After what Ryan had done to her, Gillian had only been able to put one foot in front of the other by chanting living well is the best revenge like a mantra every time the blues threatened. For weeks she’d sustained herself on the image of women flocking to the door of Glad Rags as soon as she unlocked it on the opening day of the Harvest Festival and Sale. She had even done the heretofore unheard-of and toned down her styles for Midwestern tastes. But that hadn’t been sacrifice enough to appease the gods of failure because now her dreams of success—her meager dreams of revenge—were disappearing faster than tickets to a hit Broadway musical. And all because of Lukas McCoy.
A stream of too-hot mist hissed out of the steamer, nearly hot enough to melt the fine lace edging on the camisole she was working on. “Easy, Gilly,” she said, “it’s Lukas McCoy you want to melt, not this exquisite lace.”
Abruptly, she stopped moving the steamer up and down. Had she said melt? Nonsense. Gillian started steaming again. Stopped again. Had she? Well, if she had, she told herself, what she’d meant to say was fry. No, that was the electric chair. Burn? Hmm. Well, certainly not melt. Melting implied all sorts of gooey feelings. And she wasn’t feeling gooey at all towards McCoy. She had no intention of getting all gooey over any man ever again.
Nor did she have any intention of steaming one more garment that she hadn’t designed herself.
Not today, anyway.
Gillian went upstairs to Aunt Clemintine’s apartment to make a pot of coffee. As soon as the aroma drifted up from the coffeemaker, she wished she had one of Molly’s cinnamon buns. Sweet Buns was just across the street. She could hop over there, get a bun, and come back before the coffee was even done brewing. But Molly was a McCoy. And it wasn’t safe for her to go near a McCoy.
She took a cup of coffee into the living room and prepared to chill out by doing some channel surfing. Aunt Clemintine’s taste had run to overstuffed chintz, Italian porcelain flower arrangements, and numerous other girly bric-a-brac that Gillian had loved when she was a little girl. It was so feminine compared to her parents’ house which had been overrun with boy stuff and decorated chiefly with anything that wouldn’t break easily or show dirt.
Gillian opened the doors to the antique armoire that contained a little television set, then got comfortable on the overstuffed sofa. But when she reached for the remote control, it wasn’t on the coffee table. Or the end table. It wasn’t anywhere. It took her five minutes of searching before she realized that the only innovation Aunt Clemintine had embraced after 1952 had been polyester fabric. Her TV didn’t have a remote. It didn’t even have color. Gillian ended up sitting crossed-legged on the floor close enough to the set to reach out and change the channels manually.
The soaps were no fun in black-and-white because you couldn’t really enjoy the clothes. She stopped at a courtroom show—one of those half-hour things where a smart-aleck judge badgered and humiliated the stuffing out of either the defendant or the plaintiff—or sometimes both. Not Gillian’s idea of happy viewing. She reached out to change the channel when something the female plaintiff said caught her attention.
“It’s his fault, Your Honor, how was I supposed to deliver pizzas after he wrecked my car? I got no earnings—he should be made to pay.”
The judge, a feisty-looking middle-aged woman, asked some questions, listened to the answers, and then lashed into the male defendant like her tongue was a cat-o-nine-tails. The defendant tried to defend himself. The judge shut him up. By the time she threw the book at him and made him pay damages and lost wages, Gillian was up on her feet cheering.
“Damn, that felt good,” she said, nearly out of breath with sisters unite blood lust. And then it hit her.
Maybe she should sue Lukas McCoy.
She started to pace the small living room.
Could she?
Should she?
Would she?
Gillian could feel her adrenaline pumping at the thought of having her day in court. Oh, she really wasn’t out for blood. She didn’t want to ruin McCoy or anything. She just wanted enough money to be able to afford to hire someone to be her left arm until it healed. She’d been too big a wimp to do anything about what Ryan had done to her. But that didn’t mean she had to go on being a wimp, did it? She didn’t want to continue allowing men to screw up her life and livelihood, did she?
“Absolutely not!”
She marched over to Aunt Clemintine’s little phone stand and picked up the Timber Bay phone book. “I’ve got more numbers than this in my Rolodex,” she muttered as she flipped through the slim volume until she found the yellow pages. All eight of them. She located the listing for lawyers and picked up the phone.
LUKAS WAS SITTING on the railing that surrounded the marble terrace at the back of the Sheridan Hotel. It was one of those perfect late September days when the leaves on the trees had started to turn but hadn’t yet started to fall. They rustled in the wind off the bay—a last gasp of energy before the colder winds of October put them to rest on the ground. Climbing roses that had been allowed to go wild were still blooming and there were clusters of deep-gold mums, some of them almost as big as shrubs, bordering the low wall that ran down to the water. He could hear the rhythmic lap of the waves against the ramshackle pier.
If things went the way Agnes Sheridan wanted them to, by next summer the small pier would be restored and there’d be boats docked there. The roses would be tamed and there would be people sitting on the terrace. Wealthy, worldly people.
People like Gillian Caine.
“If only I’d said I was sorry,” he mumbled.
“What’s that, pal?”
Lukas started at the sound of Danny’s voice, then quickly collected himself. “About time you got back with my lunch,” Lukas said, figuring a little grousing would make Danny forget that Lukas hadn’t answered him.
“Here ya go.” Danny tossed Lukas a bag from the lunch counter at Ludington Drugs. “Tuna salad on white bread and an order of fried chicken. Interesting combination.”
Lukas easily caught the bag. He rummaged inside and came out with the sandwich. “Did you tell Clara to put cheese on the tuna?”
“Yup.”
Lukas unwrapped the sandwich and started to tear it into little pieces.
Danny groaned. “Don’t tell me you found another stray?”
Lukas set the wrapper down at the top of the steps and called, “Here, Tiger, Tiger.”
A huge clump of mums started to rustle. A moment later a cat emerged—the same one he’d rescued from the tunnel. The big, lazy-moving orange tabby had a scar on his nose and half his tail was missing. He prowled over to sniff the sandwich, gave Lukas a look of appreciation, then delicately started to eat.
Danny laughed. “Cat knows a good thing. Clara uses only albacore down at Ludington’s. By the time you get around to buying cat food, that cat is gonna turn up his nose at it.”
“You can tell just by looking at him that he’s been through a lot. He’s got a little luxury coming,” Lukas said as he bit into a chicken leg.
“Next thing you know, you’ll be going over to Sweet Buns and getting him a slice of cheesecake.”
Lukas laughed. What Danny said wasn’t so far-fetched. Lukas had been rescuing things all his life. As recently as last month he’d coaxed a wounded squirrel with macadamia nuts filched from the larder at Sweet Buns that, Molly never stopped reminding him, weren’t exactly cheap. He regularly climbed trees to fetch cats and helped old ladies cross the street. Heck, he’d even rescued Danny from a bunch of bullies back in grade school. They’d been best buddies ever since. Lukas had a reputation of being an all-around good guy. So how come he’d acted the way he had with Gillian Caine?
“You know, buddy, I did a really