Ain’t She Sweet?

“You have played fast and loose with my affections, ma’am. I could laugh at myself for having been so taken in. To be sure, I should have known what to expect from a member of your family.”

GEORGETTE HEYER, Devil’s Cub

Ryan waited until Winnie’s assistant left for lunch before he approached Yesterday’s Treasures. The bell over the door rang as he stepped inside. Winnie was alone, standing near the counter, arranging a display of antique dolls in a wicker carriage. She looked up, a welcoming smile fixed on her face until she saw who it was, and the smile disappeared. That made him so furious he flipped the sign on the door so it read closed, twisted the lock, and shot her a look that had badass written all over it.

He was rewarded with the first sign of wariness on her part, a small, almost imperceptible step backward. Good. He was tired of being the only one on edge.

“I’m expecting a delivery,” she said.

“Tough.”

“This isn’t a good time, Ryan. If you have something to discuss, we’ll do it later.”

“I have something to discuss, all right. And I don’t want to do it later.”

His bad temper came from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. He should be at his desk now, eating a ham sandwich from the cafeteria while he caught up on a stack of unread reports and a P & L he’d intended to finish three days ago. But his concentration was shot.

Nearly forty-eight hours had passed since he’d seen Sugar Beth at the Lakehouse, and Winnie hadn’t said a word about it, even though they’d spoken twice on the phone. He knew for certain that she’d heard the news. Deke had called to tell him that the Seawillows had flown off for an emergency powwow on Tuesday night. Too late, he wished he’d stopped at Gemima’s to fan the fire, but he’d walked right past without remembering that Sugar Beth had started working there. The truth was, he’d barely thought about Sugar Beth since Tuesday. He’d been too consumed with his resentment toward Winnie.

Her hair looked longer than he remembered, which was crazy, since she’d only left home four days ago. A tiny, jeweled clip, barely the size of his thumbnail, held her bangs back from her face on one side. She didn’t seem much older than Gigi, but she looked far less innocent.

He’d never paid much attention to her clothes. Her wardrobe was stylish, conservative, and at first glance her ivory-colored wrap dress seemed that way, too. Surely he’d seen her wear it before, so why had he never noticed the not-so-subtle way it clung to her body? She always complained that her legs were too short, but even without that ridiculously sexy pair of open-toed heels, they were more than long enough for his taste. Exactly long enough to wrap around his hips.

A flood of lust shot straight through him, not the familiar lust a husband feels for his wife, but something more sordid that evoked seedy motels and broken wedding vows. All you ever think of is sex! He’d been indignant when she’d thrown that at him, but he’d have a tough time defending himself now.

“Ryan, I really don’t have time to talk.”

“And I really don’t care.”

Her wariness increased. “Is there something specific . . .”

“How about the fact that my wife’s moved out, my daughter alternates between clinging to me like a burr and refusing to come out of her room, and I haven’t been worth a damn all week at work. How about that?”

“I’m sorry.” She might have been offering sympathy to a stranger, and the pit of his stomach burned. He’d been so sure that hearing he’d had dinner with Sugar Beth would have shaken her up enough to realize she couldn’t keep doing this, that it was time to start fighting for her marriage instead of running away. Fighting for her husband. He’d at least wanted to frighten her into coming back to the bargaining table. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might not care enough to make the trip.

He was overcome with a watershed of unpleasant emotions—anger, fear, guilt, and something primitive that had to do with antiquated notions of possession. He concentrated on his anger, the one he could most justify. “You’re not sorry about anything. If you were sorry, you’d fix this.”

She had the audacity to laugh, a dark, brittle sound. “Oh, yes, sir, let me just do that, right away, sir.”

“God, I hate it when you’re sarcastic.”

“Only because you’re not used to it.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Be honest.”

He could feel himself losing it, and he gritted his teeth. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Tell me what you want from me?”

She dropped her eyes, and for a moment he thought she was embarrassed. But when she lifted them, she didn’t look embarrassed at all. She looked tough and determined. “I want your heart, Ryan.”

Her quiet dignity spoke of intelligence, of decency, of qualities that made him feel like the guilty party, which was something he didn’t deserve, so he struck back hard. “This is a great way to go about getting it.”

