by Cathie Linz
The only break she got was to eat lunch, which she did in the staff room. She was about halfway through her cob salad when she got the message that there was a call for her. Picking up the extension, she was pleased to hear her mother’s voice.
“I’m sorry to bother you at work, hon, but I tried to leave a message on your answering machine, only I couldn’t get through because I kept getting a busy signal all morning.”
“Xena must have knocked the phone off the hook in the bedroom,” Anastasia replied. “I’ve been meaning to get a better phone, one that you can hang up properly instead of just setting down on a flat surface.”
“While you’re at it, maybe you could also get a better cat,” her mom suggested. “One that would earn its keep by catching mice.”
Sighing, Anastasia regretted ever confessing her mouse problem to her mother. “I don’t want Xena eating mice. I don’t want any mice deaths on my conscience.”
“Your father could come over—”
“No, that’s okay,” she said quickly. She could imagine what her father would do. He had a way of overreacting and could end up flattening her apartment in his efforts to get the mouse. She was still recovering from the time he’d insisted on changing a ceiling-fixture lightbulb in the kitchen for her and ended up blowing all the fuses in the building. “I have the situation under control.”
“Well, I’m calling to invite you to dinner this weekend. Mrs. Sanduski’s son is in town and I thought you could meet him.”
“Mom, no more fixing me up. You remember what happened the last time?”
“How could I know that Denton would get fresh at the wedding? He seemed like a nice young man. And he’s been doing our taxes for three years now.”
“Forget it.” Anastasia’s voice was firm. It was the only way to deal with her matchmaking mom. Sometimes she got this feeling that she was surrounded by matchmakers. “I’ve got a full social calendar on my own.”
“Oh? You’ve met someone?” The question was filled with hopefulness.
Anastasia sidestepped it by saying, “I’m going to be very busy the next few weeks helping Claire get the storefront in order by October first.”
“Why doesn’t she hire someone?”
“She has, plus her grandson is helping her out…”
“And how old is he?”
“Thirty-something.”
“Really?” Anastasia could practically see her mother’s ears perking up. “And is he single?”
“I wish you wouldn’t concern yourself with my love life.”
“I just don’t want you to be all alone, honey.”
Anastasia shrugged. “Now you sound like Claire.”
“Is she trying to fix you up with her grandson?”
“No.” Or was she? Claire was the one who’d suggested that Anastasia teach David how to loosen up, how to have fun. And she’d invited David to move into the apartment upstairs, as well as having him supervise the renovations. Which meant that David would be underfoot all the time. He’d only moved in the day before, but already it felt as if the building was marked by his presence. “Listen, Mom, I’ve got to get back to work. Give Dad a hug from me, okay? And, remember, no more matchmaking!”
“HATTIE, DID YOU influence Anastasia’s mom? Encourage her to meddle in Anastasia’s love life?” Betty asked, fixing her sister with a reprimanding look, ignoring the many children around them in the library.
Hattie, perched nearby on a shelf, immediately began fiddling with her elaborately decorated straw hat, almost shredding it in the process. “No. Not really. Well, a little bit maybe. But not Denton. I had nothing to do with Denton grabbing her at the wedding. That was totally his idea. And a bad one at that.”
“She’s babbling,” Muriel said. “A sure sign she’s done something she shouldn’t have.”
“It was just a little something,” Hattie replied. “I mean, you were the one, Betty, who said we needed to enlist human help. And I thought that if a grandmother was good, then a mother would be even better.”
“Wrong,” Betty said bluntly. “Anastasia is going to dig in her heels and get stubborn if she’s got two people after her, trying to get her married off.”
“It’s not like I used much magic,” Hattie protested. “I think her mother wants her to get married. I didn’t have to do much convincing. You remember how bad Mrs. Knight was about Anastasia’s dates when she was in high school? Asking all kinds of questions. Grilling them.”
Betty nodded. “She made the Spanish Inquisition look like a good time.”
