Chapter 24

Rick was certainly in good spirits the next morning.

Kit stopped in to see him early that morning, talking the nurse into letting him in before visiting hours just to say hello, and he spent about five minutes with him. Rick was in that window of comfortable lucidity between pain and high from the pain medication, but both Rick and the nurse who came in with him gave him a very good prognosis. "They said I should make a full recovery with nothing but surgery scars to prove it ever happened," Rick chuckled. "I just hope mine don't do what yours did."

"In that riot of patchwork you call fur, how could anyone tell?" Kit teased in reply.

"They said I'll be about two to three weeks in a wheelchair before they'll let me go to crutches," Rick grunted.

"That's better than six weeks in a wheelchair," Kit told him.

"True."

After stopping by to see Rick, Kit got back to business, and business was going to get Sheila. He arrived at Avia at eight on a Sunday morning, and found the hangar open and workers there. They had never seen him, but they also didn't challenge him when he pulled his Pathfinder into the hangar through the car entrance… mainly since Alice had given him a little placard to put in his windshield. He parked near the hangar wall behind his plane, then went from car to plane in almost record time, performing a thorough yet fast preflight. He pumped off thirty gallons of AVGas from them, logged it on the use sheet, then he warned everyone he was about to taxi out with a shout across the hangar. He got in the plane and performed startup, then slowly taxied the plane out along the wide center line through the hangar, the designated aircraft taxi route to the open double doors.

Since he was at a major airport, he had to wait a little bit to get air traffic on the horn. But, once he had it, he was quickly given clearance to taxi, got his weather information for takeoff, and was in the air and on the way south-southeast. He spent the hour in the air going over the checklist he had on his laptop dealing with his workload, for he'd sat down and organized everything in a spreadsheet. There was a lot for him to do, so much that he'd have to go into the office today so he didn't fall behind. He had to finish entering those reports into the books, and he also wanted to look over everything and make absolutely sure everything looked right, since he'd be the one responsible for all of it for the next week or so. He called Sheila while in the air, about a halfway there, and she complained about it. "Kit, really, call before you leave next time!" she told him. "All I hear is mmmmrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

"Can it. Are you at the airport?"

"We're almost there now," she said. "We're pulling into the rental car lot. The rental furs will take us out to you."

"Sheila, thanks. I appreciate you leaving early."

"It's not for you, cousin, I want to see Rick and make sure he's okay."

"And that's what I appreciate," he told her.

"How is he?"

"Aside from his broken leg, he's fine," Kit answered. "The surgery they did to fix his bones went off without a hitch, they didn't even put any screws or plates in his leg. They reset the bones and sewed his leg back up, and they were done. He'll have to stay in a wheelchair until his bones can support him walking on crutches, though."

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Sheila said. "I'll still be happier after I see him."

"He's looking forward to it. I'll be landing in about fifteen minutes or so, I'm about to take it off autopilot, so let me get off here and get my mind back on what I'm supposed to be doing."

"We'll be waiting."

Kit landed for a second time at Brownsville and taxied out to the general aviation terminal, and saw that Sheila and the others were definitely waiting in an overcast, mild morning. Kit pulled in and went through engine cutoff, then opened the door. "Hurry up, femmes, there's weather coming," he called. They hurried up to his plane, and he helped them stow their luggage. Danielle fought a little with Sheila over who was going to sit up front, however.

"You were up front last time, and he's your cousin!" Danielle protested. "You have a way better chance of riding in the plane again than me!"

"Well, he is my cousin, and I got us this weekend!" Sheila replied.

"I'll make both of you walk if you don't get in the plane," he said bluntly to them, helping Allison up onto the wing on his side; she intended to sit behind him this time. "Just flip a damn coin, we gotta go!"

Danielle rather smugly won a coin toss, and he had them all strap in as he restarted the engine. "Alright, get your headsets on, femmes," he called as he radioed the tower, then used the MFD to check the radar for the region. As he feared, the front that he'd seen edging in on the west side of the display was moving at a fair clip. "Damn," he growled. "Well, I hope you don't get airsick," he told them.

The ride home was a bit more challenging than the usual flight, for he hit the front about ten minutes from Austin, and the whole time, he was too busy watching the Doppler radar to pay much attention to what the femmes were talking about. He had more important things on his mind. When they hit the leading edge of the front, which created sudden crosswinds and turbulence, Danielle looked a little frightened, but Sheila just laughed as the plane rocked in turbulence as he descended in preparation for landing. "There's some crosswinds at the airport," he told the girls, "so be ready for the plane to rock a little as I make our approach. Don't be scared. I've landed in worse than this."

As Kit predicted, the landing was a little bumpy, but it was also by the book. The small runways weren't in much use during weather, so Kit didn't have to wait at all to land. As the rain intensified, Kit taxied off the runway and along the ramp. "Isn't this a different airport?" Allison asked curiously.

"Yes, this is Bergstrom," he answered. "Vil managed to find me at least a temporary place to park the plane inside a hangar, which is much preferable to parking out on the tarmac, especially in weather like this. So we won't have to unload the plane in the rain, and I won't get soaked tying it down."

"Well, that's good at least," Danielle said.

"I'm sorry again, girls, about cutting this short," Sheila said as they turned along the ramp that led to Avia's hangar.

"No problem, we understand," Danielle answered.

"Did you at least have fun while you were there?" Kit asked.

"It wasn't as busy as I thought it would be," Sheila said. "I was hoping for at least some eye candy for us to look at, but it was all families and crap."

"It was the wrong weekend for it, spring break starts next weekend," Danielle giggled.

"I know, but I thought it'd be nice to go scope out the place before spring break, so we'd know where all the good places were," she grinned. "And I think we might see if we can get Kit to take us down next weekend too," she winked.

"Nope, I have plans," he said. "If I take you, getting back is your problem."

"Well, we could always drive," Allison said. "It's only a few hours to Brownsville from Austin."

"Well, yeah, but it's so much more stylish to be flown down by our own personal pilot," Sheila said grandly.

"This personal pilot's gonna start charging you," he said as they pulled up to the hangar. "Gas for this thing isn't free, you know."

"It is for you, Vil pays for it," Sheila teased.

"And is that a reason to let you abuse her hospitality, or mine?" he challenged as he carefully guided the plane down the center aisle, and then pulled into his spot and turned the plane around, putting it almost exactly where it had been when he pulled out that morning. A few button presses shut down the engine. "Alright, go ahead and get out while I do post flight. Shouldn't take but a minute."

By the time he was finished with his post flight, all three femmes had gotten out from Danielle's side. Kit opened the cargo door and helped them unload their luggage, then he waved to the others in the hangar and herded his charges into his Pathfinder. "Alright, back to the sorority," he said, for that was where he'd picked them all up.

Sheila followed him to the hospital, and they went up to see Rick. He looked much healthier and more alert than he had just that morning, mainly because Martha and Jessie were there. Sheila gave him a big hug, and Rick teased her about her outfit. "I'm supposed to be recuperating, and you saunter in here wearing shorts and a half shirt," he told her. "That does little for my blood pressure, you know."

"Oh, do I get the old heart going there, Rick?" Sheila said with an outrageous smile, turning in place to let him get a good look at her. "You should have seen me on the beach. I was rocking in my bikini. Some serious square footage of my white fur was on display," she said with a wink, patting her white-furred belly.

"I hope you got pictures."

"I hope you like hospital food," Martha told him, which made Rick laugh.

"You missed it all, Rick," Sheila pressed. "Me and Ally were having a contest to see how much fur we were willing to show off, while Danielle tried to pretend she didn't know us," Sheila grinned.

"Ally?" he asked.

"Allison, a friend of mine," Sheila told him. "She's a red vixen too," she winked. "And she's almost as fearless as me. There was all this white fur all over the beach, a whole bunch of boys following us, and Danielle looking about ready to die of embarrassment."

"Sheila, I'm going to box your ears if you keep this up," Martha warned, which made Sheila laugh delightedly and pat the matronly femme on the shoulder.

"I'm just playing, Martha," she said. "I tease him all the time at work."

"You tease everyone at work," Kit said mildly.

"It keeps work fun," she said shamelessly.

"She's like this at work?" Martha asked.

"She once mooned Barry for a over a five dollar bet," Kit told her, which made everyone but Martha laugh.

"Sheila, that's very improper."

"I'm no lady," Sheila grinned. "And I'm five bucks richer. All it cost me was showing Barry my bare butt… which I might have done for free if he'd asked nicely."

"But you compromised your modesty!"

"Give me five bucks, and I'll compromise it right here and now. For ten I'll show you all my white fur."

"You're incorrigible!" Martha laughed helplessly.

"Yeah. Fun, ain't it?" Sheila agreed, then she burst into laughter when Rick started padding his hospital gown, looking for his wallet, which earned him a smack from his wife.

Despite being much more toned down, Sheila was still Sheila.

Kit stayed with them for about two hours, but then he had to go. He went into the office, and spent most of the early afternoon going over everything so he was sure it was all in order, and going over Rick's schedule next week so he'd know what was going on. Just like Kit, Rick kept a very detailed appointment calendar, which told Kit absolutely everything that he needed to know about what Rick was going to be up to next week. There were seven advertisers to visit, calls to make about the upcoming debate they intended to cover, and more calls to try to secure interviews with other political figures. Rick was still trying to wrangle at least one interview with at least one Democratic candidate, but even the longshots like Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich had declined an interview with the magazine.

Kit brought up his own calendar, then compared the two. It was going to really, really load down his schedule, but he could do it all. He'd be working late every day, and he'd have to come into work tomorrow as well… but that was the breaks. He owned a stake in the magazine now, and its profitability was necessary for him to get his investment back. That meant that he'd have to take over for Rick for a week, until the hospital cleared him to come back to work. Kit would still be doing the outside appointments until Rick was ambulatory again, but at least when Rick was cleared to return, he could do all the deskwork and phone calls.

No pain, no paycheck.

He decided to get a head start on it all by tackling some of the research he intended to do tomorrow, for Barry's Hutchinson interview. He did, though, call Lupe and tell him he wouldn't be there for poker.

"Brah, this is two weeks in a row. We miss ya!"

"It's gonna be three, next week I'm taking Jessie out, and we won't be back until Sunday night."

"Aww, hell. Well, if you can't show up for poker, the least we can do is swing by and bring ya something' to eat."

"Nah, you don't have to go that far out of your way, bud," he declined. "I've got food here already, and besides, Jessie would think you're making a pass at me if you start usurping what she sees as her domain."

Lupe laughed. "God forbid she thinks I'm muscling in on her turf. She's a sweetie, but she can be jealous."

