Chain of Souls (Salem VI) Read Online Free PDF Page A

slightly. His twenty-eight-year-old daughter was not happy that John was romantically involved with a woman only eight years older than herself, and she had let her feelings be known. Sarah could be hardheaded and judgmental, and talking to her was something that could easily turn into a confrontation if it wasn't handled properly. Even though he wasn't eager to take that risk, after a second he nodded, reminding himself that underneath her hard shell Sarah was warm and caring, and they had always enjoyed a wonderful relationship.
    Amy was right. He wanted and needed to do everything he could to keep their relationship strong. However on the other hand he
had
been a widower for over four years now, and part of him expected Sarah to accept the fact he was a human being with human needs. Sarah needed to let him live his life and just get on with her own. However, even as he thought this it occurred to him that calling his daughter rigid and judgmental was perhaps like the pot calling the kettle black.
    "Okay," he agreed. "I'll call her when we leave here and ask her to dinner tomorrow." He looked at Amy and a smile began to work its way up his face. "What was the other thing?"
    "Well, I was thinking of a little adult physical contact."
    John felt the warmth in his eyes spread all the way to the region beneath his belt. "When would you like to make that happen?"
    "Are you done drinking martinis?"
    He thought for a second then shook his head. The rage he had felt earlier at hearing the paper was being shut down was still too raw. "I think I need at least one more."
    "Then how about tomorrow night?"
    "After Sarah leaves? Excellent idea."
    "I'm glad you don't think it would be a good idea to do it while she's there."
    "Somehow I don't think she'd take it in the right spirit."
    "No."

CHAPTER FIVE
    THE NEXT MORNING, NURSING A BITING HANGOVER, John walked into the newsroom only to realize that almost the entire staff had gotten there before him. They were gathered around one of the desks in the middle of the room, and they turned as a group as he walked in.
    "Got a minute?" asked Jefferson Daniels. He was one of the longtime reporters, in his fifties, heavyset, and mostly bald with a band of gray hair along the sides. His laugh was loud and infectious, and he was well liked and trusted by the other staffers. With the last name of Daniels and the telltale red nose and broken blood veins of a serious drinker, everyone knew him as Jack.
    John glanced up at the clock and saw that it wasn't even eight o'clock. He shrugged. "Sure."
    Jack Daniels glanced back at the others and several nodded for him to go ahead. "We've been talking," he began. "We know we get a lot more money if we sign the non-compete agreement."
    "A
lot
more," John echoed.
    "But, I mean, we're also newspaper people, right? So what're we gonna do if we want to stay in Salem but we can't work for another paper?"
    Lucinda Jenkins, a heavyset matronly woman who had run the front desk and answered the phones for over twenty years, nodded. "Personally, I don't want to work at Wal-Mart."
    "They wouldn't hire you at Wal-Mart," quipped Jack Daniels. "You're too rude. You'd scare away their customers."
    "Only if they looked like you, you worthless old Irish drunk."
    "Flattery will get you nowhere."
    Bert Hagstrom, a short man with the bristly gray hair of a hedgehog, the belly of a professional beer drinker, and the arms of a stevedore, also nodded. Bert had been responsible for running the printing presses and every other mechanical thing at the paper for roughly the same number of years that Lucinda had run the front desk. "What the hell am I gonna do if I can't play around with these stupid machines?"
    "You could always try playing with yourself, but that equipment probably doesn't work any better than your printers," Jack Daniels added.
    Several people laughed, but they also grumbled their general agreement with the statements.
    "So what are you saying?" John asked.
    "A bunch of