“That’s to the garage.” He paused at the practical bit of bling, chose one beside it. “You want this one.”
He held a duller brass key by its blade.
“Next time something like this comes up,” he continued, biting back what sounded a lot like frustration, “mention it.”
All her rushing had left her jumpier than she’d realized. Or maybe it was the edginess in him that fed the tension she did not want to feel with this man. Taking the key, conscious of how careful he’d been not to touch her, she forced the hurry from her tone.
“My schedule is my problem, not yours. I’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere with what you need to show me here. Not any more than it has already,” she concluded, since last time he’d wound up hauling in her furniture.
Trying not to give him time to dwell on that little failure, she slid the key into the lock.
As the lock clicked, he moved behind her. Reaching past her head, he flattened his broad hand on the heavy wood door.
His heat inches from her back, the nerves in her stomach had just formed a neat little knot when he muttered, “Then let’s get to it,” and pushed the door open.
Intent on ignoring the knot, disconcerted by their less-than-auspicious start, she hurried into the store to the warning beeps of the alarm system.
With the front display windows shuttered for the winter, the only light came from what spilled in behind them. Relying on that pale shaft of daylight, she headed straight for the checkout counter and the inner door behind it, mental gears shifting on the way.
Feeling his scowl following her, she deliberately sought to shift his focus, too.
“I’m going to start the coffee. While I do that, would you look over the floor plan I came up with? It’s right here on the counter.” Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered as she snapped switches on. Punching the security code into the pad by the inner door, the beeping stopped. “I’ll be right back.”
In less than a minute, she piled her purse, coat and scarf onto the dining table, flipped on the coffeemaker she’d already filled and grabbed the tape measure she’d left on the island.
She’d barely turned back into the store when the hard line of Erik’s profile had her freezing in the doorway.
He’d tossed his jacket over the far end of the U-shaped counter’s now-bare surface. Without it, she could see Merrick & Sullivan Yachting discreetly embroidered in sky-blue on the navy Henley hugging his broad shoulders. Ownership, she thought. He had a definite sense of it. He had it stitched on his shirt. His initials, she’d noticed before, were on the latch of his briefcase.
On the scarred beige countertop lay the file she’d left open. His frown was directed to the new floor plan she’d come up with.
“You did this?” he asked.
With a vague sinking feeling she walked around to him. She might not know anything about the little doodads in the bins and on the Peg-Boards hanging in her new store, but she was a consumer with her fair share of shopping hours under her belt. If the interior didn’t have some appeal, people might run in to buy what they needed, but they wouldn’t stick around to browse and buy more.
“The store needs updating,” she said simply, certain he could see that himself. “I thought it might make the space more interesting to have three shorter horizontal shelving units in back than that one long one down the middle. The floor space along here,” she said, pointing to the front and back walls on the drawing, “would be a little narrower, but the endcaps would allow for ninety-six more inches of display space. I could use part of the longer piece—”
“I’m not asking you to defend this,” he interrupted mildly. “I’m just asking if you drew it.”
Erik’s only interest when he’d first arrived had been in tackling the task they hadn’t even started the other day. As far as he was concerned, they were already behind schedule if she was to open in April. Not wanting to fall further behind and risk her not making a success of the business, he’d just wanted to get in, get out and get back to work until the next time he had to meet with her. It had been that ambivalent sort of annoyance eating at him when he’d realized what she’d done to accommodate him.
The trip by air between the store and Seattle was nothing for him. Minutes from takeoff to touchdown, depending on head-or tailwinds and whether he left from his houseboat on Lake Union or the boatworks in Ballard. The drive and a ferry ride for her was infinitely less convenient. People commuted from the inner islands every day. But she had actually come back from Seattle just to meet with him, and would have to return later that day to pick up her son.
Even the time it would normally take her on other days seemed an enormous waste of time to him. She was right, though. How she did what she needed to do was her problem. Just as it was his problem, not hers, that he didn’t want to consider changing the store from exactly as it had been for decades.
The need to play nice so they could reach their respective goals wasn’t what had his attention at the moment, however. It was the detail in the drawing. It hadn’t been generated using a computer program. The floor plan had been drawn with pencil on graph paper. While the layout was admittedly simple, the measurements and identity of the elements were all perfectly drawn and precisely printed. It had the touch of a professional.
“Oh,” she murmured, apparently understanding. “I took a drafting class a few years ago. We’d thought about building our own home and I wanted to understand what the architect was talking about.” She gave a shrug, the motion nowhere near as casual as he suspected she intended it to be. “We never got to the blueprint stage, though. We bought instead.”
We.
The freshness of her soap or shampoo or whatever it was clinging to her skin already had him conscious of her in ways he was doing his best to ignore. He’d caught the light herbal scent of her windblown hair when she’d pointed out the walls on the drawing. He caught it again now. Whatever it was she wore seemed too subtle to define. But the elements managed to hit his gut with the impact of a charging bull.
