He nodded, stroking his chin. "I don't even know what it's worth. One of my experts is stopping by later this week to take a look at it. I think it's quite a find, though."
Jasmine lovingly traced the outline of an intricately woven flowering plant. "The governor would pay handsomely for something so dear."
"I'm sure he would," Ladden agreed in a subdued tone.
"A perfect complement to a quilt the Turkan prince gave him," Jasmine continued, imagining how magnificent the carpet would look on the pale hardwood in his bedroom.
"And if he isn't reelected?" Ladden asked, careful to keep his voice neither supportive nor reproachful.
Jasmine winced, the discouraging results of this week's polls flashing in her mind. Influencing state policy was everything to Trey—his ambition was the quality she admired most about him. He hadn't been afraid to tackle unpopular issues during his first term, and he seemed likely to pay for it this election day. But she didn't like to think about how much losing would crush him—or how much it might affect their fledgling relationship. She conjured up a smile for Ladden. "The governor owns several homes."
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Actually," he said abruptly, "I was thinking the carpet would look nice in my private quarters."
"Oh." She straightened, flipping her ponytail behind her shoulder. Of course Ladden would have his own place. She simply hadn't given it much thought before now. They had never broached personal subjects, although for the past few months, her own life had been chronicled on a regular basis in the local newspapers. The state held its collective breath to see if California's most eligible bachelor would marry. And she had to admit the prospect of being the governor's wife held no small amount of appeal. She forced herself to turn her attention back to Ladden and found his compelling gaze already on her. "Do you live nearby?"
"I have a fixer-upper in Glenhayden."
Jasmine couldn't contain her surprise. "Glenhayden? I grew up—" she stopped, then added, "spending summers near there." She didn't make a habit of sharing the extent of her meager upbringing. More often, she stuck to the loose background she had fabricated with just enough fact to keep the reporters happy.
"It's a nice, older community," Ladden said. "Do you still visit?"
"No," she said, nodding at the rug. "Let me know when you decide on a price."
"If I decide on a price," Ladden corrected with a grin, shaking his finger at her.
She laughed, suddenly struck by the revelation that she enjoyed his company, his good-natured banter. "I fully intend to wear you down," she warned.
His smile slipped just a bit, and she saw something akin to desire flicker in his brown eyes. "I'm looking forward to it."
And suddenly, she felt something leap between them, a feeling that stole the moisture from her mouth. How many conversations had she shared with Ladden over the past three years? It seemed as if she had always known him. Yet at this moment, she felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. Sexual awareness enveloped them. Panic rose in Jasmine's chest, panic that Ladden felt something emanating from her that she couldn't possibly mean. Could she?
"I—I'd better be going," she said, unable to drag her gaze from his. Goose bumps skittered along her arms, raising fine hairs and sending a shiver down her spine. She stumbled backward, remembering the trunk behind her a second too late. When she landed and the wind whooshed from her lungs, Jasmine faintly wished her sixth grade gym teacher could have witnessed her perfect backward somersault.
Ladden was at her side immediately. "Are you all right?" He clasped her hand and leaned over her, searching her face. In his mad scramble, he had lost his hat. With his dark hair curling haphazardly, he looked boyish and incredibly sexy. And Jasmine presumed she had hit her head rather hard because, for the duration of a heartbeat, she wanted Ladden to kiss her.
With her first breath of air, she laughed, half because she must have looked foolish, half because she couldn't believe what she was thinking.
His face relaxed and his laughter joined hers. "I give you a nine-point-seven for technique."
Still on her back, she smiled. "You're just glad I'm okay so I won't sue you."
He lifted his arms to indicate the clutter around them. "What you see is what you get—no riches here."
She wet her lips. A direct comparison between him and the governor? She wasn't sure. "Are you going to help me up?"
He hesitated, then a mischievous smile creased his face. "I was hoping you'd faint so I could give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." He leaned closer, bracing one hand next to her shoulder. "I'm certified."
