Forbidden Dreams (13 page)

It didn’t spring into full being in thirty-six hours.

Still, when Jase linked their fingers together and turned her toward where Ned was returning with the tractor, she didn’t pull away. The feel of their two palms together, fingers entwined, was a pleasure she refused to deny herself. It, at least, was an innocuous pleasure, a reassuringly safe one, one she was sure wouldn’t lead to something she didn’t want to deal with today.

When Ned and the tractor drew closer, though, she pulled her hand free. She and Jase crowed into the small cab, hanging on tight, and reached the other side of the creek and Ned’s truck, with dry feet.

“Very nice,” Jase said. He stood at the back of Shell’s bookstore, looking around, his hands in the pockets of his water-stained suede jacket. She made sure the back door was securely locked, turned on the banks of lights that illuminated everything. They bounced a sheen off his hair. She pulled the cash drawer out of its hiding place where Carrie had left it and led the way forward. Jase followed slowly. He riffled a hand through a spinning rack of paperback romances, gave it a gentle nudge and spun it to reveal yet another face. Next, he checked out a wooden pagoda filled with science fiction and fantasy novels then circled it to survey a wide selection of historicals.

Farther into the store, he stopped a hefted a large dictionary, opened it and buried his nose in it. “New books always have a wonderful smell.”

As she set up her till, watched him from the corner of one eye. She thought he looked out of place in her quiet little shop. He was too large, too vital, too forceful, as if he’d be too busy having adventures to sit quietly and read about other people having them. None of that sat well with his supposedly preferring a city life and conveniences. He was, most definitely, an enigma. If he found life in the country lacking, when did he do his exploring? She turned off that thought before she could consider how it would feel if he’d continued to “explore” her body. He came along the center aisle, between thrillers and self-help books, to the front of the store. “This is a great place. I really like it.”

“What do you like about it?” she asked as she slid the wide glass doors open to the mall, letting in the strains of piped in music. Roger Whittaker singing
Past Three O’clock
.

Jase had to smile at the faint note of anxiety he heard in Shell’s question, touched that she seemed to want his approval, which she had, without reservations. “It’s a warm and welcoming place.” The walls, as much as he could see above the walnut stained bookshelves lining them, were painted a restful peach shade. Above the travel section she’d hung posters of places as diverse as Greece, Niagara Falls and Rio, surrounding a large map of the earth. He could picture Shell standing on a teetering step ladder snapping in staple to hold the posters.

A three-foot long set of wooden salad serves hung suspended on invisible strings over the cookbook section, and the books on nature were marked by realistic-looking stuffed animals, including a giant starfish and a prawn. An outsized rake and hoe set, carved from the same wood as the salad servers indicated the location of gardening books, while huge alphabet blocks twirled gently in the breeze from a fan over the children’s books. The whimsy of it pleased him and told him even more about her than her home had.

The store, too, was as much a place for friends to meet as it was a place of business. Throughout, comfortable wicker chairs invited people to sit and browse. A small table at the back left corner, under the slowly spinning blocks, had six small chairs placed around it and a dozen or so well-fingered picture books scattered across its top. Beside that, colorful wooden and plastic toys spilled from an amply-stocked toy box. Obviously, Shell liked children and went out of her way to make them welcome.

The display windows were a further revelation. A manger scene filled one, beautifully arranged with carved wooden figures and a star that twinkled brightly when she turned a spotlight on it. The other window held a selection of cookbooks, each with a bright cover featuring a festive meal. They were flanked by several oversized storybooks opened to illustrations of families surrounding their tree, or reading together by a fireplace, or playing a game.
Family
, Jase mused.
Oh yes, she knew what it was all about.
He sighed. He did not.

Three women came in, one pushing a stroller with a baby inside and a small girl clinging to the handle. The child darted away to the table of books in the children’s corner. The mother browsed in the science fiction area. A pair of laughing teenaged boys jostled each other as they roughhoused through the door then steadied up to let an elderly man with a walker pass between them. The telephone rang, and Shell darted behind the counter to answer it, saying “Good morning. Legacy. Shell Landry speaking.” Behind her, a fax machine hummed to life and pinged an electronic note, sending a sheet of paper fluttering into a basket. As she listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone line, she lifted the fax, scanned it, set it down, leaned over and switched on a computer that stood beside the cash register.

