Moonrise

But a voice in the back of his mind warned, You got enough troubles out here without rock-climbing. Stay on the flat ground and walk around the damned rock.

Still, Paul studied the boulder as he came closer to it. I could climb up this side. Looks easy enough.

And rip your suit? And how do you know what the othei side’s like? Once you get up on top of it, you gotta climb down again.

I can do it, he insisted silently.

Don’t.

“It’ll save me almost half an hour,” Paul said aloud, trying to convince himself.

The voice in his head reminded him, There are old astronauts and there are bold astronauts, but there are no old, bold astronauts.

Paul reached the rock. It towered over him as he put out a gloved hand and touched its rough surface. He took a deep breath, then started climbing.

SAVANNAH

Through the whole ride back to their house, Joa

A setup. Melissa came on to me deliberately, and she must have reported right back to — who? Greg, most likely. Or maybe Brad; be just like the sneaky little sonofabitch to pull a trick like this.

Paul waited until they were in the bedroom. He flopped his travel bag on the king-sized bed as Joa

“I did something I’m ashamed of,” he began, staying on his side of the bed.

Joa

“I went to bed with Melissa last night,” Paul said, hoping that confession would ease the tension.

Her chin went up; her eyes flared.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” he went on. “I had more to drink than I should have.” No, he commanded himself. Don’t hide behind an excuse.

“Did you enjoy it?” Joa

“Not once I woke up.”

She turned to face him. “Paul, I want the absolute truth from you.”

“You’re getting it.”

“Is this the first time you’ve done this?”

Instantly he replied, “I haven’t slept with another woman since we first went to bed together, Joa

“You had an affair with Melissa before, hadn’t you?”

“We were together when I met you. I left her for you.”

“And now you’ve gone back to her.”

He stepped around the bed, then sat on its edge, on her side, close enough to Joa

“Joa

“So it’s my fault?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Nobody’s fault but mine. Not even Melissa’s, really. I should’ve kept my wick in my pants.”

“Your wick?” Despite herself Joa

“It was a rotten thing to do,” he said. “It won’t happen again. I promise you.”

She sighed wearily. “So did Gregory.”

Paul gritted his teeth. You knew that was going to come up, he said to himself.

“I’m not Gregory,” he said tightly.

Joa

Paul reached out and took both her hands in his. “Christ, Jo, it’s not your fault! I’m the guilty party here.”

She wouldn’t look into his eyes.

“You knew about it, didn’t you?” Paul asked. “You knew about it before I landed.”

“Greg told me that you and Melissa were travelling together.”

“Greg.”

“I told him I didn’t believe it, but he said I could check with the travel office. So I did.”

“She was in several of the same cities I was. I only saw her in the offices, though. We weren’t travelling together. We— weren’t shacking up.”

“Until last night.”

“That was a mistake that won’t be repeated.”

Joa

“I think Greg sent her to nail me,” Paul said. “The bitch did this just to cause trouble between us.” With a weary shake of her head, Joa

“That’s an act he puts on.”

“No,” she said. “I know my son better than that. He hates the sound of her name.”

“Then it had to be Brad who set me up.”

“Why does it have to be a trap?” Joa

“Don’t say that! I don’t want our marriage to be hurt.”

“It’s been hurt, Paul. You’ve hurt it.”

“Okay. I know that. But—”

“I’m pregnant.”

It hit him like a physical blow. Paul sat there, hunched forward, holding both Joa

“Pregnant?” In his own ears his voice sounded a full octave higher than normal.

Joa

“We’re going to have a baby?” Suddenly everything was swept away. A baby! Paul had never even considered the possibility. At his age, at Joa

“Will you be okay? Can you do it without endangering your health?”

Joa

“Yeah, I know. Put I mean, isn’t it kind of late in the game for you?”

“The obstetrician says I’m in fine condition and there reason why I can’t bring the baby to term.”

“A baby.” Paul glowed with the wonder of it. “I never thought I’d be a father.”

Her smile widened. “It does happen, you know.”

He pulled her to him, sat her beside him on the edge of the bed and kissed her on the lips. “We’ve got to take extra-special good care of you.”

But Joa

“That was finished this morning,” he said quickly. “And nothing like it is going to happen again. Ever.”

“I want to believe you.”

“Believe it.”

“It’s just that — Gregory started womanizing when I was pregnant with Greg.”

“I’m not Gregory,” he said firmly. “I told you that and I meant it”

For several moments Joa

For now, she added silently. I’ll trust you as far as I can watch you. Maybe it will all work out all right, but I’m not going to sit by and watch my second husband humiliate me the way my first one did.

And Paul was thinking, This changes everything. I’ll have a kid to take care of. A son, maybe. I can’t let Greg gets his hands on the corporation. Not now. It’s going to be my child’s inheritance. A son. I want it to be a son.

Ed McPherson was a chubby, moonfaced, baldheaded make-believe Texan who dressed like a cowboy instead of the head of a major corporation’s extensive legal department. Bom in New Jersey, educated at Princeton and Harvard Law, he cultivated a handlebar moustache and made a fetish of wearing cowboy boots, suede jackets and bolo ties. Word was around the office that the only time he wore a business suit was when he appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Which was never. McPherson rarely strayed farther from the headquarters of Masterson Corporation than the corporation’s Wall Street offices in New York.

Paul was in his office in Sava