“Yes, and I think if you suck the life out of Ambleside, then we will all be dead and in heaven with the teeny-tiny gate made out of a pearl. How big is a pearl?”
Zachary held up his thumb and forefinger. “Pretty small. But I’ll tell you what, Nick, I’ve never been a bloodsucking bleach, or a bleach of any kind, for that matter. In fact, I think I’m a pretty good guy for the most part.” He glanced at the lace-curtained front window. “Is your mom working this afternoon?”
“She works every day except Sunday, and that’s when we go to church. Do you go to church? Are you a Christian? I don’t think you can be my dad if you’re not a Christian.”
“You know, if your mother thinks I’m a bloodsucking bleach, she’s not going to let me be your dad.”
Nick pondered this one. “God can change anybody,” he said. “Even you.”
“I’ll remember that.” Zachary stood and gave the boy’s hair a rub. “Don’t run off, OK? You scared your mom the last time you did that.”
“I’m going to get Magunnery. She plays at my house after school, because her mother is still sick. Boompah’s sick, too. Mom says you’re running the Corner Market. She says, ‘That man ceases to amaze me.’”
Zachary laughed. “I ceased to amaze myself a long time ago. See ya, big guy.”
As Nick scampered away, Zachary climbed the old building’s limestone steps and pushed open the glass-windowed front door. As before, he was greeted by the mingled scents of beeswax candles, fragrant potpourri, and lemony furniture polish. A fan turning overhead rustled the lace curtains and white linen tablecloths. On a small side table against the wall, a silver teapot sent out a thin drift of steam. Near it, a plate of golden cakes beckoned.
“Be with you in a minute!” Elizabeth called from the back room. “Make yourself at home.”
At home. Zachary surveyed the collection of aged furniture, heavy oak tables, simple pine cupboards, worn rocking chairs, and soft-edged footstools. Then he thought back to the crowded trailer in which he’d lived his early life.
Most of his nights had been spent in a sleeping bag on the floor. Meals were consumed from aluminum trays in front of the television set. A brown-and-black shag carpet underfoot had collected the debris of the multitude of children that roamed it—a million crumbs of cookies and potato chips, dozens of sharp-edged plastic blocks, a collection of headless action figures and green army men. Shelves held everything from half-empty cereal boxes to hairbrushes to chewed-up crayons.
That had been home. Nothing like this.
“Oh, it’s you.” Elizabeth’s voice held a note of disappointment. “I see you decided to pay a visit to my musty little junk shop.”
A pang of guilt stabbed Zachary as he turned to find the woman crossing the room, her dark brown hair pulled up into a soft bun from which stray tendrils brushed against her neck. In the half light of the shop, her pale blue dress seemed to give off an angelic glow. She reached across a green brocade sofa and switched off a lamp.
“I’m closing for the day,” she said. “Do you need something?”
That question could be answered a dozen ways, Zachary thought, and most of them involved Miss Elizabeth Hayes.
“I need to apologize,” he said, uncomfortable at the knot that seemed to have formed in his throat. “I shouldn’t have insulted your business. Finders Keepers is not a junk shop, and it’s definitely not musty. In fact, I came here to pay for my teacup. I picked one out the first time I was here, and then I forgot to take it with me.”
“You ought to apologize for your behavior to me on the sidewalk the other morning. Pearlene Fox hasn’t stopped jabbering about it. Everyone in town knows what you did.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Apologize for kissing you under the awning?”
“We weren’t under the awning. We were out in broad daylight. Al and Bud both saw it. Al thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. He was filling up my gas tank yesterday, and he couldn’t stop giggling.”
“Giggling?”
“Yes, he was giggling!” She crossed her arms and regarded him.
Zachary took a step closer. “I apologize for kissing you in broad daylight.”
“Thank you.”
“But,” he went on, moving near enough to catch a whiff of the floral scent she wore, “I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
A pair of pink roses blossomed on her cheeks. “You didn’t have my permission, and I don’t like surprises. Besides that, if everybody in town thinks that you and I—”
“When was the last time somebody kissed you, Elizabeth? Not counting me on the sidewalk.”