“So I didn’t really screw up here,” Hattie continued. “Maybe my magic wand didn’t even have an effect. That happens a lot, you know.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” Betty ordered her. “No going off on your own and getting creative. Just stick to our game plan and we’ll be fine. Limit your creative urges to your hats,” she added as a bunch of grapes drooped from the overburdened straw brim. “That should keep you busy enough.”
“Humans have a tendency to complicate matters,” Muriel added.
“And we can do that just fine by ourselves,” Hattie agreed.
ANASTASIA RETURNED from her busy day at the library to find Claire in the storefront, going through wallpaper books. Instead of using the separate front entrance from the street that led upstairs to her apartment, she paused to knock on the storefront’s glass window.
Claire immediately bounced up to let her in. “You’re just the person I needed to see,” she exclaimed while dragging Anastasia toward a card table set up in the middle of the room.
“Why’s that?” Anastasia asked.
“Wallpaper.”
“Where’s David?” She looked around. The only evidence of his presence was the large square of plywood resting on two sawhorses, the top of which was covered with various tools.
“He’s stripping in the back,” Claire said absently.
“Really?” Anastasia blinked at the image of David peeling the denim from his promising body before realizing Claire no doubt meant he was stripping wallpaper. “So…” She wiped her damp palms on her slacks. Was it her or was it suddenly very hot in here? “What can I help you with?”
“Wallpaper. I can’t decide between this one—” Claire showed her a pink-and-white-striped sample “—or this one.” She picked up another that featured ice-cream cones.
“I can’t be objective about pink striped wallpaper,” Anastasia ruefully confessed with a shake of her head. “Not since I was ten and drank chocolate milk while helping my dad put up the wallpaper in my bedroom.”
Claire frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand the connection.”
“My brother Ryan told me a great knock-knock joke and I cracked up, spewing chocolate milk all over the pink stripes. It was a mess. Ever since then, I’ve been a firm believer that chocolate milk and pink wallpaper don’t mix. And I also learned not to drink anything when my brother Ryan is in the vicinity.”
“He’s the one with the U.S. Marshal Service, isn’t he?”
“That’s right. He’s recently been transferred back to this area after being in Oregon for several years. Typical of him, to surprise us all, he came back a married man. But then, I’d always liked Courtney, his new wife.”
“So marriage is okay for your brothers, just not for you?”
“My brothers needed a smart woman to keep them in line,” she airily informed Claire. Tucking her long hair behind her left ear, she added, “I don’t need anyone keeping me in line, thank you very much.”
“You wouldn’t like to keep some man in line?”
Anastasia shrugged. “The guys I go out with tend to be on the laid-back end of the scale instead of being bossy. They don’t need me to fine-tune them. But enough about me. What about a name for this place? Have you gotten any more ideas?”
“Let’s see.” Claire grabbed for her ever-present list. “So far we’ve got Super Scooper, but that sounds like something you’d use after taking a Great Dane for a wal
k.”
“And then there’s The Ice Cream Cometh,” Anastasia added. That entry had been one of hers, a take on the play The Iceman Cometh. “But that might be too literary.”
“I Scream, You Scream, but that sounds more like a horror shop.” Claire shook her head.
“We’ll just have to keep thinking. Listen, are we still on for that auction tonight?”
“You bet.”
“What auction?” David asked as he joined them, wiping his hands on a rag. He wore dusty jeans and a white T-shirt, looking even more powerful and earthy than he had the previous two times she’d seen him. Why did sweat have to look good on him?
Still she kept her cool while replying, “Your grandmother and I are going to an antique auction to get some furniture for the ice-cream parlor.”
“Not without me, you aren’t,” he said.
Instead of making a fuss, Anastasia just smiled at him and said, “Fine by me.” That should have been his first hint that something was up.
But no, like a sheep to slaughter, he’d blindly gone along, changing from his work clothes into dark slacks and a blue shirt. Heck, he’d even put on a tie, and now here he was, stuck on a folding chair, next to Anastasia and his grandmother, with a bunch of arts types looking at God-knows-what in the front of a crowded warehouse. To think he was missing a Cubs game for this.
