Finders keepers, p.3
Finders Keepers, page 3
Cora’s shout echoed from the back room. “Molly, you’ll have to get the phone. I’m up to my elbows in orchids.”
Molly sighed and dropped her scissors. Dismayed, she watched the bow she’d been trying to tie come undone as she ran to answer the phone.
“Garden of Eden. May I help you?”
“Yes,” a very familiar, very male voice said in a slow, Mississippi drawl. “If this is the Garden of Eden, then I need to speak to Eve. Is she there?”
Molly took a deep breath. She recognized this voice. She’d been hearing it in her sleep for several days now. And in spite of her reluctance to admit she was glad to hear it, she was thankful he couldn’t see her expression. She would have hated for him to know she was smiling. Enjoying his own joke, he chuckled in her ear. She shivered, then perversely decided to play along.
“Well, sir, if you mean the Eve, then I’m sorry to say she’s not. I hate to be the one to tell you…but I’m afraid I had to let Eve go. There was a, uh, slight infraction of the rules.”
He chuckled again, and Molly’s stomach jerked at the slow, sexy laugh that bounced across her eardrum. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then gripped the phone a little tighter as the game played on.
“So, since Eve’s not here, you’ll have to settle for me.”
“Lady, I’d settle for you any day,” Joseph said, and then added before Molly had time to reject his statement outright, “And…I have a question. Do you make house calls?”
“Depends on whose house,” Molly said.
Joseph’s eyes narrowed at the sound of her voice. Blindly, he stared at the panorama beyond his office windows, unable to appreciate the fine landscaping or the beautiful day, and then he hid a sigh of frustration. He was going to have to remember to be careful around this woman. For some reason, she was antsy as a bee-stung bear around men.
“I guess I should identify myself. This is Joseph Rossi.”
“I knew that,” Molly said, and then rolled her eyes at her stupidity. Why don’t I just tell him I’m interested and get this chitchat over with? But her instinct for survival held her tongue, and so she waited for his response.
He grinned. So…you recognize my voice? That was an interesting fact to consider. “Could you come to my office?”
“What’s wrong?” Molly asked.
“I think I have a sick tree.”
Molly glanced at her watch. “The one I delivered? Gee, that’s too bad. Hang on and let me check,” she said, then covered the phone. “Cora, do you think you can handle the shop alone for an hour or so? We’ve had a complaint about that rubber tree I delivered over on Sixty-third Street last week.”
Cora’s eyebrows rose. She remembered more than the location of the delivery. She distinctly remembered that Molly’s neighbor was the recipient of the tree.
“No problem,” Cora said, and then waggled her finger to remind Molly to be careful.
Molly made a face and stuck out her tongue, and then uncovered the phone.
“Thanks for holding,” she said. “We always guarantee our stock, and on an order that size, I have no problem with checking it out in person. I’ll be right there.”
“Good,” Joseph said. “I’ll be waiting.”
He’ll be waiting? For what?
Molly shivered as he disconnected. She shrugged out of her smock, grabbed her purse, and headed for the van. It didn’t take long to make the drive from her shop on Pennsylvania Avenue to his office. In less than fifteen minutes she pulled into the parking lot of the high-rise and exited on the run.
“What am I doing?” she muttered, as the elevator doors slid shut behind her and she glared at her own reflection. “Stop running, calm down, and act like this is no big deal.”
But her flushed face, wayward curls, and the loud thud of her heartbeat told her otherwise. The elevator opened its doors and spit Molly out into the corridor with little regard for her nervous anticipation. It had places to go and people to retrieve.
Marjorie Weeks looked up from her desk and managed a formal smile at the young woman who entered the offices of Red Earth Designs.
“Well,” she said shortly. “I didn’t think they’d send just a delivery person. I expected someone more…knowledgeable.”
“Hello, it’s nice to see you again, too,” Molly said sweetly. “And I own the shop. I’m about the best you’re going to get.”
