Corner-Office Courtship. Victoria Pade
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from beneath the hem of the dress to form legs. “Since I sculpted and painted the face in my own likeness, I think I’m insulted.”
“It’s interesting—I’ll give you that. But you didn’t do yourself justice.”
Was that a compliment or a comment on her sculpting skills? Nati decided not to take it personally one way or the other. “It’s supposed to be sort of a caricature,” she explained. “I know my nose turns up a little at the end—”
“Just enough to be kind of perky,” the man said, his gaze going from her nose to the scarecrow’s.
“But in order to exaggerate it, I gave her a ski-jump nose,” Nati went on. “And I’m grateful that I don’t have that pointy of a chin—”
“No, your chin is just fine… Delicate. Nice…”
She hadn’t been fishing for compliments but she was flattered.
He went on with his critique. “And you definitely missed on the mouth. Yours is good—you have nice, full lips. But that’s one tight-lipped smile on the scarecrow.”
Her chin was delicate? Her lips were nice and full?
Nati felt some heat come into her face even as she told herself that it was silly. There was nothing flirtatious about what he was saying or the way he was saying it. Was there?
It had been a long time since a man other than her grandfather had noticed much of anything about her, and maybe it was going to her head. Just a little.
It was silly, she told herself again. Silly, silly, silly. They were just making small talk.
Her shop door opened just then and a tiny, frail old woman came in.
“Hi, Mrs. Wong,” Nati greeted, glad for the distraction. Then she said to her male visitor, “If you’ll excuse me for a minute. Feel free to look around…”
Turning her back on the man, who was somehow managing to unnerve her without even trying, Nati grasped a small cheval mirror and brought it around to the front of the counter.
“Oh, that’s just beautiful!” Mrs. Wong said.
She had brought the heirloom to Nati to restore the painted ivy decoration on its frame.
“I’m just amazed,” the older woman said. “There wasn’t much more than a shadow left and you brought it back to life. It’s as pretty as it was the day my father gave it to me—that was seventy-two years ago.”
“I’m glad you like it. Let me carry it out to the car for you.”
“Why don’t you let me do that?” the male customer offered.
“No, that’s okay, it isn’t heavy,” Nati assured him.
But she had an ulterior motive. As she carried the mirror out to the elderly woman’s car parked at the curb, Nati took a peek at her own reflection, making sure her appearance compared favorably to the scarecrow’s.
She’d worn her chin-length, golden-brown hair loose today, just barely turned under at the ends. She would have liked it if she had a comb to run through it to neaten it up a little. As it was, her swept-over bangs were falling a bit in her face.
She had on her usual makeup—a little pinkish powder she’d brushed onto her apple-round cheekbones, a little mascara to bring out her brown eyes, and although she’d applied a light lipstick when she’d left the house this morning, it was four in the afternoon and it was long gone.
She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that suddenly seemed awfully plain and maybe a size larger than necessary. She was comfortable, but now she would have liked to look more stylish. And maybe show off some of her curves.
But still, as she slid the mirror onto its side into the backseat of Mrs. Wong’s car, she decided that she wasn’t too much the worse for wear.
She was better off than the scarecrow.
Not that it mattered. The guy was only a customer, she reminded herself. At least she thought he was. Whatever his reasons for visiting her shop, they weren’t about her personally.
Once she’d made sure the mirror was secure, she closed the car’s rear door and turned back toward her shop, noticing that while Janice Wong was browsing through the painted and stenciled tole pieces she had for sale, the good-looking guy was watching her through the plate-glass windows. Rather raptly…
At least he was until she caught him at it, and then he glanced away.
Maybe he was a summons server and he felt guilty about what he was really there to do….
There had been a summons server from the Pirfoys’ attorneys at the start of the divorce, who had acted a little like this guy…
But the divorce was final. The settlement had been signed. The almighty Pirfoys couldn’t come back and try to take anything else from her or from her grandfather, and surely Doug wouldn’t be bothered doing anything else six months after the fact, would he? Especially when the divorce had been so much to his advantage.
No, she was just being paranoid.
First she had been silly to think something was clicking with this perfect stranger—even though she wasn’t in the market to have things click—and now she was afraid the guy was there to cause her some kind of problem.
She must be delirious. That’s what she got for eating nothing but gummy bears for lunch.
“All set,” Nati announced to the older woman as she went back into the shop.
“And I paid you in advance, didn’t I?” Mrs. Wong asked.
“You did. You’re good to go.”
“I’ll make sure my neighbor is careful when he takes the mirror out of the car and brings it in for me,” Janice Wong promised. “And I just might come back another day for one of those old tin coffeepots—they’re so cute!”
“I’ll be here,” Nati assured her, holding the door open for the tiny woman.
Then she turned her attention back to the man…
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” she apologized. “But now I’m all yours—” She cut herself off the minute the words came out. But she couldn’t help it—she warily enjoyed the sight of this gorgeous guy’s amused grin. She liked how the small lines crinkled at the corners of those excruciatingly blue eyes of his.
“What can I do for you?” she finally asked.
“I’m looking for Natalie Morrison.”
Summons server.
Nati felt dread run up her spine.
“You found her,” she said, going back behind the counter where she felt somehow safer. “It’s Nati, though. No one calls me Natalie.”
The man did not bring an envelope out of his breast pocket. Instead he merely said, “Okay, Nati. I’m Cade Camden.”
Not a summons server—that was good. But a Camden?
That was why he looked familiar. They’d never met but pictures of the Camdens showed up in newspapers and magazine articles periodically because they were one of Denver’s preeminent families. There were a lot of them, so Nati couldn’t have put a name with any of the faces, but she had seen the faces. And she certainly knew the family name.
Her own family’s first negative encounter with the wealthy had been with H. J. Camden. He was the reason the Morrisons moved to Denver in 1950, the reason behind Nati’s great-grandfather losing his farm and needing to pack up his wife and son—Nati’s grandfather—in order to find work beyond the confines of the small Montana town where he was born. It was a story she’d heard numerous times.
But did Cade Camden know it? And what was he doing in her shop? Looking for her specifically?