by Nora Roberts
“You son of a bitch.” Peter’s voice was muffled and thick and breathless with pain. “You crazy bastard, you’ve broken my nose.”
“Be grateful I didn’t aim for your balls.” Crouching down, Josh jerked Peter up by the collar of his blood-splattered Polo. “Now listen to me,” he murmured while the women on the next court squealed and shouted for the tennis pro. “And listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once.”
There were stars wheeling in front of Peter’s eyes, nausea welling in his stomach. “Get your damn hands off of me.”
“You’re not listening,” Josh said quietly. “And you really want to pay close attention here. Don’t you even speak my sister’s name in public. If I decide you’ve so much as had a thought about her I don’t like, you’ll pay with more than your nose. And if you ever talk about Margo again the way you’ve talked about her to me, I’ll twist off your nuts and feed them to you.”
“I’ll sue you, you bastard.” Pain radiated through his face like sunbursts; humiliation darted after it. “I’ll sue you for assault.”
“Oh, please do. Meanwhile, I suggest you take another trip. Go back to Aruba, or try St. Bart’s, or go to hell. But I don’t want to see you anywhere near me or mine.” He let Peter go in disgust and as an afterthought wiped his blood-smeared hand on the front of Peter’s shirt. “Oh, and by the way, you’re fired. That’s game, set, and fucking match.”
Well satisfied with the morning’s work, he decided to treat himself to a steam.
Chapter Eleven
Miracles could happen, Margo thought. They only took six weeks, aching muscles, and somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to create.
Six weeks before, she had become the official one-third owner of the empty building on Cannery Row. Immediately after glasses of Templeton sparkling wine had been passed around, she’d rolled up her sleeves.
It was a new experience, dealing with contractors, surrounding herself with the sounds of saws and hammers and men with tool belts. She spent nearly every waking moment of those weeks in the shop or on shop business. The clerks at the supply stores began to weep with joy when she walked through the door. Her carpenters learned to tolerate her.
She debated paint samples with Laura, agonized over the choice between Dusty Rose and Desert Mauve until the slight variance in shades became a decision of monumental proportion. Recessed lighting became an obsession for days. She learned the joy and terror of hardware, spending hours picking through hinges and drawer pulls the way she had once perused the jewelry displays at Tiffany’s.
She painted, learning to love and despise the eccentricities of her variable-speed Sears-brand paint sprayer. Growing neurotically possessive, she refused to allow Kate or Laura to try their hand with it. And once after a particularly long session, she jumped at the reflection in the mirror.
Margo Sullivan, the face that launched a million bottles of alpha hydroxy, stared back, her glorious hair bundled messily under a dirty white cap, her cheeks flecked with deep-rose freckles, her eyes naked and a little wild.
She didn’t know whether to shudder or scream.
But the shock sent her straight into the clawfoot tub for a hot, frothy soak in sea salts and urged her to give herself a full treatment—facial, hot oil, manicure, just to prove she hadn’t completely lost her mind.
Now, after six weeks of insanity, she had begun to believe that dreams could be made. The floors gleamed, sanded smooth and slicked with three satiny coats of varnish. The walls, her personal pride and joy, were a soft, warm rose. Windows she’d washed herself in her mother’s secret solution that relied heavily on vinegar and elbow grease, sparkled in their frame of new trim. The iron stairs and circling banisters had been securely bolted and shimmered with fresh gilt.
Tiles in both bathrooms had been regrouted and ruthlessly scrubbed and were now accented with fancy fingertip towels with lace edging.
Everything was rose and gold and fresh.
“It’s like Dorian Gray,” Margo commented. She and Laura were huddled in the sitting area of the main showroom, struggling to price the contents of a crate.
“It is?”
“Yeah. The shop keeps getting prettier and shinier.” She pinched her tired cheeks and laughed. “And I’m the picture in the closet.”
“Oh, that explains those warts.”
“Warts?” Instant panic. “What warts?”
“Easy.” It was Laura’s first good laugh in days. “Just joking.”
