Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Linda Howard

  Maybe, a little voice whispered in my ear, and my heart squeezed from a mixture of pain and panic.

  I had set my cell phone on silent mode, so I wouldn’t be distracted by the ringing, and as I drove I fished the phone out of my purse to see if any calls had come in. The message in the little window said I’d missed three calls. Looking back and forth between the phone and the road—yes, I know it’s dangerous, blah blah blah—I accessed the incoming calls log. Mom had called, Wyatt’s mom had called, and Wyatt had called.

  My heart skipped a beat—literally. Wyatt had called. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

  I didn’t return any of the calls right then, because I had to concentrate on Jazz. I was so glad to have him to concentrate on, too, because I wasn’t ready to think about the big stuff. I did keep an eye out for white cars, though; there hadn’t been any white Chevrolets behind me on the drive to Jazz’s, but that didn’t mean I could relax.

  When I pulled into the parking lot of the furniture refinisher’s, Jazz sort of exploded on me. “No! Absolutely not! I’m not spending another penny buying something she wouldn’t appreciate anyway. As she so kindly pointed out, I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to decorating—”

  “Calm down; I don’t want you to buy a thing.” I was kind of losing sympathy with both him and Sally, so my voice was a little sharp. It felt weird. I mean, Jazz and Sally really were like an aunt and uncle to me, so using my grown-up voice on him was a change of pace. He looked a little startled, too, as if in his head he still saw me as a kid.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just thought—”

  “And she was right about one thing: you don’t know anything about decorating. One look at your office and I could have told you that. Which is why I’m going to have a long talk with Monica Stevens.”

  He thought about that for a second, then looked hopeful. “Do you think she’ll get Sally’s furniture back?”

  I snorted. “Fat chance of that happening. It was heirloom stuff. Whoever bought it out of Monica’s consignment shop wouldn’t turn it loose on a bet.”

  He sighed, his expression changing back to depression. He looked at the refinishing place, which was really kind of cruddy, with pieces of junk piled haphazardly around the foundation. A rusted iron headboard leaned beside the front door. “Did you find something here that looks like something we had?”

  “That isn’t why we’re here. Come on.”

  Obediently he followed me. I was beginning to get a read on him. Being stubborn by nature, he’d staked out his position and didn’t intend to budge from it. However, because he also loved Sally to death, he desperately wanted someone to do something, anything, that would either force him from his position—so he could feel he had no choice—or would bring Sally around.

  I didn’t care who made the first move. I had a deadline, and I was desperate.

  We went into the shabby place, which was just as piled up on the inside as it was on the outside. A bell over the door rang when we went in, alerting Mr. Potts, the owner, that someone was here. He stuck his head out of the back room, where he did all of his work.

  “I’m back here! Oh, good morning, Miss Mallory.” He came toward us, wiping his hands on a rag. Since I’d just bought my desk there, and had talked to him a good while, he remembered my name. A faintly puzzled look was on his face. “You look different.”

  “Hair,” I said succinctly, moving my head and making my hair swing. A man I’d met only once had noticed my haircut—well, sort of—and Wyatt hadn’t. My heart ached all over again. I pushed thoughts of him away and focused on the problem at hand, introducing Jazz and Mr. Potts to each other. “May we see what you’re working on?”

  I’d briefed him about the situation, so he fell right in. “Sure, come on back! I’m working on this great old armoire, but it’s a handful, let me tell you. I’ve already got about sixty hours in just stripping off the old varnish and paint. Why anyone would paint a piece of furniture like this, I just don’t know.” He kept up a running commentary as he led us back to his workroom.

  The workroom was more clutter, but it was well lit, with big windows marching down each side. He had all of the windows open for ventilation, as well as a big attic fan running. The smell was still pervasive. The floor was covered with a huge tarp; the tarp itself was a Neimanesque collection of stains and paint spatters. In the middle of the tarp sat the piece in question, a massive eight-foot-tall double-door mahogany armoire, with intricate scrollwork on the doors and around the frame.

