Dream 2 - Holding the Dream

by Nora Roberts

  Chapter Three

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  The minute Kate walked into Pretenses, Margo scowled. "You look like death."

  "Thanks. I want coffee." And a moment alone. She headed up the curving stairs to the second floor, found the pot already brewing.

  She knew she hadn't slept more than three hours, not after poring over every detail in the report from the detective back east. And every detail had confirmed that she was the daughter of a thief.

  It was all there—the evidence, the charges, the statements. And reading through those papers had killed the faint hope she'd hidden even from herself that it had all been some sort of mistake.

  Instead, she had learned that her father had been out on bail at the time of the accident and had instructed his lawyer to accept the plea bargain he'd been offered. If he hadn't been killed that night on that icy stretch of road, he would have been in prison within the week.

  Telling herself to accept it, to get on with her life, she drank her coffee hot and black. She needed to go back down, get to work. And face a friend who knew her too well to miss signs of stress.

  Well, she thought, carrying her cup with her, she had other excuses for a poor night's sleep. And there was nothing to be gained by obsessing over facts that couldn't be changed. From this moment, Kate promised herself, she would cease to think about it.

  "What's going on?" Margo demanded when Kate wound her way down the stairs. "I want an answer this time. You've been jumpy and out of sorts for weeks. And I swear you're losing weight with every breath. This has just gone on long enough, Kate."

  "I'm fine. Tired." She shrugged. "A couple of accounts are giving me some problems. On top of that it's been a weird week." Kate opened the cash register, counted out the bills and coins for morning change. "Monday, that scum Thornhill came slinking into my office."

  Margo turned from setting up the teapot. "I hope you kicked his ass right out again."

  "I let him think we've made up. It was easier," she said before Margo could comment. "He's more likely to leave me alone now."

  "You're not going to tell me that's what's keeping you up at night."

  "It gave me some bad moments, okay?"

  "Okay." Margo smiled in sympathy. "Men are pigs, and that one is a blue ribbon hog. Don't waste your beauty sleep on him, honey."

  "Thanks. Anyway, that was only the first weird thing."

  "The wacky life of a CPA."

  "Wednesday, I got tossed this new account. Freeland. It's a petting zoo, kiddie park, museum. Very strange. I'm learning all about how much it costs to feed a baby llama."

  Margo paused. "You lead such a fascinating life."

  "You're telling me. Then yesterday, the partners all hud dled together for most of the afternoon. Even the secretaries were barred. Nobody has a clue, but the rumor is somebody's about to be canned or promoted." Kate shrugged and closed the cash register. "I've never seen them powwow like that. They had to make their own coffee."

  "Stop the presses."

  "Look, my little world has just as much intrigue and drama as anyone else's." She stepped back as Margo advanced on her. "What?"

  "Just hold still." Grabbing Kate's lapel, Margo pinned on a crescent-shaped brooch dangling with drops of amber. "Advertise the merchandise."

  "It's got dead bugs in it."

  Margo didn't bother to sigh. "Put some lipstick on, for God's sake. We open in ten minutes."

  "I don't have any with me. And I'll tell you right now, I'm not going to work with you all day if you're going to be picking on me. I can sell, ring up, and box just fine without painting my face."

  "Fine." Before Kate could evade her, Margo picked up an atomizer and spritzed her with perfume. "Advertise the merchandise," she repeated. "If anyone asks what you're wearing, it's Bella Donna's Savage."

  Kate had just worked up a snarl when Laura burst in. "I thought I was going to be late. Ali had a hair emergency. I was afraid one of us would kill the other before it was over."

  "She's getting more like Margo every day." Wishing it were coffee, Kate strolled over to pour herself tea and used it to wash down a palm full of pills she didn't want either of her friends to see. "I meant that in the worst possible way," she added.

  "A young girl becoming interested in appearance and grooming is natural," Margo shot back. "You were the changeling in the family. Still are, as you constantly prove, by going around like a scarecrow dressed in navy blue serge."

  Unoffended, Kate sipped at her tea. "Navy serge is classic because it's serviceable. There is only a very small percentage of the population who feel honor bound to fart through silk."