“None of your business.”
Her answer told him everything. “You intrigue me. You’re a beautiful woman, you’re obviously intelligent and ambitious, and you have a good heart. Obviously you want a family, or you wouldn’t have adopted Nick. So why aren’t you married?”
“That also is none of your business.”
She moved past him and picked up the teacup and saucer he had chosen. Vanishing behind a counter, she left only the whisper of her fragrance. Zachary leaned over, elbows on the glass top, as she emerged with a handful of purple tissue paper and a gift bag. He knew he’d be ushered out the door within the space of a minute if he couldn’t think of another topic that wouldn’t offend her.
Why did he even care to keep this woman talking? She clearly disliked him. Didn’t she?
“There you go.” She pushed the bag across the counter. “Twenty-five dollars. Plus tax.” On an old-fashioned register she rang up the purchase.
“Nick says you think I’m a bloodsucking bleach,” he commented as he wrote out a check.
Startled, she glanced up, her blue eyes wide. “Oh, Nick. He’s so blunt …” She shrugged. “He meant leech.”
“So it’s true?”
“My opinion of you is not high, Mr. Chalmers. If you and Phil Fox think you can bulldoze this town—”
“Phil Fox came to my office to talk to me. Just like you did. Just like Nick and Montgomery did. That doesn’t mean I’m in cahoots with the guy.”
“What’s he planning to do to Ambleside?”
“Modernize.”
“Oh!” She slapped the glass countertop. “You know why I’m not married? Because I don’t like change. I want to keep my life calm, serene, and genteel. That’s why I moved to Ambleside.”
“And you think time should stand still here?”
She sighed, and Zachary felt uncomfortably like a dim-witted schoolboy.
“You see this glass counter?” Her fingertips traced along the surface. “This used to be in a country store in southern Missouri. It’s more than a hundred years old. Thousands of people have stood and leaned on it, right where you’re leaning. The oak frame is smooth from their touch. They’ve lived a little bit of life right here—a child chose a piece of penny candy from a glass jar, a gentleman selected a new collar to button onto his shirt for his wedding day, a young mother purchased flannel to sew a blanket for her newborn baby. Those people are all gone now, but the counter remains. If you destroy it—the way they destroyed the country store to make room for a discount mart—then you lose something very special. You lose the chance to touch those people’s lives, to think about them, and to learn from them. You lose a little bit of yourself when you destroy the past.”
Spellbound, Zachary could almost see the line of customers Elizabeth described. She picked up an old album—a huge velvety thing with a massive brass clasp and thick pages filled with tattered sepia-toned photographs.
“I don’t know whose this was,” she said softly. “I got it from a man who had bought it at a garage sale for three dollars. Here’s somebody’s daughter. Here’s a grandmother with a baby on her lap. See the names? Hubert, Jeremiah, Ettie. Do you know where your name came from, Zachary Chalmers? Do you know what your great-grandfather looked like? Maybe you don’t care, but you should. He was a part of you, and he’ll be a part of your children and grandchildren someday.”
Zachary caught her hand. “This is all about the mansion, isn’t it? That’s all you see when you look at me. A bulldozer.”
“Actually,” she said, “that was all about me. I was telling you who I am and what I believe in. For some reason I can’t figure out, I need to make you understand me.”
“Do you want to understand me?”
“I already do.” She tucked a stray tendril of hair into her bun. “I resist changing things on the outside—but you don’t want to change on the inside. That would mean trading the will of Zachary Chalmers for the will of God.”
Leaving the counter, she started through the shop, turning off the array of electric lamps. He watched her figure transform slowly into a silhouette, an ethereal shadow that seemed to float past the furnishings of yesteryear. He pondered the people whose lives had touched that table, this chair, the cabinet across the room. The objects weren’t junk. They were treasures. Relics. Pieces of history.
