or I’ll think about it, or—”
    “Is this the Button Box?” The woman’s voice stopped me cold. “Estelle, here. Estelle Marvin.”
    I froze. Right before I cringed.
    Boy, did I cringe.
    Estelle Marvin was a legend, a woman who’d built a beautiful-living empire on the cornerstone of her phenomenally successful cable TV crafts show. Scrapbooking? It may not have been her idea originally, but Estelle had transformed it to high art. Knitting? With Estelle’s encouragement, thousands of women had picked up needles. Quilting? Crafters everywhere looked forward to her monthly patterns and bought her books and her calendars and the line of greeting cards that featured her bold designs.
    Estelle did it all, and she did it all with sass and spunk and a flair for promotion that gave new meaning to the word.
    Estelle was to the genteel world of crafting what a hurricane was to the Caribbean. Not exactly a refreshing breeze, but one that sure made people sit up and take notice. We’d met a time or two, and I had always been appropriately awestruck.
    Now I’d called her a bonehead.
    I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving; at least she couldn’t see my fiery cheeks. “Hello, Estelle.” I forced myself to be all business. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else. Of course, you’re not—”
    “A bonehead?” She barked out a laugh. “I’ve been called worse. Don’t