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“Yes.”
Though she had owned all of the inventory before she’d decided to open up the shop, Melanie had insisted that Joyce become equal partners with her. It seemed only fair, seeing how many hours they both put in. Besides, it felt right, and Melanie always went with what felt right. Like her friendship with Joy. Living on the same street, they’d been friends since before kindergarten. Actually, only Joyce had gone to kindergarten. Melanie had remained home, to learn at her mother’s elbow. Her mother’s and Aunt Elaine’s, as well as several tutors her mother had brought in.
Melanie was firmly convinced that she’d learned far more from the two women, about life and surviving as well as the usual subjects, than she ever would have in a school where knowledge was contained within four walls and within the pages of books. Her classroom had been the world in general and the movie set in particular. Or rather, behind the movie set, where drama and magic, make believe and truth played equal parts.
“Then these citations belong to you.” Removing the sheet from the clipboard, Lance handed it to her. It listed five direct violations of the fire code, and he knew he could have given her more.
Melanie glanced down at the sheet, then back up at the man who had given it to her. She shared a little of Joy’s confusion. “You’re a fire inspector?”
“Yes, and your shop, Ms. McCloud, is a fire waiting to happen.” Disapproval was etched on his chiseled, rigid features. Though some might find a place like this charming, Lance didn’t care for small, cluttered places. He liked wide-open spaces. The less people allowed junk to pile up, the less fuel there was for a fire and the less likely it would be for a fire to break out.
With the tip of his pen, Lance pointed toward the four huge boxes that had been delivered this morning. “Do you even realize that you’re blocking an exit with that stack of crates? If there was a fire, someone could be hurt because of your carelessness.”
The delivery man who’d brought in the shipment had looked and sounded as if he was coming down with a cold. Taking pity on him, Melanie had sent him away after he’d dropped off the crates right inside the rear of the shop rather than in the storeroom. Customers had arrived, and she just hadn’t gotten around to putting the crates into the storeroom.
Melanie eyed the inspector. The complaint seemed minor enough to her. Rules, except for the very basic ones, were meant to be a little flexible. Surely he could cut her a little slack. John Kelly always had. A kind, jovial man in his late fifties, the other fire inspector and she had hit it off the first time he’d walked into her shop. But then, he was an old movie buff, and they’d found a great deal to talk about even before he’d discovered that she’d practically grown up in movie studios.
“Yes, but—”
If she thought she could talk her way out of this, she was in for a surprise. He wasn’t a pushover, the way the recently retired inspector had been. Lance had seen the power of fire, watched it as it licked its way through a lifetime’s worth of possessions in less than ten minutes. There were no second chances with fire, no time to bargain or talk your way out of the havoc it brought.
Lance shook his head. “There is no ‘but,’ Ms. McCloud. Something is either a fire hazard or it isn’t. And that,” he tapped the pile of crates nearest him for emphasis, “is a fire hazard. If you had a fire,” he repeated pointedly, “and the people in your store tried to get out this way, they could be burned to death.” Glancing around, he judged that the whole place could go up like a tinderbox.
There was no reason to feel a fire would start here, Melanie thought. No one was allowed to smoke in the shop, and she’d just had the wiring checked, although, she noticed, according to the stone-faced inspector’s findings, the light switch in the storeroom was suspect.
“They could use the front door,” she suggested, trying her best to remain cheerful.
He knew better. Firsthand. “What if that way was inaccessible?”
He made Melanie think of someone who’d had what he believed to be an epiphany and now knew the “right” way when everyone else around him was still groping around in the dark. Rather than become irritated, she felt rather sorry for him. Inflexibility was a cross.
“Then I’d push the crates aside,” she responded easily to his question, still hoping to coax him into a smile.
Lance’s eyes narrowed until they were two gleaming points of a very sharp sword. “Fire isn’t a joke, Ms. McCloud.”
“I never said it was.” Melanie glanced at his name written in small, precise letters on his badge and cocked her head. “Do you have a hearing problem, Lance?”
Annoyance deepened the tiny furrow between his brows. He didn’t care for the way she made the leap from being a stranger to someone who was on a firstname basis with him. “No, why?”
