Summer's Freedom Page 26

He responded with the curiously unthreatening smile and gestured with both hands, as if throwing the uncomfortable breach over his shoulders. “Forgive me.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Have you a set fee you charge for such things?”

  “Not really.” She frowned as she mulled over the time and energy involved in the task, then named a figure she thought was fair.

  “More than reasonable,” he agreed. “Well, then, if you will come with me,” he said, rising, “I will find a copy of this list to give you.”

  Lila rose, too, bending over the table to lift plates and carry them to the kitchen. For an instant Samuel allowed himself to admire a glimpse of the well-rounded figure she had hidden beneath her modest clothing. As he watched, she stiffened and straightened slowly, a flitting expression of pain tightening her mouth. By the time she turned to face him, there was only the slightest flare of her nostrils to betray her. “I will take care of those later,” he said. “Come.”

  As he led the way to the office, he added a certain courage to his mental assessment of her, an assessment that was already rather confusing in its opposites.

  Lila tried to control her legs as she trailed him into the small office, taking a chair before he could turn. Even when she was sitting, a series of muscle spasms in her lower back sent an excruciating radius of pain up to her shoulders and down through her legs to her toes. She breathed in slowly, consciously relaxing every atom of her body, then let go of the breath just as slowly. There was no controlling the spasms, but there was a way of living with them.

  She glanced up to see Samuel’s black eyes on her, not with the impatience she often encountered, but with something very like admiration. “It’s your back that prevents your working,” he said.

  “It’s nothing. The cold night made it act up.”

  He seemed to accept this, and opened a drawer to withdraw a file. “These are the plans for the buffet. I plan to hire enough new people this week to cover both fronts that evening, but I thought Charlene would be our best choice. She seems popular with the customers.”

  Lila shook her head. “No, she needs to be here to supervise the floor.” She paused to let a particularly vicious assault on her spine pass, keeping her face carefully neutral, as if in thought. “Eileen does a wonderful job with catered affairs.”

  Samuel nodded. “Fine, then.”

  The consultation was over, Lila thought, accepting a stapled sheaf of papers. Now, the only thing was to stand and go. She steeled herself to rise from the chair gracefully.

  Ah, there, she thought. The grip eased, and she stood up. “I hope I’ve been able to help you,” she said, extending her hand.

  He took it in his, and Lila noticed his hands were brown and hard and long fingered, his grip cool and professional. “Thank you for coming,” he said formally.

  She released him. “My pleasure. I’ll bring your desserts by in the morning.”

  As she turned, he saw one hand fly to the small of her back in distress. He pretended not to notice, bending to replace the file in his desk drawer then glancing out the window to the steady rain beyond. As casually as possible, he said, “Lila, will you allow me to drive you home? This weather is not fit for a stray dog.”

  She paused, her hand on the doorjamb, and flashed him her dazzling, daring grin. “I’m stronger than a stray dog,” she said, and left.

  That was no doubt true, he thought with a grin. Nonetheless… He took his car keys from a hook by the door and donned a light jacket, overtaking Lila as she gathered her wet clothes. “I insist,” he said, smoothly taking her elbow with a smile. “You admired my car, and now you may ride in it.” To forestall any protests, he added, “I need you to be in good health this next week.”

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  WALK

  in

  BEAUTY

  (Excerpt)

  by

  Barbara Samuel

  One

  A blue jay feather lay on the sidewalk as Luke Bernali climbed from his truck. He almost stepped on it. A flash of iridescent blue caught his eye in time, and he bent over to pick it up.

  Jessie.

  The feel of her and the sense of warning were so strong, he had to resist the urge to look over his shoulder. Luke twirled the feather in his fingers, admiring the shimmer of color banded with sharp black stripes. Blue jays had been her favorite birds. Luke once made her some earrings from a pair of tail feathers.

  He half smiled at the bittersweet memory. With the respect usually reserved for the feathers of eagles and hawks and other such birds of power, he nestled it between the folds of a paperback science fiction novel on the front seat of his truck. Jessie had cared little for traditional explanations of the qualities of feathers. Even if no one else in the world valued blue jays, she’d told him, she did. She liked their colors and their sass.

  For just an instant, he felt another small wash of warning. He brushed it away. Silly. She’d been gone more than eight years.

  With a quick glance at the dark storm clouds gathering in the November sky, he lifted a pile of Navajo weavings from the back of his truck and flung their solid weight over his shoulder. Mountains towered behind the bank of shops along the street, their deep blue color shadowed beneath the clouds obscuring their summits. Luke breathed deeply and smelled snow.

