"I can't believe you had all your windows UV treated in less than a week." Jack had sprung that surprise on me when I'd argued that I couldn't stay the next day for his family dinner. So here I was in his kitchen, watching him cook and waiting anxiously for his relatives to arrive. He'd poured me a glass of wine to ease my nerves, but I sat on a barstool at his kitchen counter like a cat perched on a precarious limb.

"My cousin Kevin runs a construction firm. March is a ...