“Emily wanted to watch, so it made more sense for me to be the model,” she said crisply. Crisp was the only way she could speak for fear her voice might crack otherwise. There was nothing extraordinary about building client rapport—all three of them knew that and practiced it as much as possible. When you spent six full weeks with someone, working days and nights, learning the intricacies of their routines so you could fit a puppy in seamlessly, there was a certain amount of intimacy involved.

There was, however, everything extraordinary about sitting at Ford’s fuzzy-red-stockinged feet while he ran his fingers over her scalp. In Lila’s experience, that level of intimacy existed somewhere been second and third base, a shortstop detour before things started to get hot and heavy. Especially since Dawn was right—Ford’s fingers had been both large and nimble. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he did for a living, but she knew it involved drawing of some sort. The strength of his of hands had proved it. He’d twisted and turned and looped her hair with a kind of dexterity that made her flustered to remember even now.

“I’d always considered myself something of a wizard at this,” he’d said, laughing, after the first failed attempt. “I see now that I’ve met my master. Do you mind if we try again?”

She had minded. She’d minded a lot.

But of course she couldn’t say so. It was out of the question to admit that the sensation of his hands working through her long, thick hair led inexorably to ideas about all the other things he might be capable of doing with them. That would only give power to this idea that she was attracted to him, that the same flirtatious routine he pulled on every woman under the age of fifty was capable of knocking her knees together until they were nothing but gelatin.

“This is the third attempt, if it makes you feel any better,” Lila said. “You should have seen what I looked like after the first one.”

Her sisters would have probably kept going in this vein, demanding answers and details and in-depth descriptions of the calluses on every one of Ford’s fingers, but they were interrupted by a flash of unmistakable blinding white from the restaurant doors.

Well, it would be more accurate to say that they were interrupted by the man attached to that preternatural flash, but the idea held fast. Lila’s heart, however, did not. It plummeted to the pit of her stomach, holding her in place.

“My, my, isn’t this a pleasant surprise.” The man approached their table and bestowed his dazzling smile equally on all the Vasquez sisters. “It’s not often that I’m lucky enough to find the three of you together. My ship must have finally come in.”