“What did he do, Andy?” Ben stopped him just inside their office door. “I need to know.”

“Go see your wife. You don’t need to know.”

“Fuck you. I’ve told you stuff. Pay up.”

He slumped into a chair. “I went out to the range to talk to him. It was ugly. So ugly he tried to punch me. Todd’s dad came out and pulled him back. I don’t know what happened after that, because I left and I haven’t spoken to him since.”

Ben blinked and leaned back against the doorjamb. “What the f**k? He tried to hit you?”

“I have to do this call. They’re expecting it. Go. Kiss your wife. He’s not worth it.” He began to dial, and his brother sighed.

“We’ll talk more about this later.” Ben left right as his conference call began.

“I’m leaving,” Cope called out later that afternoon. “I have shit to do, and you’re all fine here.” He bent and kissed Erin’s cheek. “How go things?”

“My blood pressure is better. Good enough that I can come out to pool on Friday if I sit the whole time.”

“Maybe.” Todd didn’t even look up from where he was working on tightening a washer on a leaky sink.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Erin tossed back without heat.

“I beg to differ.”

“That you have to beg to differ proves my point.” Erin beamed at Cope, who wisely hid a smile.

“My cue to leave. See you tomorrow,” he called to Todd. Ben had left to go deal with a client, so Cope had been able to avoid any further discussion of their father.

It was a warm day, so he decided to skive off and work on the house. Being late afternoon, he wouldn’t be worried overmuch about any noise from the saw or any of his equipment, and he needed to work for a while to get his head together.

First though, he sat on his bed and slit open the top of the shiny red envelope. She’d written the address in metallic ink. Her writing was all loops and swirls. He’d expected it to be precise, but it wasn’t. It was feminine and sexy.

A card came first. On the front, a photograph of a circular stairwell taken from the bottom. Light shafted against the gleam of the wood and the strength of the wrought-iron railing. He sat looking at it for a long while, felled that she got him in a way no one else did. Those curves and lines were beautiful and appealing to him in a way few would understand.

But she did.

Inside was a note.

Andrew,

I made you this playlist. Enter your e-mail address and it’ll load directly to your computer or iPod. It’s sort of a mixtape. Which makes me feel uncomfortably teenaged. And yet, they’re songs I have in my mental Andrew Copeland playlist.

I don’t have poetry like you do. I only know that I love how my sheets smell after you’ve been in my bed.

Ella

He held that card for the longest time, wishing she understood that she was poetry to him. Smiling because she made him a mixtape and because he loved it that his scent marked her sheets. He closed his eyes, imagining her rolling into the spot he’d been in, breathing in against his pillow. The way he did when she had been in his bed.

Inside the envelope he found a bird’s feather nestled in a folded sheet of brightly colored tissue paper.

He’d sent her a letter a week ago. She’d shyly told him how much she’d loved it, and it had made his day. It wasn’t that he expected her to reciprocate, but he was very glad she had. The paper smelled like her.

She was there, in his life. A constant in a wholly new way. A better way, because now he got to kiss her and touch her and see her naked. Her body was hot enough with clothes, but it was her insides he found so totally appealing. She wasn’t totally normal—who could be after what she’d endured? For that matter, he wasn’t either. But she was Ella, and she lived with an honesty he found awe-inspiring, so what was normality compared to that, anyway?

He grabbed his phone to call her but got her voice mail instead.

“It’s me. Wanna have dinner tonight? Thai takeout? Burgers? You decide. I’m at the house now. You can bring a bag if you’d like to stay over.”

He disconnected and changed from work clothes into ratty jeans and a T-shirt to work in, heading downstairs, whistling the whole time.

Ella parked in his driveway, and balancing the bag of takeout, she headed to his back door. She figured the least she could do, since she was not an ace at any of this carpentry stuff, was to bring fuel for him to continue his work.

Also, he invited her there. Invited her to stay the night like real couples did from time to time. This made her smile. Something about him going out of his way to be with her, to touch her or kiss her, drove her crazy. It had been a very long time since it had felt like someone wanted to make a relationship with her.

His door was unlocked as he said it would be when she’d checked in earlier. She headed into the kitchen to put the food down and hang up her coat and bag. He’d been working on the pocket doors fronting his home office. She could smell the oil he used and then stilled, standing in the hallway, on her way to seek him out. She knew that scent, which meant she’d been there enough to know it.

A giddy little thrill riding her spine, she turned the corner and saw him. The giddy went away as a hard shock of lust slammed into her.

He stood, slightly dusty, slightly sweaty and a whole lot work-rumpled as he ran his hands over the wood like a lover. A high casement window shafted pale sunlight over him, tinted just orange because the winter sun was setting. Dust motes danced around him, his hair gleaming.