by Noelle Adams
“Oh no!” Farrah said in a voice that sounded genuinely apologetic. “I’m so sorry! Let me get out of your way.”
Despite being slowed down by Farrah’s interference, Vince almost overtook Liz again, but the delay was just long enough for her to reach the painting a few moments before him.
She grabbed the frame, panting and grinning victoriously. “Mine!”
Vince was breathing fast too, and his face was slightly flushed. His eyes narrowed. “You cheated.”
Liz could barely hold back a rush of giggles, but she managed to widen her eyes and maintain an innocent expression. “Were there rules I didn’t know about?”
Vince gave her another glare and backed away as Farrah came up grinning to mark the painting as sold.
He didn’t stick around to argue. Just gave her one last look before he turned and left the room.
“Where did he come from?” Farrah asked in a hushed voice.
“I have no idea. He obviously knows what the Brandts are worth, but I’ve never seen the man before. He got the other painting, but at least I snagged this one. I think this is the better one anyway.”
“You should check out the closet in the guest bedroom. Looks like some good stuff there.”
Liz nodded. “That’s where I’m headed now. The listing mentioned vintage clothes and handbags.”
In the closet, Liz immediately found a Louis Vuitton handbag from the seventies that was ridiculously underpriced. She grabbed it excitedly and gave the shoes a cursory glance, quickly recognizing there was nothing of value. Then she started to search the clothes.
She found two vintage dresses in good condition, so she added them to her pile. She’d reached the back of the closet when she saw something hanging in a garment bag. She pulled it out and stepped out of the closet so she’d have enough room to unzip it.
Inside was a wedding dress.
A beautiful vintage wedding dress with a lace bodice and a gracefully flowing silk skirt. The style was simple, but the craftsmanship was top of the line, and the embroidery on the bodice was intricate and delicate.
Liz stared at the dress with a craving that was physical. Visceral.
She wanted it the way she wanted chocolate.
She checked for tags, but there was no evidence of a designer. Then she inspected some of the seams and realized it had been made by hand. The seamstress was brilliant. The fabric wasn’t yellowing so had been well cared for. The dress had to be at least fifty years old.
“Are you taking that?” The male voice came from behind her.
Liz jumped and reddened like she’d been caught doing something intimate. She turned to see Vince coming into the room. He was carrying a small antique clock.
She’d been planning to check out that clock if it was still available, so it was slightly annoying that he had his hands on it. The clock wasn’t as good as her own finds, however.
“Yes. I’m taking it.”
Now that she’d touched the wedding dress, she was quite sure she’d never be able to let it go.
She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hand it over to her father to sell.
She might have to buy it for herself.
Her friend had a wedding dress she kept hanging in an empty bedroom—even though Em was never planning to get married. She’d bought it just for herself. If Em could have a wedding dress without any sign of a marriage in the future, why couldn’t Liz?
“Those are mine too.” She nodded toward the two dresses draped over the Louis Vuitton handbag.
Vince nodded, looking unconcerned. He didn’t appear to recognize the value of the items she’d chosen, so she figured he wasn’t well informed on vintage fashion. He might know which paintings to go after first, but he wasn’t as good at this as she was.
He gave the room a cursory inspection. Ran his hand over the garments hanging in the closet. Then headed to the door.
He definitely wasn’t here to look at clothes.
He paused before he stepped out. “Is that worth a lot?” He nodded toward the wedding dress, looking genuinely curious.
Because his interest seemed sincere, she answered him without any tartness. “Maybe. But its value is a lot more than monetary. A woman made this—either for herself or for a member of her family. She sewed her life into this dress—all her hopes and dreams and love and feelings. It’s... priceless.”
When she finished, she was a little embarrassed by the earnestness of her answer. She was known for having a quick wit and a sharp tongue. For always being ready for a debate. Not for sentimentality.
She was even more self-conscious when she glanced over at Vince and saw he was staring at her soberly, without even a hint of a smile.
She couldn’t read his expression. At all.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m not surprised that clothes don’t hold any interest to you, but this might be a better find than either of the paintings. Someone really slipped up in not recognizing the quality of this.”
“Ah.”
That was all he said. Ah.
She scowled again at his back as he walked out the door.
FOR THE REST OF THE day, Vince Darcy couldn’t stop thinking about Liz.
It was annoying.
She was merely a random woman. One who had gotten in his way—since he’d told his mother he’d come back with both Brandt paintings—but one who shouldn’t linger in his thoughts this way.
But she was there on his drive back to Abingdon, prickling in his mind like an unanswered question or a word he couldn’t quite recall. And she was still there when he worked for a few hours in the office of Darcy’s, the antiques store his parents had opened ten years ago. Each time he paused from cleaning up last year’s accounting so they’d be ready for this year’s taxes, he would picture a pair of vivid green eyes, their expression shifting seamlessly between laughter and challenge.
