So much for the tranquillity of small-town America.

Jake stepped inside quickly and shoved the door closed, the slap of sleigh bells against the glass announcing his arrival. It was autumn now, and the body men had already warned him that Mae Hooper hated drafts. It was one thing if a customer was a bit slow with the door-they escaped with a pointed reminder-but a coworker committing the same offense received a withering rebuke. To compensate for the inevitable lapses, Mae kept the thermostat in the lobby cranked to seventy-five, with a ceramic heater at her feet, year-round, set on broil.

The temperature shock took Jake’s breath away, and he quickly stripped off his jacket. “Jeez, Mrs. Hooper,” he said. “Can’t we get some heat in here?”

Mae missed the irony entirely. She simply gave a sympathetic shrug and produced a cup of coffee for her boss. “Here you go, Jake. Cream and three sugars.” Those eight words had been her morning greeting every day for nearly five months now.

After hanging his jacket, he gratefully accepted the cup. “Thanks. Hey, the lobby looks great.”

Somewhere between the time when he left last night and returned this morning, Halloween had arrived at the shop. A display of cornstalks and pumpkins stood where an end table used to be, and a paper string of interlocking ghosts and witches drooped along the front of Mae’s receptionist station. The place looked great; homey, even. Jake was beginning to think that maybe the renovation work they’d just completed hadn’t been a waste of money, after all.

Mae gave him one of her condescending, grandmotherly smiles. “Well, somebody has to take care of this place.”

For years, Clint Marcus had resisted the trend among shops to make themselves look more like doctors’ and lawyers’ offices. According to the experts, you had to appeal to the tastes of women these days. Torn sofas and dusty end tables just didn’t cut it anymore.