Random Acts Of Fashion

“Oops. Sorry. My little girl is paging me. Be right back.”

Molly disappeared into the kitchen and Gillian picked up her coffee cup and strolled around the restaurant. The place was kind of cute with its green gingham curtains and tiny oak tables. Quaint. And the coffee was excellent. When she saw that the beans were sold by the pound, she resolved to buy some to take back to the shop. She was going to be up half the night again, working. On nights like this one was going to be, coffee was a girl’s best friend.

In fact, she could use another cup right now. After a few minutes of waiting for a refill, Gillian followed the sounds through the kitchen, out the open back door and into a small fenced-in yard. Molly was bending over a little girl with blond curls and the face of a little angel.

“She’s gorgeous!” Gillian exclaimed. “What’s her name?”

“This is Chloe. Chloe, say hi to Gillian.”

Chloe babbled something incoherently adorable. “Oh, she’s so sweet!” said Gillian. “How old is she?”

“Fifteen months. Be careful where you walk, it’s a little muddy out here from the rain yesterday.”

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I came out here. I could hear the two of you just babbling away and I thought that since I’m going to be practically a neighbor it’d be okay for me to join in on the girl talk.”

Molly lifted Chloe out of the playpen. “No, of course I don’t mind. I apologize for abandoning you like that. This is a slow time of day for Sweet Buns. I’ve got a few high school girls who help out when it’s busy. Now that Chloe is walking, she gets a little restless penned up sometimes.”

She put her down on the grass. Chloe immediately went toddling off toward the fence at the back of the yard. The child had excellent taste, Gillian thought. Beyond the fence and across a small sand beach, the bay glittered in the late September sun like the two-carat tanzanite Gillian had seen in the window at Tiffany’s.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Gillian said. “You should offer al fresco dining.”

“Someday, maybe,” Molly said. “When Chloe’s older and I have more time to devote to the business.”

Gillian had a million questions to ask about how business was and what the peak hours were at the department store down the street, but the sound of Chloe squealing in delight grabbed her attention. The little girl was toddling with rather alarming speed toward her, gurgling happily about something and waving her little fists up and down.

“She’s absolutely, seriously adorable,” Gillian gushed, truthfully. Not that Gillian wasn’t capable of gushing untruthfully if it might be good for business. But she really did think Chloe was cute.

As Chloe tottered closer, Gillian squatted down and held out her arms to welcome the little cherub. “Come on, Chloe,” she cooed. “Come to—”

Chloe squealed, drew back her fisted hands, and let them fly. It turned out that Chloe’s little fists hadn’t been empty.

Splat!

Gillian’s mouth dropped open as mud spattered all over her trousers.

“Chloe!” Molly yelled. “Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe she did that! I’m so sorry!”

Chloe giggled and ran back for more mud.

Before she could reach the puddle again, Molly scooped her up and deposited her back into the playpen.

“Gosh! I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Gillian. Is it washable?”

Gillian looked at Molly like she’d just spoken a foreign language. “Washable? Of course it’s not washable!”

“Oh. Well, then, I’ll pay for the dry cleaning. I’m just so sorry.”

Gillian could see that Molly really was upset, and besides, Chloe was seriously adorable. And it wasn’t like Molly had actually invited her into the backyard. Gillian was really sort of trespassing. “Don’t worry about it, Molly,” she finally said. “It’s not your fault. I’m like a walking disaster area today. This is my second accident. See that scuff on my boot? This big blond giant working at the hotel dropped a load of lumber on me.”

“Um—blond giant?” Molly asked.

Something about the way Molly sounded made Gillian look at her. That’s when she noticed the resemblance. Molly was tall and large-boned with blond hair and warm brown eyes.

“Don’t tell me—Lukas McCoy is your brother.”

Molly nodded. “Jones is my married name. Gosh, now I feel even worse. The McCoy family hasn’t exactly given you a warm welcome, have they?”

“Don’t be silly. You’ve been great. Your brother, however. Well—he was a bit churlish.”

“Lukas? Wow, that’s not like him.”

Gillian already knew that but she saw no point in trying to explain the no-smile zone to Molly.

