Why do I always get mid-ends?

...is it some kind of food group or something?

I spent the morning at the wrap-up meeting so we could troubleshoot next season. I'm pushing to update our image, and got the go-ahead to do some design work. Er, maybe in a few months when I've got some rest, lol.

I'm thinking black wire and the whole Apple store look. Maybe with a little Williams Sonoma and chic-boutique. Move the register into a separate entity, force people out from behind the counter. Apple recently unveiled the pocket register--where their people carry around scanners and ring you up right there on the spot. Cool concept. Gotta be a way to make it work for us. We're behind the times. Although...it seems to work for See's. Hmmm....

Last night, I worked on Dead Gorgeous, it's moving--thank God. Maybe I just needed forced inactivity to get me all wound up. I have lots of ground to cover. I'd wanted to see how fast I could write, but maybe I should just block out November through early January. Nothing gets done, but my checkbook gets fatter--which all in all, is a good thing.

dg....

Connor stepped out of the shadows. He could tell he’d surprised her--light caught her knife as she slid it back in place and tried to shove past, a plastic bag in one hand.

He threw her back against one of the red lacquered pillars with the weight of his body, and held her. Just held her--heart thumping up in his throat while fear bled away into the darkness.

“Tell me,” he growled.

Jacey tucked her head down, dismissing him from her sight as easily as she’d cut him from her life. “In four days you’ll be gone. What do you care?”

“Is it a man?”

Rain sheeted her upturned face. “Of course.”

“I didn’t mean--“

“And you always say what you mean, don’t you, Connor?” She grabbed him through his jeans, crude and to the point. “You want me.”

“Not like this.”

She squeezed him in a practiced way that scared him almost as much as the lack of expression in her eyes. “Why don’t you pay me--you offered to before--then we can do it anyway you want.”

He knotted his fist in her tangled hair. “Tell me, damnit! I need to know--“

Her caricature of a smile was no smile at all. The situation was spinning out of control, and it was all his fault--if he hadn’t told her to go, if he hadn’t let jealousy cloud his judgment.

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll believe you, Jacey. Please...”

She jerked out of his grip and turned to leave. “I’ll keep Paul busy long enough for you to check out the files.”

He reached for her and caught her bag instead. The thin plastic ripped, spilling stacks of red paper Hell money.

“No,” she cried, dropping to her knees.

A headlight spearing across the courtyard turned into the moon rising over the distant clouds. They could have been alone instead of surrounded by people who wanted them dead.

Connor knelt beside her and gathered up the wind-blown stacks. “Don’t go to Paul.”

Jacey held her bag out. Her eyes were swollen and her face was blotchy, but when he cupped her cheek and she turned into his hand, his heart squeezed back into place and dropped like an elevator crashing into freefall