by Nora Roberts
“But I’m not. I’ll get your boxes.”
“Don’t bother, I’ll just wear them out.” She opened her purse, dropped her other earrings carelessly inside. “You just cut the tags off for me, and ring it up.”
“Add it up,” Tory corrected. “I don’t have the cash register set up yet.”
“Whatever.” She slipped off the necklace, the tagged earring. “I’ll write you a check.” Faith lifted her eyebrows when Tory held out a hand. “I can’t write it until you give me the total.”
“No, give me your other earrings. That’s no way to treat them. I’ll give you a box.”
With a short laugh, Faith dug them out again. “All right, little mother.”
Sex and shopping, Faith thought, as she wandered again. There couldn’t be a better way to spend the day. And from the looks of things she could spend a lot of pleasant time in Tory’s shop.
Who’d have thought little, spook-eyed Tory Bodeen would grow into such fine taste? And learn how to use it so cleverly.
It must’ve been a powerful lot of work to hunt up the right things, to find the people who made those things, to calculate what to charge for them, to design the space to display them.
Likely more to it than that, Faith mused. Bookkeeping and that kind of nasty thing.
She found herself impressed, and a little envious, by the idea of having the gumption and the skill to create a business from nothing.
Not that she’d want any part of such an undertaking, and all that responsibility, herself. A shop like this would tie you down tighter than a coil of hemp. But wasn’t it nice the shop was so convenient to Wade? Maybe life in Progress was about to pick up for a while.
“You ought to tip this bowl up on a stand.” She stopped, tipped the big serving bowl herself. “So people can see the inside design from across the room.”
Tory had intended to, once she’d unpacked her stands. Adding figures, she barely glanced up. “Want a job? I’ve got your total here, tax included, but you should check my math.”
“You always got better grades there than I did.” She started over, and the shop door opened. Faith would have sworn she heard Tory groan.
Lissy’s squeal was, in Tory’s opinion, only one of her annoying habits. Among the others were her tendency to douse herself in a lily-of-the-valley scent that entered the room before she did, and remained in it long after she’d left.
As both the scent and the squeal entered her shop, Tory gritted her teeth in what she hoped would be mistaken for a smile.
“Oh, isn’t this fun! I just got my hair done and was walking on down to the office when I saw y’all in here.”
As Lissy clapped her hands together and took a turn around, Tory shot Faith a single, deadly look. It was answered by a lightning grin of perfect understanding, and a coy flutter of lashes.
“I happened along just after Tory’s sign was finished.”
“And it looks just fine, too. Everything’s coming right along, isn’t it?” With one hand on the weight of her belly, Lissy turned back to scan the shelves. “It’s all looking so pretty, Tory. Why, you must’ve worked like six mules to get so much done in so little time. And didn’t my Dwight do a fine job.”
“Yes, I couldn’t be happier with the work.”
“‘Course not. He’s the best there is. Oh, isn’t this dear!”
She snatched the oil lamp Tory had just placed on the shelf. “I just love things that sit around the house. Dust catchers, Dwight calls them, but it’s those touches that make a home, isn’t it?”
Tory took a deep breath. Just one more of those annoying traits was Lissy’s habit of turning every sentence into an exclamation. “Yes, I think so. If dust doesn’t have someplace to catch, it’ll just fall on an empty table.”
“Why, that’s so true!” Discreetly, Lissy turned the price tag over, then rounded her mouth into an O of surprise. “My, it’s dear, isn’t it?”
“It’s handcrafted and signed,” Tory began, but Faith rolled right over her.
“You get what you pay for, don’t you, Lissy? And Dwight makes enough to indulge you, especially since you’re about to pop with another baby. I swear if I ever carried a weight around for nine months, the man who planted it there would have to buy me the moon and the stars.”
Not entirely sure if she was being complimented or insulted, Lissy frowned. “Dwight just spoils me rotten.”
