The Turnaround Treasure Shop (2 page)

Charlotte laughed. ‘I'm content with how busy I am now, Lily – and Olivia isn't even two.'

Lily laughed along with her. At least she'd managed to change the subject of what might be wrong with her kids. Lack of money topped the list; they were in need of a holiday and unable to keep up with the latest and greatest designer clothes, smart phones or iAnythings of other kids.

‘Hey.'

Lily stumbled as she turned to the sound of Dan's voice, and peered up at him. How had he snuck up so sneakily?

‘You need a sub?' he asked quietly.

Mortification covered her in goose-bumps. ‘No. No — absolutely not. I'm fine. We're fine.'

Dan gave her his shameless smile. The big one. The one his wife said would charm Cinderella from under the nose of the prince. ‘Don't be frightened to ask,' he said.

Lily punched him on the arm. ‘As if. Oh — sorry.' She covered her mouth with her hand. She hadn't meant to punch him, but after working for him for almost eight years, she tended to forget this easy-going man was her boss.

‘You and the kids need a holiday, Lily,' Charlotte called out.

‘And that's so likely to happen,' Lily responded. Her heart seemed to drop to her stomach with a thud as the words left her mouth in an almost sulky tone. ‘I mean — no, we're fine.' Everything was fine. Everything was
always
fine. She breathed deeply, and prepared for what might be said next.

‘When are your mum and Ray back?' Charlotte asked.

‘Um, another three weeks.' Lily's mother, known universally in Swallow's Fall as Mrs J, had married two months ago and was on her honeymoon, travelling Australia in a Winnebago.

Another honeymoon. Another couple of lucky so-and-sos. Not that Lily minded her mother's happiness, or her stepfather's. Her mother had been supportive from the moment Lily arrived back in town nine years ago, hauling with her two small children, one large suitcase and a black eye. And over the last couple of years, Ray Smyth, her mother's secret beau for years before that, had been equally supportive and generous. But Lily had put a stop to the financial support when she'd realised this was her life. She was on her own with two children to look out for. She took nothing for free after that first, finding-her-feet year back in her home town.

‘Don't know how any of us are going to get used to calling your mum Mrs S,' Dan said.

Lily chuckled, forgetting her troubles as a picture of her not-to-be-argued-with mother came to mind. ‘You better not try.' Mrs J was known for her forthrightness. Lily was never sure whether she was happy or disappointed she hadn't inherited that trait of her mother's.

She turned to a storage unit and dragged a rubber-soled stepladder closer to the bank of shelving which held the coffee bags, tea and sugar supplies. She pulled the frame of the ladder apart and locked it into place.

‘And stop with all the heavy lifting and shifting, would you?' Dan said as he took the stepladder off her and swung it away effortlessly as though it weighed no more than a two kilo bag of flour. ‘You need a man for the lifting work. Doesn't she, Charlotte?'

‘Daniel,' his wife said in a warning tone. Although what about, Lily didn't know.

‘I'm just saying!'

‘It's at times when the big ladder is needed that I miss Josh's height around here the most,' Lily said.

Josh and Lily had worked together at Kookaburra's before it had been transformed from a pub into a seven-bedroom hotel. Lily had cooked the evening meals for the restaurant back then, while Josh tended bar, and they'd worked up a laughing, companionable friendship. But Josh had left town years ago as the young people often did, to seek their fortune elsewhere.

Working daytime was so much easier for Lily. She wasn't able to stay with Andy and Janie-Louise as they stood on the street waiting for the school bus, because she started work at 7 a.m., but she was around when they came home. For a couple of hours every day after school, Lily did her utmost to make her little family feel warm and cosy and content and happy. Like a real family. No bruises.

See? Always something to be grateful for.

Dan grinned at Lily. ‘Looking forward to the Easter Bunny Ball?'

‘Daniel!' Charlotte warned him again.

‘Okay, okay.'

‘What's going on?' Lily asked.

‘Nothing,' Charlotte said.

‘We're just watching your back,' Dan told Lily.

‘Well thanks, but I'll manage just fine lifting and heaving things all by myself.' Lily skirted around the ladder which it seemed Dan wasn't going to return, and started emptying clean sundae glasses from the dishwasher and plopping them into the slots of a plastic glass-tray.

