Winning Amelia

by Ingrid Weaver

“I do, too.”

  “I hope this isn’t leading up to a speech about money not buying happiness.”

  “Well, it doesn’t. The really important things in life don’t come with a price tag.”

  “Sure, but everything else does. You need the money from my ticket. With my brother still laid off and your baby due in less than three weeks—”

  “We’ll manage, Amelia.”

  “But...”

  “Haven’t you seen what Will is doing?”

  “Do you mean his part-time jobs?”

  “For starters, yes. There aren’t many men who would take those jobs when they have the kind of skills that Will does. He’s like an artist with wood. Some of the furniture he’s made are works of art in their own right.” She smiled in the direction of the basement stairs. “But does he complain? Does he moan about his fate or sit around waiting for some magic solution to drop into his lap? No, he’s out there busting his butt. He worked all morning out on the water, but instead of taking it easy when he got home, he jumped right into his reno project so he could make life more comfortable for his children.”

  “He’s a good father.”

  “And he’s a wonderful husband. If he was a millionaire, I wouldn’t love him any more than I do now.”

  Amelia had tried loving a millionaire, but no amount of wealth would have made Spencer Pryce a good husband. She frowned over something else Jenny had said. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Waiting for a magic solution to my problems?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “There’s nothing magic about a lottery ticket. It’s just a series of numbers, and winning it was a matter of beating the odds. I could show you the mathematical formula for calculating them.”

  “But what if that ticket hadn’t won?”

  Amelia shifted on the floor, drawing up her knees to lean her back against the edge of the futon. “You’re one tough lady.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I keep trying to avoid the lecture but you’re not backing off one inch, are you?”

  “If you know it’s coming, why are you trying to avoid it?”

  “Because that’s what I do. I skim right by anything that hurts, or so I’ve heard.”

  Jenny set aside the pinned curtains, grasped the sewing table to push herself to her feet, and moved the two steps to the futon to sit beside the place where Amelia leaned. “You know I love you, Amelia,” she said softly. “You’ve been the sister my parents never gave me.”

  A lump the size of a ping-pong ball formed in her throat. First Will, now her sister-in-law. The generosity of her family was truly humbling. “I feel the same way about you, Jenny.”

  “And I hate to interfere, but I think you’re making a mistake with Hank.”

  “Hank? Why? I’m not lying to him anymore. He knows the truth now.”

  “Does he know you still love him?”

  “Love? Jenny, it’s your pregnancy hormones talking again. I don’t love him. How could I? I never did in the first place. We were kids. It was a crush. We didn’t know what love was.”

  Jenny waited until Amelia’s rush of words ran down, then stroked Amelia’s hair, the same way she stroked the boys’ hair when they were upset. “I don’t know why so many people assume there’s a minimum age for falling in love. I met Will when I was nineteen. I’ve been in love with him ever since. Mind you, what I feel now isn’t the same fluttery, over-the-moon infatuation I felt then. Love changes as it grows, like any living thing. When Owen was born, it stretched to include him. It expanded to include Eric and Timothy, too. Sometimes, when we deal with problems, our love can get pulled awfully thin, yet afterward we realize the stress made it deeper, as if another layer’s been added to strengthen and protect it.”

  “What you and Will have is very special.”

  “It’s not unique to us, but yes, it’s special. It’s why we can be happy in spite of our troubles.”

  “It’s also why you can get over your arguments so fast.”

  “That comes with practice. Just because I love my husband doesn’t stop him from driving me crazy at times. I’m well aware of his faults, and he knows all about mine, too. We’ve learned to deal with them. Neither of us expects the other to be perfect. Otherwise, it would be fantasy, not love.”

  The low rumble of Will’s voice came from the basement, followed by the higher-pitched voices of the boys. Though the words were too muffled to make out, their tone was calm and easy. Homey and ordinary. Amelia slid around on the floor to face Jenny. “Well, whatever you call it, you two were meant to be together.”

  “I’m not saying we haven’t had our share of disagreements over the years. Married couples who claim they don’t are either in denial or aren’t really sharing a life. But no matter which of us is to blame initially, it takes both of us to work it out. The key is trying to see things from the other person’s point of view.”

  “You make it sound simple.”

  “It is, once you cut through all the peripherals. Take our latest spat over Will’s layoff. He was a real sweetie for trying to spare me the worry and handle the burden on his own. He did it because he was trying to make me feel better. The main reason I got mad was because he hadn’t let me share the load and make him feel better.” She sighed. “I also got annoyed by how Carolyn put the news in an email. She could have waited to tell me about Lancaster face-to-face. But I’m over that now, too. She did mean well.”

  “How did you know you and Will were right for each other?”

  “That’s hard to answer. We just did, I suppose. It was instinct. Neither of us could imagine a life without the other.”

  “That was obvious at your wedding. You both were practically glowing, and that was before Will got into the champagne.”

  Jenny laughed, then crossed her legs suddenly, a pinched look on her face.