Telling himself he didn’t need to know anything about her that didn’t apply directly to his reason for being there, he deliberately overlooked her reference to the man she’d married—along with the subtle havoc she wreaked on certain nerves—and indicated a rectangle she’d drawn by the front door.
“So what’s this?”
“That’s the armoire over there. It just needs to be moved back against that wall and down a few feet and it’ll be perfect. A couple of neighbors stopped by to welcome me yesterday. Actually, I think they came to check me out,” she admitted, because their curiosity about the “single woman who’d bought the store” had been so obvious. “But one of them mentioned that she makes organic soaps and creams. She has a friend up the road who makes candles for craft shows. I thought I’d see what else is made locally and put a gift display in it.”
He eyed her evenly. “This isn’t a boutique.”
“Are you saying it’s a bad idea?”
He wasn’t going to commit to anything yet. He was still back on her having taken a drafting class just because she’d wanted to understand her architect.
“When did you do this?”
Realizing he hadn’t shot her down, a hint of relief entered her eyes. “After Tyler went to sleep in the evening. And between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m.”
Sleepless nights, he thought. He’d once been there himself. Having one’s world turned upside down did tend to promote a certain degree of restlessness. He figured it didn’t help matters that she was trying to sleep in an unfamiliar house, in a bed she apparently wasn’t accustomed to, either. She’d said the one she was now using had been in a guest room.
The thought of her in bed, tossing, turning or otherwise, had him reaching for his old briefcase.
“Let’s get to the inventory. Once you know what you
have to work with here, you’ll know what you need to order and how much shelving space you can actually use.”
“So you think this floor plan might work?”
The layout of the shelves his grandfather had built had served its purpose effectively for years. Changing anything about it hadn’t even occurred to Erik. The old-fashioned footprint of the place was simply part of the store’s personality. It always had been.
He’d thought it always would be.
He gave a mental snort, blocking his reaction to the change as irrelevant. No one knew better than he did how transient “always” could be. The store was hers now, he reminded himself yet again. She was free to do anything she wanted as long as she could turn a profit.
“It might. Probably,” he conceded, because her plan would certainly better define the grocery section from the sporting goods. Using the big armoire to promote local artisans wasn’t a bad idea, either.
Still, there was no denying the reluctance in his agreement. He could practically hear it himself. He also couldn’t help but notice the small smile Rory immediately stifled.
It pleased her to know that her first instincts and efforts toward her new business were good ones. It didn’t feel good to him, though, to know he’d deprived her of sharing that pleasure with the only person available. He was her mentor. He was supposed to be encouraging her. Showing a little enthusiasm.
Before he could tell her just how good her instincts probably were, she’d crossed her arms over the glittery designer logo on her hoodie and moved on.
“Before we start the inventory,” she prefaced, “would you tell me about the customs your grandparents had here? One of the ladies I met said she hoped I’d have a farmers’ market on the porch like the Sullivans did every summer. The other one said that the Harbor Market lighted walking kayak was missed in the Chimes and Lights parade last week.”
She hadn’t realized such an object even existed until Edie Shumway, the fortysomething community volunteer and, Rory suspected, neighborhood busybody, had explained what it was. Apparently Erik’s grandfather and one of his cronies from the local lodge provided propulsion for the Christmas-light-covered kayak—which explained the two holes she’d finally noticed in the bottom of the one hanging from the ceiling in the back of the store.
“I’m going to call the lodge and see if I can get a couple of volunteers to walk it in the parade next year. I’ll provide candy for them to throw to the kids, and get elf hats like Edie said they wore. But I need to know what else your grandparents did that I should do, too.”
Erik hesitated.
“I’m not totally sure what you’re after.”
“Anything they did for holidays, or for community events. Or things they did every year that people looked forward to.”
“Like the kayak and the elf hats,” he concluded.
“Exactly. I want to belong here,” she explained, as if that need meant as much to her as financial success. “I want us to fit in. The other day, your friend implied that this place was sort of an institution around here. If there are customs your grandparents had that their neighbors and customers looked forward to, then I’ll keep them up the best I can.”
“You want to maintain my grandparents’ traditions?”
“If you’ll tell me what they were.”
Erik was not a man who impressed easily. Nor was it often that a woman caught him so off guard. Even as the businessman in him commended her approach to public relations, a certain self-protectiveness slipped into place.
Resting one hip on the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest, conscious of her honest interest as she waited for whatever he might be willing to share.
“They always gave suckers to the little kids.” A few innocent memories would cost him nothing. And possibly help her bottom line. “And ice cream bars. Locals always got a free one on their birthday.” His grandma had kept a calendar under the cash register with the regular customers’ birthdays written on it. Anniversaries were there, too.
He told her all that, ignoring an unwanted tug of nostalgia as he began to remember traditions he’d taken for granted, then forgotten. Or noticed but overlooked.
