by Floyd, Jacie
“Wait in here.” Pointing his finger, Ernie indicated a small, nondescript room that reeked of stale coffee. Other than snack and drink machines, the temporary holding area contained a lumpy couch and a folding table with two chairs and a lone male occupant.
“How long?” Eager to get to the on-camera appraisal of her palm-sized pink carving, her step carried a little bounce on her way into the room.
“’Bout an hour.” Ernie tossed the information over his shoulder, hot-footing his way back to the studio.
“Okay, then,” Molly muttered to his disappearing backside. After waiting in line for three hours to meet an appraiser, what was another sixty minutes of lost time?
She took stock of the room’s other inhabitant—a preppy type in a crisp button-down shirt and sharply creased khakis. Too carefully pressed and repressed for her taste, but wait. Her gaze caught on a pair of red Goofy socks peeking out between pant cuffs and loafers. Quirky. Cute... Interesting.
He held a sleek phone, scrolling down the screen with the repeated flick of his index finger. The kind of pretentious phone Batman would use for intercepting messages from his Rogues Gallery of enemies or for redirecting missiles away from Gotham City. The kind that made people way too dependent on technology and not nearly dependent enough on their brains and memory and logic.
Setting the magical phone aside, he opened a wafer-thin laptop. Peering into the screen intently, his fingers flashed across the keyboard with deft strokes and an economy of motion.
He didn’t so much as glance Molly’s way as she dropped into a chair. She cleared her throat and waited for him to acknowledge her. No response--unless taking a sip of bottled water constituted one.
With his attention solidly focused elsewhere, she studied him.
His body was as slender and taut as a steel blade. Agile, but toned. No spare flesh there, just lots of compacted male strength. She would describe him as lithe, if lithe described someone so masculine. Yes, lithe. With the whip-cord intensity of a swimmer or a runner rather than the over-inflated look-at-me bulging muscles of a football player or body builder. Strong, but supple.
Darn, no one to talk to. She sighed, wishing her mom had accompanied her the way they’d planned. Fascinating though the day had been, sharing it with someone would rock.
So far, she’d been poked with a weathervane, attacked by an unruly set of bagpipes, and jabbed with a revolutionary war sword before she’d been funneled into the queue for Asian antiquities. Still, she’d much rather be out in the crowded auditorium with all those interesting people than in this dull space with an oblivious techie.
She searched through the apple-appliquéd canvas tote one of her students had given her for the self-help manual she’d been reading. A tinny rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star” interrupted her. She groped around through the bag for her very basic, ancient cell phone. Before she located it, the guy moved his way smarter phone from the table to his ear.
Hmmm. They had the same Disney tune to personalize their cell phone rings? What kind of sign was that? Not that she was looking for a sign. But still.
Now that he no longer had his head bowed over his laptop, Molly openly took stock of his better-than-average looks. Gorgeous looks, in fact. If one liked that sort of boyishly attractive, intelligent type.
Strong jaw with just a hint of five o’clock shadow. Brown eyes that looked intelligent and guarded at first glance, but took her breath away as they flashed for just a moment with something dark and complex. He blinked and the peek into his inner depths disappeared, leaving Molly to wonder if she’d misinterpreted the expression.
She fanned her hand in front of her face to cool the first heated licks of interest. Maybe she imagined too much.
If his voice lived up to the rest of him, she might be willing to forget she’d sworn off men for good.
Her breath hitched in anticipation and her palms perspired as she waited for him to speak. His lips parted on the simple word “hello” and her ears perked up.
Aaahhh, yes! Tantalizingly deep. The kind of voice that would turn her into a puddle of desire if it whispered seductive words across her pillow in the dark of night. Molly, he’d say with his breath tickling that squirmingly sensitive spot beneath her ear—
“No!” He shouted the word into the phone and jerked Molly from fantasy back into reality. “Did you hear me? I said no!”
She leaned back in her chair and grimaced. She heard him all right. Everyone out in the Convention Center auditorium probably heard him, too.
