Cover the lovely old floors with some fancy wall-to-wall carpet and paint the walls some hot color that made the eyes sting. Resentment bubbled as she marched into the bathroom to put a bunch of early rosebuds in a shallow bowl.

Anybody with any sense could see the place only needed a little care, a bit more color here and there. If she had any say in it . . .

She stopped herself, realizing that her fists were clenched, and her face, reflected in the mirror over the sink, was bright with fury. ‘‘Oh, Grace, what is wrong with you?’’ She shook her head, nearly laughed at herself. ‘‘In the first place you don’t have any say, and in the second you don’t know that she’s going to change a single thing.’’

It was just that she could, Grace admitted. And once you changed one thing, nothing was quite the same again.

Isn’t that what had happened between her and Ethan? Something had changed, and now she was both afraid and hopeful that things wouldn’t be quite the same.

He thought of her, she mused and sighed at her own reflection. And what did he think? She wasn’t a beauty, and she’d never filled out enough to be sexy. Now and then, she knew, she caught a man’s eye, but she never held it.

She wasn’t smart or particularly clever, had neither stimulating conversation nor flirtatious ways. Jack had once told her she had stability. And he’d convinced them both, for a while, that that was what he wanted. But stability wasn’t the sort of trait that attracted a man.

Maybe if her cheekbones were higher or her dimples deeper. Or if her lashes were thicker and darker. Maybe if that flirty curl hadn’t skipped a generation and left her hair straight as a pin.

What did Ethan think when he looked at her? She wished she had the courage to ask him.

She looked—and saw the ordinary.

When she had danced she hadn’t felt ordinary. She’d felt beautiful and special and deserving of her name. Dreamily, she dipped into a plié, settling crotch on heels, then lifting again. She’d have sworn her body sighed in pleasure. Indulging herself, she flowed into an old, well remembered movement, ending on a slow pirouette.

‘‘Ethan!’’ She squeaked it out, color flooding her cheeks when she saw him in the doorway.

‘‘I didn’t mean to startle you, but I didn’t want to interrupt.’’

‘‘Oh, well.’’ Mortified, she snatched up her cleaning rag, twisted it in her hands. ‘‘I was just . . . finishing up in here.’’

‘‘You always were a pretty dancer.’’ He’d promised himself he would put things back the way they’d been between them, so he smiled at her as he would a friend. ‘‘You always dance around the bathroom after you clean it?’’