  Jazz blinked at the huge armoire. “How many hours did you say you’ve already been working on this?”

  “About sixty. This thing is a work of art.” Mr. Potts ran a rough hand lovingly over the wood. “Look at this scrollwork. Makes it harder to refinish, because you have to get the varnish and paint out of all these crevices, but that’s the price you pay for something like this. People don’t do much work like this anymore.”

  “How long will it take you to finish?”

  “Can’t say. Another two weeks, maybe. Getting all this crap off without damaging the wood is the hard part.”

  Jazz walked around the armoire, asking more questions, then moved on to other pieces of furniture in the workroom, most of them in different phases of restoration. What Jazz knew about antiques, refinishing, and furniture in general was absolutely nothing—other than you sat in chairs, slept in beds, things like that—so Mr. Potts was able to elaborate to his heart’s content. When Jazz learned that the armoire was two hundred seventy-nine years old, he turned and gave it a wondering look. “That thing was around when George Washington was born.”

  I’ve kept track of a lot of things in my life, but the year George Washington was born isn’t one of them. Mr. Potts didn’t blink an eye, though. “It sure was. Do you know of the Evers family?”

  Both Jazz and I shook our heads.

  “This was passed down from generation to generation. Emily Tylo inherited it from her grandmother…” He went on to explain how the armoire had ended up at its present home with Emily Tylo, whoever she was.

  Finally Jazz got around to what interested him most. “How much is this worth?”

  Mr. Potts shook his head. “Don’t know, because it isn’t for sale. I don’t know what value an antique collector would put on it, but Emily Tylo values it plenty because it was her grandmother’s. If I were selling it, I wouldn’t take less than five thousand for it, just because of the hours of work I’ve put in.”

  I could see the number forming in Jazz’s head. Five thousand! Nothing gets a businessman’s attention like a lot of zeros. Mission accomplished. The hard part now was getting him away from Mr. Potts, who was taking advantage of having such an interested audience. Finally I just took hold of Jazz’s arm and started pulling him toward the door.

  “Thank you, Mr. Potts, we’ve interrupted you enough,” I called over my shoulder.

  He waved good-bye, and went back to work rubbing on the mahogany armoire.

  Jazz wasn’t dumb. He knew exactly why I’d taken him to see Mr. Potts. When we got in the car he said, “That was a real eye-opener.”

  I didn’t say anything, mainly because he was doing okay on his own, figuring things out. “I had no idea how much work refinishing is,” he murmured. “Sally always had something down in the basement that she was working on, so I never paid much attention to it. She didn’t seem to work on the stuff very much, though.”

  “That’s because she wouldn’t work on it while you were home. She always said she would rather spend the time with you.” Salt is good for wounds. Keeps them from going putrid.

  He winced, and spent several minutes looking out the window. We were almost back to his office before he spoke again. “She loved that old furniture, didn’t she?”

  “Yep. She’d spend months searching for the perfect piece.”

  His mouth worked a little, then he firmed it. After swallowing a couple of times he said belligerently, “I sup
pose you think I should apologize.”

  “Nope.”

  Surprised, he looked at me. “You don’t?”

  “I did before. I don’t now. Now, I think she should apologize to you first. Then you should apologize to her.” Okay, I was surprised myself. But it was true. Jazz had made a mistake in not paying more attention to his wife, then he’d made a mistake out of ignorance, but he hadn’t deliberately tried to hurt her. Sally had deliberately tried to hit him with the car. Wyatt was right; this was two different kinds of wrongs. Hurt feelings just didn’t equate with hurt bodies.

  On the other hand, I’d much rather deal with a concussion than the way I felt now, as if the bottom had dropped out of my world and I was in free fall. Heartsick had a very real meaning. I wouldn’t die of a decline if Wyatt and I broke up. I wouldn’t neglect my business, I wouldn’t become a nun; I save the dramatics for less important stuff, like getting my way, which, okay, is fairly important to me, but not life and death. But without him I wouldn’t be as happy, and maybe wouldn’t be happy again for a long time.

