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force some sort of reunion. He intended to get her to pick up what he'd walked away from fifteen years ago.
    Maybe this was some sort of slow-moving senility. Or a crazed fixation.
    He turned a corner onto NE 8th Street and drove west.
    Hell, he wasn't a maniac with an obsession. Unless not being able to fall out of love with a woman was a manic obsession.
    If she'd forgotten him, she'd have married, wouldn't she?
    Shoot, he was a bad joke. A man who could make himself believe he'd remained the love of a woman's life even after he'd betrayed her.

    So she could tell him to get lost. No big deal. All he'd have to do was figure out what to do about the millions he'd spent setting up shop while he catered to his delusion.
    A light turned red ahead and he applied the brakes.
    Maturity had made her more beautiful. Still quiet—he could tell that by the tilt of her head, the shyness in her eyes—but lovely.
    They could love again. Or at least, try. He could tell her how it had all happened, explain the desperation that had driven him away from her when he'd wanted, more than anything, to be with her forever.
    He stopped Zoya's damned press release from sliding onto the floor and read the brief announcement: "Women of Today (WOT), headed by activist Prue O'Leary, has declared its intention to force the new Bellevue branch of Raptor Vision to back out of its proposed Washington State venture. In response to questioning, O'Leary states that a committee is preparing a public expose of the New York based conglomerate's modeling and talent agencies. The committee will be spearheaded by respected local academic and patron of the arts, Bliss Winters."
    No coherent thoughts formed.
    From somewhere, horns blared.
    It was a joke. The timing couldn't work out like this. It was Zoya's idea of a joke.
    Zoya didn't joke, didn't know how. Until today, Zoya had never even heard of Bliss Winters.

    Two
    "If we start now," Polly Crow said, pointing at her sister with a flour-caked rolling pin, "we can avoid all kinds of silly stuff later on."
    Fabiola Crow, Polly's twin, flipped her long, blond mane. "I don't care. I'm not trekking all over this place dropping bricks in toilet tanks."
    It was going to be a long, hot summer.
    Bliss rolled her chair away from the computer where she was trying to work on her accounts. She looked across the kitchen table into the unblinking, brown eyes of Spike, the Crows' shaggy, oversized mutt. Bliss wiggled her eyebrows. The dog's response was to bare her teeth in what the twins insisted was a smile. Its effect on Bliss was invariably an urge to hide any bare skin.
    "Bliss," Fabiola said, posing dramatically—Fabiola aspired to being an actress and a model. "Bliss, are you listening to me?"
    "Always," Bliss said, deadpan. As referee-in-chief to the Crows she listened a lot.
    "She wants me to go around the Point stuffing bricks in all the cabin toilets to cut down on water usage."
    Polly hummed the alto part of the "Hallelujah Chorus," pausing to conduct episodes of silence for the intervening parts. Cook, and a marvelous cook for those residents of Hole Point who chose to take meals at the main lodge, Polly also sang in small clubs around Seattle.
    "We definitely need to curb expenses," Bliss said.

    "Cut the utilities," Polly told her promptly. "Conserve water and we'll be doing our part to help with the shortage. And we'll save money."
    "There isn't a shortage yet," Fabiola said loudly. "But ten bricks in ten loos won't stop one from coming."
    Polly banged the rolling pin down. "That's exactly the attitude that's landed this country in the kind of mess we're going to leave for our children to inherit." She smacked her hands together, sending flour in all directions. "People like you who insist they can't make a difference. Using everything up. Not a bit of consideration for the mess the next generation's going to be faced with. And, we've got to cut expenses at the Point. Bliss just said so."
    Spike reared onto