"It just means she loves me," Kit chuckled.

"Dude, has she ever clawed you?" he asked.

Kit laughed. "Never on purpose," he said. "She prefers to whack me with pillows when I'm being bad. And of course, I'm bad as much as possible. There's not a pillow in our apartment that doesn't have an imprint of my face on it somewhere," he said, which made Lupe howl with laughter.

Jessie joined him a little after noonF, fulfilling her self-appointed role of nurturer and caretaker by bringing him some stuffed peppers. "How much longer are you going to be, handsome fox?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, pretty kitty," he answered, motioning at the computer. "I've got a lot of work to do, and it got tripled when Rick went down. I'm here now doing work I'm supposed to do tomorrow so I can hopefully get home before dark tomorrow night."

"I can understand that, but can't someone help you with it?"

"Not with this," he said. "I'm halfway through the research I'm doing for Barry's interview with Senator Hutchison, and he wouldn't have any idea where to pick up where I left off if I left it for him to finish."

"Well, you don't have to do it all alone," she said, giving him a firm look. "Let me go get my laptop, and you can tell me what to go find."

"You, little missy, have homework," he said firmly.

"I've finished my homework," she said imperiously.

"I don't want you stressing yourself over it, pretty kitty."

"I'll be more stressed waiting for you to come home," she told him. "Now stop playing the noble sufferer and let me help you."

He chuckled. "Alright, alright. My laptop's in my attaché, you can use that one." She pulled it out and pulled up the chair that sat in front of his desk, then sat it down and opened it. "Okay, first thing you can do is go to the National Library of Congress and run a search for words Kay Bailey Hutchison Senate Bill sponsor. It will return every piece of legislation she's introduced or co-sponsored. When you have them, compile them into a list of titles, note what kind of bills they are, like environmental, spending, transportation, defense, and so on, and send it to my workstation. After that, run the words Kay Bailey Hutchison vote, then put the words Legislative Session in quotation marks. That will bring up a list of every vote she's made, sorted by legislative session. You'll get a listing of PDF files. Download each one, then save it and send it to my workstation. I'll go through them later to compile a list of every major or controversial vote she's cast, and how she cast it."

"Don't they keep a list like that somewhere?"

"Sure, but most often it's kept by the Senator's office or some other organization, and they like to conveniently leave out certain votes they'd rather not let furs know she made. The only way to get a full and unbiased list is to pull it right out of the Library of Congress. That can't be altered, they pull it right out of the Senate records."

"Oh. Alright, handsome fox, the computer's up, so let me get started."

Jessie actually helped tremendously. With her to do a lot of the tedious searching, Kit was able to compile and extrapolate the data into an easy to read format that Barry could skim quickly in order to compose his questions, then have that data on hand in his PDA to use as ammunition if the Senator lied about something in the record. What would have taken him five or six hours of searching and compiling only took three hours. Jessie was an English major, so she knew how to research to some degree, and that helped when it came to her using Google. Jessie could google like nobody's business.

The pair became a trio when Barry came in, poking his head into the office around four. "Did you see Rick today?"

"Of course we did," Kit told him. "Why do you think I'm here?"

Barry chuckled. "I came to do that research on Hutchison. I think you're going to be too busy to do it."

"We're almost done with it," Jessie told him, with a bit of a smug little smile.

"Yeah, I came in today to get that done for you."

"Aww, damn, Kit, you didn't have to do that. You're going to be too busy with Rick's work this week."

"Barry, I'm the researcher," Kit told him. "And I've seen your research. It's the researching equivalent of a kindergartner with crayons. Think I'd let you go into that interview with what you prepared yourself?"

Barry gave him a hot look, but when he saw the lightness in Kit's eyes, he laughed helplessly. "I did just fine doing my own research before you got here," he said with mock imperiousness.

"Thank God I got here then," Kit grinned at him. "I have a certain standard I expect out of research done for this magazine, and you, sir, simply just don't cut the mustard."

Barry laughed. "That's it, it's so on now, buster," the bear grinned. "Just wait til the next time you do an interview, and I have a chance to rag on your invasion of my territory."

"Bring it, little cub," Kit grinned in reply. "Now let me finish this up. You can help by sending me that work you did on the board of governors meeting, so I can archive it for the database."

"Sure thing."

"There's an extra stuffed pepper in the fridge if you want it," Jessie added.

"Woo, thanks Jessie!" he said excitedly, then hurried towards the break room.

Kit was too tired to do much of anything that night, but he did manage to go see Rick and fill him in on things. He went over the schedule he'd drawn up with his boss to make sure Rick didn't have anything planned that wasn't on his schedule, and found that Rick didn't have anything to add, and probably wouldn't have said anything even if he did, since Kit was going to be so busy. "Son, I can't thank you enough for this," he said. "You're going to be so busy til I'm back on my feet, and on top of all that, Jessie's gonna have a baby, which has to be on your mind all the time."

"Well, let's just call it a clean slate when it comes to the vacation time I owe," Kit said, which made Rick laugh. "Oh, and there's one more thing. Saturday and Sunday, I am going to take some time off. I promised Jessie I'd take her to New Orleans, and I'm not going to break my promise. I'll just have to make sure that I get everything done this week, so we have that time."

"Abandoning me in my time of need, are ya?" Rick asked with a sly grin.

Kit laughed. "As if. You should be home by then, and I'll still be a call away if you need me."

"Did they build that ramp like Bill was saying they would?"

"I'd guess so," Kit answered. "I haven't been over to your house today. Jessie's over there now, you can call her and ask her how lopsided it is."

"With Bill doing it, that's entirely possible," Rick said seriously. "He's a great friend, but he can't eye up a straight line with a yardstick."


Kit had been right about how busy he'd be, but he was also right about a couple of other things.

On Monday afternoon, Barry almost had an interview with Senator Hillary Clinton, Presidential candidate. Kit called the national headquarters of her campaign, identified himself and the magazine, and asked for an interview for the magazine, ten minutes miraculously cleared itself in Senator Clinton's heretofore full schedule. However, the campaign worker told him that the interviewer would have ten minutes to ask the Senator questions, but only questions pre-submitted to the campaign at least three days in advance, to which Kit replied "that's not an interview, that's a sound bite," and threatened to publish the fact that the campaign had tried to do something like that, to turn the interview into a milktoast softball photo op about how Senator Clinton was the furs' candidate who even did interviews with little city magazines. The staffer seemed quite miffed, and made a fatal mistake. "I was being nice enough to offer your magazine time with Senator Clinton out of respect for the Vulpan family. I didn't have to offer you anything, since if I recall, you're the earless outcast Vulpan who has nothing but a family name to throw around, and lives exiled from the family in Texas. What does it matter to me that some little backwater campus paper prints something about us I'll just dismiss as the lies of a little fur who gets by after being disowned by exploiting his family's name while writing for some quaint little school newspaper? Who are people going to believe, a little mom-and-pop ten page mimeographed school paper and a disgraced rich kid that regular furs will hate because he's a rich brat, or a national campaign spokesfur? You have no teeth, Mister Vulpan, and I believe the Senator's schedule just filled up again. So, you can go to hell." Then he hung up the phone.

"Oh, you sorry little son of a bitch!" Kit shouted into a phone that was now dead. "Toothless, am I? I'm about to bite you in the ass, you political hack!" He went on to swear sulfurously, which got about everyone in the office looking into his office door. "We're about to declare war on the Clinton campaign," he told them, which made them all laugh.

"Ooo, I need some color-coordinated war paint!" Marty said eagerly.

That nameless staffer did the one thing one should never, ever, ever do. He made a Vulpan angry.

Like his family, Kit didn't anger in the same way as most furs. The reaction of most furs to anger was to get, well, angry. Yell, shout, throw things, maybe do something rash, that was the common reaction to anger. But Vulpans approached anger from a different angle. Kit had gotten his initial ire out of the way, and now all that was left was the cold, seething side of anger that made him focused on his task, and that task was to take that unnamed staffer over his proverbial knee and spank him.

Still fuming, Kit sat down and typed out a blistering, savage, vituperous editorial comment that would run in the opinion section of the magazine, which was part of the mailbag. It was a rare thing for the magazine to run an op-ed, but Kit was furious, and not just furious that he'd been personally insulted. The staffer had dared to pull his pants down and piss on the journalism society in general, and seemed to forget that even little "mom and pop ten page school papers" had the power to reach readers. He blistered the campaign for the behavior of its spokesman, then added a final comment. "I may be the exiled outcast of one of the richest families of America, as you so succinctly put it, but that doesn't mean that I still don't have a voice, and the right to use it in the political process. Never once have I ever tried to use my name to gain unfair advantage, for if anyone knows anything about me or my family history, they know that I have no love for the family whose name I bear, and would wish to be divorced from association with the vast majority of them. To threaten to attack me for printing the truth of your own words by exploiting my family and my background is the most base and cowardly of attacks, equal to attacking the wife of a candidate for something her brother did twenty years ago. It is typical political flim-flammery of the sort that the American voters are growing tired, making an outrageous attack with absolutely no connection to the matter at hand in hopes that the outrage will obfuscate the truth. When you threatened to attack my credibility based on my family name and the unfavorable image created by the idea of spoiled rich brat whining because he was denied a shiny bauble, which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue, you proved that you and the campaign you represent are nothing but more of the same. And America grows tired of same old same old. And you may accuse me of whining in this article, crying to the readers of our "quaint little mom and pop mimeographed school paper," but to do so would be merely proving my own point. The onus is upon you, sir, to prove that I am what you say I am using logic, reason, and debate, which is something which seems to be utterly lacking in the discourse of this campaign, from every campaign, not just the one you represent."

Kit did edit his initial lambasting of the Clinton campaign to carefully remove all references to the Senator herself, who probably had no idea what her staffer had done. Then, realizing that that too was not maintaining journalistic integrity, he broadened it again, omitting all references to the Clinton campaign and just naming it "one of the campaigns." But he left that same sense of outrage that a campaign could be that arrogant, accusing it of "forgetting its connections with the common furs," and "scornfully dismissing the little fur in favor of the well oiled political machine, which proved that no matter how much campaigns said they were campaigns of the furs and with furs in their hearts and minds, that they would listen to the needs of the common fur, they were still nothing but cold calculating number crunchers that would bleed a newborn if it would milk one more vote out of the machine." He went on to wonder if the campaign approached every phase of its campaign the same way, if it was the needs of the furs that the campaign would address when elected, or the needs of the special interest groups who had the influence to hold the candidate's ear. "To deny a common citizen the same access you grant a rich corporate executive because they cannot pay you in the form of campaign donations is akin to bribery, and it makes one wonder just what you must repay to that rich executive should you be elected to office," he finished with his final paragraph.

