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interrupted her. “It is completely ridiculous.”
    “And believe me,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “I weighed my decision carefully before coming here, for the very reason that I was afraid you’d think I’m nuts.”
    She paused, evidently awaiting a response to that. So he said, “And?”
    Evidently that wasn’t the response she had been expecting, because she narrowed her eyes at him. “And I don’t expect everyone to believe in the possibility of an afterlife or any sort of conduit between that and the here and now. I’m as skeptical as the next person about that kind of thing. But I’m not completely closed-minded about it, either. And I thought you might at least be like me in finding the whole concept as . . . as . . .”
    “As ridiculous?” he supplied helpfully. Well, okay, maybe it was less helpfully than it was antagonistically. At least he’d offered her something.
    “As interesting,” she finished tersely, “as I do.”
    “Ms. Magill—”
    “ Mrs. ”
    “ Mrs. Magill,” he amended again, wondering why he had trouble remembering she was married, “You can’t think I would put stock in a dream you had, even if it did allegedly feature one of my ancestors. Dreams are just images that unroll in a person’s brain while they’re unconscious. All the more reason to not put any stock in them. My advice to you would be to lay off the Hostess Ho Hos before you go to bed at night.”
    She narrowed her eyes at him even more. “It was Chunky Monkey ice cream, and I know perfectly well this sounds like nonsense. But don’t you find it strange that I would have a dream like that?”
    What Nathaniel found strange, she didn’t want to know.
    “And then wake up this morning to see an article about you in the paper?” she added. “One that your great-great-et-cetera grandfather said I would see in the paper?”
    “Ms. Magill—”
    “ Mrs. ,” she corrected him yet again, more vehemently this time.
    “ Mrs. Magill,” he amended yet again, less graciously this time. “There have been articles in the paper about me and Edward Dryden almost every day for two weeks. The development he’s undertaking—and which I’m investing in heavily—is going to be one of the biggest ones this city has seen for more than a decade. For all I know, that was what caused you to have your dream, not some portrait of my great-great . . . whatever . . . grandfather. And certainly not any danger I might be in of losing my soul.”
    She opened her mouth to say something, apparently reconsidered what she was going to say, and closed it again. But she kept her gaze homed in on his as she stood and tugged her handbag over her shoulder. She started to turn toward the door, then looked back at Nathaniel. “I’m sorry if you think I’ve wasted your time, Mr. Summerfield. But as Shakespeare said—”
    “Is this going to be the quote about ‘More things in heaven and earth, Horatio’?” Nathaniel interjected before she could finish. “Because, quite frankly, Mrs. Magill, I can dream of a lot in my philosophy. And none of it has to do with ghosts or souls.”
    She nodded once, curtly. “Oh, believe me, Mr. Summerfield, I can see you don’t spend much time worrying about your soul. What I’m trying to figure out is why Captain Summerfield was so worried about it. Since it’s abundantly clear that any soul you might have ever had is already long gone.”
    And with that, she turned around and headed for the door. Nathaniel told himself he was grateful, even as he watched with something akin to wistfulness the way that long ponytail swayed even more seductively than her hips. The last thing he needed in his life these days was a raging nut job butting into it, even if she was stunning. Having Edward as a client was going to command more of his time than any other client he’d ever had, and it was going to ultimately net him more wealth. Hell, if that caused him to lose his soul, it was just one less thing