Blogger Bundle Volume VI: SB Sarah Selects Books That Rock Her Socks

by Kathleen O'Reilly

  His mouth curved up. Not quite a smile. “Oliver Cummings.”

  “You should go see them. They’re on Park and Fifty-seventh. The store’s been there forever.”

  “Do you want to go?” he asked.

  Catherine shook her head. “No. I’ve got work to do.”

  She dropped the ring back on the catalog, hearing it fall with a satisfying thump, and wheeled around to leave.

  “Catherine,” he said, and she stopped, turned.

  “What?”

  “I could use your help. I’m trying to do the right thing and find the owner.”

  Why couldn’t this be easier? Why couldn’t she forget the feel of his skin against hers, kissing his mouth? Why did her pulse race every time he was around? But it did. Get over it, Catherine.

  “We’ll go late this afternoon,” she said, her voice firm. Good job. “Just before closing. You want to do the right thing? I’ll help. That’s all.”

  “I know,” he said softly.

  She felt his eyes on her as she walked away, but he didn’t say a word.

  DANIEL WAITED FOR HER outside the Montefiore building, staring up at the dark gray sky. The summer heat showers had already come and gone, leaving behind a trace of rain that evaporated nearly as soon as it touched the ground. He pulled off his jacket, pulled off his ring and waited.

  She breezed through the doors, hair flying, shirt wrinkled, wearing a skirt that covered up way too much of her legs. As usual the hard-on came, but Daniel was prepared, and ruthlessly tamped it down. Control. That was all. Then he smiled, not really caring if the humidity was dank, if September was coming in seven days, if the entire world went bottoms-up. Catherine was here.

  “I have to get back soon,” she told him, killing any of his expectations right up front. Her eyes were nervous, her mouth starting with a firm frown, then softening to not quite a smile. Beggars sure couldn’t be choosers, and Daniel would take what he could get.

  Conversation was limited in the cab ride over. Her hands had a stranglehold on the hem of her skirt, clasping and unclasping, against the long length of her legs. A more unscrupulous man might notice the way her chest moved as she breathed, remembering the creamy swells that stopped his heart. She noticed him noticing and folded her hands under her arms.

  “How’s the audit going?” she asked, picking a subject that could hack a man’s libido to bits.

  “Fine,” Daniel answered, lying. All the financial reconciliation in the world wasn’t going to change the numbers. While he started digging through the financials, the computer specialists at his firm had investigated everyone who had access to control the commission structure.

  The sales team who set the commissions, the vice presidents who could alter the commission structure, Catherine and Andrea Montefiore, who would profit from the commissions, but all those names had been cleared. Only one remained. Charles Montefiore. And the e-mails between Charles Montefiore and Walter Chadwick—the CEO of Chadwick’s—that mapped out an entire commission structure didn’t help. It didn’t help at all.

  “Are you telling me the truth?” she asked.

  He stared at the tiny map of New York in the backseat. “I don’t think we should talk about this,” he said, because he didn’t want to see the hurt in her eyes, and he didn’t want to be the one to put it there.

  She didn’t argue, but turned and looked out the window as the cabbie honked for a limo to move out of their way.

  When they got to the jewelry store, Daniel climbed out and automatically made a move to help her, but changed his mind when he saw the way she was looking at him, as if he were the Grim Reaper, Freddy Krueger and Bigfoot, all rolled into one.

  Okay. Moving on.

  Cummings’s store was old-style discretion, none of the well-branded opulence of Tiffany’s. Michelle had loved Tiffany’s and used to drag Daniel there every time they went uptown. Daniel shook his head once, and looked around the display cases, searching for something similar, but most of the jewelry was modern and free-form. The ring in his pocket—the engagement ring—was square-cut, with the rigid design standards of decades past.

  Catherine held out her hand, and he put the ring there, his fingers grazing her palm. “It’s definitely Cummings,” she told him. “Maybe he’ll be able to find the owner.”

  “Thank you for helping. I know it’s not easy.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, but she didn’t smile at him.

