As the two men shook, Molly watched the temperamental artist turn into a football fan. “You had a pretty good season.”

“Could have been better.”

“I guess you can’t win them all.”

As the conversation turned to the Stars, Molly gazed at the three of them. What an odd group of people to have come together in this isolated place. A football player, an artist, and a movie star.

Here on Gilligan’s Isle.

She smiled and took the plates from Kevin, who seemed to be enjoying the conversation, then plopped them on a tray and delivered them to the dining room. Luckily there were no complaints about the eggs. She filled two mugs from the coffee urn, picked up an extra cream and sugar, and carried it all back to the kitchen.

Kevin was leaning against the pantry door ignoring Lilly while he spoke to Jenner. “… heard in town that lots of people are visiting Wind Lake hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Apparently you’ve been a boon to local tourism.”

“Not by choice.” Jenner took the coffee Molly set in front of him and leaned back in his chair. He looked easy in his skin, she thought. Solidly built, a little grizzled, an artist disguised as a rugged outdoorsman. “As soon as word got around that I’d built a house here, all kinds of idiots started showing up.”

Lilly accepted the spoon Molly handed her and began stirring her coffee. “You don’t seem to think much of your admirers, Mr. Jenner.”

“They’re impressed by my fame, not my work. They start babbling about how they’re so honored to meet me, but three-quarters of them wouldn’t know one of my paintings if it bit ’em on the ass.”

As one who’d babbled, Molly couldn’t let that pass. “Mamie in Earnest, painted in 1968, a very early watercolor.” She poured out the batter onto the griddle. “An emotionally complex work with a deceptive simplicity of line. Tokens, painted around 1971, a dry brush watercolor. The critics hated it, but they were wrong. From 1996 to 1998 you concentrated on acrylics with the Desert Series. Stylistically, those paintings are a pastiche—postmodern eclecticism, classicism, with a nod toward the Impressionists that only you could have pulled off.”

Kevin smiled. “Molly’s summa cum laude. Northwestern. She writes bunny books. My personal favorite of your paintings is a landscape—don’t have a clue when you painted it or what the critics had to say about it—but there’s this kid in the distance and I like it.”

“I love Street Girl,” Lilly said. “A solitary female figure on an urban street, worn-down red shoes, a hopeless expression on her face. Ten years ago it sold for twenty-two thousand dollars.”

“Twenty-four.”

“Twenty-two,” she said smoothly. “I bought it.”

For the first time Liam Jenner seemed to be at a loss for words. But not for long. “What do you do for a living?”