“Well, you didn’t hear me when I asked you to call me Melanie, and you obviously thought you heard me say that fire was a joke when I didn’t.” She raised and lowered one slim shoulder. “I just thought that perhaps you had trouble hearing things.”
Melanie glanced over her shoulder. The woman she’d left standing before the wall of photographs was still there. Reading her body language, Melanie knew she was ready to make her purchase. Momentarily ignoring Lance, Melanie placed her hand on Joy’s arm.
“I think that lady’s about to buy something, Joy.” She nodded toward the customer. “Why don’t you go over there and wait on her?”
There was nothing Joyce wanted to do more than to get as far away from the man with the dark, accusing eyes as possible. He made her feel guilty even when she hadn’t done anything. But she didn’t want to leave Melanie to cope with him by herself, either. Though she was younger than Melanie by several months, Joy felt very protective of her. Walking away right now would be tantamount to tossing a babe to the wolves.
Chewing her lower lip, Joy weighed obligation against self-preservation. “I don’t know, Mel—”
Melanie placed both hands on Joyce’s shoulders and turned her around toward the woman. “Never keep a customer waiting, remember?” She gave Joyce a little push in the right direction. “It’s okay,” Melanie assured her with confidence. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”
Melanie turned toward Lance as Joyce made her escape. “Isn’t it?”
He shrugged noncommittally. “After you pay your fine, that’s up to you.”
Stubborn, that was the word for him, she thought. Still, she was nothing if not optimistic. Melanie approached the offending stack. “Why don’t you just let me move these crates, and then you can erase the check marks on that line? I was planning to put them in the storeroom, anyway, after I close up tonight.”
Yeah, right, Lance thought. He’d heard that excuse before.
There was a dolly standing against the wall. Melanie began to scoot it under the bottom of the stack, but Lance laid a hand on her arm to stop her.
Fool woman was going to get a hernia, or have her head cracked open with a flying crate Lance thought in disgust. Not his problem, he reminded himself, releasing her. His job was to cite fire code violations, not poor judgment.
When she raised eyes the color of crystal spring water in January and looked up at him, it took Lance a moment to remember what he was saying.
He cleared his throat. “That’s not how I operate, Ms. McCloud.”
Melanie moved the dolly back into place and sighed. He was going to be a tough nut to crack, to use one of Aunt Elaine’s favorite sayings. He seemed determined to keep this on a cold, impersonal level. Okay. For now.
Melanie tried her best to be cooperative. “Just how do you operate, Lance?”
When she called him by his first name, she mysteriously seemed to take away some of his leverage. He meant to get it back.
“That’s Inspector Reed.” An efficient movement of his hand drew her eyes to his badge.
He could almost feel her eyes scanning his name and absorbing only the part she wanted to. The woman clearly had selective vision. You’d think that with eyes like that, he mused, she could see everything. Not only were they the lightest shade of blue he’d ever seen, they were also the most intense.
So intense that they looked capable of seeing straight into a man’s mind.
Now there was a stupid thought, Lance upbraided himself. Where the hell had that come from? He wasn’t here to scrutinize eyes; he was here to judge whether or not her premises were safe for the public that entered them. If they weren’t, he had the power to shut her down. If they were, he was to move on. Simple.
“And the way I operate,” he continued, rousing himself, “is by the book.”
A “by-the-book” man. She’d already guessed that part herself. Melanie wondered just how long he’d been on the job and what it would take to make him smile. She bet he had a really nice smile if he made the effort.
Her mouth curved, as if to coax a mimicking response from him. Maybe he just needed some encouragement and an example to follow. “And the book says you can’t erase a check mark after you made it?”
His eyes narrowed again. “Only if I made it in error.”
She placed her hands on the dolly’s red handles, her indication clear. All it would take was a few minutes, the time to juggle a little space. “Well?”
Lance knew if he bent the rules for her, he’d have to bend them for everyone. He wasn’t about to do that. Besides, in the long run, he was doing her a favor. She couldn’t afford to be haphazard when it came to the possibilities of a fire. No one could.
He shook his head. “No error. The check stays. As do these.” Moving closer to her, he pointed out several other lines he’d marked off. The scent of something light and airy wafted around him. Was that her, or something in the store, he wondered. There was something very old-fashioned about the scent. It nudged at a memory that was too far removed to catch.
