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It was still about fifteen minutes before the appointed lunchtime, so I left the room in search of Owen His room turned out to be almost directly across the hall from mine, and I noticed that the hallway floorboards creaked loudly I doubted it would be a factor in this visit, but any nighttireat caution We had a similar squeaky spot in our house back ho carefully

Owen’s room looked less like a showplace out of a bed-and-breakfast in a travel azine and more like a room someone had actually lived in There was a twin bed shoved into a corner Most of the walls in the room were covered in bookcases, some of them with trophies lined up on top of them Several books were already scattered on the bed and on the floor by the bed Sometimes I suspected books automatically jumped off the shelf whenever Owen entered a roo at two of the books as though he was cross-referencing so stood open on the floor in front of the closet, a shirt hanging halfway out of it, like he’d been sidetracked while unpacking

I tapped lightly on the door frauiltily Then he saw ht be Gloria I guess I’d better finish unpacking"

He got up to get back to work, and I took his spot on the bed I glanced at the books he’d been reading, but neither was in English From inside the closet he said, "I’d tell you not to worry about Gloria because she’s not always this way, but it wouldn’t be true"

I knew I should tell hi to worry about, but that wasn’t true, either Instead I said, "It see shock She may have kissed me one other time in my life, but I can’t think of a specific incident" He came back out into the roo, do you?"

As old as Gloria seemed to be, that probably wasn’t entirely out of the question, but the idea here was to reassure his were better at Thanksgiving"

He sat heavily on the bed, a necktie hanging fronosis"

"Or , that she kno to deal with you now that you’re an adult"

"You don’t knoeird this is"

"I got the picture when Jaht she’d lost it And if he thinks this is odd, then surely there’s not so with her He’d knoouldn’t he?"

Soht not tell hi on, but she doesn’t drive, so he’d be the one taking her to any doctor’s appointlanced down at the necktie he held, as if just realizing that he’d let hiain

While he returned to the closet to finish unpacking, I decided to distract hi seeot hi before I left hoht, I did spoil hiry puppy when I left"

"He’s a Lab He would have been attention-hungry no matter what you did But he does see I had Cletus was as dumb as a box of rocks"

He ca, and sat beside me on the bed "Cletus? Seriously?"

"Seriously Re"

Still grinning, he stood and extended a hand to rand tour before lunch?"

I took his hand and let hi my hand, out into the hallway and toward the stairs "Over on that end of the house is Jauest roo his tail when he saw us co down the stairs "You’ve already seen the parlor" At the botto joined us as ent to the back of the house "And this is James’s study" The study door was open, and I saw that Ja by the fireplace The room looked a lot like Owen’s office, cluttered with books and papers

James looked up at us "Ah, you’re all settled in, then?"

"Yes, sir," I said

He addressed Owen, a slight twinkle in his eye "I trust everything was the way you left it at Thanksgiving I wouldn’t let her put away those books because I had a feeling you were onto so"