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After picking up his cup and taking another drink of coffee, he pulled out the card she’d put in his pocket and looked at it.
Glory Be Antiques and Decorating.
* * *
GLORY STOOD AT the window of the shop, looking out at the town she’d left behind almost fifteen years before. Things had changed more than she’d expected them to, but from what she could tell since returning to town two weeks ago, it was still the Desperation she remembered.
It wasn’t only the town that she was thinking about, but her encounter with Dylan Walker four days earlier. Never, never had she ever used feminine tricks to lure anyone—especially a man—into doing something she wanted. But it couldn’t be helped. She’d promised his sister, who had warned her that he wouldn’t be receptive, that she would find a way to get Dylan to agree to let her restore and redecorate the house where Erin and her two brothers had grown up. Erin had explained that it needed some updating, but she didn’t trust Dylan to do it, much less do it right.
She hadn’t heard anything from Dylan since then, and she was beginning to worry. Erin was counting on her—and had paid her a hefty retainer she desperately needed. Even so, she didn’t feel right about barging into the house and taking over without his approval. And she sure hadn’t gotten that.
The sound of footsteps coming down the old wooden stairs that led to the upper floor of the building dragged her back to the present. Pushing her apprehension about the job aside, she hoped she didn’t appear worried.
“Did I hear the door?”
Putting a smile on her face, Glory turned around. “It was me, Gram. I stepped out for a little fresh air.” She hated having to tell a lie, but it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t want Gram to worry. “Did you find what you were looking for up there?”
Louise Gardner, wearing a pair of denim pants and an old shirt, appeared from behind a dusty curtain hiding the short hallway that led to the stairs. “No, but I found a lot of other things.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Her grandmother smiled and touched her light-colored graying hair. “Oh, I suspect it’s good. I’d forgotten your grandfather took to storing so much up there. Now that you’ve decided to open up an antiques shop along with your decorating, you won’t have to go looking for nearly as much to fill it with.”
“That is good news. If I don’t have to go out hunting for items to resell, it’ll save me time and money. So where do we start?”
“It’s up to you,” Louise said with a shrug. “We could go through what’s upstairs and weed out what’s good and what would be better thrown away.”
Glory moved to stand by the wood-burning stove that had once been in her grandfather’s workshop. Smiling at her grandmother, she said, “Maybe later.”
Louise moved to stand beside her. “This old thing brings back such memories.”
A stab of remorse cut through Glory for having once suggested they sell it, and she placed her hand on the old stove. “I don’t think we should put a price tag on it after all. Maybe we can make it a focal point of the shop. Give the place an old general store feel, with a fire glowing in it in the winter and chairs nearby for customers to stop in to chat and put their feet up.”
Her grandmother patted her shoulder. “And I’ll bet you think a barrel of pickles would top it off perfectly.”
“Or not,” Glory said, laughing at the silliness.
Pulling up a chair that needed to be stripped of old paint and stained, Louise settled on it and looked up at Glory with a light of expectation in her eyes. “It’s all going to come together, just you watch. You have what it takes to make a go of it. You always have.”
Glory felt a warm glow at her grandmother’s praise, and leaned down to put her arms around her shoulders. “Thank you, Gram.”
“I can hardly wait to see who your first client will be.”
“Our first client,” Glory corrected. But she wasn’t ready to mention that she already had a job lined up. Not until she was in the house and doing the work, just to be on the safe side. After all, if it hadn’t been for her grandmother’s building that had stood empty for several years, they wouldn’t even be talking about clients.
They both turned when the tiny bell above the door announced a visitor. “Why, hello,” Louise greeted, while giving Glory a questioning glance.
But Glory was too surprised to say anything.
“Afternoon, Miz Gardner,” the visitor said, nodding briefly at Glory’s grandmother as he touched the brim of his black cowboy hat.
“Why, Dylan Walker, I haven’t see you around for a—”
“Yes, what a surprise,” Glory said, effectively cutting off the chitchat she suspected her grandmother would launch into without any encouragement. After that would come the invitation to Sunday dinner, and she certainly didn’t want to go there. “Why don’t we step into the office?”
But Louise didn’t seem to hear. “Dylan, are you thinking of letting Glory work her magic on that wonderful old house of yours?”
Glory quickly spoke before he had a chance to answer her grandmother. “If you’ll just come with me, Dylan...”
He looked from one woman to the other, his attention finally settling on Glory. “I just have a couple of questions.”
“I really think we’ll be more comfortable in my office,” she tried again. After a brief hesitation, he followed her. “You’ll have to excuse everything. We haven’t had a chance to do much with the building. In fact, we aren’t officially open yet.”
