“I love the color,” she said, both relieved and disappointed to have backed away from the issue of their relationship. “And it picks up the color of this wing-back chair.” She pointed to a big chair upholstered in polished cotton.
Gideon turned to her with a moody smile. “See? We haven’t completely lost our ability to see things in the same way.”
“True,” she said as she went to stand behind two twig chairs. Of course, that ability would work only if they could spend the rest of their lives picking out furniture. “And these I thought would look great in the living room and could go out on the porch in the summer.”
The moment she saw his expression, she realized what was wrong with that remark. They wouldn’t be there in the summer. He’d be in Alaska and she might very well be in New York.
With a toss of her head she tried to pretend she hadn’t meant that they’d be there in the summer. “The chairs…might be a selling point for the next renter since they can go out or in.” Yes, that was lame, but it was the best she could do.
Mercifully, Jean arrived and Gideon handed her his credit card. Dwight, Jean’s husband, appeared to help Gideon carry the furniture up the basement stairs to the street and load the truck. Prue picked up a few more odds and ends while Gideon and Dwight made the first delivery home.
When Gideon and Dwight returned for the second load, Prue told Gideon she was going to run to the flower shop across the street to pick up a few plants.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll pick you up there. Then we should think about lunch. I’m starving.”
When he returned for her, she put several plants in the back of the truck, along with a large oblong basket and an armload of silk and dried flowers.
“For the library table,” she explained, pushing the plants into a corner of the truck bed so they wouldn’t fall over. “Where’d you put everything?”
“Just in the middle of the living room. We need anything else?”
“Some towels for the bathroom and a few things to throw in the medicine cabinet so it looks as though we actually use it.”
She frowned. “Then we have to get serious about groceries. Do you have any idea what your aunt eats?”
He shook his head. “If we’re going to be taking photos around town, we can just eat out.”
“Yes, but there’s still breakfast and dinner.”
“Then just get what you like, and as your guest, I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.” He grinned at her across the truck bed. “Promise me you won’t dust lightbulbs like you did when your mom came to visit us in Albany.”
She smiled reluctantly. She did get obsessive when company was coming, feeling as though every detail had to be perfect, and that her value as a woman and a wife would be judged by her dustless, clutterless, errorless home. She remembered standing atop a ladder dusting the lightbulbs in a light fixture. Gideon had lifted her off the ladder and carried her to bed, insisting that she’d been cleaning like a maniac all day and it was time to get some rest.
As she recalled, she hadn’t gotten any.
GIDEON COULD SEE by the faraway look in Prue’s eyes that she was remembering the same thing that filled his memory. Their lovemaking had caught fire, and it had been 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. before they’d finally gotten to sleep.
Shortly after that, she’d begun to complain about everything, blame him for everything. Her sometimes charming princess behavior coupled with his own pressures and the inability to turn to her for comfort became a toxic mix for their marriage.
But he didn’t want her to remember that now that she seemed wistfully happy with memories of their lovemaking.
“Lunch?” he asked hopefully.
She pointed down the street on the right side of the common to a sign depicting a tall cup of mocha mounded with whipped cream sketched in neon, and beside it a neon teapot. Below were the words the Perk Avenue Tea Shop.
“Just half a block away,” she said. “The best desserts in town.”
He winced. “A tea shop? I was hoping for something called Morty’s Truck Stop. I have visions of a giant sandwich, potato salad, pickles and…”
She caught his hand and pulled him along with her in the direction of the tea shop. She probably wasn’t even aware of the gesture, but he followed docilely, afraid to break the spell of walking hand in hand with her after a year of bristling hostility.
“They’re famous for their thick sandwiches and deli salads,” she said. “Lunch is on me because you’ve been so uncomplaining. You used to hate to go shopping.”
He pretended a superior look. “I like to think I’ve matured in the intervening time. But if the sandwiches aren’t all you claim, you’re going to have to pay.”
She spoiled his fun by refusing to ask how.
The sandwich was everything she’d claimed. It was a no-nonsense stack of roast beef with horseradish cream, tomatoes and red onion on sourdough. He was first a little disappointed in the deli salad that accompanied it—a sort of slaw. Until he tasted it and moaned his approval.
“They make it with honey–celery seed dressing,” she said. “Isn’t it marvelous?”
He nodded, his mouth full.
She worked on a Caesar salad with chicken and was ready for dessert when she’d finished, while he was too full.
“You have to share a cup of strawberries and mascarpone with me,” she said. She sounded serious.
“I have to?” he questioned.
She confirmed that with a nod. “If you don’t share it with me, I’ll just order my own and eat the whole thing.”
Sometimes her arguments defied reason. “If you want the dessert, why would that be bad?”
“Too many calories,” she replied simply.
“Then why not just skip it?”
“Because I really want it,” she replied, leaning toward him as though he were simple. “But you have to have some because half of it is only half as many calories.”
That did make very basic sense. But he was having fun needling her. She was seldom this vulnerable to temptation. “I don’t even know what mascarpone is.”
“It’s a light cheese they use to make a wonderful cream.” She was already on her feet. “I’m ordering it. Are you in?”
