"Oh." She looked at the pizza on the counter with eyes that went suddenly dewy. "Um, I don't suppose you have any with whole-wheat crust and low-fat mozzarella?"

"Health nut?" Fox asked.

"Just the opposite." Quinn bit her bottom lip. "I'm in a lifestyle change. Damn it, that really looks good. How about if we cut one of those slices in half." She sawed the side of her hand over the plate.

"No problem."

Cal got a pizza cutter and slid it down a slice.

"I love fat and sugar like a mother loves her child," Quinn told Fox. "I'm trying to eat more sensibly."

"My parents are vegetarians," Fox said as they each picked up a half slice. "I grew up on tofu and alfalfa."

"God. That's so sad."

"Which is why he ate at my house whenever he could manage it, and spent all his money on Little Debbies and Slim Jims."

"Little Debbies are food for the gods." She smiled at Cal when he set her beer on the counter. "I like your town. I took a walk up and down several blocks of Main Street. And since I was freezing my ass off, went back to the really charming Hotel Hollow, sat on my windowsill, and watched the world go by."

"Nice world," Cal said, "that moves a little slow this time of year."

"Umm," was her agreement as she took a minute bite of the point of her narrow triangle of pizza. She closed her eyes on a sigh. "Itis good. I was hoping, being bowling-alley pizza, it wouldn't be."

"We do okay. Gino's across the street is better, and has more selections."

She opened her eyes to find him smiling at her. "That's a lousy thing to tell a woman in the middle of a lifestyle change."

Cal leaned on the counter, bringing that smile a little closer, and Quinn found herself losing her train of thought. He had the best quick and crooked grin, the kind a woman wanted to take a testing nibble of.

Before he could speak, someone hailed him, and those eyes of quiet gray glanced away from hers toward the end of the counter. "Be right back."

"Well." Jeez, her pulse had actually tripped. "Alone at last," she said to Fox. "So you and Cal and the as-yet-absent Gage Turner have been friends since you were kids."

"Babies, actually. In utero, technically. Cal's and Gage's mother got together with mine when my mother was teaching a Lamaze class. They had a kind of roundup with the class a couple months after everyone delivered the packages, and the deal about the three of us being born on the same day, same time came out."

"Instant mommy bonding."

"I don't know. They always got along, even though you could say they all came from different planets. They were friendly without being friends. My parents and Cal's still get along fine, and Cal's dad kept Gage's employed when nobody else in town would've hired him."

"Why wouldn't anyone have hired him?"

Fox debated for a minute, drank some of his beer. "It's no secret," he decided. "He drank. He's been sober for a while now. About five years, I guess. I always figured Mr. Hawkins gave him work because that's just the way he is, and, in a big part, he did it for Gage. Anyway, I don't remember the three of us not being friends."

"No 'you like him better than me,' major falling-outs or your basic and usual drifting apart?"

"We fought-fight still-now and then." Didn't all brothers? Fox thought. "Had your expected pissy periods, but no. We're connected. Nothing can snap that connection. And the 'you like him better than me'? Mostly a girl thing."

"But Gage doesn't live here anymore."

"Gage doesn't live anywhere, really. He's the original footloose guy."

"And you? The hometown boy."

"I thought about the bright lights, big city routine, even gave it a short try." He glanced over in the direction of the moans coming from one of the Alley Cats who had failed to pick up a spare. "I like the Hollow. I even like my family, most of the time. And I like, as it turns out, practicing small-town law."

Truth, Quinn decided, but not the whole truth of it. "Have you seen the kid with the red eyes?"

Off balance, Fox set down the beer he'd lifted to drink. "That's a hell of a segue."

"Maybe. But that wasn't an answer."

"I'm going to postpone my answer until further deliberation. Cal's taking point on this."

"And you're not sure you like the idea of him, or anyone, talking to me about what may or may not go on here."

"I'm not sure what purpose it serves. So I'm weighing the information as it comes in."

"Fair enough." She glanced over as Cal came back. "Well, boys, thanks for the beer and the slice. I should get back to my adorable room."

"You bowl?" Cal asked her, and she laughed.

"Absolutely not."

"Oh-oh," Fox said under his breath.

Cal walked around the counter, blocking Quinn before she could slide off the stool. He took a long, considering look at her boots. "Seven and a half, right?"

"Ah..." She looked down at her boots herself. "On the money. Good eye."

"Stay." He tapped her on the shoulder. "I'll be right back."

Quinn frowned after him, then looked at Fox. "He isnot going to get me a pair of bowling shoes."

"Oh yeah, he is. You mocked the tradition, which-if you give him any tiny opening-he'll tell you started five thousand years ago. Then he'll explain its evolution and so on and so on."

"Well, Christ," was all Quinn could think to say.

Cal brought back a pair of maroon and cream bowling shoes, and another, larger pair of dark brown ones, which were obviously his. "Lane five's open. You want in, Fox?"

"Sadly, I have a brief to finish writing. I'll rain-check it. See you later, Quinn."

Cal tucked the shoes under his arm, then, taking Quinn's hand, pulled her off the stool. "When's the last time you bowled?" he asked as he led her across the alley to an open lane.

"I think I was fourteen. Group date, which didn't go well, as the object of my affection, Nathan Hobbs, only had eyes for the incessantly giggly and already well-developed Missy Dover."

"You can't let previous heartbreak spoil your enjoyment."

"But I didn't like the bowling part either."