“How much longer do we have to stay here?” he leaned over to whisper in Anastasia’s ear, inhaling the citrus smell of her perfume.
“Until the auction is over.”
He sighed. “And how long will that be?”
Instead of answering she said, “If you have someplace else you’d rather be, you’re welcome to take a cab home.”
“And leave you and my grandmother here alone?” He shot her a mocking look. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No, you don’t believe in dreams, do you? I wonder why that is,” she mused.
“Because I’m practical. And I can tell you that no practical person would pay this kind of money for stuff you can get at a garage sale.”
“It isn’t stuff,” she corrected him. “These are highly collectible pieces of art.”
“Yeah, right,” David scoffed. “Those dumpy couches, tables and lamps lining the outer walls are pieces of art?” He frowned at a particularly monstrous table with carved dragon legs.
“They most certainly are.”
“And what about those glass showcases crammed full of junk?”
“There are some fine pieces of china and jewelry included in the display. Not junk.”
“I guess there’s a fool born every minute,” he drawled.
“Apparently there is,” she retorted sweetly, “since I’m sitting next to one right now.”
“My grandmother is no fool,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her.
“No, she certainly isn’t But her bossy grandson shows all the signs of being one.” She fixed him with a reprimanding look. “Maybe if you’d sit there with an open mind, you might learn something. Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself.”
“I am enjoying myself,” he murmured. He enjoyed watching the anger flash in her golden eyes, enjoyed watching her, period. The rest of the circus didn’t hold much interest for him.
Up front, the auctioneer was launching into another spiel, sounding like a man on a caffeine overdose. “Two thousand, twenty-one, twenty-two hundred, I have twenty-two hundred. Who’ll give me twenty-five?” All this said in the space of five seconds. It was enough to make a sane person hyperventilate. The gavel banged and yet another worthless piece of junk was hauled off to some hapless bidder only to have the entire process start all over again.
The words blended into one another as David folded his arms against his chest and sat back in the half-dozing eyes-open state he used during staff meetings at work.
He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. He’d kept remembering Anastasia in that backlit nightie. The image had remained fixed in his mind no matter how much he’d tried to dislodge it.
Frowning, he lifted his hand to rub his nose.
The gavel banged. “Sold for eighty dollars to the man wearing the tie.”
“Congratulations,” Anastasia said with a grin he didn’t trust. “You just outbid the others.”
“What are you talking about? All I did was rub my nose.”
“Dangerous thing to do at an auction.”
“So what useless piece of junk did I get stuck with?”
“An erotic netsuke.”
He choked. She pounded him on the back with eager vehemence.
Leaning away, David glared at her. He wasn’t sure what a netsuke was, but he sure as hell knew the definition of erotic. “You made me bid on something X-rated. What the heck is netsuke, anyway?”
“It’s a small Oriental carving. Highly collectible. You’ve got a real keen eye for someone who thinks art is junk,” she teased him.
He wasn’t amused. This was all her fault. If he hadn’t suspected that she’d try to lead Claire astray to bid on something outrageous at this stupid auction, he wouldn’t have come along. But his grandmother had only bid on one thing, a wrought-iron table and two matching chairs the auctioneer had called an authentic bistro set. Instead, he was the one who’d bought something wild.
“Are you having fun yet?” Anastasia asked with an innocent bat of her long eyelashes.
“No,” he growled.
“Then come out with me on Saturday for a picnic.”
“Why?” he asked cautiously, still recalling the overexuberant pounding she’d given his back.
“So I can fit ya with a pair of cement boots and dump ya in the river,” she growled like a 1920s gangster, before laughing. “Geez, talk about being suspicious. There’s no risk involved. No strings. Just for fun. Unless you’re not up to the challenge?”