“I’m in,” he assured her.
He tortured himself by watching the sway of her hips as she went to the counter and placed the order for the dessert. Then a group of women walked into the shop, recognized her as she turned to head back to their table and intercepted her in the middle of a cluster of tables.
There were hugs, high laughter, fingers pointed in his direction. They were a particularly attractive group of women—four of them—and as he recognized Jackie, he presumed they were the famous Wonder Women married to Hank’s friends in Whitcomb’s Wonders.
Prue brought them to their table and he seemed to score points when he stood to welcome them.
Jackie gave him a hug. “Men never stand for women anymore,” she said, bringing her friends forward to introduce them. “Haley, my sister-in-law, Mariah, Cam’s wife—” two small dark-haired women “—and Beazie, who’s married to Evan. You remember Evan? You threw him on the floor at the inn.”
Beazie, a redhead, laughed at that. “Thank you for giving me something to tease him about.”
“We need your help with something,” Prue began quietly, gesturing them closer.
“We know about the make-believe reconciliation,” Jackie said, just above a whisper. “The guys told us. You can count on us to back you up.”
“Actually, the story’s already getting around that you’d patched things up,” Haley said. She owned the local newspaper. “Addy’s friend Myrt writes a gossip column for me, and she included it when she filed her column.”
At Prue’s gasp of astonishment, Mariah said with a grin, “I think Rita told Addy and you know Haley’s mom. She wears a satellite dish for a hat.”
Everyone laughed, and the women welcomed Gideon, then wandered toward the counter in a group to
place their order.
“I think Addy’s faster than e-mail,” Prue said with a shake of her head as she resumed her chair. Gideon sat down as well just as their dessert arrived. It was layers of strawberries and the cheesy cream in a large goblet topped with whipped cream and a chocolate-dipped strawberry.
“That’s what we want,” he said practically. “Everyone to be convinced it’s true.” He picked up his spoon.
“If I can have the chocolate-dipped strawberry,” Prue bargained, “you can have the first bite.”
“Deal.” Since she’d already reached for it, it seemed a moot point. He dipped his spoon into the mixture and took a bite. It was surprisingly light and delicious.
“This Al Capone stuff is pretty good,” he said, dipping his spoon in again.
“Mascarpone,” she corrected, giggling. She pushed his spoon aside with hers and dug in.
SHE HAD THE LIVING ROOM upside down by early evening, when Hank and his friends arrived with her bedroom set.
Gideon looked mournfully at the dining-room table in the middle of the sea of things she’d moved around to reorganize. “I was going to have pizza delivered,” he said.
“Why don’t you just take them out for pizza,” she suggested, “and I’ll have this all put together by the time you get back.”
He looked doubtfully at the heavy stuff. “You can’t move these things around.”
“I’ll just decide where they go and wait for you to help me move them. Meanwhile, I’ll organize Georgette’s bedroom and put some things on the walls.”
“Want me to bring you back some pizza?”
“No, thanks. I’m still full.”
“Okay. We won’t be very late.”
She smiled good-naturedly. “You can be as late as you want to be. You’re a free agent.”
“I’m not worried about getting a rolling pin on the head for getting home after midnight,” he said. “I’m more concerned about you trying to move this stuff alone.”
“We’ll do it tomorrow.” She was a little injured that he wasn’t concerned about being late. Then she realized that was completely ridiculous. This was all a game, and she was the one forgetting that. “We have two days to get everything in order.”
“Prue!” somebody shouted from the bedroom. “The bed by the window or on the opposite wall?”
She excused herself to lend a hand and Gideon hurried to the door to help Jeffrey with her dresser mirror.
When everything was in place, Gideon caught her hand and led her back out to the living room. Everyone followed.
“Tell us where you want the furniture in here,” he said.
“Will you please all go for pizza and let me—”
“No,” he replied succinctly. “Tell us where you want it. The job can be done in fifteen minutes, then we can all go for pizza.”
“I don’t want pizza,” she insisted.
“Then you can have salad and bread sticks. That used to be one of your favorite meals.” He went to the sofa to take one end of it and Hank went to take the other end.
“Come on, Prue,” Hank coaxed with a grin. “We’re hungry here.”
Unwilling to starve them further, she had no choice but to do as he asked. She pointed the sofa to one side of the fireplace. When Bart hefted the blue wing chair single-handedly, she stood where she wanted it, facing the sofa on the other side of the fire.
Gideon carried the library table to where he knew she wanted it, while she directed Cam and Evan to put the twig furniture in a conversation area near the wall. She carried a small round table to put between them, and Cam pointed to a lamp.
“How about that on the table?” he asked.
“Just what I had in mind,” she replied. “But I think it’ll need an extension cord.”
Hank headed for the door. “Got one in the truck. Be right back.”
Gideon and Cam flanked the hall bench and carried it to the bare wall by the kitchen.
“Won’t the table and chairs go here?” Cam asked Prue, hands on his hips as he looked around to see where else the table could go.
Prue decided he was probably right. She smiled apologetically. “Okay. Can you take the bench to the wall by the front door?”
