Holding the Dream (9 page)

Truth or fiction? Laura wondered, muffling a laugh. The ownership was fact, but the little sidebar was probably fantasy.

“Laura.” With the long-suffering look she'd worn after the first hour with the books, Kate stepped out of the back office. “Do you realize how much money you're wasting by short-ordering boxes? The more you order at a time, the less each costs. The way we go through them—”

“Ah, yes, you're right.” Out of defense and necessity, Laura looked at her watch. “Oops, piano lessons. Gotta go.”

“You're buying tape at the dime store rather than through a wholesaler,” Kate added, dogging Laura to the door.

“I should be shot. 'Bye.” And she escaped.

Her foot tapping, Kate turned, with the intent of nagging Margo. But her partner was busy fussing with a customer over
some silly little lamp that didn't look as if it could light a closet, much less a room.

It helped to nag. It felt good to take charge. Even if it was over boxes and tape.

“Miss. Oh, miss.” Another woman came out of the wardrobe room carrying a pair of white spangled pumps. “Do you have these in an eight narrow?”

Kate looked at the shoes, looked at the woman, and wondered why anyone would want a pair of shoes covered with iridescent sequins. “Everything's out that's in stock.”

“But these are too small.” She all but wailed it, thrusting the shoes at Kate. “They're perfect with the dress I've chosen. I have to have them.”

“Look,” Kate began, then ground her teeth together as Margo caught her eye with a fiery warning look. She remembered the routine Margo had drummed into her head. Hated it, but remembered. “Pretenses is almost exclusively one of a kind. But I'm sure we can find something that works for you.” Already missing her computer, she guided the customer back into the wardrobe room.

It took a great deal of control not to yelp. Shoes were tumbled everywhere, rather than neatly arranged on the shelves. Half a dozen cocktail dresses were tossed haphazardly over a chair. Others had slipped to the neat little Aubusson.

“Been busy, haven't we?” Kate said with a frozen smile.

The woman let out a trill of laughter that cut right through the top of Kate's skull. “Oh, I'm just in love with everything, but I'm very decisive once I've made up my mind.”

That was a statement for the books. “Okay, which dress have you become decisive about?”

It took twenty minutes, twenty hemming and hawing, oohing and ahing minutes, before the customer settled on a pair of white slingbacks with satin bows.

Kate struggled to arrange the yards of white tulle in the skirt of the dress the woman couldn't live without. Tulle, Kate thought as she finally zipped it into a bag, that would certainly make the woman resemble an oversized wedding cake.

Her work complete, Kate handed over dress, shoes, and sales receipt and even managed a smile. “Thanks so much for shopping at Pretenses.”

“Oh, I love it here. I just have to see these earrings.”

“Earrings?” Kate's heart sank.

“These. I think they'd be wonderful with the dress, don't you? Could you just take it out of the bag again so I could see?”

“You want me to take the dress out of the bag.” With a fierce smile, Kate leaned over the counter. “Why don't you—”

“Oh, the Austrian crystals just make those earrings, don't they?” Dashing around the counter, Margo gave Kate a shove that knocked her a full foot sideways. “I have a bracelet that's just made to go with them. Kate, why don't you take the dress back out while I unlock the case?”

“I'll take the damn dress back out,” Kate muttered with her back turned. “But I'm not putting it in again. No one can make me.” Spoiling for a fight, she scowled as the door jingled open. Her scowl only deepened at Byron's quick smile.

“Hello, ladies. I'll just browse until you're free.”

“You're free,” Margo said meaningfully to Kate. “I'll finish up here.”

One devil was the same as another, Kate supposed and walked reluctantly out from behind the counter. “Looking for something?”

“Mother's Day. I bought my mother's birthday present in here a couple of months ago, and it made me a hero. I figured I'd stick with a winner.” He reached out, skimmed a knuckle along her jaw. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Embarrassed at the memory of sobbing in his arms, she turned stiffly away. “Did you have anything specific in mind?”

In answer, he put a hand on her shoulder, turned her around. “I thought we'd parted on semi-friendly terms at least.”

