She woke up to a brilliantly sunny day at ten a.m., and looked out to see a flock of sailboats on the bay, preparing for a regatta, and all she could think of was how much she wished she were in Bolinas. She was thinking about driving over to take the dogs for a run on the beach, and check her mail.

She stretched lazily, let both dogs out in the garden, and propped the door open so they could get back in. And then she went to the kitchen to make something to eat. She still hadn't had time to buy groceries in the two days she'd been there. She was trying to decide between the Chinese food from the night before, and some frozen waffles she'd found in the freezer, when she realized that she had left the Chinese food out. The containers were still sitting in the sink. So she opted for the frozen waffles and stuck them in the microwave. She found syrup in the fridge, and as she turned around to put it on the table, she saw Jack, standing, with both paws on the sink, happily eating the Chinese food. He had eaten most of it by the time she spotted him, and she had a feeling the spicy beef wasn't going to do him a lot of good. She shooed him away and he barked at her, and then sat down next to the kitchen table to watch her eat. Sallie sat next to him, looking hopeful too.

“You know, you guys are pigs,” she said, addressing both dogs. Her long coppery hair hung straight down her back, and she was wearing her favorite flannel nightgown with the hearts on it, with pink wool socks because her feet were always cold at night. She looked like a kid as she sat there, with both dogs staring at the waffles as they disappeared into her mouth. “Yummm!” she teased, laughing at them as Jack turned his head from side to side. “What? The Chinese food wasn't enough? You're going to make yourself sick,” she warned him. After she had finished the waffles, she walked back to the fridge to put the maple syrup away. Some of it had dripped down the sides, and she thought about wiping the bottle off, which was probably what Jane would have done, but Coco promised herself she'd do it another time. Jane wasn't coming home to check on her, and she wanted to shower and walk her two clients' dogs. She had almost made it to the fridge with the dripping bottle of maple syrup, when the scent of it overpowered Jack. He took a wild leap past Coco, and knocked the bottle from her hand. It spun across the granite floor, broke, and spilled the sweet-smelling syrup everywhere. Before she could stop him, Jack had leaped into it and was trying to gobble it up amid the broken glass, and she was pulling him away, as Sallie suddenly reverted to her shepherding origins and ran circles around them, barking. Coco was pulling Jack away by his collar when her socks slipped in the syrup and he knocked her down. She was sitting on the ground in a pool of syrup, fortunately with no glass in it, as Jack barked frantically at her. He wanted the syrup and she was determined to keep him away so he wouldn't cut himself on the glass. Her nightgown and socks were soaked by then, and she had even managed to get some of the syrup in her hair. She was laughing while both dogs barked, as she struggled to her feet and pulled the mastiff away. And as she did, she suddenly realized there was a man in the room watching them. In their excitement over the syrup, even the dogs hadn't noticed him, and they barked even louder as he took a step back, and Coco told them both to stay. It was a scene of utter chaos, and the man looked terrified of the dogs, and mystified by her.

“What are you doing here?” Coco asked sternly as she looked at him. He was wearing jeans, a turtleneck, and a black leather jacket, and he didn't look like a burglar, but she had no idea how he'd gotten in.

She was still standing in the maple syrup as she stared at him, and he was trying not to smile at the vision and the acrobatics he had just seen. She looked like a lion tamer, with her long, red hair wild around her head, her nightgown and socks soaked in maple syrup, and the huge dog barking in her arms, while the Australian shepherd ran rings around them, yelping frantically. He could smell the maple syrup and see it in her hair, glistening like spun glass. He couldn't help noticing that she was a very pretty girl and looked about eighteen.

“Did you have some sort of food fight?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “I'm sorry I missed it. I love that sort of thing. I think I'm meant to be a houseguest here for a few days, or a refugee.” He held up the key to show that he entered the premises honorably, as Coco caught her breath. That couldn't be. Her sister had told her that a woman would be staying there. There had been no mention of him. Or had she also given access to someone else? And then suddenly, it all registered, the British accent, and as she stared at him, she nearly screamed. It couldn't be. This was impossible. She was dreaming it. She had watched him two nights in a row on her sister's enormous screen.

“Oh shit… oh my God… it can't be you…,” she said. But it all fit together now. Leslie. Not a woman. Leslie Baxter, the world-famous British heartthrob and movie star. How could her sister not warn her who it was? She blushed furiously as she looked at him, and his eyes laughed as he smiled, just as they did on screen. She had watched his movies a thousand times, and now he was here.

“I'm afraid it is me,” he said apologetically, and then he glanced at the mess around her. “I suppose we ought to do something about this.” She nodded, bereft of speech for the moment, and then she looked up at him again.

“Do you suppose you could get the dogs outside…” she asked, pointing to the open door to the garden, “so I can clean this up?”

“I would,” he said hesitantly, “but I'm terrified of dogs actually. If you do the dog thing, I'll find a Hoover somewhere and clean up.” She laughed at what he said, as much over the suggestion as the word. Ian had called their vacuum cleaner a Hoover too. Leslie Baxter was British, and no vacuum cleaner was going to suck up maple syrup.

“Never mind,” she admonished him, and commanded both dogs to follow her, which very reluctantly they did, as he shrank away from them. Coco was back sans dogs a minute later. She picked up the glass in paper towels, and peeled off her socks so she wouldn't slip again. It was a miracle none of them had gotten hurt with the broken glass. Then she soaked up the gooey mess with her sister's pristine, spotlessly white, seemingly brand-new kitchen towels, while he helped. He got some of it on his good-looking brown suede shoes, and she had it all over her, as he smiled and tried hard not to laugh.

