If she had had feathers she would have preened them then. But take it slow, he thought, man who just lost his wife was the kind who encouraged trust. He wouldn’t jump this gal’s bones right off the bat. He did walk her home and go inside of her small prefab house when she opened the door to him. It wasn’t ritzy, she had a lot of plaques on the walls about loving yourself. Newish furniture in the Southwest style. A chrome-and-glass shelving unit filled with ceramic statues she called Yahdros. He said they were great, and she pointed out her pride and joy on the matching glass coffee table, a whole scene on a porcelain base with shepherds and sheep.

Yes, this would do. He got close to her, and when she looked up expectantly, he played shy again and gave her a chaste peck on the cheek. She jumped at the chance of seeing him again. Who was the fish and who the fisherman?

He let it take a couple of weeks to move in with her, not liking to spend all that money on a motel room, but knowing how you have to play it with a woman who had a nice place and a respectable job. Smart, too, with more than one book lying around. Beaufort picked them up when she wasn’t looking and read the descriptions. Sometimes he would feel almost dizzy at the amount he didn’t know about the world that other people did, as if he had been on another planet for thirty years. Looked like a kid’s book. Should he know an author by the name of J. K. Rowling? Was he famous? Beaufort had to be careful about what he should know, and it made him tense and sometimes a little testy with Gloria. But except for worrying about where he might need to catch up to her, he thought she was perfect. An old-fashioned broad, not too smart for her own good. But overall he bided his time, didn’t rush things even in bed.