‘I'll be back for the bacon and croissants in a sec,' Lily said and headed for the restaurant, tray stacked with tinkling glasses, hands gripping it firmly and the edge resting against her ribs so she didn't drop it if the man who made her tremble was still in the restaurant.

Nick Barton outwardly portrayed the strong silent type who might turn exciting and stealthy at the first call to arms. After all, he'd been a captain in the Navy. A specialist diver — which was probably how the muscle mass came about — in Special Ops. Bombs and things. Probably heroic.
Undoubtedly
heroic. How could a man who looked the way Nick looked
not
be heroic?

If only he wasn't such an enigma, and walk with such grace in his long unhurried stride. She might be able to ignore him if he didn't have that deadly combination of romantic virtues. Lily shook her head. She'd read too many kissing books from the library — but one thing had never made sense to her — why had a man like Nick buried himself in Swallow's Fall?

He'd gone. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. Now she wouldn't have to see him or think about him again until next weekend. Hopefully, he wouldn't be at the Easter Bunny Ball. Heck, she even got jittery when she saw him across the street. Standing next to him every Saturday and Sunday morning in the restaurant, or occasionally when she met him in the grocer's or the hardware store, she half hoped, half feared, he'd give her another compliment like the one at last year's Ball, so she could prove to herself she could handle a man's interest. A man's seduction.

Not that the moment had gone as far as seduction. Not even
close
.

She shut her eyes and tried to wash away the memory of her naive response to the gift of his compliment. Not worth agonising over. He probably didn't remember.

She opened her eyes and shot a look at the swing doors of the hotel and outside to where he might be getting into his four-wheel drive utility truck, the part-time waitress forgotten.

***

Nick Barton pushed the sleeve of his sweater up his arm, the cool morning air nipping at his skin. He jogged down the steps from the wooden walkway on the shopping side of Main Street to the road, his belly sated from a full Aussie breakfast and that damned empty space around his heart filled with contentment now he'd had his weekend fill of Lily.

She hadn't noticed his surreptitious scrutiny of her. She hadn't noticed for the last 12 months. Years of Special Ops training. Came in useful, even in civvy life.

She always wore her long, chestnut-coloured hair gathered up on her head, twisted and held in place with a red pencil. How she did that, Nick didn't know but for a year now he'd wanted to pull the pencil out and watch the mass of hair tumble around her cheeks and onto her shoulders. On special occasions, she let it fly loose, swinging nearly to her waist. Special occasions meaning the two days a week she didn't work like a Trojan. Or the few times in the year when the townspeople of Swallow's Fall held one of their customary holiday events like the town fair, Labour Day…or the Easter Bunny Ball.

Nick eased into his bullet-silver ute, closed the door and took a moment to study Main Street.

April in Swallow's Fall. It ought to be the title of a song. A song for Lily.

He let the colours of autumn — umber reds, brandy oranges and golden yellows — swim in his vision. The leaves from the claret ash trees lining Main Street rustled and shook, the branches swaying in the breeze blowing down the hillside that sheltered the town on the eastern side, causing kids to hang onto their hats and women to take a firm grip of their skirts.

The ash trees looked flustered. Flustered like Lily. Slim as a wand of willow, hair pulled up and back from her face, features fixed into a polite, waitress-type smile, eyes tired-looking from hard work and worrying too much.

He put the key into the ignition and fired the engine. Nothing he could do to ease her troubles, even if he thought she'd want him to, and regardless of his apparently undying attraction to her, nothing he'd even start. Some guys were no good for women, and Nick believed he was one of those guys.

‘Hey, Nick — wait up.'

Nick opened the ute window as Charlotte Bradford ran down the steps of the walkway and onto the road. ‘Dan asked if you could you please sharpen these.' She handed him a slim rectangular metal case through the open window.

‘Sure. All part of the service.'

‘They're brilliant, Nick. I've never had such quality kitchen knives in my life.'

Nick smiled. ‘Thanks.' Always good to get feedback of the effusive and positive kind.

‘Got any more orders from the town?' Charlotte asked him.

