by Daphne Clair
‘Good.’ He hesitated a moment longer, and she wondered if he expected to be asked inside, but when she looked at him his eyes were focused on her mouth.
Tara blinked, her heart giving a hard thud against her ribs.
Then he was looking over her shoulder at the wall, saying in a strangely distant voice, ‘I’m glad to have taken your mind off it. Have a good night’s sleep.’ He turned and headed down the path.
On Sunday he phoned. ‘Just to check that you’re okay,’ he said, still with that detached note in his voice. ‘No after-effects?’
‘None,’ Tara assured him crisply. The bruise on her cheek was coming out, going blue, but she wasn’t a shivering jelly of nerves. ‘I’m back to normal.’ Almost. Her main emotion in regard to the robbery was anger; she wasn’t going to allow a thug like that to have any long-term effect on her.
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Sholto said formally.
‘Thanks for enquiring.’
‘Not at all.’ He sounded positively cool now. ‘Look after yourself.’
He had put down the phone before she could say any more.
Sholto must have been as good as his word. When Tara phoned the Herne Holdings warehouse on Monday morning and asked for Noel, she got a friendly greeting from a man who said he’d been expecting her call, and who failed to keep the curiosity out of his voice. ‘Sure,’ he said, when she asked for delivery of the goods she’d chosen. ‘No problem. They’ll be there this afternoon.’
When they arrived she arranged the cushions haphazardly in a corner, and placed some of the pearl shells with their trapped half-formed pearls on the two chests she’d moved into the window on Saturday. The single pearls went under the glass counter inside the door—it didn’t do to keep small, valuable trinkets where light fingers could easily transfer them to pocket or bag.
‘Nice,’ Tod commented, picking up one of the shells. ‘Where did you find them?’
‘Herne Holdings,’ she said briefly.
Tod, a rangy twenty-year-old whose olive skin proclaimed his part-Maori heritage and contrasted strikingly with light green eyes, pushed a long, glossy black curl off his forehead. She knew he thought it looked sexy, but he was forever shoving it away, torn between vanity and convenience. ‘They’re big importers, aren’t they?’
‘And exporters, yes.’
‘Didn’t know we dealt with them.’
‘We do now. At least we have, this once.’
Tod adjusted the brocade waistcoat he’d rescued from a box of assorted clothing and linen Tara had got for a song at auction, and checked that the rolled-up sleeves of his white silk shirt were at the right length for a look of casual elegance. ‘Thought they only supplied department stores and big furniture shops.’
Tara looked up from checking through her invoice book. ‘They seemed quite happy to supply me.’
Two customers wandered in, and Tod turned his attention to them. ‘Hi! Anything I can help you with?...Sure, you look around all you want, just give us a shout if you need information or anything, okay?’
He was a good salesman, not too pushy. She was lucky to have him, Tara thought. Sometimes a customer— usually an older woman—would string him along, asking questions, pretending to be interested in some purchase but unable to make up her mind, just to keep him dancing attendance because he was young and friendly and good-looking. When they left the shop he’d smile ruefully at Tara, and sometimes she’d tease him a little. Neither of them minded, really. There were a lot of lonely people in the world, and maybe another day the customer would come back and buy something.
Tod had been horrified at the news of the robbery, and bravely said that he wished he’d been there instead of Tara. ‘I’d have seen him off,’ he muttered darkly. ‘He wouldn’t have got me to open the safe.’
Tara tried to look impressed, biting her tongue. Mildly, she said, ‘If you are here and it happens again, I don’t want any heroics, Tod. Your life is more important than any amount of money. And that’s the boss talking, okay?’
‘Yeah, okay,’ he reluctantly agreed.
If nothing else, she thought, he could save face by referring to boss’s orders. Not, she hoped, that the situation would ever arise.
One of the pearls on a shell went that day, and two more on the next. ‘We should order some more,’ Tod said.
