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the time. She added a little extra swing to her walk—it couldn’t hurt. “I, on the other hand, have been wondering if I can afford a fancy camera that’s too complicated for me to work. Not one of the self-doing-everything kind that a monkey could work, mind you—I wouldn’t want you to think I was stupid—but a really, really complicated one I’d have to keep taking back to your shop to figure out.”
    Okay, so it was Vi’s idea, but she’d been invited to tag along. And it could have been her idea if she weren’t afflicted with a lack of confidence, a sexual aggression deficit, and being too darned nice for her own good. The camera tactic would have occurred to her eventually, if she’d had the right attitude at the time.
    A slow, knowing grin spread across his face and sent tingling chills up her spine.
    “Very clever,” he said, smiling his approval. He should have known she would make this easy for him. She was too nice to let him feel awkward and uncomfortable for very long. In mock despair, he added, “And I could have used that sale. Plus we could have spent days together, because I don’t know one end of a camera from the other.”
    “You don’t?”
    “Nope. My camera is the self-doing-everything kind that a monkey can work.” She laughed. The sound satisfied his soul from one end to the other. “I’m not even a very good photographer. I get a lot of shots of my thumb and headless people; friends with fire in their eyes and overexposed vistas I barely recognize. But I can process film like that ,” he said, snapping his fingers in the air. “And that appears to be the moneymaking end of the business anyway, so ...”
    “So, you do know one end of a camera from the other.”
    “No,” he said, chuckling. “Not really. There are a couple of machines over there with A-B-C directions on them that do all the work. I just feed the film into one to be processed, then feed the processed film into the other one for prints, and put the prints in envelopes. It’s a no-brain operation ... until someone comes in for an enlargement or to buy a camera. Then it’s an acting career.”
    Again she laughed and decided then and there that she liked this man. They had arrived at her car when she turned, saying, “My name’s Ellen Webster.” From habit, she held out her hand.
    He glanced down before taking it. “Jonah Blake,” he said, noting her expression as their grasps fit together comfortably like cold feet and thick socks on a midwinter night.
    “Are you Mr. Blake’s son or nephew?” Inquiring minds would want to know tomorrow during coffee break.
    “I’m his son,” he said, a curious aspect to the tone of his voice as he continued to hold her hand. He liked the feel of it. Not frail but not too big or too strong. Not controlling. Capable and soothing perhaps. Gentle and sensitive.
    “And are you an FBI agent or a spy? A mercenary or a national hero?” she asked, smiling as he first frowned and then started to laugh, her hand slipping from his. “You haven’t talked to many people in town, so we’ve had to make up our own stories about you.”
    “I see,” he said, chuckling. “So now I can either make up some fabulous lie and bask in my fifteen minutes of fame, or I can tell you the truth and slip helplessly into the pit of the boring and mundane. What a choice.”
    He was joking, of course. There was nothing about him that said he thought himself boring or mundane. Self-contained maybe, and judicious if the caution in his eyes was any indicator. But boring? No.
    “Or you could dodge all the questions and remain a mystery,” she said, enhancing the last word as she popped the lock on her car door. “I can’t remember the last time a real live, genuine man of mystery wandered into Quincey.”
    “But ... could a real live, genuine mystery man persuade you to have dinner with him tonight?”
    For fun, she bit her bottom lip and studied him with narrowed eyes, taking her time,