I felt a nudge at my ankle, heard a wheeze and a snort. Spike grumbled and butted my shin. We'd both adopted him, but he'd adopted her.

"Call off your beast," I said.

Robin laughed and took the coffee. "Thanks, baby." She touched my face. Spike growled louder. She told him, "Don't worry, you're still my handsome."

Setting the cup down, she wrapped both her arms around my neck. Spike produced a poor excuse for a bark, raspy and attenuated by his stubby bulldog larynx.

"Oh, Spikey," she told him, snaring her fingers in my hair.

"If you stop to pet him," I said, "I'll start snorting."

"Stop what?"

"This." I kissed her, ran my hands over her back, down to her rear, then up again, grazing her shoulder blades. Starting at the top and kneading the knobs of her spine.

"Oh that's good. I'm a little sore."

"Bad posture," I said. "Not that I'd ever preach."

"No, nothing like that."

We kissed again, more deeply. She relaxed, allowing her body-all 110 pounds of it-to depend upon mine. I felt the warmth of her breath at my ear as I undid the straps of her overalls. The denim fell to her waist but no farther, blocked by the rim of the workbench. I stroked her left arm, luxuriating in the feel of firm muscle under soft skin. Slipping my fingers under her T-shirt, I aimed for the spot that tended to pain her-two spots, really, a pair of knots just above her gluteal cleft. Robin's by no means skeletal; she's a curvy woman, blessed with hips and thighs and breasts and that sheath of body fat that is so wonderfully female. But a small frame meant a back narrow enough for one of my hands to cover both tendernesses simultaneously.

She arched toward me. "Oh… you're bad."

"Thought it felt good."

"That's why you're bad. I should be working."

"I should be, too." I took her chin in one hand. Reached down with my other hand and cupped her bottom. No jewelry or makeup, but she had taken the time for perfume, and the fragrance radiated at the juncture of jawline and jugular.

Back to the sore spots.

"Fine, go ahead," she whispered. "Now that you've corrupted me and I'm completely distracted." Her fingers fumbled at my zipper.

"Corruption?" I said. "This is nothing."

I touched her. She moaned. Spike went nuts.

She said, "I feel like an abusive parent." Then she put him outside.

When we finished, the coffee was long cold but we drank it anyway. The red scarf was on the floor and the wood shavings were no longer in a neat pile. I was sitting in an old leather chair, naked, with Robin on my lap. Still breathing hard, still wanting to kiss her. Finally, she pulled away, stood, got dressed, returned to the guitar top. A private-joke smile graced her lips.

"What?"

"We moved around a bit. Just want to make sure we didn't get anything on my masterpiece."

"Like what?"

"Like sweat."

"Maybe that would be a good thing," I said. "Truly organic luthiery."

"Orgasmic luthiery."

"That, too." I got up and stood behind her, smelling her hair. "I love you."

"Love you, too." She laughed. "You are such a guy."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Depends on my mood. At this moment, it's a whimsical observation. Every time we make love you tell me you love me."

"That's good, right? A guy who expresses his feelings."

"It's great," she said quickly. "And you're very consistent."

"I tell you other times, don't I?"

"Of course you do, but this is…"

"Predictable."

"One hundred percent."

"So," I said, "Professor Castagna has been keeping a record?"

"Don't have to. Not that I'm complaining, sweetie. You can always tell me you love me. I just think it's cute."

"My predictability."

"Better that than instability."

"Well," I said, "I can vary it-say it in another language-how about Hungarian? Should I call Berlitz?"

She pecked my cheek, picked up her chisel.

"Pure guy," she said.

Spike began scratching at the door. I let him in and he raced past me, came to a short stop at Robin's feet, rolled over and presented his abdomen. She kneeled and rubbed him, and his short legs flailed ecstatically.

I said, "Oh you Jezebel. Okay, back to the sawmill."

"No saw today. Just this." Indicating the chisel.

"I meant me."

She looked at me over her shoulder. "Tough day ahead?"

"The usual," I said. "Other people's problems. Which is what I get paid for, right?"

"How'd your meeting with Milo go? Has he learned anything about Dr. Mate?"

"Not so far. He asked me to do some research on Mate, thought I'd try the computer first."

"Shouldn't be hard to produce hits on Mate."

"No doubt," I said. "But finding something valuable in the slag heap's another story. If I dead-end, I'll try the research library, maybe Bio-Med."

"I'll be here all day," she said. "If you don't interrupt me, I'll push my hands too far. How about an early dinner?"

"Sure."

"I mean, baby, don't stay away. I want to hear you say you love me."

Pure guy.

Often, especially after a day when I'd seen more patients than usual, we spent evenings where I did very little talking. Despite all my training, sometimes getting the words out got lost on the highway between Head and Mouth. Sometimes I thought about the nice things I'd tell her, but never followed through.

But when we made love… for me, the physical released the emotional and I supposed that put me in some sort of Y-chromosome file box.

There's a common belief that men use love to get sex and women do just the opposite. Like most alleged wisdom about human beings, it's anything but absolute; I've known women who turned thoughtless promiscuity into a fine art and men so bound by affection that the idea of stranger-sex repulsed them to the point of impotence.

I'd never been sure where Richard Doss fell along that continuum. By the time I met him, he hadn't made love to his wife for over three years.

He told me so within minutes of entering the office. As if it was important for me to know of his deprivation. He'd resisted any notion of anyone but his daughter being my patient, yet began by talking about himself. If he was trying to clarify something, I never figured out what it was.

He'd met Joanne Heckler in college, termed the match "ideal," offered the fact that he'd stayed married to her over twenty years as proof. When I met him, she'd been dead for ninety-three days, but he spoke of her as having existed in a very distant past. When he professed to have loved her deeply, I had no reason to doubt him, other than the absence of feeling in his voice, eyes, body posture.

Not that he was incapable of emotion. When I opened the side door that leads to my office, he burst into the house talking on a tiny silver cell phone, continuing to talk in an animated tone after we'd entered the office and I'd sat behind my desk. Wagging an index finger to let me know it would be a minute.

Finally, he said, "Okay, gotta go, Scott. Work the spread, at this point that's the key. If they give us the rate they promised, we're in like Flynn. Otherwise it's a deal-killer. Get them to commit now, not later, Scott. You know the drill."

Eyes flashing, free hand waving.

Enjoying it.

He said, "We'll chat later," clicked off the phone, sat, crossed his legs.

"Negotiations?" I said.

"The usual. Okay, first Joanne." At his mention of his wife's name, his voice went dead.

Physically, he wasn't what I'd expected. My training is supposed to endow me with an open mind, but everyone develops preconceptions, and my mental picture of Richard Doss had been based upon what Judy Manitow had told me and five minutes of phone-sparring.

Aggressive, articulate, dominant. Ex-frat boy, tennis-playing country-club member. Tennis partner of Bob Manitow, who was a physician but about as corporate-looking as you could get. For no good reason, I'd guessed someone who looked like Bob: tall, imposing, a bit beefy, the basic CEO hairstyle: short and side-parted, silver at the temples. A well-cut suit in a somber shade, white or blue shirt, power tie, shiny wing-tips.