Summer Beach Reads

by Thayer, Nancy

  “Hungry?”

  Natalie stood up. “Not really. I was working on a painting and decided to cool off in the lake. That’s what started my idiotic adventure. There’s still good light. I think I’ll go back to work.” She folded the afghan and laid it neatly over the back of the chair. She plumped the chair cushions.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” Louise asked.

  “Perfectly normal. Well, I might take a shower and change clothes.” She looked down at what she wore. “I’ll wash these things and bring them back.” She started to leave, then hesitated. “I wonder, I’d like to get Ben something to thank him for rescuing me. I don’t think the etiquette book covers such a situation. Any advice?”

  Louise chuckled. “You don’t have to give him a present.” Her eyes twinkled. “He seemed quite pleased with himself for saving you.”

  He did? Natalie almost asked Louise how she could spot any emotion Ben might have. But, of course, Ben was Louise’s son. She knew him well. Natalie thanked Louise once more and left the Barnaby house, warmed from the tea, the afghan, and the thought of being in Ben Barnaby’s arms.

  6

  Friday morning, Bella left the top half of the blue Dutch door open to let the fragrant summer air sweep into the gift shop. She didn’t expect many customers, not on this glorious early summer day, and Aaron was out in California at his damned interview, so she wore sneakers, jeans, and a tank top, planning to move furniture around, experimenting.

  Bella could remember when she was a child, tumbling off the school bus and into the house to find her mother at the kitchen table, quietly studying a storybook mole’s tilt of nose or whether its whiskers went up, down, or straight out. She sculpted the minute creature in clay, baked it, and sewed soft velvet skin on it before painting its face. Her mother had seemed like a sorceress, capable of anything. Beatrice and Bella would go with their mother to help set up the Lake Worlds in the shop, carrying the boxes of handcrafted animals as if they were made of gold.

  That was years ago. DVDs were new. Cell phones were large and clunky. Computers were slow, Facebook didn’t exist, and eBay was just beginning. Now children played with games on computers, or Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox, or their iPhones. Bella’s mother still ran her business without the use of a computer, keeping sales, inventory, and tax records in a notebook by hand. Louise sold horse-and-buggy gifts in an Internet world.

  The store had to change if it was to continue. Soon—tonight, perhaps—Bella wanted to sit down with her parents and discuss possible alterations to the shop.

  The image of Natalie’s still life of apples in a silver bowl kept haunting Bella. Well, of course, there was something so symbolic about apples, wasn’t there?—the witch offering Snow White an apple, the apple in the Garden of Eden. Her idea was to hang the picture above one of her mother’s Lake Worlds: There was one in an orchard with a raccoon family picnicking on fallen apples. Or would that be too weird? Maybe, maybe not. Bella wanted to try it. She wanted to try a lot of things—her mind was teeming with ideas.

  She would go through the store today, organize her thoughts, and make a sketch, a kind of presentation to show her parents. They would give her good advice, she knew.

  Bella walked around the shop, studying the display cases, the exhibits, the spaces. Lucy Lattimer’s stuffed dolls with stitched eyes and smiles were, to Bella’s mind, a complete waste of space. She didn’t know if they had ever sold even one of the dolls. They were quaint, but in a way they were also a bit creepy, because Lucy’s stitching was uneven, giving the dolls cartoon faces, jack-o’-lantern faces. Lucy was the mother of a friend of Louise’s; she had been in her eighties, living with her daughter. Bella could remember specifically ganging up with Beatrice against Louise, demanding to know why she wanted to take up space with those bizarro items.

  “It gives Lucy something to do,” Louise had told them. “It lets her feel capable of making something pretty.”

  “In other words,” said Beatrice—who, as the oldest child, could be caustic with her mother when she felt like it—“you’re helping your friend by keeping her mother out of her hair for a while.”

  “You’re a cynical child,” Louise had retorted mildly, but her mouth had quirked up and she hadn’t denied the accusation.