She’d contacted the woman who picked up shells, stones and bits of coloured glass washed up on beaches, combining them with gold or silver wire or chains to turn them into intriguing earrings, necklaces and bracelets. The craftswoman was thrilled at the idea of custom-made black pearl jewellery. ‘I’d love to try it,’ she said. ‘I could never afford to pay for the pearls myself.’
Tara phoned Noel again and asked for another assortment of pearls in their shells to be dispatched to her shop.
‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well...’ She was looking at a space on the wall left by the sale of a large rug that morning. ‘You had some interesting South American rugs.’
‘How many would you like?’
‘Five. The small size.’
‘Five it is. They’re very popular. Sure you don’t want more? A couple of the larger size, maybe?’
‘It’s not a big shop,’ she explained. ‘I don’t have a lot of room to display them.’ She’d been glad to see the other one go. It had been monopolising too much space for too long.
‘Well, if you get rid of these, just phone for another lot.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ she promised.
‘Do that,’ he urged. ‘The boss said to keep you happy.’
Did he? Tara thought as she put down the receiver. You might have given some thought to keeping me happy all those years ago, Sholto.
The next morning a van with the Herne Holdings logo on it pulled into the service lane behind the shop, and two men unloaded several rolled rugs and a carton. One of the men was Sholto, dressed in jeans and a blue cotton shirt.
‘Where do you want these?’ he asked, standing with a couple of rugs slung over his shoulder.
Tara stared at him in surprise, then hurriedly collected her wits. ‘Over there, please.’ She pointed to a corner of the back room. ‘Lean them against the wall.’
‘Is this all the storage you have?’ He looked around critically. The room was crammed with boxes and heaped with an assortment of stock that would be moved into the shop as space became available.
‘I try to keep bulky things down here, rather than lug them up and down stairs. What are you doing here, Sholto?’
‘Delivering goods,’ he said, giving her a narrow, sardonic smile as the driver loped out to the truck again.
‘You know what I mean!’
‘Familiarising myself with the New Zealand operation again,’ he said. ‘And I was curious—’
The van driver walked in with some more rugs and stowed them with the others. He presented a delivery book to Tara and she signed it, taking the sheet that he tore out for her. ‘Okay, boss?’ he asked Sholto.
Sholto nodded, then looked at his watch. ‘You have another delivery near here, don’t you?’
‘Yup. End of the street. Grumbley’s.’
‘I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.’
When the driver had left, Tara said, ‘Curious about what?’
‘This place. Your shop. When Noel told me you’d put in another order I decided to come along for the ride. Want to show me around?’
It was early and they hadn’t yet had a customer. Tod was arranging an assortment of colourful linen goods in a large, white-painted wheelbarrow just outside the front door when Tara led Sholto into the shop.
‘Very nice,’ Sholto said, taking a comprehensive look about. ‘You’ve crammed a lot of stuff into a small space, but it doesn’t look cluttered.’
‘Thank you.’ Tara was annoyed at herself for the pleasure she derived from his praise. She ought to have got over being dependent on Sholto for her
self-esteem. She had got over it, she reminded herself. It was just that seeing him again had revived old emotions, old instincts.
Sholto examined an antique dresser and picked up a Victorian pipe rack, turning it in his hands before replacing it on the shelf. A half-round table with cabriole legs and curved drawers drew his eye for a few seconds, and he stopped before a handsome corner cabinet of mottled kauri, the shelves filled with flowered china and small figurines. ‘Very handsome,’ he said. ‘How old is it?’
‘It was made in Auckland in 1880. The cabinet-maker wrote his name and the date on the back.’
‘Is it for sale?’
‘If I get the right price.’ She moved the card, which had somehow become hidden behind a bone china cup and saucer, placing it prominently on a shelf. ‘I won’t let it go for less.’
Sholto nodded, moving on. ‘These are the chests you mentioned,’ he asked, squatting down to see them better, ‘made from recycled timber?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t tell me they were carved.’ He ran his fingers, long and lightly tanned, over the simple but precisely executed design on the front of the chest.