  "Jesus, you're crude," Margo managed over a laugh. "I don't even want to argue with you."

  "That's a relief." Hoping to keep it that way, Laura hurried over to turn the Open sign around. "I'm still cross-eyed from arguing with Allison. If Annie hadn't intervened, it would have been hairbrushes at ten paces."

  "Mum always could defuse a good fight," Margo commented. "Okay, ladies, remember, we're pushing Mother's Day. And in case it slipped both of your minds, expectant mothers also warrant gifts."

  Kate braced for the onslaught and struggled to ignore the viselike clamp on her temples that was usually the sign of a migraine on the boil.

  Within an hour Pretenses was busy enough to keep all three of them occupied. Kate boxed up a Hermes bag of dark-green leather, wondering what anyone needed with a green leather purse. But the slick slide of the credit card machine kept her cheerful. She was, by her calculations, neck and neck with Margo on sales.

  It was a fine feeling, she thought as she wrapped the gold and silver box in elegant floral paper, watching the business progress. And the combo of competition and medication had eased the headache that had been threatening.

  She had to give Margo full credit for it. Pretenses had been a dream rising like smoke from the ashes of Margo's life.

  Just over a year ago, Margo's career as a popular model in Europe, her exposure and financial rewards as the Bella Donna Woman, had been rudely cut off. Not that Margo was blameless, Kate thought, smiling as she handed the purchase to her customer. She'd been reckless, foolish, headstrong. But she hadn't deserved to lose everything.

  She'd come back from Milan broken and nearly bankrupt, but in a matter of months, through her own grit, she had turned her life around.

  Opening a shop and selling her possessions in it had been Josh Templeton's idea originally. His idea, Kate mused, to keep Margo from sinking, since he was blindly in love with her. But Margo had expanded the idea, nurtured it, polished it.

  Then Laura, reeling from her husband's deceit, betrayal, and greed, had taken the bulk of what he'd left of her money and helped Margo buy the building for Pretenses.

  When Kate had insisted on acquiring a one-third interest, thus making herself a partner, it had been because she believed in the investment, because she believed in Margo. And because she didn't want to be left out of the fun.

  Of all of them, she understood the risks best. Nearly forty percent of new businesses failed within a year, and almost eighty percent went under within five.

  And Kate worried over it, gnawed on it at night when she couldn't sleep. But Pretenses, Margo's conception of an elegant, exclusive, and unique secondhand shop that offered everything from designer gowns to teaspoons, was holding its own.

  Kate's part in it might have been small, and her reasons for getting involved certainly straddled the practical and the emotional, but she was enjoying herself. When she wasn't obsessing.

  Here was proof, after all, that life could be what you made of it. She badly needed to hang on to that idea.

  "Is there something I can show you?" The man she smiled at was thirtyish, attractive in a rugged, lived-in manner. She appreciated the worn jeans, the faded shirt, the dashing reddish moustache.

  "Ah, well, maybe. This necklace here."

  She looked down into the display, zeroed in on his choice. "It's pretty, isn'
t it? Pearls are so classic."

  Not regular pearls, she thought as she lifted the necklace out. What the hell were they called? She continued to search through her mind as she draped the necklace over a velvet form.

  "Seed pearls," she remembered and beamed at him. He really was awfully cute. "It's called a lariat," she added.

  She'd gotten that off the tag. "Three strands, and the clasp, or the slide thing has a…" Give me a minute. "A mabe pearl set in gold. Tradition with a flair," she added, enjoying the ad lib.

  "I wondered how much…" Hesitating, he flipped the tiny, discreet price tag over. To his credit, he winced only slightly. "Well," he smiled a little, "it hits the top of my price range."

  "It's something she'll wear for years. Is it for Mother's Day?"

  "Yeah." He shifted his feet, running a calloused finger over the strands. "She'd go nuts over it."

  She melted toward him. Any man who would take such time and trouble for a gift for his mother earned top points from Kate Powell. Especially when he looked just a little bit like Kevin Costner. "We have several other really nice pieces that aren't quite so expensive."

  "No, I think… maybe… Could you put it on so I could get a better picture?"