“Where’s John Kelly?” Melanie asked suddenly.
“Not here,” was the only answer Lance felt she needed to know. “But I am, and you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of your flagrant disregard for your customers’ safety—and make amends.”
He made it sound like an ultimatum. She almost expected him to add, “Or get out of Dodge.”
Something egged her on to ask, “Or else what?”
She was challenging him, he thought. Not a smart move. “People who don’t follow fire ordinances find themselves shut down.”
Melanie stared at him in disbelief. Was he actually saying what she thought he was saying? “You’d shut me down?”
“Not personally, but that would be the upshot.”
It wouldn’t go that far. Confident that she could handle this to everyone’s satisfaction, Melanie indulged the burst of curiosity she was experiencing. It wasn’t often she encountered someone so solemn and self-righteous. What was his story? Everyone had a story, and she found herself wanting to know his. He wouldn’t give it up easily. He was the type to guard his privacy zealously. She’d always been a sucker for the forbidden.
“Tell me, Lance,” Melanie began, and saw a wary look entering the fire inspector’s eyes, “what does it take for you to do something personally?”
Chapter Two
The question took him aback.
Was she making him an offer she thought he couldn’t refuse in exchange for eliminating the violations? His first answer to himself would have been yes, but there was something in her eyes that made him unsure. Lance didn’t know exactly what to make of the woman in front of him, then decided it didn’t matter one way or the other. His job description was clear.
In one smooth movement he signed his name to the bottom of the report. Finished, he spared her a glance.
“A lot more than anything I find here,” he said tersely, in response to her question. Pulling the sheet from his clipboard, he handed it to her. “I’d see to this fine if I were you.”
She was still looking at him as if the fine and the violations that generated them were secondary to her. As if there was something else on her mind, something that, for whatever unfathomable reason, had to do with him. Maybe it was childish of him, but he’d be damned if he was going to look away first.
“That is, if you don’t want to be closed down,” Lance emphasized again.
Two women in separate parts of the store turned around immediately. Lance had no idea that he’d raised his voice until one of them asked, “Closing?” Her eyes were almost glowing as she looked around the cozy setting. “Does that mean you’re going to be having a closing sale?”
“No, and we’re not closing, either.” Melanie offered the woman an easy smile. Turning, she shared the smile with Lance. The look he returned was grim. “The gentleman was talking about closing time. We plan to stay right here for a very long time.” She gave that assurance to Lance as well as to the customers in the store.
Lance used the interruption to look away from her. He had the oddest, queasiest feeling when she’d been looking at him, almost as if she were offering him sympathy. It was a completely ridiculous idea, but he couldn’t seem to shake it.
Lance handed her the citation form. “Then I’d see about those violations if I were you. You have thirty days to get to them.” He tucked the clipboard under his arm and turned to leave.
“Does that mean you’ll be back?” she asked as he walked away.
“I’ll be back,” he assured her, though he wasn’t looking forward to it, he added silently as he got to the door. Behind him he heard the scraping sound as she pushed the dolly under the stack of boxes.
“I’ll be waiting.”
She sounded almost cheerful about it, he thought. This visit obviously hadn’t gone well. Why would she welcome another one?
More scraping noise. Somehow, he managed to hear it above the soft music and the low hum of voices in the shop. Lance had an uneasy feeling that he knew what the McCloud woman was up to. Not his business if the slip of a woman wanted to get a hernia or worse, he thought again. The tiny bell overhead tinkled softly as he opened the front door, announcing his exit. The sound seemed to mock him. But he was here to do an inspection, not help her clear away one of her violations. That was the job of whatever poor unfortunate slob she corralled.
Lance liked to think he would have made it out the door if the beveled glass hadn’t caught her reflection and flashed it up at him in an almost blinding light. But it did, and his mistake, he realized too late, was to stop and look.
As he’d thought, she was trying to get the dolly under the first pile of crates by herself. Straw had more sense than she did.
For a second he debated leaving her to it, but he couldn’t, in good conscience, just keep walking. Aunt Bess had trained him all too well. With a sigh, Lance let the door go and marched back to the annoyingly cheerful woman in the rear of the store.
