Ain't She Sweet? Part 27

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 compa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sist 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 s.p.a.ce 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 t.i.tles? "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, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sed 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 p.o.r.n."

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 o.r.g.a.s.ms 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 ca.s.serole. 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 ca.s.serole 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed through the biographies and saw a man standing on the other side of the gla.s.s. 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 ca.s.serole 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."