Secrets of the Tulip Sisters

by Susan Mallery

  She rose, ignoring the fact that he was the best-looking man she’d had in her office in oh, forever, and smiled. “Hi. How can I help you?”

  He leaned against the door frame. “I thought we could have that interview now.”

  Because she’d accidently scheduled the last one right before a wedding. Only there was no way he would want to work for her now, was there? “I really appreciate how you helped me out on Saturday.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s not every day a guy gets to be a Roman soldier.”

  “Unless you work here, then it happens way too often.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry about how everything played out.”

  “I’m not. It was an experience I can talk about for a long time.”

  “I’m relieved you’re not mad. Alan said you were a nice guy. He’s generally a good judge of character.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “You’re not threatened by Alan?” Because a lot of straight guys were.

  “Not even close.” He flashed her a grin. “I work with a chain saw. It takes a lot to threaten me.”

  “That certainly puts things in perspective.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot and decided to just say it. “I don’t mean to be rude, but there’s no point in us having an interview. When I set up our appointment I hadn’t done more than pencil in a name on my calendar. I looked you up yesterday.”

  One eyebrow rose. “Google or Bing?”

  She smiled. “Both, and they said the same thing.” Her smile faded as she remembered everything she’d read. Nick Mitchell wasn’t anything close to an out-of-work carpenter. He was a world-renowned artist who had won awards. Yes, he worked with wood, but on a completely different level. It would be like asking a successful race car driver to teach someone to drive.

  “I don’t know what my friend Atsuko was thinking when she gave me your name. You’re some famous artist guy and I’m a small business owner who needs some repairs done. On the cheap.” She tried not to wince over the last word because someone like Nick Mitchell wouldn’t understand what it was like to scramble for every penny to keep her business open.

  “But I appreciate you coming by,” she added. “And you being a good sport about the whole fake tanning thing.”

  “It was fun. I enjoyed myself. The tanning was...interesting.”

  “Not an experience to be repeated?”

  “Um, no.”

  She stood by her desk, waiting for him to leave, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to go.

  “What did you want done?” he asked.

  Why did he care? “Nick, I’m serious. I was going to pay a few dollars above minimum wage. That’s all I can afford.”

  “Is it the wood panels?”

  “Yes, but—”

  He nodded toward the hallway. “Let’s go see them.”

  She was more than a little confused, but okay. They went down the stairs and through the large, empty ballroom toward the storage areas on the side. She pulled open the big doors and flipped on the lights, then waited while Nick examined the panels hanging in place.

  The rectangles of wood were huge—tall and wide, completely carved on one side. As she watched, Nick moved to the first one and placed his hands on the wood. He half closed his eyes as he traced the carvings with his fingers. Pallas had the oddest sense of watching something intensely personal, which was uncomfortable and more than a little fanciful.

  “What do you know about these?” he asked, still studying them.

  “Not much. They were here long before I started working for Gerald. To be honest, I never thought much about them except as decorative backdrops. When he died and left me the business, I did an inventory of everything. That was the first time I’d really looked at the panels. I realized they were in rough shape.”

  “They are. They’re old, and the dry air is both preserving them and causing them to split. You can see the workmanship. Someone took a long time to create these. Someone with talent.”

  “I wish I knew more about them,” she admitted. She should have asked Gerald about them, but it had never come up. She’d never realized what his plans were. In her mind, she’d been an employee and he’d been a great friend. The inheritance, an unexpected and unbelievably generous gift, had caught her off guard.

  “My brothers work in glass,” he said without looking at her. “They talk about the beauty, the cleanness of it. The purity. Glass can be anything. It doesn’t exist until we bring it to life. But wood is alive. Wood has a soul—it tells the artist what it’s supposed to be. You can ignore what it says, but if you do, the carving will never turn out right.”

  He turned to her, his dark gaze intense. “I want to work on these.”

  She stared at him. “What? No, that’s ridiculous. You’ve been in People magazine.”

  He chuckled. “Why does that matter?”

  “It just does.” She was going to ignore the fact that he’d been in their Sexiest Man Alive issue and that the picture had been impressive. “I’m going to find some carpenter to—”

  “No. Not a carpenter. These are incredible, Pallas. They deserve to be revered. I’ll do it for whatever you were planning to pay. I want the job.”

  “Why?”

  He turned back to the panels and placed his hands on them. “They told me they trusted me.” He dropped his arms to his sides and faced her. “Don’t worry. I’m not going off the deep end. This kind of work is rare. I’ll enjoy it. I’m between projects right now, so I have the time.”

  He paused as if considering how much to tell her. “I’m up for a commission in Dubai. I’ll know in the next couple of months if I’m going to get it. I doubt there’s much question, but until I hear, I don’t want to commit to anything big.”

  “Dubai?”

