“Where was the blond guy?”
“Behind the counter and standing very close to the dark-haired girl.”
“He wasn’t near Sophie?” Heather asked.
“No. In fact it was like she was staying away from both of them. Do you think they’re going to start selling baked goods? I wish I could buy the cupcakes for my daughter’s school party here in town.”
None of the women answered because they’d all turned to stare at Reede.
He knew he shouldn’t let his pleasure, relief, and all-round happiness at hearing this show, but he did allow himself a small smile.
In return the women grinned at him.
Reede turned away but he was feeling much better. When a young mother brought in her toddler who had nothing at all wrong with him, Reede spent thirty minutes listening to her fears. His prescription had been to tell her about a playgroup his female relatives had formed. “Motherhood shouldn’t be a lonely business,” he’d told her.
The patient must have said something because later, Heather smiled at him so warmly it was embarrassing.
In the ensuing days it hadn’t been easy for Reede to deal with Carter. There was something primitive inside him that made him want to challenge the guy to a fight to the death.
Mike Newland, Sara’s husband, had understood so well that he’d taken Reede on in the boxing ring. Mike’s new gym was being built out of town, but it wasn’t complete yet so he was still using the old clothing store. Sara’s former fiancé had once rented that place.
“Think it’s a coincidence that I took this place over?” Mike asked in his raspy voice. He was letting Reede know that he understood about wanting to protect the woman in your life.
But modern American society wouldn’t let Reede do what he wanted to. He couldn’t demand that Sophie throw Carter out, to never see him again.
Besides, Carter and the girl Kelli had freed Sophie up enough that she could spend more time with Reede. When he’d told her he didn’t play fair he’d meant that he’d take up her time. But he didn’t have to “take” anything, for she seemed to want to be with him as much as he with her.
They talked; they made love; they went places together. It hadn’t taken long to find out that they preferred each other’s company to anything else they did.
By Thanksgiving they had a routine that Reede picked Sophie up by six and they made dinner together. She was very interested in the countries he’d visited and she liked to try to re-create the food. They scoured the Internet for recipes and ordered little out-of-print, local cookbooks on the regions Reede knew best. Several times Sophie served foreign soups in her shop. The yam and raisin had been a big hit, the lamb and garlic less so.
“Well, I liked it,” Sophie said and he agreed with her.
After they’d had dinner with Colin and his wife, Gemma—their infant son was being babysat by his brother, Shamus—Reede and Sophie took their advice about buying furniture. The next Saturday they went to a big warehouse and spent a day choosing everything from cookware to a sofa.
But no matter how involved they became, Sophie didn’t move in with him. Every night she stayed in her apartment. He knew he’d made it clear that he wanted her to live with him, but she said she needed time to think about her life and what she wanted to do with it.
They spent a lot of time talking, telling each other things they’d told no one else. It took some work on Reede’s part, but he got her to talk about her stepfather.
“Sometimes I think he leered at Lisa just to make me stay there and take care of everything. I cooked, cleaned, and kept a job. And I think Lisa was grateful for someone to use as the bad guy. While I was in college she got mixed up with the wrong crowd and didn’t know how to get free. When I got there she told them I wouldn’t let her go out with them. One of the kids very angrily told me that I’d threatened to send Lisa to juvenile detention if she didn’t stop seeing t
hem.”
“Did you?”
Sophie smiled. “I said that’s where she was heading if she didn’t get away from that gang. The town gives me credit for straightening her out, but I had three jobs. I didn’t have time to do much in the way of discipline.”
“Maybe your sister saw what you sacrificed for her.”
Sophie was thoughtful for a moment. “You know something? I don’t feel that I did sacrifice, not as though I gave up everything anyway. I was never like Jecca and Kim, where my career was everything to me. I tried to be, but it wasn’t all that difficult for me to give up that first job offer and go home to my sister. I think that if Jecca couldn’t spend her life doing some form of art she would have jumped off a building.”
“And I can assure that my sister is the same way,” Reede said. “As much as she loved Travis I think if he’d said that it was him or jewelry she would have chosen the diamonds.” Reede looked at her. “But you know, Sophie, you might feel differently once you get back into your sculpture. This man Belleck might open some doors for you.”
“Ah yes, Henry,” she said.
Two afternoons a week she worked with Henry in his garage. The man was a scholar of the American Revolution and he wanted to do figures of the most important people.
Sophie made sure his armatures were correctly proportioned, then forced him to really look at the portraits of the men and women. She taught him to see tiny differences in facial features. He would form George Washington’s face in clay, then Sophie would show him why it didn’t look like the man. With a few pushes with her thumbs, a scrape of a knife, a bit of clay added, in seconds she changed it to look like the former president.