Kit showed the various versions of the editorial to Rick in his hospital room that evening as he sat down with his boss to discuss what he'd managed to get done that day. Rick gave him a steady look after he read it. "Did you drop your name on him on purpose? Did you come out and say that the Vulpans would like it if the Senator gave the magazine an interview?"

"No!" Kit said. "I just identified myself as Kit Vulpan, which is only polite, and then asked for an interview for the magazine. I admit, I figured them hearing my name might open the door, but I didn't do anything overt. I'm smarter than that, Rick. If I threw around my family name like that, Vil might wring my neck. It might affect her, and she won't stand for that if her renegade little brother is out there claiming to speak for the Vulpan family. My sister may love me, but she is a Vulpan. She'll come after me even harder than she would someone else if I cross her, because I'm supposed to know better."

That made Rick laugh richly. "Alright then. Run it. It's brilliant. Just make one change."

"What?"

"Let's go with the original idea. Identify the Clinton campaign, but keep the paragraphs about all the campaigns acting like that too."

"But that's being biased."

"This is an op-ed, son, you're allowed to be biased. If Clinton can't keep her campaign staff civil, there's no reason we need to be civil in return. She's responsible for the actions of the furs she employs to speak for her. So, let's go after them. Leave them with me, I'll edit them so they merge. It's pretty clear you have two separate articles here, they'll look strange if you try to just paste one to the end of the other. Besides, it'll give me something to do. It's borin' in here," he complained.

"God do I know that feeling," Kit said seriously.

"We'll knock the starch out of a few collars," he said with a bright smile.

That was the memorable first day of his week, but he was too busy to dwell on that. He spent his days doing the work of two furs. He was going in at six in the morning and leaving at six or seven at night, doing his research and other duties in the morning, then attending to Rick's business that afternoon.

Kit ended up taking the accounting home with him, sitting at the table with his laptop as Jessie cooked dinner for him. "How was racquetball?" he asked her.

She snorted. "Your cousin cheats!" she accused. "She tries to hit me with the ball!"

"She's a Vulpan, love," Kit said absently, sipping his tea. "You've shown weakness. Now she'll exploit it for everything she's worth."

"Well, it's no fun to play if I'm spending all my time dodging the ball!"

"Learn to hit it back," he shrugged.

"Just wait til I get her on that tennis court Saturday morning," Jessie fumed.

"Pretty kitty, you know what she's going to do, and you're a damn good racquetball player. You taught me, after all. Use it against her."

"I'd rather play you."

"I'd rather play tennis."

"You'd rather run me all over the court," she accused.

"Yes, I love watching you jiggle in that sexy little tennis outfit," he said immediately. "I need to buy you one of those little personal trampolines," he mused, which made her gasp from the kitchen, the burst out in helpless laughter.

"I should smack you, but how can I be angry that you like looking at me?" she admitted.

"All day, every day," he said, saving his spreadsheet. "I'm done, pretty kitty. Need help?"

"No, I got it, handsome fox. Go rest a little. You deserve it!"

"You're the one who deserves a little rest."

"Don't go all psycho protective on me now," she giggled. "Doctor Mac said I need to stay just as active. After all, you let your cousin beat me with racquetballs today!"

"No, you let her beat you up with racquetballs. Learn to play your game your way, or keep dodging little blue blurs."

"Abused by my cousin-in-law and ridiculed by my husband. Whatever is a poor little kitty to do?" she said in a melodramatic tone.

"Grow some fangs, you weenie," Kit called.

He knew immediately that he would face dire consequences for that one, but Jessie decided to extend the anticipation… for all of five seconds. He felt her grab the back of the collar of his tee shirt, then an icy shockwave roared through his back when Jessie poured ice down the back of his shirt. He yelped and jumped out of the chair, holding the back of his shirt out, but he was also laughing lightly as she strutted back into the kitchen holding an empty ice tray.


The week both seemed to crawl and rush by.

Kit was working more than twelve hours a day, doing his work in the morning and Rick's work in the afternoon, but he was no replacement for Rick. They all felt his absence most keenly, for he was the calm rock that kept everyone confident and the gentle joker who lightly teased and was teased by in return. Kit did Rick's work in his own office, not even pretending to take Rick's place now that Rick wasn't here to claim his own desk. It was just fine to sit at Rick's desk when Rick was here and all the materials were in his office, but now, with Rick another week days to go in the hospital before his planned release date of Tuesday, when they planned to replace his stitches with ones that would dissolve on their own and then put his leg in a cast, which was the green light for him to go home.

Rick tried to stay as engaged as possible, mainly through his laptop. Kit and Savid would send him things, and he would look them over and send back his opinion. But Kit and Savid were the ones that did the real work. Savid was responsible for the layout of the magazine that week, and what was more, a magazine with 14 more pages than before. Kit's responsibility was filling those extra pages with ads to pay for it. Rick had secured about half of the new advertisers, but it fell to Kit to land the rest of them. He spent his Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons hurriedly bargaining with advertisers over ad space, offering the design skills of Savid and Jeffrey if they didn't have a print ad of their own, and then negotiating over how much space they wanted and how long they wanted it. He managed to secure all the advertisers they needed, fulfilling the 21% threshold of advertiser space Rick maintained to keep the magazine from looking like a NASCAR race car–barring certain exceptions, like half or full page ads, which were exempted from the advertiser ratio–that made the magazine look like a real magazine, and not another campus ad sheet with a little news in it. Some of those ads wouldn't show up for a couple of weeks, but they were contracted, and the magazine was paid for it.

Thursday was… weird. They had their first ever issue wrap meeting without Rick, and nobody liked the feel of it at all. They went through the motions, though. Savid chaired the meeting, going over the issue page by page, feature by feature, article by article, looking for feedback, opinions, or comment. Everyone felt a little subdued, and even more so because Rick refused to make the final call on wrapping it. "This was your issue, so it's ready for print when you say it is," he'd told them in a conference call between himself, Savid, and Kit just before the meeting. The cover had a picture of Rick on it, much as Kit had covered the issue when he was shot, Rick in the hospital with his leg in traction with the headline Oh No, Not Again! over him in big white letters, and below that was the caption Lone Star head dingo injured in home accident. Barry had done an article about the accident, and they also ran a tongue-in-cheek list of do's and don't's for furs working on the roofs of their barns, cautioning against such activities as ballroom dancing, jump rope skipping, and pole vaulting while working on top of a barn roof.

Rick's biggest contribution to the issue was Kit's edited evisceration of the campaigns. Rick had seamlessly turned Kit's rant into a devastating butt-whoopin' of all the Presidential campaigns in general, but taking the Clinton campaign to task in particular for its unprofessional and downright childish response to the magazine's attempts to get an interview, making sure to leave in the campaign staffer's cruel mocking of Kit's family situation, and Kit's personal response to it. Rick had rearranged Kit's material and added some lines of his own to fill the gaps, joining it all together. He changed it so much that Kit added Rick to the byline for the article, giving credit where credit was due.

It went to the printer right on time, and they called it a day… at least everyone but Kit did. He stayed behind to get some work done, clearing space for his weekend, for he still fully intended to take Jessie to New Orleans that weekend. He had promised her, and he never broke his word to his wife. He accepted two applications for the photographer's position from the mail, and printed three more filed through internet postings. He did more accounting work, closing out the week in the books, which coincided with the last day of the magazine's activity cycle. He called back two advertisers who had shown interest in the magazine, did some research on possible photographic equipment their new hire might want, sent off a copy of the end of week reports to Vil, who still watched the magazine's finances to ensure her investment was maturing satisfactorily, then dropped by the hospital to deliver the resumes and the end of week reports to Rick. "I think we got everything," Kit told him. "The wrap meeting went alright, but it was my first time closing out the week."

"I'm sure you did fine, son," Rick told him. "Did you send a copy off to Vil?"

He nodded. "If I messed it up, I'm sure she'll call me to point it out," he chuckled. "I also sent her a thank-you note with it for her coming down."

"Yeah, I need to do that too. By the way, the docs did some tests on my leg."

"And?"

"They're going to do another minor surgery," he answered. "They said it'd be just a local anesthetic and a twenty minute procedure. Something in there isn't healing exactly the way they want, so they're going to go in and fix it."

"Well, that doesn't sound so bad."

"It's not, but they're doing the surgery Monday morning, then they're gonna hold me for three days afterward to make sure I don't have an infection before casting me. They're really anal about that. I tried to get them to send me home earlier, but they kept saying that since the surgery area will be inside the cast, they're taking no chances. So I'm looking at not getting out of here until sometime next week."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch. Think you guys can hold on, son?"

"I'm sure we can, Rick."

"Good. When's your court date?"

"Wednesday."

"You still taking the weekend off?"

Kit nodded. "I should have my slate clear by tomorrow afternoon so I'm not burdening anyone, then I'll be in New Orleans with Jessie on Saturday night and Sunday. I've already got our reservations at the Hyatt Regency and Antoine's."

"A restaurant?"

"Yeah. I worked there for a week when I was in New Orleans, until I got fired because the maitre'd didn't like the looks of me. He said that someone that looked like a street ruffian had no business working in a respectable restaurant like his. It'll be fun going in as a customer," he chuckled. "I can be an ass to the manager, and he can't say a word to me."

Rick laughed. "Give him hell, son," he grinned.

"Where's Martha?"

"She went home about twenty minutes ago," he answered. "She's bringing me some pot roast," he said with a hungry lick of his lips.

"I wouldn't mind staying to steal it from you, but Jessie's waiting for me."

"Get yourself home, son, and thank you so much for stepping up to the plate when the magazine needs you."

"Hey, I'm a part owner. I have to secure my own paycheck. Yours, well, who cares," Kit said flippantly, which made Rick laugh so hard his leg shifted, and caused him to wince.


The true beauty of an airplane was doing things just like this.