“Stay where you are, don’t touch the Quigley project, and don’t let Chloe near the computer again until I get home.” He barked out the commands in a tone more suitable to a drill sergeant or prison guard than a friend, or employer. Or spouse, or father. “Yes! All right, I’ll stop at the store on my way home!”
Without a word of farewell, he thumbed off the connection and glanced up, catching Molly’s look of disapproval. His eyes met hers for the first time. She pulled back, shocked by a starkly incongruous tug of attraction.
Of desire?
But, no. She wasn’t gullible enough to forgive unforgivable manners just because a guy had a handsome face and intriguing expression. She wasn’t that shallow. But she couldn’t explain the zippy feeling tickling her in secret little places. Her nipples puckered and her pulse raced in anticipation.
Good God, girl, get a grip.
His lips twitched in a small frown. “Sorry about that.”
Instinctively she crossed her arms over her chest and clamped her thighs together. Could he tell what she was thinking? “Sorry about ...?”
That call.” He gestured to his phone. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Right, the yelling. She cleared her throat. Of course, the phone call. They didn’t have a secret ESP link that put them on the same intimate wavelength. He hadn’t had the same confusing, physical reaction to her she’d had to him.
Except for that special... something, he was clearly beneath her notice. She shrugged away her awareness of him along with her disappointment. She wasn’t into S or M, and her self-image was too strong to allow for verbal bullying.
“No problem.” Not for her anyway. Too bad for the unfortunate caller he’d berated.
Perfectly gorgeous he might be, but so far, he’d exhibited the manners of a troglodyte. She could think of no excuse for a reasonable human being to use that tone anywhere outside of military boot camp. She sniffed and opened her book. Choosing to ignore him, she flipped through Ten Ways to Save a Marriage even though she could feel his gaze examining her.
Sure, now he was interested. Now that the dark underbelly of his personality had been exposed. Do I know how to attract ‘em, or what?
Molly gave herself a mental slap. She needed to get through this book to help her parents, even though the subject held no practical application for her own life. She hoped ways number seven through ten would provide more useful advice on salvaging her parent’s strained-past-the-breaking-point thirty-two-year marriage. Numbers one through six had sucked.
Some of the suggestions involved activities intimate enough to make a daughter blush when picturing her parents as the participants, but these were desperate times. She’d do whatever she had to do to get her mother and father back together again.
Happily for her, way number seven looked promising. List ten qualities you and your partner found attractive about one another when you first met. Compare your lists and reminisce about the head-over-heels days of your courtship. Hmm. That might work. If she could talk her mom and dad into—
“Gabe Shaw?” a stout woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses barked out as she stepped into the room. Pulling a pencil out of her curly mass of hair, she scribbled something on the clipboard lodged in the crook of her arm.
“Here.” The Phone Bully closed his laptop and stood.
She glanced Molly’s way. “Molly Webber?”
“Right.” Tucking her book into her bag, she got to her feet as we
ll.
“I’m Janice Scott, your director.” She shook hands before passing each of them a contract. “We’re all set up for you. Here are the usual disclaimers about the lack of payment for your appearance, the appraisals aren’t guarantees, and you won’t sue us if it turns out we were wrong about the value. Read ‘em, and sign ‘em. If you don’t agree with the terms, no hard feelings, but adios.”
Molly and Gabe read ‘em and signed ‘em. Janice then pointed to a mirror in the corner. “Check yourselves out. Make any adjustments you want. We like our guests to look natural, but that doesn’t mean you need to go on camera with your hair sticking up, or with spinach between your teeth.”
Molly tucked her chin-length hair behind her ears, bared her teeth for a spinach check, and then dabbed on peach lip-gloss.
Gabe Shaw stood behind her, enveloping her in his heat, towering more than half a foot above her five-feet-five inches. He flicked a casual look at his image and swiped his fingers through his sandy hair, stopping for a quick look at his Eeyore watch.
