“If you’re still in town on Friday, Lucky’s Grocer and Restaurant is having the first outdoor dance of the spring.” Erin flipped through the pile of clothes she’d stacked in one corner while she sipped her coffee. “The whole town will be there for dinner and dancing on the village square. I can introduce Sarah to my niece and some other kids her age.”
“A dance?” His daughter’s ears perked up.
“We might be able to get a flight out by then. But thanks.” Remy didn’t need the temptation of seeing Erin Finley in her dancing dress, let alone the entanglements of getting to know a small-town community.
There was a reason he’d chosen the anonymity of Miami after Liv’s death.
“Just keep it in mind.” Erin followed them out through the store, Sarah walking in a sleepy daze as she touched a few of the hangers with vintage motorcycle jackets and plaid wool miniskirts.
“Your store is so cute,” she murmured as she shuffled along. “Daddy, I hope we stay for the dance.”
Remy tried not to glare at Erin over his daughter’s head, but why had she brought that up?
“We’ll see,” he muttered, knowing his lame comeback made him sound like the clichéd overwhelmed single father he was.
“Good luck today,” Erin told him as he opened the door for Sarah and then held it for a customer walking in with another armful of clothes.
“After that kind of start, things can only get better.” He stood in the doorway with Erin while Sarah trundled toward her car.
“You can work on my store renovations if you’re feeling stressed.” Erin winked at him in a conspiratorial way. “Nothing gets out frustrated aggression like sledgehammers and air nail guns.”
“Except sex.” The words rolled off his tongue as easily as they might have a couple of decades ago. It surprised the hell out of him.
Thankfully, Erin didn’t take them flirtatiously.
“I’m guessing that’s not a remote possibility for you, any more than it is for me.” Her blue eyes met his for an unguarded moment. “Damn shame.”
Chapter Five
“So tell meall aboutInterstate Antiquer.” Erin’s sister-in-law, Bethany, sorted through a pile of women’s shoes in the tent that Erin had rented for the next two weeks.
It was Friday. She hadn’t heard from Remy since he’d left the store with his daughter on Tuesday. She’d spent all her free time researching affiliations with the Dress for Success national organization and making sure she met the guidelines for an event. If she was going to be on national television, she wanted it to serve a good purpose. Helping others while she tried to fill the gaping hole of guilt inside was a good start.
Today, Bethany had come over to the store to help her with all the donations she’d collected already. Bethany’s teenage daughter Ally had early dismissal from school so she was watching the register for Erin while the older women worked.
“It was Heather’s idea.” Erin sorted stained clothes into a recycle pile and hung the items she planned to keep on rolling racks. The tent stood off to the side of the parkinglot behind the store. There were canvas sides to keep out the elements, but they’d opened one of the walls to allow in a spring breeze. She still needed to sort by size and steam a few things in Jamie Raybourn’s size before the woman arrived later for her private preview of the big event. She also needed to set a date shortly after the filming to allow time for—she hoped—donations to arrive.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Bethany rubbed at a scuff on a black patent pump and added it to a bin for cleaning. “Your sister is determined to make that store a showplace after all the hard work you’re doing to renovate it.” She sorted the shoes with the same quick efficiency she brought to everything she did, including managing Finleys’ Building Supplies.
Erin wished her oldest brother, Scott, would get his act together in order to keep Bethany in the family. Their marriage had lasted seventeen years, tying the knot right after college graduation when Bethany was pregnant. Erin had always thought the couple was rock solid. They were in counseling, but neither talked much about each other or their relationship. If those two couldn’t stay together, Erin wondered why she’d thought she’d ever had a chance.
“I guess I didn’t realize how serious she was about it until the producer showed up on my doorstep.” She had thought about Remy too many times to count this week, a fact that was making her irritable when she should be celebrating her newfound direction with her good-works initiative.
She wondered if his daughter had stayed in town with him like he’d planned, but she wondered a lot more than that. Like how his wife died and if the daughter was getting enough help to deal with it.
“I hear he’s really cute.” Bethany held up a pair of pinksparkly sandals and put them in the donation bin since they were only keeping business attire.
“Word travels fast in a small town.” Erin did not want to envision Remy’s face again, yet she found herself remembering the line of his jaw and the golden-brown scruff of beard that made her want to run her fingers along his cheek to test the texture.
“So you don’t deny it?” Bethany poked her in the knee from her seat on a stool beside her.
“Everyone in television is attractive. I’m more concerned with how I’m going to face a store full of cameras when they film this thing.”
Bethany was quiet for so long that Erin stopped sorting to peer over at her. Her sister-in-law grinned from ear to ear.
“You like him,” she announced, sliding a brown leather mule onto some open shelving they’d brought outside to show off the wares.
Erin sighed. “I don’t know him well enough to like him or not like him. He just is. Cute, I mean.” What was it about a handsome man that made women so eager to matchmake? “And who’s been yammering around town about how cute he is? Maybe that person likes him and not me.” She felt a rant coming on and couldn’t quite stop herself. “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m desperate to meet a man, okay? I broke up with a guy because I needed some time on my own. I have no desire to jump back into dating yet.”