It was a brilliant, cloudless late afternoon as they soared at 12,000 feet, with the Gulf of Mexico visible on Jessie's side of the plane and them over the wetlands of Louisiana, and the sun low and behind the plane, painting the marshlands and little towns below in gorgeous golden light. Jessie had her earphones tuned to XM while Kit had his laptop balanced on his knees, surfing some websites to get a basic overview of his next major research project, the Democratic debate. They were an hour and a half into a two hour flight, en route to New Orleans. Instead of them wearing comfortable fare of jeans or shorts and tee shirts, Kit was wearing a suit and Jessie a breathtaking blue dress with sequined straps fastening behind her neck, splitting into four lines to form the border of the bodice, two going outside her breasts and the other two crossing between her breasts to form a border filled with blue satin, then looping around to form the border of the low back of her dress. It was calf-length, and her high heels were laying on the floor by her feet, ready to be slipped back on when they landed. They would be going from the plane to the hotel with just enough time to check in and drop off their single overnight bag and laptops, then would go directly to the restaurant. The clock on his PFD showed that they were right on time. They could call a taxi from the airport to take them to the hotel, and it would wait there while they checked in before taking them on to the restaurant.

"Wow!" Jessie gasped as the plane crossed over marshy wetland, the border of the sea and Louisiana looming to the south. "That's so pretty! I gotta get a picture!"

"That's Vermillion Bay over there on the horizon," he told her, pointing to Jessie's side of the plane. "We'll fly directly over Thibadoux soon on our way to New Orleans. That's all wetlands and swamp down there, what they call bayou country, or cajun country. When we approach the airport, you'll see Lake Pontchartrain, the airport's built right on the shore," he told her. "Depending on how they make me land, we may swing out over it." A controller called his plane's number on his headphones. "Excuse me, love, I'm being called," he said, then he pushed the key on his joystick and answered. The controller was basically just identifying him and learning where he was going, which wasn't unusual when a private plane on visual flight rules wandered into airspace controlled by a new airport, for he was close to Lafayette.

It took them another twenty minutes to reach New Orleans, after they stowed everything and Kit took the plane off autopilot. They did indeed get to fly over Lake Pontchartrain, landing at Lakefront airport from the north, almost feeling like he was landing on an aircraft carrier when he approached the runway from over the lake. Lakefront was a big airport for a general aviation facility, and because of that it didn't run temporary parking for planes precisely the same way. Kit didn't talk to the airport about it, he had to talk with one of the three aircraft FBOs, Fixed Base Operators, who owned the hangars and tarmac space in the airport. Kit just picked the one closest to the runway, Aero Premier, called them on their radio frequency, and secured himself overnight parking in their brand new north complex hangar, which was literally right off the taxiway… after he taxied all the way back up from the south end of the runway. But, it was worth the taxi to park his plane in a hangar that was open 24 hours and offered to call a taxi for them while they were still taxiing to the hangar.

After landing and reaching the tarmac area controlled by Aero Premier, Kit was met by a signal truck who guided him into the huge hangar and parked him in the middle of a large collection of other private planes. Then the driver helped unload their suitcase and drove them to the front desk in the signal truck, where Kit paid for a night of parking, refilling his plane's fuel tanks, and a $10 landing fee charged by Lakefront airport.

At Georgetown, and the airport in Brownsville, visiting pilots weren't charged landing fees, the airports getting their income from pilots by selling their own AVGas and jet fuel. Here at Lakefront, though, the airport offered no services they themselves oversaw and they charged a small $10 landing fee for all landing aircraft not based at the airport… which Kit didn't find to be overly outrageous. It was entirely acceptable to him to pay $10 so the airport was there and in working order in case he ever wanted to land here again. The FBOs that offered parking, fuel, and services to visiting planes collected those fees, and probably split them with the airport.

The two FBOs at Bergstrom were Atlantic Aviation and Signature Services, both of which were "franchise" FBOs that had businesses at quite a few airports, didn't have to do that; Signature was the FBO Vil used when she landed in Austin, it was to their hangar and tarmac that Kit went when they went to meet her.

That there were only two FBOs at Bergstrom that Kit could contract to take care of his plane, if that was eventually where he parked his plane after getting permanent hangar space, might seem odd. But in reality, it made sense from a business standpoint. Little Georgetown Airport charged no landing fees and was focused entirely on private aviation, was more friendly to businesses that focused on the private pilot with his personal plane, and as a result there were 7 FBOs there that offered a variety of services, on top of the services the airport itself offered in fuel and their pilot terminal. Bergstrom, a big international airport that had airlines landing there and also charged a landing fee to planes that weren't based there–and thank God Kit's plane was considered based there because of his hangar deal with Avia, so he didn't have to pay landing fees as a private aircraft since the airport got rent from his parking space–didn't really focus on its small general aviation section as a source of profit, so they weren't as friendly to small FBOs that might want to set up shop there. There were only two nationally based FBOs that had settled in to serve private and general aviation at Bergstrom… because they were big, national FBOs who had the clout to bargain reasonable deals with the airport over rent, and one large flight school that probably had had to pay through the nose to set up their operations at the airport; but given the kinds of planes the school used, they were certainly successful. The biggest sticking point for Kit was that there was no hangar space, and until he found permanent hangar space, he'd not hire an FBO to maintain his plane. Some big FBOs offered hangar space as part of their services, but there wasn't an empty hangar spot anywhere in Austin. Where he'd eventually get hangar space was the major determining factor of which FBO he chose.

The taxi was sitting out front of the Aero Premier hangar waiting for them. Kit helped Jessie in and then got in himself, and told the cab driver, a scruffy-looking jackal who was very jovial and polite, where they were going. "I will have you there in no time," he said in accented English. "Safely and surely!"

Jessie looked out at the city as they drove down through it, at its mixture of new and old architecture, then they entered the glass and steel canyons between the thirty story skyscrapers in the central business district. "I will wait for you here," the taxi driver told them when he pulled up into the Hyatt's traffic circle by the front door.

"I'd appreciate it," Kit said. "We'll be going to Antoine's after we check in. I know you know where that is."

"And I know to drop you off at Decatur and Saint Louis," he said with a smile and nod.

"Then you're just the cab driver I need," Kit grinned.

It took then all of ten minutes to check in and drop off their suitcase and attaché, then they were again in the cab on their way to the French Quarter. Antoine's was in a rather awkward place on the back side of the Quarter, on Royal Street near Esplanade, and so it was always best to go in through the back way, via Esplanade, and walk to the restaurant from there. Some cabbies tried to drive down Royal, which was a very slow process at night in the Quarter, because of all the foot traffic heading for Bourbon street. Kit gave the cabby a healthy tip when he dropped them off, which made him smile brightly. "Thank you, my generous friend!" he said.

"It's best to repay a kindness with a kindness," Kit said sagely. "What's your name?"

"Avrad, good sir. I hope to carry you again. Good evening to you."

"Good fur there," Kit said as they watched his cab drive off, and Kit took special note of his cab company.

"He seemed nice," Jessie said.

"He knows his way around this city," Kit told her. "That's an important trait in a cab driver in New Orleans, because the streets here are really weird. If we ever come back, I'll call his company and ask specifically for him."

"Does he know his way around? Where's the restaurant?"

"He knows his way around because he didn't drop us off in front of the restaurant," he told her. "Come on, I'll show you why."

It was so, so satisfying to enter Antoine's. The hare maitre'd that got him fired was standing at the podium near the door. The hare certainly remembered him, but his gray-furred face was confused by Kit's suit and Jessie's elegant dress. "What are you doing here?" he finally asked.

"Vulpan, party of two, eight thirty," Kit said, giving him a malicious smile.

The hare's eyes darted to his appointment chart, then widened when he saw the appointment there. The look of shock, chagrin, and fear blooming on his face just made Kit feel all warm and fuzzy inside. "Uh, F–Follow me," he said, motioning with a gloved paw.

They were seated in the main dining room, with its elegant carpet and crystal chandeliers, at a table clothed with a sheer coverlet. The walls were covered with memorabilia of famous past guests, along with tasteful paintings and one small tapestry with the fleur de-lis. When they were brought menus, Jessie's eyes widened, both at the prices and at the seafood. "Kit, can we afford this?" she asked in a whisper.

"I told you we can, and this is one of the best places in the city for Creole seafood, so drool away, love," he smiled.

It was a heavenly meal. Kit had crawfish bisque for his first course, oysters Rockefeller for his appetizer, no salad, and lamb chops with mint sauce for his main course. Jessie went with the shrimp remoulade for her appetizer, she tried escargot at Kit's dare for her second course, which she didn't think were that bad at all, and grilled trout with crawfish tails and shrimp for her main course. Both of them opted for the steamed broccoli to go with their entrees, and for dessert, Kit had peach melba while Jessie opted to try the chocolate mousse. As usual, Jessie finished her meal much faster than Kit, and was forced to sit and wait for him. She was much better at that now, though; months of eating dinner with him had slowed her down a little.

"Now, wasn't that worth the flight?" Kit asked with a bright smile.

"I thought this was about getting revenge on that fur that got you fired," she giggled.

"Oh, I already got that. I'll remember that look on his face for years."

Jessie laughed.

Their hotel room was by no means as luxurious as their $150 meal, but it was nice in its own right. For one, the bed actually felt nice to his back, and for another, their tenth floor room had a nice view of the river. Jessie avoided laying down to combat her morning sickness, following Doctor Mac's tips, so they decided to go down and check out the casino. "Remember, don't bring any money into the casino you can't afford to lose," Kit winked at her.

"Then give me twenty dollars," Jessie told him, looking around in curiosity.

It turned out that twenty bucks went a long way, because, to his shock, Jessie was good at blackjack. They were there for over three hours, and though they left without the $20, it gave them three hours of fun. Kit watched Jessie play blackjack for nearly an hour before going off to play nickel slots, his own little mindless diversion of fun. At one point, Jessie had been up to $75 while Kit was playing slots. When they were finally done, Jessie was angry with herself for not quitting when she was ahead. "Seventy-five dollars, my handsome fox. Seventy-five! Why didn't I quit!"

"We were there to have fun, pretty kitty," he told her mildly, as he flagged a cab outside of the casino. "Did you have fun playing blackjack?"

"Well, yeah, but–"

"Did you lose a fortune?"

"No! I only played the twenty."

"Then wasn't the three hours of fun worth the twenty dollars it cost you?"

She gave him a curious look, then she laughed. "I guess it was," she agreed. "But it would have been more fun if I won."

"So says every gambler on the face of the earth," he winked.

That Sunday, they traded dinner attire for tourist attire. It was as warm in New Orleans as it had been in Austin, so they left the hotel with their suitcases that morning wearing summer clothes, Jessie in a pair of khaki shorts and a tank top, and Kit in a pair of jeans and a faded Longhorns tee shirt, with the Texas flag on the back. He had a cab take them back to the airport so they could pack their luggage in the plane, then it took them back to the French Quarter so they could sightsee. They explored the quarter thoroughly, from one corner to the other, browsing tee shirt shops with naughty tee shirts, to the strip clubs on Bourbon street that Jessie made sure Kit got nowhere near, to the antique shops along Royal street. Kit took her into Saint Louis Cathedral just as mass was letting out, sneaking in, and they walked up to the French market. They ate lunch at Café du Monde there by the market, watched street performers across the street from Jackson Square, then went to the Riverwalk. Kit bought them tickets on a noon cruise on a riverboat, and then they spent four hours standing at the rail of the boat as it cruised the river, taking lots of pictures and video.