“Christ, next time just shoot me in the head.” As her blood pressure returned to normal, Margo held up a faience vase painted with stylized flowers. “What do you think? It’s Doulton.”
It was no use asking Margo what she’d paid for it, Laura knew. She wouldn’t have a clue. Following routine, Laura glanced at the stack of price guides and catalogs they’d collected. “Did you look it up?”
“Sort of.” Over the past weeks, Margo had developed a love-hate relationship with price guides. She loved the idea of marking prices, hated the knowledge that so much money had already slipped through her fingers. “I think a hundred fifty.”
“Go for it.”
Tongue caught between her teeth, Margo slowly tapped the keys on the laptop Kate had insisted they couldn’t live without. “Stock number 481. . . G for glassware or C for collectibles?”
“Um, G. Kate’s not here to argue the point.”
“481-G. Damn it, I said G.” She deleted, tried again. “One hundred fifty.” Though it was probably inefficient, which Kate would have pointed out, Margo tagged the vase, rose to carry it to the glass étage`re that was already filling up, then came back to light a cigarette. “What the hell are we doing, Laura?”
“Having fun. What made you buy something like this?”
Smoking contemplatively, Margo eyed an undoubtedly ugly urn with wing handles. “I must have been having a bad day.”
“Well, it’s Stinton, and signed, so maybe . . .” She flipped busily through a price book. “About forty-five hundred.”
“Really?” Had she really once been in the position to pay so much for so little? She nudged the laptop toward Laura. “They’re coming to paint the sign on the window tomorrow. And the crew from Entertainment Tonight is supposed to be here by two.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Are you kidding? All that free publicity?” Margo stretched her arms up. Her shoulders were aching, a sensation she’d gotten used to. “Besides, it’ll give me a chance to deck myself out, get in front of the camera. I’m thinking the sage green Armani or the blue Valentino.”
“We’ve already tagged the Armani.”
“Right. Valentino it is.”
“As long as it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“Valentino never makes me uncomfortable.”
“You know what I mean.” Laura hefted the urn, decided it looked slightly less unattractive on the corner shelf. “All those questions about your private life.”
“I don’t have a private life at the moment. You’ve got to learn to shrug off the gossip, honey.” She tapped out her cigarette and knelt to explore the crate. “If you let every whisper and snicker about you and Peter sting, the wasps will know and they’ll keep after you.”
“He came back to town last week.”
Her head jerked up. “Is he hassling you?”
“No, but . . . Josh had an incident with him a few days ago. I didn’t hear about it until this morning.”
“An incident?” Amused, Margo studied a little Limoges box replicating a French flower stall. Christ, she loved these little bits of nonsense. “What did they do, draw their Mont Blancs and duel?”
“Josh broke Peter’s nose.”
“What?” Staggered between shock and glory, she nearly bobbled the box. “Josh punched him?”
“He broke it with a tennis ball.” When Margo collapsed into hoots of laughter, Laura scowled. “There were people in the next court. I
t’s all over the club. Peter had to be taken to the hospital, and he might very well file charges.”
“What, assault with a forehand lob? Oh, Laura, it’s too delicious. I haven’t given Josh enough credit.” She pressed a hand on her stomach as her ribs began to ache.
“It had to be deliberate.”
“Well, of course it was deliberate. Josh can bean a speeding car at fifty yards with his backhand. He could have played center court if he’d taken himself seriously. Damn, I wish I’d seen it.” Wicked delight sparkled in her eyes. “Did he bleed a lot?”
“Profusely, I’m told.” It was wrong, Laura had to continually remind herself, it was wrong to enjoy the image of bright red blood geysering out of Peter’s aristocratic nose. “He’s gone to Maui to recuperate. Margo, I don’t want my brother smashing tennis balls into the face of the father of my children.”
“Oh, let him have his fun.” Without remembering to tag or log it, Margo placed the Limoges in a curved-front cabinet where a dozen others were already displayed. “Ah, is Josh seeing anyone?”