In his own way, Zachary realized, he was creating a heritage he hoped would last beyond his lifetime. The homes he had designed, the offices and restaurants he had conceived were his legacy. They were a part of him, an emblem of who he was and what he believed in.
“Good night,” Elizabeth said at the door. “At least we didn’t have a fight this time.”
Or a kiss, he thought.
“That white cupboard,” he said, spotting the piece Phil Fox had referred to in his diatribe against Elizabeth’s antiques. “How much is it?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
“I’ll take it.”
She set her hand on her hip. “What is this? You haven’t even looked at it. Where are you going to put it? And how do you know that’s a fair price?”
“I need that cabinet.”
“What for?”
“For my teacup.”
With a laugh, she shook her head. “Maybe I don’t understand you as well as I thought.”
He walked to the door. “I’ll pick it up Saturday morning before I open the Corner Market for the day.”
As he passed, she touched his arm. “Zachary, thank you … for helping Boompah. It means a lot.”
Taking a chance, he bent and kissed her cheek. “And I’m not going to apologize for that one.”
He could hear the bells jingle behind him as he descended the limestone steps to the street. Nick and Montgomery waved from the corner where they were chatting with Al, the fellow who ran the gas station up the street. As Zachary passed, he tapped the boy on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.
“I kissed your mom.”
The green eyes lit up. “Did she like it?”
“I don’t know—but I sure did.”
As Nick laughed, Zachary crossed the street toward the Corner Market. For some reason, he felt like his feet were three inches off the ground.
The Saturday morning sunrise cast a pink glow on the ivy-covered brickwork of Chalmers House. Rather than entering Finders Keepers through the door that connected her house to the shop, Elizabeth had chosen to walk the long way around through the yard. She always loved the early hour and the silent peace that accompanied it. This morning, more than any other, she felt the need for divine composure.
Leaning against the shop’s wall, she drank in the intricate, white fretwork that graced the mansion’s deep front porch. The arched windows with their stained-glass frames glittered like jewels. The iron fretwork of the widow’s walk formed a delicate black embroidery on the roofline. The old house was a gem, a masterpiece of Victorian architecture. Elizabeth tried to imagine it gone.
Construction machinery. The pink bricks crumbled to dust. The massive oak staircase smashed and splintered. The sparkling glass windows shattered. The wooden gingerbread tangled on the ground like a heap of fallen lace. Grace’s beloved lilacs and forsythias uprooted. The spicy pink dianthus ground under the iron tread of a bulldozer.
And then what? A new building would rise with sharp, modern angles and mirrored windows. The blacktopped parking lot in front of it would be marked with even yellow lines. Boxwoods and yews would be planted along the foundation—easy maintenance and no flowers to litter the tidy lot. A sign would be erected near the street, something bold, graphic, easy to read from a distance.
Elizabeth rubbed her hands over her arms, chilled in the early morning breeze. How could she allow this to happen? How could such destruction be the will of God? And why— in the name of all that was right and sensible—couldn’t she get Zachary Chalmers out of her mind?
Closing her eyes to block out the mansion, Elizabeth lifted up a prayer for understanding and peace. Zachary’s insight into her life had been uncomfortably close to the truth. She was lonely. She did long for a family of her own, a normal family with two parents and bunches of children. And she was uncomfortable with change. In fact, she had structured her whole world around the ultimate goal of stability.
But Zachary had come barging in with his new ideas, his charming grin, and his persistent pursuit. The man was competent, wealthy, and handsome enough to attract any woman he chose. So why had he chosen Elizabeth?
If only he would prove to be a bloodsucking bleach! Instead, he knelt to chat with Nick as though the child’s conversation genuinely interested him. He stopped by Boompah’s house to check on the sick old man, and then he took over running the Corner Market during his vacation. He apologized, drank tea, wore blue jeans to work, toted groceries to Mrs. McCann’s house, and generally proved himself totally wonderful in every way.
