Naked Once More Read Free

in Maine for over a year now. It’s finished; and so am I. I want to sit on a rock and think for a few years. Do some fishing and skiing, cultivate my hobbies—”
    “Carving duck decoys.” Jacqueline’s voice was studiously, suspiciously, unamused.
    “It’s a skill,” Chris insisted. “An art form. Decoys are highly collectible—”
    “I believe you, sweetie. I know you’ll carve superb ducks.” The glint of mockery faded from her eyes and she said gently, “I’ll miss you terribly, Chris. I doubt I will ever find another agent with your combination of intelligence, humor, and integrity. I would try to talk you out of it if I didn’t think so highly of you. Feeling as I do, all I can say is I’m terribly happy for you.” She shook her head. “Good Lord, I’m talking as if you had announced your nuptials. I’ll cry in a minute.”
    Chris said nothing. Jacqueline peered at him. “Chris, you look like a cat that’s raided the goldfish bowl. You sly dog, you, don’t tell me there is an unknown charmer on the distant horizon?”
    “She’s the town librarian.”
    For some reason this struck both of them as immensely amusing. The remaining tension, and sentiment, dissolved in gales of laughter.
    “You’ve got good taste,” Jacqueline remarked, carefully dabbing at her encrusted mascara. “As an ex-librarian, I can assure you there is no finer type in the land. If you don’t invite me to the wedding I’ll come anyway, and bring something wonderfully ghastly, like a Victorian chamber pot. But, Chris—all kidding aside, and bushels of mazel tov—what am I going to doooo?”
    The last word was a siren-like wail. Jacqueline was back in form.
    “If you’d like me to, I’ll continue to handle your first two books. There will be royalties, foreign sales, and the like, for some time to come.”
    “Thanks.”
    “My ten percent will be thanks enough.”
    They smiled at one another in perfect understanding and amity. Chris went on, “There are few agents in New York who wouldn’t kill to have you on their list. You can pick and choose. I suggest you interview several.”
    “Like I did when I picked you?”
    Chris’s lips twitched as he remembered. He had never heard of Jacqueline Kirby when she first called him to announce she was looking for an agent and would like to interview him. The cool effrontery of the statement was breathtaking; unpublished authors don’t interview agents, they plead with those godlike creatures to glance at their manuscripts. Chris started to explain this when the cool, ladylike voice on the other end of the wire interrupted him.
    “I’ve been working with Hattie Foster. You know her, I presume.”
    Chris had to admit the presumption was justified. Hattie Foster was one of the best-known and most cordially disliked people in publishing. Her fellow agents detested her as much as—it would have been impossible to detest her more than—editors and publishers. Nor was she particularly popular with the authors she had misrepresented and allegedly defrauded. Earlier that year she had figured prominently in a scandal that had rocked the publishing world and left Hattie’s not entirely pristine reputation further besmirched. A case of first-degree murder, solved by a homicide detective named O’Brien and a woman named…
    Chris pursed his lips in a silent whistle. No wonder the caller’s name had been vaguely familiar.
    “I know her,” he said cautiously.
    “Say no more, say no more. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”
    “What?” Chris took the phone away from his ear and stared at it.
    “I beg your pardon, I am wandering from my point. Hattie submitted the manuscript to Last Forlorn Hope of Love, which, or who, as the case may be, made an offer for it.” She mentioned an amount that made his eyebrows rise. “I feel, however, that the book is worthy of a wider audience. Besides, I’m not comfortable with Hattie. I’ve decided to leave her and find another