“‘Course he does. I just bought me these earrings.” She gave the one still in her ear a spin with a fingertip. “And a pendant, too. Tory’s giving me a little jump on her Saturday opening.”
“Really?” Lissy’s eyes went sharp and narrow.
As Faith knew, she wasn’t one to tolerate anyone getting ahead of her. She clutched the lamp greedily to her breasts. “Tory, you just have to let me have this now. My heart’s just set on it. I don’t know if I can get in here first thing on Saturday, and somebody else might snap it up. Be a doll, won’t you, and let me buy it today?”
Tory circled Faith’s total so that she could begin calculating. “It’ll have to be cash or check, Lissy. I’m not set up for credit cards today. But I’d be happy to set it aside for you if—”
“No, no, I can write you a check. Maybe, since I’m here and all, I could just poke about for a bit? It’s just like playing store.”
“Yeah.” Tory took the lamp, set it on the counter.
It looked like she was open for business after all.
“Oh! Are these mirrors for sale?”
“Everything’s for sale.” Tory got a small navy blue box from under the counter, placed Faith’s earrings inside. “I’m going to put the artist’s card in with your old earrings.”
“Fine. You don’t have to thank me,” she added under her breath.
“I’m debating whether you did it to be helpful or to irritate me,” Tory said equably. “Or irritate her. But…” She noted down the price of the lamp. “A sale’s a sale, so I will thank you. You knew just which button to push.”
“On that one?” Faith glanced over to where Lissy was oohing and aahing and chattering. “She’s as simple as they come.”
“She buys one of those mirrors, and she can be my new best friend.”
“Well, I like that.” Enjoying herself more than she’d imagined, Faith pulled out her checkbook. “I get shoved aside, and after I gave you your first sale, too.”
“I just have to have this mirror, Tory. The oval one with the lilies going up the side. I’ve just never seen anything like it. It’ll look so sweet in my little sitting room.”
Tory’s eyes met Faith’s over the counter, gleamed. “Sorry, she just outbought you.” To Lissy, she called out, “I’ll get the box out of the back room.”
“I appreciate that. I swear there’s just so much to choose from already, and I guess you’re not half set up. I was telling Dwight just the other night that I don’t see where you find the time. Between moving into the house, setting things up here, handling deliveries, and spending evenings with Cade, you must’ve found yourself a twenty-six-hour day.”
“Cade?”
The name popped simultaneously from Tory’s and Faith’s lips.
“That man moved faster than I gave him credit for.” Lissy wandered back. “I have to say, I never pictured the two of you together, as a couple. But you know what they say about still waters.”
“Yes. No.” Tory held up a hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Cade and I aren’t together.”
“Oh, there’s no need to be coy when it’s just us girls. Dwight told me all about it, explained you’d probably want to keep it quiet awhile. I haven’t told a soul, don’t you worry.”
“There’s nothing to tell. Absolutely nothing to tell. We just…” She saw two pair of eyes sharpen, and felt her tongue go thick. “Nothing. Dwight’s mistaken. I’ll go get the box.”
“Don’t know why she’s so hell-bent to keep it secret,” Lissy commented, when Tory rushed into the storeroom. “After all,
it’s not like either of them’s married or anything. Of course,” she added with a smirk, “I guess the idea she’s rolling on the sheets with Cade after being back here less than a month doesn’t go with that quiet, proper-lady attitude she’s painting herself with.”
“Oh?” Cade’s business was Cade’s business, Faith told herself. But she’d be damned if she’d let this little cat claw at him. “Don’t quiet, proper ladies have sex?” With a viciously bright smile, she tapped a finger on Lissy’s belly. “I guess that bump you got there’s from eating too much chocolate.”
“I’m a married woman.”
“You weren’t when you and Dwight were bouncing around in the backseat of the secondhand Camaro his daddy bought him when he lettered in track.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Faith, you did plenty of bouncing of your own back then.”