  “A hotel wants to hire me to create a piece for its lobby. I would be there about two years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “I know, but it would be an interesting experience. These will keep me busy until then.” He smiled. “I promise to take good care of your panels.”

  “I don’t doubt your ability,” she admitted. “Or your commitment. But I’m serious about what I could pay.”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  Right. Because a guy like Nick didn’t necessarily work for the money, she reminded herself. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  “Take advantage of me,” he urged. “You’ll like it.”

  She knew exactly how he meant the comment but for one brief second, she pretended he was coming on to her. In a boy-girl kind of way. Because it had been forever since anyone had bothered.

  She knew the reasons for that were complicated. She was perfectly normal looking with an average body and no habits that were outside of social norms. In theory she should be able to find some nice guy to date and take to bed. But while there had been the occasional man in her life, there hadn’t been anyone close to “the one.” Or even “the right now.”

  Part of it was where she lived. Happily Inc was a relatively small town and in her part of it, there weren’t that many single guys. The ones she knew happened to be relatives, so ick. There was also the fact that she had a way of holding herself back, emotionally. She knew why—what she didn’t know was how to change. Which meant being propositioned was rare and something to be treasured. Not that Nick had. He’d been talking about—

  “Pallas?”

  “Huh?” Oh, right. He wanted an answer. “If you’re willing to accept my sad little hourly paycheck, then I’m happy to offer it,” she told him.

  “It’s a deal.” He held out his hand.

  She shook it, ignoring how large it was and the brief heat she felt. Nick was so far out of her league as to be an extraterrestrial. Still, he was nice to look at. She would enjoy the show while it lasted.


  “You can work whatever hours you want,” she told him. “As long as you’re not interfering with a wedding. I’ll give you a time sheet for you to keep track of your hours. You’ll get paid twice a month. Do you need tools or supplies or anything?”

  “I’ll bring my own.”

  “Good.” Because she wouldn’t know where to start. “Then I guess I’ll see you around.”

  “You can count on it.”

  If only that were true, she thought humorously. She wondered how wrong it would be to ask him to work shirtless. Because he’d made a fine Roman soldier.

  Maybe one of her brides would want a Garden of Eden wedding where the attendants would be naked. Nick could be an extra. A fantasy to brighten her day, she thought as she returned to her office. One she would be sure to remember.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NICK HANDED HIS brother a beer. The evening was clear and promised to be cold, but for now it was warm enough. They sat on Mathias’s back patio, overlooking the sixteenth hole of the golf course to the right. To the left was, well, definitely an open, grassy area. It wasn’t the landscape that required an explanation so much as the residents.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Mathias offered as Nick stared at the shapes moving in the near twilight. “They head in for the night.”

  “To what? A barn?”

  “I’ve never asked,” Mathias admitted. “Something. My guess is they get out of the open to avoid predators.”

  Nick didn’t bother pointing out there weren’t any predators—at least not that he knew about. Instinct was instinct and he’d long since learned there was no arguing with nature.

  A couple miles southwest of town, just beyond the golf course, were hundreds of acres of grassland. If you kept going, you got to the city dump—a high-tech, ecofriendly kind of place where everything that could be recycled or reclaimed was. But the most interesting part wasn’t the fact that Happily Inc had one of the lowest trash-to-resident ratios in the country, it was the animals that made the grasslands between the dump and the golf course their home.

  So far Nick had seen zebras, gazelles and something that looked a lot like a water buffalo. All grazing animals. In the past few days, he would swear he’d seen a giraffe strolling around, but that could have been a trick of the light.

  “It’s odd,” he muttered, then took a drink of his beer.

  “We grew up in Fool’s Gold,” Mathias pointed out. “We don’t get to say any other town is odd.”

  That was probably true, Nick told himself. And a reason why he was already comfortable in Happily Inc. Once you’d lived in a weird place, it was hard to settle for normal.

  But there were differences. Fool’s Gold was in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Happily Inc was on the edge of the desert. There were mountains in both towns, but the ones here seemed newer, with sharper peaks and more edges. As interesting to his artist’s eyes were the changes in colors. Dawns were a mix of oxblood and carnelian with umber and sepia for shading.

  He’d been in town for three weeks. Mathias owned a ridiculously large house on the edge of the golf course and had offered him a place to stay until he figured out what he wanted to do.

  “Why’d you move here?” Nick asked. “Why not Sedona or some artists’ village in Tennessee?”

  “Atsuko was already selling our work,” Mathias said, mentioning the gallery owner in town. “She wanted us to meet, and when she heard we were leaving Fool’s Gold, she suggested we stop by and visit her. One thing led to another and here we are.”

  His brothers had a sweet setup, Nick thought. Atsuko had contacts all over the world. With her acting as broker, they didn’t have to bother with the business side of what they did. Instead they could focus on their art. Their studio was large and open. They had each other for company and yet plenty of space.