First, the socks, now, the watch. The fairytale cell ring. It took a lot of self-confidence for a man to carry off that much whimsy. Neat and tidy with a dash of eccentricity. Maybe he was batting for the other side. She wasn’t picking up a gay vibe, but maybe her gay-dar had gone for a hike along with her luck.
Molly ducked her head and smoothed the wrinkles from her bright pleated skirt. “Do I look all right?”
Janice gave her and Gabe cursory glances. “Fabulous. The camera will love you two. Ready?”
“How long will this take?” Gabe rubbed his palms together in anticipation, or possibly, impatience. At least, his speaking voice differed from his phone bellow. Amazed by the vocal transformation, Molly slid him a look from the corner of her eye. He appeared as eager to get the show on the road as she did.
“Follow me. A normal taping will take about ten minutes.” Janice led them on a trek back through the studio, narrowly evading a woman pushing a baby buggy stuffed with teddy bears. “Your appraiser will ask a few questions, then give you some historical background on your jade and its approximate value.”
Gabe Shaw surprised Molly again by taking her elbow in a strong capable hand to maneuver her around a bearded man transporting a suit of armor in a wheelbarrow. She surprised herself by wishing he’d keep it there. He acknowledged her small smile of thanks with a nod.
“Forget about the camera, if you can, but when the appraiser talks, look interested.” Janice sidestepped a lanky teenager toting a brassbound trunk. “When the estimated value of your article is revealed, show some animation, surprise or disappointment, whatever’s appropriate.” She stopped in front of a backdrop with the show’s logo. “Which one of you will be talking about the jade?”
“I will.” Molly and Gabe spoke in unison, then stared at one another.
“Hmmm.” Janice consulted the information on her clipboard. “Oh, I see. There are two separate pieces. But you’re going to appear in the same segment.”
“Is that good or bad?” Gabe asked.
“We’ll soon find out.” She motioned them into chairs behind a table where Molly’s pink carving was displayed beside another one.
The two pieces were similar in size and style, but dissimilar in shape and color. It might be fanciful for Molly to think so, but the pieces seemed to take on a glow of their own, as if they were lit from the inside.
Molly spotted a height-challenged dandy wearing a gray pin-striped suit, plaid vest and red bowtie threading his way through the crowd toward her. It was James Lindermann, the nice Asian antiquities appraiser she’d spoken with earlier.
As he approached, she hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those depressing, instructional bits, where two people had brought in comparable objects. One a priceless original, the other a worthless copy.
When watching the program at home, she always sympathized with the unsuspecting owners of the fakes. Her stomach took a slight dip. As a teacher, she was all for education, but she’d hate to be the one whose favored memento turned out to be a valuable learning experience, with no bankable price tag.
More from habit than any expectation of good luck, she randomly fingered the charms attached to her silver bracelet. A star, a rainbow, a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe. Some misguided friend had given her a rabbit’s foot once, but Molly discarded it. It sure hadn’t been lucky for the rabbit.
Frowning, the empty space where her lucky penny used to hang distracted her a moment. She’d lost that one–-her oldest and most favorite talisman—a few weeks ago and hadn’t found one to replace it yet. She hoped another lucky penny would turn up soon.
Not that she really believed in such things, but it didn’t hurt to keep her options open. Discovering a new lucky coin would be a good indication her fortunes were about to change. She needed them to change. And soon--if the catastrophes of the past few months were anything to go by.
Crossing her fingers behind her back, Molly wished for the best as Janice clipped a microphone onto the front of her t-shirt.
“If you look closely at the carvings,” James Lindermann instructed, “you can see the exquisite craftsmanship...”
Seated beneath the glare of hot studio lights, sweat trickled between Gabe’s shoulder blades. He tried to concentrate on the expert’s monologue about the oddly-shaped chunk of green jade his grandfather had proffered as an answer to their financial prayers.
The carving had collected dust in a footlocker under Granddad’s bed for as long as Gabe could remember. But since it didn’t look like much of anything, and he didn’t give a rat’s rear about twelfth-century this, whoever-dynasty that, his mind wandered.