“I don't suppose you're the housekeeper,” he said conversationally as they worked diligently to get it all up and the mountain of sticky towels grew. “Are you a friend of Jane and Lizzie's?” He had spoken to Jane and she hadn't mentioned anyone staying there, but clearly she wasn't a burglar either. Goldilocks maybe. Or an intruder who had spent the night in her funny nightgown with the hearts on it, and had decided to eat a hearty breakfast before ransacking the place.

“I'm dog-sitting for her,” Coco explained, getting more of the sticky mess in her hair, as he tried to help her pull it back. It was impossible not to notice how beautiful she was as he struggled to keep a straight face. By then, the ancient threadbare nightgown was glued to her, and the effect was very appealing. “She sent me a text message that a friend called Leslie was coming. She never said it was you, and I thought it was one of her gay friends escaping a homicidal ex-lover.” She looked up at him in embarrassment then, having said too much, and as she did, she noticed a nasty bruise on one cheek. “Sorry… I shouldn't have said that… I expected you to be a woman.”

“I didn't expect you at all,” he admitted, and by then he had some of the syrup in his hair too. He had dark brown, almost black hair, and startlingly blue eyes. He had already noticed that hers were green. “Well, you were half right. I am escaping a homicidal ex-lover, I'm just not one of their gay women friends.” He looked apologetic again. And then he gazed at her with a curious expression and the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Are you?”

“Am I escaping a homicidal ex-lover? No, I told you, I'm dog-sitting. Oh…” She realized what he meant then. “No, I'm not one of their lesbian friends. I'm Jane's sister.” As soon as she said it, he could see the resemblance, but their styles were so different that it hadn't occurred to him at first, and he had been so stunned to see her, particularly sliding around in a pool of maple syrup in a funny old nightgown, with two big dogs going berserk. He had been as startled by her as he had been terrified of the dogs. This was more than he had bargained for when Jane had told him he could use her empty house. This was not his definition of empty, by any means. It was anything but.

“How did you get lucky enough to be assigned as dog-sitter?” He was intrigued by her, and by then they had cleaned up most of the mess, although their feet stuck to the now-sticky floor like Super Glue.

“I'm the family black sheep,” she said with a shy smile, and he laughed. She looked very young and very pretty, and he was trying not to look at the way the nightgown was glued to her.

“And what does a black sheep do? Drink to excess? Recreational drugs? A string of bad boyfriends? Drop out of school?” She looked like she was in high school, but he could tell she wasn't.

“Worse. I dropped out of law school, which is considered a capital offense, and I'm a professional dog-walker. I live at the beach. I'm considered a hippie, a flake, and an underachiever.” She said it grinning, in the face of his good-humored assessment of her, and suddenly it didn't seem so awful saying it to him. It sounded funny instead.

“That doesn't sound so bad to me. The law school thing sounds very dreary. The dog-walker bit sounds quite terrifying, and very brave of you. I was a black sheep too. I dropped out of college to go to acting school, and my father was very nasty about it, but apparently I make more money now than I would have as a banker, so he's forgiven me. You just have to wait a while, they'll get over it. Perhaps you should threaten to write a book about them, and expose all their secrets. Or sell embarrassing photographs you've taken of them. Blackmail might be a useful thing. And I don't see what's wrong with living at the beach. People pay fortunes for houses in Malibu, and they're considered quite respectable, even enviable. You don't sound like a very convincing black sheep to me.”

“I do to them,” she assured him.

“I can't tell if you're a hippie, in that thing.” He gestured toward her nightgown, and for the first time she realized how it was sticking to her and how much of her shape it revealed. “Perhaps you'd better take that off and change into your dog-walking clothes,” he suggested discreetly. “I'll find a mop and try to get this stuff off the floor.” He started opening closets and found one, as she turned toward him and smiled. He had a nice sense of humor, and he seemed almost shy as he looked at her. He didn't act like the movie stars she knew.

“Do you want anything to eat?” she asked politely, and he laughed.

“Presumably not anything that would require syrup. You seem to be fresh out. What was it, by the way?” he asked with interest.

“Waffles,” she said from the doorway.

“Sorry I missed them.”

“There's a half a head of lettuce in the refrigerator,” she offered, and he laughed again.

“I think I'll wait. I'll pick up some food later. I'll get you some more syrup.”

“Thank you,” she said, as he poured water into a bucket, and then she scampered up the stairs, leaving sticky footprints all the way up to the bedroom. She was back a few minutes later, in jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and he had made himself some coffee and offered a cup to her, which she declined. “I only drink tea,” she explained.

“I couldn't find any,” he said, looking tired as he sat at the kitchen table. He looked like he'd had a rough couple of days, and the bruise on his cheek seemed fresh.

“We're out of everything. I'll pick up some stuff on my way home. I have to go to work, but I've only got two dogs to walk on Saturdays.”

He looked fascinated, as though she had told him she was a snake charmer. “Have you ever been bitten?” he asked in awe.

“Only once in three years, by a crazed teacup Chihuahua. The big dogs are always sweet.”

“What's your name, by the way? Since your sister didn't introduce us. You know mine, but I don't know yours.”

“My mother named us after her two favorite authors. Jane was named after Jane Austen. Mine is Colette, but no one calls me that. I'm Coco.” She held out a hand and he shook it, with a look of amusement. She was an enchanting girl.