‘Some are. There’s another in the window.’
‘Hmm.’ He walked over and touched that one too. ‘This guy knows what he’s doing.’
‘Gal,’ Tara said dryly. ‘Woman, actually.’
He sent her a sharp glance. ‘So, you’ve caught me out in a sexist assumption. Does she do the construction work as well or only the carving?’
‘Both.’
He looked at the price ticket on the chest. ‘I’d like to buy this one.’
Tara hesitated, curiously reluctant. She imagined him presenting the chest to Averil, the two of them deciding where to put it in their new home.
‘Is there a problem?’ Sholto asked, his brows rising.
‘No, of course not,’ she answered briskly. ‘Will you want it delivered?’ Presumably he wasn’t going to try lugging the chest along the street. ‘Are you still in a hotel?’
‘No, not now. We’ll pick it up with the van when we’ve finished the delivery run.’
Tod came inside, making the row of Chinese brass bells hung on the door tinkle as he opened it invitingly for the customers, and looked enquiringly at the stranger.
Tara introduced him. ‘And this is Sholto Herne,’ she told him, ‘of Herne Holdings.’
‘Yeah?’ Impressed, Tod took Sholto’s proffered hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Herne.’
Sholto didn’t return Tod’s ingenuously friendly smile. His mouth looked stern, and he was regarding the young man rather searchingly. ‘Were you about when this robbery took place?’ he asked.
‘No, sir. If I had been—I told Tara I’d have seen the bloke off.’
‘Would you?’ Sholto enquired dryly. His eyes ran over Tod’s slight, youthful frame in a way that made the boy fidget uncomfortably. Looking away dismissively, he swept the shop with a gaze like a laser beam and said, ‘What kind of security do you have here?’
Tara said, ‘It’s adequate for most contingencies. And all the retailers in the mall chip in to pay for an after-hours patrol. It’s possible to get too security conscious and scare away the customers.’
He might have been going to argue, but she changed the subject. ‘Tod, Mr Herne wants to buy that chest over there. Can you move the things off the top of it and we’ll take it out the back. How do you want to pay for it, Sholto?’
He took a credit card from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘You’ll take this?’
‘Of course.’ Tara went to the counter and found a transaction slip.
‘There’s no need to shift the chest,’ he said. ‘The driver can help me carry it when we come for it.’
She was inserting his card in the machine, and didn’t look up. ‘Thank you, but I’ll have it out the back for you, ready to load.’
Sholto frowned. ‘Who’s going to move it? That kid?’
She handed him the credit slip. ‘Both of us. With two, it’s not a problem.’
Sholto frowned. ‘I’ll help your assistant shift it before I go.’
‘Your driver will be waiting for you.’
‘He can wait. I’m not going to let you—’
‘Sholto! For heaven’s sake, we’ve shifted dozens of them between us. I moved two on Saturday on my own! They’re not that heavy, just too bulky for one person.’
‘Then how did you—?’
‘I used my brains,’ Tara snapped, causing Tod to cast a curious glance across at her as he placed the brass candlestick on a shelf. Lowering her voice, she said, ‘I put each chest on a mat and slid it into position. Now will you stop being so bloody-minded and leave me to run my business in my own way!’
His eyes were dark, his jaw stubborn. But after a moment he lifted his hands and said, ‘Fine. I’ll pick up the chest later.’
By the time he’d signed the credit slip and taken back his card there was a customer browsing along the shelves of pottery and second-hand knick-knacks. Tod moved to offer assistance, and Sholto said quietly to Tara, ‘Your young man is very decorative, but how much use is he likely to be?’
‘Tod’s extremely useful. He’s a natural salesman.’
Sholto cast an impatient glance in his direction. ‘Perhaps, but even if he’d been here on Saturday, could he have protected you?’
‘I didn’t hire him for protection!’
‘All right, helped you, then,’ Sholto amended. ‘If you’re going to have a man about the place, it might as well be one who can deal with a situation like that.’
