“Hey, we’ve got snow on our mountain.” Johnny flashed her a grin. “Just wait till you see the view from my bedroom window. It looks like one of those winter scenes they put on Christmas cards.”

Ellen didn’t dare meet his eyes. Was Johnny Day inviting her to his bedroom? Or was she jumping to a ridiculous conclusion? “It sounds beautiful. Is it very cold up there?”

Johnny nodded. “You bet! Forty degrees when I left his morning.”

“That’s even colder than Minnesota!” Ellen shivered slightly. “It was only twelve below when I got on the plane.”

Johnny turned to her with a puzzled look and then he laughed. “No, Babe. It was forty above on the mountain. It never gets below zero here.”

Ellen felt the color rush to her face and she was glad he was busy hailing the valet parker. Aunt Charlotte had written that the temperature was moderate. Johnny must think she was a real idiot.

Johnny handed over his ticket and smiled at her again. “So tell me about this mannequin business.”

“There’s not much to tell.” Ellen stared up at him and wondered whether teeth that perfect could possibly be real. Her natural reticence evaporated as she began to describe her universal mannequin and her long-held dreams of marketing it to department stores.

“Sounds good to me,” Johnny reflected when she had finished. “And Clay said you need a financial backer?”

Blushing, Ellen nodded. She knew she’d rattled on like an excited schoolgirl, but there was something about Johnny’s intense brown eyes and friendly smile that invited her confidence.

“I could back you. I’ve got some loose cash to invest before Uncle Sam takes his cut. Think you’d be interested in having me for a partner?”

“I . . . uh . . . that sounds wonderful.” Ellen felt her head start to whirl again. Compared to rural Minnesota, where it took people years to decide whether or not to repaint the barn, everything was happening much too fast.

“We could set up right here in Vegas and name it something catchy. Universal Mannequins is too much of a mouthful. How about Vegas Dolls?”

Ellen nodded. Vegas Dolls was a fine name for a business, especially if it summoned to mind the gorgeous showgirls who worked here.

“I’ll look for a warehouse right away. Where do you want to work, in the warehouse or up on the mountain?”

Ellen took a deep breath. “Would there be room in the condo? I’m used to working at home.”

“No problem, Babe. You’ve got the whole eighth floor and all you have to do is tell Paul Lindstrom how you want it remodeled. I’ve got some contacts so I’ll set up the distribution network, but we’ll have to move fast. The fifteenth’s my deadline for reinvesting.”

Ellen was too stunned to do more than nod. Without any effort on her part, her dream was turning into a reality.

“It’s settled, then.” Johnny leaned over to kiss her cheek. “You’ll be too busy to go back and pack your things. Is there someone who could send them to you?”

“Alma Jacobson might. I gave her a key before I left. I’ll call her tonight and ask.”

They were walking out of the building now, and Ellen almost stumbled as she realized what she’d said. She’d just agreed to give up her teaching contract only months before she was eligible for tenure to move over two thousand miles across the country into a condo she’d never seen. And she was going into business with a man she’d met less than five minutes ago who also happened to be the singing idol she’d sighed over for the past ten years.

“Getting cold feet?” Johnny smiled down at her and Ellen shook her head.

“Not really. I only get cold feet in Minnesota. It’s much warmer out here.”

Johnny laughed and led her to his car, a white Ferrari convertible, so shiny that it looked brand-new. Ellen sighed in pure contentment as she slid into the bucket seat upholstered in immaculate, soft kid leather.

It was dusk and the huge neon signs blinked on and off as he drove down the strip. The people they passed looked slim in their summer clothes and Ellen felt almost weightless without her bulky parka and moon boots.

There was a smile on Ellen’s face as Johnny turned into a circular driveway flanked by towering palm trees, and a huge casino with turrets and spires came into view. There were colored spotlights weaving their beams in patterns over the walls and the entrance was guarded by a moat and a drawbridge manned by footmen in gold livery. It was a scene straight out of a storybook: Miss Wingate in an expensive foreign car with her famous bachelor partner, pulling up in front of a castle. That would certainly make all thirty-one first graders at Garfield Elementary sit up and take notice!

THREE

February on Deer Creek Road

Fifty Minutes before 10:57 AM

Ellen frowned as she rummaged through her box of mannequin limbs. On days like this, when everything seemed to go wrong, she almost wished she’d never left Minnesota two years ago.

The morning had started off badly. Her thirty-cup pot was the old percolator type and only made good coffee if she filled it to capacity. It had been a parting gift from the Garfield Elementary faculty and Ellen was sure they’d chipped in their books of green stamps to get it. Perhaps they’d assumed opening a mannequin business meant she’d have plenty of employees. In any event, the coffee it made turned to tar before she could drink it all, and she’d finally geared up to go into town to buy a pot to use every day.

The saleslady had shown her the newest model, promising that all she had to do was put in the coffee and water, set the automatic timer, and she would have hot coffee. Ellen had set the timer for eight and gone to bed, but when she’d come into the kitchen this morning there was no coffee to greet her. Checking the instructions, she’d found that the digital timer had a red light for PM and a green light for AM. Since the red light was glowing, her coffee would brew automatically, but not until eight in the evening.

Just as Ellen had switched the timer to manual, the phone had rung. It was the Purple Giraffe in New York, an exclusive chain of children’s clothing stores, frantic because their purchasing department had made an error and they needed two dozen more mannequins by the end of the week. Naturally, Ellen had promised to deliver, and now she’d located twenty-four right arms but no left arms to match. Since she molded the arms in pairs and had never had an order for one-armed mannequins, they had to be somewhere.

Ellen stepped back to survey the boxes of limbs stacked on her workroom shelves, all coded with numbers, the work of her business manager, Walker Browning. When he’d heard that Ellen was looking for a business manager, Jack St. James had recommended his black friend from Chicago for the job, and Ellen had hired him sight unseen. Walker was extremely well organized and he was also a whiz at finding new markets for Vegas Dolls. If Walker were here now, he’d go straight to the proper box, but he was in Vegas picking up supplies.

Deciding it would be a waste of time to look for the arms herself, Ellen wandered back into her large sunny kitchen. When she’d moved into the eighth-floor condo two years ago, Ellen had mentioned that she didn’t care for the ultramodern black enameled cabinets that showed every fingerprint and the gleaming white floors that required constant cleaning. Moira Jonas, their resident interior decorator, had offered her services and in less than a week, she’d faced the cabinets in oak and ordered an antique table and chairs to match. With lacy ferns hanging from wicker baskets, green and white gingham curtains, an array of copper pans and utensils mounted on the rack over the stove, and a braided rug on the new wooden floor, Ellen’s kitchen had been transformed.