“Oh. You mean, you might almost imagine that I made up this story so I could appear naked and in need of help, the damsel in distress, needing big strong equally naked Vampire Bill to rescue me from the evil kidnappers?”

He nodded, looking a little embarrassed.

“I wish I had enough free time to sit around and think of things like that.” I admired the mind that could conceive of such a circuitous way to get what it wanted. “I think just knocking on your door and looking lonesome would probably get me where I wanted to be, if that was my goal. Or I could just say, ‘How ’bout it, big boy?’ I don’t think I need to be naked and in danger to get you lusty. Right?”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, and he was smiling a little. “And any time you’d like to try one of those other ploys, I’d be glad to play my part. Shall I apologize again?”

I smiled back. “No need. I don’t suppose you have rain slickers?”

Of course he didn’t, but he did have an umbrella. In short order he’d fetched my clothes from behind the bushes. While I wrung them out and put them in his dryer, he ran up the stairs to his bedroom, which he’d never slept in, to pull on jeans and a tank top—serious slumming, for Bill.

My clothes were going to take too long to dry, so clad in Aunt Edwina’s Spanish shawl and sheltered by Bill’s blue umbrella, I climbed into his car. He drove out to Hummingbird Road and over to my house. Putting the car in park, Bill hopped out to remove the tree trunk from the driveway as easily as if it had been a toothpick. We resumed our way to the house, pausing by my poor car, the driver’s door still open to the rain. The interior was soaked, but my would-be abductors hadn’t done anything to it. The key was still in the ignition, my purse still on the front seat along with the remaining groceries.

Bill eyed the broken plastic of the milk jug, and I wondered which one I’d hit, Hod or Kelvin.

We both pulled up to the back door, but while I was still gathering my grocery bag and my purse, Bill was out and into the house. I had a second’s worth of worry about how I was going to dry out my car before I made myself focus on the crisis at hand. I thought about what had happened to the fairy woman Cait, and concern about car upholstery left my head with gratifying speed.