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Somehow in the last forty-eight hours or so, something else had changed forever. She didn’t know where or when, exactly: on the golf course that had become nearly as familiar as her own back yard, maybe. Or over cheeseburgers and onion rings in the greasy spoon nearby, discovering that ketchup tasted better licked from her fingers. Or maybe last evening, when Mud walked her to her car, the September evening drifting down like a cool gossamer scarf.
    He’d reached a thumb out to the corner of her mouth. “Ketchup,” he’d chided softly, but his touch had lingered.
    Dorothy felt a flush creeping onto her face and dropped her gaze. She stared hard at the crisp cotton of Mud’s shirt, and then, as the silence increased her discomfort, concentrated on counting the buttons.
    She couldn’t help noting that the shirt was freshly pressed. Mud had either figured out how to operate an iron or visited the cleaner’s. Either way, he’d made an effort tonight.
    The thought sent a delicious little shiver spiraling down her spine. Mud wasn’t one to make an effort for anyone unless—
    “Hey, anyone home? Dot?”
    “Mmm, yes, I worked hard. We were saying that we worked hard.” Dorothy bit her lip and frowned. She had no business second-guessing his motives. So he’d cleaned up—she’d asked him to, after all; practically pleaded with him. The only person he needed to impress was Miranda.
    And though Mud had begun minding his p’s and q’s, there was a disheartening possibility that it wasn’t going to be enough. Not enough to impress Miranda. One night in a decent-looking shirt didn’t exactly make up for the tattered old T-shirts he’d sported all week. Who knew what he planned to pack for the weekend?
    And even if he let her dress him, Dorothy doubted she could do anything about that dumb cowlick right smack over his left eye. Nothing about Mud ever managed to stay in its place. Too-long hair tumbled over his forehead. A lone dimple decorated only one corner of his mouth. The nose was a lost cause. It still went off in the wrong direction, but it was her own fault—after all, she was the one who broke it nearly two decades earlier when she knocked him off his dirt bike.
    Not that he cared how he looked. And why should he? The effect, inexplicably, illogically, and utterly beyond reason, was mesmerizing.
    “Why go to all the trouble?” Mud asked, regarding her thoughtfully, snapping her back.
    “Excuse me?”
    “I mean, it’s not like Miranda would take you off the A-list if you confessed you didn’t play the game, would she?”
    Dorothy settled her glass carefully on the little table next to the glider, glad for the diversion. “I suppose not,” she said. “But everything has to be perfect. Lots of people, people more qualified than me, know what the situation is. That Miranda’s looking to step down.”
    Mud waved a hand dismissively. “You can’t tell me it’s all Miranda who you’re doing this for. You know, the perfection thing.”
    “Oh?”
    “Nah. It’s you. You’ve always been that way.”
    “I have not,” Dorothy retorted, then bit her lip. Curse the man, he knew her weaknesses better than anyone she’d ever known.
    “Have too. You never could stand to do anything halfway. Don’t you remember how you used to work at the crossword puzzle in the Sunday paper? Had to finish them even if it took you all day.”
    Dorothy glared. “You make me sound compulsive.”
    “But what I really don’t get,” Mud continued, “is why leave Gilford Mills? You’re the genius behind GilTec, after all. You must be worth zillions to them.”
    Dorothy colored at his compliment, was inexplicably moved by it. She hadn’t known he followed her business exploits. “I was just one of a team,” she allowed. “GilTec was something of a happy accident. We were actually experimenting with hydrophobic membranes—”
    “Hydro-what?”
    “Hydrophobic—billions of pores per square inch, too small for a drop