They talked about renovations, winter storms, what shrubs and trees tended to do best this close to the ocean, window boxes and snakes. It was a free-ranging conversation, peppered by commentary from Dolly, who, when she was finished after dinner, insisted on dragging Tess off to see her tree house.

"It's all right," Andrew said. "I'll clean up."

It was dusk when they crossed the lawn, Dolly scooting up the rungs on the oak tree, Tess going at a more cautious pace. The tree house was made of scrap lumber, with the kind of precise construction that indicated either-or both-an architect and a furniture restorer had been involved. The ceiling height was perfect for Dolly. Tess had to duck.

Dolly showed her a Winnie-the-Pooh tea set, her cache of animal books and stuffed animals and a handheld video game that she'd left out in the rain. She also had a bright red firefighter's hat.

"This is an excellent tree house," Tess said.

She shrugged, sighing. "It needs windows."

Tess couldn't hold back a laugh. The critic. "Are you going to be an architect like your father?"

"Nope. I'm a princess."

"But princesses have to have something to do."

"Oh, I'm going to be a princess astronaut."

With that, it was back down out of the tree house and off across the lawn to show Tess her bedroom. They passed Andrew in the kitchen. "She's exhausting," he warned.

"I'm having fun," Tess said, and realized happily that she was.

Dolly skipped through a gleaming wood-floored hall and up a beautiful, carved dark wood staircase. The house was simply decorated, the den obviously recently renovated, a room across the hall, which was covered in drop cloths, clearly still in the works. Dolly's room was at the top of the stairs, and she immediately pulled down all her various crowns. Then it was her multitude of dolls and stuffed animals, and finally up onto her bed to point to a picture. "That's my mom."

Tess looked at the smiling woman in the picture, taken on a rock by the ocean. Dolly had her coppery hair, maybe the shape of her eyes. "She looks like quite a mom," Tess said.

"I dreamed about her last night."

"Did you?"

The girl nodded. "Yep," she said, matter-of-fact, and jumped down off the bed. "Do you have a daughter?"

"No, I don't have any children, but I'm not married."

"Are you going to live in the carriage house?"

"Eventually, maybe. It needs a lot of work. Right now, I live in a small apartment in Boston."

"Can I come see it?"

"Oh, I don't know. Sometime, maybe," Tess stammered, at a loss. She didn't want to give the girl false encouragement, nor insult her. This was what unnerved her about kids-she never knew what they were going to say, always had to be on her toes. But it was nice, too, stimulating in an odd way. And the idea of a six-year-old intimidated her more than the reality, at least in the form of Dolly Thorne. She quickly diverted the conversation. "I can walk to work. I like that a lot."

"I walk to school."

Dolly chatted on, zigzagging from subject to subject according to a logic all her own, until something drew her to the window. She covered her mouth and gasped dramatically, her entire body getting into the spirit. "Harl's making my window!"

She was off, and when Tess turned from the window herself, she saw that Andrew was leaning in the doorway. She felt an unexpected rush of heat. Dolly bulldozed right past him.

"Have you been there long?" Tess asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"Long enough to know she was about to talk your ear off."

"I held my own. Seeing Dolly makes me realize just how young I was when my mother died. She had leukemia." Tess gathered up several stuffed animals Dolly had dumped on the floor and set them back on the bed. "Anyway, that's neither here nor there. It's got nothing to do with you and your daughter."

He walked into the room, glanced out the window as he spoke. It was dark now, but he didn't seem concerned about Harl and Dolly working on a window for her tree house. "Joanna died doing something she loved to do. I don't know if I could have watched her waste away."

"Sudden death isn't easy."

"There's no easy way to die young. I hope Dolly will make some sense out of it when she's older."

"She's making sense of it now," Tess said, then gave him a quick smile. "Chew-bee probably helps."

He laughed. "If Chew-bee weren't thin air, I'd send her to her room."

Tess picked up a rag doll and put her back on the shelf. "Very clever. I think I'll make up a pretend friend. She can write letters to deadbeat clients demanding they pay up, and she can say all the things I'd get into trouble for saying."

"Be careful what you wish for."

"Yes. I wished for a cottage by the ocean, and look what I got."

He remained in the doorway, watching her as she moved around the small, girlish room. "Ike can be very persuasive."

"You're not kidding. I drove past the carriage house a couple of times, but basically I took it sight unseen. I never even stepped foot in it."

He smiled. "Is that an example of creative risk-tak-ing?"

"It's probably just nuts."

She stopped in the middle of the room, unable to think of any more busywork to do. She'd have to walk past him in the doorway. "You and Ike weren't friends?"

"No."

"He grew up in Beacon-"

"And I'm from a rough section of Gloucester. Two different worlds."

She found herself wanting to know more about his life, what made this man so self-contained. "Harl's from Gloucester as well?"

"Down the street from my folks. They're hardworking people, not real complicated. The world got complicated on them, neighborhood went to hell. They did their best."

"Do they still live in Gloucester?"

"Yep. In a better neighborhood."

"And Harl-he was a policeman?"

"Detective." Andrew drew away from the door frame, straightening, suddenly seeming even taller. "One day, between police work and Vietnam, he'd seen enough. He walked out, grew his hair, grew a beard, turned a hobby into a business. After Joanna died and I moved in here, he fixed up the shed out back."

"If he's your cousin, does that mean you don't have any brothers and sisters?"

He smiled almost imperceptibly. "Not a chance. Three brothers, one sister, all in Gloucester. Bunch of nieces and nephews."

"And are they all pure granite like you?"

"Worse."

She laughed, but saw he was watching her, attuned to even her smallest reaction. It was unsettling, a kind of single-minded attention she'd never experienced turned on her. She focused on one of Dolly's crowns, a fixed spot, to keep her balance.

"Come on," he said quietly. "Let's take some cookies and milk out to Dolly and Harl, see if they're ready to come in out of the dark."

But he stayed in the doorway, and when she started past him, he caught her gently around the waist, as if he'd been waiting just for this moment. Without thinking, she placed a hand on his chest, saw a flash of heat in his eyes. She felt her mouth go dry, a sudden urge to stay right where she was all night, in this half embrace overpowering her senses, unable to think of skulls in the dirt, of Ike or lies.

"You okay?" Andrew asked softly.

"Just fine."

His mouth found hers, the kiss so natural, so perfect, it seemed to have been destined. She shut her eyes, savored the play of his lips on hers, the taste of them. Both his arms went around her, drawing her closer, until she was against him, sighing at the feel of his hard, lean body. Her lips parted, and his hands tensed on her sides as he reacted, their kiss deepening. Liquid heat spilled through her, fired every fiber of her.

She ran her hands down his sides, held him as he half lifted her onto him, wanting to melt into him, become one with him, her body burning for that release. He cupped her hips, drawing her hard against his arousal.