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say?”
    “Absolutely.” She set the second picture on the table behind her, with the few she had decided merited more study. “Better looking, too.”
    “Well, dang. How am I going to win you away?”
    Snickering, shaking her head, Susa moved on to the third painting. “I wish I had another daughter for you.”
    “Something wrong with the ones you have?”
    “Husbands.” She tilted her head to one side and slanted the painting in her hands so that it caught the light from all angles. “Remarkable.”
    “Is that good?”
    “In this case, no.” She put the third painting on the reject table, looked at the long line of eager humanity in front of her, and questioned her own sanity for agreeing to thumb through Moreno County’s attics in quest of fine unknown artists. As a publicity boost for the Friends of Moreno County, it was a great idea. Now that she had to actually do the looking…well, she’d get through it somehow.
    “Time for a break,” Ian said. It wasn’t a question, or even a suggestion.
    Susa’s head snapped up. “Have you been taking lessons from my husband?”
    “Your oldest son, actually.”
    “Archer?”
    “Yep,” Ian said cheerfully. “He called and told me to be sure you didn’t get tired.”
    “Told you? He didn’t ask?”
    “Told.”
    “That’s Archer,” she said, but she was smiling a mother’s affectionate smile. “I’ll do fifteen more people.”
    It wasn’t a suggestion; it was a fact.
    In that moment Ian understood how Susa managed her hardheaded sons and equally hardheaded husband. She smiled. She coddled. And she didn’t budge worth a damn.
    “Yes, ma’am. Fifteen it is.”
    Ian stepped away from the table and began counting bodies. He had gotten to thirteen when he spotted Lacey Quinn.

Dana Hills
    Tuesday evening
11
    L acey shifted from one foot to another while balancing the three bubble-wrapped paintings and fending off random surges of the crowd. She glanced at her watch. Four people waited ahead of her, holding one or two paintings each. Maybe ten more minutes at most. Susa Donovan sized up paintings the way she painted—with energy, intelligence, and economy. Rarely did she take more than a minute with any of the canvases that people had brought to her for judging.
    But what really rocked Lacey back on her heels was the man standing between Susa and the crowd. Except for the suit, he looked just like the guy who’d bought an old Western poster at Lost Treasures Found a few hours ago.
    Nope. Can’t be, she reassured herself. I’m hallucinating because I’m nervous.
    Then the man smiled at something Susa said and Lacey’s nerves ratcheted up several notches. Different clothes, same heart-stopping smile,same man: Ian Lapstrake. Under other circumstances she’d be happy to run into him again, but not now, not with her arms full of paintings she’d promised couldn’t be traced back to her. The fake name she’d invented to go with the e-mail wouldn’t do any good if Ian remembered her.
    Maybe he won’t recognize me. Or if he does, maybe he’ll forget my name. He sure wouldn’t be the first man to do that.
    Watching him from the corner of her eye, Lacey tried to decide if Ian was one of the Donovan family Susa’s biography had mentioned. Maybe a son-in-law. Then Lacey remembered the outline of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket and wondered if he was Susa’s bodyguard.
    The crowd heaved, pushing Lacey a foot closer to the table where her grandfather’s work would be judged. Susa looked very elegant with her short, silver-streaked dark hair and sleek black pantsuit. An unusual twisted rope of semiprecious gems hung around her neck to her breasts. Deep green gems winked in her earlobes.
    Lacey wished she’d taken time to do more than gather up her hair and clamp it in place with a holder the size of her hand and the colors of the rainbow. At least it was a match for her paint-stained jeans, ankle boots, and the vivid, loosely swirling blouse