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apologize. Still, he thought it wise to make some sort of cautious peace with the woman who owned his building.
    He nudged the door open a bit wider, and stared.
    Like his, her apartment was spacious, high ceilinged and full of light from a trio of front windows. That was where the similarity ended.
    Even after growing up in a house adorned with possessions, he was amazed. He’d never seen so much stuff crammed into one single space before. Glass shelves covered one wall and were loaded with old bottles, tins, figurines, painted boxes and various knickknacks that were beyond his power to recognize. There were a number of tables, and each of them was topped by more glassware and china. A brightly floral couch was loaded with colored pillows that picked up the faded tones of a large area rug. A Multan, he recognized. There’d been a similar rug in his family’s front parlor for as long as he could remember.
    To complement the season, there was a tree by the window, every branch laden with colored balls and lights. A wooden sleigh overflowed with pinecones. A ceramic snowman with a top hat grinned back at him.
    It should have been crowded, Jed thought. It certainly should have been messy. But somehow it was neither. Instead he had the impression of having opened some magic treasure chest.
    In the midst of it all was his landlord. She wore a scarlet suit with a short straight skirt and a snugly fitted jacket. While her back was to him, he pursed his lips and wondered what sort of mood he’d been in the evening before not to have noticed that nifty little body.
    Under Aretha’s rich tones, he heard Dora muttering to herself. Jed leaned against the doorjamb as she propped thepainting she’d been holding on the sofa and turned. To her credit, she managed to muffle most of the squeal when she spotted him.
    “Your door was open,” he told her.
    “Yeah.” Then, because it wasn’t in her nature to be monosyllabic like her tenant, she shrugged. “I’ve been recirculating some inventory this morning—from up here to downstairs.” She brushed at her bangs. “Is there a problem, Mr. Skimmerhorn? Leaky plumbing? Mice?”
    “Not so I’ve noticed.”
    “Fine.” She crossed the room and moved out of his view until he shifted inside the door. She stood beside a pedestal dining room table pouring what smelled gloriously like strong coffee from a china pot into a delicate matching cup. Dora set the pot back down and lifted a brow. Her unsmiling lips were as boldly red as her suit. “Is there something you need?”
    “Some of that wouldn’t hurt.” He nodded toward the pot.
    So now he wanted to be neighborly, Dora thought. Saying nothing, she went to a curved glass cabinet and took out another cup and saucer. “Cream? Sugar?”
    “No.”
    When he didn’t come any farther into the room, she took the coffee to him. He smelled like soap, she realized. Appealingly so. But her father had been right about the eyes. They were hard and inscrutable.
    “Thanks.” He downed the contents of the fragile cup in two swallows and handed it back. His mother had had the same china, he recalled. And had broken several pieces heaving them at servants. “The old—your father,” he corrected, “said it was okay for me to set up my equipment next door. But since he’s not in charge I figured I should check with you.”
    “Equipment?” Dora set his empty cup back on the table and picked up her own. “What sort?”
    “A bench press, some weights.”
    “Oh.” Instinctively, she took her gaze over his arms, his chest. “I don’t think that’s a problem—unless you do a lot of thudding when the shop’s open.”
    “I’ll watch the thudding.” He looked back at the painting, studied it for a moment. Again, bold, he thought, like her color scheme, like the punch-in-the-gut scent she wore. “You know, that’s upside down.”
    Her smile came quickly, brilliantly. She had indeed set it on the sofa the way it had been displayed at