So she’d had to think fast. “It’s just a favor for him! Through the church! I volunteered! The church asked for someone, and then he offered to pay me. Or, I mean—if you don’t want me to take the money…” She glanced up hopefully. JJ still thought that his father was paying her, so there would be no money coming to her. She should have told Byron in the first place that she was volunteering. It made a much better story.

Byron considered it. “Well, volunteer work, through the church. And it’s just temporary?”

She nodded.

“Well, all right, then, as long as you don’t spend too much time there,” he grumbled, and went back to his Deviled Hamburger Toast—a recipe out of the Quick and Easy section of her cookbook, since she had arrived home too late after finishing up the Mickelsons’ kitchen to make the pork roast she had planned.

“Oh, I won’t!” she said.

She had seduced him Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night, too, praying that a baby would catch. “Three Blind Mice” is a wonderful song, she repeated to herself like a mantra, but she still kept thinking about the Mickelson house, about the look in JJ Mickelson’s eyes, about the way she’d felt being in control, if only for a moment.

Glancing around with her accustomed furtiveness—she couldn’t get used to her visits to the Mickelson house being on the up and up—Dolly was about to raise her fist to knock again when the door swung open. She drew in her breath at the sight of JJ.

His clothes were the same, khaki pants and a white T-shirt, but they were clean, the white of the shirt practically gleaming, and he was freshly bathed and shaved, and standing on two legs. His usual sour odor was nearly masked by strong aftershave and whatever he had used to slick back his hair. He grinned, and his eyes managed a sort of brightness, even through their hazy film of leftover inebriation. “I cleaned the bathroom,” he said.

“Oh! Oh, my goodness. I never even thought—I should have cleaned that the minute you came—”

He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, let me show you the rest.”

As if the sight of him hadn’t been stunning enough, the living room actually gleamed, just as it had when she had left on Friday. Nothing was out of place. He had even folded his bedding neatly on the end of the sofa.

“Does this mean you’re staying?” she asked him finally, taking it all in.