“Fine. Saturday. A picnic.” He hadn’t been on one since he was ten, but how hard could it be? You grabbed some burgers and ate at a picnic table. Heck, his lunch hour at work might even qualify as a picnic…on those occasions when he ate a burger outside…in between exploring incinerated buildings to analyze burn patterns, among other things.
He could do this. And while he was at it, he might find out what Anastasia was really up to.
“Good,” she said with a smile. “I’ll bring the picnic. Meet you at my place at six.”
He didn’t dare nod for fear that doing so would leave him stuck with some other monstrosity on the auction block. “Fine.”
“STEP ONE accomplished,” Betty said from atop a glass case in the auction warehouse that was filled with pieces of Staffordshire china. “Things are moving right on schedule. I told you that drafting Claire’s help would simplify matters for us.”
“I can’t believe that for once things are actually going according to plan,” Hattie said from her perch atop a taller case filled with jewelry. “Did you see how cleverly Claire maneuvered Anastasia into agreeing to loosen David up the other day? And how deftly Anastasia just invited David out?”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll loosen up. He still doesn’t trust her,” Muriel said as she dusted off her photographer’s vest before digging in the pocket for her favorite munchies—granola.
“Ignore Muriel.” Betty impatiently shoved the bangs from her Prince Valliant haircut off her forehead and glared at her sister for rocking the boat. “Things will go smoothly this time.”
“Maybe you should knock on wood when you say that,” Hattie nervously suggested. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“We’re fairy godmothers. We’re not supposed to be suspicious,” Muriel declared. “Look, it says so right here.” She whipped out a thick rule book that was almost as big as she was and much fancier, complete with gilded pages and calligraphic printing. Using her magic wand, she zipped through the hundreds and hundreds of pages until she found the one she was looking for. “Rule number 1,359.”
“We’ve already bent a few of the rules in that book,” Hattie told her.
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“Bent?” Betty scoffed as she zapped the book away. “For petunia’s sake, we’ve twisted some of them so much they resemble pretzels.”
“But is that a good thing?” Hattie anxiously asked.
“We’re still here, aren’t we?” Betty retorted.
“Well, yes.” Hattie nodded and patted her silvery curls as if to verify that fact. “And while we’re here, perhaps we should take a closer look at the Victorian hatpins in this glass case. I’ve always wanted one.”
SATURDAY MORNINGS Anastasia liked sleeping in until ten. It was one of her few indulgences. But this morning, a horrible thumping noise woke her before dawn.
Squinting, she tried to focus on the digital readout on her Wallace and Gromit alarm clock. Five o’clock. She got déjà vu from the last time she’d been woken in the middle of the night. Judging from the fact that the incessant thudding was coming from directly above her, she suspected the culprit was the same—David.
Didn’t the man ever sleep? What could he be doing up there? What if he wasn’t doing it alone?
That made her pause in the midst of shoving the bedcovers off. Maybe she shouldn’t just go upstairs and hammer on his door to tell him to be quiet. Unfortunately, she didn’t have his phone number, otherwise she could call him.
Straightening the tangled strap on her peach-colored silk nightie, she reached for the phone and dialed information, only to be told that his number was unlisted. Probably to keep old neighbors from coming after him and harassing him for being so loud, she decided darkly.
Thud, thump, thud, thump. She tried putting her pillow over her head to muffle the noise. It didn’t work. All she ended up doing was nearly suffocating herself. She needed more sleep. She couldn’t maneuver on only four hours. It wasn’t human. This was torture. He was doing it on purpose. Thud, thump, thud, thump.
Unable to take it any longer, she got out of bed to tug on a purple sweatshirt and matching pants sitting nearby. The outfit was grungy, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going upstairs to seduce David, she was going to silence him. And read him the riot act. Because not only had David woken up Anastasia, he was distressing Xena, who didn’t like loud noises. “Don’t worry, kiddo.” She lifted the blanket to assure the long-haired Himalayan who’d dived under the bedcovers. “I’ll take care of this.”