“Now that I know Lukas ruined your boot, you really have to let me pay for the suit.”

“Don’t be silly. When the mud dries, it’ll probably brush right off.”

Molly bit her bottom lip. “You really think so?”

Gillian grimaced. “Uh—no. Probably not. But I don’t want you to feel bad about it, okay? Really.”

“Well, let’s get you something to eat on the house, at least.”

She followed Molly inside and sat on a stool at the counter while Molly made her the most delicious chicken salad sandwich she’d ever tasted.

“Why is this so fabulous?” she asked as she took another bite.

“It’s the apricot chutney,” Molly answered.

“This sandwich almost makes it worth the mud pie appetizer.”

Molly laughed. “I’m glad you think so. But wait until you have a sweet bun.”

“Oh—no. I couldn’t.”

“Sure you can! I’ll get you another cup of coffee, too.”

Despite her protests, when Molly set the frosted cinnamon bun in front of her, Gillian just had to taste it.

As soon as she took the first bite, she knew that a scuffed boot and a mud-spattered suit weren’t her only problems. Losing the next five pounds was going to be next to impossible—unless she stayed away from Sweet Buns.

“I’M TELLING YOU, Mother, it’s like the McCoy clan has set out to destroy me. This morning that big lug Lukas McCoy nearly dropped a truckload of lumber on my feet. He absolutely ruined those crocodile boots. Then his niece, who is seriously adorable I might add, threw mud all over one of my best designs. And then his sister, Molly, introduces me to the most incredible cinnamon buns I have ever tasted.” Gillian paused to swipe her finger over the frosting on the bun Molly had insisted on sending home with her along with a pound of coffee. With the best intentions, she was planning on saving the bun for breakfast. The temptation was killing her.

On the other end of the phone line, her mother laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Gilly. That last one doesn’t exactly sound like an act of destruction.”

Gillian finished licking the frosting off her finger before answering, “That last one could prove very destructive to my waistline.”

“You worry too much about your weight, Gilly.”

Gillian sighed and swirled her finger into the frosting again. She had long resigned herself to the fact that her girl-hood dream of being a model would never come true. She was too short—by model standards, anyway. Five foot four. And both her bottom and her top were far too curvy to ever strut her stuff on the runway. But she had certain standards to maintain. “When you’re a housewife in New Jersey, Mother, a couple of pounds isn’t going to make a difference. Like the PTA is going to care? But in the fashion industry—”

“In the fashion industry there should be someone who designs for women with fannies and breasts, Gilly. I bet there are a lot of women with fannies and breasts in Timber Bay who would be willing to buy—”

“Mother, if you say cute little housedresses or caftans I swear I will scream.”

Bonnie Caine laughed. “I doubt even the women in Timber Bay still wear housedresses, Gilly. I just think that instead of starving yourself so you can wear what you design, you should design stuff for women who eat more than fruit and carrot sticks.”

Gillian looked longingly at the cinnamon bun as her finger hovered above what was left of its thick white frosting. If this kept up, the poor thing was going to be naked come morning.

“Mother, my mission is to influence the fashion sense of women who think Chanel is something you get on your television set. How can I possibly do that if I become one of them?”

“My darling daughter,” her mother said in a dryly amused tone, “I don’t think there is any danger of that ever happening.”

Gillian decided not to rise to the bait of her mother’s teasing. “How’s Binky?” she asked instead.

Her mother filled her in on the health and welfare of Binky, the family’s twelve-year-old golden retriever, and then on her brothers—all four of them. Then her father butted in on the basement extension and told her, yet again, how he was glad that Ryan was finally out of her life but how he still wished she would have dragged that SOB into court and taken him for everything he had. After he filled her in on the latest skirmish at the boilermakers’ union, everyone said goodbye.

As soon as Gillian hung up the phone she felt a stab of homesickness. Yet when she’d gone back to the little blue-collar New Jersey town where she’d grown up after being jilted and swindled, she’d felt less like she belonged there than ever before. She no longer belonged in Manhattan, either. But Timber Bay?