Talk about multi-tasking! The woman seemed to flow from one job to another and never showed a moment’s confusion or hesitation. She hung up the phone as Jase sank into a gaily cushioned wicker chair near her desk and watched her business day warm up and get moving.

A secret part of him he’d scarcely known existed mourned the intrusion of the modern world, regretted the silent closing of the time warp he’d slipped through to find a miracle on a stormy night.

“Why did you name the store ‘Legacy’?” he asked an hour later when there was a lull between Christmas shoppers. “Because you bought it with one?”

Perched on a stood, behind the counter, she paged through a website so fast he wondered how she could possibly be reading the titles as she searched for one a customer had asked her to order. She glanced at him and laughed. “No.” She made a notation on a slip of paper and said “The store’s full name is ‘Gutenberg’s Legacy’.”

“Very good,” he said. “Because if it hadn’t been for Gutenberg …”

“That’s right.” She turned back to the computer, searching for yet another title. He wondered if she had already ordered
When Angels Fall
, by J.P. Calhoun, which should be on the shelves now, though he hadn’t noticed it on any of hers. Instead of asking, he held his words back. There’d be a time and place to discuss that, and this was not it.

“Every time I see a mass-produced book,” she continued, “I mentally thank him for his movable type. I thought it only right that he be honored.”

Another crowd of shoppers came in and it wasn’t until Shell’s assistant, Carrie, arrived to relieve her for lunch that he had a chance to talk to her again. He’d filled the time by calling his insurance agency and arranging for a tow truck to bring his jeep to an automotive mechanic. He met Shell around the corner from the south end of the mall, at a small restaurant she’d recommended.

Dipping into his bowl of Manhattan clam chowder, he said, “Your store looks very successful. You must be proud.”

“It’s coming along.” The brilliance of her smile and the eager light in her eyes belied her modesty. “The first couple of years were dicey, but I’m holding my own now, managing not only to pay the rent and buy stock, but to pay down the principal on the mortgage even faster than I’d hoped.”

Mortgage?
Jase repeated silently.
The daughter of Elwin Landry had a mortgage?

He realized he was staring at her, a spoonful of chowder halfway to his mouth. He put the spoon back into his bowl and closed his mouth, biting back the impulse to ask why her father hadn’t helped her financially. His face heated uncomfortably when her mildly derisive laugh told him she’d all-too-accurately read his mind.

“Really, Jase! Did you think my Gutenberg’s Legacy was a toy my rich daddy had bought for me to play with?”

“I … well …” He crumbled a cracker into his chowder, frowning down at his hands.

Shell had to laugh again at Jase’s obvious discomfort. Clearly, she’d been right on the mark. He looked up, contrite but confused. She let him off the hook.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve done it all on my own, by choice. I’ve saved like Scrooge, cutting corners wherever I could, wearing the same clothes for season after season, taking very little personal pay so I could pay back my business loan, just like regular folks. I wanted to prove to myself and anybody else who doubted me that I could do it.”

Something in her tone prompted him to ask, “Who else might have doubted you?”

Her mouth twisted. “My father, for one.” She ate half a slice of toast, then licked her lips before patting them with her napkin. It made Jase’s own lips tingle as he watched her. “As soon as he knew I wanted a bookstore,” she went on, “he was all for buying me one. But he’d have also bought me a manager to run the place and hired a pile of accountants to make sure his money was well spent and that I was in no danger of wasting it. I wanted it to be mine.”

She tilted up her chin. “All mine. So I did it alone.”

“Good for you. It can’t have been easy.”

It hadn’t been, and she was grateful to him for recognizing that. Tears stung her eyes, and she had to blink rapidly and look away from him. Dammit, what was the matter with her? Why was Jase’s approval so important to her?

