There was a crash of metal in the background, a shriek of dismay far down the phone line and a heavy sigh from Andrew. “Don’t even tell me what you just did, Hayley,” he called out. His hand over the receiver didn’t come close to muffling his aggravation. “I do not want to know. Hold on a second, Ainsley. I’m going into the darkroom.”
She heard the door close, the click of the switch that turned on the outside light—a red warning to anyone in the studio not to open the darkroom door.
“As a matter of fact,” he said a moment later. “I have hired someone. Hayley Sayers. You may see her name listed under homicide victims any day now.”
“Murder seems a little drastic, Andrew. Maybe you could just fire her.”
“And do exactly what she expects me to do? I don’t think so.”
Hmm, Ainsley thought. “If you’re not going to fire her, then she can accompany you on that all-expense paid trip to Salt Lake. Toting around some of your equipment might be all the encouragement she needs to quit.”
“I thought of that, but she’s like a little mule, stubbornly refusing to admit she isn’t capable of doing everything I ask.”
Hmm and double hmm. “How long has she been working for you?”
“Four days,” he said, as another, smaller clatter—muted by the confines of the darkroom enclosure—made its way from his Newport studio to her office in downtown Providence. “Four long days. I can’t decide if I’m more afraid to take her with me on this Utah trip or to leave her behind, unsupervised.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, exactly. She’s a little strange, that’s all.”
“Strange how?”
“She squeaks, for one thing. Makes this little eek! sound when she’s startled…which seems to be most of the time. And she’s twitchy. You’d think I was trying to sneak up behind her to shout, ‘boo!’ the way she jumps every time she catches sight of me.”
“You probably intimidate the life out of her, Andrew.”
“I’d like to think I’m instilling a healthy respect for the art of photography and especially my photography equipment, but it’s obvious that strategy isn’t working.”
“So, why can’t you just fire her?”
“Her portfolio is amazing, Ains. A couple of her black-and-white prints are so good I wish I’d taken them myself. Most of her work is still uneven, immature, but she’s genuinely talented. There’s no question she’s got more potential than all of my former assistants combined. Unfortunately, she also has less than half of their collective confidence. So, she can quit anytime she wants, but I’m not going to fire her.”
Ainsley’s intuition perked up. She sat straighter in her desk chair. Andrew had little patience for mentoring, but he was a fool for anyone with real talent. That spark of potential snared him every time. Ainsley could count on one hand the people whose raw talent had earned them the level of admiration and respect she heard now in her brother’s voice. Hayley Sayers might drive him crazy with her squeaks and starts and clumsiness, but he wouldn’t fire her. He’d push and prod and provoke her to develop that potential, no matter how much havoc she wrought in his studio. Or on him personally.
“So,” Ainsley asked in a carefully casual tone. “What’s she like?”
“I just told you. Mousey. Jumpy. Nervous. Intimidated. That about sums up my new assistant.”
“Is she cute?”
“Now, how would I know that?”
“You could look at her.”
“There’s not much to see. She wears baggy jeans that flap around her ankles when she walks, baggy T-shirts that hang on her like old paper sacks, hi-top sneakers, and dreadlocks.”
It wasn’t an encouraging description. “Dreadlocks?”
“With beads. Lots of beads that click together like chattering teeth when she makes a move. No, I wouldn’t say she’s cute, and whatever romantic plot your devious little mind is hatching, you can forget about it right now. She’s not my type and I am not interested.”
“You’re interested in her talent.”
“And in her showing up for work.”
“Which, apparently, she’s done for four whole days. Be a hero, Drew. Take her to Utah. There could be possibilities you can’t even imagine.”
“For what? Camera repairs?” He paused to clear his throat. “You know, Ainsley, ever since you took this position with Ilsa Fairchild, you spend a lot of time talking about possibilities and introductions and romance.”
“I’ve always talked that way,” she said. “You only notice it now because of my profession.”
“I notice it now because I have the feeling you’ve got Cupid out there flying around, looking for my perfect match.”
“And so what if I did? You’re my twin brother. I love you. I want you to be happy.”
“I am matchless and ecstatically happy that way. Do me a favor. If you must pursue this matchmaking thing as a career, would you please confine your victims to someone who isn’t related to you?”
That stung just a little. Andrew had always been supportive of anything she wanted to do—including her efforts to obtain this position with IF Enterprises—but there were times she could tell he thought matchmaking was just another whim, one more fanciful possibility in a long list of potential careers that ultimately turned out to be not quite right. But she would prove herself this time. To Matt. To Miranda. And to Andrew. “Take Hayley with you,” she advised, the matchmaker and the twin sister in perfect accord. “Give her a chance to prove how helpful she can be.”
A buzzer went off with a shrill alert on his end of the line. It was a warning that was plenty loud even in Ainsley’s office. She knew what it was immediately—the opening of the darkroom door while processing was going on inside. “Hayley!” Drew yelled, his mood scratchy with temper. “Didn’t you see the light…?”
The line went dead then. He’d hung up to deal with his printing problems and his new assistant. His talented new assistant.
