“What kind of incident?”

“I don’t like to speak of it.”

He paused. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No, not that,” she said. “The details aren’t important. It’s in the past, but I haven’t quite been able to overcome my negative feelings associated with it. It’s usually not an issue, as people unconsciously tend to keep their distance from me. Which is fine. Things are easier at work, especially, when people stay out of my way. However, because of all this, I’ve become accustomed to having my private space.”

“I see.” Partly, anyway, but she didn’t seem to be budging on the “incident.”

“I’m sure it sounds pathetic. Maybe it is, I don’t know. I’m just unused to being . . .” She struggled for words, gesturing with her hands in a way that didn’t help to get her point across.

“Unused to being kissed?” he finally asked, fully intrigued.

Her cheeks flushed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not some chaste girl without worldly experience.” Oh, really? Definitely intrigued. Lowe was rather fond of Unchaste Women with Worldly Experience. “I’m just unaccustomed to being touched so casually. I prefer a barrier.”

“A barrier?”

“Gloves, or distance—I don’t know.” She shifted in her seat.

“No skin.”

She nodded. “I suppose I’ve unintentionally nurtured a phobia.”

“I see.”

“You do?”

He touched a gloved knuckle to her coat sleeve. “This is okay.”

“Yes.”

“But . . .”

“But,” she agreed dramatically, as if that summed up everything she’d just explained. “I’m not saying I enjoy being this way. It’s just something that seems to have happened.” She shrugged and exhaled heavily.

He thought back to that first night on the train, and her reluctance to shake his hand without gloves for their so-called gentlemen’s agreement. And again the next day, her flinching away from him when they were picking up files, and her insistence that it wasn’t caused by his disfigurement. And then the gazing pool. She’d gripped his hand tight enough then, but she’d been wearing opera gloves. And he’d never actually touched her face, had he? Only the flower in her hair. Even when she’d held on to him so tightly riding on the back of Lulu, there were clothes between them.

Sure, he’d grazed her bare wrist with his thumb a couple of times, but the first time he’d really touched her skin was when he’d clamped his bare hand on hers—when she was trying to take the paintings off the table. And seconds later he’d lunged and kissed her, thinking he’d grandly claim her and she’d just swoon in his arms. So much for that.

She smoothed the front of her coat. “Anyway, I suppose we’re even now.”

“How’s that?”

“You’d never told anyone the real story behind your missing finger, and I’ve never told anyone about this.”

“Not even Moneypants?”

The corners of her mouth quivered. She quickly shook her head.

Well, imagine that. She didn’t shrivel up and die at the feel of his lips on hers—or, rather, she might, but it wasn’t him in particular. And instead of just telling him never to try it again, she confessed her secret—partly, anyway.

It almost felt like a challenge. At least, that’s how his ever-optimistic brain interpreted it, as if she were saying: You want this? Good luck. You’re going to have to work for it.

Facing down a hurdle of this magnitude looked a bit like crossing the Rockies on a motorcycle during a snowstorm. But he’d always been fond of seemingly impossible and doomed tasks. So he spent the rest of the ride remembering what his uncle had told him about one of the Nubi workers who’d been deathly afraid of snakes. His uncle had said that the only way to rid the man of his fear was to feed him cake while he was forced to look at caged snakes from a distance, bringing the snakes closer and closer until the positive association of cake drowned the fear. Counterconditioning, he’d called it.

Simple as cake. Or was that pie? He wondered which Hadley preferred, because he suddenly had the most compelling urge to dabble in behavior therapy.

THIRTEEN

HADLEY WAS GREATLY RELIEVED when their taxi slowed near Pioneer Park. What on God’s green earth had possessed her to tell Lowe about her boundary issues? And now there was nothing but heavy silence between them. God only knew what he was thinking. She couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. Best to concentrate on the task at hand and pretend that conversation had never happened.

Rosewood Manor was one of a handful of buildings clinging to the top of Telegraph Hill, and quite possibly the wealthiest home in an otherwise working-class neighborhood. But it was far from impressive: the dull, gray paint that covered the boxy Italianate Victorian was peeling; some of the beveled glass twin-arched windows on the third floor had been boarded up; and one of the overhanging eaves was one storm away from being ripped off.

“It’s unoccupied,” she said as she shut the taxi’s door. “What a terrible shame to let a home so grand slide into such disrepair. Look at that stunning tower and those bracketed cornices.”

“A shame?” Lowe’s nose scrunched up. “It’s spooky. ‘Gloom Manor’ is probably what the neighbors call it.”

“I think it’s handsome and rather pleasant up here. It’s nice and quiet, away from all the traffic, and the views of the Bay are stunning. What a lovely old palm tree there in the side yard.”