He removed his hat, revealing his dark hair, and continued to stand. “Nice desk.”
It took a moment for her to realize what he’d said. “It was my grandfather’s.”
“I thought so.” He turned and pointed to the door. “That old wood burner out there, too?”
“Why, yes.” She knew she shouldn’t be surprised that he remembered one or the other. Her grandfather’s leather shop had been famous for miles in every direction. The workshop, where he’d done the leather work, still stood behind the building. It had been her favorite place to visit when she could escape from the pressures at home, but Gramps had been gone for many years, and she’d barely been able to step inside his workshop since he’d died.
“It’s nice of you to remember, Dylan. He had to give up the leather shop when the palsy got too bad to work.”
Dylan placed his hat on the desk. “Erin’s first saddle was one he’d made. I still remember how perfect the tooling was on it.”
“Gram still has many of the things he made.” And so had she, but she’d sold the last of them—her saddle—to Dylan’s sister to get the money needed to pay the back taxes on the building so her grandmother wouldn’t lose it.
Pushing the old memories deeper into her mind, she took a seat behind the desk and folded her hands on top of it. “What can I do for you, Dylan?”
“Like I said, I have a couple of questions.”
Determined to be pleasant, she smiled and dipped her head in a nod. “Of course.”
He continued to look at her, long and hard, making her skin prickle. “What experience do you have to complete this job my sister hired you for?”
It was her turn to stare. “I have a degree in art, if that’s what you mean.”
It was clear by his frown that he hadn’t expected that kind of answer, but it didn’t stop him. “Did my sister give you any instructions as to what to do if I refused to let you do any work on my house?”
Now she was in familiar territory. “As a matter of fact, she did warn me that you might not be receptive to having me there. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter if you’re there or not or whether you even want me there. I’ve been hired to do a job, and I intend to do it.”
He was silent for a moment, as if thinking about what she’d said. “When do you plan to start?”
Now they were getting somewhere. “As soon as possible.” His frown deepened, but she continued. “There won’t be any real work at first. I’ll need to take a look at the house and all the rooms, and take measurements of them. If you have specific ideas—”
“I don’t. This wasn’t my idea.”
There was nothing she could say that would change things, so she didn’t reply.
“How long will that take?” he asked.
She tried to quickly calculate the time and came up with a figure. “An hour, maybe an hour and a half, for the walk-through. Ballpark, of course. I’ll have a better idea of how long the real work will take after that, but I suspect it will take at least a month, probably two.”
He nodded, and she hoped the squint of his eyes and twist of his mouth was an indication that he was giving it all some thought. But there was no way of telling. She didn’t know him well enough.
“Then you don’t need me around for anything, right?”
The air in the room seemed much stuffier than when they’d first walked into the office, and she wished there had been a window to open. She’d also noticed that her heartbeat had kicked up a notch, the moment he’d stepped inside the shop, and it hadn’t let up yet.
“If you don’t want to be involved in the decisions, I can’t force you to.” She wasn’t crazy about the idea of redecorating a house when the person who lived in it didn’t have some kind of input, but it appeared that was the way it was going to be. She’d just have to hope that when she finished the job, he wouldn’t hate it.
“Fair enough.”
“So I have your permission to start?”
“Let’s say I won’t keep you from doing the job my sister hired you to do. How’s that?”
It wasn’t great, but it would do. “That’s all I need. I’ll start tomorrow morning.”
She pushed away from the desk and stood. He followed suit, and she realized that to seal this business agreement—or the possibility of it, anyway—he would expect to shake on it. With a temerity she didn’t feel, she stuck out her hand. She could have sworn that she saw one of his heavy, dark eyebrows lift just the slightest over his gorgeous green eyes, but he didn’t hesitate when he took her hand in his.
They stood there for what seemed like an eternity, the warmth of his grasp making her slightly dizzy. She was certain it wasn’t more than a second before he moved, yet didn’t release her hand.
With his other hand, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled something from it. He placed it on the desk, and she recognized her business card. “Interesting,” he said.
Completely lost in his green eyes, all she could say was a nearly incoherent “What?”
“The card,” he answered. “The Glory Be part.”
Her mind was working in slow motion. “Oh. Yes. Well, it was...catchy.”
Finally, he released her hand, picked up the card and returned it to his pocket. “Just in case.”
“Y-yes. Just in case.”
She watched as he replaced his hat, touched the brim of it with his index finger and turned to open the door and walk out of the office.
She was thankful her chair was available when her knees gave way.