Marjorie huffed. If this snippet was telling the truth, then she definitely needed some instruction on how a proper business owner dressed. In her estimation, this constant appearance in brief attire was not seemly.
“So,” Molly continued, as she considered the source and ignored the snub, “what seems to be the problem?”
Marjorie pointed. “It’s that tree you delivered. The leaves are beginning to turn, and some have even fallen off. You sold us a diseased plant, and I demand full restitution.”
Joseph walked out of his office in the middle of his secretary’s accusations and tried not to frown. He knew quite a bit of Marjorie’s personal history, and made it a point to overlook most of her assertive, possessive behavior concerning him and his business.
“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Weeks.” The sound of his voice obviously surprised both women as they spun toward him. “Let’s hear Molly out first and then we’ll decide what needs to be done.”
Molly looked away, pretending great interest in the tree, and Mrs. Weeks looked down her nose in disgust, then relaxed as Joseph patted her gently on the shoulder.
“So, Molly, what seems to be the verdict?” Joseph asked.
“Give me a minute, okay?”
She knelt, sticking her fingers into the soil around the plant, then frowning at the soupy moisture content as a rush of very cool air from an overhead air conditioner vent coincided with a blast of heat off the massive wall of windows beside her. It was a simple diagnosis, and one she should have thought of when the tree had been delivered.
“Move it,” she said.
Marjorie Weeks jumped, then took two steps backwards in reflex to what Molly ordered.
Molly’s mouth twitched. She looked everywhere, and at everything, except the expression on Joseph’s face. She knew if she did she would burst into laughter, and thereby earn even more of Marjorie Weeks’s wrath.
“I’m sorry,” Molly said, and started to explain further. “I didn’t mean you, ma’am. I meant the plant.”
Mrs. Weeks’s face turned a bright red as she stared long and hard at Molly, daring her to add insult to injury by laughing in her face. When she did neither, she could only follow Molly’s lead and try to ignore the situation. She cocked her head, pretending to absorb Molly’s explanation, and all the while wishing her to parts unknown.
“It’s in a bad location, and it’s been watered too much,” Molly continued. “It’s too wet, too hot, and too cold, all at the same time. How about”—she looked a moment, choosing a corner close to the door and away from the intense heat of the wall of glass—“over there?”
Joseph wasn’t blind to the undercurrents between the two women. And while he would never allow anyone to tell him how to run his business, he couldn’t have cared less where the damned plant was put. What he did want was to mend some fences with his pretty new neighbor. He hated being thought of as a cheat. He’d had enough of dishonesty in his own life without lying to someone he’d just met. Wisely, he let the women settle the situation between themselves and stood aside, waiting for Mrs. Weeks to okay the decision.
Marjorie looked around the room, relishing the fact that it was solely up to her to prolong the decision. But even she could see the wisdom of the suggestion, and finally settled the issue by nodding her agreement.
“Great,” Molly said. “I think you’ll see a marked improvement after the new location.” And then she added, “But don’t hesitate to let me know if you don’t.”
“Indeed I will,” Mrs. Weeks said. “I take care of my responsibilities.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Molly said, and bent down to grab hold of the pot, intent on scooting it to its new location.
“I’ll get it,” Joseph said. “It’s too heavy for you.”
“Oh! Mr. Rossi! You’ll get yourself dirty,” Mrs. Weeks argued. “You shouldn’t bother yourself with such menial labor. Let her do it. It’s why she came.”
Joseph calmly ignored his secretary’s fuss as he knelt in front of the rubber tree. He was eye level with Molly before he spoke.
“Is it?” he asked.
“Is it what?”
“Why you came?”
Her eyes widened at his audacity, and she forgot to breathe. Joseph got lost in eyes so blue they looked clear, then he blinked, believing that he could see his own reflection, and tried not to imagine how stormy her eyes might get when she was aroused with passion. He’d already seen them darken in anger and wondered if she kept them open when she made love, or if she closed them instead, leaving a man with nothing but the tentative flutter of those ridiculously long lashes.
