"I've-"

"No, you haven't." Absently, he reached out to secure the strap of her bag, which had slipped down to the crook of her elbow, back on her shoulder. "You're still looking for the way out, the loophole in the deal that means you can pack your bags and go without consequences. Just go back to the way things were. Can't blame you for it. But choose, then stick. That's all. I've got to finish up and get back. Talk to you later."

He stepped back into the florist and left her standing speechless on the sidewalk.

QUINN SHOUTED DOWN FROM THE SECOND FLOORwhen Layla came in.

"It's me," Layla called up, and still conflicted, walked back to the kitchen with the flowers and the bottles and pots she'd bought in a gift shop on the walk home.

"Coffee." Quinn bustled in a few moments later. "Going to need lots and lots of...Hey, pretty," she said when she saw the flowers Layla was clipping to size and arranging in various bottles.

"They really are. Quinn, I need to talk to you."

"Need to talk to you, too. You go first."

"I was going to leave this morning."

Quinn stopped on the way to fill the coffeepot. "Oh."

"And I was going to do my best to get out before you came back, and talked me out of it. I'm sorry."

"Okay. It's okay." Quinn busied herself making the coffee. "I'd avoid me, too, if I wanted to do something I didn't want me to do. If you get me."

"Oddly enough, I do."

"Why aren't you gone?"

"Let me backtrack." While she finished fussing with the flowers, Layla related the telephone conversation she'd had with her boss.

"I'm sorry. It's so unfair. I don't mean your boss is unfair. She's got a business to run. But that this whole thing is unfair." Quinn watched Layla arrange multicolored daisies in an oversized teacup. "On a practical level I'm okay, because this is my job, or the job I picked. I can afford to take the time to be here and supplement that with articles. I could help-"

"That's not what I'm looking for. I don't want you to loan me money, or to carry my share of the expenses. If I stay, it's because I've chosen to stay." Layla looked at the flowers, thought of what Fox had said. "I think, until today, I didn't accept that, or want to accept it. Easier to think I'd been driven to come here, and that I was being pressured to stay. I wanted to go because I didn't want any of this to be happening. But it is. So I'm staying because I've decided to stay. I'll just have to figure out the practicalities."

"I've got a couple of ideas on that, maybe just a thumb in the dike. Let me think about them. The flowers were a nice idea. Cheer up a bad news day."

"Not my idea. Fox gave them to me when I ran into him outside the florist. I cut loose on him." Layla shrugged, then gathered up the bits of stems she'd cut off, the florist wrappings. "He's basically, 'How are you doing,' and I'm 'How am I doing? I'll tell you how I'm doing.'" She tossed the leavings in the trash, then leaned back and laughed. "God, I just blasted him. So he gives me the flowers he'd just bought, thrust them at me, really, and gave me a short, pithy lecture. I guess I deserved it."

"Hmm." Quinn added the information to the think-pot she was stirring. "And you feel better?"

"Better?" Layla walked into the little dining room to arrange a trio of flowers on the old, drop-leaf table they'd picked up at the flea market. "I feel more resolved. I don't know if that's better."

"I've got something to keep you busy."

"Thank God. I'm used to working, and all this time on my hands makes me bitchy."

"Come with me. Don't leave all the flowers; you should have some of them in your room."

"I thought they'd be for the house. He didn't buy them for me or-"

"He gave them to you. Take some of them up. You made me take the tulips up to mine." To solve the matter, Quinn picked up one of the little pots and a slender bottle herself. "Oh, coffee."

"I'll get it." Layla poured one of the mugs for Quinn, doctored it, then got a bottle of water for herself. "What's the project that's going to keep me busy?"

"Books."

"We already have the books from the library."

"Now we have some from Estelle Hawkins's personal store. Some of them are journals. I haven't really scratched the surface yet," Quinn explained as they headed up. "I'd barely gotten home ahead of you. But there are three of them written by Ann Hawkins. After her children were born. Her children with Giles Dent."

"But Mrs. Hawkins must have read them before, shown them to Cal."

"Right, and right. They've all been read, studied, pondered over. But not by us, Layla. Fresh eyes, different angle." She detoured to Layla's room to set the flowers down, then took the coffee mug on her way to the office. "And I've already got the first question on my notes: Where are the others?"

"Other journals?"

"Ann's other journals, because I'm betting there are more, or were. Where's the journal she kept when she lived with Dent, when she was carrying her triplets? That's one of the new angles I hope our fresh eyes can find. Where would they be, and why aren't they with the others?"

"If she did write others, they might have been lost or destroyed."

"Let's hope not." Quinn's eyes were sharp as she sat, lifted a small book bound in brown leather. "Because I think she had some of the answers we need."

CAL COULDN'T REASONABLY BREAK AWAY FROMthe center until after seven. Even then he felt guilty leaving his father to handle the rest of the night. He'd called Quinn in the late afternoon to let her know he'd be by when he could. And her absent response had been for him to bring food with him.

She'd have to settle for pizza, he thought as he carried the takeout boxes up the steps. He hadn't had the time or inclination to figure out what her lifestyle-change option might be.

As he knocked, the wind whistled across the back of his neck, had him glancing uneasily behind him. Something coming, he thought. Something's in the wind.

Fox answered the door. "Thank God, pizza and a testosterone carrier. I'm outnumbered here, buddy."

"Where's the estrogen?"

"Up. Buried in books and notes. Charts. Layla makes charts. I made the mistake of telling them I had a dry-wipe board down at the office. They made me go get it, haul it in here, haul it upstairs." The minute Cal set the pizza down on the kitchen counter, Fox shoved up the lid and took out a slice. "There's been talk of index cards. Colored index cards. Don't leave me here alone again."

Cal grunted, opened the fridge, and found, as he'd hoped and dreamed, Fox had stocked beer. "Maybe we were never organized enough, so we missed some detail. Maybe-"

He broke off as Quinn rushed in. "Hi! Pizza. Oh-oh. Well, I'll work it off with the power of my mind and with a session in the gym tomorrow morning."

She got down plates, passed one to Fox, who was already halfway through with his first slice. Then she smiled that smile at Cal. "Got anything else for me?"

He leaned right in, laid his mouth on hers. "Got that."

"Coincidentally, exactly what I wanted. So how about some more." She got a fistful of his shirt and tugged him down for another, longer kiss.

"You guys want me to leave? Can I take the pizza with me?"