“You’re a musician.” It just figured.

“Right now I’m a licensed contractor who plays guitar on the side, and does the HGTV thing.”

“Rock the House,” Cilla supplied. “Home-improvement type show that takes the viewer through stages of a rehab, remodel, a flip. Named after Steve’s construction company.”

TV guy, Ford thought. That just figured.

“Construction was my day job, back in rock-star-hopeful days,” Steve continued. “And I talked Cill into bankrolling my first flip when I saw how the real estate market was heading and when the band flushed away. Hit that mother in the sweet spot. Is that your Victorian across the street?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice. So do you know where we can get a pizza around here?”

Pizza was a key word for Spock, who lifted his shamed head and did his happy dance. “Eat in or delivery?”

“Delivery, man. I’m buying.”

“I’ve got the pizzeria’s number,” Cilla told him. “Do you want the usual?”

“Stick with a winner.”

“Ford?”

“Whatever you want’s fine.”

“I’ll call it in.”

When Cilla went in, Steve tipped back his beer. “Did you rehab the place yourself?”

“No, I bought it that way.”

“So what’s your line? What do you do across the street?”

“I write graphic novels.”

“No shit.” Steve bumped Ford in the arm with his beer. “Like The Dark Knight and From Hell?”

“More Dark Knight than Campbell. You into graphic novels?”

“Ate comic books for breakfast, lunch and dinner when I was a kid. But I didn’t discover the graphics until a few years ago. Maybe I’ve read some of yours. What… damn, are you Ford Sawyer?” The brown eyes went child-like wide, and full of thrill. “Are you the fucking Seeker?”

So maybe the guy wasn’t a complete asshole, Ford decided. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“This is unreal. It’s like surreal. Check this out.” Standing, Steve yanked off his T-shirt, turned his back. There, among the other art decorating Steve’s back, was a tattoo of the Seeker striding over the left shoulder blade.

“Well… wow.” Ford’s usually active mind switched off.

“Your dude is completely awesome. I mean, he totally rocks. He suffers, and I feel that.” Steve punched a fist into his chest. “But he keeps going. Picks it up and goes, does what he has to do. And the bastard can walk through freaking walls! How do you come up with that shit?”

“Jesus, Steve, are you stripping again?” Cilla demanded as she came back out.

“You’ve got Ford Freaking Sawyer living across the street. Man, he’s the Seeker.”

Cilla studied the tattoo Steve tapped as he looked over his shoulder. “When are you going to stop that?”

“When my whole body tells a story. Still got you on my ass, doll.”

“Do not pull down your pants,” she said, knowing him. “Pizza will be here, thirty minutes or less.”

“I’m going to grab a shower.” Steve punched Ford’s shoulder, gave the delighted Spock a quick scratch. “This is way, over-the-top cool.”

As the screen door slammed behind Steve, Ford studied his beer. “That was just weird.”

“That was just Steve.”

“To whom you were married for five minutes.”

“Technically, five months.” She sat again, stretched out long legs. “You’re looking for the story.”

“I’d be a fool not to.”

“There isn’t that much of one. We met, we clicked. He wanted to be a rock star, and I was, at seventeen, an actor already trying for a come-back. Except, even then, I didn’t really want one. And Steve was exactly the opposite image of what everyone expected from me. So he was perfect.”

“Good girl meets bad boy.”

“You could say. Still, I wasn’t so good, and he wasn’t so bad. We loved each other, made each other laugh and had really good sex. What else could you ask for? So the minute I turned eighteen, we ran off and got married. It took us about that five minutes to wonder, what the hell did we do this for?”

She tipped back her head and laughed. “We didn’t want to be married, to each other or anyone else. We wanted to be friends, to hang out, and maybe have good sex now and then. So we fixed it, way before there was any ugliness or damage, and we still love each other. He’s the best friend I ever had. And, tattoos aside, the most stable and solid.”

“He didn’t let you down.”

Cilla looked over, nodded. “Not once. Not ever. I couldn’t do what I’m doing here if it wasn’t for Steve. He taught me. He’s a fifth-generation contractor. Part of the rock star bit was a rebellion against that, you could say. Man, I’m banging a guitar, not a hammer. But he eventually figured out he was better, and let me say a hell of a lot better, with the hammer.

I lent him some money for his first flip, this sad little dump in South L.A. He made it sweet, and paid me back, bought another. He asked me if I wanted in, and, well, one thing led to another. Now he owns his own company and has the TV gig. He still turns sad little dumps, and he turns million-dollar properties. He’s launching a branch in New York, and there’s talk about a spin-off for the show for the East Coast. He was up there, doing the business, so he swung by before he heads back to L.A.”

“And he has you tattooed on his ass.”

“For old time’s sake. Got any?”

“Tattoos?” Oddly, he felt foolish. “No. You?”

She smiled, sipped her beer. “A lot happens in five minutes of marriage. ”

Ford ended up eating pizza, and wondering what sort of tattoo Cilla had chosen, and where she’d had it inked.

Because the idea wouldn’t leave him alone, he decided Brid should probably have one. Researching symbols gave him something to do once he returned home other than obsess as to whether or not Cilla and Steve were talking rehab plans or having good sex.

By two A.M. both his eyes and his energy gave out. Still, curiosity had him wandering to one of his front windows to take a last look at the house across the road. A slow smile curved his lips when he spotted the beam of a flashlight cutting through the dark toward the barn.

If Steve was bunking in the barn, good sex wasn’t on the night’s agenda.

"Let’s keep it that way,” Ford muttered, stripped off his clothes and fell facedown on the bed.

“YOU HEAR THAT?” Steve poked Cilla awake, an easy job as they were sharing her sleeping bag.

“What? No. Shut up.” Rolling over, Cilla vowed Steve would find other sleeping arrangements the next night.

“I heard something. Like a moan, like the way a door sounds when it opens in an abandoned house in a creepy movie. We ought to go check it out.”

“Do you remember what I said when you proposed we have sex?”

“That was a no.”

“Same answer for this. Go to sleep.”

“I don’t know how you can sleep with all this quiet.” He rolled, rolled again until she snarled at him. “You need a white-noise machine.”

“I need to get you your own sleeping bag.”

“Harsh.” He kissed the top of her head. “You’ll be sorry when some wild-eyed mountain dude runs in here with a meat cleaver.”

“When that happens, I promise to apologize. Now shut up or go away. Crew’s coming at seven.”

THE ELABORATE BRASS headboard banged rhythmically against the red wall, the sound punctuated by her cries of pleasure. A shaft of moonlight illuminated those blue crystal eyes, glazed now as he plunged into her. She called out his name, nearly sang it while her body surged under his.

Ford. Ford.

Yo, Ford.

He woke with a spectacular morning hard-on, the sun beaming into his eyes and a vague sense of embarrassment that it was Steve calling his name. But at least the realization was already doing the job of deflating the hard-on.

Ford stuck his head out the window, yelled, “Hold on.” He dragged on the jeans he’d stripped off the night before, then stumbled his way downstairs.

“Got doughnuts,” Steve said when Ford pulled open the door.