The good news was that she’d been able to reach Pete Semple’s toolshed and change without attracting any attention except from Pete’s dachshund Eddie, who was used to seeing Dee walk naked out of green fog. The better news was that Pete hadn’t found her clothes and tossed them before she needed them.

The bad news was that the suit she’d stashed with Pete was the heaviest one she owned, meant for winter. Since the day had grown unseasonably warm and muggy, she itched like a mange victim and smelled vaguely like damp motor oil. Worse than that, though, it seemed she’d forgotten to pack underwear. Which was why she kept readjusting her clothes. The wool skirt was bad. The stiff cotton blouse was pure torture.

‘Anything else, there, Dee?’ a gravelly voice asked in her ear.

She jotted down the information she’d just received from Salem’s Fork’s only police detective and fiddled with her Bluetooth. ‘No, Larry. I think a clean police record is all a girl could ask for. Thanks. I really appreciate the help.’

‘Not at all. The chief gave me a heads-up on this guy when he heard he was at your house this morning. I know we didn’t find nothin, but you be careful.’

‘Thanks, Larry. You give my best to Eleanor’

She hung up, checking off another item on her list. She wasn’t going to be caught unprepared again. By the time she got off work, she was going to know everything there was to know about Danny James. Then she was going to make a preemptive strike and surprise him before he surprised her. He could use a little unsettling. Actually, he could use a mallet to the head. Ready or not, here I come, indeed.

Of course it didn’t go the way she planned. God forbid she should ever once be prepared for the disasters in her life. She’d just added her notes from Larry to the ones she’d shoved in her desk drawer when a shadow fell across her desk.

‘No, Mike,’ she said, expecting to see the latest junior VP standing there asking for a sexual harassment suit. ‘I won’t suck your toes and make you a happy man.’

She looked up and froze.

Danny James was standing there right in front of her desk, his hair damp enough to curl, his physique a thing to make grown women weep. Oh, she hadn’t realized it before. His eyes were blue. Not just blue. Cobalt-teal blue. Drop-your-business-suit-and-take-a-sailboat-to-paradise blue. Breathtakingly bright and shrewd as sin. Dee was mesmerized.

‘Ca…’ Embarrassed at the squeak that came out of her throat, she tried again, perfectly aware that her cheeks were flaming. ‘Can I help you?’

She tried so hard to ignore the pure shaft of heat that ripped through her. Sharp heat, sizzling like hot oil in a frying pan. She wondered if Mr James could possibly have felt it, too. His smile sagged, and his eyes had suddenly grown very dark.

‘If sucking toes is part of this bank’s service,’ he said, ‘I’m surprised you don’t have a line all the way around the block.’

Dee flushed like a hormonal teen. Lovely. Multiple humiliations in a single day. ‘Please excuse me. Now, can I help you?’

His smile reappeared. ‘They said I should see you to open an account.’ He held out his hand. ‘You are Deirdre O’Brien?’

Dumbly, Dee took it. He didn’t shake, though. He just held on. Dee just stared.

This had to stop. She’d never reacted to anyone like this in her life. And to make matters worse, he was conjuring up that damn fantasy again. Just a flash, the way it had appeared in that swirl of dust. His skin had been tanned, she would swear it, with just a sheen of sweat across his back, so that it gleamed in the light of the high sun. And his smile. Oh, his smile.

It couldn’t have been his smile. She had to stop this. Ready or not…

She pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. It was better than cursing. ‘May I sit?’ he asked.

He was in a blue open-neck oxford shirt now, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his jeans newer, but no less obscene. Dee ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips.

‘Uh, of course.’ She gave a limp little wave to the chair across from her. ‘What kind of account do you want, Mr…?’

‘James,’ he said, settling into the chair. ‘Danny James. Didn’t your sister say I’d be by?’

‘Oh.’ She sucked in a breath, trying to look calm. ‘That.’

‘Yes.’ His smile expanded, all teeth and delight. ‘That. I’d like very much to take you to dinner tonight.’

She did not smile back. ‘I thought you were opening an account.’

‘Well, I can do that, too. I just didn’t want to miss you again. I’d really like to talk to you.’

Dee made it a point to open the drawer that held her paperwork. ‘And I really don’t want to talk to you. Exactly what kind of account would you like, Mr James? We have several excellent ones to choose from.’

‘Don’t all those bobby pins hurt your head?’

Dee caught herself before she instinctively reached up to check her chignon. It was her work hair. Clean and tidy and out of the way. Her hair was long and curly and bright red, the banner of an Irish witch, Aunt Xan had always told her. So it was always a battle of wills for control. And yes, the pins did hurt her head. It took a lot to subdue all that unruliness.

‘Oddly enough, Mr James, that doesn’t answer my question. What kind of account did you say?’

How could that grin get brighter? He leaned back in his chair as if he were in his living room. ‘You pick one for me. I’m sure you know better than I.’

Dee sighed, her headache suddenly worse. ‘I really do have work to do, Mr James. If you aren’t here on bank business, I’d have to ask you to excuse me.’

He pulled a checkbook from his breast pocket. ‘But I am. I told you. I’d like to open an account. With… will fifty thousand do?’

Dee almost choked on her tongue. ‘Fifty… yes.’

Her hands actually trembled as she separated out the papers for the interest-bearing checking account – with overdraft protection – and passed them over. And you’d like to transfer that from your bank in Chicago?’

He smiled, an eyebrow lifted. ‘You do research, too, do you?’

‘It’s why God invented Google.’ She pulled out a Third Virginia Bank pen and laid it on top of the forms. ‘From what I’ve learned you are a book researcher, which must pay better than I thought, if you have fifty thousand dollars to throw around. You work for the author Mark Delaney, which is impressive, as he actually does make quite a bit of money and has quite a few literary awards for a horror writer.’

‘Alternative history. Please. And just to set the record straight, you were right to think that researchers don’t make much money. The money’s Mark’s.’

Dee shrugged. ‘You have no wants or warrants, you rent your apartment, and you have current licenses for a motorcycle and a Jeep. I’m still waiting on your credit report. All told, though, pretty boring.’

He grinned up from where he was signing his check with a flourish. ‘Actually, not boring at all. I get to go places other people don’t and talk to people I’d never get to meet and learn things I’ve always wanted to know. Since Mr Delaney doesn’t like to mingle, I get to do it for him. I even get to meet lovely people like you and your sisters. It may not be romantic, but I’m having fun.’

She bet he was. If the reactions she’d seen in town were any indication, he could get a rock to talk to him. And he’d probably enjoy it. For a few moments, she allowed herself to actively envy him. She was stuck here in Office Space central until the day both Lizzie and Mare were safe and independent, and she could learn to control her unfortunate tendency to morph. Researching alternative histories suddenly sounded exciting as hell.

As if to remind herself again of where she belonged, she tapped the form in front of him. ‘I can’t imagine why you would want to open a new checking account for the short time you’ll be here, Mr James, but this should probably be adequate for you.’