“We did.” She reeled herself in. There was no point in
blaming him, though it was more satisfying. “I'm just a little wired. I nearly punched that customer.”

Lifting an eyebrow, Byron glanced over Kate's head at the woman currently sighing over a bracelet. “Because?”

“She wanted to see earrings,” Kate said between her teeth.

“Good God, what is the world coming to? If you promise not to hit me, I swear I won't even look at a pair of earrings in here. I may never look at a pair anywhere again.”

She supposed that deserved at least a smile. “Sorry. It's a long story. So, what does your mother like?”

“Earrings. Sorry.” He let out a rumbling chuckle. “Hard to resist. She's an internist with nerves of steel, a wicked temper, and a sentimental streak for anything that has to do with her children. I'm thinking hearts and flowers. Anything that falls into that basic symbolism.”

“That's nice.” She did smile. She was a sucker for a man who not only loved his mama but understood her. “I don't know the stock very well. It's my first week on the job.”

She looked neat as a pin, he mused, in her tidy little gray suit with a Windsor-knotted striped tie. The sensible shoes shouldn't have led him to speculate on her legs. Surprised that that was exactly what he was doing, he cleared his throat.

“How's it going?”

She glanced back at Margo. “I think my coworkers are plotting my demise. Other than that, good enough. Thanks.” But when he continued to study her, she shifted. “You did come in for a gift, right—not to check up on me or anything?”

“I can do both.”

“I'd rather you—” The door opened again, heralding the entrance of three laughing, chattering women. Kate grabbed Byron's arm in a steely grip. “Okay, I'm with you. You need my undivided attention. I'll give you ten percent off if you take up all my time until they leave.”

“A real people person, aren't you, Katherine?”

“I'm a desperate woman. Don't screw with me.” She kept her hand firmly on his arm as she steered him to a corner of the shop.

“Your scent's different again,” he commented, indulging himself with a sniff close to her hair. “Subtle, yet passionate.”

“Something Margo squirted on me when I was distracted,” she said absently. This was her new life, she reminded herself. The old was gone, and she was going to make the best of what she had left. “She likes us to push the merchandise. She'd have hung jewelry all over me if I hadn't escaped.” From her safe distance, she glanced back and made a face at her partner. “Look, she made me wear this pin.”

He glanced down at the simple gold crescent adorning her lapel. “It's very nice.” And drew the eye to the soft swell of her breasts. “Simple, classic, subdued.”

“Yeah, right. What do pins do but put holes in your clothes? Okay, back to business. It so happens, there's this music box that might make you a hero again.”

“Music box.” He brought himself back to the business at hand. “Could work.”

“I remember it because Margo just picked it up at an estate sale in San Francisco. She'd know the circa this and the design that. I can tell you it's lovely.”

She lifted it, a glossy mahogany box large enough for jewelry or love letters. On its domed lid was a painting of a young couple in medieval dress, a unicorn, and a circle of flowers. The lid opened to deep-blue velvet and the charming strains of “Für Elise.”

“There's a problem,” he began.

“Why?” Her back went up. “It's beautiful, it's practical, it's romantic.”

“Well.” He rubbed his chin. “How am I going to take up all your time when you've shown me the perfect gift first thing?”

“Oh.” Kate glanced over her shoulder again. The three fresh customers were in the wardrobe room making a lot of female-on-the-hunt noises. Trying not to feel guilty, she looked over at Margo, who was expertly rebagging the tulle. “Want to buy something else? It's never too early to shop for Christmas.”

He angled his head. “You've got to learn to gauge your clientele, kid. Here's a man coming in to buy a Mother's Day gift three days before the mark. A gift that he will now have to have shipped overnight to Atlanta. That type doesn't shop for Christmas until sometime after December twenty-first.”

“That's very impractical.”

“I like to use up my practicality at work. Life is different.”

When he smiled at her, the creases in his face deepened. She liked the look of them, caught herself wondering how it would feel to trace her finger along those charming dents. Surprised at herself, she blew out a breath. Steady, girl.

