Four days later, Andrew was back in the kitchen – their kitchen – with a freshly-cut key on his keychain and a crisp bill of sale in his pocket. The actual title would take time to transfer, but the house was theirs.

Theirs.

Andrew and Eileen ('Call me Lily, everybody does') Rowan had taken possession of the Octagon House at Rowan Light.

Or, very possibly, the house had taken possession of them.

He looked around the kitchen and shook his head. He'd been unable to shake the nagging notion that perhaps, just perhaps, they'd bitten off more than they could chew. So Andrew had done what Control would have done: He'd called in experts.

He turned his attention back to the stainless steel center island. They'd thrown a tarp down over the dirt and spread open a book of blueprints, the plans for the house. To his left was a heavy-set, entirely bald man named Johnson, the city building inspector and, incidentally, the mayor of Broken Harbor. To his right was a small, thin man in wire-rimmed John Denver spectacles, Cox, the best general contractor in town and also, incidentally, owner of the hardware store and the lumber yard.

Across from him, armed with clipboards and pens, was his wife.

He smiled warily at her and launched into their next grand adventure. "Thank you both for coming out," he said warmly. "As you can see, we've got a lot of work to do."

The men both nodded. The mayor said, "Where you gonna start?"

Andrew smiled grimly. "That's why I asked you out here." He had sweetened the asking, of course, with a substantial consulting retainer for each of them. "What I'd like you to do is go over the house top to bottom. Make a note of anything that needs to be done. Then I'd like to create a list – things that have to be done right now, things that need to be done this year, things that can wait a little longer."

"Sensible," Cox agreed. "Good planning."

"Mrs. Gambill …"

"Gambrell," Lily corrected gently.

"Mrs. Gambrell is going to come out and go over furnishing ideas with Lily," Andrew continued. "That's her department, for now. I'm just interested in running water and heat." He glanced around. "And we've got to get these damn windows uncovered."

"I, uh, wouldn't do that just yet," Cox said.

"The kids," Johnson agreed. "They're good kids, don't get me wrong … but this place opened up and nobody living here yet, it's just too tempting."

"Good make-out spot?" Lily guessed brightly.

Cox nodded, adjusting his glasses. "Back in my day, it was the best."

"They wouldn't hurt anything on purpose," the mayor said quickly. "But you know, if it got chilly, one of them might get the bright idea to start a fire in a fireplace or something …"

Andrew nodded. "Chimneys," he called, and Lily obediently wrote it down.

"Furnace vents, too," Johnson added. "Before we even try to start the furnace."

"And I'd take a good look at the plumbing," Cox added, "but I wouldn't turn the water on until I was sure the furnace worked. You get a hard freeze, crack every pipe in the building."

"Like that," Andrew sighed. "The electricity works, there're lights in every room – ugly ones, but lights – wherever you want to start." He gestured, and Lily handed them each a clipboard. "I really appreciate your help."

"Hello? Hello?"

"Around to the kitchen," Lily called back.

In a moment, a skinny woman in a flowery skirt and matching hat came to the door. "Oh, there you are, I wasn't sure how I got in." She stepped into the kitchen. "I'm Penny Gambrell," she said, holding her hand out to Lily. "You must be Mrs. Rowan."

"Lily," the woman corrected easily, shaking the hand. "It's nice to meet you. This is my husband, Andrew." The woman turned and shook with him as well. "You know these two, I think."

"Oh, of course, of course." The woman turned back to Lily. "Lily, is it? I thought Gary Barnes said it was Eileen. The man is terrible with names."

"It's Eileen legally," Lily answered smoothly. "But everyone's always called me Lily. My sister is only a year older than me, and she couldn't say Eileen, she called me Li-Li, and it stuck. And since her name was Rose, of course everybody assumed … I'm babbling."

Penny smiled her understanding and looked around the kitchen. "My word."

"We know," Andrew said grimly. "It's a mess."

"Oh, no. Well, yes, but look at the size of it. The possibilities are … are … oh, my."

Lily grinned. "Oh, good, somebody with a positive outlook."

"I love the stainless steel. That will be so easy to care for. But the rest of it … oh, they painted the woodwork."

"All of it," Lily answered. "Come on, I'll show you around."

Penny grinned. "I've always wanted to see the inside of this house."

They started out of the kitchen. "Careful on the steps," Andrew called after them.

"Yes, dear," Lily answered, exasperated.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Penny promised. And to Lily, "When is your baby due?"

"First of November."

As the women left the kitchen, Andrew shook his head and turned his attention back to the men. "So? Where do we start?"

"Basement," they said in unison.

They headed down. "When are you planning on moving in?" Johnson asked.

Andrew hesitated. "Well, I was planning on moving in after Christmas. But my wife thinks we should move in today."

Cox nodded thoughtfully. "Mama Bear wants her own den."

"You have kids," Andrew guessed.