She didn’t flinch. Instead, she took a few steps toward him. She looked young, innocent, very beautiful. “I want your heart, and I want your forgiveness.”

Her words should have pacified him, but they only made him angrier. “This is bullshit.”

She gave a weary sigh, as if he were the unreasonable one. “Go back to work. You’re still too angry to talk.”

His sense of being ill-used had eaten away at him for days. No. Longer than that. He’d had plans for his life, and none of them had included being a twenty-year-old husband and father. She’d stolen his dreams. She’d stolen his future, but he’d swallowed his resentment. Not in one big gulp—that would have been too much to ingest—but in queasy sips—sips so small and far apart he’d never managed to get to the bottom of the glass.

“If you want my forgiveness,” he heard himself say, “you’re going to have to wait a hell of a long time for it.”

Her head came up. He told himself to leave it at that, but he hadn’t been sleeping well, and he knew he’d taken too much for granted, taken her for granted, and that she was right—he had held something back—but he no longer cared about fair. “I hate what you did to me. I’ve always hated it, do you hear me?”

Her face grew as pale as Gigi’s two nights ago, her eyes as wide and just as stricken. Tough. For fourteen years, he’d swallowed his resentment, and for what? So she could run away and upset everything?

“Ryan—”

“Shut up!” He whipped her with his words, blasted her with everything he’d stored up. “You said you wanted me to be honest. Here’s some honesty! You stole my fucking life!” His arm shot out, and he caught a display of glassware with the back of his hand. She gasped as the pieces flew, shattered, just like his marriage, but that didn’t stop him. He bore in, said what he’d barely let himself think. “You took away my choices when you decided to get pregnant. You didn’t care what I wanted. All you cared about was what you wanted. I hate what you did to me, goddammit. And hell, no, I don’t forgive you. I won’t ever forgive you.”

Shocked silence fell between them. Her face was ashen, her lips trembling. His lungs constricted, and he felt as if he were choking. Broken glass lay everywhere, wine and water goblets, shattered pitchers. Shards slicked the floor, brutal ice, the glittering debris of a fractured rainbow life.

He waited for her to fall apart, wanted her to fall apart like he was. Instead, she met his eyes, and through the trembling in her voice, he heard a lifetime of sadness, right along with a toughness he’d never expected. “All right,” she whispered. “All right, then.”

The reality of what he’d said hit home. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want his life broken. He wanted his marriage back, his wife, the woman who’d once looked at him as though he hung the moon and stars. Everything he’d said was true, but where was the relief he should feel at finally getting it off his chest? Where was his old bitterness? He needed it back. He needed to gnaw over the righteousness of his anger so he could justify the broken glass, the shattered marriage.

But he’d waited fourteen years too long to tell her how he felt, and his bitterness had no taste left.

Her breasts rose and fell beneath the soft fabric of her dress. She’d given him everything he’d wanted, everything he’d dreamed of, and instead of treasuring it, he’d just thrown it all back at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Her expression was full of compassion and understanding—pain, too, but not the sharp agony he felt. “I’m so very sorry.”

He knew then that he’d screwed everything up, and he had no idea how to make it right. His secret resentment had been the bedrock of their marriage, responsible for her eagerness to please, for his subtle, punitive detachment. But now that resentment had gone up in flames, and he wanted to tell her he loved her. Except she’d never believe the words after everything he’d just hit her with.

His eyes stung. He had to get out of here. He made his way to the door and fumbled with the lock.

She didn’t say a word to keep him with her.

As Sugar Beth came out of the bookstore’s back room, she saw a little boy staring at the Nightingale Woods mobile she’d hung a few hours earlier, part of a promotion for the newest book in the Daphne the Bunny series. The boy was around five, dressed in jeans and a striped T-shirt, and he had the slightly broadened features that signaled Down syndrome.

He was the first child who’d ventured into the dimly lit and awkwardly positioned children’s section all morning. “I know I should give it the same attention I give the rest of the store,” Jewel had said when Sugar Beth had asked her about it as they opened up the store that morning. “But I don’t have any passion for selling children’s books. Besides, they haven’t been profitable for me.”