“Then maybe you should look at something else, to like, compare.”

“No, this is it.” It intrigued him to see that he was making her uncomfortable, and that the discomfort was sexual. Deliberately, he put his hands over hers so that they held the box together. “Why don't I dawdle over the wrapping paper?”

That, she decided, was definitely a come-on. She'd have to think about whether or not she liked it later. “Okay, that'll work.” She sent Margo a beaming smile as they crossed paths, then set the music box carefully on the counter.

Margo closed the door behind her now-satisfied customer and aimed an automatically flirtatious smile at Byron. “Hello, Byron. It's wonderful to see you.”

“Margo.” He caught her hand, brought it to his lips. The gesture was as automatic as her smile. “You look incredible, as always.”

She laughed. “We just don't get enough men in here, particularly handsome, gallant ones. Have you found something you like?”

“Kate saved my life with a Mother's Day gift.”

“Did she?” As Kate studiously boxed Byron's selection, Margo leaned over the counter, caught Kate by her red-and-blue-striped tie, and tugged viciously. “I'm going to kill you later. Excuse me, Byron. I have customers.”

Kate kept her hot eyes on Margo's retreating back. “See, I told you. She wants me dead.”

“One definition of family is a constant state of adjustment.”

Kate lifted a brow. “From Webster's?”

“From De Witt's. Let's try the paper with the little violets. Margo's a remarkable woman.”

“I've never known a man who didn't think so. No, that's wrong,” she said as she measured wrapping paper. “Laura's ex-husband couldn't stand her. Of course, that was because she's the housekeeper's daughter, and he's a puss-faced snob. And I think it was because he wanted her. Men do. And it irritated him.”

Intrigued by the brisk way she worked, the almost mathematical manner in which she aligned the box and folded corners on the gift wrap, he leaned on the counter. Her hands were really quite lovely, he noted. Narrow, competent, unadorned.

“How did he feel about you?”

“Oh, he hated me, too, but that didn't have anything to do with sexual fantasy. I'm the poor relation who has the nerve to say what she thinks.” When her stomach jittered, she glanced up and frowned. “I don't know why I told you all that.”

“Could be repressed conversation urges. You don't talk to people for long periods, then you get caught in a conversation and forget you don't like to talk to people. I told you, it can be a pleasant hobby.”

“I don't like to talk to people,” she muttered. “Most people. You want purple ribbon or white?”

“Purple. You interest me, Kate.”

Wary, she looked up again. “I don't think that's necessary.”

“Just an observation. I assumed you were cold, prim, rude, annoying, and self-involved. I'm not ordinarily that far wrong with people.”

She jerked the ribbon into a knot, snipped off the ends. “You're not this time, either. Except for the prim.”

“No, the rude and annoying probably stick, but I've been reevaluating the rest.”

She chose a large, elaborate bow. “I don't want an evaluation.”

“I didn't ask. It's another hobby of mine. Gift card?”

Frowning again, she found the one to match the paper and slapped it on the counter in front of him. “We can overnight it.”

“I'm counting on it.” He handed her his credit card, then took out a pen to write on the card. “Oh, by the way, I made an offer on the house you recommended. Like the music box, it's exactly what I was looking for.”

“Good for you.” After a brief search, she found the shipping form, set it down beside the box. She suppressed the urge to ask him about it, the house, what had appealed to him, the terms. Damn conversation.

“If you'll fill in the name and address where you want it shipped, we'll have FedEx pick it up in the morning. She'll get it with twenty-four hours to spare and save you a whining phone call.”

His head lifted. “My mother doesn't whine.”

“I was referring to you.” Her smug smile faltered when two more customers came in.

“Isn't that handy?” Byron dashed off his mother's name and address. “We're all done, just in time for you to help some new customers.”

“Listen, De Witt. Byron—”

“No, no, don't bother to grovel. You're on your own.” He pocketed his card, the receipt, then tore off his copy of the shipping form himself. “See you around, kid.”