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Ford watched Cilla take digitals of the pickup’s door His rage wanted to bubble up, but he couldn’t figure out what he’d do with it if he spewed

Kick the tires? Punch a couple of trees? Stalk around and froth at the mouth? None of the options see Instead he stood with his hands ja boil

"The cops’ll take pictures," he pointed out

"I wantto make this a priority"

"It could be connected They’ll be here in the ed, then turned the ca off The sun baked that ht as well be paint I’ll have to have the whole damn door done I haven’t had this truck three months"

While he watched, she kicked a tire He decided he’d been right She didn’t look satisfied "You can use my car until it’s fixed"

"I’ll drive this" Both the defiance and the telared out of her eyes "I know I’ lot before I went in to visit Steve He could’ve done this He could’ve hurt Steve He’s capable"

"Did Steve say anything about it?"

"We didn’t ask him He was still so weak and disoriented Probably to to the police tomorrow Damn it!"

She stalked for a few minutes but, he noted, didn’t froth at the mouth or punch a tree Then she stopped, heaved out a breath "Okay Okay I’ to let some asshole spoil this really excellent day Does the liquor store in town have any chane in stock?"

"Couldn’t say But I do"

"How co?"

"I was a Boy Scout Seriously," he said when she laughed "I have the ht, he decided, no asshole should be allowed to spoil an excellent day "How about we heat up a frozen pizza and pop the cork?"

From his perch on the veranda, Spock leaped up and danced

"Sounds good to me, too"As she moved in to kiss him, a horn beeped cheerfully

"Well," Ford said when a Mustang convertible in fire-engine red pulled in behind Cilla’s car, and Spock tore down the steps to spin in delirious circles, "it had to happen so on the ept red er seat, who tipped down her big, Jackie O sunglasses to peer at Cilla over the top as she stepped out onto peep-toe wedges to greet the bouncing, spinning dog

The driver unfolded hiht and the build that alerted Cilla, even before she got a good look at the shape of the jaw

Her palms automatically went damp This was definitely meet-the-parents An audition she invariably failed

"Hello, my cutie-pie!" Penny Sawyer clamped her hands on Ford’s cheeks once he’d walked down the slope to her She kissed hiravel soaked in whiskey

"Hey, Ma from the ?"

"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 ga blood" Penny turned her avid eyes on Cilla "But you do have company You don’t have to tell randmama" 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 s about you," he said to Cilla

"Heard hardly a syllable out of this one" Penny poked Ford again

"I a laugh again, then dug into her purse She pulled out an enorrowls, grunts and groans while his body quivered and his bulging eyes shone

"Be a s 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 hi a grandchild I’ve gotten out of this one"

"You have two of the huet 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 garandmother"

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 thee," Ford told Cilla

"Really? I’ve been there I bought son 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 e your et 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’ those pictures over for you to look at"

"Thank you Nice toCilla over for dinner soetting You hear?"

"Yes, ma’a 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 handso"

"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 eyeof corks Where’s the chaet 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 froallons of prihtly lesser amount of exterior white, for trim"

As her heart did a slow soht 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 dreahed, then rested her cheek against his in a gesture of siave to very few "Ford" She drew back, sighed again "My head’s too full of Steve to ht"

"Ah Well" He trailed a fingertip up her aruidelines than strict requirehed, caressed his cheek once ood 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 chane and not have sex"

Ford shook his head as he ree on the bottle "Al to do with a beautiful wouys 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 randmother 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 see 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 ot ured heads-up"

"I appreciate it Do you have, like, a definition for the terht as she looked at hilasses? 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 qualer

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 buular room, and his mother had hopped back on her broo in the attic, Cilla stood studying the skeleton of the ood for tomorrow’s inspection"

"I don’t knohy 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 ca," he said, grudgingly enough towith Mister Steaet it Don’t breathe downof 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 rabbed clean clothes, stuffed them in her purse Downstairs, she had a feords with Dobby, answered a hail from the kitchen area, then spent another ten s

She dashed across the road before soain, 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

"Oh, crap"

She looked down at the sweaty, grungy clothes she’d stripped off and dragged a hand through her clean hair "No, I a back into the her underwear and baggy work shorts in her T-shirt, she tied it off and carried the bundle with her

She opened the door to the kitchen, to a very surprised Ford

"Oh, hi Listen-"

"Ford, you didn’t tell us you had company"

"I didn’t know I did Hey, Cilla"

Her expression went frohtly harried to mildly ill as she looked over and saw Ford’sat the kitchen bar with an older ainst her bare legs "Oh God Oh God Just God I’rabbed her arht down the steps You’ve randfather, Charlie Quint"

"Oh, well, hello I apologize I’m, well, what can I say? Ford, I didn’t want to interrupt you I thought you’d be working They had to turn the water off at my place for a while, so I ran over to use your shower downstairs-thanks for that And then realized that when I was being distracted by varieties of spirea, I lefton the veranda I ca over there and, you know, getting them My clothes"

"Sure" He sniffed at her "My soap smells better on you than on lass of iced tea" Penny rose to get a glass

"Oh, don’t bother, I-"

"No bother Ford, go on now, get this girl her clothes"

"All right But it’s kind of a shas on a pretty woman are easy on the eyes Even old eyes You look more like her in person than you do in pictures I’ve seen of you"

How much more aard could it be? Cilla wondered when Ford winked and slipped out "You knew randmother"

"I did I fell in love with her the first tiirl, and I was just a boy, and that was the sweetest kind of puppy love You never forget your first"

"No, I guess you don’t"