  While Mathias lived here, by the golf course and the zebras, Ronan had a house up in the mountains. Built mostly of stone and native materials, the structure blended perfectly with the surroundings. There was even a large studio out back, when Ronan didn’t want to make the drive into town.

  When Nick had figured out it was time for him to get somewhere else, he’d considered a lot of options, but Happily Inc had been the obvious choice. Especially with the Dubai commission looming.

  Twilight turned to night. There were a million stars out here. Nick studied the sky and wondered if they were far enough south for it to be different from what he was used to. Probably not.

  “Any regrets about leaving?” Nick asked.

  “No.”

  Because of their father, Nick thought grimly. Ceallach had made an impression on all of them. Some good and a lot bad.

  There were five Mitchell sons. The oldest two hadn’t been blessed—or was it cursed?—with any form of Ceallach’s talent. They had been mostly ignored by their father, while the younger three had gotten the brunt of his attention.

  “Ronan okay?” he asked. Their youngest brother had had the most to deal with.

  “We don’t talk about it.”

  “Still?”

  “Always.”

  Which had to be a bear. Mathias and Ronan had always been tight. Probably because they were twins—or they used to be.

  Neither of them would want to talk about that so he changed the subject. “How was your date Saturday night?”

  Mathias looked at him over his beer bottle. “It wasn’t a date.”

  “You didn’t take a woman to dinner, and then have sex with her?”

  “Yeah, sure, I did that.”

  “How is it not a date?”

  “I’ll never see her again.”

  “I guess that does change the definition.”

  Since moving to Happily Inc, Mathias had started taking up with the various bridesmaids that came into town. He hooked up with them for a night or two, then they were gone.

  Nick enjoyed women as much as the next guy, but he’d never been that into volume, or variety. He liked the idea of having someone in his life—as long as he could keep things under control. He wanted enough passion for things to be interesting, but not so much that he was consumed. Sometimes that balance was difficult to find so he erred on the side of not doing.

  “Just be careful,” Nick warned. “You don’t want some woman coming back in six months and saying she’s madly in love with you.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  Nick hoped he was right.

  “Atsuko says you’re going to be working for one of the wedding venues,” Mathias said.

  “Yup. Weddings in a Box.”

  His brother frowned. “Doing what? Folding napkins?”

  “I’ve never folded napkins. It could be interesting.”

  Mathias stared at him. “Do I have to worry about you?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  His brother’s stare turned into a glare. Nick laughed. “I’m going to be restoring two sets of wooden panels. They’re old and in bad shape. The work is brilliant. I need to do some research to see if I can figure out who made them.”

  “You should ask Atsuko. She knows things and has a lot of connections in the art world.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll take some pictures and see if she can show them around.”

  He’d only known the gallery owner a few weeks but he was already impressed. The fiftysomething woman had buyers everywhere. She drove a hard bargain, got an excellent price, then handled shipping. He’d sold more through Atsuko in the past three weeks than in the past three years.

  His father’s philosophy had always been to let the art buyer come to him. Nick was beginning to believe that was a very shortsighted way of doing business.

  “Heard anything on the Dubai commission?” Mathias asked.

  “No. It’s going t
o be a couple of months until they decide. Then I’ll have to figure out what I want to do. Two years is a long time.”

  “Is this where I point out you don’t have the job yet?”

  Nick grinned. “Hey, it’s me. Who else would they give it to?”

  “Someone with talent.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Not of you, big brother.”

  Nick laughed and turned his attention back to the night. “Any bats around here?”

  “Scared?”

  “Intrigued. I keep getting flashes of a piece that has a lot of bats in it.”

  Mathias shook his head. “There’s something wrong with you.”

  “Probably.”

  “Bats. Fruit or vampire?”

  “Fruit. I think. I should do some research.”

  “On bats.” Mathias took a drink of beer. “Do you think Mom dropped you on your head when you were little?”

  Nick laughed. “Not as often as she did you.”

  * * *

  WHILE PALLAS ENJOYED lunch out with friends as much as the next woman, lunch with her mother was a completely different animal. First there were the logistics involved. They didn’t trade off picking restaurants. Instead the command performance always occurred in the bank’s executive dining room. A fancy title for a slightly nicer than average display of tables and chairs in a square, windowless room. There wasn’t a kitchen, so food was brought in. Still, there was an assigned server and white tablecloths were the norm. All of which meant changing from her usual jeans and T-shirt into a dress.

  As she drove across the river to the north side of town, Pallas told herself she would be fine. She’d been dealing with her mother for twenty-eight years. She knew how to get through the conversations with a minimum of pain and judgment. She just had to smile and nod and say what was expected. No big deal.

  Except it always was a big deal—one way or another.