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“Her time.”

“Oh.” Ryder smiled at him. “Actually, we’re doing barter.”

“Barter?”

“Yeah, you know, like the Indians, trading. She’ll talk to me if I will talk to you, so I guess this equals what?” he asked me.

“You tell me,” I said. “You’re the one who decided on the rates and values.”

Shayne stood there looking dumbfounded. “What?”

“Okay,” Ryder said. “Let’s see. I wasted twenty seconds on him. The current exchange rate is twenty minutes of quality time for every second of moronic, right?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, laughing.

“Huh?” Shayne said.

“See your local moron translator for a translation,” Ryder told him.

We walked ahead.

“Assholes!” Shayne called after us.

We sped up, laughing harder, and for the first time, I felt I had made the right decision.

He was worth knowing.

And more important, he wouldn’t hurt me.

The question lingering out there now was, would I hurt him?

7

Meeting the Marches

He followed me home. I glanced into my rearview mirror every ten or twenty seconds, half expecting that he would either turn off and disappear or just stop and watch me disappear around a turn, but he stayed right with me up to the gate. He smiled when the orange wall opened. I knew he would be surprised. Most people were, because Mr. March had designed it so you couldn’t tell it opened. We drove in and up the long driveway to park. It was a particularly beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. All around us, the grounds people were at work on bushes, lawns, and fountains.

“Are they preparing for some big event?” he asked me as soon as we were both out of our cars.

“No, this is just regular weekly maintenance, but there is something being done here daily.”

“You could have some major event on this property. We’ve been at a few, but I don’t think the properties were this large.”

“They have charity events here.”

He nodded and looked up at the house. “I saw something built in this style somewhere. It’s radical.”

“It’s called Richardson Romanesque. The house took years to build. Jordan told me her husband wanted something very unique.”

“He got it,” Ryder said. “It looks like it should be a museum and not a home.”

“It’s very impressive inside as well,” I said. “Beautifully decorated but too big to be exactly cozy. There’s even an indoor pool.”

“I heard.”

“Oh, so you did ask about it?” I hoped that indicated more interest in me than in the Marches.

“You don’t have to ask. People just start talking about it. In fact, my mother knows about this house.”