“Seeing anyone?”
“You know, as in dating, escorting, having hot sex with?”
Baffled, Laura rubbed at her tired eyes. “Not that I know of. But then, he stopped bragging about having hot sex around me years ago.”
“But you’d know.” As if it were vital to world peace, Margo rubbed at a smudge on the display glass. “You’d have heard, or sensed.”
“He’s awfully busy just now, so I’d say probably not. Why?”
“Oh.” She turned back, smiling widely. “Just a little wager we have going. I’m starving,” she realized abruptly. “Are you starving? I think we should order something in. If Kate comes by after work and we’re not done with this shipment, she’s going to lecture us on time management again.”
“I don’t have time for lectures on time. I’m sorry. I have to pick up the girls. It’s Friday,” she explained. “I promised them dinner and a movie. Why don’t you come with us?”
“And leave all this luxury?” Margo spread her arms wide to encompass boxes, heaps of packing material, half-empty cups of cold coffee. “Besides, I have to practice my gift wrapping. Everything I do still looks like it was wrapped up by a slow-witted three-year-old. I don’t mind, really—”
She broke off as the door swung open and Kayla burst through. “Mama! We came to visit.” With a beaming smile, she launched herself into Laura’s arms, clung just a little too hard.
“Hello, baby.” Laura squeezed back, worrying how long these small reassurances would be necessary. “How did you get here?”
“Uncle Josh picked us up. He said we could come and look at the shop ’cause we should take an interest in our legacy.”
“Your legacy, huh?” Laughing now, Laura set Kayla down and watched her older daughter come more cautiously, less happily into the room. “Well, Ali, what do you think?”
“It looks different than it did before.” She walked unerringly to the jewelry case.
“A girl after my own heart,” Margo declared and wrapped an arm around Ali’s shoulder.
“They’re so beautiful. It’s like a treasure chest.”
“It is. Not Seraphina’s dowry this time, but mine.”
“We got pizza,” Kayla called out. “Uncle Josh bought lots and lots of pizza so we can eat here instead of in a restaurant. Can we, Mama?”
“If you like. Do you want to, Ali?”
Ali shrugged, continued to stare at the bracelets and pins. “It doesn’t matter.”
“And here’s the man of the hour.” Margo crossed the room as Josh elbowed the door open, his arms loaded with pizza boxes. She leaned over them and gave him a smacking kiss on the mouth.
“Just for pizza? Hell, I could’ve gone for the bucket of chicken.”
“Actually, that was a reward for your tennis prowess.”
She kept her voice low, and at the answering gleam in his eyes, she took the boxes from him. “Still sleeping alone, darling?”
“Don’t remind me.” He arched a brow. “You?”
She grinned and trailed a finger down his cheek. “I’ve been much too busy for sports of any kind. Ali, I think there’s a bottle of Pepsi in the refrigerator upstairs.”
“Got that covered, too,” he said, torturing himself with the scent of her perfume. “Can you handle getting the drinks out of the car, Ali Cat?”
“Me, too.” Kayla bulleted for the door. “I can help. Come on, Ali.”
“Well, well.” Josh tucked his hands in his pockets and scanned the room as his nieces slammed the door. “You have been busy.” He wandered toward the adjoining room, had to smile. It looked very much like Margo’s closet back in Milan, except that all the clothes were now discreetly tagged.
“Lingerie and nightclothes are upstairs,” Margo told him. “In the boudoir.”
“Naturally.” Idly, he picked up a gray suede pump, turned it over. The sole was barely scraped and the price was ninety-two fifty.
“How are you pricing?”
“Oh, we have our little system.”
He set the shoe back, glanced at his sister. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I brought the girls by.”
“No, not at all. What I do mind is you taking it upon yourself to fight with Peter.”
He didn’t bother to look contrite. “Heard about that, did you?”
“Of course I heard about it. Everyone from Big Sur to Monterey’s heard about it by now.” She refused to warm when he walked over and kissed her. “I can deal with my marital problems myself.”