Molly shuddered, tried not to focus on his less-than-subtle innuendo, and grabbed onto the pot.
“If you want to help, you pull, I’ll push. Then neither of us will strain anything important.”
He grinned and complied, and the tree was soon moved to a new location. As soon as it was in place, Molly felt the itch to leave.
“I’ll be going now,” she said, refusing to acknowledge his lingering interest. “Mr. Rossi, thank you for your business. Mrs. Weeks, it was nice to see you again. If you ever have need of our services, don’t hesitate to give us a call.”
Molly resisted the urge to run as she headed for the elevator. But she could have saved herself the haste, because once again, Joseph followed her down the hall.
“So, Molly Eden, dare I take the chance, and repeat my offer of dinner?”
Because she refused to stop, he followed her to the elevator, waiting for an answer he wasn’t sure he’d get.
Molly punched the DOWN button and prayed for a speedy response.
“Well…are you going to keep me in suspense, or is this a brush-off and I’m just slow in getting the message? You’ll have to tell me if it is. I’ve been out of the dating scene so long, I wouldn’t know.”
It was the defeat in his voice that got her attention. She turned and stared. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “As serious as I can be, lady. Will you trust me?” The minute he spoke, her expression darkened. He figured it was a safe bet that somewhere along Molly’s life, someone had badly betrayed her trust.
Finally she shrugged. “I just might. But no promises…not yet. And nothing more than dinner, okay?”
He grinned. “It’s a deal. And just to prove what a gentleman I am about the whole deal, I’ll even provide a chaperon. Course, he’s not housebroken, and he does still spill milk into his food on occasion, and I’m having a hell of a time getting him to quit sucking his thumb, but he’ll do in a pinch.”
The description of his son’s behavior and habits made Molly grin. “What time?”
“Seven okay?”
“I’ll bring dessert,” she offered. “Is the host or the chaperon allergic to anything important?”
He returned her smile. “Only rejections, Miss Molly. Only rejections.”
The elevator dinged, and Molly entered, sharing the space with three elderly women and a man who reeked of garlic. In reflex, she wrinkled her nose, then out of the corner of her eye saw Joseph grin at her response. He didn’t miss a thing, she thought, and that made her nervous. If he was that observant, she didn’t want him guessing about her own attraction toward him. And then she sighed. There was no need to second-guess a man who was capable of reproducing himself as perfectly as Joseph Rossi had. A fleeting thought came and went as she wondered what Joey’s mother had looked like. Whatever the child had inherited from her had nothing to do with actual physical characteristics. And then she wondered why she cared. They had nothing to do with her…nothing at all.
Molly paced her bedroom floor, going from closet to mirror and back again. She stared at her reflection in dismay and then licked her finger before pinching a wayward curl from her forehead, trying unsuccessfully to squelch its rebellion and shove it back into order beneath the tortoiseshell clasp in her hair. She turned first one way and then another, checking as she had twice in the last half-hour for signs of a drooping slip or an undone hem.
She made a face at her own reflection and turned away. There was no use searching for any more imperfections. She was as ready as she’d ever be. Now she had to make a choice: Either call Joseph Rossi and make her excuses or show up next door and see if the man was as honest as he seemed.
But in her heart, the choice was already made, because Molly desperately wanted to believe. She grabbed her purse and the carton of strawberry ice cream and started down the sidewalk. It took less than a minute to get to his front door. It took longer than that before she got up the nerve to knock.
Just when she started to make a fist, the door opened. It startled her so that she took a step backward and almost fell off the front step and into the shrubbery.
Joseph watched her coming up the walk, clutching a carton of ice cream in front of her blue dress like a torch, and then waited anxiously on the other side of the door for her knock. When it didn’t come as soon as expected, his impatience got the better of him. He yanked the door open, half expecting to see her running away. When she suddenly began teetering on the edge of his step, he realized that he’d scared the hell out of her instead.