Melanie could feel a bead of perspiration beneath her bangs as she fought to angle the dolly into position beneath the crates. Another woman would have given up, but another woman wouldn’t have wanted to run this sort of shop, either. A place where people came to talk, as much as to buy.
She should have let the delivery man do at least this part of it, Melanie thought, brushing back her bangs before they pasted themselves to her forehead. That’s what she got for being softhearted. Not that she really could be any other way. She’d accepted that as part of her nature a long time ago. Some people moved the earth with muscle, others did it with a smile. She chose to take the second path, although she prided herself on being no slouch when it came to strength. She just never muscled in on people, that’s all.
Straining, she finally managed to get the platform solidly beneath the bottom crate. Melanie was just beginning to brace herself before attempting to hoist the load when she felt the elbow in her side. It wasn’t a gentle nudge, more like an out-and-out takeover.
“Are you out of your mind, trying to do this by yourself?”
The inspector was back, coming to her rescue despite his annoyed question. Melanie tried to suppress the smile that rose to her lips and only partially succeeded. Whoever had named him Lance knew what they were doing.
Lance had taken off his jacket as he’d made his way to the rear of the store and slung it now over the back of a forest green wing chair. With two neat moves, he’d folded up his sleeves.
All her life Melanie had been taught that while people were kinder than they liked you to believe, the best person to rely on in any given situation was herself. She took this approach even with Joy, who was the first to admit that though she was the taller of the two, she was a weakling. This wasn’t the first shipment that Melanie had wrestled with on her own.
She shrugged in reply to his reprimand. The man’s heart was in the right place, but his attitude needed some fine tuning before it could claim the same thing.
“I’m stronger than I look,” Melanie told him.
She was still holding on to the handles. Was he going to have to pry them out of her hands?
Lance looked at her expectantly as his hand covered hers. After a beat, Melanie withdrew hers, that same funny little smile he didn’t know what to make of on her lips.
“Harder-headed at any rate,” he allowed. “Move out of the way,” Lance ordered when she remained standing where she was. “This isn’t a two-man job, and even if it were, you wouldn’t be one of them.”
Obliging him, Melanie raised both hands in a sign of surrender as she stepped to the side. But she was grinning as she did it. “Is that your way of telling me I’m petite and delicate?”
Where had she gotten that interpretation from? Lance wondered. She’d twisted his words into a compliment, when he’d meant nothing of the sort. Although he had to admit, looking at her, that she was both petite looking and delicate. But noting that hadn’t been his intent.
He scowled at her. She was making him late for his next appointment. Lance sincerely missed the routine solitude of his work and hoped they’d find a replacement for Kelly soon.
“That’s my way of telling you to get out of the way.” He could feel his muscles straining as he kept the dolly level and at an angle. What the hell was she thinking of, trying to work this? “You probably hear a lot of that,” he couldn’t help adding. How had she even managed to wedge the platform under the pile of crate? Glancing at her, he decided that maybe she was stronger than she looked. “Where do you want this to go?”
“In the storeroom.” Melanie pointed to the back, then realized that he had to know where it was. “But I imagine that you’re already acquainted with where that is.”
Yeah, he was “acquainted” with her storeroom. “Violations three and four,” he muttered, struggling to turn the dolly around. What did she have in this boxes, anyway, anvils? They were a lot heavier and more unwieldy than they looked. If he wasn’t careful, the whole stack was going to collapse. Lance didn’t particularly like the prospect of getting egg on his face.
Melanie saw the way his muscles were straining as he pushed the dolly. “I really appreciate you stopping to do this for me.”
He only grunted in reply, his expression telling her that he didn’t think much of her gratitude. Melanie moved in front of him, hurrying to open the door. Holding it with her back, she watched as he pushed the first stack of crates into the room. He accomplished that a lot faster than she would have, she thought.
He looked around for a likely spot. “Where do you want this?”
Melanie left the door open, letting more air in. When he’d passed her, the room temperature had suddenly felt a great deal hotter to her. He was radiating heat, and it left her just the tiniest bit unsettled.
“Wherever I won’t get violations five and six,” she answered cheerfully, gesturing around the room.
With a dark look Lance angled the dolly out from beneath the bottom box, leaving the pile stacked in the middle of the floor.