Her ears hummed with the sudden silence. He, too, had been affected by their close contact. But she had more sense than to allow these fleeting desires to spin out of control. "Certifiable, perhaps," she said, extending her hand. He gently pulled her to her feet. For a second she felt lightheaded, but she wasn't sure whether to attribute it to her tumble or to her full-body proximity to Ladden.
"Are you sure you feel okay?" he asked, wrapping his fingers around her upper arms.
"Yes," she lied, then glanced down at her dusty slacks. "A little worse for wear," she muttered, stepping back to brush off her clothing—and to escape his disorienting nearness. "I really do need to get going."
He unearthed his hat, then blazed a safer trail through the debris to the front of the store.
"I hope the damage isn't as bad as it looks," Jasmine offered sympathetically.
Ladden shrugged his big shoulders. "I needed to do inventory anyway."
Her foot nudged something and Jasmine glanced down to find a wonderful little copper pot. "How quaint," she said, retrieving it from the littered floor and dusting it off. "It's an oil lamp."
"Nice quality," Ladden said. "I was cleaning it up when the quake struck this morning."
"Well, at least you didn't have a store full of customers."
"Yeah," he agreed. "Although some skinny old homeless man wandered in, scared out of his wits."
"I can't remember ever leaving here without buying something," Jasmine said, turning the lamp over in her hands. The lid was missing, but the piece spoke to her… and it would look nice on her fireplace mantel. "I'll take this."
He looked surprised. "Fine—give me a few hours to find the lid and finish cleaning it. Can you stop by later this afternoon?"
Jasmine mentally reviewed her schedule. "I need to drop off some cushions at the upholstery shop next door. I can come back around six or so." She refused to acknowledge the voice whispering in her head—she was not already anticipating the return trip.
"Just bang on the door," Ladden said. "I'll be the guy with the broom."
Jasmine laughed, hesitating with her hand on the doorknob. Ladden's dusty face wore a sunny expression that belied his situation, and suddenly, she didn't want to leave. Staying to help him clean up sounded more enjoyable than the buying trips she had planned for the afternoon—and the revelation shook her. "I'll see you later, Ladden."
After an awkward pause, he offered her a small wave. "Later, Jasmine."
Feeling unsettled, she wondered if he had wanted to say something else. She slowly walked back to her car, trying to make sense of what—if anything—had just transpired between them. She sat with her hands on the wheel for a full minute, her mind racing. Hormones, she decided. Hormones, pure and simple. Ladden was a good-looking, attentive man who exuded a physicality that was hard to ignore. She was a normal, red-blooded woman who hadn't seen much of her boyfriend lately. Hormones.
But as she pulled away from the curb, Jasmine couldn't resist a glance at his storefront in her rearview mirror. She bit her lip, hard. She had known the man for a long time. Why was she noticing these disturbing things about him this morning?
Chapter Three
LADDEN HELD HIS BREATH until Jasmine's car disappeared from view. Then he reached for the broom and danced a jig with his spindly partner around the littered floor, humming along with the jaunty song on the radio. He
wasn't absolutely, positively certain, but he felt as if they had finally connected. He swept off his hat and held it over his heart as he dipped the broom low in a swoon, then drawled, "Was that a spark of interest I saw in your lovely green eyes, my dear?"
At the sound of a knock on the window, Ladden bolted upright and jammed his hat back on his head. Mrs. Pickney stood outside with her hand to her brow, smiling and waving. Tingling with embarrassment, he pretended to sweep violently as he made his way to the door.
"My windows look suspiciously clean," she said as she stepped inside, "so thank you—" She gasped, covering her mouth, rendered speechless by the unsightly mess of his showroom. Ladden abandoned the broom and guided her to a dusty chair.
"It's okay, Mrs. Pickney, the damage seems to be isolated here and no one was injured."
"I—I don't understand," she murmured. "I didn't feel a thing—how... why..." She raised moist eyes. "It doesn't seem fair."
He shrugged and squeezed her frail shoulders. "It was a freak tremor. Don't worry—my insurance is paid up." Scanning the crowded showroom, he added, "Besides, I needed to scale down my inventory, anyway. It was getting too cramped in here."