"Seven."

"Ah."

"And I will tell you, friend, once a woman's that far along, there is no arguing with her. She wants to move in today, you better find a way to make it happen soon."

Andrew groped for the light switch and looked around the dank basement. "I told her we'd see what we could do."

The local men shared a look. Older man, first-time father, utterly besotted with his pretty young wife. Whipped, they thought, but they also understood. They had wives and children themselves.

"Can you recommend an obstetrician?" Andrew asked.

"Zivitz," Cox replied simply. "Only one my wife will see. Holy Mother of God." This last was directed at the furnace, a hulking, greasy, foreboding mass of metal.

Andrew stepped back and let the two experts go over the thing.

"Zivitz," Penny Gambrell said. "Only one worth a damn. Call him up, he'll fit you right in."

"He'll need to," Lily said, ruefully patting her belly.

"I have to say, I admire your courage, moving when you're this far along."

Lily shrugged. "We were going to stay in our apartment, look for a house next summer. But I found this place in a guidebook and I had to see it – the name, you know – and then when we found out it was for sale …we had to have it. I mean, right now it looks like hell, but it could be so beautiful."

"Oh, my, yes," Penny said. She looked over the enormous living room. The Coast Guard had used it for an office, to judge from the indentations on the carpet and the number of wall outlets. "It could be spectacular. The carpet has to go, of course."

"Absolutely. I'm almost afraid to look under it."

"Hardwood floors," Penny guessed. She walked to a corner where the carpet was loose. "Shall we?"

"Go ahead."

The woman grasped the carpet and pulled sharply. Beneath, under a layer of dust, was an oak floor.

"Who would carpet over such a beautiful floor?" Penny asked.

"Who would paint the woodwork?" Lily answered with a sigh.

They shook their heads together. "Men!"

"You have lots of furniture to move?"

Andrew shook his head. "My ex got both houses and everything in them. Lily has a few good pieces from her apartment, but other than that, just clothes and books and such. We'll get a little truck, maybe find somebody here to help unload it. What I'd like to find is some really good antiques."

"Penny knows every antique shop for a hundred miles," Johnson assured him. "If you've got the cash, she'll find you the furniture."

Andrew smiled fleetingly. "The ex got half of everything she knew I had," he answered serenely. "We can afford furniture."

"Lots of bedrooms," Penny mused. "Are you planning more children?"

"As many as we can manage," Lily answered. She smiled, self-conscious. "Of course, that answer may change once this one gets here."

"Oh, you'll do just fine. Do you have nursery things yet?"`

"A few, all in the boxes. Andrew's pretty good at putting things together, though."

"And are we painting the nursery pink or blue?"

"This one's a girl, but I'm thinking we'll paint the nursery green. Kind of a jungle theme."

Penny nodded wisely. "That's probably best."

"Will you be looking for work?" Johnson asked.

Andrew shook his head firmly. "I'm retired and I plan to stay that way."

"What business were you in?"

"International commodities." The man looked at him blankly. "Corporate acquisitions, international money markets, foreign bonds, oil options. And information, of course. Basically, moving money across borders."

Johnson nodded, rather uncertainly. "Good living in that?"

"Very good living," Andrew allowed, "if you're willing to devote your life to it 24/7."

"That why your first wife left you?" Cox asked casually.

"Nope," Andrew answered, just as easily. "She left when I decided there were more important things than money."

"What a beautiful emerald," Penny said. "It's real, isn't it? You can tell by the way it shines. I've never seen one that size."

Lily touched the stone at her throat, blushed a little. "It was an engagement gift."

"Your husband has very good taste. Have you been married long?"

Lily shook her head. "A year, Christmas eve."

"Oh." Lily could see Penny doing the math in her head. "A honeymoon baby, then. They're supposed to be very lucky, you know."

"I think I'm already the luckiest woman in the world."

Penny reeled in her tape measure. "It'll take acres of lace, you know, but I think it's a good instinct."

"Something pretty heavy," Lily answered. "Substantial, not wispy." She shook her head. "I just wonder if I'm going to want to block more light, though. It's so hard to tell with the plywood up."

Penny cocked her head at the window. "Well, why not go with something simple, like roller shades? If you want to sleep in, you pull them down, if you're up, they're out of sight."

Lily nodded thoughtfully. "That would work. If we put curtains on the French doors, they're always going to be shut in the doors."

"You'll need to put a rod top and bottom, café rods. They won't be all free-floating, but they won't get torn up, either. She turned to measuring the doors. "At least they're all the same size throughout the house."

"Are you sure?"

Penny looked at her, laughed. "No, actually I'm not." She measured the next window. "Where'd you meet him, anyhow? Your husband? He's very handsome."

"I used to work for him."