* * *
DYLAN DIDN’T INTEND to notice the time as he parked the utility tractor next to his brother’s barn. But when he did, his first thought was to wonder if Glory had started what she’d called her walk-through.
He wasn’t completely convinced that he should have given her the okay to start working, but he really hadn’t been given a choice. Erin had made sure of that. Did he really want Glory traipsing through his house when he wasn’t there? Not that he thought she’d take anything or snoop around. But the idea of her being there alone just didn’t sit well with him. Maybe he should check on her, just in case. At least if Erin called, he could tell her what was going on, and that should keep her off his case.
After shutting off the tractor, he climbed down and headed for his pickup.
“You’re leaving already?” his brother called to him. “Hayley’s stopping by with one of Kate McPherson’s coffee cakes.”
Dylan shook his head and opened the door of the truck. “Can’t. I’ve got to get...” He needed an excuse. “I have an appointment I need to get to.”
He was just sliding behind the wheel when Luke appeared at the door and closed it. “What kind of appointment? Are you sick?”
“Nah, nothing like that. Just...” He wasn’t quite sure what or how much to tell his brother, so instead, he answered with, “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Luke stepped away from the truck as Dylan turned the key and started the engine. “You’re sure you’re all right?” Luke asked.
“Positive,” he answered, knowing how much worry he’d caused his brother over the years.
“Okay.” But Luke didn’t look completely convinced.
With a quick nod, Dylan put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the road. During the short drive, he tried to think of how he might be able to get out of this crazy decorating deal his sister had dreamed up, but he knew the effort was useless. He knew Erin well enough to know that she wasn’t going to let this go. And maybe she was right. Maybe he needed this. Maybe they all did. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Turning into the long lane at his house, the first thing he noticed was the late-model sedan parked in front. With Glory nowhere in sight, he guessed she’d already gone inside. Climbing out of his truck, he headed for the enclosed porch, where he opened the wooden screen and stepped inside. For a moment, he hesitated, while his memories played their usual trick on him. His mother had had a green thumb, and the porch had always been filled with plants and flowers, often hiding the muddy boots and well-worn jackets and coats. The greenery was gone now, but it always took him a moment to accept it.
At the door that led from the porch to the kitchen, he noticed how badly it needed a coat of paint, much like everything else around the house. Since the death of his parents in a car accident, fifteen years before, he and his brother had focused on making the ranch the best they could, believing that was what their mom and dad would have wanted. But he’d ignored the house. Erin was right. It needed some work.
Opening the door, he stepped into the kitchen and stopped. Glory stood at the kitchen table with a camera in her hand, while she made notes on the papers in front of her.
She greeted him with a smile and put her pen on the table. “I hope it was all right that I let myself in. I looked around for you, and knocked on the door several times, but when no one answered...” She finished with a shrug.
He felt the first embers of anger, but quickly put them out. What did he expect her to do when he wasn’t around? “I forgot you were going to be here,” he said, but it was a lie.
“This house is amazing,” she said, taking a step back away from the table and looking around the room.
In that briefest of moments, he saw the place through the eyes of a stranger. Embarrassed that he’d let things go so much, he wasn’t sure what to say. “The folks weren’t into fixing things up fancy.”
“No, it isn’t that. It’s just... Well, to begin with, I haven’t seen wallpaper like this for, oh, I don’t know how long.”
He took in the pattern of green ivy on the wall, and then the rest of the room. None of the appliances were anywhere near new. There was nothing as fancy as a dishwasher, and a large chest freezer took up most of one wall. But he’d never cared before, so why should he now?
“This table and chairs,” she said with a sigh, from behind him.
He turned to look at the old chrome-and-vinyl kitchen set where his family had eaten every meal. “Yeah, it probably needs to be thrown out.”
“Not necessarily,” she said, but she frowned. “They’re definitely retro, and people are looking for this type of thing. I wish they were in better condition.”
He immediately stiffened at the slight. “The wallpaper’s going, too, I suppose.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Looking up, she smiled at him again. “Don’t look so worried,” she said, reaching out to put her hand on his arm. “I know what I’m doing.”
He stared at her hand as the warmth of her touch snaked up his arm. Opening his mouth to tell her that she had no idea what she was doing to him, he immediately shut it again. He wasn’t sixteen years old, and he had better sense than to let that perfume she was wearing—or her touch—get to him.
He cleared his throat as she pulled her hand away. “What about the appliances?” he asked. “Do I keep those?”
“That will depend on how much you want to upgrade.”
Money hadn’t been a problem for him and his brother for several years. They’d made out better than they’d ever thought they would. But he wanted this decorating thing to be over with as soon as possible.