But, no matter how fun the day was, it had to end. Almost regretfully, they hailed a cab at the Riverwalk mall's entrance around 6:30, and went back to the airport. "That was so much fun!" Jessie said exuberantly as the cab pulled up to the hangar at the airport, and Kit paid the cabby. "I can't wait to show the gang the pictures!"

"Yeah, I had a ball," Kit agreed as they got out of the cab.

Jessie was totally used to the plane by now. She got in confidently and strapped in as Kit did the preflight walk-around, then she pulled out the video camera from their carryon stowed in the back seat as he climbed in himself. "For the gang," she grinned, pointing it at Kit. "And here we are in the hangar, getting ready to start the engines and go home," she announced as the camera recorded. "Say hi, my handsome fox!"

"Hey guys," Kit waved to the camera, then he reached overhead and began the startup sequence. "If they find this in the smoking wreckage, we love you."

"Kit!" Jessie gasped, then she laughed. "Now do you see what I put up with, guys?"

"I have never tried to scare you on purpose. I did that to your father," he added absently, which made Jessie nearly drop the camera as she laughed.

Jessie narrated the startup checklist, knowing it so well, then she talked loudly over the engine as she panned out to show them taxiing out of the hangar. "Which way are we taking off, love?" she asked him as they came out onto the tarmac.

"Not sure, lemme ask," he said, then asked traffic control for instructions to take off. When they answered he relayed it to Jessie. "We're taking off going south, over the city," he told her.

She panned the camera all around the plane, then focused it on the Garmin screens, then she pointed it out her side window at a forward angle when Kit taxied out to the end of the runway. "Okay, heeeeere we go!" she called as Kit throttled up to take off. Kit made sure to dip his starboard wing slightly so Jessie got a good view of the city as they took off over it. "Oooh, there's the Superdome!" Jessie said, pointing her camera a bit more towards the wing. "And those big bridges they talked about when they showed the Hurricane Katrina coverage! And now we're moving out over the swamps southwest of the city as we slowly turn more west to fly home," she continued, pointing the camera out over the wing. "How long til we're home, love?"

"About two hours," he answered, adjusting to course he'd programmed for their return flight before they left Austin, following the most efficient pilot's arc south from New Orleans to Austin. "We could make it in about seventy-five minutes if I felt like burning all our fuel to get there, though."

"We'll be landing at night?"

He nodded. "That should be interesting to tape for the gang too," he said with a smile.

"Oh, they're going to see almost all this flight," she smiled at him, turning the camera back on him.

"It's going to be awfully boring for them," he chuckled.

"We can edit out the boring parts," she winked.

"Like when I'm yelling at my laptop, accusing Chess Masters of cheating?"

She laughed.

Jessie did tape a good part of the flight, getting them a beautiful shot of the sunset at 12,500 feet as they neared Port Arthur. She got great shots of the city of Houston's lights as they flew over it, and then put the camera away until they got ready to land. She taped the whole landing, panning between the MFD window showing their map location and the lights outside, as Kit put the air traffic on speaker so the camera's microphone could pick it up. "Aaaaaand… touchdown!" Jessie called when they landed, and Kit throttled back. "There you go guys, our flight from New Orleans to Austin in our Cessna four hundred! I hope you enjoyed it!"

"I know I did," Kit smiled, reaching over and taking her paw. "Enjoy our date, pretty kitty?"

She leaned over and kissed him on the muzzle tenderly. "Thank you," she told him.

"Enjoy it while you can. When the baby comes, we'll be chained to Austin. Not that that's a bad thing," he added with a dreamy little smile.

"Do they sell baby seats for planes?" she asked absently.


Kit found himself back up to his ears in work on Monday, but that wasn't the only issues of the day.

Rick's surgery took place at 8:00am, and went off without a hitch. They went in and fixed a slight herniated segment of muscle, which must have torn free after the first surgery, and Rick was being told he'd be casted and on his way home bright and early on Thursday morning, which was a very, very good thing. The doctors had cleared him to return to work, and they had an elevator here in the building, so Rick would have little trouble wheeling in to do desk duty. Kit would still be doing all the legwork for Rick's job, but Rick being back in the office would take a lot of work off Kit's shoulders.

The blistering op-ed they ran also caught just a little attention. Just a little, like, say… from CNN.

He fielded the call at eight o'clock Monday morning, just as Rick was going into surgery, as he was researching the nine Democratic candidates for President in preparation for the upcoming debate, which was now next week. Denise wasn't in the office yet, so the switchboard call came straight to Kit's phone; usually it went straight to Rick's, but Denise had reprogrammed it while Rick was recovering from his injury. "Lone Star Magazine, Kit Vulpan speaking," he said absently, copying a bunch of text off a campaign website into a Word file.

"Mister Vulpan? This is Dan Larkin, associate producer from CNN."

"CNN?"

"Cable News Network," he said. "We'd like to interview you over an op-ed you wrote, which has become something of a viral piece roaming around the web."

"Huh, really? I hope I get royalties for it," he noted, which made the producer laugh.

"So, are you interested in four minutes of on-air interview around four twenty?"

"No."

"I–what?"

"No thank you. I may be a journalist, Mister Larkin, but I also don't appear in public. I do my public speaking from behind a keyboard. It's an agreement I have with my family."

"I–well, I guess I could understand that. Are you sure you won't change your mind?"

"Not any time this century, no. Thank you for the offer, I do appreciate it, but no thanks."

"Well, I'd like to leave you my number, in case you change your mind," he said in an obviously disappointed voice.

"That won't happen," Kit said with gentle adamance.

"Alright then. Thank you for your time."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

Then he hung up.

He didn't pay it much more mind until Mike got there. He came straight to Kit's office and pointed a finger at him. "You crashed my server!" he accused, though he was grinning.

"Excuse me?"

"The server crashed yesterday!" he said, then he laughed. "Too many hits on the website!"

"Would this have something to do with the op-ed?"

"Hell yeah," he grinned. "I put it up on the site, and the server crashed from overload."

"I was just called by CNN asking for an interview."

"Holy–wow! Did you take it?"

"Nope," he answered. "I don't appear in public, Mike. I've lost my taste for it."

Mike's eyes flickered to his half-missing ear, then could only nod in understanding. "But yet you work for a magazine," he grinned.

"That's all done behind a computer," Kit said with a little smile.

"Point."

Kit tried to get his work done, but the op-ed made that hard. There wasn't an issue of the magazine to be found anywhere, for those that had one weren't leaving them laying around as they usually tended to do on campus, and the server was still logging huge traffic, way, way more than normal. Mike showed him a graph of the server's load after he got it off the server. Somehow, word of the op-ed had gotten out, and it was attracting attention from the internet. From what Mike was saying, the issues were all snapped up because of the internet. The traffic started early on Sunday morning, according to the graph, while Kit and Jessie were in New Orleans, and then it grew steadily through the morning. The server crashed at 2:28pm yesterday, which caused the backup server to kick in and also text an emergency code to Mike, who had to come in to get everything all straightened out. "I have the server and both backups trying to keep up with the demand," Mike said with a happy grin. "You need to write a comment about it I can put up, like saying you don't do TV interviews."

"I can do that," Kit chuckled.

Rick was absolutely thrilled about it, calling at five minutes to nine to report in with the good news about his surgery. When he called, Kit didn't have to tell him about anything, because he already knew about the server crash. Rick told him the good news about his leg first, then went straight on to the op-ed. "Son, this will drive interest in the magazine through the roof!" he said excitedly. "This is three weeks in a row we've totally sold out our sale units and the magazine has vanished off the campus. I want you to call the publisher and tell him we're increasing circulation by twenty percent on the next issue as a test to see if it holds up, and send a blanket warning to all our advertisers that they'll see a rate increase if our increased circulation holds. I don't think they'll mind too much," Rick chuckled. "Oh, and accept every reprint request that comes in about the op-ed. And bargain for five percent over the going reprint royalty."

"Alright, I can do that," he answered. "CNN called for an interview."

"Did you take it?"

"I don't appear in public, Rick, you know that."

"Damn. Well, I can respect that, son," he said. "But I will," he chuckled.

"You are on the by-line," Kit noted. "Call CNN and tell them you'll do the interview."

"Did the CNN guy leave his number?"

"No, but I can get you the number for CNN's Houston bureau in about ten seconds," he said, already bringing it up. "Just tell them you're trying to get the number for Dan Larkin about an interview he offered to us."

"I'll have to do it over the phone," Rick mused.

"We'll send them a nice picture of you they can put up on the screen," Kit chuckled. "You seem awfully giddy about this."

"God, son, you have no idea how hard it was to resist calling you when the server crashed," he laughed. "But I didn't want to intrude on your time with Jessie."

"Aww, thanks, boss," Kit said sincerely. "That was very thoughtful. I really appreciate that."

"You get to work on that, let me call everyone and tell them I'll be home Thursday morning."

And that basically wrecked his day. Kit was doing two jobs, but since one of his jobs entailed dealing with magazine business, he found himself spending half the day wearing a phone earset lent to him by Denise so he could free up his paws while he fielded calls for half the day. They were offered 19 reprints, and Kit bargained for five percent over standard royalty for each one. A couple of editors grumbled a bit at that, but they also accepted it.

Lone Star made some money that day.

Jessie was on her spring break now, so she came in around noon, bringing Kit some beef stroganoff and broccoli with cheese sauce for lunch. She hung around to do some writing for her strip, then decided to just sit quietly in his office knitting, just being near him, which Kit did not mind at all. "I'm going to go have my first golf lesson with Sheila tomorrow afternoon," she said. "We're going to a driving range."

"That's no surprise," Kit told her. "It's a lot harder than most furs think to hit a golf ball. It takes some practice."

"How long will you be at the courthouse on Wednesday?"

"Dunno, love," he answered. "The hearing is at ten, and I doubt it'll go much past six, so any time in between. It'll depend on how many times the DA likes to hear me say no."

Jessie giggled. "I'll make sure to keep the checkbook handy if I have to bail you out of jail," she winked.

"I may need it," he said with a sober nod.