She wandered over to the window in Aunt Clemintine’s living room and looked down onto Sheridan Road. It was late afternoon and the setting sun had streaked the clouds with pink and gold. The Road was bustling with people heading home for the day. Across the street at Sweet Buns, Molly was turning the sign hanging in the door around to read Closed—probably getting ready to go upstairs with little Chloe for the evening.

“Chloe,” Gillian groaned out loud. Mud pies! Served all over the outfit that was supposed to be the centerpiece of her Pastel-Metallic collection. The duster was salvageable. But the pants were a mess. Which meant that Gillian had better get back to work.

As soon as she ran down the stairs and through the door that led to the workroom behind the shop, she felt at home. As much of a misfit as she’d been as a kid, she’d always felt completely comfortable in the back room of her aunt’s dress shop. Aunt Clemintine had taught her all she knew about garment construction. They’d spent wonderful, happy hours together, making clothes for Gillian and her doll. Her family was blue collar and money hadn’t exactly been growing on trees, but Gillian, thanks to Aunt Clemintine, had dressed like a million bucks.

But it wasn’t only the clothes, it was the attention that made her love to visit Aunt Clemintine so much. Back at home, she was the middle child, crowded on both sides by two younger and two older brothers. So around their house it was jock central. Her parents were loving and wonderful, but a little girl who didn’t like sports pretty much got overlooked and out-voiced. Aunt Clemintine, a childless spinster, gave Gillian a place to be safe while she discovered who she was and what she wanted to be. And what she wanted to be was as different as she could possibly be from anything like home.

Unfortunately, as Gillian grew older, Aunt Clemintine and the dress shop got lumped in with everything that Gillian wanted to leave behind. When Aunt Clemintine had died a few years ago and left Gillian the shop, Gillian was touched. But she could just never see herself claiming her inheritance and taking up residence in Timber Bay.

Now she didn’t know how she could have stayed away as long as she had.

The workroom welcomed her warmly, just as it always did. The little puffy calico pincushions scattered about the workspaces. The smell of new cloth, not yet handled or wrinkled. She ran her hand over a bolt of ivory silk and closed her eyes at the feel of it. By the time she opened them, she was smiling again.

The workroom was exactly where she needed to be right now. And not just because she still had clothing to finish before the opening, but because hitting the streets of Timber Bay for the first time hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped and talking to her mother and father had left her a little lonely.

“Come here, you gorgeous piece of goods, you,” she purred to the bolt of silk as she picked it up. “I think tonight is your night to become Cinderella.”

Several hours later, the ivory silk was sliding over her head and floating down her body. Gillian ran out to the dark shop, switched on the light, then closed her eyes as she made her way to the triple mirror near the dressing room, her arms out straight, palms extended. She’d played this scene over and over again as a little girl. She used to be able to find that mirror walking blind. Her outstretched palms hit the cool glass and she smiled. She’d gone right to it.

When she opened her eyes, she was still smiling. The dress looked spectacular. The front neckline draped low enough to show just a hint of décolletage. The back dipped even lower—nearly to her waist—and ended in a flirty bow. The bodice was fitted and the calf-length skirt was full and fluttery. Grace Kelly meets the twenty-first century. Exactly the effect she had been going for.

Gillian stood on tiptoes to try to envision how the skirt would fall if she was wearing high heels, then remembered that she’d brought down a pair of silver strappy sandals the night before. She scampered around the shop till she found them in a corner, then went back to the mirror.

Perfect.

“You are going to look so terrific in the window,” she told the dress. “With that vintage faux pearl jewelry. And maybe a soft pink wool stole to go with the neon sign. Or a cloak. Pink cashmere.”

She pursed her lips wryly and shook her head at her reflection. Talk about dreaming big.

“Well, pink something,” she told herself, refusing to let the price of cashmere ruin the moment. Pink like the Glad Rags logo and sign.

And that reminded her. She hadn’t yet seen the new sign after dark. Gillian threaded her way through unpacked cartons, naked mannequins and hatless hat stands, to the front door. She unlocked it and went outside.

There it was, glowing across the display window in lovely pink neon. Glad Rags. The sight of it put a huge grin on her face and made her twirl around in delight. Quickly, she looked around to make sure there were no witnesses to her less-than-sophisticated display of girlish goofiness.

