“Oh, dear, ofcourseshe does. I’m so sorry, Fiona, I realize your guests come first. But the shop closes in just a few minutes, doesn’t it? Then, why don’t you join Hollis and me for dinner as our guest—we have an eight o’clock reservation—at Trib’s, of course. I would justloveyour company. We have so much in common!”
Whatever happened to turning into a pumpkin at nine o’clock?Gideon thought, eyeing Iva suspiciously.
Then he swore to himself, cursing meddling potential step-grandmothers, when Fiona agreed to join them for an unusually late dinner.
Now why would she do that?
* * *
Fiona didn’t know herself why she agreed to join the senior Naths for dinner. Perhaps it was because she really had been enjoying her conversation with Iva—after all, the older woman was a good friend of her brother’s. There was a reason Ethan enjoyed her company and that of the other Tuesday Ladies.
Or maybe it was because she knew Carl had to leave right at eight o’clock, and she didn’t want to be in the shop alone, especially at night…
Or perhaps it was because the moment she’d seen Gideon, standing there so dark and handsome—and for some reason, glowering—she’d become very much aware of him. And then there was the fact that now he was standing just in front of the desk where she’d been sprawled beneath him only a few days ago.
Regardless of the reason for her capitulation, Fiona was even more unsettled when Hollis Gideon the Third also agreed to join them for dinner.
“Just so I can keep an eye on you,” he murmured to Fiona.
It was a few moments later that she realized another, unexpected benefit of accepting Iva’s invitation as she escorted her last guest—Brad Forth, of course—to the door.
“How about dashing off with me to grab a bite?” he asked, his gaze flickering toward the Naths and Iva, who stood near the desk, chatting in low voices. Actually, it looked as if Gideon the Third was doing all of the speaking. He had a lecture-ish expression on his face.
“Thank you so much, Brad, but I have a previous engagement. Maybe another time?” she asked, fervently hoping that he would win the election in a few weeks and be too busy to keep contacting her.
Carl saved her as he called from the back of the shop, “Fiona, I have to run—but could I see you before I go?”
Giving Brad a last, distracted farewell, she swept past Gideon and the older couple to meet Carl at the back of the store.
“Tonight went really well, don’t you think?” she asked.
“It went very well. You cleared a nice chunk of change, Fi.”
“That means you’ll be getting a nice cut yourself,” she replied happily.
“For sure.” His smile faded as he stepped back. “I want to show you something I just noticed.” He propelled her to a far corner of the back room, near the little closet where Gideon had taken his tumble and kissed her for the first time. “Looks like someone was a little too nosy.”
Fiona peered closer, ducking her head under a low shelf, and saw what he meant: several boxes that had been stacked neatly were misaligned, and one flap was open. Beyond them, an old rusty file cabinet’s bottom drawer was ajar. These were items they hadn’t had time to sift through yet, but had moved back into the corner behind a screen to get them out of the way. She certainly had not left the bottom drawer ajar.
“Hmm. Must have been a customer.” Fiona dismissed the uneasy prickle that zipped down her spine. She pulled back out of the corner and her head bumped into the bottom of the shelf, knocking the combs that held her hair away from her face askew.
“A very nosy one,” Carl pointed out to her. “Well,” he said, casting a look at his watch, “I really have to get going—I’m supposed to play basketball in thirty minutes, and I’m twenty minutes away.”
A vision of the muscular Carl dribbling a ball up a court, dripping sweat, and garbed in loose shorts that would show off his rear still had little effect on Fiona’s hormones, and she sighed mentally. By all rights, she should be drooling over the man.
“Hope you win. See you tomorrow,” she smiled, fumbling to readjust her loosened hair combs as he turned to leave. She walked back out to the main area of the shop, still stabbing the comb into a twist of hair.
“Shall we?” Iva asked. “Hollis and I will drive you both to Trib’s—you’ll never get a parking place otherwise.”
Gideon looked as if he were about to argue, but clamped his lips shut and acquiesced. At this point, he had the uneasy feeling he was just along for the ride—whatever ride his grandfather’s girlfriend had picked.
Five minutes later, they were seated inside Trib’s at a table near the front window.
Fiona paused to greet Baxter James, a handsome black man with a close-trimmed afro, mustache, and goatee. He was sitting at the bar making notes on a laptop while sampling a beer. She thanked him again for the writeup in theGrand Rapids Press, then joined the others at the table.
“I didn’t realize you knew Baxter,” Iva said as Fiona took a seat.
“He and Ethan are friends, so he connected us. Bax is the one who did the great spread on the re-opening for the store,” she said as she slid into her seat. “He came by the shop earlier today, right after we opened, and is going to do a follow-up article as well. Very nice guy.”