“They always opened the week of the spring sailing regatta in April, so they hung nautical flags along the porch and a life preserver by the door. For the Fourth of July they hung bunting and handed out flag stickers,” he said, memories rushing back. He’d loved the Fourth as a kid. Lying on his back in the grass to watch the fireworks over the sound. Or better, being out on the water in a boat, watching them explode overhead.
“And every fall,” he continued, thinking her little boy would probably like it, too, “the porch would be full of pumpkins and hay bales and they’d serve cups of cider.”
With her dark eyes intent on his, she seemed completely captivated by the small-town customs he hadn’t considered in years. She also appeared totally unaware of how close she’d drawn to him as he spoke. As near as she’d come, all he’d have to do was reach out and he would know for certain if her skin felt as soft as it looked.
As his glance slid to the inviting fullness of her bottom lip, he wondered at the softness he would find there, too.
Her lips parted with a quietly drawn breath.
When he looked back up, it was to see her glance skim his mouth before her focus fell to his chest and she took a step away.
“What about Thanksgiving and Christmas?” she asked, deliberately turning to the file on the counter. “Aside from the kayak.”
Forcing his attention back to her question, he stayed right where he was.
“Thanksgiving was just the fall stuff. But the day after, Gramps would string lights along all the eaves and porch posts and set up a Christmas village with a giant lighted snowman.” There had been a time when he and his dad had usually helped. That was back when Thanksgiving dinner had always been here. Christmas had been at his parents’ house, around the bend and in town a couple of miles. After the aircraft company his dad worked for had transferred him to San Diego a few years ago, he’d headed south for that particular holiday.
“The store was closed for the season by then, so I don’t think they gave anything out. At least, not the past several years.” He hadn’t been around to know for sure. Seattle was only twelve miles as the crow flew, but he lived his life what felt like a world away. Unless his grandparents had needed something before they’d moved south, too, he’d given this place and the areas around it as little thought as possible. And he’d never given it as much thought as he had just now. “But a lot of people drove by to see the light display.”
Whatever self-consciousness she’d felt vanished as she glanced back to him. “Where are the lights now?”
“They were sold.”
“The snowman, too?”
“Everything. They had a garage sale before they moved.”
For reasons he couldn’t begin to explain, he wasn’t at all surprised by her disappointment. What did surprise him was that he actually felt a twinge of it himself.
“Tyler would have loved to have a big snowman out there,” she said. “And the village. He gets so excited when he sees Christmas decorations.”
Threading her fingers through her hair, she gave him a rueful smile. “Unfortunately, I’d thought I was moving somewhere a lot smaller, so I sold everything for outside except a few strings of lights.”
With the lift of her shoulder, she attempted to shrug off what she could do nothing about now, anyway. “What else is there I should know?”
From the pensiveness in her voice, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she was still thinking about how her little boy would have loved what his grandparents had done.
“I can’t think of anything right now.” Wanting to get her mind off what she couldn’t do for her son, and his thoughts off her mouth, he rose from his
perch. “But if I do, I’ll let you know.”
“One more thing,” she said as he turned to his briefcase. “Everything I’ve heard so far tells me this will be a good place to live. But what do you think about it? The community, I mean.”
Just wanting to get to work, he opened the case with the snap of its lock. “It is a good place. I grew up in town, but I was around here a lot, too. I even came back after college.” Paper rustled as he pulled out a sheaf heavy enough for a doorstop. “Pax and I first went into business about a mile down the road.” The stack landed on the counter. “You and your son should be fine here.”
Considering that Erik had apparently lived much of his life there, it seemed to Rory that the entire area had to mean a lot to him. “Why did you leave?”
He pulled another stack of paper from his scarred briefcase. For a dozen seconds, his only response was dead silence.
“Didn’t your business do well?” she prompted.
“The business did fine.”
“Then if this is a good place to live and your business was doing well, why did you go?”
The defenses Erik had attempted to ignore finally slammed into place. He knew her question was entirely reasonable. It was one he’d want answered himself were he on the other end of their agreement. Yet as valid as her query was, it bumped straight into the part of his life that had led to an entirely different existence than he’d once thought he’d be living by now.
His plans had been unremarkable, really. No different from half the guys he knew: a good marriage, build boats, a couple of kids, maybe a dog. The one out of four he did have was 90 percent of his life. It was a good life, too. The rest he’d written off completely years ago.
“It has nothing to do with here.”
“What did it have to do with, then?”
“Nothing you’d need to be concerned about.”
“How can I be sure of that if I don’t know what it is you’re not telling me? If you were getting your life established here,” she pointed out, “it’s hard for me to imagine why you’d leave. You seem too much in command of yourself and everything around you to do that if you’d really wanted to stay. That’s why your reason for leaving is important to me.” She tipped her head, tried to catch his glance. “Was this place lacking something?”
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