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you won’t have to find out.”
    “Until next fall,” he reminded her. That was when he was convinced she would have the full scholarship to Northwestern that she deserved.
    “Even then, I will be here to worry you every day,” she insisted.
    It was an old argument and one they wouldn’t resolve today or even tomorrow. Maria Consuela Villanueva was a woman who knew her own mind, probably had from the time she was two, Rick guessed. There had been times he regretted the age difference between them. She was barely eighteen to his thirty-four. Had she been a few years older, she might have been a good match for him. As it was, he thought of her only as the kid sister he’d never had. Even when she was at her nagging, pestering worst, he would have protected her with his life.
    “When will you be back?” she asked.
    He thought of the likely battle that lay ahead. Either Dana would slam the door in his face and he’d be back in no time, or she’d listen. He was counting on the latter. He held no illusions, though, that he could persuade her easily to accept his help.
    “I’m out for the day,” he said, “unless there’s an emergency.”
    “What constitutes an emergency this time? Fire? The arrival of the mayor? A delegation from the capital?”
    “Those would do,” he agreed.
    “Where will you be?”
    “With Ken’s widow.” He shrugged, then added realistically, “Or nursing my wounds beside Lake Michigan with a hot dog in one hand and a beer in the other.”
    “Better you should take bandages,” she retorted.
    Rick stared at her suspiciously. Something in her tone alerted him that she knew something about what had gone on here the night before. “Why would you say that?”
    “People talk,” she said enigmatically.
    “Maria! Spit it out. What are people saying?”
    “They say that bruise on your cheek is the work of Mrs. Miller. Since it was not there when I left last night, I assume you’ve seen her since then.” She tilted her head and studied his face. “She must not have been glad to see you.”
    “I’m sure she wasn’t,” Rick agreed.
    “And you think today will go better?”
    “Probably not.”
    Maria opened a cabinet behind the desk and plucked out a handful of Band-Aids and a bottle of peroxide from the stock kept on hand for the multitude of kids with minor wounds who turned up on their doorstep nearly every day. They were all too practiced at coping with major wounds as well, at least as long as it took to send for an ambulance.
    “Then these may come in handy,” she said. “Of course, people say she is also a trained private eye, like Magnum.” Maria was a very big Tom Selleck fan. She thought he was even “chunkier” than Rick.
    “She was a private detective,” Rick corrected. “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “She knows how to use a gun, yes?”
    “Very amusing, Maria. You seem to forget that I have at least a vague familiarity with guns myself.”
    “The difference is that you have vowed never to touch another one. Can you say the same for Mrs. Miller?”
    Rick could only say that he knew, with relative certainty, that she hadn’t had one with her the night before. She would have found some way to use it on him.
    Of course, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t grab a gun the second she realized who was on her doorstep. Another adrenaline rush raced through him at the prospect. Disarming her could prove to be absolutely fascinating.

4
    T he screeching of that damnable doorbell brought Dana to her feet at once. It had to be a stranger. No one she knew liked the sound of it any better than Kate.
    “Want me to get it?” Kate offered.
    “I’m still capable of answering the door,” Dana said dryly, pushing aside the virtually untouched slice of the pecan coffee cake that she had made when she could no longer sit still. “I haven’t lost all my wits yet.”
    She stepped into the foyer and paused. She could see the large shape of a man through the glass