“No apology necessary. You’re making some changes at the salon, I hear. That facial you gave Aidan made his face look smoother than a baby’s butt. If I come in, can you make my face look smoother than a baby’s butt?”

“Absolutely,” Lily said.

“And maybe while you work your magic, you’ll tell me all about what’s going on between you and my brother-in-law,” Penny said in a casual tone that was in direct opposition to her obscene brow waggle.

Lily kept her cool. “That won’t take long, since there’s nothing going on.”

Penny studied her a beat and then smiled. “Do you know what I do for a living these days?”

“No.”

“I’m an investigator for an insurance company, and I happen to specialize in reading people. That’s how I know you’ve told me two lies in two minutes.”

“I …” Lily shifted her weight. “Well, not two whole lies.”

“First lie,” Penny said, holding up a finger. “You’re not fine. And the second …” She added another finger to the first. “There is something going on between you and Aidan, some sort of relationship. I just don’t know what.”

Lily managed a laugh. “You know as well as I do, Aidan isn’t all that interested in relationships.”

“You’re wrong there,” Penny said. “He’s actually extremely attached to the people in his life and protects his relationships with them like a dog with a bone.” She let that sink in a beat. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll come into the Mane Attraction this week. Maybe we can have drinks after and count the ways in which the Kincaids drive us crazy.”

“You’re married to one of them,” Lily pointed out.

“Which makes me an expert on counting the ways …”

Lily laughed, and when Penny drove off she went back to the woodpile. All she needed were two, maybe three logs. That would warm the place up enough to get going. She carefully chose her logs, surprised at how heavy they were with last night’s rain soaked in. Damn, maybe she needed to lift fewer cookies and more weights.

She stacked the logs in her arms and climbed the stairs. At the top, something dropped from her load and hit the landing. Then it ran over her feet and vanished.

She screamed, took a step back, and—

Fell backward down the stairs.

The logs went with her, hitting each stair with a thump, making the entire fall—which seemed to happen in slow motion—super noisy.

She landed in a heap at the bottom, stunned.

There were a few beats of utter silence during which the only thing she could hear was the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears. Then—

“Don’t move!” A face swam into her focus. Lenny. “Jesus, are you all right?” he asked.