  "Sure." Happy to oblige, she fastened it around her neck. "What do you think? Is it great?" She angled the counter mirror so that she could judge for herself and added, laughing, "If you don't buy it, I might have to snap it up myself."

  "It looks awfully pretty on you," he said with a shy, quiet smile that made her want to scoop him up and bundle him into the back room. "She's got dark hair like you. Wears it longer, but the pearls look good with dark hair. I guess I'll have to take it. Along with that box over there, the silver one with all the fancy scrolling."

  Still wearing the necklace, Kate scooted out from behind the counter to get the trinket box he'd pointed to. "Two presents." She reached up to undo the necklace clasp. "Your mother must be a very special woman."

  "Oh, she's great. She's going to like this box. She sort of collects them. The necklace is for my wife, though," he added. "I'm getting all my Mother's Day shopping done at one time."

  "Your wife." Kate forced herself to keep her lips cheerily curved at the corners. "I guarantee she'll love it. But if she or your mother prefers something else, we have a thirty-day exchange and return policy." With what she considered admirable restraint, Kate laid the necklace down. "Now, will that be cash or charge?"

  Ten minutes later she watched him saunter out. "The cute ones," she muttered to Laura, "the nice ones, the ones who love their mothers are all married."

  "There, there." Laura patted Kate's arm before reaching under the counter to select the proper box. "It looked like a very good sale."

  "Puts me at least two hundred up on Margo. And the day's young."

  "That's the spirit. But I should warn you, she's got one back in the wardrobe room now, and she's definitely leaning toward Versace."

  "Shit," Kate turned to scan the main showroom for prey. "I'm going for the blue-haired lady with the Gucci bag. She's mine."

  "Reel her in, tiger."

  Kate didn't break for lunch and told herself it was because she wanted to keep up her momentum, not because her stomach was acting up again. She had tremendous success in the second-floor ladies' boudoir and racked up two peignoirs, a stained-glass accent lamp, and a tasseled footstool.

  Maybe she did sneak into the back room a couple of times to boot up the computer and check Margo's bookkeeping. But only when her lead was comfortable. She corrected the expected mistakes, rolled her eyes over a few unexpected ones, and tidied up the files.

  She was forced to admit, in the end, that accountant's lapse was what cost her the victory. When she came back, smug, already preparing the lecture she intended to deliver to Margo on the cost of careless accounting, her rival was closing a sale.

  A whopper.

  Kate knew antiques. A child didn't grow up at Templeton House and not learn to recognize and appreciate them. Her heart sank even as dollar signs revolved in her head when she recognized the piece Margo was cooing over.

  Louis XVI, Kate recited in her head. A secretaire-a-abattant, probably near 1775. The marquetry panels, typical of that era, included vases and garlands of flowers, musical instruments and drapery.

  Oh, it was a stunner, Kate thought, and one of the remaining pieces from Margo's original stock.

  "I'm sorry to lose it," Margo was telling the dapper white-haired gentleman who leaned on a gold-headed cane and studied the secretaire and the woman who described it with equal admiration. "I bought it in Paris several years ago."

  "You have a wonderful eye. In fact, you have two wonderful eyes."

  "Oh, Mr. Stiener, that's so sweet of you." In her shameless style, Margo trailed a finger down his arm. "I do hope you'll think of me, now and again, when you're enjoying this."

  "I can promise you I will. Now, as to shipping?"

  "Just come over to the counter and I'll take all the necessary information." Margo crossed the room, hips swinging, and shot Kate a triumphant look.

  "I think that crushes you for the day, ace," she said when her customer strolled out.

  "The day's not over," Kate insisted. "We still have two hours until closing. So until the fat lady sings—which will be you in a few months—don't count your chickens."

  "Such a sore loser." Margo clucked her tongue and was ready to pounce when the door jangled. It wasn't a customer, but she pounced anyway. "Josh!"

  He caught her, kissed her, then pulled her to a chair. "Off your feet." He kept one hand on her shoulder and turned to glare at Kate. "You're supposed to be keeping an eye on her, making sure she doesn't overdo."

  "Don't hang this on me. Besides, Margo doesn't stand when she can sit and doesn't sit when she can lie down. And I made her drink a glass of milk an hour ago."

