Remember When (In Death #17.5)(20)

"Maybe we can chip it down a little."

"We can work on that," Angie told her.

"Let me take another look at the armoire." She walked back over, opened the doors.

Knowing how to pace a sale, Angie hung back while Dale joined his wife and they began a whispered consultation.

The doors were closed again, opened again, drawers were pulled out.

"Do we get what's inside, too?" Dale called out.

"I'm sorry?"

"Box in here." He took out the package, shook it. "Is it like the prize in the cereal box?"

"Not this time." With an easy laugh, Angie crossed over to take the box. "We had a big shipment come in this morning," she began. "And we were pretty busy on top of it. Jenny must've gotten distracted and set this in there."

Or had she? Things had been hopping for an hour or two. Either way, Angie considered it a lucky break the drawer had been opened before the piece was missed.

"We're just going to talk this over for a few minutes," Melissa told her.

"Take your time." Leaving them to it, Angie went back to the counter. She unwrapped the package and studied the silly ceramic dog. Cute, she thought, but she didn't understand why anyone paid good money for animal pieces.

She found soft, fuzzy stuffed animals more companionable.

This was probably Doulton or Derby or one of those things Laine was still trying to teach her.

Since, from little snatches of conversation, Melissa seemed to be wearing Dale down all on her own, Angie gave them a little more space by walking the statue over to one of a few displays of figurines and bric-a-brac to try to identify the type and era.

It was like a game to her. She'd find it in the file, of course, but that would be cheating. Identifying pieces in the shop was very like identifying character types in the bar. If you spent enough time at it, it got so you knew who was who and what was what.

"Miss?"

"Angie." She turned, grinned.

"If we took both, what sort of a price could you give us?"

"Well..." Delighted with the prospect of greeting Jenny with news of a double, she set the ceramic dog down and went over to bargain with the customers.

In the excitement of closing the deal, arranging for delivery, ringing up the sale, she didn't give the little dog another thought.

5.

Max learned quite a bit about Laine over the next few hours. She was organized, practical and precise. More linear-minded than what he'd expected from someone of her background. She looked at a task, saw it from beginning to end, then followed it through the steps to completion. No detours, no distractions.

And she was a nester. His mother had the same bent, just loved feathering that nest with pretty little-what did his father call them?-gimcracks. And like his mother, Laine knew exactly where she preferred every one of them.

But unlike his mother, Laine didn't appear to have a sentimental, almost intimate attachment to her things. He'd once seen his mother weep buckets over a broken vase, and he himself had felt the mighty heat of her wrath when he'd shattered an old decorative bowl.

Laine swept up shards of this, pieces of that, dumped broken bits into a trash can with barely a wince. Her focus was on returning order to her space. He had to respect that.

Though it was a puzzlement to him how the daughter of a drifter and a grifter executed a one-eighty to become a small-town homebody, the fact that puzzles were his business made it, and her, only more interesting.

He liked being in her nest, being in her company. It was a given that the sizzle between them was going to complicate things along the way, but it was tough not to enjoy it.

He liked her voice, the fact that it managed to be both throaty and smooth. He liked that she looked sexy in a sweatshirt. He liked her freckles.

He admired her resilience in the face of what would have devastated most people. And he admired and appreciated her flat-out honesty about her reaction to him and what was brewing between them.

The fact was, under other circumstances, he could see himself diving headfirst into a relationship with her, burning his bridges, casting caution to the wind or any number of clich俿. Even given the circumstances, he was poised to make that dive. He couldn't quite figure out if that was a plus or a minus.

But side benefit or obstacle to the goal, it was time to get back in the game.

"You lost a lot of stuff," he commented.

"I can always get more stuff." But she felt a little tug of sorrow at the wide chip in the Derby jug she'd kept on the dining room server. "I got into the business because I like to collect all manner of things. Then I realized I didn't need to own them so much as be around them, see them, touch."

She ran her finger down the damaged jug. "And it's just as rewarding, more in some ways, to buy and sell, and see interesting pieces go to interesting people."

"Don't dull people ever buy interesting pieces?"

She laughed at that. "Yes, they do. Which is why it's important not to become too attached to what you plan to sell. And I love to sell. Kaching."

"How do you know what to buy in the first place?"

"Some's instinct, some's experience. Some is just a gamble."

"You like to gamble?"

She slid a glance over and up. "As a matter of fact."