And those kisses. Elizabeth covered her mouth with her hand. Oh, God, please help me to remember Grace and her beautiful mansion this morning when Zachary comes to pick up his cupboard. Please don’t let me think about his green eyes or his thick hair or—
“There you are!” The man himself rounded the corner of the store. “I’ve been waiting out front for you. I was afraid you’d forgotten me.”
Not a chance. Elizabeth’s heart constricted as Zachary sauntered toward her, mesmerizing in a blue denim shirt and jeans, his dark hair damp from his morning shower, his eyes locked on her face. No man had the right to look that good.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asked. “I don’t mean to disturb you.”
You do disturb me! she wanted to shout. You’ve interrupted my whole life. You’ve knocked everything topsy-turvy and left me reeling with confusion and uncertainty and feelings I never knew I had! Go away and leave me alone. Let me have my old existence back.
“You’re looking well this morning, Elizabeth.” He leaned one shoulder against the brick wall and hooked his hands in his pockets. “I hope I didn’t get you out of bed too early.”
“No,” she managed. “I’m usually up. Nick loves cartoons.”
He gave a laugh that curled into her chest and wrapped around her heart. “Me, too. I used to think Saturday mornings were right next to heaven. Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Donald Duck—they were my pals.”
“Nick carries around a collection of books with cartoon animals on them. He props them up near him so they can be a part of whatever he’s doing. I think it’s his way of having secret friends.”
“Bobo.” With a slightly embarrassed grin, he raked a hand through his hair. “Bobo was this little yellow chicken some lady gave me when I was about five years old. He was real soft, and when you tilted him, he kind of made this eep eep sound. I took him everywhere.”
“Do you still have him?”
His face sobered. “Nah. Kid’s stuff, you know.”
“What happened to Bobo, Zachary? Did you lose him?”
Straightening away from the wall, he shrugged. “Hey, I need to open up the market in a few minutes.”
Elizabeth frowned. As he turned to go, she touched his shoulder. “Zachary?”
When he swung around, she was struck by the sadness in his eyes. “It was just a dumb stuffed animal.”
“Where
is Bobo?” Suddenly it seemed the most important question in the world.
He looked away, his focus on the mansion. “When I was thirteen, things got … they got a little rough around my house. Financially and in other ways. I moved out. The toy didn’t make the transition.”
“You moved out of your house when you were thirteen years old?”
“Foster care. The state took over my upbringing. Hey, it happens.”
“Oh, Zachary.” She ached to throw her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”
“No big deal. You learn to go with the flow. I carved my own path through those years. In a way, it was good for me. I made plans, decided who I wanted to be, what my goals were, and then I set out to make them happen.”
“But your parents. Didn’t they—”
“No, they didn’t. Whatever you were going to ask, the answer is no. They didn’t need me, didn’t miss me, didn’t anything. I was the oldest kid, and I was the one most able to fend for himself. It’s OK, Elizabeth. I’ve put all that behind me.”
He turned again and headed for the front of the shop. Elizabeth followed, her thoughts reeling. Zachary’s words certainly explained a lot of things about him. His drive to succeed. His affinity for Nick. His lack of tenderness toward things that might evoke the past. Of course he didn’t care about his Aunt Grace. Maybe if she’d stepped in with some money when he was a child, he wouldn’t have been forced out of his family. Now, her estate probably seemed like too little too late.
“Hey, don’t dwell on what I told you,” he said, touching her arm and drawing her from her reverie. “A lot of people go through rough times. It was just a toy chicken, anyhow.”
She fished her key out of her pocket and opened the door. “Bobo wasn’t just a toy,” she said softly. “He was your childhood.”
Leaving him, she began the familiar ritual of turning on the lamps. As she approached the white cabinet, she realized Zachary was standing beside it, staring at her. She turned the hand-carved wooden latch that opened the matched pair of glass doors. Taking a chamois, she carefully dusted the shelves and gave the cabinet’s work surface a polish. She knew Zachary was renting an apartment on the outskirts of town, and she wondered where he planned to display the piece.
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