  A young Indian girl danced alone on the sidewalk in front of the store he was about to enter. Against the wintry background of the approaching storm, she looked like a wood sprite or a flower swaying in the wind. Grinning at the unselfconscious beauty she projected, Luke paused to watch her.

  Long black hair flowed like satin ribbons to her slim hips. Her limbs were lanky and long, promising willowy height one day. In the dusky rose of her cheeks, a dimple flashed, elusive and charming.

  She was the spitting image of his sister, Marcia, at this age. Luke stepped forward, intending to ask the child about her clan.

  She spun around and saw him watching her. Luke caught a swift impression of beaded earrings flashing in her great mass of hair before his attention was snared by her unusual, exquisite eyes.

  Pure topaz.

  The color alone was startling in her powerfully Navajo face, against her dusky skin and broad cheekbones. Together with their enormous size and calm expression, they were astonishing.

  In that single split second, Luke’s world shifted abruptly. He blinked, took in a breath and looked at her again. She had stopped dancing to look at him with those beautiful eyes.

  His jaw hardened. There was only one person in the world who had eyes just that color. This child, beautiful against the dark day, was not just a relative to his clan, as he had first suspected.

  She was his daughter.

  “Hi,” the girl said. “You must be the guy they’re waiting for.” She pointed with her lips toward the shop selling rugs and pottery and various other Southwestern artworks.

  Luke took in another slow, deep breath, trying to keep his emotions soft, quiet, fluid. “Are they waiting?”

  Her lids flickered over the topaz irises, then swept up again. Mischief flashed in her dimple. “Not too long. The man in there said you were probably on Indian time.”

  Luke chuckled. “Just another kind of time.”

  “Where’s Daniel?” she asked.

  “He’s—” he cleared his throat “—he’s not feeling well. Is he a friend of yours?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m Luke. Daniel’s a friend of mine, too—or he used to be, a long time ago.”

  “Luke?” The child measured him. Her gaze flickered toward the rugs he carried over his shoulder, then narrowed on his face. “Luke Bernali?”

  If he’d had any doubt that one of the people he’d find waiting for him inside would be Jessie Callahan, it was now erased. “That’s right.”

  She shook hair from her eyes. “There’s a picture of you in my mom’s o
ffice,” she said, as she glanced through the windows of the gallery and then back to Luke. “My mom’s inside.”

  “Don’t go away,” he said and pulled open the door.

  * * *

  Jessie shifted impatiently. She wore no watch at which she could glance with pointed severity, so she folded her arms and sighed. Loudly.

  The man on the telephone didn’t even look up. He’d been absorbed in his conversation since five minutes after her arrival, and it was no accident, she was sure. Geoffrey Wilkes wanted Jessie to know he was a powerful, important man, a force to be reckoned with.

  At moments like this, she really wondered why she had given up cigarettes.

  She shifted, strolling away from the man at the desk and into the showroom. Just beyond the window, her daughter, Giselle, danced to the imaginary tune playing in her mind, as she always did. Jessie smiled. What a kid.

  Her smile faded, though, as her attention returned to the inner walls, where Navajo weavings were displayed to best advantage on adobe-colored walls. Tasteful arrangements of Hopi pottery reclined on pedestals scattered around the natural clay tile floors, and several understated collections of silver and native stone jewelry were exhibited in glass cases. Everything in the store catered to the hunger for original Southwest art that swept the country, and every last article was genuinely American Indian made. Guaranteed.

  For a price, of course. The huge rug on the wall dangled a tiny handwritten price tag in five figures. Undoubtedly worth it—the wool had been sheared from a sheep the weaver owned, then combed and dyed by hand, then spun and woven over many, many days and weeks of work. The highest possible quality.

  Too bad the weaver had received less than a tenth of the price for her efforts.

  A familiar burn welled in Jessie’s chest as she glanced at the man behind the desk. This time, he caught her eye. His expression, to her surprise, showed not the worry or coldness she expected, but a very definite male appraisal. He lifted his eyebrows in suave acknowledgment of her catching him.

  Annoyed, she shook her head. Where was Daniel? She could handle the confrontation on her own, of course, but it all went so much more smoothly with someone from the reservation to back her up—someone with fresh, lovely products to display.

  Wilkes ended his phone conversation and glided toward Jessie. “I’m sorry, Ms. Callahan, but you must know how temperamental some artists are.”

  Dryly, Jessie inclined her head. “One thing after another.”

  The glass door of the showroom whispered open.