“Exactly. That’s why I’m damned careful where I aim my stone if I get an urge to throw one.” She signed her check with a flourish, then picked up the mate to her new earring.
“All I’m saying is that for somebody who’s barely back in Progress and who’s been doing God knows what all these years, she sure has latched on to a Lavelle mighty fast.”
“Nobody latches on to a Lavelle until we want them to.” But she was going to think about this. She was going to think about it good and hard.
Tory was tempted to close up as soon as she nudged her two unexpected customers out the door. But that would have thrown her off schedule, and given Lissy’s foolish gossip too much importance.
She worked on her stock another three hours, systematically pricing, logging, and arranging. The manual labor and the tedium of paperwork kept her from brooding.
But the drive home gave her ample opportunity.
This was not the way she intended to establish herself in Progress again. She wasn’t going to tolerate, not for one minute, being the focus of town gossip. The way to quash it, she told herself, was to ignore it, to rise above it.
And to keep her distance from Cade.
None of that would cause her any problem at all.
She was used to ignoring wagging tongues, and over matters a great deal more vital than some trumped-up romance. She certainly didn’t have to spend any time with Cade Lavelle. She barely had, in any case. A couple of meals, a movie or two, maybe a drive. All harmless occupations where they’d just happened to go together.
From now on, she’d just go alone.
And that, she thought, was that.
It might have been, if she hadn’t spotted his truck at the edge of a field.
She told herself to drive by. Really, there was no point in stopping, no reason to discuss it. It would be much more sensible to continue home and let the entire foolish matter die a natural death.
And she kept seeing the hungry, predatory gleam in Lissy’s eyes.
She jerked the wheel, pulled to the side of the road where the grass was choppy and thick. She was just going to mention it, that was all. Just mention that Cade should shut the hell up and stop talking about her with his idiot buddies. This wasn’t high school, damn it.
Piney Cobb took a long, contemplative drag from the last Marlboro in his pack. He’d watched the station wagon swerve to the shoulder, watched the woman—damn if it wasn’t the little Bodeen girl, all grown up—start her march to the field, and he kept watching as she aimed her feet between the rows and kept on coming.
Beside him, Cade stood studying the day’s work and the progress of the crop. Boy had funny ideas if you asked him, but those funny ideas were working. It was none of his never mind, anyway. He got paid all the same whether he sprayed hell out of the crop, or babied it with cow shit and ladybugs.
“Could use another good rain like we had the other night,” Cade mused.
“Could.” Piney scratched his grizzled chin, pursed his lips. “What you got here’s a good three inches higher than the traditional fields.”
“Organic cotton grows faster,” Cade said absently. “Chemicals stunt growth.”
“Yeah, so you’ve said.” And so, despite Piney’s doubts, it had been proven true. It made him think maybe, all in all, college educations weren’t all bullshit.
Not that he’d say so right out loud. But it was something to mull on.
“Boss?” Piney took a last pull on his cigarette, then carefully tramped it out underfoot. “You got female problems?”
Since his mind was full of work, it took Cade a minute. “Excuse me?”
“See, myself, I’ve kept pretty clear of females, but I been around this world long enough to recognize a woman getting up a head of steam.”
He shifted his gaze, squinting against the sun, and nodded lazily to where Tory was plowing her way up the rows. “There’s one now. From the look of things, you’re dead in her sights.”
“I got no problems.”
“I’d say you’re wrong about that one,” Piney muttered, and eased a step back so as not to be hit with the fallout.
“Cade.”
It was a pleasure to see her, a simple, easy pleasure. “Tory. This is a nice surprise.”
“Really? We’ll see about that. I need to talk to you.”
“All right.”
“Alone.”
“I’ll just mosey along.”
Tory sucked in her breath, remembered her manners. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Cobb.”
“No need for that. Didn’t think you’d remember me.”