  Lucy Lattimer must be in her nineties now. These dolls were sixteen years old, and their sweet milkmaid costumes were limp. For that matter, Lucy herself hadn’t come into the shop for years—Bella didn’t know if she was even ambulatory.

  If she could get rid of the dolls, cover the corny murals on the walls, focus more on the furniture, and perhaps bring in some art, some of Natalie’s work to begin with …

  She was aware of an approaching motor, and all of its own accord, her heart leapt. Before she could stand up, she heard the bell tinkle and the bottom half of the blue door open and shut.

  Bella stood up, turned toward the door, and saw Slade standing there.

  “Slade!” Was she blushing or did she just feel hot?

  “Hey.” He was long and lean in black jeans and a black tee shirt. He took his sunglasses off as he walked toward her. “Wow,” he said.

  A shiver feathered down Bella’s spine. “Wow?”

  He walked right up to her, so close they were almost touching. Reaching out his hand, he stroked the gargoyle cabinet. “I thought so,” he mumbled, talking to himself. “This is the real deal. It needs to be stripped.”

  “It’s nice to see you again, too,” Bella said, lacing her voice with just a thread of sarcasm.

  “What?” Slade cast a quick glance Bella’s way.

  His eyes were the deepest blue.

  “Hello?” Bella said.

  Slade got it. “Sorry. Hi, Bella. I’ve just been thinking about this piece for days now. I wasn’t sure it was original. You don’t see many like this, but this is the real thing. Bella, your family must be English.”

  “Well, duh, Barnaby.” Something about the man made Bella defensive, like a goofy adolescent talking with a rock star.

  “I’ve been checking. This piece, Bella”—Slade slapped his hand against it gently—“this piece could bring you around fifteen thousand dollars.”

  She almost fell over. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding. This is my field of expertise. This is what I do.” He peered at her as if she were a newt emerging from under a rock. “You don’t have any idea what you’ve got here, do you?”

  “Well, sort of. I’ve always loved my grandparents’ furniture, and when they died, I insisted on having some of their pieces in my bedroom, even though they’re big, dark, and not the slightest bit girly.”

  He leaned toward her. “You have more pieces like this?” Before she could answer, he grabbed both her shoulders. “Bella, this is something antiques dealers dream about! A find like this!”

  Bella was paralyzed by his touch, his nearness, his dark beauty, his passion. She knew her mouth was hanging open and she couldn’t locate the intelligence needed to shut it.

  “Don’t look at me that way.” Slade removed his hands from her shoulders. “I’m not trying to cheat you. If I were, why would I tell you what these pieces are worth?”

  Bella found her voice. “Then what do you want to do?”

  “I want to work with you. I want to sell these pieces on commission for you.”

  “Slade, these all belong to my parents.”

  “Then talk to them.”

  “Slade. Do you think you could slow down just a little? How about a cup of coffee? No, wait. The last thing you need is coffee. Come to the back room. I’ve got lemonade and some cinnamon rolls I made yesterday morning.”

  He started to object, then nodded and loped along behind her, past the display counter, into the back room. Past the small bathroom (sweetly decorated, because children always needed to go to the bathroom). Past boxes needing to be packed or unpacked. Past worktables and a sink and counter. Past her mother’s ancient, scarred rolltop desk, past the ironing board
and the cutting table, to the private area with the small refrigerator, microwave, round table, and chairs. Bella’s purse hung on a hook, near a mirror. She couldn’t resist giving herself a quick glance.

  “That rolltop desk is nice,” Slade said.

  “Sit down.” She pointed. “There.” Taking a pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator, she poured him a glass, set it before him, then slid one of her cinnamon rolls onto a plate and placed it in front of him, too. She handed him a knife and fork. She put the other rolls on the table as well, in case he wanted more. She poured herself a glass of lemonade and sat down. By that time, Slade had eaten his roll and was reaching for another.

  “Damn,” he mumbled, his mouth full, “these are good.”

  “Thanks.” Bella took a roll, though she wasn’t hungry. She drew designs in the icing with her fork as she talked, figuring out what she wanted to say as she went along. “Slade. Tell me. How did you learn so much about furniture?”

