She had put on weight since the summer--all that inactivity--but her muscles were still toned and firm and the dress flattered her. It wasn't quite right for a job interview--a bit too c.o.c.ktail party--but it was better than a business suit or a pair of jeans and a sweater, which were her other choices.

Ariel took a deep breath and grabbed the door's wrought-iron handle. It was cold to the touch. She pulled the door open and stepped inside.

No one manned the maitre d' station or the front bar. Some people wearing jeans and turtlenecks laughed heartily at a table in the corner. A man, looking sad and depressed, sipped from a tiny gla.s.s cup as he made large slashes across a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him.

Her heart was beating hard. Somehow she had thought Andrew Vari would appear before her, his pugnacious face drawn up in a frown, ordering her to leave. Once or twice she had imagined the elegant Alex Blackstone--a man she had only seen in photographs--would stalk up to her and order her off the premises.

But she hadn't expected to be ignored. She glanced over her shoulder at the gla.s.s door. Rain had started to fall, light rain, something Oregonians called a shower. Oregonians had a hundred names for rain, she'd learned, much like Eskimos had for snow.

She was about to turn away when a woman came down a curving set of stairs. The woman was a pet.i.te blonde who wore a bright red business suit. She seemed to be in her mid-thirties and had the kind of easy confidence that always made Ariel nervous.

Ariel couldn't tell if the woman was a customer or part of the staff. She was smiling at Ariel, though, and Ariel couldn't move away.

"Hasn't anyone helped you?" the woman asked, as if someone had committed a crime.

Ariel smiled. "Not yet."

The woman walked to the maitre d's desk. It was almost as tall as she was. "Table for how many?"

"None," Ariel said. "I came about the job."

The woman smiled. The smile made her seem very young, almost as if she were a teenager trapped in an adult body. "I'll get my husband, then. It'll be just a moment. Go ahead. Make yourself at home."

She turned away and headed toward the back.

Ariel didn't move. The woman had to be Nora Barr, Blackstone's lawyer-wife who Ariel had read about on so many different websites. One of Portland's most important attorneys, acting as hostess in her husband's restaurant. How strange was that?

She probably wasn't really the hostess. Just making sure everything ran smoothly.

Ariel glanced at her van again. She hadn't given her name. She could still retreat. Drive away, pretend she hadn't been here.

Take Andrew Vari's hints and never see Darius again.

She bit her lower lip, unwilling to make that choice. Instead she walked to the nearest bar stool and leaned against it, waiting to meet the famous Blackstone.

Darius was peering through the crack in the swinging doors. Ariel was standing in the restaurant, wearing a dress that made her look radiant. The green accented her eyes, made her skin into a lovely shade of ivory, and highlighted her auburn hair. She no longer looked like she needed a good meal, and the extra weight emphasized curves he hadn't noticed before.

She was even prettier than he remembered.

Beautiful, actually. Even more beautiful than he remembered.

He groaned as Nora spoke to her.

'Go away', he thought--he wished--he prayed. 'Please go away.'

The Fates weren't going to be that kind to him. They were going to make him find that woman a soul mate.

Dammit.

"Okay," Blackstone said from behind him. "You have gotten stranger by the minute. What's going on out there?"

Darius jumped and let the door close. He tried for nonchalance as he wandered back to his chair by the table. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Nothing has you spying like a little boy who's afraid his mom will discover that he was the one who put the frog down his sister's dress?"

"I'm not real fond of little boy a.n.a.logies," Darius said, resisting the urge to go back to the door.

"Well," Blackstone said, "it was the first one that came to mind. From the back, you could have been posing for Norman Rockwell's version of it."

"Then when I turned around, I'd be Andy Warhol's parody of it."

Blackstone grinned. He set down his knife and walked to the swinging door, peering through the diamond panes at his eye-level.

Darius held his breath. He didn't want Blackstone to see her. The reaction was partly defensive--he didn't want Blackstone to know what was bothering him so--and partly reflexive--in the past, women flocked to Blackstone, and Darius didn't want to see Ariel do the same thing.

Blackstone turned toward him, eyebrows raised. "A woman? You're fl.u.s.tered by a woman? I thought you always fl.u.s.tered them."

Darius shrugged. "I'm not fl.u.s.tered."

Blackstone let out a low whistle. "Then I don't want to be around you when you are fl.u.s.tered."

At that moment, the door swung open and hit him in the stomach. He let out an 'oof'! and stepped back.

His wife Nora came in and grinned at him. "I saw you spying on me."

"Actually," he said, apparently unhurt, "I was spying for Sancho."

She looked at Darius. "You know that woman?"

"What woman?"

"The one who has you fl.u.s.tered." Blackstone grinned.

"Has 'you' fl.u.s.tered?" Nora said. "That's not possible."

