“I love you,” Mitch mumbled to her image.

The cardboard rainbow toppled over, and Shay blushed as she bent to pick it up. “You’ll have to be patient,” said the screen Shay. “I rented this camera and I don’t know how to work it.”

He heard Alice say, off-camera, “I’ll be going now. Good luck, dear.” A door clicked shut.

The rainbow threatened to fall again and Shay steadied it before going on. The pace of her living room production picked up speed.

“Mitch Prescott!” she crowed so suddenly and so volubly that he started. “Do I have a deal for you!”

Mitch leaned forward on the couch because the picture on the screen seemed blurry. He told himself that the video camera must have been out of focus.

“We all know that rainbows are a symbol of hope,” Shay went on with an enthusiasm that would have put Marvin Reese to shame. She thumped the rainbow in question and it toppled to the floor again; part of Shay’s TV set and the end of her sofa came into view. Resolutely she wrestled the prop back into place. “But rainbows can get a bit ragged, can’t they?”

Mitch almost expected a toll-free number to appear on the screen, along with an order to have his credit card information ready. He grinned and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

“I’m offering you a brand-new rainbow, Mitch Prescott,” Shay went on, in a gentle voice. Then, suddenly, she made him jump again. “But wait!” she cried. “There’s still more!”

Mitch leaned forward.

“With this rainbow—” this time she held on to it with one hand while thumping it for emphasis with the other “—you get one wife, guaranteed to love you always. Yes, that’s right! Even if you get bored and go back to doing dangerous things and writing books about nasty people, this wife will still love you. She’ll laugh with you, she’ll cry with you, and if worse comes to worst, she’ll even fold your socks. Call now, because a woman this good won’t last long! She’s ready to deal!”

Shay left the rainbow to its own devices and came closer to the camera, peering into the lens. “You wanted a proposal and this is it. Will you marry me, Mitch?”

Mitch was overwhelmed with a crazy tangle of emotions; one by one, he unwound them, defined them. There was love, of course; he felt a tenderness so deep that it was almost wounding. There was admiration, there was humor, there was gratitude. He knew, perhaps better than anyone else could have, what it had cost Shay to lay all her emotional cards on the table.

The screen went blank, then the menu options popped back up. He left the couch, pressed the play button and watched the movie again, this time standing, his arms folded across his chest as if to brace himself against some tidal wave of emotion.

Shay felt downright dissolute, waking up in a faux-mink coat, curled up around the telephone as though it were a teddy bear.