“Not surprising. It’s hardly the most appealing part of the store.”

Jewel had stuck her small nose in the air. “Fine. If you think you’re so smart, you’re the new manager of the children’s book department.”

“There isn’t a children’s book department.”

“And don’t let it interfere with your other work.”

Sugar Beth had grinned down at her diminutive employer. “Only my third day on the job, and I’ve moved into management. I knew I’d be a star.”

Jewel snorted and walked away.

Sugar Beth had to fight the urge to pick up the phone and call Colin with the news. She couldn’t do that kind of thing any longer. The fact that she’d dumped him didn’t prevent him from calling her, however. Generally he used Gordon as an excuse—he’d insisted on sharing custody. Sometimes he called with a question. Did she remember if she’d renewed his Atlantic Monthly subscription? Had she taken his tweed sports coat to the dry cleaner, because he couldn’t find it? She missed him desperately, and sometimes she wished he’d press her for a dinner date, but he seemed to be biding his time, a hungry wolf on the prowl, waiting for a moment of weakness so he could pounce. Maybe his strategy was working because this morning she’d had to resist the urge to run over and make him breakfast before she headed to the bookstore.

She couldn’t start brooding again, so she turned her attention to her small customer. She was alone in the store, and Jewel would expect her to assist the parent who’d come in with the little boy, but she didn’t. Instead, she followed the direction of his gaze to the fanciful mobile. “Do you like the Daphne books?”

He gave her a wide smile. “Like Benny!” He pointed toward the cardboard figure of a mischievous-looking badger wearing goggles and an aviator’s scarf. “Benny’s my friend. Read book!”

She grinned. How could she resist all that enthusiasm? The boy grabbed one of the earlier books in the series from the display she’d just set up. She took it from him. “What’s your name?”

“Charlie.”

“Come on then, Charlie.” She sat cross-legged on the floor, deciding right then that they needed to add some small chairs or at least a few pillows. She patted the space next to her, and Charlie settled close.

“Daphne Takes a Tumble, by Molly Somerville.” It was probably Colin’s influence, but shouldn’t children be trained from the beginning to recognize authors and titles? “Daphne the Bunny was admiring her sparkly violet nail polish when Benny the Badger zoomed past on his red mountain bike and knocked her off her paws . . .”

“I like this part.” Charlie climbed into her lap, and by the third page, he’d wound his fingers through a lock of her hair.

“. . . Benny pedaled faster and faster. In the road ahead he saw a great big puddle.” She heard the front bell chime and fervently hoped Jewel had returned so she could wait on the other customers because Sugar Beth wasn’t going anywhere. Charlie reached over and turned the page. “This is a really good part.”

“Benny laughed and pretended the puddle was the ocean. The ocean! Splashhhh!”

“Splash!” he mimicked.

They finally reached the end of the book, and he turned up his face to give her another of his heart-melting smiles. “You a very good reader.”

“And you a very good listener.”

She sensed a movement off to her right and looked over to see Leeann standing at the end of the biography section watching them. Sugar Beth gently set Charlie aside and rose. Leeann wore slacks and crepe-soled shoes, so she must be on her way to the hospital or coming off her shift.

“Mommy!” Charlie ran to her. “I like Benny and Daphne!”

“I know you do, punkin’.” Although Leeann spoke to her son, her eyes stayed on Sugar Beth.

“I want book. Please, Mommy.”

“You already have that book.”

“Don’t have that one.” He raced for the display, snatched up the newest book in the series, and carried it back to her. “What’s this say?”

“Victoria Chipmunk and Her Bothersome Baby Brother.”

“Don’t have that one.”

“How much is it?” Leeann asked.

Sugar Beth was so disconcerted it took her a moment to find the price. Leeann rubbed Charlie’s head. “If you get a new book, you can’t buy a toy the next time we go to Wal-Mart.”

“Okeydoke.”

“All right. Take it to the register. I’ll be there in a minute.”

He ran off, sneakers thumping on the carpet.

An awkward silence fell. Leeann fidgeted with the clasp on her purse. “Charlie’s my youngest. I had an amnio before he was born, so we knew from the beginning he had Down syndrome.”

“That must have been tough.”