Rick did the interview with CNN instead of Kit, by phone from his office, and the whole office watched it on TV. It ran at 3:21pm Central time, where Rick told the CNN anchor, Don Lemon, about how the Clinton campaign staffer, who was unknown to them, had been almost vicious in his rejection of an interview request, and how that act had caused the magazine to release an op-ed about all the campaigns and how they were treating the "little furs," how the campaigns were showing how they were so unlike the images they were trying to project. Rick told them about his own experiences with arrogant campaign officials who not only brushed off his interview requests, but did so with snide and snarky comments… though none matched the sheer hate spewed on Kit by the Clinton staffer. "How can a campaign say he or she is a champion of the common fur when the common fur gets treated like a criminal when trying to communicate with the campaigns? How can John Q. Taxpayer compete with Corporate Bigwig when trying to communicate his concerns to the candidates, when anyone without a name or a campaign contribution check is shown the door?"

"But you're not a common citizen, Mister Sanders, you're a journalist," Don Lemon pointed out respectfully.

"Listen, we know we're a small magazine, barely more than a campus mag for the University of Texas, but we're also professionals. And when you don't treat a journalist with professional courtesy, you can expect that journalist to use a journalist's outlets to voice his or her indignation."

That made Don Lemon chuckle. "Indeed they can," he agreed. "The Clinton campaign released a statement saying that the co-author of the op-ed who tried to arrange the interview, Kitstrom Vulpan the third, tried to use his family influence to get an interview, and was rebuffed by the campaign because of it. Any truth to this statement?"

"Sir, if you knew anything about the Vulpan family, you'd laugh at that statement," Rick said seriously. "He has no family influence, and the staffer knew it. That was why the staffer was so nasty to Kit, calling him 'the earless outcast Vulpan.' If the staffer is saying Kit was trying to use his name to get an interview, then why did he bring that up? The staffer got very personal, and we couldn't let such an uncalled-for action go unchallenged, so we wrote the op-ed."

"But wouldn't an explanation be that the staffer made note of it because Mister Vulpan was doing just that?"

"You don't know the Vulpan family, Mister Lemon. If he ever spoke for his family, his family would definitely have something to say about it, and that's something Kit would never do. He just made peace with his family and reconciled to them in order for him to be able to communicate with his sister and his cousin, both of whom he dearly loves, but that peace doesn't include him speaking for the family. I doubt he'd do anything to jeopardize that peace, because it would strip him of his contact with his sister and cousin. He'd never do such a thing, because his family would be rightfully angry if he tried to use his name in a way that they didn't approve. After all, the name doesn't belong to only him."

"So you challenge the press release by the Clinton campaign?"

"I certainly do. And I stand behind every word in our op-ed."

"Well, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you, Rick."

"Thank you, sir."

"That was Rick Sanders, head editor of Lone Star magazine," Don Lemon said, which made the office explode into applause.

Kit just blew out his breath. Rick had saved himself, and Kit, a lot of grief, for he followed the cardinal rule: never speak ill of the family. Rick had danced on the razor's edge communicating the outrage the family would feel if Kit was exploiting his name openly–openly being the key word there–while also defending their right to feel angry if he did, for that was a violation of the unspoken rules of conduct of family members… even disowned ones. Kit was impressed anew with both how intelligent Rick was, and how subtle he could be.

"Did you hear that, cousin? You love me," Sheila said, throwing herself into his arms. "Let's elope!"

"And the banjo starts playing," Mike said ominously, which made Kit laugh.

"He's already married, Sheila," Jessie said primly. "You had your chance when you were kids. He's mine now."

Sheila laughed raucously.

His phone rang, and it was Vil. "I didn't do it," he said immediately upon answering it, pushing Sheila out of his arms.

She laughed. "I'm calling just to say you're fine," she told him. "I don't disapprove of what Rick said. He defended the family honor while also defending yours. He did well."

"You were watching it?"

"Of course I was. CNN tried to get me to comment, so I fished and found out Rick was going to be interviewed today," she answered. "I read the op-ed, too," she laughed. "I can certainly tell which parts you wrote and which parts Rick did."

"Yeah, it was a collaborative effort," Kit chuckled as he went back into his office, while the crew high-fived each other. "He took my disjointed rant and put some structure in it."

"I do have to protest one thing, though. As one of those rich special interest groups, I protest you trying to restrict my access to buying politicians," she teased, which made Kit laugh helplessly.

Kit had to work late to get all his work done, since he spent most of the day doing Rick's work, but Jessie stayed with him, so that made it much easier. She went out and got them Chinese for dinner, then helped him again with some of the easier research, digging up the easier facts for him and arranging it. She'd seen his research work often enough to be able to duplicate his basic format, which made it much easier for him when he incorporated her work into his own. "I should have Rick pay you for this," Kit said as he merged her work with his.

She giggled. "I think Rick has more important things on his mind. Are we gonna go see him?"

He nodded. "I have to give him the daily briefing. I hope the docs stay with letting him go home on Thursday. He'll be in a wheelchair, but at least he'll be home."

"I wonder how long he'll last til he comes to work," Jessie mused.

"I give him one day," Kit said honestly. "I'll bet ten bucks he'll be in his office Monday morning."

"He probably will," Jessie agreed with a nod. "Not sure how he's gonna manage the bathroom in that wheelchair, though."

"He'll find a way," Kit chuckled.


Courtrooms sucked.

Kit arrived on Wednesday after having been dropped off by Jessie, who had liked trying her paw at driving golf balls that she was going to go back to the driving range this morning and practice some more. She'd wanted to go with him, but he didn't want her to worry. Besides, he was coming armed for bear.

Kevin and Delores met him in the lobby, just on the other side of the metal detector, which had a fit when Kit went through it and forced them to use a wand to determine that he did indeed have metal in his body. The skunk looked quite dapper in his dark gray suit and red tie, and the tabby cat wore a very modest gray business skirt and blazer. He shook their paw when he got to them. "Thanks for coming," Kit said.

"I am your lawyer," Kevin grinned. "We're ready to argue the case, so don't you worry a bit."

"I made sure he's ready for this," Delores assured him. "This will be very good practice for him."

"We have the subpoena all but quashed, the only real thing they can do is try to search again using search warrants."

"Well, it won't help them all that much if they do, because I destroyed my notes," Kit said carefully. "I don't have them anymore." And that was technically true, for he no longer had the notes. Vil did.

"Well, they can still try," Kevin told him. "But we'll be ready for them if they do."

At ten, Kit, Delores, and Kevin entered the courtroom on the subpoena. The DA was already there, a raccoon wearing a dark suit, a gray-furred rabbit judge, a burly bear bailiff, and there were eighteen furs in a jury box to the side of the judge's bench and witness stand. Luckily, at least to Kit, there was no one else in the room. As soon as Kit and his lawyers sat down in the audience seats, the judge banged his gavel, and the burly bear bailiff called the court to order.

"Alright, proceed, counsel," the judge told the raccoon.

"The state calls Kitstrom Vulpan to the stand," the raccoon said.

"Are you still moving to quash the subpoena, Mister Vulpan?" the judge asked.

"Your honor, I'm counsel for Mister Vulpan," Kevin said in a strong voice after he stood up. "I'm here to represent Mister Vulpan on the matter."

The raccoon looked a little irked, but said nothing. The judge, on the other hand, looked slightly amused. "Bailiff, see the jury back to the deliberation room," the judge said, "while I hear the arguments."

Once the jury was removed, Kevin and Kit were allowed to move into the well, sitting at the opposite table, while Delores remained behind them, silently observing but allowing Kevin space to do his work. Kevin stood up and began. "Your honor, as you know, Texas law based on reporter's privilege is weak and unclear, relying mainly on the First Amendment, various appeal cases, and Branzurg versus Hayes. Reporter first amendment rights have always been weak in grand jury cases, but in each case the district attorney was asking specific questions about specific cases with a specific objective, and with supporting evidence. None of those conditions appear in this case. The district attorney is, to coin a term, fishing. He has no idea if there even was a crime involved in this case, and if there was, he can't even claim that it occurred within his jurisdiction."

"That's why Mister Vulpan was subpoenaed, to find out," the DA cut in.

"But, since there's no definitive case here, no specific questions, not even a certainty of jurisdiction, the subpoena fails the balancing test put forth to subpoenas against reporters in most criminal cases," Kevin said.

"This isn't a criminal case, it's a grand jury," the DA said, a bit testily.

"But where is the case, your honor?" Kevin asked. "All we have here is a series of vague questions and uncertainties. Can the district attorney even prove a crime was committed and present enough evidence to bring charges? Charges against whom? All we have here is a paper-thin set of accusations brought against no one, in a place that may or may not be in the district attorney's jurisdiction, where the only possible lead they have to go on is an article that appeared in a campus magazine, that may not even be truthful, as the article's disclaimer clearly states. All this subpoena is trying to do is intimidate the author of the article into violating his relationship with his source, it serves no other reason, because the district attorney has nothing else. That, your honor, is a bad faith subpoena. And because of that, the subpoena should be quashed as by the precedent set by Branzurg, which the state of Texas follows."

The judge was silent a moment. "Counsel?"

"The subpoena clearly states our position, your honor," the raccoon said. "The purpose of the subpoena, and this grand jury, is to determine the very questions counsel brought up. Was there a breaking of the law? If so, where? The subpoena is clear in that it isn't demanding every single scrap of information from Mister Vulpan. We only want two questions answered, your honor. Where is the brothel in which the subject of the article worked, and when did the source work there? If those questions are answered, Mister Vulpan is free to go about his business. He doesn't have to name his source. We don't want details, we just want to know if this is a matter that falls within our jurisdiction, and if it falls within our jurisdiction, we'll pursue the matter from there without Mister Vulpan's help, since that's a battle over privilege I know I'll lose."

"Sir, to do that would cause me to break my word to my source," Kit said, standing up quickly. "I gave my source my solemn word I would protect their anonymity, and revealing anything about what I was told would violate that promise. Because of that, I can't answer any questions at all about the article."

"You're speaking out of order, Mister Vulpan," the judge told him. "Please sit down and remain quiet for the remainder of the hearing."

Kit listened to Kevin and the other fur argue back and forth, rephrasing their core arguments as both sides quoted other cases to the judge, for nearly half an hour. Then the judge seemed satisfied. "Let's break for an early lunch. I'll return with my decision. We're adjourned until twelve o'clock."

"All rise," the bailiff called mechanically.

"How do you think we did?" Kit asked as the two of them left the courtroom.

"I think we're fine," Kevin answered.

"You did very well, Kevin," Delores told him with a nod. "Assertive, confident, knowledgeable, respectful, and always in control. You're going to be an excellent trial attorney."

