“I didn’t say I didn’t like thin women.”

“That’s not the point. You can come back and complain while I cook the hamburgers.”

As they walked down the hall, Cliff noticed a few bare spots where she’d removed strips of wallpaper. Apparently she was serious about taking on the overwhelming job of redoing the house. When they passed the music room, he glanced in at her piano and wondered why. She was in the position of being able to hire a fleet of decorators and craftsmen. The job could be done in weeks, rather than the months, even years, it promised to take this way. The freshly sanded floor in the kitchen caught his eye.

“Nice job.” Automatically, he crouched down to run his fingers over the floor’s surface. The dog took this as an invitation to lick his face.

Maggie lifted a brow. “Well, thank you.”

Catching the tone, he looked up at her. He couldn’t deny that he’d been giving her a hard time from the outset. He had his reasons. The primary one as Cliff saw it now was her effect on him. “The question is,” he said, rising again, “why you’re doing it.”

“The floor needed it.” She turned to the counter to begin making patties.

“I meant why you’re doing it.”

“It’s my house.”

He wandered over to stand beside her. Again, he found himself watching her hands. “Did you sand your own floors in California?”

“No.” Annoyed, she set the patties under the broiler. “How many can you eat?”

“One’ll do. Why are you sanding floors and hanging wallpaper?”

“Because it’s my house.” Maggie grabbed a head of lettuce from the refrigerator and began to shred it for salad.

“It was your house in California, too.”

“Not the way this is.” She dropped the lettuce and faced him. Impatience, annoyance, frustration—the emotions were plainly on the surface for him to see. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t care if you understand. This house is special. Even after everything that’s happened, it’s special.”

No, he didn’t understand, but he discovered he wanted to. “The police have contacted you, then.”

“Yes.” She began to shred lettuce with a vengeance. “That investigator, Lieutenant Reiker, was here this morning.” Her fingers dug into the cold, wet leaves. “Damn it, Cliff, I feel gruesome. I called Joyce and felt like an idiot, an intruder. There was nothing I could say.”

“Did you?” he murmured. Strange that Joyce hadn’t said anything about it, he thought. Then again, Joyce had said very little to him. “There isn’t anything for you to say.” He put his hands on her shoulders and felt the tension ripple. “This is something Joyce and her mother and the police have to deal with. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“I tell myself that,” she said quietly. “Intellectually, I know it’s true, but—” She turned, because she needed someone. Because, she admitted, she needed him. “It happened right outside. I’m involved, connected, whether I want to be or not. A man was murdered a few yards from my house. He was killed in a spot where I’d planned to put a nice quiet pond, and now—”