Treasured Past

by Linda Hill

  “Look familiar?” The woman’s voice was nearly a whisper in my left ear. Startled, I turned abruptly. It took a moment before the image registered. I knew this woman. We’d never actually met, but I knew her.

  Her face was just inches from mine, and I realized that we’d never been so close. Her face was rounder than I imagined, her eyes a startling shade of gray.

  The hair that always seemed beyond control was smoothed back into a single knotted braid. She didn’t look as old as I’d thought, either, although there were a few creases around her eyes.

  It took far too long for me to digest her words and the situation.

  Finally I reacted. “Is this the same one?”

  She seemed amused by my stammering as she nodded. “It certainly is.” Her words were like a sigh as she turned her eyes to the bookcase. “This one’s a little tough to part with,” she admitted.

  “I can’t believe you’re letting it go. Especially to charity!” I remembered the way I’d driven up the bidding and felt a wave of guilt. “If I had known you were going to give it away I never would have bid so high on it,” I told her.

  An ironic smile lighted her features. “I hadn’t known I was going to give it away at the time. But Jonathan can be quite persuasive.”

  “He certainly can be,” I agreed without bothering to mention that Jonathan was my father.

  “So are you going to bid on it tonight?” she asked.

  “I have to! I can’t let it get away from me twice in one week!” I laughed, and was rewarded with a broad smile. She had always looked so serious when we were bidding against each other. I don’t believe I’d ever seen her smile. But then again, I imagined that I must look pretty fierce myself when in a serious bidding battle.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Do you see anything here that you’re interested in?”

  She wrinkled her nose and glanced around. When I saw her looking in the direction of the desk, I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Please don’t say you’re interested in the desk. I wouldn’t want to bid against you tonight.”

  Now she laughed. “No, no. I’m afraid it’s too pricey for me. Unless of course the bidding doesn’t go too high ...” It took me a moment to realize that she was teasing me, and I felt a smile on my lips. She was much more attractive and enjoyable than I’d imagined.

  “Well, well. Two of my very favorite women.” My father curled his arms around our waists, and I felt myself begin to bristle. How in hell did he know this woman so well?

  He bestowed his most winning smile on the woman beside me before dropping a kiss on my cheek. “I’m so glad you could make it, honey.”

  “Hi, Dad.” I gave him a quick hug and didn’t miss the way she raised both eyebrows as she mouthed the word Dad. I decided to ignore her.

  “Sorry I’m so late. One of the partners kept me for a meeting that I couldn’t get out of,” I explained quickly.

  “My daughter the lawyer,” he teased. One of his favorite pastimes was teasing me about how I’d sold out to the corporate world.

  “Well, that explains it.” The unnamed woman found her voice.

  I looked at her, unable to read the tone in her voice. “Explains what?”

  “The suit.” She nodded back at me, and I glanced down, taking in the perfect navy suit and starched white shirt. I found myself feeling defensive.

  “I’ve only seen you in jeans,” she explained.

  My dad glanced quickly between us. “You two do know each other, don’t you?”

  I smiled and she laughed. “Not really,” I began, while she tried to explain.

  “We’ve bumped into each other at several auctions, actually. But we’ve never been introduced.”

  “Then forgive me my poor manners,” my father said smoothly. “Annie, this is my very favorite daughter, Katherine Brennan.” He dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Of course she is my only daughter and a lawyer at that, but we’ve forgiven her.”

  Annie smiled and laughed in all the right places.

  My father turned to me. “And this, my dear, is Annie Walsh. Annie owns an absolutely exquisite shop in Cambridge called Treasured Past. She also does quite a bit of charity work with your mother and me.” He was beaming as he glanced between us.

  “A pleasure.” Annie was smiling as she held out her hand. At least I thought it was a smile. But something inside said it was closer to a smirk.

  “My friends call me Kate,” I replied as I took her hand in mine. Her grip was firm, hands rough. I glanced down. Working hands.

  My father was checking his watch. “I have to run. The bidding should be starting any minute now, and I have to kick off the show. Are you going to be around this weekend?” He directed the question to me.

  “It depends. If I get lucky tonight, I may have to come back tomorrow with the truck.” I remembered the roll-top desk.

  “So you’ll be bidding?” he smiled.

  “Is there any doubt?” I asked, and he laughed. “Good.” He began to step away. “Spend some of that money, will you? The shelter could use it.” He turned and disappeared in the crowd while Annie and I stood awkwardly looking, but not looking, at each other.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I spent the next day loading and unloading both the bookcase and the desk, grumbling the entire time that I’d paid too much for each of them. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what had come over me. I was as fierce as ever, raising the bid to outrageous amounts without blinking an eye. I had been determined that the antiques would be mine, regardless of the cost.

  “What was I thinking?” I grumbled.

  “Are you sure you weren’t just trying to impress her?”

  I threw a withering glance in Beth’s direction. “Impress who?” I asked, knowing perfectly well whom she was referring to.

  “Annie. Your nemesis.”

  “Pfft. Annie.” I said her name aloud for the first time.