With no time to think, he reached out, catching her just before she landed in his bushes, then pulled her back onto her feet, making no attempt to ignore the fact that her face had turned bright pink.
“Great entrance,” he said, and bowed elaborately, as he stepped aside to let her make her own way into his home.
Molly’s gaze was steadfast as she entered with her head held high. She refused to be embarrassed about an already embarrassing situation, and began brushing at unseen bits of nothing on the front of her skirt as she handed him the melting container of ice cream.
“Thank you,” she said primly. “It was one of my better efforts.”
Joseph laughed and Molly turned and stared, amazed by his ability to enjoy the simplest of things, even if it seemed to be constantly at her expense.
“Momma!”
Joey burst through the doorway on the run, a look of intense surprise and excitement spreading across his face, and then he stopped short, suddenly shy.
Joseph groaned, and muttered low so that only Molly could hear. “I swear this is not my idea. I’ve talked until I’m blue in the face, and he still seems bent on claiming you.” He hesitated and then added with a teasing smile. “Although I honestly can’t fault him in his choice.”
Molly blushed, ignored the father, and knelt until she was eye level with the son.
“Hello, Joey.” She offered her hand, thinking he would shake it. But he simply smiled and walked into her arms for a hug instead, bringing tears to her eyes as he wrapped himself around her neck.
“Found Momma,” he told his father, then wiggled to be turned loose. “I show you my toys,” he announced, taking Molly by the hand in a proprietary manner and starting to lead her out of the room.
Joseph grinned. “Better watch him. He’s precocious, you know. That’s a toddler version of ‘want to see my etchings?’”
It was Molly’s turn to laugh, and she surprised herself when she did. She let Joey lead her away and missed the look of intense longing that swept across Joseph’s face.
“Oh, hell, Joey,” Joseph said to himself. “What have you done to our lives?” He looked down at the melting ice cream and headed for the freezer.
The move he’d made from Mississippi to Oklahoma had been partly a career choice and partly an opportunity to get as far away from the remnants of his old life as possible. Now here he was, making the first moves toward starting a new relationship when he’d barely gotten over the war wounds from the old.
“Daddy!” The excited shout from the back of the house jolted Joseph from his reverie and sent him hurrying to answer the summons.
He walked into his son’s room and then stopped short, oddly jealous of how easily Joey had accepted this woman into his life. But the sight of Joey and Molly astride the horse he’d confiscated from a carnival’s merry-go-round and installed permanently in a corner of the room was too endearing to ignore. Hell! If Molly would put her arms as tightly around him as she had his son, he’d be smiling too.
“This is great!” Molly said. “Where on earth did you find it?”
Joseph shrugged and tried not to stare at how far her skirt had hitched up her thighs.
“Wanna ride, Daddy?” Joey kicked at the horse’s sides as if urging him on to great strides.
“I’d love to ride with you…and Molly.” His voice lingered a little too long on the thought for her comfort. “But I think I’d better go check the spaghetti instead.”
They didn’t even know when he left the room. The last thing he saw was Joey leaning back against Molly’s breasts as he looked up in laughter, and Molly smiling down at the dark head cradled against her chest.
Joseph sighed. “I think I’ve just been rejected in favor of my own son.” He didn’t know whether to be glad that Molly was so comfortable around children or sorry that she was so uncomfortable around him. He had thought that when the earlier confusion about his marital state was cleared up, she’d be fine. Obviously he was wrong. He made up his mind that before the night was over, he’d find out why Molly Eden was distrustful of men. It was easier said than done.
Getting through the meal was an eye-opener for Molly. Watching how calmly Joseph dealt with his son’s drips and spills and requests for more told her what mere words could never have done. The man had the patience of a saint—and, from her point of view, an iron constitution.
Joey had reached a stage in his development in which he needed to see, from time to time, exactly what he was chewing. Obviously, from his point of view, there was only one way to do so, and that was to spit it out and check it for questionable contents.
