Free Escapade by Susan Kyle Page B

he’d asked for those figures. He’d keep his counsel until then. “All right. Get me those figures.”
    “Late this afternoon, for sure. I’ll have to wait until after we put the paper to bed.”
    “That’s fine.”
    The line went dead.
    Josh wondered how much of what Johnson had said was true. Amanda was an eager beaver, but she was sharp, too. There were plenty of holes in Johnson’s management theory. It was possible that Amanda was right about the job press. But the competition could be killing their business. It had happened to other print shops. Now that he had access to the entire operation—something he hadn’t had while Harrison was still alive—he could keep Johnson on his toes and hopefully keep Amanda’s inheritance solvent. He had a feeling the figures weren’t going to be particularly pleasing.
    Back in San Antonio, Ward Johnson was certain of it. He ran a hand through his sandy hair and stared with unhappy resignation at the figures as he produced them from the computer. He knew how to run the machine, although Amanda was a whiz at it. But he hadn’t bothered to analyze its performance. He just plugged along from day to day, secure in the knowledge that old advertisers would stay with him and a few new ones would come along. The paper was paying for itself. Barely. He’d had so much turmoil in his private life that he hadn’t wanted complications or problems on the job. He hadn’t wanted to rock the boat and upset people by offering a new price list.
    But after he’d studied the spreadsheet, he wished he’d listened when Amanda had first mentioned that things were getting out of hand in the revenue column. Prices had gone up everywhere else, she’d said, and needed to go up here. Ward had laughed at her and said that people would go elsewhere if he raised his prices now, for newspaper ads or job work in the print shop.
    But, looking at the figures, he realized that she was right. He was operating in the red because he’d been too involved with his own problems at home to go over the books regularly. Prices would have to be raised, for a certainty. That meant he’d have to put in some late hours working on them.
    In addition he had to send this proof of ineptitude to Joshua Lawson. He grimaced. No. He didn’t dare. He was forty-three years old. He wasn’t in his dotage, but it would be very difficult to get another job at his age, even if he wasn’t proven incompetent. Gladys would love it if they fired him. She’d laugh. His wife always laughed at his failures. She enjoyed them. She always had, even before she’d climbed too deep into her bottle of gin to get out again. He didn’t know which was worse, Gladys or his son. Sometimes he felt as if he were carrying the world on his broad shoulders. He couldn’t make enough to keep Gladys in gin and his son in drugs. The boy wouldn’t work. He wasn’t lucid enough to work.
    Ward carefully changed a few key figures. With any luck at all, before the next quarter’s figures went out, he’d have boosted them to this altered sum. It wasn’t dishonest. He was only buying a little time.
    “I need to ask a question, Ward,” Dora said, interrupting his thoughts.
    He looked up. She was so sweet, he thought. Pleasantly voluptuous, with a sweet smile and freckles and reddish gold hair framing her very blue eyes. He wondered why she looked so sad. She had a successful husband, an educator, and two sons in grammar school.
    “Ward?” she prompted, flushing a little at his pointed stare.
    “Oh. Sorry.” He smiled, his brown eyes twinkling. “What can I do for you, honey?”
    The endearment made her flush even more, and he felt his chest swell. He still had an effect on her. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at her, a faint arrogance creeping over his face. He felt eighteen again, bristling with predatory masculine instincts. Although they’d never been really intimate in high school, they had spent a lot of time together.
    “I wondered