She glanced around and finally grinned. "This place was starting to look like a fire hazard."
"See?" he said. "A blessing in disguise. Now, hadn't you better see to your customers?"
"I'll close for the day and help you clean up."
He shook his head. "No need—I can't do much until I contact my insurance agent anyway."
The color had returned to her cheeks. "You're right, of course." She rose from her chair and walked to the door. "Ladden, why do bad things happen to good people?"
Feeling a burst of affection for the woman, Ladden said, "Don't waste a minute worrying about me, I'll be fine."
She angled her white head at him. "I can't imagine why some smart young lady hasn't scooped you up by now."
He adopted a lovelorn expression and sighed. "I'm waiting for you to realize our age difference doesn't matter, Mrs. Pickney."
Laughing, she waved him off and walked out.
After he locked the door, Ladden groaned, scrubbing his face with his hands. Despite his forced cheer, the damage the quake had wrought only heaped more pressure on the business decisions he'd have to make soon. Should he interpret this incident as an omen, a sign to move to another location, one large enough to offer him room to expand?
He retrieved the broom and leaned on it, thinking it would take a miracle to resolve his business dilemma. "I wish Mrs. Pickney would simply retire and give me her space," he announced to the disorderly room. Then he laughed wryly and began sweeping.
Wishing wouldn't get him anywhere.
After he swept up most of the glass, he unearthed his phone and made the necessary calls. His insurance agent, Saul Tydwell, a friend of his uncle's who always wore the same bad brown suit, arrived within the hour bearing stale donuts in condolence and a digital camera.
"If you weren't Ernie's nephew," Saul said, shaking his head between snapshots, "I'd never believe you. You must be sitting on some kind of fault line—and the underwriter is going to love that."
"Tell me my rates won't go up," Ladden said, knowing the answer even before the little man offered him a sympathetic look.
"I'll shop around for a better rate, son, but it doesn't look good."
Ladden dropped his head in his hands and visualized the money in his bank account dwindling like sand in an hourglass. He spent much of the afternoon turning away customers with explanations that became more vague as the day wore on. The building inspector's visit and subsequent ruling that the building was structurally sound seemed like the bright spot of the day until Ladden reached the bottom of the report. The inspector had noted with an asterisk that considering the results of interviews with surrounding retailers, he doubted that an earthquake had actually occurred. Meanwhile, his agent had called the state seismology department.
"Filing a false claim will get you in a heap of trouble, son," Saul said sternly over the phone. "Come on, Ladden, don't try to pull the wool over my eyes with some fake quake—it's too damn easy to trace." Then the man's voice softened. "If you're in trouble, busting up your place isn't the way to handle it. I'm sure your uncle Ernie would float you a loan."
"I'm telling you, it was an earthquake," Ladden said through clenched teeth.
"Then why doesn't the seismology department have a record of it, and why did no one else feel it?"
"I don't know," Ladden said. "Wait—there was someone else, a homeless man who wandered in from the street."
"Do you know this man?"
Ladden sighed in frustration. "No, and even if I could find him, he acted senile."
"I see," Saul said dubiously. "Well, I'm telling you, the claim will be denied if you insist on turning in this cockamamie story about an earthquake."
"Are you saying you want me to lie?" Ladden asked, his voice rising in anger.
"Look, son, you haven't filed a claim in fifteen years and you always pay your premiums on time. I'm trying to help you out. Think hard about what really happened and call me tomorrow."
Ladden listened to the dial tone for a few seconds, then raised the phone over his head, ready to fling it against the wall. But he stopped there—he couldn't afford to buy a new phone. He set the instrument gently on the table, then mouthed every curse word he knew, and made up a few of his own.
Glancing at his watch, his spirits lifted a notch. Jasmine would be back within an hour, and he had made progress in the cleanup. Of course, he noted in one of the few unbroken mirrors, he was now wearing most of the store's grime. He banged his hat on his leg, stirring up another dust cloud, then trudged back through the storeroom toward his shower. He'd promised to stop by the family tavern to help celebrate a cousin's birthday, so he needed to be presentable, he reasoned. Cleaning up didn't have anything to do with Jasmine coming back.
