“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.”