Page 21
Steffie thanked him with a smile. “I hope she does, too, but the three of us seem to share a wide streak of stubbornness.”
Charles rubbed his eyes, and she realized he must be exhausted. “You won’t get an argument out of me,” he said with a tired grin.
“Are you still working as many hours?”
He nodded. “Fifty to sixty a week. We publish twice weekly now and eventually we’re looking to go daily. Some days I feel like I’m married to that paper.”
The word “married” seemed to hang in the air. At one time Steffie had been convinced beyond any doubt that they’d be married, she and Charles. It was this unshakable resolve that had created so many difficulties in her relationship with him. Naively, she’d assumed that all she had to do was show him they were meant to love each other and after a few short object lessons, he’d agree. Now she knew that life—and love—didn’t work that way.
“Are you still a jack-of-all-trades at the paper?” she asked, remembering that his job meant he had a hand in every aspect of publishing the newspaper—from writing, editing and layout to distribution.
“Everything except the classifieds.”
“Do you still have an intern?”
Charles relaxed against the back of his chair and nodded. “Wendy. She’s a recent graduate from the University of Portland.”
He smiled as he spoke, and a red light went on in front of Steffie’s eyes. “What happened to Larry? I thought you were working with him?” The idea of Charles spending long hours with an attractive college student filled her with a sense of dread.
“No, he moved on to an Internet news service. So, Wendy’s with me now.”
Wendy’s with me now? Then it came to her. She didn’t need to worry about competing for Charles anymore.
She was out of the running.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Is someone here?” Steffie heard her father even before he entered the kitchen. He was wearing his plaid housecoat, cinched at the waist, which emphasized the weight he’d recently lost. His white hair was rumpled from sleep.
“David, hello,” Charles said, standing to shake hands with him. Her father slowly made his way to the table, declining Charles’s gesture of assistance.
“I thought you were still asleep,” Steffie said with a loving smile. She’d missed the worst of the crisis, but her sisters had repeatedly told her how close they’d come to losing their father. Now, every time she was with him, she felt a sense of renewed love and gratitude that his life had been spared.
“How do you expect a man to sleep with such delicious smells coming from the kitchen?” David grumbled good-naturedly. “I swear it’s driving me to distraction.”
“It’s my Italian spaghetti sauce.”
Her father squinted. “But we already ate dinner.”
“I know. The sauce needs to simmer for several hours and it’s even better if you let it sit overnight. I was hoping to surprise you tomorrow evening.”
Her father nodded approvingly. “Sounds great, Princess.” Then he grinned at Charles. “Good to see you, boy.”
“You, too, old man.”
She could tell that they’d often bantered like this. The atmosphere was relaxed, one of shared affection and camaraderie.
“You were in the neighborhood and decided to stop by?” David inquired. It wasn’t likely Charles would come this way except to visit the Bloomfields, and they all knew it.
“I stopped in to check up on you,” Charles said, but his gaze drifted involuntarily toward Steffie. Their eyes met briefly before she looked away.
“That’s the only reason?” her father pressed.
“I, uh, brought that for Stephanie,” he said and pointed in the direction of the potted azalea.
“You wouldn’t by any chance happen to be sweet on my little girl, would you?”
“Dad,” Steffie broke in urgently, “how about something to drink? Coffee, tea, a glass of water?”
