The balmy afternoon air carried the scent of honeysuckle, brought into full bloom by the scorching temperatures during Teacher Days. Tomorrow the schools would reopen and she would be back at work. Right now she was simply enjoying some quiet time with Bobby Joe.

Pretending to write his name on the glass, he underlined it with a flourish. “Robert Joseph Weston. It fits just fine.”

The sign painter scraped away on the other side.

The glass reflected the county courthouse right across the street, a proud but somewhat faded relic that was undergoing restoration. Its once white columns supported ornate architecture and protected a statue of blindfolded Justice holding up a scale. It was probably a good thing the statue couldn’t see the pigeons sunning themselves at her marble feet. One flew up into the scale and settled there with a flutter of gray wings.

“Can’t beat the location.” He gestured to Mr. Corlear to let them in and waved her through the open door with a flourish.

The courthouse was still used for civil case trials but that was about it. She wasn’t sure what he meant. “You’re not an attorney.”

“No.” Bobby Joe took her elbow and guided her into the next room. “But all the mortgages and deeds and claims and property tax files are going to be moved back here from the new facility out on the highway.”

“Are you sure?”

Mary Beth vaguely remembered that truckloads of documents had been transferred to climate-controlled storage in a new facility out on Route 37 when she’d been a kid. The joke had been that a century-old clerk had to be coaxed out of the nursing home to make sense of it all.

Bobby Joe might be overly optimistic about his chances here. The other storefronts and old offices clustered around the courthouse were beginning to find tenants, but the center of town wasn’t a hive of activity.

“Sure as I can be,” he said breezily. “There are two upscale boutiques about to open, so it’s not like I’m flying solo. We’re all going after clients with money.”

“Are there that many around here?”

“It’ll happen.” His confidence wasn’t contagious. Mary Beth gave him a dubious look but didn’t argue.

“With an office here, I’ll know the clerks and county officers and find out useful information ahead of the competition.”

“Okay. Go for it then.”

Her flat statement made him frown. “I intend to. Connections are everything in real estate.”

The cell phone in his jacket pocket chimed. Bobby Joe excused himself to take the call. Mary Beth welcomed the chance to drift through the empty rooms on the lower floor. The echoing coolness was a relief after the sultry day, and the shadowy dimness calmed her. It would be nice if Parr had no claim on her imagination. But every second she had to herself, she thought about him.