  “I went to New York’s Metropolitan Museum School of Antique Furniture.”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  He cast her a withering glance. “No, there’s not, and if there were, I couldn’t have gone. I barely had the money to go to college for two years. I just like to tell people that when they ask me.”

  “Well, I’m not ‘people,’ ” Bella told him.

  He studied her for a long, drawn-out moment. “No, you most certainly are not.”

  It took all her willpower not to squirm in her chair. This man was so divine he was undoubtedly used to getting his way, simply by melting a woman’s resolve with the flame-tip heat of his dark blue eyes. Add some subtle flirtation, and women probably just fell right over into his arms. “Could you answer the question?” she managed to say.

  He sighed, leaning in his chair so that it tilted onto the two back legs. As if he couldn’t care less. “When I was a boy, I worked after school and summers for a guy who ran an antiques shop up in Maine. Mostly he carried primitive American antiques, lots of Empire furniture, china, candlesticks. That stuff. Sometimes I’d go off with him on a trip up north to scout out antiques in small towns. Even now you can still find treasures, especially at farm auctions or even yard sales in towns so far away no one ever takes the time to drive there. I learned a lot from him.” He dropped forward to munch down another roll.

  Bella loved seeing him eat. He was so thin. “More lemonade?”

  “Please.”

  She poured him another glass. “And then?”

  “Then I went to college for two years in Boston, and worked for Aunt Eleanor sometimes, helping cart furniture around to other people’s homes. I think I learned the most there, seeing the way people with money like to decorate. Some people stick with a period, some like to mix it up. I met a guy named Dave Ralston who was good at restoration, dropped out of college, and went to work for Ralston’s Antiques. Learned a ton there.”

  “You’ve always been interested in wood,” Bella mused.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “I have?”

  “When you were a kid, you used to go into the forest and stand very still studying tree trunks.”

  Slade’s eyes went dead. “Jesus, what a freak.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Bella protested. “You could call yourself a child prodigy.”

  Slade snorted. “A child prodigy of tree trunks?”

  Bella took a deep breath. “Look. I’m interested in what you know about furniture. I want to update this shop.”

  “Upscale, you mean.”

  “No, I meant update, but upscale is not a bad idea either. A lot of the stuff here is inexpensive, and certainly none of it is worth what you say the furniture is worth. But I’ve been thinking … it’s not clear yet.… I know I don’t want to run an antiques store. I want to carry a mix of things. I’m still in the planning process. I had no idea that old cabinet was worth so much, and even though I’ve taken a couple of courses, I really don’t know Early American from British. I wonder, could I hire you to check out all the furniture and give me estimates on its value?”

  Slade’s eyes had come alive again. He dropped his eyelids halfway in that sleepy kind of “come to bed” look he did so well, and behind the lids was the glint of mischief. “I’d be glad to value the furniture. You don’t have to pay me.”

  “Slade, seriously—”

  “Seriously. Or, I’ll tell you what, take me out to dinner sometime.”

  Okay, Bella thought, now he was coming on to her, and her body was making it clear it had no intention of resisting. If Slade were to rise from his chair right now, grab Bella, and press his sensual mouth against hers, she’d knock the lemonade and rolls on the floor and let him ravish her right here on this old table.

  From deep in some survival center of her brain, a stern voice that sounded much like her algebra teacher, Mrs. Penner, warned, Remember what Natalie told you. Slade is a bad boy. He comes on to women all the time. It means nothing.

  Another voice, smaller, slightly ashamed, her own, said, Bella, for heaven’s sake. Remember Aaron.

  She leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table, well aware that this position gave him a pretty fine view of the tops of her breasts pressing against the curve of her tank top. “I’ll take you out to dinner. The best restaurant in the area.”

  Slade considered her. Again, he allowed himself his own sweet time. Bella had no option, unless she wanted to show herself as the coward she secretly felt like, but to hold her pose and stare right back at him.

  She was surprised the chemistry between them didn’t make the table burst into flames.

  Finally Slade spoke. “Bella. Whose shop is this? Yours or your mother’s?”

