Pushing open her front door, Kay tossed her purse on the white couch. An indefinably enticing aroma was drifting out of the kitchen; her eyebrows cocked curiously. As she slipped off her damp shoes, her stocking feet immediately curled into the fluff of cherry-red carpet.

Kay’s best friend was into interior decorating. Susan had definite ideas about color schemes and furnishings for an old Spanish-style house with stucco walls and arched doorways. Susan had suggested heavy scrolled furniture and rich, dark colors.

Unfortunately, Kay was a big fan of red and white and wanted a hodgepodge of things she loved around her. A restored trunk was her coffee table; a collection of alabaster elephants stood on top of it. More collectibles cluttered the bookshelves; music boxes and porcelain owls jostled for space with dozens of books, most of them with dog-eared pages. The old Morris chair had been her father’s; it didn’t go with anything else, but it was familiar and comfortable. And besides, the antique love seat with its white velvet cushion didn’t go with anything else either.

Susan regularly despaired of her taste, but Kay felt delightfully relaxed whenever she came home. At least most days. But then, most days she didn’t go around kissing strangers in the pouring rain.

For the fourth time in ten minutes, she shoved the incident determinedly from her mind. Following her nose, she wandered toward the kitchen and paused in the doorway with a grin.

Two dozen fresh doughnuts lay in an open box on the kitchen table. Next to them was an astonishingly large pair of cowboy boots; above that was a pair of long, jeaned legs. The rest of the body was hidden behind an open newspaper, except for one long arm that extended around, groped for a doughnut and disappeared behind the newspaper again.

Five doughnuts had already disappeared from the two dozen.

“Good morning,” she said severely.