  Amelia twisted to her knees. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

  Jenny shook her head, inhaling deeply through her nose. She exhaled slowly through her mouth, her expression easing. “Nothing’s wrong. Sometimes when I laugh, the baby does a tap dance on my bladder. You’d think with the fourth I would know better.” She rested her palm on top of her protruding stomach. “But let’s not change the subject. We’re talking about you and Hank.”

  “I’d rather talk about my new niece or nephew.”

  “I remember how you smiled when you caught my bouquet. You were so happy. And Hank was totally smitten. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. I was sure the two of you would be inviting us to your wedding one day.”

  So had she. Catching the bouquet, dancing with Hank, seeing how blissful Will and Jenny were...all of that had made her eager to get started on her life with the boy she loved. She hadn’t believed they’d been too young—her own parents were married at twenty and twenty-two, and they’d been a perfect example of how a couple could grow together. Amelia hadn’t wanted to go to university and leave Hank. She’d waited all that summer, hoping he would ask her to stay. When there was one day left and he had yet to broach the subject, she’d taken matters into her own hands and proposed.

  She’d been certain he would say yes. She’d believed that when someone said they would love you forever they really would. Why else would they have talked about the kind of house they would live in, and the number of children they would have? Being an only child, he’d wanted at least three kids. She’d envisioned a houseful of redheaded boys and blonde girls. And the house would have a big, sunny kitchen and a wraparound porch and plenty of trees in the yard for the kids to climb....

  The memory of his refusal still hurt, but the source of the pain had changed. It didn’t spring from what had happened, but from what might have been. If only he’d told her the truth. If only she’d seen the truth. If only she had been patient, had trusted her feelings....

  But she wasn’t good at waiting. And Hank wasn’t good at venturing out of his comfort zone. Besides, if she’d really loved him, would she have fallen
for Spencer? If Hank had really loved her, wouldn’t he have tried harder to win her back? Their dreams for the future had been hopelessly naive. Their relationship might have been doomed, anyway. They probably would have broken up sooner or later, just as Hank had said.

  Probably. If only. Might have been. Were there any sadder words in the English language?

  “Hank was a nice boy,” Jenny said. “I was surprised when you two broke up. I was absolutely astonished when you married Spencer Pryce. You never looked at him the way you looked at Hank.”

  No, she hadn’t. She’d considered herself older and wiser by then. She got to her feet, contemplating escape. The ironing board blocked her way to the door.

  “Tell me,” Jenny persisted. “What did you feel when you saw Hank last week for the first time after so many years? Were there any sparks?”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “Were there?”

  She shrugged. “You’ve seen him lately, haven’t you? The man’s a six-foot-three, blond-haired, brown-eyed, steel-jawed, broad-shouldered hunk of eye candy.”

  “Aha. So you admit there still is something between you.”

  “It’s only a physical...” Her words trailed off. She couldn’t complete the lie. She’d known the moment Hank had kissed her there was more between them than a physical attraction. At least there’d been more for her. “It’s too late. If love is a living thing, like you said, then it can die.”

  “If love isn’t nurtured, of course it can die. But I don’t think it has with you and Hank.”

  “Jenny—”

  “I think it’s just been lying dormant, waiting for the right time to bloom again.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a hopeless romantic?”

  “How do you think I got all these kids?”

  “Well, you’re definitely seeing things through your pregnancy hormones again. Hank and I agreed that our relationship is strictly business, and that’s how it’s going to stay. There’s more than fifty-two million dollars at stake here.”

  “Did money make you happy before?”

  Amelia threw up her hands. “You’re as bad as Toto with a bone. You just won’t let it go.”

  “Think about it, Amelia. That’s all I ask.”

  “I’ll think about it after I get the ticket.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “RUPERT WHITCOMBE opened his gallery five years ago. He’s put on his so-called charity gala and auction each August since then. It’s grown in size every year.” Hank pushed a plain, buff-colored folder across his desk. It bulged with paper. “Here are the details I’ve gathered so far. It’s all I could get without taking another trip to the city.”

  Amelia dragged her chair closer to the desk, opened the folder and leaned over to leaf through it. Some of the pages were printouts of newspaper articles. Pertinent sections were marked with a yellow highlighter. The sheets containing information on Whitcombe himself were paper-clipped together and neatly subdivided by headings. Evangeline, whose real name turned out to be Gillian Edwards, had a few paper-clipped pages of her own. There were also what appeared to be transcripts of telephone conversations Hank had made to artists and to customers who had dealt with the gallery.

  The volume of information impressed her. So did the speed with which Hank had assembled it. She tapped the stack of paper. “You’ve been busy.”

  “I didn’t find as much as I’d like on Whitcombe.”

  She dug back through the pile and pulled out the paper-clipped sheets. “Seems like more than enough to me,” she said as she scanned the printouts. “You’ve found where he’s from, where he went to school, his employment history...” She paused. “It says here he worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario for twelve years. His art expertise is for real.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “He worked for the AGO as an authenticator. His job involved determining whether or not a painting was a forgery, not whether or not it was any good.”

  “Still, that would give him the idea of what would sell.”

