Several of his reporters, not shown to their best advantage in the garish overhead lights, were already at their typewriters, with cups of strong coffee, smoking, trying to get their copy pounded out. The phones would be quiet for a couple of hours, probably long enough for them to get through the six o’clock staff meeting, and then all hell would break loose. The society desk alone usually took twenty calls in a morning, everyone wanting to get their party listed or, these days, the families of men getting home from the service wanting arrivals announced, and plenty of weddings. Tinnanen at the news desk would get his share of calls: There would probably be a traffic accident, an incident at one of the grain elevators, and maybe a crisis at Central High, all before nine o’clock. Their deadline was eleven-thirty, and the paper would roll off the press in time to get packaged up for the delivery boys who came after school to do their routes, for the truck to take it around town to the drugstores and restaurants and hotels and whoever else would sell it.

Harry laughed. “Same old line! Never gets old, does it?”

“If only your readers were so easily amused,” Maggie said.

Harry took off his coat, and hung it on the coat tree that stood in the corner of the office. “Ain’t that the truth,” he said. He was plopping his hat onto the coat rack when he heard the closest typewriter—Maggie’s—stop.

“Mr. Mickelson,” she said. “When you’re ready—there is someone here to see you.”

Harry turned. The young woman seated in one of the chairs by the door got to her feet. His heart skipped when he recognized her.

“Hello, Mr. Mickelson,” she said. Her eyes were a warm green, her hair a deep red. “I’m sorry to drop in unannounced. I—Do you have a moment?”

Harry rubbed his chin, wishing he’d taken the time to shave that morning, and smiled. “Miss Wallace. For you, of course.” He gestured to his office with a wide sweep of his hand. He didn’t miss that Maggie rolled her eyes, or that Tinnanen, across the room, raised his sparse eyebrows. Anne Wallace smiled a little, her cheeks pink, as she walked toward Harry. When she passed him, he caught the scent of her: vanilla spice cookies mixed with jasmine.

Harry followed her into his office and closed the door behind him, shutting out the noises of the newsroom. He straightened his tie, noticing the way her dark purple hat set off her hair and her matching suit accentuated her slim waist. The small slit in the back of the knee-length skirt drew his eye to her real silk stockings, the seam running up the back of each leg.