Interesting, the matchmaker’s apprentice thought.
* * *
Miranda glanced at the clock on the wall of Ainsley’s office, then tapped the platinum casing of the watch on her wrist—as if it wasn’t one of the finest Swiss timekeeping pieces on the planet and might actually be losing minutes right and left. “Time to go,” she said, rising. “I don’t want to be late for my luncheon.”
Ainsley smiled, sliding to her feet from her temporary perch on the corner of her desk. “No, it would be simply awful if you were late.”
“Don’t start on me today, Ainsley. It is not a flaw to be punctual and to want to arrive on time for an appointment.”
“No, indeed, it is not,” Ainsley agreed. “And since one can never predict the delays that await you on the walk between here and the restaurant, it’s essential to allow a few extra minutes to get there.”
Miranda’s lips formed a tight little line, somewhere between good humor and complete exasperation. An expression Ainsley was very accustomed to seeing. “One of these days, I’m going to be late just so you and Andrew will stop teasing me about it.”
“Wow,” Ainsley said, impressed by the offer. “Can I have that in writing?”
“No.” Miranda tucked the straps of her handbag precisely on the middle of her forearm and folded her arm—quite unconsciously—in against her body. She wasn’t quite thirty yet and at times she behaved like a much older woman. “I’m not about to give you something tangible to hold over my head…even if you are merely teasing.”
Ainsley stepped in close to her sister, slipping a hand through the crook of that inflexible arm, giving Miranda a little hug of affection. “We only tease you because you make it so easy,” she said. “It would be good for you to be late once in a while. Andrew and I would love it.”
&n
bsp; “Mmm-hmm. Well, I wouldn’t love it and it isn’t likely to happen. Especially not today.”
“Why not? You know Carolyn never gets anywhere on time. She’s chronically time-challenged.”
“Which somehow justifies my being late for our lunch date? Honestly, Ainsley, sometimes you don’t think things through.”
Which was a matter of opinion. Her own versus theirs. Theirs being every other member of her family. She pulled her hand free as they reached the lobby and walked over to take the pink message slip Lucinda was holding up. “Thanks for coming by,” she said to Miranda. “I’m glad you had that little gap in your schedule.”
“I should have called first, but since I was in the area, anyway, I just thought I’d take a chance you weren’t busy.” Miranda didn’t come by often and never simply dropped in, as she’d done today. She said it was because she didn’t want to intrude into Ainsley’s work time, but in reality it was because she so seldom had an unexpected gap in her schedule. And if there was one thing Miranda couldn’t handle, it was having unscheduled time on her hands.
“I’m really glad you came by,” Ainsley said honestly. “And I’m sorry I can’t have lunch with you.”
“No, you’re not.” Miranda made the smallest grimace. “Carolyn is one of the most tedious women we know, and I wouldn’t have lunch with her at all if she wasn’t co-chairing this year’s benefit.”
“She’s a wonderful fund-raiser. You have to hand her that.”
“I’m well aware of all she does and that we’re fortunate she and her husband moved to Providence last year. If only she didn’t talk so much, or so slowly…or take so long to get to the point. Sometimes I want to reach over and jerk the words right off her tongue.” Miranda crossed to the door. “The things we do for the Foundation.”
Ainsley agreed, but not in the same way or for the same reasons. Miranda wanted to run the Foundation…and would have been good at it, too. Better, perhaps, even than Matt. But The Danville Foundation was older than them all and tradition decreed the oldest “Jonathan” should be the head of the family trust. Matt, being the first-born son of the first-born son and therefore awarded the family name of Jonathan, had been anointed in the cradle. Miranda, being the second born and a daughter, besides, was left out of consideration.
She worked for the Foundation, seemed content to manage the trust’s various properties and her own landscape design company, the profits of which helped support the Foundation. Environment was Miranda’s calling. She knew how to set the stage to get things done, and she followed through to make sure they were done correctly. It was a talent Ainsley admired and occasionally envied. But not today.
“Have a lovely time,” Ainsley said.
“Sure thing,” Miranda answered as she pulled open the frosted glass door and breezed out.
“Whew!” Lucinda released the word on a breathy exhale. “Is she always that intense or did I just forget to take my Diazepam this morning?”
Ainsley laughed and glanced at the call message in her hands.
“Ainsley?” Miranda was back, holding the door open. “I meant to tell you. Uncle Edward called this morning. He wants you to do something about Scott.”
“What does he want me to do?”
“I don’t know. He just said he was tired of seeing his son moping around and someone had to do something.”
Ainsley frowned. “I guess I could invite him to lunch one day this week. Or to dinner.”
“Not dinner,” Miranda said a little too quickly, indicating she wanted no part of this doing something with Scott. Her fingertips tapped the leather clasp of her handbag. “Oh, I don’t care. Bring him to dinner if you think that’s best. I suppose as long as you don’t try to set him up with another blind date, any distraction will do.”