  “Maybe. He was involved in one high-profile case where someone claimed a piece on display at the gallery had been stolen from a private collection. According to Whitcombe, it was a forgery, so the AGO wasn’t guilty of receiving stolen property, but they had made a public blooper by accepting it in the first place. He left to open his own gallery a few months later.”

  Amelia lifted her gaze from the folder to Hank’s face. He must have been working nonstop from the time they’d gotten back from Toronto in order to put together this report, and it showed. He had never been a man who fussed with his appearance, but his shirt was beyond rumpled. She suspected he’d slept in it. His eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed. His hair stood up in finger-combed ridges. He looked tense and exhausted. She had a crazy urge to get out of her chair, stride around the desk and take him in her arms....

  She stamped out the impulse before she could move. Until now, she had been careful not to regard him too closely. That had been easy to do, because he had seemed to avoid looking at her since she’d entered his office. He’d closed the door behind her, waved her toward the chair she’d used the other time and taken his seat behind his desk. There had been no polite inquiry about her health or banal observation about the weather. He hadn’t commented on the fact that she’d turned up ten minutes early for their meeting, either. Instead, he’d gotten right down to business.

  Well, she’d wanted to keep their relationship professional, and he was definitely doing that. She returned her attention to the documents in front of her. “I don’t understand why you’re worried about Whitcombe’s background.”

  “Something’s not right with him. He seems shady. And why would his assistant use an alias?”

  “She probably decided that Evangeline sounded more artsy than Gillian. What difference does any of this make to getting the ticket?”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Yes, you’ve made that crystal clear.”

  “Making impulsive decisions seldom works out. I prefer to be fully informed before I decide on the best way to proceed.”

  She closed the folder and crossed her arms. “Since we’re partners, you meant to use the plural there, right?”

  “What?”

  “If there are any decisions to make, we make them.”

  “Fine. I believe our best option for recovering the ticket is to attend the auction next Friday and buy the painting.”

  “Why wait until then? We know where it is.”

  “Evangeline is a full-time employee at the gallery, and Whitcombe spends most days there, as well. Both of them would be sure to recognize us. After Tuesday’s fiasco, they probably won’t allow us to go wandering past the showroom again, especially not you. And if you’re contemplating breaking in after hours, forget it.”

  “We wouldn’t steal anything. We’d only be taking the ticket.”

  “From what I observed, Whitcombe has an impressive security system. I don’t have the skills to get past it, even if I wanted to. My field of expertise is gathering information, not breaking and entering. Which is a crime, whether we take anything or not, and I don’t intend to risk getting arrested and losing my P.I. license just because my partner’s got the fidgets.”

  “Fidgets? You sound like Mrs. Milsom, our grade five teacher.”

  “Then stop sounding like a fifth grader. Breaking in,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’m surprised you didn’t suggest dressing up in disguises and masquerading as customers again.”

  Not for a million dollars would she admit the thought had crossed her mind. “Going to the auction has an obvious drawback. What if we don’t win the bidding?”

  “We’ll have to make sure we do.” He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and withdrew the brochure Whitcombe had given them at the gallery. The edges were still curled from when Hank had rolled it up to slip in his pocket. He smoothed it out and tossed it on top of the
folder. “You went through it too fast before. Take another look, and this time pay closer attention to the other pieces of art.”

  She picked up the brochure and flipped straight through to number fifteen. Her pulse bumped at the sight of her painting. She rubbed her fingers over the photo. Even this much contact helped solidify the possibility of recovering it.

  “Amelia?”

  She lingered over the picture for another moment, then went back to the beginning to study the other entries more thoroughly. There were twenty in all, including some street scenes done in oil and several abstract paintings that appealed to her. There were also some poorly composed watercolor studies of garden flowers, a sleeping dog on a rocking chair, and still lifes done with wildly bright acrylics.

  “Notice anything?”

  “Well, I’m no art critic, but a few of these are pretty bad.”

  “I agree. It’s an odd mix. None of them were on display at the gallery when we were there. I didn’t see any in the storeroom, either. Did you?”

  She thought back. “I think I saw some of those acrylics. There were a lot of packing crates, so other paintings could have been in those. Some could have been behind that door.”

  “What door?”

  “The steel one with all the locks. It was in the back wall.”

  “I missed that. I guess I was distracted by the swooning lady.”

  Just as she had been distracted by being swept into Hank’s arms. Her gaze drifted back across the desk. He’d left the top two buttons of his shirt unfastened. It gaped limply to one side, revealing the edge of one collarbone. His square shoulders stretched the rumpled fabric deliciously. So did his broad chest. A quiet tingle crept over her skin as she remembered his embrace, how good it felt to be held, how good he smelled....

  Her eyes met his. He was scowling. She matched his expression. “I didn’t swoon,” she said. “I was improvising.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re good at putting on an act, I’ll give you that.”

  She exhaled slowly, striving for patience, and returned her gaze to the catalog. “I wonder if Whitcombe acquired all these pieces specifically for his auction.”