All this happened in a split second. I smiled. She smiled.

"Hi," she said. "Is Barr home?"

"Um, no. Not right now. Can I help you?"

"Well, could you tell him Hannah stopped by? And that I'm staying at the Horse Acres Bed and Breakfast, on the south side of town?"

"I'll tell him. Will he know who you are?" Meaning, of course, that I wanted to know.

Hannah smirked. "Oh, I think he'll know. I'm his wife, after all."

SIX

I NEVER REALLY KNEW what feeling the term "thunderstruck" referred to until that moment. But it seemed to cover the stomachswooping, knee-buckling sensation those last words engendered.

Hannah responded to my silence with a perky, "Okay, then. Thanks."

Then she turned and walked down the narrow sidewalk to a nondescript economy rental car and got in. I stood stupidly in the doorway, and she waved at me as she pulled away. Of its own volition, my right hand lifted in response.

I remained rooted there for a hundred years or so, inhaling floral calm, thinking thorny thoughts, unwilling to turn around and go back inside. So I didn't. Ultimately, I walked the rest of the way out, locked the door behind me, and went to my own vehicle.

Doppelganger.

Wife?

Of course Barr would have a good explanation for all this. Maybe she was crazy. I'd picked up a stalker a few months back; maybe it was his turn.

A stalker who looked almost exactly like me, only… better.

Sure.

I thought about living in that little house with him. I thought again about leaving Meghan and Erin, Brodie, the chickens only recently housed in the backyard. The chicken project had been my baby. They'd only laid five eggs so far.

What was I thinking? I could leave all that to move in with… a married man? Hardly.

Meghan wasn't home. Erin wasn't home. There was no one to tell about Hannah except Brodie, and even he was occupied with his chicken guarding. So I did what I always do when I don't know what else to do: I worked.

As I mixed the dry ingredients for the bath fizzies a local woman had commissioned as favors for a large bridal shower, I waited for the storm. Perhaps I was in the eye. Soon the rain would begin to fall fast and furious.

It never did, though. The bone-crushing sadness and disappointment remained at bay.

Instead, I got spitting mad.

Barr would have a good explanation for Hannah? And what might that be? Was there such a thing as a good explanation for having your wife show up and leave a message with the woman you were trying to bamboozle into cohabitating with you?

Well, I'd like to know what it was, then.

I considered going to the police station and making a scene.

Nah. I'd only end up looking like an idiot.

My watch showed a few minutes before six o'clock. He'd be home in an hour or so. Why not meet him at the front door like a good little girlfriend? That had, after all, been my original plan. I'd be damned if I'd cook him dinner now, though.

Dusting the citric acid off my hands, I went upstairs to my bedroom. Changed into my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that made my butt look reasonably small. Put on a tank top with a low-cut neckline. A pair of beaded sandals that showed off my pretty red toenails. I sprayed and scrunched my hair into something that looked downright feisty. Then I spent another ten minutes calming it down; no reason to be so obvious.

Meghan opened the front door as I came down the stairs. Erin trailed behind her, reading a book while shuffling up the sidewalk.

"Hey, I thought you were spending the evening at Barr's." My housemate turned and placed a canvas bag of books from the Cadyville library on the bench by the door.

"I'm going back over there. But I won't be gone long."

She whirled to face me. "What's wrong?" Pouncing on something in my tone. Her eyes narrowed as she took in my ensemble.

Erin tripped on the door frame as she entered the house, eyes never leaving the copy of An Acceptable Time she held open with both hands. I glanced down as she caught herself and continued past me into the kitchen.

"I'll tell you later," I said.

"She's in another world. Tell me now." Refusing to be put off.

"I'm going back to ask him about the woman who showed up on his doorstep when I was there earlier."

"Woman?"

"Yeah. The one who looks freakishly like me."

She raised one eyebrow.

"The one who says she's Barr's wife."

The other eyebrow joined the first.

"Gotta go," I said, brushing by her. "Jealousy calls."

Outside, I yanked the door of the Toyota open so hard the hinges creaked.

Okay, so I had to admit it: I was hungry. The smell of grilling meat infused the air as I sat on the front step of Barr's little house. My growling stomach did not help my frame of mind, which was good. I needed a reservoir of anger to draw from, strength to face the idea that the future I had anticipated might well be swirling down the drain. So I sat hunched around my dudgeon and waited for him to come home.

End of June in the Pacific Northwest. Red-winged blackbirds called liquidly to each other in the wetland down the hill to the north. It would be light until well after nine o'clock, and the sky still held a high, thin blue. Only a few clouds crouched on the horizon, waiting to erupt into the crazy pastels of the impending sunset: pinks and oranges, peach and yellow, eventually morphing to red against the navy sky. The splash of colors to come reminded me of the bamboo I'd been hoping to try in my lesson with Ruth. The stuff would be like spinning clouds, so the soft colors were more than fitting. I wondered whether the woman who dyed the roving, a local named Thea Hawke, had felt compelled to imitate the sunset as she'd chosen her dyes and lovingly applied them to the ethereal fiber.

Oh, brother, Sophie Mae. Get a grip. Stop musing about spinning and think about what you're going to say to Barr when he gets here.

My stomach growled again. The oblique angle of the light niggled at my memory. This was the time of day that, as a child, was unavailable in the other seasons. After dinnertime, still light enough to play outside, offering the promise of packing in more activity before parental summons brought you in for bed. Innocent times. Long gone times.

Sometimes being an adult got pretty darn old, I thought. Was there any possible way to account for Hannah's appearance out of nowhere, her looks, her wifeness? I couldn't imagine a scenario in which Barr hadn't lied to me. Just flat-out lied.

I hated being lied to. My anger flared again, accompanied by a hot, sick feeling.

My head jerked up at the sound of a slowing engine and tires on concrete. Barr's car door opened and cowboy boots hit the ground. He strode toward me. Slowly, I stood.

"What a nice surprise, finding you here," he said. "You're not going to believe it, but we already have a pretty viable suspect."

His arms encircled me, and I stifled the urge to push him away. Instead I stood quietly and waited. Barr pulled back, a puzzled look in his eyes. "Ariel was having an affair with Scott Popper. We think Chris may have had something to do with it." Regret passed over his features, and I couldn't help but remember his obvious pity for Chris at the funeral.

Then he shook his head, and his features smoothed. He smiled down at me. "You look great, by the way. Did you do something different with your hair?"