One Night Read Free Page B

nothing for several moments. Then he grinned.
    Kyle could read the handwriting on the wall. He was going to be trapped for a thousand-mile round trip in a car with a woman he intensely disliked.
    “I want you both to take a couple of extra days off before the conference,” Clyde said. “Get to know each other. I’ll give you the time off with pay,” he added.
    “You’d be willing to do that?” Carrie said in a low, stunned voice. She flashed Kyle a triumphant smile.
    He was pleased she was so happy. Personally he thought the entire idea was crazy.
    “The way I see it, you’re either going to cure what ails the two of you,” Clyde said, “or end up hating each other.”
    Kyle didn’t need the station manager to tell him which it would be. They’d end up murdering each other before the end of the convention.

2
    Kyle had mapped out the route he planned to take—I-35 all the way—and had it on the seat next to him when he pulled up in front of Carrie’s house. The way he figured, they could drive the whole 550 miles in one day and get this farce over with as quickly as possible.
    The conference wasn’t officially open until Friday evening, with a cocktail party, but he hoped to arrive late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. He didn’t think Carrie would disagree; he thought she wanted to visit her sister, who lived somewhere near Dallas. The less time they spent in each other’s company, the better off they’d be. Frankly, he didn’t know how they were going to manage this trip together and keep their sanity.
    Kyle couldn’t be sure of Carrie’s feelings, but he strongly suspected they matched his own. He was planning on using the conference to scoutout another job. There was no way in hell they were going to settle their differences. It was a lost cause, and had been from the moment they’d met.
    When he pulled up and parked in front of the small rambler that Carrie rented in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, he was pleased to see her suitcase sitting on the porch. At least she was punctual.
    No sooner had he climbed out of his black BMW than she opened the front door and stepped outside. She wore her hair in cascading curls that reached halfway down the middle of her back. This was a switch. Kyle couldn’t remember seeing Carrie without that wacky piled-up hairdo of hers. It surprised him to discover how little she actually was.
    He glanced away quickly, not wanting to look at her. He thought of Carrie as an Amazon, if not in stature then in attitude, and didn’t want to see her as anything else than the damned nuisance she was. He’d already made up his mind about this situation, and although he was willing to make an effort, there were limits to what he would do.
    Without a word, he took the suitcase out of her hand. She released it grudgingly. He loaded it into the trunk and opened the passenger door for her. She smiled her thanks, but he had the impression she would have preferred to open her own door.
    So that was the way it was to be. Fine. Just fine. It was what Kyle had been expecting. What he’d planned on. She intended to make this trip as miserable as possible, sort of a “going down in flames” approach, he guessed.
    Carrie was studying the road map when heclimbed in next to her. Bracing his hands against the steering wheel, he opened his mouth to announce the route he’d planned and the stops he’d scheduled.
    “Before we get started,” she said, cutting him off in mid-breath, “there’s something we should discuss. I was hoping we could make the best of this.” She spoke stiffly, without looking at him. “There’s no need to make each other miserable.”
    “I was beginning to think that was unavoidable.”
    She sat so straight it was as if her spine had been dipped in starch. “It is if you take that attitude.”
    “All right,” he said reluctantly. “What do you have in mind?”
    “Well, I tend to get carsick if we don’t make regular stops, and I’d enjoy