“What. You think I’m going to woo you with cocktails and caviar, Doc O’Connell? You should be so lucky.”
There’s silence as we size each other up.
“You are a proud man, Dirk,” she says. “It’s no weakness to enjoy a little company now and then.”
Her eyes dance. She is laughing at me.
“My son says it’s good for me to mingle. My daughter says exercise is better.”
“We could exercise together; make them both happy,” says Lucy. “Walking works for me. I’m in excellent health.” She spins on the spot on my doorstep like a ballerina, and laughs. Joy sparkles off her like dew in the sunshine. Lucy has star quality. Why isn’t this woman on the silver screen? Maybe she was once. I’m about to ask, when Lucy fires her own question.
“So how did you end up east in Franklin for most of your life, when the rest of your family lives here in the west?”
I stare at her, tongue tied. My patients never asked me about myself, and Millie already knew everything. I’m in no hurry to open up to her. If I share the bedrock of it, she might turn it around and use it against me. Kids did that in school. I smile. Let her wonder.
“See you on Saturday, Lucy,” I say, enigmatic.
“You’re not afraid of me are you, Dirk? You could let someone in, you know.”
“Let you in, you mean.”
“Would that be so bad?”
If that isn’t mischief in her eyes, then I have no experience with human beings, and that certainly isn’t true.
“Well, see you at my party,” she says, and she’s back off down the stairs with her handful of cream envelopes. She hums as she stops and posts another under a door and another. Quietly, I close my own door and lift the envelope to my nose. Yes. Smells like Lucy, like juicy fruit, like a summer night, like fun.
Chapter 15
Lucy
Is there time to makesome lamps ahead of my party? The boxes sit and stare at me. It will make a mess. Bart and I had a five-car garage – enough space for my lamp workbench and all of my shabby chic furniture in all stages of renovation.
I sigh. I need to get the Lucy’s Lamps business going again, making my lamps and marketing them. I gained quite a following before my life was turned upside down, with custom orders and a steady stream of buyers.I love my work with Donna, but it’s just a way of paying the bills. My lamps are a passion. Everyone needs more light in their life, and a bit more fun. A quirky lamp cheers up everyone.
Who knows how long it will take for the settlement to come through. Besides, I want to make Mrs B’s orange lamp, and the elegant ones for Jill. She needs one in the back corner near the changing rooms. I’ve designed it already in my mind – a feminine little shade in a shiny mid-blue, with silver tassels, on a black stand.