He had real-life worries to capture his attention. But if this knickknack turned out to be nothing more than an elaborate paperweight, he’d have his grandfather’s disappointment to deal with as well.
Granddad was certain the piece had immense historical and monetary value, but then, that was Granddad all over. Gabe had no idea how the old man could remain a wide-eyed optimist after all the kicks in the teeth life had dealt him. But Gabe figured one of them should be realistic, and usually, lately anyway, in the colorfully shifting kaleidoscope of Shaw family dynamics, he assumed the role of hard-ass pragmatist.
In the end, he’d understood he could either take Granddad’s treasure here to the show for him, or the feisty octogenarian would bring it himself. He was used to Granddad’s oddities, but other people tended to lose their patience when trying to talk to him. Mainly because he refused to wear his hearing aid unless it suited him to do so.
Gabe had decided it was better for him to give up time he couldn’t afford to waste, than worry about Granddad creating a scene on public television. He hoped for both their sakes that the twisty, leaf-shaped jade thing did turn out to be worthwhile. A few hundred bucks wouldn’t do the business any good. Hell, a few thousand wouldn’t help. They needed a major influx of cash, and they needed it now. If only he could manage to keep things going for the next six months...
He pulled his thoughts back on track. Look interested, the director had said before they began. Sure, he could do that. He fixed his gaze on the jade now as James lifted the piece and turned it upside down to point to some markings on the bottom.
“The jade is exquisite, the marking is undeniable.” The appraiser quivered with suppressed excitement. “The stones set in the bronze base are first-quality rubies approximately one to two carats each.”
The unexpected phrase ‘first-quality rubies’ grabbed Gabe’s attention in time for him to hear, “I’d place the estimated value at twenty to thirty thousand dollars.”
He almost leapt to his feet in celebration, but pretending to be Mr. Cool, he managed to remain seated. Before he broke open any champagne, he wanted, needed, James to repeat the amount. “How much?”
“As is, I’d estimate the value of this piece at the right auction to be approximately twenty to thirty thousand dollars.”
Gabe hit the hee
l of his hand against his ear, in case his Granddad’s hearing disability was hereditary and had chosen this moment to strike. “Did you say ten thousand dollars?”
“I said twenty thousand,” James repeated, smiling all the while. “Or thirty. And that estimate could be on the low side.”
“Wow.” Gabe rolled the number around inside his head, stunned by the evaluation. Then, remembering Janice’s instructions, he found his voice and spoke up, more visibly enthusiastic. “Thank you! My grandfather will be thrilled. And so am I.” He reached out to pump the effeminate hand.
Thirty thousand dollars wouldn’t be enough to save them, but it would tide them over for a few weeks, until he could come up with a practical plan to raise the capital necessary to keep his company going. And not just for his sake, or even for Granddad’s. There was his niece Chloe to think about, his sister Sierra, and all the other misfit relatives he employed.
“Now for some background on the companion piece.” The appraiser gestured to the other carving. Oh, yeah, Gabe’d almost forgotten about the perky woman from the waiting room.
“Congratulations,” she mouthed to him from across the table. The same brilliant eyes that had watched him disapprovingly when he’d talked—all right, when he’d yelled—at Granddad on the phone, now seemed genuinely pleased for him. And they glittered with excitement, eager to hear about her own treasure.
As the appraiser began his spiel, Gabe reminded himself to pay attention--when all he really wanted to do was take the piece and run to the nearest auction house.
“See the similar markings?” the expert began.
Gabe watched on autopilot, following the lead of the Webber woman, nodding when she nodded, smiling when she smiled.
And what a great smile. Her lush and full lips drew his attention. Wide and expressive, they were totally out of place on top of a package that made her look like she’d arrived at the studio straight from the schoolroom.
Pleated skirt, canvas tote bag, sensible shoes, tip tilted nose. Deep, oceanic blue eyes that conveyed her every thought. Skin like peaches. Even wearing loose-fitting, everyday clothing, her body hinted at some definite curvage hidden beneath.