‘The committee want a set of knives for the Town Hall kitchen, and Mrs Tam wants an ice-cream scoop.' Which was going to test Nick, because he'd never made an ice-cream scoop but he didn't want to disappoint a town elder, and sweet Mrs Tam made the best ice-cream in New South Wales. Nick hadn't intended making kitchen knives either, but he was happy to design and manufacture them. Knives were his
thing
. His get-away-from-it-all-and-grind-a-blade thing. A hobby he'd had from childhood which had turned into a small but thriving international business over the year he'd been in Swallow's Fall. Web page, blog — the works. Nick Barton, Custom Knife-Maker, or NBCK, as it was engraved onto the blades.

Charlotte leaned closer and spoke quietly. ‘Well, if Mrs Tam is getting one, I want one.'

Nick grimaced, but it was more grin than frown. He sighed with deliberate patience. ‘What colour handle do you want?' he asked, deepening the grin.

Charlotte laughed. ‘Pink please.' She shook her head mock despair. ‘You're an easy touch, Nick.'

‘Aren't I just?' He wondered if these people he'd come to like and respect would think he was such an easy touch if they got a glimpse of the Nick from a few years ago.

He put the metal knife box on the passenger seat. ‘Don't go spreading the word on the ice-cream scoops, eh?' he asked Charlotte. ‘I don't want scoop-making to dominate my world.'

She gave him a salute — albeit with the wrong hand. ‘You can rely on me, Captain.'

Nick felt himself colour. ‘You can drop the “Captain” part, Mrs Bradford.'

Maybe there'd been tension in his tone, or maybe he hadn't quite made the request jocular and off-hand enough because Charlotte's eyes widened a little. After a moment, her smile deepened. ‘Aye Aye, Mr Barton.'

Nick laughed.

‘Oh!' She patted the window frame of the ute. ‘Did you get that message I left for you?'

‘Yes I did. Happy to help the committee in whatever way I can. You know that.'

Charlotte nodded. ‘I do know it. Thanks, Nick. Your help is going to be very special.'

Some of the town committee members wanted help with something, although Nick wasn't sure what yet, but it apparently involved heavy lifting. How that could be thought of as special, he had no idea.

‘Charlotte!'

Charlotte turned, and Nick straightened in his seat at the sound of Lily's voice. He glanced over to the doors of Kookaburra's where she stood in her short-sleeved white blouse, above-the-knee black skirt, snappy white apron and reasonably high black shoes on the end of her long, slim, tanned legs.

‘That new deep-fat thermometer of yours is busting a gut again,' she called. ‘Better come rescue your donuts.'

‘Bugger.' Charlotte moved towards the hotel, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Thanks, Nick. See you later.'

Nick lifted his hand in response and as Charlotte rushed up the steps for the walkway, his gaze automatically sought Lily.

She looked at him. Nick's breath hitched. He nodded. She had the polite, waitress smile in place. He preferred the spontaneous smile; the one that appeared when she wasn't thinking or worrying and lit her from the inside out. Nick's favourite smile.

She looked away and he didn't blame her for not wanting to meet his gaze, and since he wasn't going to do anything about his undying attraction for her, he was glad she hardly ever met it. Those times she did, her hands started flapping, as though she was used to them being tied and they'd been given sudden freedom.

Charlotte and Lily headed inside Kookaburra's. Nick put the ute into gear, attempting to forget the moment he'd nearly kissed Lily. Then gave up and settled into the memory.

He'd only been in town a couple of weeks. Newcomer, and happy to keep to himself in the brick and tile house he'd purchased, a 10-minute drive out of town on All Seasons Road, or to lose himself in the old stables he used as a workshop. Until the townspeople insisted he come out of his cave and join them for the Easter Bunny Ball. He smiled as he recalled his unease about that. Fortunately, there'd been no requirements for him to dress up as a rabbit.

But he'd never forget the moment he'd nearly kissed Lily, and didn't want to. How could he dismiss the recollection of the second he almost touched her mouth with his or the taste of her sweet breath as she gasped and stilled? Like Rapunzel, who'd discovered herself alone in a locked tower with Captain Hook.

He'd pulled back and apologised. Said something stupid about getting carried away because he hadn't expected to see such a beautiful woman in town. Then had regretted it instantly as she blushed, blue-green eyes distraught, lips safely fastened. Looking for all the world as though he was the first man ever to make a remark like that.