  I couldn’t do anything about that right now, but I could make some progress with Sally and Jazz.

  I parked in front of his building and we sat looking at it. “Some landscaping would help,” I finally said.

  He gave me a blank look.

  “The building,” I prodded helpfully. “It’s like an ugly little box sitting there. You need landscaping. And for God’s sake, get rid of that couch.”

  I can only do so much in one day, and the morning was almost gone. I did take a chance that I might catch Monica Stevens, and stopped by Sticks and Stones.

  Like I mentioned, glass and steel was her thing, her signature, and she was a popular decorator. I don’t get it myself, but then I don’t have to. Sticks and Stones, of course, was decorated in her style. I walked in and paused, giving myself time to stop shuddering before I actually spoke to anyone.

  A stick-thin, very chic woman in her forties glided toward me. “May I help you?”

  I gave her the full cheerleader smile, wide and white. “Hello, I’m Blair Mallory, owner of Great Bods. I’d like to speak to Ms. Stevens, if she’s available.”

  “I’m so sorry, but she’s out on a job. May I have her call you?”

  “Please.” I gave her one of my business cards, and left. There was nothing else to do until I spoke to Monica herself, and since she wasn’t there I now had time for lunch, as well as returning phone calls.

  I ate lunch first, on the theory that if I talked to Wyatt before I ate then I might not feel like eating. If I were going to be unhappy, then I’d need to keep my strength up.

  When I was back in the car I sat in the parking lot and—yes, I was procrastinating—returned Mom’s call first. Then Roberta’s. Mom reported that she’d finally run the wedding cake maker to earth and was negotiating an emergency deal with her. Roberta reported that the flowers were well in hand, she had a florist friend who was making the arrangements in her spare time, and I needed to get with her about my bouquet.

  I was almost in tears by the time I finished talking to them, because I didn’t know if the wedding would take place or not, but I had to pretend everything was hunky-dory. I couldn’t let myself cry because I didn’t want my nose to run, because if it did then I’d sound as if I’d been crying when I talked to Wyatt, which of course I would have been, but…never mind. It’s complicated.

  I hoped he wouldn’t answer. I hoped he was in the middle of a meeting with Chief Gray, or the mayor, and had his phone turned off, except I knew he never turned his phone off, he just set it to vibrate. So then I hoped he’d dropped his phone in the john. Obviously, I wasn’t finished putting off thinking about last night.

  But I called him. By the third ring, I was getting my hopes up that he wouldn’t answer. Then he answered. “Blair.”

  I’d sort of halfway planned what I would say, but when I heard his voice I forgot what I’d been planning. So I said something totally brilliant. “Wyatt.”

  He said drily, “Now that we have our identities sorted out, we need to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I’m not ready to talk. I’m still thinking.”

  “I’ll be at your place when you get off work.” He ended the call as abruptly as he’d answered.

  “Jackass!” I yelled, sudden fury shaking me, and I threw my phone onto the floorboard of the car, which of course accomplished nothing because then I had to fish it out. It’s a good thing I’m limber, because it’s a small car.

  I didn’t want to talk to him yet. The four remaining issues I hadn’t considered were so big I couldn’t quite face them. What I was most afraid of was that Wyatt would convince me to put this fight behind us and move on, then later these big issues would bite us in the ass. He could convince me, because I loved him. And he’d want to convince me because he loved me, too.

  That was what worried me. For the first time since realizing Wyatt loved me—I’d known for quite a while that I loved him, the jackass—I had real doubts that we could make a marriage work.