  “You were much cozier with her than I was.” I nearly dropped my end of the desk, and decided it was time to take a break. Beth followed suit, gently placing two legs on the carpet.

  Beth was grinning as she came to stand beside me and leaned against the desk. “We were talking about you the entire time. We couldn’t believe the way you were bidding. Like a maniac.”

  “Ha.” I stepped away and disappeared into the kitchen, grabbing two colas from the refrigerator before returning. “And every time I heard you two snickering over there I was more determined than ever to bid even higher.”

  “I know. It was hysterical.”

  “Very funny.” I handed one of the sodas to her and watched her open it. Beth had thick, short blond hair, blue eyes, and was slender as a stick. But she was stronger than I was, and far more feminine. I had known her for countless years, and she was my dearest friend.

  “It was. You should have seen the way your jaw was set. As soon as Annie saw it she nudged me and said, ‘Watch, here we go.’”

  “Very funny,” I repeated, and snapped back the tab of my drink. “What was I thinking? I spent almost twenty-five hundred dollars.” I took a long drink.

  “I know,” Beth laughed. “I saw you. But at least it was for charity.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself. Charity.” I glanced at the desk and then down the hall. “Where am I going to put this thing?”

  Beth shrugged. “Get rid of the one you have now. You’ve been complaining about it for at least a year.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I know, but it’s mahogany. Everything I have in the study is mahogany. The roll-top won’t match.”

  Beth shrugged again. “You’ve been leaning toward the oak for a while now. Maybe it’s time to replace everything.” She took another sip of soda.

  The idea appealed to me. And I was more than halfway there now that I owned both the oak desk and bookcase. But the thought of trying to unload the old stuff made me cringe.

  “How would I get rid of the old stuff? The last thing I want to think about
is trying to sell it.”

  Beth’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe Annie would be willing to take it on in her store. You should give her a call.”

  Annie. The name rolled so smoothly from her lips, the name already a part of our lives.

  “Sure,” I said. “I can see the smirk on her face now.”

  Beth laughed. “We were just teasing you, Kate. We were having fun. You should call her. Maybe she can help.”

  I contemplated it for a moment, running through the idea in my mind. I could wander into her shop and see what it was like. I’d have an excuse...

  I didn’t like the direction of my thoughts.

  “You like her, don’t you?” Beth’s words startled me.

  “Please. I don’t know her.”

  “Of course you do. You’ve been talking about her ever since that auction back in Springfield.”

  “Yeah, about how pissed I was every time I ran into her and she bid against me.” I crossed my arms. “You know, I never even thought that she might have a shop. I always assumed she was just this eccentric woman who had the same taste in antiques that I did.”

  “Eccentric how?” Beth’s eyebrows pulled together.

  I shrugged and thought about it for a moment. “I guess it was the way she was usually dressed. Peasant dresses and big skirts, with her hair all messed up.”

  Beth wrinkled her nose. “She certainly didn’t appear that way last night. I thought she looked almost” — Beth tilted her head as she tried to come up with the right word — “cultured. And she was very nice.”

  My laugh was sarcastic. “Nice? The woman is a shark.”

  “Oh, and you’re not?”

  “You got there late. You don’t know her.” I was becoming unreasonable.

  “And you do?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  Silence stretched between us.

  “But you’d like to?” Beth’s voice was quiet.

  “Beth!”

  “I wouldn’t blame you, Kate. She’s a very attractive woman.”

  “You’re forgetting at least one minor detail,” I told her. “She’s probably straight.”

  Beth grimaced. “You have a point there, sweetie. But you never know. She seemed at least very woman-identified. I don’t think I saw her talk to a single man last night. Except for your father, of course.”

  Thinking of my father made me laugh. “You thought I was wild last night. He was an animal.”

  “He was, wasn’t he?” Practically a part of our family, Beth was especially fond of my dad. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so wound up. They must have pulled in a fortune!”

  “Twenty-five grand,” I told her.

  She let out a low whistle. “Wow. Over a hundred people there, and you manage to contribute exactly ten percent to the cause,” she teased. “Yikes.”

  “It was for charity.”

  “Uh-huh. And to impress Annie.”

  There it was. That name again. “Why does the conversation keep going back to her?”

  “Because I know you, Kate. Call her.”

  I rolled my eyes, feigning exasperation, but knew that Beth wasn’t buying it for a moment.

  “All right.” I caved in. “I’ll drop by her shop.” Beth didn’t bother trying to hide her grin.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Donald was being an absolute prick. No matter how tactfully I tried to squirm out of representing his son in his divorce case, Donald wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t exactly threaten me with my job, but I knew that making this case an issue would be the end of my career at Brown, Benning, and Gold.

  I wasn’t certain how I would feel if Donald decided to make my life hell and I was forced to leave the firm. The truth was that it was a job and nothing more, so I didn’t think I would care much if I had to look elsewhere.

  I’d found that corporate law was quite different from family law. To be a successful corporate attorney, you had to possess a cold heart and a spotless reputation. So far my reputation was clean enough, and my heart wasn’t invested in the pockets of our business clients.

