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What aesthetic would achieve that? She didn't know if she should try to revive the old Edwardian Era station-the historic photos she'd seen on the web were beautiful-or go for something purely modern Northwest. She didn't know what the people of Seattle would prefer. She didn't know what she would prefer, and didn't know what else she should be thinking about but wasn't.

Well, she'd watched The Apprentice and had learned the value of market research.

Twenty minutes later, she'd talked to three passengers sitting in the waiting area and to two Amtrak employees. The brief conversations had been revealing. They wanted natural light instead of the boarded-up windows. They wanted a shop with magazines and snacks. They wanted time schedules posted where you could see them. And those who lived in Seattle wanted their station to impress visitors and give them a taste of the region.

She was standing in the middle of the crowded, dirty waiting area, staring up at the stained acoustical tiles and fluorescent lights overhead, when Kevin found her.

"Emma! Hi! I hope I didn't keep you waiting!" He trotted up to her with an eager puppy dog look.

"Hi, Kevin."

"Are you done here?"

"I think so." She would have liked to stay longer, but she wouldn't be able to think with him trailing her.

"I don't want to rush you."

"No, it's okay. I've seen what I needed to."

As they climbed the stairs up to the street, he asked, "So, how's the house-cleaning business going?"

"It's going all right. I've cut back so that I can work on this train station project."

"Yeah? Still cleaning Russ's place, though?"

"No. He didn't really need a housekeeper." She slanted a glance at him, curious how he would take that news.

"Did he fire you?"

"Not really. We mutually decided that he could clean his own house."

"Yeah, he's a neat freak. A perfectionist. I didn't know why his sister hired you in the first place. She should have known that the last thing Russ would want was someone coming in and messing with his stuff."

"A perfectionist? Really? I didn't get that impression." She was intrigued.

"Maybe you weren't around him long enough. He's the type of guy who can't stand loose threads, vagueness. He wants things done right, pla

"No freewheeling creativity?"

"Not if it means things aren't being ticked off the checklist on schedule. I think he believes that even art can be created according to a timeline."

"So from your tone, I take it that you work differently?"

He gri

And that was the reason Russ owned a company that he'd started himself, and Kevin was only an employee. And would always be an employee.

"Oh, we're here! This is the restaurant." Kevin opened the glass door at the end of a dismal little strip mall.

The smells as they entered did much to allay Emma's misgivings. The decor wasn't much, but the place was busy, most of the older customers Asian and speaking what she assumed to be Vietnamese. A young Asian woman greeted them in English and showed them to a table.

Emma glanced over the menu, recognized nothing, and set it aside. "You're familiar with the food, so you can order for me. I'll eat anything except green bell peppers."

They chatted for a minute about what to get, and then the waitress came and took their order, appearing again a minute later with iced tea for both of them.

"So is Russ hard to work for?" Emma asked as she dumped Splenda into her glass and stirred it with her straw. "Just what do you do at his company anyway?"

"I'm a senior account manager. And Russ is great, as long as you do your job the way he thinks it should be done."

"A micromanager?" If so, he must leave the tendency at the office. He had let her do whatever she wished these past nights and seemed to trust her to make decisions on her own.

"If he thinks things have gone off track, yeah, he spells out exactly what he thinks you should be doing."

Emma murmured a noncommittal sound, wondering if Russ got on Kevin's case because Kevin needed a whip cracked over his head to keep from being a total screwup.

"I'll feel sorry for whoever marries him," Kevin went on, gri