"I'll tell Kayla I'm sorry, too. She draws really good. And I… I can't."
"You have
other talents." Gently Laura turned Ali around, cupped her shoulders. "You dance so beautifully. And you play the piano so much better than I did at your age. Better than I do now."
"You never play anymore."
There were a lot of things she didn't do anymore. "How about a duet tonight? We'll play. Kayla can sing."
"She sounds like a bullfrog."
"I know."
And when Ali looked up, they grinned at each other.
Another crisis averted, Laura decided, as she settled down with her family after dinner. There was a cheery fire blazing in the hearth and rich, creamy cake to be devoured. The curtains in the parlor were opened to a starry night. And the lights inside glowed warm.
Birthday presents had been unwrapped, opened, and admired. The baby was sleeping upstairs. Josh and Byron were puffing on cigars, and her daughters, fences mended for the moment, were at the piano. Kayla's booming frog of a voice competed with Ali's skillful playing.
"Then she went for the Chanel bag," Margo was saying, comfortably curled on the sofa as she talked shop. "It took her more than an hour, and she just kept piling up stock. Three suits, an evening gown—your white Dior, Laura—four pairs of shoes. Count them, four. Six blouses, three sweaters, two silk slacks. And that was before she started on the jewelry."
"It was a red-letter day." Kate propped her bare feet on the Louis XIV coffee table. "I had a hunch when the woman pulled up in a white stretch limo. She'd come up from L.A. because a friend of hers had told her about Pretenses."
Kate sipped herbal tea, hardly missing the punch of coffee. "I'm telling you," she went on, "this woman was a pro. She said she's buying a country home and she's going to come back and choose some of the furnishings and whatnots from the shop. Turns out she's the wife of some hotshot producer. And she's going to tell all her friends about this clever little secondhand shop in Monterey."
"That's wonderful." So wonderful, Laura could almost accept not being in on the kill.
"It's making me wonder if we shouldn't think about expanding sooner. Maybe in L.A. rather than Carmel."
"Hold it, hotshot." Kate eyed Margo narrowly. "We're not talking seriously about another branch until we've been in business two full years. Then I run some figures, do some projections."
"Always the accountant," Margo muttered.
"You bet your ass. So, what did you do with your day off, Laura?"
"Oh, a little gardening." A little bill paying, closet cleaning, moping.
"Is that J.T.?" With a mother's superhearing, Margo tuned in to the sounds whispering out of the baby monitor beside her. "I'd better check on him."
"No, let me." Laura rose quickly. "Please. You get to have him all the time. I want to play."
"Sure. But if he's…" Margo trailed off, glancing toward the two young girls at the piano. "I guess you know what to do."
"I think I have a pretty good idea." Aware that Margo might change her mind, Laura hurried out.
It was amazing and gratifying to see the way her impulsive, glamorous friend had taken to motherhood. Even two short years before, no one would have believed Margo Sullivan, supermodel, the rage of Europe, would be settled down in her hometown, running a secondhand shop and raising a family. Margo certainly wouldn't have believed it herself, Laura mused.
But fate had dealt her a tough hand. Rather than fold and run, she'd stuck. And, with determination and flair, had turned fate on its ear.
Now she had Josh, and John Thomas, and a thriving business. She had a home she loved.
Laura hoped that somehow, someday, she could deal fate the same blow.
"There he is," Laura cooed as she approached the antique crib that she and Ann had hauled out of storage. "There's the darling. Oh, what a handsome boy you are, John Thomas Templeton."
Truer words were never spoken. He'd had a rich gene pool to choose from, and he'd chosen well. Golden hair grew thick around a glorious little face. Round with babyhood it was, with his mother's stunning blue eyes, his father's well-sculpted mouth.
His fretful whimpering stopped the moment she lifted him. And the feeling, one that perhaps only a woman understands, soared through her. Here was baby, beginnings, beauty.