  The salesman approached them. He wore a polished suit, and had graying hair and a neatly trimmed mustache that had been held over from the sixties. He looked at Catherine, looked at Daniel, and then arched a brow. “Shopping for jewelry?” he asked, in a clipped English accent.

  Catherine was first to correct the man. “We actually wanted to talk to Mr. Cummings. About a ring. An old ring.” She handed the piece over to the man. “We’re trying to track down the owner.”

  The salesman pulled out a loop from behind the glass counter, and stared for long minutes. “It looks like Oliver’s work. I’m sure that is his mark. However, it’s probably fifty years old. At least.”

  “Can you look it up?”

  The man shook his head sadly. “A lot of our records were burned in the seventies.”

  “Maybe Mr. Cummings will remember it?” asked Daniel hopefully. If this was a dead end, he wasn’t sure where to turn, but he wasn’t going to give up. A ring was important. Irreplaceable.

  “Oliver’s in Europe at the moment, but he’ll be back late next week. Why don’t you come back then?”

  “Certainly,” Daniel said, and he noticed Catherine looking curiously at the rings in the display cases. He wanted to tease her, but it didn’t seem right, so he watched her—not that it was a problem. To Daniel, her face was fascinating. She didn’t smile easily, watching the world carefully, but he understood that. Most of the time, the world deserved to be watched carefully.

  After a few minutes, she straightened and nodded politely to the salesman. “We’ll be back,” she said, and that was the end of it. Daniel watched her walk, watched the curve of her ass, and his body jerked. It lasted only a second before he could restore control.

  Catherine never noticed.

  Outside, Daniel was ready to signal for a cab for her, when he saw a little girl in pink shorts and top standing frozen on the sidewalk. Big blue eyes silently crying. He tried scanning the crowd for a mother, father, nanny or some responsible parental unit.

  None.

  Catherine didn’t hesitate. She ran directly over to the child, crouching to her level, diving right in.

  “Did you lose somebody?” she asked, and the little girl didn’t answer.

  “We should call a cop,” suggested Daniel, standing far away. Sometimes he scared kids. They liked people like Gabe or Sean, with friendly faces and easy laughter. Daniel wasn’t even close.

  Park Avenue wasn’t the best place in New York to lose a kid. Park Avenue at 6:00 p.m. was an even worse place to lose a kid in New York. Everywhere, stores were closing, and people were heading home. Daniel pulled out his cell and dialed 911, and told the operator about the situation. She got his name and location, and promised a cop would be there shortly.

  Two seconds later, the cops arrived, but the little girl still wasn’t talking. He watched as Catherine tried to coax information out of her, watched as the cops tried to coax information out of her, but she wouldn’t speak.

  Catherine looked up at him, her face worried. “It’ll be okay,” he promised, knowing he had absolutely no control over anything, and it was probably a stupid thing to say.

  “You should try and talk to her,” she suggested. Daniel shook his head. “If she won’t talk to you, she’s not going to talk to me.”

  One of the cops looked at him as if he was a hard-ass, but Daniel wasn’t about to freak the kid out any more than she already was. However, now all eyes were focused on him, condemning him for being a mean-hearted bastard. All eyes including the little girl’s.

&n
bsp; Oh, fine. They wanted to see him fail?

  Daniel bent down and gave her a half-smile. Probably looked like a fool, but she didn’t seem scared. Her hair was brown and long, tangled with bits of what looked like yellow candy.

  “Did your mom take you to the candy store?” he asked.

  Slowly she shook her head.

  “That’s not candy in your hair?” he asked, trying again.

  This time she nodded.

  “Did you come from the candy store?”

  She nodded again.

  “Who did you go to the candy store with?”

  Her mouth tightened, and she considered him with eyes that killed his heart. “Daddy.”

  “See, she likes you,” said Catherine.

  “I probably look like her dad,” he muttered. “Do I look like your dad?” he asked the child. She shook her head. Hell.

  “There’s a kid’s store a block over. We can take her there,” the cop answered. “If it’s her dad, he probably didn’t even notice she took off.”