‘It isn’t likely to happen again. And I’m not going to start choosing my staff on the basis of their muscle power!’
‘Unlike your men friends?’
Her mouth tightened, and he said, ‘Forget I said that. It’s your life.’
‘Yes.’
He jammed his wallet into the pocket of his jeans, nodded curtly to her and left.
When Tara heard the van arrive later in the service lane she let Tod go out and deal with the loading of the chest. She preferred not to face Sholto again.
At the end of the month the bill came from Herne Holdings. Sitting at her desk in the back room, Tara frowned at the account, surprised at the figure. Shaking her head, she reached for her calculator.
Five minutes later she was on the telephone to the warehouse manager.
‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ she told Noel. ‘Your account doesn’t tally with the delivery notes I have.’
‘No mistake,’ he said.
Trying not to audibly sigh, Tara explained.
‘Discount,’ Noel suggested.
‘There’s no mention here of discount.’
‘Must be an oversight, I guess.’
‘It was a generous reduction. What’s the percentage?’
Noel floundered. ‘Um—ah, you’d have to ask the bookkeeper. Depends on the customer.’
Tara well knew that as Herne Holdings customers went, she was very small fry indeed. Suspiciously, she asked, ‘Did the bookkeeper decide how much discount I was entitled to?’
‘Um—not exactly.’
‘And you didn’t either.’
‘Well, I—’
‘Then who did?’
Silence for a few seconds. Then, cautiously, ‘Look, you’re not losing anything by it, Ms Greenstreet. What’s your problem?’
Tara briefly chewed on her lip. It wasn’t his fault, and she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. ‘No problem,’ she said brightly. ‘Thanks for your help.’ A brief pause before she said, ‘I don’t have Mr Herne’s phone number. Could you give it to me?’
‘Well,’ Noel said, with obvious relief, ‘he’s got an office right in this building, now. Hold on.’
She didn’t even have to go through a secretary. Sholto was on the line in seconds.
‘I’ve been talking to Noel,’ Tara said crisply. ‘I thought there’d been a mistake in the account, but he says not.
Did you tell him to give me a discount?’
‘Discounts are normal in business—’
‘On wholesale prices? Not like this! I can’t accept favours, Sholto! Why did you do it?’
For a moment she thought he might not answer. Then he said, ‘I figured that after being robbed you could do with a bit of a boost.’
‘That was kind of you,’ Tara said formally, ‘but I don’t want special treatment. It was only one morning’s takings.’
‘What is this?’ he asked rather testily. ‘Pride?’
‘It’s business! I won’t have you—’
She was cut off by his laughter. ‘In business any perks are gratefully accepted. This is the first time I’ve heard a customer complain about being undercharged!’
‘If you gave all your customers this kind of concession you’d soon be out of business, yourself.’
‘I don’t.’
‘That’s just the point!’
‘A friendly gesture,’ he said impatiently, ‘to someone who’d had a nasty experience, business-wise. I know you shrugged it off, but for a small shop the loss of a day’s takings can be disastrous. You were telling me how the other retailers had helped you out when you started. You didn’t throw their acts of kindness back in their faces.’
‘Of course not, but this isn’t the same—’
‘Because it comes from me?’
‘Because it’s different!’
‘How is it different?’ Sholto challenged.
‘Their help was... more personal. Advice and support, and an occasional helping hand. It didn’t involve giving me money.’
‘I haven’t given you money.’
‘You’re splitting hairs.’
‘I’m not in a position to give you personal help, as in physically being there—’
‘I know,’ Tara acknowledged hastily. Although on Saturday that was exactly what he had done. ‘I don’t expect anything from you, Sholto.’
‘Take the discount, Tara, and stop fussing,’ he said almost wearily. ‘I promise that next time you’ll be treated like any other customer, if that will make you happier.’
‘Thank you,’ Tara said stiffly. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘Anything to oblige a customer,’ he said, not attempting to disguise the sarcasm in his voice.