  Josh narrowed his eyes. "A whole glass?"

  "What she didn't spit at me." Because it amused and touched her to see her big brother worry and fuss, Kate decided to forgive him. She stepped over and kissed him. "Welcome home."

  "Thanks." He stroked a hand over her hair. "Where's Laura?"

  "Upstairs with a couple of customers."

  "And there's another one in the wardrobe room," Margo began, "so—"

  "Sit," Josh ordered. "Kate can handle it. You're looking pale."

  Margo pouted. "I am not."

  "You're going home and taking a nap," he decided. "No way you're going to work all day, then run around giving a party. Kate and Laura can finish out here."

  "Sure we can." Kate shot Margo a smug look. "A couple of hours should do it."

  "Keep dreaming, Powell. I've already won."

  "Won?" Always interested in a bet, Josh looked from woman to woman. "Won what?"

  "Just a friendly wager that I could outsell her."

  "Which she's already lost," Margo pointed out. "And I'm feeling generous. You can have the two-hour handicap, Kate." Taking Josh's hand, she rubbed it against her cheek. "And when you've lost, officially, you wear the Ungaro slip dress, the red, to the party tonight."

  "The thing that looks like a nightgown? You might as well be naked."

  "Really?" Josh wiggled his eyebrows. "No offense, Kate, hope you lose. Come on, duchess, home, bed."

  "I'm not wearing a red slip to any party," Kate insisted.

  "Then don't lose," Margo said with a careless shrug as she walked with Josh to the door. "But when you do, have Laura pick out the accessories."

  She wore a hammered-gold collar and triangular earrings that danced below her lobes. Her complaints that she looked like a slave girl captured by the Klingons fell on deaf ears. Even the shoes had been forced on her. Red satin skyscrapers that had her teetering at three and a half inches over her normal five seven.

  She sipped champagne and felt like a fool.

  It didn't help matters that some of her clients were there. Margo and Josh's acquaintances ran toward the rich, the famous, and the priv
ileged. And she wondered how she was going to maintain her image as a clearheaded, precise, and dedicated accountant when she was dressed like a bimbo.

  But a bet was a bet.

  "Stop fidgeting," Laura ordered when she joined Kate on the terrace. "You look stunning."

  "This from a woman tastefully garbed in an elegant suit that covers her extremities. What I look," she said after another gulp of champagne, "is desperate. I might as well be wearing a sign. 'Single Woman, HIV negative, apply in person.'"

  Laura laughed. "As long as you're hiding out here, I don't think you have to worry about it." With a sigh, she leaned back on the decorative banister. "God, it's a beautiful night Half-moon, starlight, the sound of the sea. A sky like that, it doesn't seem like anything bad could ever happen under it. This is a good house. Can you feel that, Kate? Margo and Josh's house. It's good."

  "Excellent investment, prime location, excellent view." She smiled at Laura's bland stare. "Okay, yeah, I can feel it. It's a good house. It has heart and character. I like thinking of them here, together. Of them raising a family here."

  Relaxed now, she leaned back with Laura. There was music drifting through the open doors and windows, the friendly sound of conversation, the tinkle of laughter. She could smell flowers, the sea, a mix of feminine perfumes, exotic tidbits being passed around on silver trays. And she could, simply by standing there, feel the permanence and the promise.

  Like Templeton House, she mused, where she had spent so much of her life. Maybe that was why she had never been driven to make a home of her own, why an apartment convenient to work was all she'd wanted. Because, she thought with a faint smile, she could always go home to Templeton House. And now she could always come here as well.

  "Oh, hello, Byron. I didn't know you were here."

  At Laura's easy greeting Kate's pretty mood popped. She opened her eyes, straightened up from the banister and squared her shoulders. Something about Byron De Witt always made her feel confrontational.

  "I just got here. I had some business that ran over. You look lovely, as always." He squeezed Laura's offered hand lightly before turning his gaze to Kate. The shadows were deep enough that she didn't notice his deep-green eyes widen slightly. But she did catch the quick, amused grin. "Nice to see you. Can I get either of you a fresh drink?"