“He kissed me.”

“I’m shocked and amazed.” Cybil handed Layla the cup, returned to the couch to curl her legs up. She gave a careless laugh when Layla frowned at her. “Sweetie, the guy’s got those foxy Fox eyes on you all the time. He watches you leave the room, watches you come back in. Boy’s got it bad.”

“He said- Where’s Quinn?”

“With Cal. Maverick found himself a card game, so Cal’s house is empty for a change. They’re taking advantage.”

“Oh. Good for them. They’re great together, aren’t they? Just click, click.”

“He’s the one for her, no question. All the others she tried out were like O’Doul’s.”

“O’Doul’s?”

“Near-love. Cal’s the real deal. Easier to talk about them than you?”

Layla sighed. “It’s confusing to feel this way. To feel him feeling this way, and to try not to feel him feeling it. Because that’s only more confusing. Add in we’re working together on multiple levels, and that creates a kind of intimacy, and that intimacy has to be respected, even protected because the stakes are so damn high. If you mix it up with the separate physical or emotional intimacy of personal relationship and sex, how do you maintain the basic order needed to do what we’re all here to do?”

“Wow.” Lips curved, Cybil sipped her tea. “That’s a lot of thinking.”

“I know.”

“Try this. Simple and direct. Are you hot for him?”

“Oh God, yes. But-”

“No, no qualifiers. Don’t analyze. Lust is an elemental thing, potent, energizing. Enjoy it. Whether you act on it or not, it gets the blood moving. You’ll layer the rest onto it eventually. You’ll have to. You’re human and you’re female. We have to layer on emotions and concerns, consequences. But take the opportunity to appreciate the right now.” Cybil’s dark eyes sparkled with humor. “Enjoy the lust.”

Layla considered as she sampled her tea. “When you put it that way. It feels pretty good.”

“When you finish your tea, we’ll use your lust as your focus point to move into a meditation exercise.” Cybil smiled over the rim of her cup. “I don’t think you’ll be bored.”

Five

CYBIL’S LUST-AS-SPRINGBOARD MEDITATION MIGHT’VE given Layla a fit of giggles initially, but then she thought she’d done pretty well. Better, certainly, than her usual faking-it method at yoga class. She’d breathed in the lust, as instructed-navel to spine-breathed out the tension, the stress. Focused on that “tickle in the belly” as Cybil had described it. Owned it.

Somewhere around the laughter, the breathing, and the tickle, she’d relaxed so fully she’d heard her own pulse beating. And that was a first.

She slept deep and dreamless, and woke refreshed. And, Layla had to admit, energized. Apparently, meditation didn’t have to bore her senseless.

With Fox in court and Alice at the helm, there was no reason to go into the office until the afternoon. Time, she thought as she showered, to dive into research mode with Cybil and Quinn. To put her energy into finding more answers. She still hadn’t added the incident at the Square to her chart, or catalogued the dream both she and Fox had shared.

She dressed for the morning in jeans and a sweater before earmarking the afternoon wardrobe change for Secretary Layla. And that, she had to admit, was fun. It felt good to need to dress for work, to plan and consider the outfit, the accessories. In the weeks between leaving New York and starting at Fox’s office, she’d been busy, certainly. She’d had enormous adjustments to make, monumental obstacles to face. But she’d missed working, missed knowing someone expected her to be in a certain place at a certain time to do specific tasks.

And, shallow or not, she’d missed having a reason to wear a great pair of boots.

As she headed out, intending to hit the kitchen for coffee, she heard the clacking of the keyboard from the office they’d set up in the fourth bedroom.

Quinn sat cross-legged in the chair, typing away. Her long blond hair swayed in its sleek tail as she bopped her head to some internal music.

“I didn’t know you were back.”

“Back.” Quinn hammered a few more keys, then paused to look over. “Swung by the gym, worked off a few hundred calories, screwed that with an enormous blueberry muffin from the bakery, but I figure I’m still ahead considering the stupendous and energetic sex I enjoyed last night. Got coffee, got showered, and am now typing up Cybil’s notes on your dream.” Quinn stretched up her arms. “And I still feel like I could run the Boston Marathon.”

“That must’ve been some sex.”

“Oh boy, oh boy.” Wiggling her butt in the chair, Quinn let out her big, bawdy laugh. “I always thought it was romance novel hype that sex was better when you’re in love. But I’m living, and extraordinarily satisfied, proof. But that’s nearly enough about me. How are you?”

If she hadn’t woken feeling energized, Layla mused, two minutes around Quinn would have perked her right up. “While not extraordinarily satisfied, I’m feeling pretty peppy myself. Is Cybil up?”

“In the kitchen, doing her morning coffee and newspaper thing. We passed briefly, and she grunted something along the lines that you made progress with Fox yesterday.”

“Did she mention that we happened to find our lips colliding in the storage closet at his office when his mother came in?”

Quinn’s bright blue eyes popped wide. “She wasn’t coherent enough. You tell me.”

“I just did.”

“I require details.”

“I require coffee. I’ll be back.”

Another thing she’d been missing, Layla realized. Having fun and personal details to share with girlfriends.

In the kitchen Cybil nibbled on half a bagel as she read the newspaper spread over the table. “Not a single mention of the crows in today’s paper,” she announced when Layla walked in. “It’s extraordinary, really. Yesterday, a brief article, stingy on the details, and no follow-up.”

“It’s typical, isn’t it?” Thoughtful, Layla poured coffee. “Nobody pays a lot of attention to what happens here. And when there are reports or questions, interest, it doesn’t stick, or it comes across as lore.”

“Even the people who’ve lived through it, who live here, gloss it over. Or it glosses over on them.”

“Some that remember it too well leave.” Layla decided on yogurt, took out a carton. “Like Alice Hawbaker.”

“It’s fascinating. Still, there aren’t any other reports on animal attacks, or unexplained occurrences. Not today, anyway. Well.” With a lazy shrug, Cybil started to fold the paper. “I’m going to go tug on a couple of very thin threads toward finding where Ann Hawkins lived for our missing two years. It’s damned irritating,” Cybil added as she rose. “There weren’t that many people around here in sixteen fifty-two. Why the hell can’t I find the right ones?”

BY NOON, LAYLA HAD DONE ALL SHE COULD DO with her housemates. She changed into gray trousers and heeled boots for her afternoon in the office.

On her walk she noticed that the windows on the gift shop had been replaced. Cal’s father was a conscientious landlord, one she knew had a lot of pride in his town. And she noticed the large, hand-printed Going Out of Business Sale sign that hung in the display window.

That was a damn shame, she thought as she walked on. The lives people built, or tried to build, tumbling down around them, through no fault of their own. Some let it lie in ruins, unable to find the hope and the will to rebuild, and others shoved up their sleeves and put it back together.

There was new glass at Ma’s Pantry, too, and on other shops and houses. People, jackets buttoned or zipped against the chill, came and went, in and out. People stayed. She saw a man in a faded denim jacket, a tool belt slung at his hips, replacing a door on the bookstore. Yesterday, she thought, that door had been scarred, its windows broken. Now it would be fresh and new.