"I'll take care of that. Anything else I can do to help?"

He turned his head to look at her. "Why?"

"Because I figure if I help you with breakfast, it takes us both off the cooking rotation for the next couple of meals."

He nodded, appreciating the logic. "Smart. You're the toast and additional coffee."

"Check."

He beat a dozen eggs while she got to work. She had a quick, efficient way about her, Gage noted. The quick wouldn't matter so much to Cal, but the efficient would be a serious plus. She was built, she was bright, and as he'd seen for himself last night, she had a wide streak of brave.

"You're making him happy."

Quinn stopped, looked over. "Good, because he's making me happy."

"One thing, if you haven't figured it out by now. He's rooted here. This is his place. Whatever happens, the Hollow's always going to be Cal's place."

"I figured that out." She plucked toast when it popped, dropped more bread in. "All things considered, it's a nice town."

"All things considered," Gage agreed, then poured the eggs into the second skillet.

OUTSIDE, AS GAGE PREDICTED, FOX WATCHEDLump piss on trees. More entertaining, he supposed, had been watching the dog wade, trudge, and occasionally leap through the waist-high snow. It was the waist-high factor that had Fox and Layla stopping on the front deck, and Fox going to work with the shovel Cal had shoved into his hands on their way out.

Still, it was great to be out in the snow globe of the morning, tossing the white stuff around while more of it pumped out of the sky.

"Maybe I should go down, knock the snow off some of Cal's shrubs."

Fox glanced over at her. She had a ski cap pulled over her head, a scarf wrapped around her neck. Both had already picked up a layer of white. "You'll sink, then we'll be tossing you a lifeline to get you back. We'll dig out a path eventually."

"He doesn't seem to be spooked." She kept an eagle eye on Lump. "I thought, after last night, he'd be skittish about going out."

"Short-term doggie memory. Probably for the best."

"I won't forget it."

"No." He shouldn't have asked her to come out, Fox realized. Especially since he couldn't quite figure out how to broach the whole job deal, which had been part of the idea for having her tag along.

He was usually better at this stuff, dealing with people. Dealing with women. Now, he worked on carving down a shovel-width path across the deck to the steps, and just jumped in.

"So, Cal said you're looking for a job."

"Not exactly. I mean I'm going to have to find some work, but I haven't been looking."

"My secretary-office manager-assistant." He dumped snow, dug the shovel back down. "We never settled on a title, now that I think about it. Anyway, she's moving to Minneapolis. I need somebody to do the stuff she does."

Damn Quinn, she thought. "The stuff."

It occurred to Fox that he was considered fairly articulate in court. "Filing, billing, answering phones, keeping the calendar, rescheduling when necessary, handling clients, typing documents and correspondence. She's a notary, too, but that's not a necessity right off."

"What software does she use?"

"I don't know. I'd have to ask her." Did she use any software? How was he supposed to know?

"I don't know anything about secretarial work, or office management. I don't know anything about the law."

Fox knew tones, and hers was defensive. He kept shoveling. "Do you know the alphabet?"

"Of course I know the alphabet, but the point-"

"Would be," he interrupted, "if you know the alphabet you can probably figure out how to file. And you know how to use a phone, which means you can answer one and make calls from one. Those would be essential job skills for this position. Can you use a keyboard?"

"Yes, but it depends on-"

"She can show you whatever the hell she does in that area."

"It doesn't sound as if you know a lot about what she does."

He also knew disapproval when he heard it. "Okay." He straightened, leaned on the shovel, and looked dead into her eyes. "She's been with me since I set up. I'm going to miss her like I'd miss my arm. But people move on, and the rest of us have to deal. I need somebody to put papers where they belong and find them when I need to have them, to send out bills so I can pay mine, to tell me when I'm due in court, to answer the phone we hope rings so I'll have somebody to bill, and basically maintain some kind of order so I can practice law. You need a job and a paycheck. I think we could help each other out."

"Cal asked you to offer me a job because Quinn asked him to ask you."

"That would be right. Doesn't change the bottom line."

No, it didn't, she supposed. But it still griped. "It wouldn't be permanent. I'm only looking for something to fill in until..."

"You move on." Fox nodded. "Works for me. That way, neither of us are stuck. We're just helping each other out for a while." He shoveled off two more blades of snow, then stopped just to lean on it with his eyes on hers.

"Besides, you knew I was going to offer you the job because you pick up that sort of thing."

"Quinn asked Cal to ask you to offer it to me right in front of me."

"You pick up on that sort of thing," he repeated. "That's your part in this, or part of your part. You get a sense of people, of situations."

"I'm not psychic, if that's what you're saying." The defensive was back in her tone.

"You drove to the Hollow, when you'd never been here before. You knew where to go, what roads to take."

"I don't know what that was." She crossed her arms, and the move wasn't just defensive, Fox thought. It was stubborn.

"Sure you do, it just freaks you. You took off with Quinn that first night, went with her, a woman you'd never met."

"She was a sane alternative to a big, evil slug," Layla said dryly.

"You didn't just run, didn't haul ass to your room and lock the door. You got in her car with her, came with her out here-where you'd also never been, and walked into a house with two strange men in it."

"Strangemight be the operative word. I was scared, confused, and running on adrenaline." She looked away from him, toward where Lump was rolling in the snow as if it were a meadow of daisies. "I trusted my instincts."