  Love by itself isn’t enough; it’s never enough. There had to be other things, such as liking and respect, or love would get worn away by the realities of everyday life. I loved Wyatt. I adored him, even the things that got me most up in arms, such as that aggressive drive to win that had made him such a good football player and extended to every facet of his character. Wyatt was strong enough that I didn’t have to rein in my own alpha tendencies; he could take anything I threw at him.

  One of the issues I hadn’t tackled yet was suddenly staring me in the face: Wyatt might not want to take everything I threw at him.

  Two years ago he’d walked away after just three dates because he’d decided I was too high maintenance—that is, not worth the trouble. When Nicole Goodwin was murdered two months ago in my parking lot and for a little while he thought I was the victim, that had forced him to admit that what we’d had going on between us was damn special, like lightning in a jar. So he’d come back and convinced me that he loved me, and we hadn’t been apart since, but—and this is a big “but,” Hottentot big—for two years he’d been perfectly content not to be with me. That had always irritated me, like a rash, and now I realized why.

  I hadn’t changed. I was just as high maintenance as I’d always been.

  He hadn’t changed, either. We had compromised in some things, we’d adapted in other ways, but essentially we were still the same people we’d been two years before, when I hadn’t been worth the trouble to him. These past couple of months, what I had seen as a deliciously fun jostling for position, maybe he’d just been enduring.

  There was evidently a lot about me that he either didn’t know, or didn’t like. And facing that was breaking my heart.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  “The security company called to set up an installation appointment,” Lynn said when I got to Great Bods, handing me a list of calls. “And I’ve worked up an ad for the newspaper for the assistant assistant-manager, since I figured you’d be too busy to take care of it with the wedding so soon. It’s on your desk.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Any complaints today?”

  “No, everything’s cool. What about you?” She gave me a shrewd look. “Anyone following you today?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.” Which was damn annoying, when you think about it. After following me for two days in a row, you’d think whoever was driving that damn white Malibu would show up the day after I had a big argument with Wyatt over whether or not it was really following me, right? I could then get Lynn to verify it was there, get a tag number, things like that. But no, there’s no such thing as an accommodating weirdo.

  After Lynn left, I forced myself to concentrate on the job. Being angry at Wyatt was good, so I focused on that feeling instead of the brokenhearted one, because anger is so much more productive. Angry people get things done. Brokenhearted people just sit around being brokenhearted, which I guess is okay if you want peo
ple to feel sorry for you.

  I’d rather be angry. I blew through the rest of the day, mowing down responsibilities and chores. For whatever reason, the clientele was on the sparse side that afternoon and night, giving me time to catch up on stuff, plus some real free time.

  For the first time since almost getting mowed down myself, I worked out; nothing jarring, no gymnastics or jogging, because I didn’t want to make friends with the headache from Hell again. I did an intensive yoga routine, working up a sweat, then I lifted some light weights, then I swam. I was sort of afraid I’d work off my temper, but not to worry; it was still nice and healthy when I finished.

  I wasn’t in a hurry to close up and go home that night. Not that I deliberately dawdled, you understand; I just didn’t hurry. If there was something that legitimately needed doing, I did it, and felt virtuous because I was so conscientious.

  I had never before felt uneasy about leaving the gym by myself at night, but that night I opened the door and looked around, making certain no one was lurking nearby, before I stepped out. Thank you, weirdo stalker, for making me afraid at my own place of business. “Afraid” is not a natural state for me, and I don’t do it well. It pisses me off.

  My car was alone under the parking awning, the way it had been a thousand other nights—I’m guessing here; I worry about people who sit and count things like how many nights they’ve worked—but tonight I was jumpy, and deeply grateful those bright lights illuminated every inch of the parking lot. After locking the door I hurried to my car, then locked the car doors as soon as I got in. The doors automatically lock when I put the car in gear, but that leaves, what, maybe five seconds when you’re vulnerable just sitting there? A lot can happen in five seconds, especially when you’re dealing with weirdos. As a group, they’re very fast. I guess it’s because they’re not weighed down with consciences.