Paradise Lost Read Online Free PDF Page A

drive back only as far as Phoenix, where Butch was sched-uled to be a member of the wedding of one of his former employ-ees, a waitress from the now-leveled Roundhouse Bar and Grill up in Peoria.
    Drafted to stand up for the bride, Butch had been appointed man of honor, as opposed to the groom’s best man. The rehearsal dinner was set for Saturday evening, while the wedding itself would be held on Sunday afternoon.
    “I want to read it now,” Joanna wailed, doing a credible imita-tion of a disgruntled three-year-old’s temper tantrum. “Isn’t there some way to have it printed before Monday? I’m off work the whole weekend, Butch. You’ll be busy with the wedding and man--of-honor duties tomorrow and Sunday both. While you’re doing that, I can lie around and do nothing but read. I haven’t done something that decadent in years.”
    “You’re quite the salesman,” Butch said, laughing. “No wonder Milo Davis had you out hawking insurance before you got elected sheriff. But maybe we could find a place in Phoenix that could run off a copy from my disk, although I’m sure it would be a lot cheaper to do it on our printer at home.”
    “But I won’t have a weekend off when we get home,” Joanna pointed out. “As soon as we cross into Cochise County, I’ll be back in the soup at home and at work both, and you’ll be tied up Page 13

    work-ing on plans for the new house. We won’t even have time to sit down and talk about it.”
    Between Joanna’s job and Butch’s project of herding their pro-posed house design through the planning and permit stage, the newlyweds didn’t have much time to spend together.
    “All right, all right,” Butch agreed with a chuckle. “I know when I’m licked. Now look. It’s almost two o’clock in the morn-ing. What time is your first meeting?”
    “Eight,” she said.
    “Don’t you think we ought to turn off the light and try to get some sleep?”
    “I’m not sleepy. Too much coffee.”
    “Turn over then and let me rub your back. That might help.”
    She lay down and turned over on her stomach. “You say you’ll rub my back, but you really mean you’ll do something else.”
    He nuzzled the back of her neck. “That, too,” he said. “I have it on good authority that works almost as well as a sleeping pill.”
    “Maybe you’re the one who should have been selling insur-ance,” she told him.
    It turned out he was right. Before long, caffeine or not, Joanna was sound asleep. When the alarm went off at six-thirty, she reached over and flicked it off. She was still in bed and dozing when a room service attendant knocked on their door at seven-fifteen, bringing with him the breakfast Butch had ordered the night before by hanging a form on the outside of their door.
    While Joanna scrambled into her clothing and makeup, Butch settled down at the table with a cup of coffee andUSA Today.
    “I really like this man-of-leisure stuff,” he said, when she came out of the bathroom and stood shoving her feet into a pair of heels. Like everything else in Joanna Brady’s wardrobe, the shoes were new—purchased as replacements for ones destroyed by Reba Sin-gleton’s rampage through Joanna’s house. The shoes looked nice, hut they were still a long way from being comfortable.
    “Don’t rub it in,” she grumbled. “If you’re not writing, what are you planning to do while I’m in meetings?”
    “Today the wives are scheduled to take a trip out to the Navajo Reservation,” Butch answered.
    “Since I’m done writing, I thought I’d tag along with them on that. I’m especially interested in Indian-made turquoise and silver, jewelry.”
    “In other words, while I’m stuck listening to one more dreary speaker, you’ll be spending the day on a bus loaded with a dozen or so women I don’t know.”
    Butch lowered the paper and looked at her. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
    Joanna shrugged. “Maybe a little,” she admitted.
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    “Have youseen any of