Not a soul in sight. Different from Manhattan as silk from corduroy. Yet she felt hopeful for the first time in months. Gillian was nearly giddy as she ran across the street to see what the sign looked like from farther away. Maybe it was the air. It was crisp and pure with a tang of water in the wind. The hotel blocked the bay from sight, but she could still hear the waves faintly. Still feel the presence of it on her skin. She started back across the street but paused midway to look up at the sky. So many stars. Even when she was a kid in New Jersey, there hadn’t been so many stars in the sky. She picked out the brightest one and closed her eyes.

“I wish,” she whispered….

That’s when she heard the noise—quickly followed by the feel of the ground beneath her feet shifting jerkily.

And the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air.

She put out her arm to break her fall and felt the jar of the impact all the way up to her shoulder. She grimaced as her palm scraped against the concrete. For a minute, everything went out of focus and then her sight cleared and she saw the dark bulk of a man emerging from the concrete.

“I promised to make you a Cinderella,” she murmured to the silk that seemed to have turned into a cloud around her. “But that doesn’t look at all like Prince Charming.”

He looked more like some sort of beast who made his home in the bowels of the earth. He kept rising and rising and rising, and it was making Gillian dizzy as hell to have to look up so high. Or was it the pain that suddenly shot through her arm when she tried to move? Either way, Gillian did something she’d never done before.

She fainted.

2

ABOVE THE NOISE of the manhole cover clattering to the street, Lukas heard another sound. High-pitched. Like a woman’s squeal.

“Did you hear that?” he asked the big orange tabby cat that was tucked under his arm. The cat flattened its ears and growled. Lukas let go of it and it shot off into the darkness. He hoisted himself out of the manhole and looked around.

The night was clear and crisp, the sky thick with stars. He turned slowly around, trying to remember what he’d learned as a kid about astronomy. All he remembered was that nothing looked like it was supposed to. The names made no sense to him at all. Except maybe the Big Dipper. He could always find that. Tonight it seemed full of stardust.

“You’re getting fanciful, Lukas. You better watch that,” he muttered to himself as he dragged the manhole cover back into place. He straightened up and that’s when he saw it. Something lying in the street. Something as bright and shimmery as a heap of stardust fallen from the sky.

When the heap of stardust moaned and shifted slightly Lukas went closer and found himself looking down at the body of Gillian Caine.

He sucked in his breath, then hunkered down next to her. “Gillian,” he said softly, touching her on the shoulder. She didn’t move. He found the pulse in her neck with his fingers. Oh man, was she soft. And her heart felt like it was beating pretty good, too. She moaned again and he snatched his fingers back. Her eyes stayed closed so he touched her hair for no good reason at all except that, there, just outside of the circle of light from a street lamp, it looked like it was shot with silver. She moaned again and her lashes fluttered.

“Gillian?” he repeated.

She smiled a little this time. A small, sweet smile. In fact, the princess looked altogether sweeter when she was passed out cold than she had when he’d seen her that afternoon.

She was wearing a pale dress made of something silky. It floated around her, settling in the swells and hollows of her body, and fluttered out around the curves of her calves. Her shoes were worthy of a princess, too. Glittery silver with tiny straps and skinny heels that were made out of something as transparent as glass.

“Gillian?” Still no response. He frowned. Shouldn’t she be coming to by now? He looked around the street. All the buildings were dark. Even the windows above Sweet Buns where his sister lived were dark. Molly must have already gone to bed. Timber Bay Memorial was only a mile or so down Ludington Avenue. Lukas figured he could get Gillian to the hospital himself in less time than it would take him to rouse Molly, use her phone, then wait for an ambulance to come.

Carefully he started to gather Gillian up in his arms. She felt so small. A wounded helpless creature. As he started to lift her, his nose brushed her neck. The scent of her shot through him like a craving. The urge was strong to bury his face in the soft crook of her neck. Just for a moment, he told himself.

“Who are you and why are you sniffing my neck?”

Lukas pulled his head back quick enough to give himself whiplash. He knew his face must be flaming.

“Lukas McCoy,” Gillian mumbled fuzzily. “I should have known.” She looked around, still obviously in a daze. “What am I doing in the middle of the road?”