“We had some problems. Money’s always been tight. My ex—Andy Perkins—you didn’t know him. He grew up in Tupelo. Anyway, Andy gave me an ultimatum. Either have an abortion or he’d leave me.”

“And you told him not to let the door hit him on his way out?”

Leeann gave a weak smile. “I thought about it long and hard, though. And it hasn’t been easy.”

“I’m sure it hasn’t. Charlie’s adorable. Smart, too. He knew just when to turn the pages.”

“It was a good trade.” She ran her thumb along the edge of a shelf. “You didn’t know he was mine, did you?”

“No.”

“Thanks for reading to him.”

“Anytime.”

She slid her purse to her other hand. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll ring up the book for you.”

“Jewel’ll do it.”

Still, she didn’t move, and Sugar Beth couldn’t stand it any longer. “Just spit it out, Leeann. Whatever’s on your mind.”

“All I want to say is that you’ve hurt a lot of people, and you’re still doing it. Stay away from Ryan.”

Sugar Beth thought about trying to defend herself, but Leeann was already walking away. Sugar Beth set Daphne Takes a Tumble back where it belonged and looked up at the mobile. As she blew softly on the cardboard animals, she wished she could live in Nightingale Woods. Just for a little while.

The rest of the afternoon passed so quickly that Sugar Beth had no chance to get back to reorganizing the children’s department. She decided to do it after they’d closed. Unfortunately, that meant calling Colin.

“Would you keep Gordon until nine or so? I’m working late.”

“Doing what? The store closes at six.”

She knew he was trying to keep her on the phone, but she couldn’t resist sharing her news. “I’m management now. Jewel’s put me in charge of the children’s section.”

“She didn’t want to do it herself, then?”

“That would be one way of looking at it.”

“Do you know anything about children’s literature?”

“Heaps.”

“That bad, is it?”

“Luckily, I’m a quick study.”

“Good news, old chap.” Colin’s voice faded as he turned his head away from the receiver. “Mummy’s coming home late tonight. It’ll be just we guys, so we can get drunk and watch porn.”

She snorted. “We guys.”

“Predicate nominative.”

“You’re such a tool.” As she hung up, she reprimanded herself for sparring with him. Typical addictive behavior.

Catty-corner across the street, she watched Winnie closing up for the evening. In the past few days, Sugar Beth had caught glimpses of her entering and leaving the store. Once she’d seen her changing the display in the window. Winnie had a good eye for design, she’d give her that.

Gigi had stopped by the store to see Sugar Beth yesterday, but she’d been subdued and uncommunicative, even when Sugar Beth had asked her about her new baby-Goth fashion statement. Sugar Beth suspected her parents’ separation was weighing on her. Around lunchtime that same day, she’d seen Ryan walk into Yesterday’s Treasures. For Gigi’s sake, she hoped they’d worked out their problems, but now, as she watched the lights go on in the apartment above the store, she suspected it wouldn’t be that simple.

Sugar Beth’s call shot Colin’s concentration. He played the piano for a while and, as he ran his hands over the keys, invented a game for himself in which all her mystery was gone. He’d seen every secret part of her, hadn’t he? He’d touched and tasted. He knew the sounds she made, the feel of her. She loved being on top, but her orgasms were more explosive when she was beneath him. She liked having him turn her head to the side and hold it in place while he tormented her neck with his kisses. Her nipples were as sensitive as flower petals and having her wrists pinioned excited her.

But for every mystery he’d uncovered, a thousand more waited to be discovered. And there was so much they hadn’t done. He’d never had her in his own bed or in a shower. He wanted her on a table, legs splayed, heels propped on the edge. He wanted her turned bottom up over the arm of a chair. Oh, yes, he definitely wanted that.

He pushed himself away from the piano. He needed something more physical than Chopin to occupy him tonight. He needed to make love with her again.

The foyer had grown dark. He flicked on the chandelier, then turned it off again. He’d been taken aback on Sunday when she’d talked about falling in love with him, but now that he’d had some time to think it over, the idea no longer seemed quite so terrifying. It was simply Sugar Beth being overly dramatic as usual. Her shortsightedness in trying to put an end to their affair frustrated him. He wasn’t insensitive to her grief. She’d lost her husband only four months earlier. But Emmett Hooper had been in a coma for six months before his death and ill for months before that, so she was hardly being unfaithful to his memory. He understood she was frightened—he wasn’t calm himself—but if she’d consider the situation logically, she’d realize this was something they needed to see through.