"Thanks, Misses Kittimer," Kevin said with a happy look.

Kit was a little nervous as they ate lunch at the cafeteria. The thought of going to jail was actually looming on his horizon, because he wasn't about to reveal anything about Allison. If the DA won, he'd have to answer questions that he would not answer, and he'd be found in contempt of court. He wondered if they'd let him bail out, or hold him in jail to force him to testify. Kevin kept trying to distract him from those kinds of thoughts, keeping a cheery, positive attitude, so much so that he was joking with Kit when they went back into the courtroom at noon. Kit was very nervous when they sat back down, after the judge entered and called the court to order. "Despite the general, non-confidential information being sought by the district attorney, precedent falls squarely on the side of Mister Vulpan," the judge announced. "No matter how general you're trying to be, counsel, you have no case other than attempting to force a reporter to reveal a confidential source in order to support your case. That is the textbook definition of a bad faith subpoena. As such, I rule that the subpoena is quashed," he announced. "Since there seems to be no other evidence the district attorney can present at the present time, I'm inclined to end this grand jury proceeding. However," he warned, looking at Kit, "if the district attorney can re-present this matter to a grand jury with an external source of evidence to support the hearing, then I won't rule to quash a subpoena again," he warned. "Because in that situation, the grand jury proceeding will be examining actual evidence, and the district attorney isn't calling you to testify for the sole purpose of forcing you to violate your relationship with your source. Understand, Mister Vulpan?"

"Yes, sir," Kit said, a little nervous and also at the same time quite relieved.

"Alright then. Bailiff, dismiss the grand jury if you please. This case is hereby dismissed, with the district attorney's leave to re-present the case at a later time once he meets the conditions I set forth."

And with a bang of the gavel, Kit felt very much like the fish that slipped off the hook.

He left the courtroom with Kevin and Delores, who patted him on the shoulder. "I told you you'd get out of it," he said.

"Yeah, but the judge said I would have to testify if the DA brings it back."

"Yes, but without your testimony, I seriously doubt that they'll ever manage it," Delores told him honestly. "I talked to a friend of mine in the DA's office. They have absolutely no leads. Nothing at all. All they had was your testimony, and we just stopped them from getting it, so they're beyond helpless."

"They don't even know if the brothel where your source worked is in Austin," Kevin continued. "I mean, they don't even know if there was a crime, and if so, where it was. They have nothing, Kit. I wouldn't worry about it. Trying to bully you into answering their questions was their last resort, their Hail Mary. It failed, so I'd just sweep this one under the rug and forget about it."

"Well put," Delores agreed. "Oh, excuse me a minute, boys, I see an old friend from the DA's office," she said, then she hurried towards a dark-furred male cat in a black suit near the stairs.

"That's easy for you to say, Kev," Kit said with a sour grunt. "I will worry about it, for quite a while."

"Well, don't let it make your fur fall out," Kevin chuckled, playfully punching him in the arm. "You gonna make poker this weekend?"

"I'm going to try," he answered. "But with Rick out, it's not a guarantee. I'm still doing both our jobs right now."

"And with Jessie pregnant, too," Kevin grunted. "That must be a lot of stress."

"Vulpans live on stress," Kit said lightly. "How's it been going with Sam?"

"Wonderful," he answered. "I'm going to go meet her folks next month, as soon as I get this criminal trial out of the way. My first," he said with pride.

"Oh? What happened with the infringement case?"

"Won it," he grinned. "Got my client nearly four hundred thousand dollars in damages."

"What kind of criminal trial are you doing?"

"I'm defending someone from petty larceny charges. A mid-level manager at Motorola accused of shoplifting. It's just a misdemeanor case over a five dollar box of candy, but he pled not guilty, and the firm put me on his case. Sorry if I can't really go into specifics."

"No problem. I should do an article about you," Kit chuckled. "I'll call it Life After College, showing furs using their degrees, showing you cutting your teeth after graduation from law school. You'd be a perfect first subject."

"I guess I could let you do that. It's free advertising for the firm."

"We'll have to talk about it, and talk to Rick about it."

"You know, you fall into that as well," Kevin grinned.

"Nah, I cut my teeth as a homeless vagabond," Kit winked.

"Such a waste of a history degree, since you're solidly in journalism now," Kevin grinned.

"I should go take classes on journalism," Kit shrugged. "I really have no idea how to do it. All I really know is what I learned at the magazine and what Rick and Barry taught me."

Kevin laughed. "I think you're doing just fine as it is," he said. "And not just you. Rick has something special going on over there. Lone Star is like no other magazine I've ever read. It's news for young furs, things that matter to us. It's the only magazine I know of that has news on the election on one page, then a review of the latest video game release on the next. It has The Scene, School Daze, Ask Away and all those other features that makes the mag much more fun to read. It's way more than a campus mag now."

"Yeah, Rick's got vision," Kit agreed. "And a damn fine group of furs working for him. Hmm," he mused.

"What?"

"I should ask Rick what he'd think if we had Mike actually start writing," he said. "Mike's our resident tech-head, maybe we should have him do articles about tech reviews, advice, so on and so on. It's the only thing we really don't do ourselves, Rick always buys articles from other sources for stuff like that. Why should we when we have a perfectly good computer god right in the office? After we hire a photographer, a lot of his workload is going to dry up, since he and Lilly are our primary photographers right now. We'll have to keep him busy."

"Computer god?" Kevin asked with a laugh.

"Just about. Mike knows everything about computers and gadgets. He knows how to network, he knows programming, he knows hardware and software, I've never seen anything he couldn't do when we asked him. I think he can even program a VCR."

"That is truly the ultimate test of any tech guru," Kevin said with a solemn voice, then both of them exploded into laughter.

Delores returned. "My friend tells me that with the subpoena quashed, they'll let this fade away, at least if the assistants have their way. He said that off the record, of course," she said with a light smile. "He said the DA himself was the one that pushed it, over the advice of the assistants, because there's so little there. But then again, the DA has always been a moralistic crusader. He's gone after things like this before," she said absently. "I'd say Kevin was right, Kit. You can put this behind you. With the search coming up empty and the subpoena quashed, he can't do anything but harass you, and he'd be doing it after he's already been beaten in court. If he does, we'll be coming after him for prosecutorial misconduct, and the DA's office knows it. I made that clear when I talked to my friend, and I still carry enough clout in the office that they won't dismiss that as an idle threat. So this case is over."

"Thank God," he said with an explosive sigh. "Let me make the reassuring calls that I'm not going to jail now," Kit said, taking out his Blackberry as they all left the courthouse. He called Jessie first and told her to come get him, that she wouldn't have to bail him out, which made her giggle, then called Rick and told him he'd squirmed out of it… if only just. He then called Vil to assure her all was well because she was poised to crush the DA if Kevin and Delores failed to quash the subpoena, then, after Kevin and Delores said their goodbyes and they parted, he called Allison. She too wanted to know what was going on. "Ally," he said. "It's over. I'm not going to jail, and my lawyer told me the DA's office is going to let the matter drop."

"Thank God," she said explosively. "You are a true male of honor, willing to go to jail rather than break a promise," she said carefully. Even now, they never directly talked of it except when they were in his house. They both knew that cell phones were not secure; anyone with a scanner could hear every word they said.

"When I make a promise, I make a promise," he told her calmly. "Jessie wants to know if you and Sheila would like to come over for dinner tonight. She's making lasagna and german chocolate cake."

"I'd love to," she answered. "She's still trying to make me fat," she added with a laugh.

"She thinks if she fattens you up, you won't be so attractive when she gets fat," Kit said sagely. "She loves you as a friend, Ally, but she is a little jealous of you, even now. She has this weird idea that because we're both foxes, I might find you to be more attractive than her, which is utterly ridiculous. It's part of her sinister plot to keep my eyes from wandering when she's waddling around."

Allison laughed. "Well, at least now I know what to expect," she said.

"She just can't get it into her head that I'm totally hers," Kit chuckled.

"Such a pity," Allison teased. "You are so whipped."

"I enjoy my slavery," Kit told her, which made her laugh.


Rick, it turned out, was again operating on a similar wavelength to Kit. After he went to visit Rick in the hospital, his last night there, he told him about his idea, to which Rick replied by showing him a file in his laptop called Cyber Corner. It was a detailed description of a weekly article Mike would pen dealing with technology, games, and the internet culture.

"As soon as I hire a photographer, he starts the article," Rick said.

"Have you looked over the resumes?"

He nodded. "I've set up interviews for next week," he answered. "I've already looked over the portfolios of four of them online, the others offered to bring them to the interview."

"So, you're coming back?"

"Monday," he affirmed. "They have elevators there, I can get to work just fine cause Martha's gonna drop me off and pick me up. The docs have cleared me for desk duty. So, you can throttle back on doing my work after Friday, son. Leave it alone on Saturday, take your Sunday and Monday off."

"Jessie will like that," Kit chuckled. "We can spend time at home instead of the office. She's spent almost all her spring break sitting in my office knitting and doing her homework."

"Take her to the beach," Rick told him. "Sunday is supposed to be a fine day, according to the weather. Take her to South Padre and let her have a little spring break fun."

Kit was about to say something, then he laughed. "That's a pretty good idea," he said.

"Anyway, as far as the magazine goes, I'm also gonna introduce two new features," he said, moving his document to a new page. It was called The Little Corner. "This is going to be Denise's territory," he explained. "It'll be a femme's-eye view of campus life."

"She's going to beat you when she sees that headline."

"Rick laughed. "I'm actually going to let her name it, this one's just to get a charge out of her."

"It'll do that alright."

"Marty will handle the other new feature," he said, scrolling down to a heading named 15 Minutes of Fame. "It'll be guest articles from students, mainly from the journalism majors, giving them their shot at doing news, editorials, reviews, whatever, published. Marty will pick two articles submitted by students each week and run them, and he'll pick ones that have a bearing on whatever articles we're running that week. I think it has potential," he said. "Not only do we give journalism students a chance to cut their teeth, we can introduce fresh views, angles we never thought of."

"I think it'll work, as long as we get enough submissions."

"When it's thin, Marty's going to use this instead," he said, switching to a heading called Shout Out! "This'll be a log of a discussion on Twitter Marty and Mike will host on Tuesday nights, where students talk about some subject in real time, and we post logs of it or write articles based on it. I'm not sure how well this will go over, though. This one is purely an experiment."

"Experimentation is good as long as it doesn't consume all our resources," Kit chuckled.