It wasn’t like Liz was drop-dead beautiful or anything. Her eyes and mouth were too big, and both her small nose and her chin had a slight upward tilt, making her features interesting more than classic. Her hair was gorgeous—thick and wavy and brown, even pulled into a ponytail the way it had been this morning. And her body was fit and curvy and...
Well, it was good. He visualized her ass and her breasts as much as he did her eyes, and his body definitely appreciated the mental image.
But still.
She wasn’t gorgeous, and this morning had been a meaningless encounter.
He shouldn’t still be thinking about her. He’d always liked women. He dated often, and he appreciated them on all levels. Not just physically. But he couldn’t remember being as leveled by a woman as he was by Liz this morning.
It was annoying.
She was annoying.
The whole situation was annoying.
And he was still vaguely annoyed by it when his mother arrived in the shop at two in the afternoon.
She and his father had had a successful dental practice in Richmond for twenty-five years before they’d retired early. They’d opened a small antiques shop in Abingdon since they’d both been avid antiquers and had been too young to not do anything in their retirement. Abingdon already had a lot of antiques stores since the town had a solid tourist industry and a quaint historical downtown area. They’d never expected their little shop to take off the way it had, but four years ago they’d had to expand into a much larger space on Main Street.
Right now their only real competition was Berkley’s Antiques, and that one had been established sixty-five years ago and was evidently not doing as well financially as it should be because the family was always trying to do a deal with Darcy’s.
According to Riot, the silly, ridiculously named young woman who worked the cash register at his parents’ store, the Berkleys still resented the fact that the Darcys had insisted on keeping their own name on their store.
Riot would know. She was one of the Berkley daughters and had taken the job at the Darcy store to spite her parents.
<
br /> The whole thing felt rather adolescent to him. He didn’t like artificial drama, and he didn’t particularly like Riot and wasn’t sure why his parents had even hired her.
But he’d only moved back to town and started helping out with the business a few weeks ago, so he wasn’t in a position to question decisions that had been made before he got here.
His first priority was cleaning up these accounts.
They were a mess, and he was amazed the IRS hadn’t come after his parents already since the financial side of the business had been handled in a rather slapdash way. Vince had majored in business with an emphasis in finance and then gotten an MBA. He’d had a good job in the finance department of a growing company in Blacksburg with an international reach, but then his father had died three months ago.
His mother hadn’t wanted to give up the store, but there was no way she could handle it on her own. His brother Robert was an officer in the Navy and didn’t know anything about business. That left Vince.
He’d suggested she might want to reconsider the Berkley’s offer since that would have taken a lot of the responsibility off her, but she hadn’t wanted to give up what she’d built with her husband in his last years. If he’d pushed, Vince probably could have convinced her. But she’d just lost her husband, and he couldn’t bring himself to take this away from her too.
So he’d quit his job and moved to Abingdon for his mother.
It wouldn’t have been his first choice. Or his tenth choice. But it wouldn’t be forever, and it was what he needed to do right now.
“This is gorgeous,” his mother said, leaning over the Brandt landscape he’d bought at the estate sale that morning. “I’m so glad you were able to get it.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get the other one.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I almost had it. I would have had it... had other people played fair.” His voice was dry at the end, mostly because he was hit again with a vision of Liz’s laughing eyes, the quiver of victory at the corners of her lush mouth as she met his eyes after claiming the second painting.
His mother laughed. She was small and slim and always slightly messy, with wrinkles in her dress and flyaways in her gray-brown hair. She was one of the smartest people Vince had ever known, but practicality wasn’t one of her gifts. “You’ll have to get used to those estate sales. They’re sometimes supercompetitive. I’ve seen knock-down, drag-out fights over items before. Once, I saw two guys fighting over an antique set of toy soldiers—still in the original packaging—and the company had to call the police!”
Vince chuckled at that. “It wasn’t that bad this morning, but I still should have gotten the second painting. She somehow got a staff member to run interference for her, so she reached it before I did.”
“Who was she?” There was the slightest glint in his mother’s gray eyes that should have set off warning bells in his mind.
“I don’t know. But she’d obviously been to a bunch of these sales before since everyone knew her. She looked to be in her midtwenties. Brunette. Big green eyes. Kind of annoying.”
The glint in his mom’s eyes intensified. One corner of her mouth twitched up. “You noticed her.”
He knew what his mom was thinking and was hit with a wave of defensiveness. “Of course I noticed her. She was racing me for those paintings and then cheated to get one of them.”
“I see.”
“Don’t act like that. She was just some woman.”
“I know who she is.”
Despite his attempt to remain casual, he straightened up at that. “Do you? She said her name was Liz.”
“It is.” With another amused twitch of a smile, his mother added, “Do you want to know who she is?”
Of course he wanted to know who she was.
He wanted to know everything about her.
He managed to keep his expression bland as he said, “You obviously want to tell, so you might as well.”
“She’s one of Riot’s sisters.”
“What?” That surprised him so much he couldn’t hide his emotional investment in the conversation. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. The Berkleys have three daughters. She’s the middle one. Riot is the youngest.”