Cam pretended disgust. “She must have learned furniture placement from Mariah. It’s never in the right spot unless you’ve moved it four or five times.”
“That was only once,” she corrected with a gracious smile. “And if you’ll recall, I wanted to send you all for pizza. You’re the one who insisted on putting the living room in place.”
“I don’t think straight when I’m hungry,” he teased in return.
Hank was back with an extension cord and connected the lamp they’d placed on top of the trunk. He turned the light on against the darkening afternoon and Prue had a sudden, curiously startling sense of warmth and home.
“Looks good.” Gideon handed her the basket she’d bought and the silk flowers. “You do something with those, and we’ll take the love seat upstairs. This is going to take four of us. Hank, do you have rope in the truck?”
“Yeah.” Hank frowned. “Why? Is there going to be a lynching?”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “It’s a sofa bed. If we don’t tie it up, it’ll open on us.”
“Okay, not as much fun as vigilante work, but I’ll get it.”
Gideon, Hank, Cam and Evan carried the love seat up. Their distracted laughter and complaints about the narrow staircase as they bumped against the wall and banister made Prue nervous.
“Gentlemen, this is not the time to be clowning around,” she scolded. “Your wives will kill me if anyone gets hurt.”
“Ooh,” Bart said quietly. “That sounded severe. Straighten up, guys, or we might not get our pizza.”
Prue turned to Jeffrey for sympathy. He followed her with a box of photographs. “You have to be nice to free labor,” he advised. “It’s in the Constitution.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” she denied. “I just want to send them home in the same condition they were in when they arrived.”
“They want to go home full of beer and pizza,” Gideon said as he topped the stairs with the front end of the love seat. He and Cam set it down and drew it backward. Evan and Hank hurried up the last few steps to catch up. “Where to?”
She hurried around them to stand where she wanted the piece, then moved quickly aside to let them place it there.
Jeffrey put the box down beside it.
“Thank you so much!” she said sincerely. The small sofa already brightened the bare corner of the room, but she decided she’d have to go back to the Bargain Basement for another table and lamp. The trunk and lamp she’d chosen for this spot looked so good downstairs. “You’re wonderful to do this for me…for us,” she amended quickly.
Hank dismissed her thanks with a shake of his head. “We like to get everyone in an indebted position. You never know when we’re going to need a babysitter, or an extra cake or salad for some function or other.”
“Well, I am indebted,” she assured him. “You guys go and have your pizza.” She turned to Gideon with a smile. “Treat them royally. Double bread sticks and dessert.”
“You’re coming with us,” he insisted.
She headed for the stairs, drawing him out of earshot of the others. “I have no problem with staying home. Really.”
“You need a break,” he argued. “Besides, how would it look, when word’s getting around that we’ve reconciled, if people see me on a night out with the guys.”
She made a wry face. “They’ll think you’re just like any other guy.”
“Yeah, well, that won’t do our story any good. Besides, Hank says his kids are at his mom’s, so Jackie’s joining us.”
The other men approached to follow them down the stairs. “Our kids are on a weekend trip with Mariah’s sister,” Cam added, “so Mariah’s coming, too. I wonder if Randy’s off.”
Jeff nodded. “He is. Paris told me they were looking forward to a nigh
t at home. But maybe they’d like pizza first.” He smiled at Prue. “I’m sure your mother would love to come.”
“All right, it’s a party!” Bart said. “Haley’s at the office, but I bet I can steal her away to have dinner with us. Evan, what’s Beazie doing?”
“She’s home with the baby,” he replied. “And I’m sure it’s too late to find a sitter. Why don’t you just have a good time, and I’ll—”
“No,” everyone replied simultaneously.
“Tell her to bring the baby,” Hank said. “We’re all used to having children around.”
“But he’s teething. I don’t want to spoil your evening with a cranky baby.”
“Come on,” Cam said. “It’ll give us a chance to show off our baby-calming skills.”
Prue hooked an arm in Evan’s and started down the stairs. “Seems neither one of us is going to be able to escape. Use the kitchen phone and call Beazie.”
Evan grinned at her. “If the baby’s whiny and you regret inviting me, it’ll all be Gideon’s fault.”
“Most things are,” she said with a bland smile over her shoulder at Gideon, following them down the stairs.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AN ELEGANT PARTY at Tavern on the Green could not have been more fun. Everyone squeezed around a large table at the back of Papa’s, where five varieties of pizza went around and around the table.
They began the evening with couples seated together, but the cross conversations and a football game on the television mounted on the wall necessitated a change. The men moved to one end of the table, their eyes still glued to the television, and the women gathered at the other end to try to talk over the noise.
Paris had taken the sleeping baby from Beazie and looked down on the beautiful, pink-cheeked face in wonder. “How is he sleeping with all this racket?” she asked Beazie, seated across from her. Prue swallowed a painful breath. She kept smiling in an effort to maintain her composure.
Beazie shook her head as though the mystery was beyond her. “You got me. He seems to be able to sleep through anything as long as I’m awake. But if I’m trying to sleep, everything else wakes him up.”
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