He hadn’t lifted his head from the legal pad. “You want to have dinner in a tree house. A real tree house. Hmm. You want fifteen pairs of Italian shoes. No surprise there-the shopping gene was bound to surface sooner or later. You want to sleep in a castle. A real castle. You’d like a weekend at a spa. Now you’re talking. You want to ride in an old MG, like a ’53, one of those ‘darling ones’ with running boards and all. You want…well, hey. Are you actually listening to this monologue, Carolina?”

Maguire had abruptly looked up. Looked straight at her.

He’d caught her. There was nothing she could do but fess up, so she nodded. “My hearing’s coming back. I can’t make it stay, but I’ve been listening to you talk. And I can hear my own voice. My hearing just seems to fade in and out. It’s not consistent. I don’t understand it.”

“I do. The doctors all explained it the same way. You stopped hearing because your life had become an overwhelming pressure cooker. Remove the pressure, and there was every reason to believe you’d get your hearing back again.”

“But nothing’s changed.” Anxiety nipped at her nerves, then took a serious raw bite. “The pressure and problems are all there, all real. In fact, I have to go home. I have to get up. I have to-”

When she made a move to push off the couch, he interrupted. His voice was quiet, calm. “I’ve got a deal for you.”

“I’m not a make-a-deal kind of person, Maguire. There is no deal. As crazy as it sounds, I haven’t minded being kidnapped, but now…it’s all coming back. I don’t have time to mess around. I have to go home-”

“Hold it, hold it. This is a deal that’s going to work for you. I promise. You want to know how I happened to bring you here, don’t you? So I’ll fill in all the missing information. All you have to do is give me a chance to do that.”

She hesitated. She did want to understand-fiercely-how this whole crazy thing had happened. But she wanted to hear about it right away, with no interruptions.