“He went into a lot of things. There were some problems at home—an unpleasant divorce. Well, two actually. His mother got married for the third time when he was about twenty-five. This one seems to have stuck. Anyway, he came back to the area a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know.”

“You and Michael never ran in the same circles,” Josh said dryly. “The thing is, he took over the old place, where he grew up. His mother and stepfather relocated in Boca, and he bought the property from them. He’s raising horses now.”

“Horses. Hmm.” Not terribly interested, she began to walk the baby again. Josh would get to his point eventually, she knew. Sometimes he was such a lawyer, caging the meaning with words.

“Those storms we had a couple weeks ago?”

“Oh, bad ones,” she remembered. “Almost as bad as the fateful night of Laura Templeton’s birth.”

“Yeah, more mud slides. One of them destroyed Michael’s place.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She stopped walking and tuned in. “I’m really sorry. Was he hurt?”

“No. He managed to get himself and his stock out. But the house is a loss. It’s going to take some time to rebuild, if that’s what he wants to do. Meanwhile, he’ll need temporary lodgings for himself and his horses. Something he could rent, you know, for the short term. And I was thinking, the stables and the groom’s apartment above them aren’t being used.”

Alarm came first. “Josh.”

“Just hear me out. I know Mom and Dad were always a little, well, wary of him.”

“To say the least.”

“He’s an old friend,” Josh returned. “And a good one. He’s also handy. No one’s done any maintenance or repairs on that building in years, not since—” He broke off, cleared his throat.

“Not since I sold off the horses,” Laura finished. “Because Peter didn’t care for them, or the amount of time I put in with them.”

“The point is, the building should be looked after. Right now it’s just sitting there empty. You could use the rent, since you refuse to dip into Templeton capital to run this place.”

“I’m not going over that ground again.”

“Fine.” He recognized that set to her mouth and didn’t bother. “The rent from a building you’re not using would help you out. Right?”

“Yes, but—”

He held up a hand. He would cut through the logic and practicalities first. “You could use someone around here, in the short term, to do some heavy work, to put the stables back in shape. That’s something you simply can’t do yourself.”

“That’s true, but—”

Now, Josh thought, for the clincher. “And I have an old friend whose home has been washed out from under him. I’d consider it a personal favor.”

“Low blow,” she muttered.