"She was my assistant," Andrew explained, peering into the crawl space where Cox had wriggled to examine the underside of the roof. Johnson had elected to stay in the stairwell. "Smart, efficient … decorative. She was my right hand. My wife couldn't stand her. I never saw what the problem was. She was just Lily."

"Until she wasn't," Johnson offered.

Andrew sighed. "I had a stroke. Couple years ago, now. Just a small one, not very serious. But I laid on the floor of my office all night before anyone found me. I had a lot of time to think." He hesitated, but the mayor was listening, curious. "I had this fancy job, fancy office, huge salary, two elegant houses, three cars, very elegant wife – and I didn't care about any of it. The only thing I really loved in my whole life was my assistant."

He could see the man's grudging understanding: Mid-life crises, in a big way. He almost smiled. That had been exactly what he wanted him to think. Hell, it was mostly true. "So I quit the job, gave the houses and the cars to the wife to get rid of her, left town and married Lily. And this past year has been the best year of my life."

"You're screwed," Cox announced.

"Pardon?"

The contractor squirmed back out of the crawl space. "Not your wife. Your roof. You're screwed. The underlayment is soaked. One more good rain and it's going to start dripping through to the ceilings."

"Damn."

"So what was she like?" Penny asked.

Lily hesitated for a long moment. "She was a … difficult woman," she finally said, diplomatically. "High-maintenance. And arrogant. She treated me like I was the hired help – which I was. But she treated Andrew like the hired help, too."

"She was a bitch," Penny surmised.

"Yes. Thank you. I wasn't going to say that, but yes."

"I suppose you're smart not to criticize her."

Lily nodded. "He stayed married to her for twenty-five years. There must have been something there at one time. But all the time I was with him, she never gave a damn about what he wanted, what would make him happy. It was all about her, her needs, her demands."

"Do they have children?"

"No. Would have ruined her country-club figure." Lily looked around. "He gave her way too much in the divorce, but he just wanted it over with. And there were assets she didn't know about. She doesn't know about us, that we're married, that we're starting a family. If she ever found out that he was actually happy …" She shuddered. "A bitch. That about sums it up."

"So you're hiding out in the sticks from your ex-wife?" Cox teased gently.

Andrew shook his head. "We wanted a small town to raise the children in. You know, where you know their playmates' parents, where you can sit on the porch after dark, like that. And Lily's always wanted to live on the ocean. Once she saw this house …" He hesitated. "But if my ex never found out where we were, I think we'd all be a lot happier."

Johnson slapped him on the back. "Friend, you have found the right place to disappear to."

They sat on the porch steps, the owners and the experts, and compiled their lists. "It's got to start with the furnace," Cox said firmly. "It's September already, I wouldn't bet the whole house on the weather holding."

"How soon can you get a furnace in?" Andrew asked. He reached around his wife, quite unconsciously, and rubbed the small of her back.

"Getting it in is no problem, we could install it in a day or two. Getting it here is the trick. As big as this house is, it'll need some – well, maybe commercial. I might be able to get one delivered in ninety days, but I can't see much less than that."

Lily sighed and looked off towards the sea.

"What about the playhouse?" Penny asked.

"What?"

"We had a theatre in town, a playhouse. Strictly amateur, you understand, the local group and the high school drama club. But it burned down last year."

"Hell of a thing," Johnson added, shaking his head. "One of the stage lights fell during a show, got tangled in the curtain. Everybody got out okay, but they couldn't save the building."

"Are they going to rebuild?" Andrew asked.

"Sure, sure. Soon as the insurance gets sorted out. Probably break ground in the spring."

"But the basement didn't burn," Penny continued, a bit miffed at the interruption. "They salvaged a lot of the equipment."

Cox shook his head. "For all the good it did them. The insurance company won't let them put the old equipment back in the new building."

"So where's the furnace now?" Penny demanded. "It was only two years old. I know it was, I worked on the fundraiser to replace it."

The mayor and the contractor shared a look. "It's got to be in that storage garage," Johnson said quietly. "I don't think anybody even looked at it."

"I did," Cox answered. "I disconnected it for them before they hauled it out." He considered for a long moment. "It's plenty big enough. And Penny's right, it's nearly new."

"Could we buy it?" Andrew asked.

Johnson shrugged. "Have to get it past the council, but I don't see why not. They're not going to be able to use it for anything else."

"Save you some money over buying new," Penny encouraged, "and the drama club could use the money they do get."

Andrew shared a look with his wife. "Let's do it," he said. "Now what about the roof?"

"Four men, four days," Cox answered efficiently. "There's only one layer up there, we don't have to do a tear-off."

"Do it," Andrew said. "Let's get that much done, and then we'll see where we are with the plumbing and such."

"Oh," Penny said, "and that will give us time to shop for furniture. And curtains. And pick paint colors …"

Lily leaned back just a little against her husband's hand. They shared a look, gentle mischief dancing in their eyes. Just like the old days. Pay the pros and turn them loose.

The house was theirs.