Before he could answer, she started to get up and moaned loudly.

“Ohh—my arm. What happened?”

“Near as I can tell, you must have been standing on that manhole cover over there when I—”

Gillian gasped. “Now I remember! You were that beast who came up out of the concrete and sent me sailing into the air, aren’t you? What is it with you McCoys, anyway?”

“What does that mean?”

She shook her head. “Oh, never mind. Just help me up.”

Lukas helped her struggle to her feet.

“What were you doing, anyway?” she asked. “Lying in wait, hoping to get a second chance after your earlier attempt at crippling me failed?”

“Hey—that was an accident,” Lukas said a little bluntly—more bluntly than he should have. The bright idea of Gillian Caine being wounded and helpless was definitely losing its shine.

“Tell that to the thousand-dollar pair of boots you ruined. And I suppose this was an accident, too. Just you crawling out of the sewer after a day of Dungeons and Dragons?”

“I was down in the tunnel of love to—”

Gillian shot him a sharp look with those huge gray eyes. “The tunnel of what?” she asked him, scrunching up her nose. “Did you say the tunnel of love?”

Lukas hadn’t meant to say that. He felt foolish enough for knocking her flying and the knowledge that he’d wrecked a thousand bucks’ worth of leather wasn’t sitting too well, either. He didn’t relish the idea of trying to explain the legend of Timber Bay’s tunnel of love to the princess when she was acting more like the wicked queen. “Look, maybe we better see about getting you to a doctor,” he said as he took her gently by the other arm.

“I don’t need a doctor,” she said, pulling away from him and jostling her wounded arm in the process. “Ow!” She grimaced. “Okay, maybe I do need a doctor.”

“My truck is right across the street. I’ll take you.” Lukas didn’t know much about body language, but Gillian made it clear she didn’t want his help getting across the street. It was kind of amazing, really, he thought as he followed her to the truck, that she could walk like she did on a pair of heels like that after she’d just been out cold. She made it look as if balancing on three inches of acrylic was the most natural thing in the world.

He opened the door for her and tried to help her in, bumping her shoulder in the process.

“Ow!” she said again, as she shot an angry wounded look at him with those big gray eyes.

“Sorry,” he said as he dipped his head. “I guess I can be kind of a bull in a drugstore.”

“China shop,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Bull in a china shop. You said drugstore.”

“Oh—that’s because when I was twelve I was kind of big for my age and there was this sort of pyramid of perfume bottles stacked up on the counter at Ludington Drugs and one day I went charging right into them, breaking every last one. The whole town square smelled like lavender water for a week. Ever since then—” He gulped, wishing he’d stayed tongue-tied. She was looking at him like he’d gone around the bend. Which he must have because here he was standing in front of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and rattling on about his damn clumsiness after he’d just given her a demonstration of it by busting up her arm.

“Look,” she said. “I’m sure this folksy charm works on all the local girls, but I’ve got the disadvantage here of being in pain. Let’s save your life story for after I’m medicated, okay?”

Lukas clamped his mouth shut and managed to help her up into the truck and shut the door without jostling her again. When he went around to the other side and got in, the cab was already full of the scent of her skin. It tied his tongue up all over again. Good thing, too. Otherwise, the big-city princess might have managed to bite it the rest of the way off.

GILLIAN FUMED as the truck turned onto Ludington Avenue. Her arm was killing her and the big lug wasn’t even going to bother saying he was sorry. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Make that big adorable lug. That tousled hair the color of pale honey that fell over his fore-head in loose curls. That snub nose and small, sensual mouth. On another man it all might have looked wimpy. But on top of that big body, it just made him look like a small-town Tarzan. No—make that lumberjack. He worked with wood. She knew that much. She could smell it on him and there was sawdust on the plaid shirt he wore tucked into jeans that hugged his massive thighs and made his—

Gillian blinked. What in the name of Vogue magazine was she thinking? Well, she was thinking about what big, hard-looking thighs he had and about what they might feel like if she just reached out and…

This time she blinked and bit her lip at the same time. She deliberately jarred her arm just so she could feel the pain and remember that she had no business whatsoever ogling Paul Bunyan’s thighs.