“Sure you can. That ball just got away from me.”
“Like hell,” Margo muttered.
“Actually, I was aiming for his caps. Listen, Laura,” he continued when she bristled under his hands, “we’ll talk about it later, okay?”
She had little choice, since at that moment her daughters came back, carrying bags from the car.
He’d thought of paper plates as well, and napkins and silly party cups for soda and a good red Bordeaux. There seemed to be very little, Margo mused as they spread the makeshift picnic on the floor, that Josh Templeton didn’t think of.
It was a little lowering to realize she had underestimated him all these years. He would be a formidable foe, which he’d proved by one swing of the racket. And she was certain he would be a memorable lover.
Josh caught her staring and passed her a plate. “Problem, duchess?”
“More than likely.”
But she enjoyed herself, listening to the children. Ali seemed to brighten shade by shade under Josh’s teasing and attention. Poor thing wants a father, Margo mused. She understood the need, the empty ache of it. It had been Thomas Templeton who had helped fill that void for her, and who at the same time, simply by being kind and caring, had made her constantly aware that he was not hers.
She had never had her own—or had had him so briefly she couldn’t remember him. Her mother had always been so closemouthed about the man she had married and lost that Margo had been afraid to ask questions. Afraid, she realized, that there had been nothing there, for any of them.
No love, she mused. Certainly no passion.
One more tepid marriage in the world hardly made a difference to anyone. Even those, she thought, involved in it. A good Irish Catholic girl married and had children, as was expected of her. Then accepted God’s will with a bowed head. Ann Sullivan wouldn’t have mourned and tossed herself, cursing God, into the sea as Seraphina had done. Ann Sullivan had picked herself up, moved on, and forgotten.
And so easily, Margo mused, that there had likely been little to remember. It was as if she had never had a father at all.
And hadn’t she sought to fill that lifetime gap with men? Often older men, like Alain, men who were successful and established and always safely beyond commitment. Married men, or oft-married men, or loosely married men with wives who turned a blind eye to an affair as long as their husbands turned a blind eye to theirs.
There had
always been a cozy cushion with men who looked at her as a lovely prize to be pampered and fussed over. Displayed. Men who would never stay, which of course only made them more attractive, only more forbidden.
Her stomach shuddered, and she gulped wine to steady it. What a horrible realization, she thought. What a pathetic one.
“Are you all right?” Concerned, Laura laid a hand on her arm. “You’ve gone pale.”
“It’s nothing. Just a little headache. I’m going to take something.” She rose and used every ounce of control she had to walk up the stairs rather than run.
In the bathroom she riffled through the medicine bottles. Her fingers rested on tranquilizers before she shifted them firmly to aspirin. Too easy, she told herself as she ran the water cold. Too easy to pop a pill and make it all go away.
“Margo.” Josh came up behind her, took hold of her shoulders. “What’s got you?”
“Demon dreams.” She shook her head, swallowed aspirin. “It’s nothing, just a nasty little epiphany.”
She would have turned, but he held her firm so that their faces reflected back at them. “Nervous about opening the shop next week?”
“Terrified.”
“Whatever happens, you’ve already accomplished something important. You’ve taken this place and made it shine. It’s beautiful and elegant and unique. Very much like you.”
“And filled with pretenses, priced to sell?”
“So what?”
She closed her eyes. “So what. Be a friend, Josh, and hold on to me for a minute.”
He turned her, gathered her close. He heard her loose a long, shuddering breath, and he stroked her hair. “Do you remember that winter when you went on a search for Seraphina’s dowry?”
“Umm. I dug up the rose garden and part of the south lawn. Mum was furious and mortified and threatened to ship me off to my aunt Bridgett in Cork.” She sighed a little, comforted by the feel of him, the scent of him. “But your father laughed and laughed. He thought it was a great joke and that I showed an adventurous spirit.”
“You were looking for something you wanted, and you went after it.” His lips brushed her hair to soothe. “That’s what you’ve always done.”