  Not like my old practice. I’d cared far too much then.

  When I lost a case, it was too close to home. The final straw had been a custody case. Beth had come to me, pleading for me to represent her in the custody hearing of her eight-year-old son. At the time, it didn’t appear that her ex-husband was going to fight the custody. But that was before the hearing, and before he’d found out that his wife of ten years had decided that she was a lesbian.

  Losing Beth’s battle in the courtroom had devastated me. It had also been my last case. I cleaned out my office, gave notice to my landlord, and didn’t go near a courtroom for nearly a year.

  Becoming a ruthless corporate attorney had saved me, I reminded myself. “It sure beats the alternative,” I muttered out loud.

  “Okay, Donny Junior,” I began, picking up the thin brown file that Donald had dropped off that morning. “Let’s see if we can’t make your daddy happy.”

  I walked past the antique store three times while I tried to gather the courage to step inside.

  This is ridiculous, I told myself. I have a legitimate reason to be here.

  I caught my reflection in the large display window and realized that if anyone were watching, I must look like a complete fool. I decided to try to appear nonchalant, and slowly slipped my sunglasses to the end of my nose while I pretended to be fascinated, by a Mickey Mouse watch that winked up at me from its original metal Fossil case. I knew that Mickey was popular, but I’d had no idea that his memorabilia was so valuable.

  I stole a glance inside the store but could see no one milling about. I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. If someone else was there, I could pretend to browse awhile and get my thoughts in order and observe her from a distance. If not, I’d be forced to talk to her right away.

  A sharp tap on the window snapped me to attention. Christ. The hand that was tapping on the window from inside the store belonged to none other than Annie Walsh. Christ. My heart slipped to my stomach when I recognized the grin on her face. Or perhaps I should have called it a smirk. That would have been closer to the truth, I think. Specifically, it was a rather self-satisfied I-told-you-so smile.

  I knew that my own smile faltered as I returned the sunglasses to their rightful perch and waved halfheartedly. No turning back now.

  I smoothed my already smoothed skirt as I turned on one heel and stepped to the door. She was on the other side when the small brass bell rang, announcing my arrival.

  “Hi.” My voice was breezy.

  “Hi,” she replied, the single syllable matching her raised brow. “Just passing by?” she asked, mocking me.

  “No.” I was irritated by her tone, which was of course ridiculous, but I hated that I’d been bagged. “Actually, I came to talk to you.”

  She seemed surprised that I was so straightforward, and stepped aside to welcome me into her shop. I took the moment to remove the sunglasses from my nose and take a quick glance around the store. I wasn’t sure what I had expected. Lots of quaint antique furniture and knickknacks, I suppose. So I was surprised by the variety of objects and colors that lined every inch of the store.

  “Wow.” The word came out slowly, completely sincere. “This is nice.” My eyes wandered from one display to the next. “I didn’t expect that I’d want to shop, but I think I may have to browse around.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Her smile was finally sincere. I noticed that she was wearing a pair of jeans today, a departure from the skirts she normally wore. The long brown hair was as unruly as ever in its bundled-up state atop her head. She certainly was curious. “You’ve never been here before?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t usually go to many antique stores, although I’m not quite sure why.”

  “Perhaps stores lack that certain thrill of anticipation and triumph that you get at an auction.”

  I stared at her dead-on. She was probably right, although I’d neve
r given it a second thought before this moment.

  “Maybe.” I’d only give her that much. “I’m afraid I’m just not a very good shopper. Of anything, actually. I hate shopping.”

  She was holding back a smile, and it made me crazy. Was hating to shop a crime, for godsake? Un-American?

  “I understand,” she finally said. “I’m not a nut about shopping either, but I do like antiquing, in any form.” She laughed, and I was charmed all over again. “Nothing’s better than when you find a particular piece that you’ve been searching for forever. Unless of course it’s in mint condition and the seller is asking far less than what it’s worth. I admit I get an awful thrill out of that.”

  “A bigger thrill than outbidding me at auction?” I decided to try my hand at a bit of humor, and was rewarded with a sudden smile, followed by a grimace.

  “The truth is that I always seem to bid too high when it’s you I’m bidding against.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “I do too!”

  “Now why do you suppose that is,” she asked, and I could feel heat rising in my cheeks as our gazes locked. I couldn’t stand it.

  “It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with my competitive nature, I’m sure,” I told her.

  “Nor my desire to win at all costs,” she replied.

  Again we laughed, eyes locking. Her gray eyes seemed to grow darker. This time I wasn’t able to come up with a quick reply.

  The silence stretched a little long, until she finally found the words to thankfully interrupt what I was certain was a longing look on my part.

  “So what did you want to see me about?” She dropped her glance and stepped away from me, turning the corner until she was firmly planted on the other side of a long wooden countertop. I was thankful for the distance, and the distraction.

  “I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you, so I’ll come right out with it. You remember the desk and bookcase that I picked up the other night at the auction?”