  Bella stood up and began clearing the table, using up her nervous energy. She put the glasses in the sink. “That’s a very good question.” Leaning against the sink, she crossed her arms over her chest, thinking aloud. “I didn’t come back here with the idea of taking over the shop. I came back to help my mother. I guess the idea of changing the shop came to me the moment I walked in after so much time away. I realized the shop is dated.”

  Slade said, “You’re a schoolteacher, right?”

  “I was. But when I came back to help Mom, I found myself drawn to something about this shop. Not as it is. As it could be. I’m not making much sense, am I?” She nodded to herself, coming to a conclusion. “I need to do some research. I need to run some figures, find out about sales tax, utilities, that sort of thing. I’ll talk to my parents about my grandparents’ furniture. We’ve got more of it in the house, and of course Beat’s got some in her house, and then there’s the storage unit.”

  “The storage unit?” Slade shoved his chair back and stood up. “What storage unit?”

  “Slade, do you suppose you could stay with Natalie overnight? While I talk to my parents? I mean, I have to be here at the shop all day, and Dad’s teaching, so I can’t talk to them until this evening. Then, tomorrow, perhaps, if things go well with my parents, I could take you to the storage unit.”

  “Sorry. I’ve got something going on in Boston tonight.” He approached Bella. He stood right in front of her, tall, muscular, lean, giving off warmth. “I’ll be back soon.”

  She had been worrying about talking to her parents, but those worries dissolved in the force field of Slade’s magnetism, replaced by a stunning sense of desire. What was it with this guy?

  The bell on the shop’s front door tinkled.

  Thank God, Bella thought. “Customer,” she croaked, her mouth suddenly dry. When she slid past Slade, her body brushed his for a moment. She shivered with a touch of desire and a stronger surge of guilt.

  After work, Bella decided to visit her older sister, Beatrice, who lived in the terribly named Belchertown, not far from the Barnabys’ house on the lake. It was a rambling split-level built in the sixties, and for Beat and her husband and their three children, its best quality was its spacious backyard. They owned an acre of land surrounded by wood
s, most of it a smooth sweep of lawn perfect for a swing set, slide, playhouse, sandbox, water table, and all the other paraphernalia of childhood.

  Bella parked her car behind her sister’s minivan, walked up the driveway, gathering up fallen towels and lunch buckets as she went. Beat’s theory of raising children was different from her parents’. Louise and Dennis had been organized and disciplined. Beat believed in allowing children to raise themselves so their natural, true personalities would have the freedom to emerge. Bella and her siblings would never have gotten away with such messiness, but Beat, in her own ambling, indolent way, managed to keep a semblance of order.

  Bella opened the front door and walked in. “Hello!” she called.

  “In the kitchen!” Beat called back.

  It was about five-thirty. Beat’s husband, Jeremy, wasn’t home yet from his carpentry job. Her children were in the backyard—Bella could see them through the window. The two little girls were in the playhouse with their dolls, pretending to have tea. Jason was running into the woods with a stick, killing bears.

  Beat hugged Bella warmly. On this summer day, she was warm—Beat didn’t believe in air-conditioning. She was the most easygoing person Bella knew. Perhaps that was because she was so completely luscious, like a Renoir, with wavy blond hair, enormous blue eyes, and a buxom figure. Beat was barefoot, which she almost always was, wearing an old, loose, and stained sky-blue sundress, and she could have posed for Botticelli just like this.

  “Wine?” Beat asked.

  “Something cold, please.” Bella leaned against the counter, which was covered with dirty dishes, half-wrapped foil packets, a clean diaper, a vase of dying flowers, and a pile of coins. “How are you? How are the kids?”

  Beat laughed as she poured their Chardonnay. “Today Dawn has decided to be a mermaid when she grows up, Jason will be a knight, and Wendy has declared she intends to be a baby.”

  Bella laughed along with her sister as they went out the kitchen door to the back patio and sank down into the lawn glider with its thick flowered pillows. Bella felt something sharp, rose to remove a small dump truck, and resumed her seat.