“Heading out to Susie and Bill’s. Texas Hold ’ Em tournament.” Penny poked Ford in the chest while Ford’s father squatted to shake hands with Spock. “We had to drive right by, so we stopped in case you wanted in.”

“I always lose at poker.”

“You don’t have gambling blood.” Penny turned her avid eyes on Cilla. “But you do have company. You don’t have to tell me who this is. You look just like your grandmama.” Penny moved forward, hands outstretched. “The most beautiful woman I ever saw.”

“Thank you.” Left with no choice, Cilla wiped her hands hurriedly on her pants before taking Penny’s. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Cilla McGowan, my parents, Penny and Rod Sawyer.”

“I know your daddy very well.” Penny shot a sly glance at her husband.

“Now you cut that out,” Rod told her. “Always trying to make me jealous. Heard a lot of good things about you,” he said to Cilla.

“Heard hardly a syllable out of this one.” Penny poked Ford again.

“I am the soul of discretion.”

Penny let out her quick, rumbling laugh again, then dug into her purse. She pulled out an enormous Milk Bone that sent Spock into a medley of happy growls, grunts and groans while his body quivered and his bulging eyes shone.

“Be a man,” she said to the dog, and Spock rose up on his hind legs to dance in place. “That’s my sweetheart,” she crooned and held the biscuit out. Spock nipped it and, with a full-body wag, ran off to chomp and chew. “I have to spoil him,” she said to Cilla. “He’s the closest thing resembling a grandchild I’ve gotten out of this one.”

“You have two of the human variety from Alice,” Ford reminded her.

“And they get cookies when they visit.” She gestured to the house across the road. “It’s a good thing you’re doing, bringing that place back to life. It deserves it. Your grandfather’s going to be at the game tonight, Ford. My daddy was madly in love with your grandmother.”

Cilla blinked. “Is that so?”

“Head over. He has scores of pictures she let him take over the years. He wouldn’t sell them for any price, even when I had a notion to frame a few and display them at the bookstore.”

“Mama owns Book Ends in the Village,” Ford told Cilla.

“Really? I’ve been there. I bought some landscaping and design books from you. It’s a nice store.”

“Our little hole in the wall,” Penny said. “Oh now, look, we’re going to be late. Why do you let me talk so much, Rod?”

“I have no idea.” "Y’all change your mind about the game, we’ll make sure you get a seat at a table. Cilla, they’d just love to have you, too,” Penny called out as Rod pulled her down to the car. “I’m going to have Daddy bring those pictures over for you to look at.”

“Thank you. Nice to meet you.”

“Ford! You bring Cilla over for dinner sometime.”

“In the car, Penny.”

“I’m getting, I’m getting. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ford called back. “Win a bundle.”

“I’m feeling lucky!” Penny shouted as Rod zipped into reverse, then zoomed on down the road.

Cilla said, "Wow.”

“I know. It’s like being lightly brushed by the edge of a hurricane. Leaves you a little surprised and dazed, and sure that much more and you’d be flat on your ass.”

“You look a lot like your father, who is very handsome, by the way. But your mother? She’s dazzling.”

“She is, as her own father likes to say, a corker.”

“Corker.” Cilla laughed as they walked into the house. With a polite burp, Spock trotted in with them. “Well, I like her, and I tend to eye mothers suspiciously. Speaking of corks. Where’s the champagne?”

“Spare fridge, mudroom.”

“I’ll get that, you get the pizza.”

Moments later, she came back into the kitchen with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and a puzzled frown. “Ford, what are you doing with all that paint?”

“The what?” He looked over from setting the oven. “Oh that. There’s a zillion gallons of primer, a zillion of exterior red, and a slightly lesser amount of exterior white, for trim.”

As her heart did a slow somersault, she set the bottle on the counter. “You bought the barn paint.”

“I don’t believe in jinxes. I do believe in positive thinking, which is just really hope anyway.”

Everything inside her shifted, settled. Opened. She stepped to him, laid a hand on his cheek, laid her lips on his. Warm as velvet, tender as a wish, the kiss flowed. Even when he shifted so she pressed back against the counter, it stayed slow and silky, deep and dreamy.

When their lips parted, she sighed, then rested her cheek against his in a gesture of simple affection she gave to very few. “Ford.” She drew back, sighed again. “My head’s too full of Steve to meet your requirements for sex tonight.”

“Ah. Well.” He trailed a fingertip up her arm. “Realistically, they’re more loose guidelines than strict requirements.”

She laughed, caressed his cheek once more. “They’re good requirements. I’d like to stick to them.”

“Got no one to blame but myself.” He stepped around her to slide the pizza into the oven.

“So we’ll eat bad pizza, get a little buzzed on champagne and not have sex.”

Ford shook his head as he removed the foil and the cage on the bottle. “Almost my favorite thing to do with a beautiful woman.”

“I don’t fall for guys. It’s a policy,” she said when he paused and glanced over at her. “Considering the influence of inherited traits-and the track record of my grandmother and mother in that area-I’ve taken a pass. Steve was an exception, and that just showed how it can go. So I don’t fall for guys. But I seem to be falling for you.”

The cork exploded out of the bottle as he stared at her. “Does that scare you?”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “A little. A moderate amount.”

“I thought it might because it’s got me jumpy. So I figured heads-up.”

“I appreciate it. Do you have, like, a definition for the term ‘fall for’?” God, she thought as she looked at him. Oh my God, she was a goner. “Why don’t you get the glasses? I think we could both use a drink.”

SHE HIRED PAINTERS, and had some of the crew haul the paint to the barn. She talked to the cops, and made a deal with a local body shop to paint the door of her truck. Whenever she caught sight of the white van, she had no qualms about shooting up her middle finger.

No evidence, the cops said. Nothing to place Hennessy at the scene on the night Steve was attacked. No way to prove he decorated her truck with hate.

So she’d wait him out, Cilla decided. And if he made another move, she’d be ready.

Meanwhile, Steve had been bumped down to a regular room, and his mother had hopped back on her broomstick to head west.

Dripping sweat from working in the attic, Cilla stood studying the skeleton of the master bath. “It’s looking good, Buddy. It’s looking good for tomorrow’s inspection.”

“I don’t know why in God’s world anybody needs all these shower-heads. ”

“Body jets. It’s not just a shower, it’s an experience. Did you see the fixtures? They came in this morning.”

“I saw. They’re good-looking,” he said, grudgingly enough to make her smile.

“How are you coming with Mister Steam?”

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Don’t breathe down my neck.”

She made faces at his back. “Well, speaking of showers, I need one before I go in to see Steve.”

“Water’s turned off. You want this done, water’s got to stay off.”

“Right. Shit. I’ll grab one over at Ford’s.”

She didn’t miss the smirk he shot her, but opted to ignore it. She grabbed clean clothes, stuffed them in her purse. Downstairs, she had a few words with Dobby, answered a hail from the kitchen area, then spent another ten minutes outside discussing foundation plantings.

She dashed across the road before someone could catch her again, and decided to slip into the shower off the gym rather than disturb Ford.

It wasn’t until she was clean, dry and wrapped in a big white towel that she realized she’d left her purse-and the clothes in it-sitting on her front veranda.