  Catherine rested her hand on his shoulder, reassuring him.

  Daniel looked at the little girl. “Do you want to go back to your dad?” he asked, and she nodded her head. Daniel stood, and handed over responsibility to the cops. Finally. “Okay, I think this mystery is solved.”

  “You should go with her,” said Catherine, ignoring the fact that the cops had the situation under control. That was their job.

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t want a stranger interfering,” said Daniel, waiting for the cops to agree with him.

  “If you don’t mind,” answered the first cop, shooting down Daniel’s theory. Come on, couldn’t they figure out that he wasn’t any help? Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

  Catherine looked at him, clearly expecting him to go along with this. And how was he supposed to refuse that?

  Daniel forced a smile on his face. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  And the five of them walked down Park, over to 57th, down one more block before arriving at the colorful storefront of Dylan’s Candy Bar. Figures.

  There was a tall man standing out front, his hands over his eyes. “Kaitlyn!” he yelled as soon as he saw her. The little girl ran to him, and Daniel stayed back. Catherine glanced at Daniel curiously.

  “Want to get a drink?” she asked, and he knew that wasn’t a good sign. It was the interrogation. He could feel it. Daniel pulled at his collar, but nodded.

  The tiny pub was around the corner, but the ambience wasn’t important. He ordered a beer, bought her a glass of wine and settled in the chair across from her.

  “Thank you for helping,” he said. “I’ll see Cummings when he’s back from vacation.”

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “What?” he answered.

  “With the girl.”

  “I’m not used to kids,” he replied, taking a long, cool swallow of beer, dodging her eyes.

  “Okay,” she said, and that would be the end of it. That was Catherine. One strike, and you were out. She wouldn’t try again, and he felt like a heel.

  “Michelle wanted kids. She wanted a little girl because she liked girl clothes, all that pink stuff. She had a name picked out, Anastasia, for the princess, because that was what Michelle was like. Everything was a fairy tale. Anyway, I told her we should wait for a while. I got screwed in that deal, too. It seemed like I made wrong decisions all over the place.”

  Catherine stared at him. He didn’t want to drag her into this. He didn’t like this merging of his old life with her. He wanted to keep them separate, but that was becoming impossible. “I’m sorry,” she told him, as if she were responsible. “I shouldn’t have made you help.”

  “Don’t apologize. You haven’t done aything wrong. You don’t deserve all this.”

  “You would make a good father,” she told him, watching him carefully with her artist’s gaze.

  “I had thought so at one time. I always thought my dreams were pretty ordinary—a wife, a family. Those were the sort of dreams that were supposed to come true. Did you ever dream of that?” He wanted to know about her dreams, because he suspected hers were buried so far down that ordinary people couldn’t touch them.

  “I wanted to be an artist,” she told him, her eyes so deep that he wanted to stay there as long as she’d let him. “I’m not good enough to live up to Grandfather’s standards.”

  “You are good enough. Your grandfather just doesn’t know everything about art.”

  She smiled at him. “And you do?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Daniel met here eyes for a moment longer, seeing her dreams reflected there, and then she checked her watch.

  “I need to get back,” she told him.

  “Of course,” he said, because for a second, he’d forgotten everything else. That was the best thing and worst thing about Catherine. She made him forget.

  CATHERINE SPENT the rest of the week cataloging high renaissance art, and trying not to think about Wednesday. Talking about dreams was a dangerous thing. Dreams were a fluid, fickle thing. One day, she wanted to be an artist. The next day, she wanted to be in love.

  Art was static. No matter how many hours you studied a painting, it didn’t change, and it didn’t disappoint you. It was precisely, exactly the same. Art was safe, which was why by Friday, she had developed a taste for climbing the stairs rather than taking the elevator (better on the thighs), ate lunch in her office (economic and frugal), came in late (lots of sleep was excellent for the complexion) and in general had managed to avoid seeing Daniel for an unbelievable one and one half days. She wanted to be an artist. She didn’t want to fall hopelessly in love with a man who could probably never return that love.

