Everything She's Ever Wanted. Mary Forbes J.

or rest.

      “I’ll rest enough when I’m dead,” were her exact words.

      “What’s she selling now?” Arthur asked.

      “This and that. Some antiques. Mostly knickknacks, birch wreaths, candles, that sort of thing. There’s even an old toilet stuffed with dried flowers. Quite artistic and unique.”

      Arthur chuckled. “I can imagine. Any artwork?”

      “Some homegrown stuff.” Clay pots, tobacco lath totes. Birdhouses.

      “I mean paintings.”

      She knew what he meant. “Yes. Oils, acrylics. No watercolors.”

      “Get yours in there, then.”

      “Maybe someday.” She fingered the hoop of embroidery—a field of prairie grain she’d brought into the bedroom—studying the intricate stitches. She took a breath, plunged ahead. “I bought into her store, Dad.”

      “Good God. Why?”

      His thunder had Breena holding the phone six inches from her ear. “I need a change.”

      “A change? Breena! What about your practice?”

      She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know that I’ll ever do therapy again. My heart isn’t in it anymore.”

      Silence. “You’re letting them win, you know.”

      “It’s not a case of win or lose. It’s a case of happiness. This shop makes me happy. I like meeting and talking to the customers. I like ordering merchandise, displaying it. I like the feel of the place, Daddy.” And I like the way Seth Tucker makes my heart thump.

      “Does this mean you’re relocating?”

      “Possibly.”

      “Ah, Bree.” Pain in his voice.

      “I’ll be fine. Aunt Paige is wonderful, a darling, really. As a matter of fact, I’m having supper at her house tonight.”

      He grunted. “Well, at least you’ll have family around. If I could get away, I’d come up myself.”

      “I know you would,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t. Dear as he was, Arthur Quinlan liked his home and his garden too much. “I’ll be fine.” After about a hundred years.

      “I take it you’re not staying with Paige?”

      “I’m temporarily living in one of the storage rooms while I look for my own place.” When he remained quiet, she continued, “I need to do this, Dad. I need time away from…”

      “Relatives.”

      “Yes, but not in a bad way, just until I rediscover Breena Quinlan.”

      “Leo will pay for this, you can count on it.”

      “Let it go, Daddy. He’s not worth it.”

      “Then she’ll pay. God help me, the girl always chased boys.”

      My husband is not my tenth-grade boyfriend.

      Not that her father had ever stopped Lizbeth even then. Her sister had merrily chased the opposite sex for years while Arthur stayed home and wrung his hands. Like now. A man of talk and no action. But Breena loved him.

      “It takes two to tango in a relationship.” She laid aside the embroidery hoop. “Ours was short about four steps.”

      “That’s utter hogwash. You’re a good, loving wife. A wonderful life partner. The guy’s a complete doofus. I never realized how much.”

      Tears stung her throat. She pressed an arm against her stomach. “That’s a father’s bias talking,” she said softly. “Leo was my husband, after all.” And she’s still my sister. Her stomach took a sick roll.

      Arthur harrumphed. “Far be it from me to denigrate your feelings toward the man. However, if he was standing here in this den, I’d be hard pressed not to kill the SOB.”

      Damn drippy tears. “She’s as much at fault.” So am I for not seeing it, for not noticing the looks, the touches. Not wanting to notice.

      Her father sighed, a shivering, mournful sound in her ear. “She is at that, sweetheart. Damn her soul. If your mother had lived…”

      Breena had heard it all before. “If your mother had lived, Lizbeth wouldn’t be so wild. If your mother had lived, your sister would’ve been different. If your mother had lived, she wouldn’t’ve felt abandoned…”

      But her mother had died giving birth to Breena.

      Another hurdle on her track of life.

      Quietly, her father said, “I love you.”

      “I know.” Breena pressed her lips together. “You’re always there, though thick, thin or trim.”

      “I’m here now, too.”

      “I know.”

      “When will you be coming home?”

      “In a few months, probably December.”

      “For Christmas?”

      “I can’t say. It wouldn’t be…” The same. She swiped her cheek. “I’ll see.”

      “Will you let me come there?”

      “Daddy…”

      “Okay. I won’t push.”

      She knew him well. “Thank you.”

      “You’ll phone again?”

      “Yes,” she promised. “I’ll phone again.”

      “If you need anything, anything at all…”

      “I know. I have to go now.”

      “Honey?”

      “Yes?”

      “Don’t blame yourself. Ever.”

      The tears came in earnest now. “Love you, Daddy.” She punched off the receiver and lay back on the bed. Not blame herself? She’d been in the other half of a marriage for almost a decade. A woman didn’t live with man that long and not know what made him tick to some small degree.

      What made Leo De Laurent tick was Lizbeth Quinlan.

      Her forty-one-year-old sister.

      Breena set an arm over her eyes, blocking the memory of that night she’d confronted her husband. Top store manager who became a CEO of the food conglomerate where he’d worked. A master manager.

      Who could not manage a marriage with her.

      She heard her voice again, hurt, accusing. “You were with her twice today.”

      Her mind’s eye saw him spin around, coat winging at his calves. “She was at Alphonse’s already, okay? I saw her, went to say hello, and she asked me to sit. End of story.” He’d picked up his briefcase, then headed toward the curved stairs, to the spacious room that once might have been a nursery but had been streamlined into an office. His office.

      Breena had hurried after him. “You also took her to Ocean Beach—where I jog.”

      “Nothing happened. I swear.”

      “You kissed her. For a long time.”

      The beach was, after all, a public place. People kissed there all the time—-but not with their sisters-in-law.

      Breena shot off the bed. Enough! Mopping her face with a sleeve, she stood trembling, unable to move. Slowly, slowly, her breathing calmed. She glanced around her tiny bedroom. How could you, Lizbeth? He was my husband. Mine!

      “Have there been others?” she had asked him.

      “No others.”