He didn’t like how empty the house felt without her. His writing hadn’t been going well at all. In the old days, he might have talked with Winnie about it, but she had enough to cope with now. Besides, she tended to be too tactful. Sugar Beth, on the other hand, had an amazing ability to cut through to the essential, and she’d give him her unvarnished opinion.

That morning he’d called Jewel, ostensibly to order another book but really to check up on her new employee. “Sugar Beth’s a gold mine, Colin,” Jewel had said. “She loves selling books. You wouldn’t believe how well-read she is.”

He’d believe it, all right. He’d already noticed the diversity of the books she’d swiped from his shelves. “So she’s working out, then?”

“Better than I could have hoped. Everybody in town’s found an excuse to drop by the store these past couple of days. Since they don’t want to look nosy, they all buy something. I try to wait on the women—they’re giving her a hard time—but I leave the men to her. She can hand-sell the boys just about anything, even the ones I swear can’t read a lick.”

“Glad to hear it,” he’d growled.

He headed for the kitchen to see about dinner. Sugar Beth had left his freezer well stocked, and he grabbed a casserole. She, of course, would be so wrapped up in reorganizing the kiddie section that she’d forget to eat. Or if she did remember, she’d grab a candy bar and call it dinner. Her dietary habits were abominable. She had no regard for her health, and while she might not be the best cook in town, she was far from the worst, and she needed to take better care of herself.

He thrust the casserole in the microwave and slammed the door, ignoring the fact that he was behaving very much like a man bent on slaying dragons and rescuing princesses. Dumping him, indeed. Did she really think it would be so easy?

The phone rang, and he snatched it up, hoping she’d called again so he could give her his opinion of fainthearted women.

But it wasn’t Sugar Beth . . .

Somebody banged on the door. The store had closed two hours ago, and Sugar Beth frowned as she heaved the last bookcase into place. By repositioning some of the standing bookcases, she’d made the children’s section more accessible. Unfortunately, she’d had to steal a little floor space from Jewel’s beloved poetry section, which would mean some fast-talking in the morning.

She brushed off her hands and headed to the front. Her short, one-piece coral knit sweater dress had a dirt mark on it. She hoped she could get it out because working at the bookstore was stretching the boundaries of her slim wardrobe.

“Coming!” she called out as the door continued to rattle. She passed through the biographies and saw a man standing on the other side of the glass. Big, broad-shouldered, wearing Versace and a thunderous expression. Her pulses kicked like a teenager’s. She fumbled with the lock and opened the door. “Your Grace?”

He pushed past her into the store, leaving behind the faintest trace of brimstone. “Who’s Delilah?”

She swallowed. “My cat.”

“Fascinating. Your cat wants to know why you haven’t called her in two days.”

Sugar Beth could have kicked herself. She’d left Colin’s phone number as a backup in case her cell conked out, and she’d forgotten to change it. The number had been only for emergencies, but Delilah could be wily, and she must have wormed it out of someone in the office.

“Did you scare her? I swear, Colin, if you said one thing to upset her . . .”

He slapped a foil-covered casserole on the counter. “Why would I upset her when I was conserving my energy to upset you?”

“What possible business is this of yours?”

“She called you her mummy.”

“Mommy. You’re living in the home of the red, white, and blue, buddy boy. We speak American here.”

But she couldn’t distract him. He leaned his hips against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest, tapped the toe of an exquisitely polished loafer. “She did not sound like anyone’s little girl. She sounded like an older woman.”

“Delilah is my stepdaughter. Now, I have work to do, so ta-ta.”

“She told me she was forty-one.”

“Numbers confuse her. She’s not.”

His gaze was a lot steadier than her heartbeat. “She’s the reason for those whispered phone calls I used to overhear, isn’t she?”

“Don’t be silly. I was talking to my lover.”

“She told me she lives at a place called Brookdale. After I hung up, I did a little research on the Web. Your talent for obfuscation continues to amaze me.”

