He shook his head as a man might over a sulking child. He walked away in his excellent shoes, and got into the big city car with Ken to drive away.

Ford wandered over, stared off at the barn while Spock rubbed himself against Cilla’s legs. “That red’s going to look good.”

“Yeah. You’re not going to ask what that was about?”

“I got the gist. They want, you don’t. They pushed, you didn’t budge. They pissed you off, which is fine. But in the end it made you sad. And that’s not. So I don’t care about them or what they want. I say fuck ’em, and that red looks good going on that barn.”

It made her smile. “You’re good to have around, Ford.” She leaned down, ruffled Spock. “Both of you. Back in L.A., I’d have paid several hundred dollars for this kind of therapy.”

“We’ll bill you. Meanwhile, why don’t you show me what’s going on around here today?”

“Let’s go bug the tile guy. It’s my favorite so far.” She took Ford’s hand and walked into the house.

FOURTEEN

When Cilla showed Dobby the design she wanted for the medallions, he scratched his chin. And she saw his lips twitching at the corners.

"Shamrocks,” she said.

"I’ve had me a few beers on Saint Patrick’s Day in my time. I know they’re shamrocks.”

“I played around with other symbols. More formal, or more subtle, more elaborate. But I thought, screw that, I like shamrocks. They’re simple and they’re lucky. I think Janet would’ve gotten a kick out of them.”

“I expect she would. She seemed to like the simple when she was around here.”

“Can you do it?”

“I expect I can.”

“I’ll want three.” The idea made her giddy as a girl. “Three’s lucky, too. One for the dining room, one for the master bedroom, and one in here, in the living room. Three circles of shamrocks for each. I’m not looking for uniformity but more symmetry. I’ll leave it to you,” she said when he nodded.

“It’s good working on this place. Takes me back.”

They sat at a makeshift table, plywood over a pair of sawhorses. She’d brought him a glass of tea, and they drank together while Jack finished up the last of the plaster repairs.

“You’d see her around, when she came out to stay here?”

“Now and again. She always had a word. Give you that smile and a hello, how are you.”

“Dobby, in that last couple of years, when she came out, was there any talk about her being… friendly with a local man?”

“You mean being sweet on one?”

Sweet on, Cilla thought. What a pretty way to put it. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

The lines and folds on his face deepened with thought. “Can’t say so. After she died, and all those reporters came around, some of them liked to say so. But they said all kinds of things, and most weren’t in the same neighborhood as the truth.”

“Well, I have some information that makes me think she was sweet on someone. Very sweet. Can you think of anyone she spent time with in that last year, year and a half? She came out fairly often during that period.”

“She did,” he agreed. “Talk was, after her boy died, the talk was she was going to sell the place. Didn’t want to come here no more. But she didn’t sell. Didn’t have the parties or the people, either. Never brought the girl out again-that’d be your mother-that I saw or heard about. The best I can recall, she came alone. If anybody had wind of her seeing a man from around here, their jaws would’ve been working.”

“Weren’t so many people around to jaw back then,” Jack commented as he set his trowel. “I mean to say there weren’t so many houses around the farm here. Isn’t that right, Grandpa?”

“That’d be true. Weren’t houses on the fields across the road back then. Started planting them back twenty-five years on to thirty years back, I guess it was, when the Buckners sold their farm off.”

“So there weren’t any close neighbors.”

“Buckners would’ve been closest, I expect. About a quarter mile down.”

And that was interesting, Cilla decided. How hard could it be to have a secret affair when there were no nosy neighbors peeking out the window? The media would have been an extra challenge, but reporters hadn’t been camped on the shoulder of the road seven days a week when Janet had traveled to the farm.

According to what she’d read or been told, Janet had been an expert at keeping certain areas of her private life private. After her death, facts, fallacies, rumors, secrets and innuendos abounded.

And still, Cilla mused, the identity of Janet’s last lover remained blank. Just how badly, she wondered, did she want to fill in that blank in her grandmother’s life?

Badly enough, she admitted. The answer to that single question could finally give clarity to the bigger question.

Why did Janet Hardy die at thirty-nine?

CILLA FOUND BRINGING Steve home both thrilling and terrifying. He was alive, and considered well enough to leave the hospital. Two weeks before, she’d sat beside his bed, trying to will him out of a coma. Now she stood with him as he studied the farmhouse. He leaned on a cane, a ball cap on his head, dark glasses over his eyes, and his clothes bagging a bit from the weight he’d lost in the hospital.

She wanted to bundle him inside, into bed. And feed him soup.

The terror came from wondering if she was competent enough to tend to him.

“Stop staring at me, Cill.”

“You should probably get inside, out of the sun.”

“I’ve been inside, out of the sun. Feels good out here. I like the barn. Barns should always be red. Where the hell is everybody? Middle of the day, no trucks, no noise.”

“I told all the subs to take me off today’s schedule. I thought you’d need a little peace and quiet.”

“Jesus, Cilla, when did I ever want peace and quiet? You’re the one.”

“Fine, I wanted peace and quiet. We’re going in. You look shaky.”

“Goes with the territory these days. I’ve got it,” he snapped at her when she started to take his free arm. He managed the stairs, crossed the veranda.

The scowl smoothed away when he stepped inside the house, took his first look around.

“The plastering looks good. Getting rid of that door over there, widening the opening, that works for you. Better flow.”

“I’m thinking of using that area as a kind of morning room. It gets nice light. Then later on, if I’m still inclined, I could add on a sunroom, put in a hot tub, a couple of machines, some nice plants. Down the road.”

“Be sweet.”

And because she heard the strain in his voice, she nearly fussed about taking him up to bed. Instead she tried a different tack. The first step would be to get him upstairs.

“We’ve done a lot on the second floor. The master suite’s really coming along. You’ve got to see it.”

These steps were longer. She all but felt his weaker left side begin to tremble on the journey up. “We should’ve taken Ford up on his offer. You’d be more comfortable at his place.”

“I can walk up a damn flight of steps. Got a headache, that’s all. Goes with the territory now, too.”

“If you want to lie down… I’ve got your pills right here.”

“I don’t want to lie down. Yet.” He pushed her offered hand aside. Again, some of the strain eased on his face when he studied the new bedroom space. “You always had an eye. Good lines, good light. Nice closet, doll.”

“A girl’s best friend. I built the organizer yesterday.” She opened the door, gave a Vanna White flourish.

“Cedar paneling. Good work.”

“I learned from the best.”

He turned away to limp toward the bath, but she’d seen the look in his eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Sexy, classy,” he said of the bathroom. “Deco deal. Glass block for the shower wall? When did you decide on that?”

“Last-minute change. I liked the effect, and the way it looks with the black-and-white tiles.” She gave up, just leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”