She hadn’t, or hadn’t consciously. She’d said his name without thinking about it. Now, for a moment, her temper was coated with an old image of a scrawny, thin-chested man with wheat-colored hair who smelled most usually of liquor and snuck her little peppermint drops.
He was still scrawny, she noted, but age and drink had ravaged his face. It was red and worn and saggy, and the wheat-colored hair, if he still owned it, was thin enough to be covered completely by an old gray cap.
“I remember you used to give me candy, and you worked the field next to my father’s.”
“Did.” His lips stretched out in a smile, revealing teeth as tilted and gapped as an old picket fence. “Work for the college boy now. Pays better. I’ll just be getting on. See you in the morning, boss man.”
He tipped his cap, then took a peppermint out of his pocket and handed it to Tory. “As I recollect, you always favored these.”
“I still do. Thank you.”
“It pleased him that you remembered,” Cade said, as Piney walked across the field toward the road.
“My father used to shout at him about the evils of whiskey, then about once a month they’d get drunk together. Next day, Piney’d be out in the field, working as usual. And my rather’d go back to shouting at him across the rows.”
She shook her head, turned to face Cade. “I didn’t stop for a trip down memory lane. Just what do you mean telling your friend Dwight that we’re seeing each other?”
“I’m not sure—”
“We’re not seeing each other.”
Cade arched a brow, slipped off his sunglasses, hooked them on his shirt. “Well now, Tory, yes, we are. I’m standing here seeing you right now.”
“You know very well what I mean. We’re not dating.”
He didn’t smile, but he wanted to. He settled for scratching his head instead, and looking bemused. “Seems to me we’re doing something pretty close to that. We’ve gone out, what, four times in the last ten days or so. To my thinking, when a man and a woman go out to dinner and such, it’s a date.”
“Your thinking’s wrong. We’re not dating, so just get that straight.”
“Yes’m.”
“Don’t grin at me.” A trio of crows cawed by, sleek and shiny. “And even if you had that idea in your head, you had no business, no right, to tell Dwight we were involved. He went right off and told Lissy, and now she’s got it in her pea-brained head we’re having some sort of wild sexual affair. I do not want or intend for people around here to assume I’m your latest fling.”
/> “My latest?” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets, rocked back on the worn heels of his work boots. As far as entertainment went, he considered this the day’s highlight. “Just how many flings do you think I’ve had?”
“I have no interest.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” he pointed out, just for the pleasure of seeing her snarl.
“The point is you told Dwight we were involved.”
“No, I didn’t. But I don’t see …” It came back to him. “Oh yeah. Hmm.”
“There!” With a kind of triumph, she jabbed a finger at him. “You’re a grown man, and should have gotten over the locker room talk.”
“It was a misunderstanding.” And a fascinating one, in his opinion. “Lissy keeps trying to set me up. Can’t appear to stand having a single man running loose. It’s a pain in the ass. Last time it came up, I told Dwight to get her off my back, to tell her I was having a hot affair or something.”
“With me?” She wondered steam didn’t stream from her ears. “Why, of all the—”
“I didn’t say you,” Cade broke in. “I imagine Dwight just picked you out, as we were in your place at the time of the conversation. You want to jump somebody, jump him. But personally, I don’t see what you’re all het up about. We’re both single, we’re seeing each other—now, we are, Tory,” he added, before she could argue the point. “And if Lissy wants to think things between us have progressed to what would be a natural stage, where’s the harm?”
She wasn’t sure she could speak. He was amused. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. “You think this is funny?”
“Not so much funny as anecdotal,” he decided. “Makes for an amusing little anecdote.”
“Anecdotal, my butt. Lissy’ll have this spread all over the county, if she hasn’t already.”
The crows came back, circling. “Oh well, now, there’s a tragedy. Maybe we should issue a press release denying all.”
She made a sound, something perilously close to a growl. When she whirled away, he took her arm, held her in place. “Just simmer down, Victoria.”