  That afternoon, she was so pleased with her problem avoidance that she changed into shorts and T-shirt and dared to walk along Riverside with her mother at lunch. The park ran north-south along the Hudson for over four miles, and when the weather was warm, like now, there were walkers, bicyclists, joggers, lovers and photographers. Of course, her mother had a severe caffeine habit, and because of said habit walked at seventy-five miles an hour, but today Catherine kept up.

  Maybe she was huffing a little as they passed 145th Street, and yes, her back was soaked with sweat. Andrea Montefiore was wearing black spandex shorts and a sports bra that revealed absolutely no spare flesh whatsoever. Catherine sighed.

  “Come on, Catherine,” her mother called, wanting her to hurry along.

  Catherine broke into a jog, abandoning all pretence of capability. Her mother laughed, and then sat gracefully on a bench. Catherine, even further abandoning all pretence of capability, collapsed. A barge chugged down the river, the steam pipe billowing, and Catherine knew just how that overloaded boat felt.

  “That flush on your cheeks looks fabulous, darling. Vibrant, healthy, like good sex.”

  “Mother!” she exclaimed, partially because she was embarrassed, and mostly because, like the renaissance era, her sex life had, for one moment in history, been masterful, expressive, bringing humanity closer to paradise. However, like the renaissance era, it was over, done with, and was now fodder for the history books.

  Her mother’s teeth flashed in a grin. “Oh, don’t be such a puddleglum. We’re both adults.”

  “Well, yes, we are, but you’re still my mother, and there’re certain topics that you’ll never hear from my lips.”

  “Sex being one?” her mother asked, brown eyes teasing her.

  “That and the artistic influence of the rococo style. We’re never going to see eye-to-eye.” Catherine loved it, and passionately defended the overblown excess. Andrea Montefiore thought it sucked eggs.

  “You’re a good daughter.”

  “You’re the best mother I’ve ever had. How’s the audit going?” Catherine asked, hoping that at least her mother would tell her the truth, since no one else—Daniel—seemed to want to.

  “Not well.” Her mother frowned.

  “You have to do some
thing, find something,” Catherine urged her. Andrea Montefiore was a force to be reckoned with. If there was a solution, her mother could find it—at least when it pertained to English furniture of the Regency period.

  “I’m sure it will all work out,” her mother said confidently.

  Catherine looked out on the river, watching the barge move slowly, water billowing in its wake. She brushed the hair off her face and sighed. The problem with the art world was that you never had to deal with the outside world: the trash barges, the union strikes and one stubborn financial auditor who was thorough, precise and would leave no single financial document unturned.

  Her mother, not sensing the impending doom, took in her daughter’s Green Day T-shirt and shook her head. “We’re going shopping. I’m in New York, and Londoners think they have it all, but no, it’s not home. You need something a little more…passable.”

  “You’re insulting my workout clothes?”

  “Actually, I’m insulting your entire wardrobe. Come on, dear. It’ll be a lark.”

  A lark. Ha. More like being dipped into burning lava, possibly wrapped in mud-soaked, exfoliating seaweed leaves at the same time. “I don’t know, Mom.”

  “Consider it an early birthday present.”

  “Clothes? For my birthday? Oh, no, Mother. You’re not getting off that easy.” There was only one day out of the year when Catherine took center stage. Her birthday. After the twenty-four hours were over, she went back to her normally grounded self, but on her birthday…all bets were off.

  “Your birthday? Is that coming up?” her mother asked, with almost a straight face.

  “September third. Lest you forget.”

  “As if I could. Thirty-six hours in labor is nothing to ever be forgotten. All right. Not your birthday present, but, do this for me. Tomorrow morning. And we’ll take Sybil. She has such marvelous taste in fashion.”

  Catherine rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll buy you a new bag,” her mother said, sweetening the pot. “Hermès. Prada. Name your designer.”

  “Bribery?” asked Catherine.

  “Canal Street bribery,” answered her mother, going for double or nothing. Catherine had always loved Chinatown, mainly because her mother used to take her there when she was a kid—to get away, to have fun, to see the world.