Lizabeth leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk. "It's from a relative. Did you read the return address? It's from a J. Hallahan."

"I know who it's from."

"Ah-hah." She tapped her index finger on the envelope. It seemed to her that copulation carried some privileges-such as the right to be nosy. "So, who's this J. Hallahan?"

"He's my father."

Lizabeth's eyebrows shot up in silent question.

"It's a request for money, and I've already sent some. There's no reason to open the envelope. The letters are always the same." He should tell her about it, he thought, but he hated dragging all those skeletons out of the closet. He didn't want to seem pitiable in her eyes. And he didn't want to seem callous. And he knew if he told her he would appear to be both. When he was eighteen he'd literally run away from his past. In some ways he was still running. Always would be. He could see she was concerned about the contents of the letter, so he took it from her, opened it, and glanced over his father's almost unreadable scrawl. His mouth curved into the tight, crooked smile he reserved for those times when he managed to find some wry humor in distasteful situations. "No surprises here," he said, handing the letter to her so she could read it for herself. "Someday well sit down with a bottle of wine and tell each other all our grim family secrets. Fortunately, I haven't got the time to do it right now." He stood with his hands on his hips, his brows drawn together in a scowl. "Damn, I wish we could find those forms." His eyes swept over the desk, the file cabinets, the cases of cola stacked on the floor. A guilty smile spread across his face. "I remember! It was raining when I brought the forms back from the municipal building." He went to the open area behind the stairwell, picked up a pair of rubber boots caked with dried mud, and under the boots he found the forms. "I didn't want to get the floor dirty," he explained, wiping at the brown smudges.

Lizabeth bit her lower lip and considered Matthew Hallahan's husband potential. He was sensitive, sexy, and he had a decent Income, she decided-but he'd be hell to housebreak. She took the forms from him and smoothed them out on the desktop. "Want me to have a go at this?"

"That'd be great." He noticed the neat piles of papers on the desk. She'd cleaned up the dried splotches where he'd spilled coffee and chicken noodle soup, and she'd gotten the smear of roofing tar off the telephone. The salami sub had been removed from his out box, and had been replaced with a batch of stamped, unsealed envelopes.

Lizabeth gestured to the envelopes. "There were a few things I felt comfortable handling, but you'd better check everything just to make sure. I've tried to divide the rest up into categories. Bills, bids, contracts. I've filed the catalogs and advertisements."

She'd shut off the air-conditioning and opened the sliding patio door, letting the moist morning air pour into the basement. Her hair had begun to curl in ringlets that pressed against her temples and straggled over her forehead, and her face was alive with a sense of accomplishment. Matt watched her push the hair back from her face, and felt himself go breathless. Every movement she made excited him, every part of her seemed perfect, exquisite. He wanted to reach out and tangle his hand in her hair. He wanted to kiss the spot of downy-soft skin in front of her earlobe. He wanted to hear the little catch in her throat that meant passion had caught her by surprise, had overwhelmed her, had rushed through her like a flash fire. Another time, he told himself. He wasn't in the mood to start something he couldn't finish. Three hours of sleep had left him with a short fuse. He was trying to impress the lady with his compassion and sensitivity. So he struggled to keep up the casual attitude they normally fell into during work hours.

She was the sort of woman who always rose to a challenge, he thought. And she took pride in a job well done. He liked that in a person. He didn't have a bunch of fancy degrees behind his name, but he knew everything there was to know about building houses. He could figure out a mortgage payment faster than a calculator. And he knew about people. He knew talent when he saw it, and he knew he needed Lizabeth in the office almost as badly as he needed her in his life. "Lizabeth, you've just been promoted to General Office Manager. You're going to like this job. It pays twice as much as your old one."

"Can you afford to do that?"

Matt glanced down at the wrinkled forms on the desk. "I can't afford not to. I'm sinking. I build beautiful houses, but I'm an unorganized slob."

It was the truth, Lizabeth thought. He was a slob, and he was sinking. From what she'd seen this morning, bills were going unpaid through negligence, several bids had expired, and food poisoning had to be a constant danger. "Do I work the same hours?"

"You work whatever hours you want. If you can get the job done in three hours and want to go home, that's fine by me. Ill pay you for a full day anyway." And she would be rested by evening, he thought. He had plans for her evenings.

She was still working at five-thirty. "I'm almost done," she said, running her finger down a column of numbers. "I've made out tomorrow's payroll checks, and I think I've got your accounting system figured out. It's no wonder you couldn't run this office while you were building houses. Five years ago, when you and Frank went into business for yourselves, you were building one house at a time, and the paperwork was manageable. You're now building three houses on this site, and you have a fifteen-acre parcel of land seven miles south of here that you're having partially cleared for future development. You've expanded your business, but you haven't expanded your support staff. For starters, I think you need a professional accountant. And I think you need to upgrade your office equipment."

"I know. Frank and I had been talking about it, and then he broke his hip, and I didn't have time to look into any of that stuff. Maybe you could do it for me. Find us an accountant, and buy whatever you think we need." He closed the ledger she was studying. "Right now, we need to go home. You know how Elsie hates people being late for dinner. If I don't get you home by six she won't feed me."

Lizabeth stood and stretched and realized they'd driven to work on the Harley. That meant they were going to have to go home on the Harley. Unless she chickened out and walked. The thought prompted a small groan that was caught and squelched midway in her throat. She wasn't sure what the groan represented. Fear? Excitement? Embarrassment? She followed Matt up the stairs and said a silent prayer that a miracle would happen and they could sneak into her driveway without anyone noticing. If she was going to hyperventilate, she'd prefer to do it with some privacy.

"Lord, Lizabeth," Matt said, "you look like you're going to keel over, and you haven't even gotten on the bike yet." He massaged the back of her neck. "You have to relax."

"I'm relaxed," Lizabeth said.

"Honey, you're not breathing. Listen, we could walk. Or I could zip on home and come back for you in the truck." He felt her spine stiffen, felt determination push aside fear. She was a fighter. She wasn't a woman who gave in to weakness. Hawkins blood, Elsie would say. And she might be right. The thought brought a smile to his lips.

"What's so funny?"

"I was just thinking that you and Elsie are a lot alike."

"Omigod."

Ten minutes later they pulled into Lizabeth's driveway, and a silver Lincoln pulled up behind them. Matt and Lizabeth got off the bike, removed their helmets and watched Paul Kane emerge from his air-conditioned car. His hair was dark, peppered with gray at the temples. His features were classic all-American and as bland as white bread. He was wearing a gray pin-striped, summer-wool, custom-tailored suit, starched pinpoint oxford-cloth cotton shirt, burgundy silk foulard tie. The first expression to register on his face was surprise, quickly followed by undisguised disgust.