“On what? You’ve been staring at that wall for five minutes. Either tear the son of a bitch down or come over here and help me.”
“You curse far too much.”
“ ‘Son of a bitch’ isn’t a curse. It’s a figure of speech.”
Colin had been sullen all morning, but since he understood buildings and construction, Sugar Beth couldn’t let him off the hook. She needed him to find what had eluded her, and if they came up empty today, then she needed his sarcasm to console her.
“This place isn’t as bad as it looks.” He pushed the crate to the side. “It needs a new roof, and there’s water damage, but the structure’s basically sound. Tallulah was right. Someone should restore it.”
“Don’t look at me. I can’t even afford to get the dent taken out of my fender.”
“Why don’t you talk to Winnie about the depot? The planning council should at least consider it.”
“I’m the last person the planning council would listen to.”
“Restoring it would take serious money, that’s for certain.”
“It’s a mess.” But even as the words left her mouth, a picture sprang into her mind of a children’s bookstore, complete with a miniature caboose, model trains, signal lights, and a trunkful of dress-up costumes. She sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I wish Jewel cared more about selling kids’ books. Wouldn’t this make a fantastic children’s bookstore? Not that she could afford to renovate it even if she were interested.”
“It’s a great location. But it has more square footage than a specialty bookstore needs.”
“Not with a coffee shop next door.” She didn’t know where the idea had come from, and his eyebrows rose as he studied her more closely. She turned away and headed for the back. Some things were too impractical even for daydreams.
Colin tapped walls, investigated storage areas, and took every opportunity to snarl at her. Eventually, he announced that he was going up into the loft.
“I didn’t know there was one.”
“Exactly what did you think was above the ceiling?” he inquired with the same scathing tone she remembered from high school.
She followed him into the ticket office, where he climbed up on the old desk and pushed aside a splintery access panel above his head. As she watched how effortlessly he pulled himself through the opening, a rush of desire swept through her. First his chest disappeared, then the rest of him, all in one effortless motion. She wanted to feel that strength pressed against her once more, inside her. She stepped away.
He reemerged five minutes later, looking dirtier and more withdrawn. “Nothing. Let’s get out of here.”
She’d hoped Winnie would be at the carriage house to act as a buffer while they searched its rooms, but only Gordon greeted them at the door. Colin continued to snap her head off, and by the time they reached the studio, she’d lost patience with him. “Forget it! I’ll do the rest myself.”
“Right. Since you’ve done so well already.” He pulled away the plastic. She gritted her teeth and watched. He moved the ladder to the side, looked under the drop cloth, and studied a pair of paint-splattered cracked leather boots she’d found during an earlier exploration.
“He wouldn’t have left them here if he hadn’t planned to come back,” she said.
“Who knows?”
As he returned the boots to their place under the workbench, Sugar Beth thought of Tallulah and the bitterness that came over women who defined their lives only through their relationships with men.
Finally, there was no place left to look, nothing to do but lock up. “I’m sorry, Sugar Beth.”
She’d been counting on his sarcasm to sustain her, and now she had to fight to keep her composure. “
“Give me a couple of days,” he said, more softly. “I’ll think of something.”
“It’s my problem, not yours.”
“Nevertheless.”
She didn’t hang around any longer. Instead, she left him standing on the path and made her way back into the house. As she shut the door, she reminded herself that finding the painting today had always been a long shot. She shouldn’t have let herself hope.
Barely five minutes passed before Winnie appeared, her arms full of grocery bags. Gordon snarled at her as she sidestepped him. “Is that dog dangerous?”
Sugar Beth mustered the energy to reply. “So far, you and I are the only ones he doesn’t like.”
“Why would you keep an animal like that around?”
“A lesson in humility.”
Winnie glared down at Gordon, who was still growling. “Stop it right now.”
He backed away just far enough to block the doorway to the kitchen so that she had to climb over him. “I picked up some groceries,” she said. “I told Gigi to come over for lunch. I hope that’s all right.”
“Sure. I
The implication didn’t bother Winnie one bit. She hummed as she began unpacking the groceries. Sugar Beth surveyed what she’d bought. All that green stuff and not a carton of mint chocolate chip in sight. She emptied the wastebasket, then lined it with a new trash bag.
“You look upset,” Winnie said.
“Broken fingernail.”
“It’s the painting, isn’t it? Colin said he was going to help you look for it today. You must not have found anything.”
“Not unless you count spiders.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. Talk to Tallulah’s canasta club again, maybe. Try to figure out if she had any other confidantes.”
“Not that I know of. She was so critical most people avoided her. I can’t believe someone like Lincoln Ash could have fallen in love with such a sourpuss.”
“I don’t think she was always like that. My father said she was funny when she was a girl.”
“
“Maybe you’d better check the weather report. Last time I looked, hell hadn’t frozen over.”
“Doesn’t being a bitch get exhausting after a while?”
“You tell me.”
“I believe in deferring to the experts.”
They continued like that for a while, trading insults and, in general, keeping themselves entertained, which was a welcome distraction after Sugar Beth’s dismal morning. So many years of being a respectable, law-abiding citizen made Winnie’s jabs clumsier than Sugar Beth’s, but she compensated by delivering them with the zeal of the newly converted. Eventually, however, she calmed down and concentrated on her salad.
Sugar Beth went upstairs to wash off the dirt and phone Delilah. Afterward she gazed over at Frenchman’s Bride. Colin had said he intended to write today, but he was outside working on his wall.
When she returned downstairs, she heard the humming of a happy little kitchen elf. “Orzo.” Winnie gazed cheerfully into Tallulah’s spongeware bowl. “Hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, pine nuts, an avocado coming up. Gigi’s going to love this salad.”
Sugar Beth decided to distract herself by picking another fight. “It wouldn’t kill you to thank me for what I did last night. If I hadn’t gone that extra mile, you’d still think your husband was nuts about me.”
But Winnie chose her own battle turf and struck back with a zinger. “You’re sleeping with Colin, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of information I’m gonna share with my worst enemy.”
“I knew there was something going on between the two of you the night of the cocktail party. But you’ve met your match. Colin is one man who has his head screwed on straight.”
“Right now, mine is screwed on a lot straighter than his.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” Winnie stabbed a tomato. “No matter how you try to manipulate him, he’ll never marry