He showered quickly and pulled on the only spare clothes he had at the shop—worn jeans and a dark red flannel shirt that was missing a button, and low-heeled black boots. With his pocketknife, he dug dirt from beneath his fingernails until they stung, then scrubbed his knuckles raw with an old toothbrush. He needed a haircut, he concluded as he fought to tame the dark curls that seemed determined to flip up around his ears and collar. Rubbing his whisker-shadowed chin, he longed for a razor, but his makeshift toiletries bag was not so obliging. It did, however, furnish a travel-size bottle of musky cologne that had been popular a decade ago. He unscrewed the lid and took a whiff. Not bad, he decided, and splashed on a few drops. But, when he surveyed the results of his labor in the tarnished mirror, his shoulders dropped. Jasmine Crowne would never be interested in someone like him.
On his way back through the storeroom, he paused to admire the rug and wave the remaining butterflies toward an open window. Then he scratched his temple. He could have sworn he'd left the rug draped over those old trunks, and now it lay a few feet away, stretched smoothly across the massive table he was holding for Jasmine. Oh well, he'd moved everything in the store at least once today. It must have slipped his mind.
The front showroom looked brighter and shinier, although a little bare to his eyes. At least he'd found the lid to the copper lamp Jasmine had become so enamored of. He lifted the piece from the counter, impressed at how well it had turned out. Even the dents seemed less noticeable in the lustrous glow of the restored finish. The etchings on the side were in some kind of foreign language—probably the family's name, he mused. Or a recipe for disaster. He'd certainly had enough trouble since he brought the lamp home—and that rug. Then a thought struck him. Was it possible the copper lamp and the rug had originated from the same household?
He grabbed a scrap of paper and copied the letters and symbols on the lamp in case the woman who came to value the rug would find the information useful. He had just finished when he heard a knock on the door and glanced up to see Jasmine waving through the glass.
His heart thudded crazily as he unlocked the door. She, too, had changed from her dusty clothes and wore a loose, turquoise silk tunic over a slim, flowered skirt. The long, dark ponytail had been braided and hung over her left shoulder, clasped with a simple silver ring that matched the thick chain at her throat. Her bare legs were golden from a lingering tan and her own natural coloring, and she wore strappy sandals that exposed her pink toenails. She looked beautifully exotic, and Ladden didn't trust himself to speak.
"You made a lot of progress," she said, turning in place in front of the counter.
He nodded, his mind racing for something clever to say. "Yeah," he managed.
"Oh, and the lamp is beautiful!" she exclaimed, her eyes glowing as she lifted it and stroked the surface.
"Yeah." Why couldn't he think of something, anything, to say to prolong her stay?
"How much do I owe you?"
Ladden bit the inside of his cheek. He felt funny about charging her for a little whatnot, considering his heart was hers for the taking. "How about dinner?" he asked, as amazed at the words that came out of his mouth as Jasmine appeared to be.
"Dinner?"
"Sure." He leaned against the counter so he wouldn't fall down. "I know a great little place down the block with the best seafood in town."
The corners of her mouth turned up even as her brow furrowed. "That sounds nice, Ladden, but I don't think—"
Her response was cut short by the clanging bell on the door announcing another visitor. Ladden turned to see his Uncle Ernie lumbering inside, still dressed in his plumber's uniform of dark coveralls. "There you are, Lad. Your Aunt Silvie was getting worried about you, then I got a strange call from Saul a few minutes ago and thought I'd better see what's keeping you." The tall, burly man stopped and glanced at Jasmine with dancing eyes. "But I see what's keeping you."
"Er, Uncle Ernie," Ladden said with rising embarrassment, "this is Jasmine Crowne. Jasmine, Ernie Sanderson."
"Pleasure, little lady," Ernie said, offering her a big paw to shake.
Mad About You Page 38