It wasn’t, of course. It was simply that it was nice to have her hard work acknowledged. She took another bite of her thick, ham-laden pea soup and forced herself to glance up at him again. “Of course, I pay very low rent for my home, and that helped a lot, as did the fact that I have … uh, well, expectations. Bank managers find that … comforting.”

Jase reached across the table and touched the back of her hand. He slid his fingers the length of hers, lingering for a moment on her nails, then repeated the gesture. “I’m sure you got your loan because you had a sound business proposition to show them. I don’t suppose ‘expectations’ would carry much weight, since your parents aren’t exactly ready for the nursing home.”

She picked up a crumb from her toast and dropped it back onto her plate, purely to regain control of her hand.

She couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, while he touched her.

Should she tell him? Would it make a difference? It was one thing to be thought of as an heiress who wouldn’t inherit for many years until her parents passed on. It was another to be known as a woman of not inconsiderable means in her own right. She liked Jase. She knew she could learn, and quickly, to more than merely like him. It was his feelings that kept her off balance—or, more accurately, her not knowing what his feelings were. He wanted her. There was no way she could pretend not to know that. But how much more would he want her if he knew?

Instinct told her that Jase O’Keefe was not like that. But could instincts always be trusted? Drawing in a deep breath, she met his gaze and took an enormous leap of faith.

“W
HEN I FIRST APPLIED
for a business loan,” she said, “I kept my father’s identity and his connection with commercial banking completely out of the picture. But I did have one thing to use as collateral, and I used it.” She smiled as if Jase’s reaction, whatever it might be, was immaterial to her. “You see, I’m due to come into a substantial trust from my grandfather’s estate when I turn thirty, so the bank knew it wouldn’t have to wait too long if my store didn’t make it and I defaulted.”

She saw Jase swallow. “So,” he said, his tone flat. “You’re a rich woman. Or you will be.”

“You sound … disappointed.” That wasn’t what she’d expected. She was accustomed to a different reaction from men—the kind of men her father liked to send across her path.

“I think I am.”

A thought occurred to her. “Disappointed in what? That I don’t have it yet?”

His gaze narrowed. “That was insulting.”

She cringed. “It was. I’m sorry.”

He relented. “I like money as much as the next guy, Shell, but I’d never go after a woman simply because she had it.”

She wet her lips. “Or turn away simply because she did?”

He let out a long breath. “It can’t help but change things.”

She looked down at the table. “I know.”

After a moment he reached over and tilted up her chin. “Hey, we were going to take things slow and easy, weren’t we? Just sort of relax and see what comes. Why don’t we do that about this too? After all, your birthday’s not for a couple of months, and that can be a long, long time.”

In a relationship?
she wanted to ask.
Do your relationships usually last less than that?
She didn’t ask, only nodded. Anyway, they didn’t have a relationship, did they? They had little more than some shared kisses, a mutual desire, and a problem to solve together. When that was done, he’d go back to his own life. The one he’d said he wanted to “get on with” once he’d taken care of the man who had harmed his grandmother.

“Why thirty?” he asked, drawing her attention back to the here and now. “Why not twenty-one, or eighteen? That’s the age of majority here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but Grandpa was old-fashioned about women. My brothers get their inheritances when they turn twenty-one, but Grandpa had no faith in any woman’s ability to look after her own affairs.”

“Your grandmother?” A look of mingled hope and dismay crossed his face. “Did he arrange for someone else to—”

“No.” Shell laughed as she shook her head. “Her, he trusted. But, of course, that was because he’d spent many years teaching her the ‘right’ way to do things. As for me, he was certain that by the time I turned thirty, I’d be safely married to some fine, upstanding fellow, preferably of my father’s choosing, and he, the husband, could take over my money and make sure I didn’t do anything foolish with it.”

Jase laughed suddenly. “And do you plan to do it that way?”

“What, spend my inheritance foolishly?” To her amazement, she felt light and silly, as if telling him about her money had freed her in some way. “Absolutely. Wanna help?”

“Can’t think of anything more fun,” he said, “but what I was talking about was your marrying some guy of your father’s choosing.”