Tall, Dark And Difficult. Patricia Coughlin

flashed him a smile. “Find anything you can’t live without?”

      “Not quite.” The words were hardly out when his forehead creased, intensifying his grim expression. “That is, except for…” His gaze raked across the counter—now covered with plates and teacups named for the brightly flowered fabric that had inspired them—and landed on the hydrangea garland. Looking vaguely relieved, he reached for it. “This—”

      Rose was aghast. “That?”

      “Right.” He glanced at the price tag without flinching, and reached for his wallet.

      “Are you sure?” she asked.

      “Very sure.”

      “You don’t think it’s a bit…pricey?”

      “Not at all. It’s a bargain, in fact, and exactly what I had in mind.”

      “For what?”

      He looked up from the stack of bills he was thumbing through. “I beg your pardon?”

      “I was wondering what you had a nine-foot-long garland of dried hydrangea in mind for? What do you plan to do with it?” she added, when he stared at her in what looked like bewilderment.

      “Do?” He looked at the garland with a blank expression.

      Please change your mind, Rose pleaded silently.

      “I thought I would use it…on the porch.”

      “The porch?” she gasped, horrified. “Aren’t you afraid the dampness will ruin it?”

      “Good point.”

      “I have a wicker plant stand that would be perfect on Devora’s porch,” she told him. “Maybe with a gorgeous Boston fern? Ferns love humidity.”

      He shook his head.

      “Geraniums?”

      “I’m not much for plants. This thing is fine. I’ll figure out what to do with it once I get it home.”

      “I see.” She grabbed a stack of pastel tissue and began wrapping it, doing her best not to look perturbed. As he had pointed out, this was a place of business. How was he to know that just because a “thing” had a price tag did not mean it was actually ready to be sold?

      With the garland lovingly wrapped and gently arranged in a shopping bag, she wrote out a receipt and calculated the sales tax.

      “That will be two hundred and sixty-seven dollars and fifty cents,” she said to him.

      The creases suddenly reappeared on his forehead, but if he was having second thoughts, he didn’t say so. With the same ease he’d shown in handling the cane, he tucked the cash away and produced a credit card. “This okay?”

      “Sure.”

      The transaction complete, Rose handed him the bag, resisting the urge to tell him to take good care of it.

      “I’ll be in touch,” she said. “About your party,” she added when he gave her a puzzled look.

      “Oh. Well, we’ll talk about that. In the meantime, there is something else I’d like to ask you.”

      A date? Rose braced herself, not sure how she felt about that. It was one thing to be neighborly, another thing entirely to risk thinking of him as anything other than Devora’s nephew.

      “Shoot,” she invited.

      “Devora collected some kind of birds. Glass birds, I think, but I’m not quite—”

      He broke off, his expression visibly relieved, when she started to nod.

      So he wasn’t going to ask her out, thought Rose, telling herself she wasn’t disappointed.

      “Devora collected works by Boris Aureolis, specifically his first nature series. They’re not glass, though I can see how you might think so. They have such a wonderful clarity. They’re actually hard-paste porcelain from the mid-eighteenth century. Aureolis started out as a colorist for Meissen, but ended up a major creative force. He worked with an alchemist to develop the special glaze that distinguishes his work.”

      “That’s fascinating,” he said, looking anything but fascinated. “Do you happen to have any in stock?”

      He scowled when she laughed and shook her head.

      “Heavens, no. Aureolis is too rich for my blood.”

      He gave a small grunt. “Really? Just how rich are we talking?”

      She nibbled her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I’m no authority, you understand, but they do turn up at auction once in a while, and I was always keeping an eye open for Devora. If I remember correctly, she was missing only four of the series of twenty-five.”

      “Three.”

      “Three?” She nodded. “That’s right. She snagged the falcon from The Snooty Fox in Burlington.”

      “Did she mention what she paid?”

      “Probably, but my head is always so full of prices, it’s hard to remember exactly.” She fiddled absently with the sliver of a gold moon that hung on a slender chain around her neck, stopping when she noticed his attention lingering there. Again. “It seems to me it was in the neighborhood of four…maybe high threes.”

      “Hundred?”

      “Thousand.”

      “Figures,” he muttered, then added, “Devora always did have expensive taste.”

      “Are you thinking of selling the collection?”

      “Actually, I’m looking to complete it.”

      Rose’s heart melted a little around the edges. “What a sweet, thoughtful thing to do. Oh, Devora would be so pleased.”

      “Trust me, it’s not thoughtful. It’s not even my idea,” he insisted, looking uncomfortable with the approval she was beaming his way. “It’s what Devora wanted. Her last request, you might say. She wants the completed collection donated to the Audubon Society.”

      “She always talked about doing that someday. It was her dream. And it’s also something a lot of people wouldn’t understand, or else would simply write off as the crazy whim of an old lady. No wonder she adored you.”

      He looked horrified by her praise. “You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t understand anything. I certainly don’t understand why anyone would spend their time and money chasing after some old glass…excuse me, porcelain birds, just to give them away. I think it’s the single wackiest, most senseless thing I ever heard of.”

      “Maybe so,” she allowed with an easy smile. “And yet you’re willing to do it, anyway. Sorry, Griffin, that makes you some kind of hero in my book.”

      “I am not willing,” he snapped.

      “Then why are you here?”

      “Because…” He stopped and clenched his teeth. “Because I have no damn choice.”

      “I understand…really. And believe me, that kind of devotion is rare.” Her smile gentled as she reached out and patted the hand with which he was gripping the cane. “Sometimes it takes a personal setback to make us more sensitive to the hearts of others.”

      “Sensitive?” His tone was edgy, and a flush darkened his lean face. She could feel the tension in his hand and drew hers back.

      “Is that what you think I am?” he demanded, growling now. “Sensitive?”

      Oh, yes, most definitely a growl. You’d have thought she’d called him a sissy. Of course, in his testosterone-pickled view of reality, she just may have. It was silly, really, when all she had been trying to do was build on the one thing they had in common—a love for Devora. And why? To ease his damn loneliness, that’s