"That's right," Darius said, hoping Nora wouldn't press him further. He had promised her years ago that he would never lie to her. "Not possible. I have none of the softer emotions, and therefore I have none of the embarra.s.sment emotions."

"Embarra.s.sment emotions?" Blackstone said. "Is that what this is about? She embarra.s.ses you somehow?"

"No," Darius said, feeling as if he were digging himself into a hole he didn't completely see, "fl.u.s.tering is an embarra.s.sment emotion. One, I hasten to add, that 'I'm' not having."

Nora's grin grew. She obviously thought he protested too much. And he probably was. "Well, one of you should have some kind of reaction. She's here for the job."

"Really?" Blackstone's voice rose. "That's your province, my friend. She'd make a pretty hostess."

Ariel would. But then he'd have to watch her every day, and he'd know when that one man walked through the door, the one she was going to fall in love with.

"Tell her the job's been filled," Darius said to Nora.

Blackstone crossed his arms and pushed against the door, apparently having forgotten that he'd been a.s.saulted with it just moments before. "Lie to her? I thought she meant nothing to you. I thought you didn't know her. I thought she wasn't giving you any softer emotions, and their related cousins, the embarra.s.sment emotions."

Darius didn't look at him. He took a step toward Nora. "Please. Tell her that. For me."

"What's going on?" Nora asked. "Is she a friend of yours?"

He winced. "It's just better if we don't pursue this any further."

"I've never seen you like this," Blackstone said.

"And if you ask her to go, you'll never see it again," Darius said.

"Tell me what's going on and I'll stay here," Blackstone said.

"Alex," Nora said, "if Sancho doesn't want to see her, maybe we should respect his wishes."

"I've known Andvari for a thousand years and I've never seen him like this. He's been upset for the past few months. I think maybe I know why now."

Darius shook his head. "Aethelstan, please. Tell her to go."

"Tell me who she is."

Darius took a deep breath. He wasn't going to say any more. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because she's n.o.body."

"Come on," Blackstone said. "If she was n.o.body, then you wouldn't be so upset."

"Really," Darius said. "We've only crossed paths once before, and I just don't want to see her again. That's all."

Blackstone peered through the door again. "It couldn't have been that unpleasant. She's beautiful."

Darius held his lips together.

"She'd make a great hostess."

"Alex," Nora said again.

"I'm curious," Blackstone said. "You both know how I get when I'm curious."

"So," Darius blurted, "buy me a dog."

"What?" Both Blackstone and Nora spoke in unison.

"You heard me. Buy me a dog."

"What does that have to do with the woman?" Blackstone asked.

Darius was thinking fast. He didn't want to lie with Nora present, but he could mislead them if he was careful about it. "You said I needed a familiar. So buy me a dog."

"Did your magic go awry around that woman?" Blackstone asked.

"I didn't say that," Darius said, but he had purposely implied it.

"What happened?" Nora asked.

"A dog. Something small, so that I'm not dwarfed--so to speak. And not a yappy dog. Something that'll be friendly and is already housebroken."

Blackstone studied him for a moment. "I'm intrigued, Sancho. And you know what happens when I get intrigued."

"No, Aethelstan--"

But it was too late. Blackstone had already pushed his way out the door and into the main part of the restaurant.

"Oh, G.o.d," Darius said. "I've got to leave."

"Who is she?" Nora asked again.

"Someone I just can't see for a while," he said, glancing at the back door. But he couldn't make himself go through it, not without looking at her one last time.

He went to Nora's side, and together they peered through the crack in the door. Ariel was standing in front of Blackstone like a supplicant, and if anyone looked embarra.s.sed, she did.

"She's nervous," Nora said.

"She's not the only one," Darius said, as he did a tiny spell so that he could hear the conversation occurring half a restaurant away.

Ariel hadn't expected Alex Blackstone to be so imposing. He was tall, with long black hair and silver eyes. He wore black jeans, a white T-shirt over a broad chest, and cowboy boots. The outfit suited him.

He made her feel small. Men usually didn't make her feel small, but he was the second one in a year. Darius had made her feel tiny as well.

Blackstone had a physical presence that she was sure women found attractive. But he didn't draw her in the way Darius had.

He stopped beside the maitre d's podium and rested his elbow against it. He smiled at her. The look melded his sharp features and gave her a sense of a searing intelligence in a man that she would never want to cross.

"I'm Alex Blackstone. My wife says you're here about the job."

Ariel swallowed hard. "I am."

He tilted his head slightly as if he had heard something beside her words. "You sound uncertain."

He had caught her. She let out a small sigh. "Well, that's not the only reason I'm here."

"Really?" He didn't sound surprised. In fact, it seemed like he had already known. Maybe Andrew Vari had seen her and had warned him that she was a crazy woman, stalking him to find out about a man he swore he didn't know.

"Really." She threaded her hands together.