"I think Marty and Mike can sacrifice an hour every Tuesday night," Rick said. "Jeffrey's also talking about splitting Missy and Cutler off from School Daze and doing it as an independent strip, running one strip a week. He wants to name it Culture Wars, and put Missy and Cutler in battle gear on the intro panel, about to start fighting."

Kit laughed. "That about sums up how those two get along," Kit said. "It's a love-hate relationship if there ever was one. But Culture Wars is a kinda silly title. He should just call it Missy and Cutler. Furs know those two by now, so the title makes perfect sense. What more needs be said once you get to know them? I mean, it's Missy and Cutler."

Rick laughed. "True. I'll have to talk to him about it. We haven't asked Jessie about it yet. Think she'd go for doing it as a weekly instead of the way she does it now?"

"She'd do it. You'll have to give her a raise, though."

"I'm going to put her on as a full-time staff member," Rick told him. "I was going to ask her if she would like to do a feature herself. Jessie has a gentle kind of personality, I think she'd do well in an advice column or something like that, something that let her sweet nature show through the words on the page. I'll let her think about what kind of feature she'd like to try though, and we'll go from there."

"She'd probably go for it, at least after she got over her bout of nerves," Kit chuckled.

"Talk to her about it when you get home. I thought about asking her about it when she was here earlier, but Martha distracted me with barbecue," he laughed. "Both of them are making sure I leave here twenty pounds heavier than when I came in, and that doesn't count the cast they'll put on me."

"Where is Martha now?"

"Home, getting things ready for the wheelchair," he answered. "She wanted to move some furniture around. She has Sheila and Bill over there helping her."

"Looking forward to it?"

"I'm not looking forward to the wheelchair, but I'm glad I'll be going home," he smiled. "I just hope I'm not in it long."

"Well, here's hoping you heal fast. Soon as your bones are stable enough, you'll be on crutches."

"I still don't see how that matters," Rick grunted.

"Just in case you accidentally put weight on your broken leg," Kit told him. "They wouldn't even take my cast off until my bones were fully healed, for fear that I'd stress it moving around."

"Well, that's your back, son, this is just a leg."

"If you put the wrong stress on your leg, you'll wish you stayed in the wheelchair," Kit told him. "It means you'll be back in surgery and you start over healing from scratch."

"Yeah, I know, but I don't have to like it," Rick chuckled. "You talk to Jessie tonight, and take that girl to the beach on Sunday!"

"I think we will," Kit said with a smile.


Sheila and Allison joined them for dinner that night, a dinner of lasagna, artichoke hearts, salad, and german chocolate cake. Allison looked at all the food with an amused look, giving Kit a slight smile as Jessie kept trying to double Allison's portions, but she said nothing. She was too busy eating to say anything.

"God, Jess, I gotta learn to cook as good as you," Sheila said after taking a bite of the lasagna.

"You'd better if you want to be a chef," Kit teased lightly.

"How did it go today, cousin?" Sheila asked. "I mean, the stuff you won't tell anyone else."

"There wasn't anything more to it," he answered honestly. "Kevin went in there and just steamrolled the prosecutor," he chuckled. "Perry Mason would have been impressed."

Allison reached over and patted him on the wrist. "Thanks again, Kit," she said. "You were willing to go to jail for me. I'm so honored."

"I made you a promise, Ally," he told her. "And a Vulpan never breaks his promises."

"Yup," Sheila agreed. "None of us will, not when it counts. It's about the family honor."

"You have no honor, Sheila," Jessie teased with a cute smile. "You're a Party Pack girl."

"I have a little. I'll sell it to you," she offered, which made both Jessie and Allison laugh.

"I meant to ask, Ally. Do you talk to–to them?" Jessie asked. "How did they react to the article?"

"The Top Hat? It made them rather nervous at first," Allison said. "They knew it was them Kit was talking about, and they knew it was me that did the article. They didn't appreciate the part about covering up the rapes, but they did appreciate how Kit made note that they were very good employers in other respects, how they let us keep the majority of the money we earned. But when Kit refused to speak to the police after they came around, they calmed down a great deal. They relaxed when the search turned up nothing, and I'm sure they're dancing in their offices now that the subpoena has been beaten, since their business has actually increased since the article. It got some old members who haven't been coming to start coming again. They have extensive contacts inside the police and DA's office, so they knew what was going on. As I recall, two of the assistant DAs are members," she mused with a slight smile. "I can say that the owners have a great deal of respect for Kit for refusing to say a word, and they didn't kick him out, he's still considered a member of the club. And Benny said that the owners actually liked the article, too. He said they said it was very good. Benny said he thought he knew me until he read the article, then realized he'd never really known me at all," she said with a mysterious little smile.

"Benny?" Jessie asked.

"Benny the bartender there at the Top Hat, he's still is a friend of mine, so he keeps me in the loop with what goes on there. Between attempts to lure me back, that is," she chuckled lightly. "But I'm never going back. I got out with my investments and, thank God, no diseases. I'm not tempting fate. I'm done with it."

"The hell you are, we'll go back as customers," Sheila grinned at her. "You forget, me and Kit are members, and we can take guests! You'll get to be the girl doing the pawing, not the girl being pawed!"

"I might do that," she smiled. "A couple of the male strippers are very handsome."

"Boy, are they," Jessie said reflexively, then she blushed and laughed. "But I still love you, my handsome fox, even though you did throw me at those male strippers."

"I'm so glad," he said blandly, which made all three femmes giggle.

"We should go celebrate," Sheila said. "Kit, Jessie, wanna go do something with the Austin Party Pack this weekend?" Sheila asked with a grin. "Me, Ally, Sandy, Sam, Danny, Jessie, Charlotte, Lisa, we can all have a party at the sorority or go to Dallas or something! It's the last weekend of spring break!"

"Actually, I'm taking Jessie to the beach on Sunday," Kit said, looking at her.

"I'm so glad you decided to tell me that!" Jessie laughed.

"I just did. Wanna go to South Padre on Sunday?"

"Of course I do!" Jessie said immediately.

"Ooo, can we tag along?" Sheila asked. "We've been there, we know where all the sexy guys hang out!"

"I'm not all that interested in sexy guys, Sheila," Kit told her with a dry smile. "But that's up to Jessie. She missed out on spring break, so I gotta make it up to her. This is her trip."

"I'd love to have you guys along," Jessie said immediately, reaching over and patting Allison on the forearm. "If you'd like to come."

"I think I would," Allison smiled in return. "As long as you don't get jealous of seeing me in a bikini."

Jessie's cheeks frizzed out, and she laughed. "I'll do my best," she said with a helpless smile. "It's not going to be fair when I'm fat and you're not."

Allison glanced at Kit, then she laughed earnestly. "And I think you've been trying to fatten me up!" she accused.

"I am not!" she protested.

"God, the boys will just die," Sheila said with a predatory smile. "Me and Jessie and Ally, three of the hottest femmes in Austin all together and in bikinis. They're gonna howl!"

"I'm not going there so boys can ogle me," Jessie said primly. "I'm a married femme, and I'm pregnant, for goodness sake!"

"So? You're not showing yet, you're still a sexy beast, Jess. Wear dental floss and your wedding ring, let them see what they can never have!" Sheila said with a malicious little smile, which made almost every strand of Jessie's fur stick straight out.

"I will not!" she gasped. "I have a nice two-piece from our honeymoon I can wear, because I do like to swim."

"You don't go to the beach to swim on spring break, you silly girl!" Sheila said with a laugh. "You go to look utterly hot in a bikini and make every boy have wet dreams about you for two weeks afterward!"

"No thanks. I already have a male to do that for me, any time I want," Jessie smiled.

"She does," Kit agreed mildly. "I dream about her every night. Of course, she's right there, but that doesn't change the fact."

"I don't mind when my husband has naughty dreams about me," Jessie said with a darling smile at him. "But I think I could do without some horny boy having them."

"Jessie, Kit's only like a year older than the average college student," Sheila protested.

"What a difference a year makes," she returned.

"You're twenty-three?" Allison asked.

"Not for eleven days," Kit answered. "Twenty-two."

"His birthday's on the thirtieth," Sheila smiled. "And I already got plans."

"I'll be busy."

"Big plans."

"So sorry."

"Huge plans," Sheila said with a bright-eyed grin.

"I'm not that stuuuuupiiiiid," he said in a sing-song voice.

"Cousin, your life will never be the same," she said with steady eyes.

"Hmm. End up in jail for a year because of your plans, or spend my birthday with my wife and a nice quiet little party with our friends. Decisions decisions," he said quietly.

Allison laughed. "Well, may I come to your party?"

"I'd be happy to have you," Kit said with a nod. "But you'll be there with the whole gang."

"A bunch of criminals and reprobates," Sheila grinned.

"And how are they different from you and me, Sheila?" Allison asked calmly.

"That's why you'll fit in perfectly," she laughed. "So, what time do we get here on Sunday for the beach?"

"Six or so," Kit answered. "If we leave out from here at six, we'll get there around eight or so. If we get there early, we have plenty of time."

"Six? Damn, cousin, that's harsh," Sheila protested.

"Take it or leave it."

"Sheila, can I stay over at your place Saturday? That way we're all right here."

"Fine with me, Ally, long as you don't mind the couch."

"Make sure to remind me to bring my day bag," Allison said, finishing the last of her lasagna.

"Just remember, once we leave the plane, all the space we have is the rental car, and you'll be carrying most of what you need anyway. So pack light," Kit warned.

"I didn't think of that," Allison mused. "Where can I put a credit card in my bikini?" she asked, giving Sheila a sly little look, which also made Jessie's eyes harden just a little bit even as her cheeks threatened to ruffle out.

"Punch holes in two and wear them as your bikini top," Sheila winked at her. "It'll give the term swiping your card a whole new meaning. Jessie can wear a couple of those new golden dollars, and I'll wear beer bottle caps!"

"Are we going to play 'who can show the most white fur' again?"

"You bet we are! Of course, Jessie wins, all her fur is white. Well, kinda nearly-white. Guess we coulda said it was white up until Kit deflowered her," she said clinically, looking at Jessie in a manner that made her cheeks ruffle.

"Stop teasing my wife, you two," Kit told them.

"But it's so easy," Sheila protested.

"Sheila, when she finally bites you back, I don't wanna hear you come crying to me," Kit warned.

"Duly noted, cousin," Sheila said, glancing at Jessie with a smile. "Let's see if we can get some cash this time, Ally. We'll dance for dollars!"

"We need G-strings for that."

"And how is that different from the bikini bottoms we already have?"

"Point," Allison acceded, which made Kit laugh.

Chapter 25