“Hey, I haven’t obfuscated in weeks. Makes you go blind.”

He lifted an imperious eyebrow. She grabbed the casserole he’d brought, and peeled back a corner of the aluminum foil. Her lasagna. He’d stuck a fork in the top. She’d barely eaten all day, and the smell should have made her mouth water, but she’d lost her appetite. “It’s no big deal. Delilah is Emmett’s daughter. She was born with some mental disabilities. She’s fifty-one, if you must know, not forty-one, and she’s lived at Brookdale for years. She’s happy there. I’m all she has. End of story.”

“Brookdale is an expensive private facility.”

She carried the casserole she didn’t want toward a reading nook with a table and two chairs. As she sat, she extended the fork. “Normally we don’t allow food or drink in here, but we’re making an exception for you.”

He advanced on her. “This finally begins to make sense.”

“All right, I’ll eat. But only because I’m famished.” She forced herself to dig in.

“I know you loved the man, but what kind of father wouldn’t make provisions for a dependent daughter?”

She’d never betray Emmett by revealing her own frustration with his lack of planning. “His finances were complicated.” She forced herself to take another bite. “I make good lasagna, if I do say so myself.”

“This explains why you’ve been so obsessed with finding that painting. This is the missing piece. You were never interested in buying yourself diamonds. I should have figured that out.”

“No kidding. I think this is the best casserole I ever made.”

He braced his hand on a bookcase. “You need the money so you can keep her at Brookdale. You’re not the villain in this piece, are you? You’re not the viperous blond bitch-goddess who only cares about herself. You’re the poor, unselfish heroine willing to sacrifice all to help the less fortunate.”

“Seriously, don’t you want some of this?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She couldn’t head him off any longer, and she jabbed the fork into the casserole. “I had no reason to.”

“The fact that we’re lovers didn’t factor in?”

She shot out of her chair. “Past tense. And I do what I have to so I can take care of myself.”

“By building a wall that’s so thick nobody can see through it? Is that your idea of taking care of yourself?”

“Hey, I’m not the one spending all my spare time laying stone in the backyard of Frenchman’s Bride. You want to talk about your basic symbolism . . .”

“Sometimes a wall is just a wall, Sugar Beth. But in your case, putting up barriers is a permanent occupation. You don’t live life. You act it.”

“I have work to do.” She headed for the counter only to have him follow.

“You’ve created this alternate persona—this woman who’s so tough that she doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her. A woman so tough that she’s proud to announce all her character defects to the world, except—and make note of this, because here’s where your true brilliance lies—those faults you hang out for everyone to see don’t have anything to do with who you really are. Applause, applause.”

She concentrated on straightening a display of bookmarks. “That’s not true.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me the real reason you needed to find the painting? Why did you shut me out?”

“Why should I let you in? What possible advantage could there be in it for me? Should I have stripped myself bare just because still another man has walked into my life? Another man to destroy my well-being? Thanks, but no thanks. Now get out.”

He gazed at her in a way that made her feel as if she’d failed another of his exams. But she was living her life the best way she could, and if that didn’t suit him, then too bad.

He came toward her, and as he looked down into her face, tenderness replaced his customary haughty expression. “You are . . . ,” he said softly, “. . . the most amazing woman.”

She wanted to melt into him like the needy exhomecoming queen she was. Instead, she kept her spine straight and arms at her sides. “I have work to do.”

He let her go with a sigh and walked to the door. With his hand on the knob, he turned back and regarded her imperiously. “It’s not over, my dear. Whatever you may think.”

She waited until he disappeared to rush to the door and throw the lock. Her chest felt tight, but she absolutely refused to start crying over another man. She grabbed the casserole and paced around the store, eating a few bites here and there, missing Delilah, missing Gordon, missing the man she was determined to lock out of her heart. By the time she finally got back to work, the pleasure had faded, and at ten o’clock, she began turning off the lights. When she reached the front of the store, however, something across the street caught her attention. At first she thought it was an illusion, an odd reflection from the streetlights, but then she looked more closely and gave a soft gasp.

Smoke was trickling from the second-floor window above Yesterday’s Treasures.