“I can’t believe that. She was annoying, but she seemed smart and competent. Riot is—” He cut off the words since he didn’t want to be mean or offend his mother, who had hired Riot and appeared to like her.
“Riot is immature. Yes, I know that. But she’s not as brainless as she acts. And I think Liz is the smartest of the three.”
“So she works for Berkleys?”
“Yes.”
“Great. That’s just great.”
Just his luck. The frustrating woman he couldn’t get out of his mind was also their store’s main competition in town.
He briefly wondered if she’d known who he was and whether that had caused her obvious rivalry, but he quickly dismissed that possibility. She hadn’t known he was a Darcy. She probably would have acted the same with anyone who had challenged her for those paintings.
It would be her nature to never back down.
“She obviously made an impression on you.”
“Not that much of an impression. It just bothers me I couldn’t get both paintings for you.”
“I told you. Don’t worry about that. Your dad always said the store was doing just fine, and most of our big commissions come from private deals anyway. But it looks like Liz riled you up, and I haven’t seen a woman rile you up that way in... well, ever maybe.”
“She didn’t rile me up,” he lied.
Rile was exactly what she’d done to him.
“Uh-huh. I’m just saying. I don’t know her personally, but everyone in town seems to love her. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to start thinking about getting serious about a woman.”
“Please, Mom.”
“Don’t give me that tone. You’re twenty-nine. Next year you’ll be thirty. And as far as I can tell, you’re always dating someone, but it’s never serious.”
“I just haven’t found the right woman yet.”
“That could very well be true. But even if the right woman shows up, it won’t matter if you’re afraid to commit to her.”
“I’m not afraid to—”
His mom rolled her eyes. “Okay. I’ll rephrase. It won’t matter if you refuse to commit to her.”
“I’ll commit when I find the right woman.”
“That’s an excuse.”
He didn’t like this kind of conversation. It made him feel awkward and vulnerable. He had to struggle not to snap at his mother. “Maybe. But it feels like the truth to me.”
“Okay. I just want you to be happy, and I think you’ll be happier with a wife.”
“I don’t need a wife.”
“I know you don’t need one. But you seem like you’ve been skating through life, living only on the surface. You’ll be happier if you’ll let yourself love someone. Take care of someone. Go deep.”
He felt more vulnerable than ever, partly because a small part of him knew his mother was speaking the truth. Things had come easy for him most of his life since he had the kind of intelligence that solved problems quickly, and he had a naturally professional appearance that other people respected and admired. He’d done well in his career. He’d had a nice apartment in Blacksburg and a social group that allowed him to date a lot without trying too hard. But he hadn’t cultivated close friendships or real intimacy with women. Something had always held him back.
His mother added, “You’ve been this way ever since Georgie died.”
His heart clamped down at his sister’s name. She’d been three years younger than him and had been a freshman at UVA when he was a senior.
She’d been sweet and warmhearted and intoxicated with life—and the attention she’d started getting from men. His parents had asked him to take care of her, and he’d tried.
He’d tried.
/> But she’d hooked up with a loser boyfriend, and one night he’d driven her back to the dorms when both of them were drunk. He’d run the car off the road. It had rolled down a steep embankment.
Both Georgie and the boyfriend had died.
Vince knew it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t blame himself.
But the knowledge of his failure remained like a knot in his gut. He hadn’t tried very hard—at anything but work—ever since.
He hadn’t gone deep.
He had the sudden, inexplicable image of that wedding dress Liz had been holding this morning. Then he saw her wearing it, walking down the aisle toward a waiting groom.
His heart jumped with something like excitement, and he immediately pushed the ridiculous picture out of his head. He was clearly letting his mother’s sentimentality affect his logic.
He said, “I can go deep without getting married.”
“Of course you can. If that’s what you want, I’ll be very happy for you. Just don’t keep skating on the surface of life. It’s so much more rewarding if you’re willing to invest. Go deep.”
He sat and stared blankly at his computer screen, fighting conflicting waves of defensiveness, embarrassment, and something like guilt.
Since he wasn’t looking at his mother, he was surprised when she was suddenly standing right beside him. She reached down to pat his cheek. “I’m not disappointed in you, Vince.”
He cleared his throat. “I know.”
“Do you? I’m so proud of you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’ve moved here to help me out with the store. I know what you had to give up.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I didn’t give up that much.”
“Yes, you did. You gave up the life you’d made for yourself and your independence. I wish you didn’t have to do it.”
“I don’t mind. I wanted to help.”
“I know. You always try to take care of people. You were a good brother to Georgie. What happened to her can’t control the rest of your life.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Are you sure? Because I’m not. It changed you—even more than it changed the rest of us.” Resistance was rising inside Vince at his mother’s words, and she must have been able to see it on his face. Because she altered her tone as she added, “Anyway, the least I can do to make sure you’re happy is insist you move out of the house this weekend.”
