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sat, cocked his big box of a head and held up a paw.

"Cute." Cilla obliged by leaning down, giving the paw a shake while Spock's bulging eyes gleamed at her. "What kind of dog is this?"

"The four-legged kind. It'll be nice to look over here and see this place the way I imagine it used to be. You fixing to sell?"

"No. I'm fixing to live. For now."

"Well, it's a pretty spot. Or could be. Your daddy's Gavin McGowan, right?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"He was my English teacher, senior year of high school. I aced it in the end, but not without a lot of sweat and pain. Mr. McGowan made you work your ass straight off. Well, I'll let you get on bashing your boards. I work at home, so I'm there most of the time. If you need anything, give a holler."

"Thanks," she said without any intention of following through. She fit her goggles back in place, picked up the hammer as he started back down the drive with the dog once again trotting beside him. Then gave in to impulse. "Hey! Who names their kid after a car?"

He turned, walked backward. "My mama has a considerable and somewhat unusual sense of humor. She claims my daddy planted me in her while they were steaming up the windows of his Ford Cutlass one chilly spring night. It may be true."

"If not, it should be. See you around."

"More than likely."

FASCINATING DEVELOPMENTS, Ford mused as he took a fresh cup of coffee onto the veranda for his postponed morning ritual. There she was, the long drink of water with the ice blue eyes, beating the living crap out of the old veranda.

That hammer was probably damn heavy. Girl had some muscle on her.

"Cilla McGowan," he said to Spock as the dog raced after invisible cats in the yard, "moved in right across the road." Wasn't that a kick in the ass? Ford recalled his own sister had all but worshipped Katie Lawrence, the kid Cilla had played for five? six? seven years? Who the hell knew? He remembered Alice carting around an Our Family lunch box, playing with her Katie doll and wearing her Katie backpack proudly.

As Alice tended to hoard everything, he suspected she still had the Our Family and Katie memorabilia somewhere up in Ohio, where she lived now. He was going to make a point of e-mailing her and rubbing her face in who he'd just copped as a neighbor.

The long-running show had been too tame for him back in the day. He'd preferred the action of The Transformers, and the fantasy of Knight Rider. He remembered after a bitter battle with Alice over God knew what, he'd exacted his revenge by stripping Katie naked, gagging her with duct tape and tying her to a tree, guarded by his army of Storm Troopers.

He'd caught hell for it, but it had been worth it.

It seemed a bit twisted to stand here now, watching the adult, live-action version of Katie switch sledgehammer for some sort of pry bar. And imagining her naked.

He had a damn good imagination.

Four years, Ford thought, since he'd moved in across the road. He'd seen two caretakers come and go, the second in just under six months. And not once had he seen any of Janet Hardy's family before today. Subtracting the almost two years he'd lived in New York, he'd lived in the area the whole of his life, and seen none of them before today. Heard of Mr. McGowan's girl Cilla passing through a time or two, but he'd never caught a glimpse.

Now she was talking to plumbers, tearing down porches and... He paused when he recognized the black pickup turning into the drive across the road as belonging to his friend Matt Brewster, a local carpenter. When a second truck pulled in barely thirty seconds later, Ford decided to get himself another cup of coffee, maybe a bowl of cereal, and take his breakfast out on the veranda so he could watch the goings-on.

He should be working, Ford told himself an hour later. Vacation was over and done, and he had a deadline. But it was so damn interesting out here. Another truck joined the first two, and he recognized that one as well. Brian Morrow, former top jock and wide receiver, and the third in the pretty much lifelong triumvirate of Matt, Ford and Brian, ran his own landscaping company. From his perch, Ford watched Cilla make the circuit of the grounds