“It wasn’t a blind date.” Ainsley knew her sister—and her brothers, for that matter—didn’t take her career seriously. Not a big surprise since they didn’t take her seriously, much less her choices. In a way, she understood their position. She’d basically been their entertainment for years. That had been her designated role in their sibling family. Cute little Ainsley. Baby. Always into some silly thing or another. Always messing up. Losing interest in one thing to move on to another.
The way none of them could.
She understood they were only trying to protect her. But sooner or later, they’d have to accept her as an adult. And a capable one at that. “It was an introduction of possibilities,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as her sister.
“Well, whatever it was, it left Scott worse off than he was before and now something has to be done with him.”
Ainsley felt guilty all over again. “I’m not sure something has to be done,” she began, but the door had closed again and the sound of Miranda’s heels quickly faded down the outer hallway.
“Well,” Lucinda said. “Aren’t we glad she dropped by?”
“She means well,” was the only defense Ainsley could offer. She looked again at the message slip and immediately brightened. “Oh, when did Ivan call?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago. Right after your sister got here.” Lucinda rolled a pencil between her palms. “He wanted to know if you had plans for lunch.”
Her spirits rose higher. “I’ll have to cancel my dentist appointment.”
“I did it already,” Lucinda said. “You’re free to go…and you don’t even have to hurry back. I can hold down the fort while you take an extended lunch break this one time.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that, Luce.”
“You didn’t ask. I volunteered. Now, go. The doctor’s waiting for you down on the riverwalk…and you don’t want to be late.”
Ainsley eyed the receptionist cautiously. “You have something in mind. I can see the wheels turning.”
Lucinda’s expression turned instantly innocent. “Me? I’m just hoping for a little quiet time alone in the office this afternoon.” She began to rearrange items on her desk. “I’m just hoping you’ll have a few laughs over lunch, come back relaxed…ready to put together a match.”
“A match?”
“Your sister and your friend, the doctor. I mean, if I can’t have him and you don’t want him, it seems to me you should be shoving your sister right out there as next in line.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“That was fast,” Ivan said when Ainsley plopped down beside him on the bench.
“I was motivated,” she said. What woman wouldn’t be? Lunch on a beautiful day with a good friend who also happened to be a spectacularly fine-looking male?
“You must have been if you managed to wrap up your meeting and get to the riverwalk in less than—” he brought up his wrist in a precise twist and checked his watch “—twelve minutes total.”
“Mmm…” She kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes inside the silky lining of her hosiery, loving the freedom, the cool touch of air on her skin. “It wasn’t a meeting. Just Miranda.”
“Miranda?”
“She dropped by the office on her way to a lunch date.”
“Oh,” he said.
But Ainsley was honing her matchmaker instincts and detected a question in his single-syllable answer. Perhaps a proprietary note, too. “I got your message five seconds after she walked out the door. Otherwise, I’d probably have had to bring her with me.”
“You just said she had a date.”
Definitely curious, Ainsley decided. “Not a date, exactly. More like an appointment over lunch with a hot-shot fund-raiser.”
“Oh,” he said again. “Guy or gal?”
Definitely interested. Ainsley briefly considered making up a story about the hot-shot fund-raiser being a studly guy instead of a verbose and boring female, just to see if she could detect a h
int of jealousy in Ivan’s response. But it wasn’t worth the chance of getting caught—which she undoubtedly would—so she opted for evasion instead. “What a gorgeous day!” Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face as a soft breeze kicked up off the river to ruffle her hair. “This is soooo much better than the dentist.”
He laughed…a wonderfully deep, pleasant sound. “Glad to see I rate right up there at the top of your list.”
She kept her eyes closed to better hold on to the sweet warmth in the sunshine, the soothing lap of the river and the lovely relaxation of sitting next to an old friend who loved her just the way she was. “You’ll always rate ahead of an appointment to have my teeth cleaned,” she said. “No contest.”
“That’s good to know. I brought lunch, too. Does that bump me up even further in the polls?”
“It gets you an A plus.”
“When you find out what I brought for lunch, you’ll give me a gold star, too.”
“Yum,” she said and felt, rather than saw, his immediate smile.
“Aren’t you even going to ask what I brought?”
“I don’t care—” she said, then clarified “—as long as you haven’t developed a taste for rattlesnake steak or cactus soup while you were living out in the great southwest.”
“You left out gecko stew.”
She wrinkled her nose to that possibility and thought about other lunches she’d shared with Ivan until she hit on one that made her mouth water. “I remember you used to love crabmeat sandwiches, which are also a special favorite of mine.”
“Good guess, but that’s not what we’re having for lunch.”
She pushed her lower lip into a pretend pout. “Oh.”
“Nope, today, little lady, we’re having—listen for the drum roll here—crabcakes.”
That opened her eyes and brought her upright on the bench. “You made crabcakes?” she asked with hopeful enthusiasm. “Really? All by yourself?”
“Just me and the recipe in the tiny kitchen of my temporary digs.” He set a brown paper sack on the bench between them. “I’ve been hungry for some home-cookin’ and decided today was as good a day as any to try my hand at it.”
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