  Jessie murmured a prayer of thanks and turned toward the door. The showroom was dim in the cloudy afternoon, and all Jessie could make out was that the man in the doorway was not Daniel. Daniel wore his hair in a long braid, and he was not as tall as this shadowed man. As he shifted the rugs on his shoulders, Jessie felt a jolt over the way he moved his head, just so, as if—

  She frowned, waiting for the man to come forward where she could see him clearly. He paused a moment, then moved toward them with a lazy, loose-limbed grace. His hair caught and reflected all the light in the room. Her knees shivered dangerously. Oh, please, she muttered to the universe at large. Not this. Not now.

  But her plea went unanswered. In a softly accented voice, the man spoke. “Jessie,” he said. “I knew there was something familiar about that little girl out there.”

  Only Jessie would have picked up the fury in the dulcet tones. And even after eight years, she was intimately familiar with that voice. Not deep, not rumbling, not loud. Indian men rarely had deep voices, and Luke was no exception. His was a voice rich with promises, a tenor of deceptive gentleness, musical with the accents of his first language.

  Jessie clutched the fabric of her shawl tight in her fist. A roar of white noise filled her ears as Luke stepped into the light. For long moments, Jessie stared at the once-beloved face, unable to breathe or move or blink. When she felt a prickling blackness at the edge of her vision, she forced herself to breathe deeply.

  Her mind cleared. “What are you doing here?” she asked, and her tone was more perplexed than she had intended.

  His gaze locked with hers, straight and dark and penetrating. “Daniel is sick. My sister called last night to see if I’d pick up the rugs and bring them over. I drove up to Denver this morning and got them.”

  “You think we could have old home week later, folks?” Wilkes cut in. “I’ve got work to do here.”

  “No problem,” Luke said. The undertone of anger was now channeled toward the man in front of him. “It’s pretty simple, Mr. Wilkes. Unless you start paying a little bit more up-front, you won’t be selling any more rugs.”

  For a pinch hitter, Jessie thought in some surprise, his opening remarks were pretty strong.

  Wilkes pursed his lips, eyeing the weavings Luke carried over his shoulder. “I think there’s room for discussion,” he said reasonably.

  Jessie swallowed a smile. There was always room for discussion, at first. The gallery owners knew they were soaking the weavers. Another grand wouldn’t cut into their profits much.

  If it had been Daniel standing next to her, Jessie would have shot him an amused glance. Since it was Luke, she pressed her lips together.

  “Why don’t we all sit down in my office?” Wilkes suggested, signaling a clerk. “Have a cup of coffee?”

  “Fine.” Luke lifted his chin toward the window, where Jessie’s daughter peered anxiously inside. “What about your daughter? It’s gonna snow.”

  Jessie lifted her eyebrows, about to comment on the intelligence levels of a seven-year-old. She thought better of it and lifted a hand to indicate Giselle should come in. The girl bounced in eagerly, her eyes alight with curiosity and excitement as she came to stand beside her mother. She threw a coquettish glance toward Luke.

  In turn, his icy calm melted and he grinned almost helplessly at the child. His daughter. A fact both father and daughter had obviously figured out.

  Great.

  Once again, Jessie thought she’d like to faint. Or grab Giselle’s hand and run as fast as she could away from this man, away from the past, away from the confrontation she could feel brewing.

  But she’d made a commitment to this project, so she dutifully followed Wilkes into his office and took a seat in one of the richly upholstered leather chairs. Giselle sank gracefully to the floor, her hair surrounding her like a cape. Luke took the chair next to the girl, winking at her as he sat down.

  Luke’s physical presence, so vivid and close, slammed Jessie suddenly. In the strong light of the office she could see him well. His hair was the same thick, heavy black, a little too long. It flowed like river water when he moved. His eyes were the same—penetrating, dark, expressive beyond measure. A few time-etched lines fanned from the corners into his broad cheekbones.

  The yellowish cast to his skin was gone, and he no longer carried the extra weight around his middle. All she smelled was the curiously foresty scent of his skin. The booze, then, was gone.

  She wondered with a pang how long it had been.

  The hands and mouth were still much too clear in Jessie’s mind. She’d seen them in miniature every single day since Giselle was born and didn’t care to renew her acquaintance with those details.

  Wilkes sat down behind his broad desk. “What kind of money are we talking here?” he asked, cutting straight to the chase.

  Luke folded his hands loosely. “Half the price you ask for the rug. And we’ll deliver.”

  To his credit, Wilkes didn’t erupt in outrage as so many of the gallery owners had done. He absorbed the information for a minute, then looked at Jessie. “And I imagine your presence here signifies a little inducement?”

  “You imagine correctly,” she replied and handed him a list. “These are the artists who will pull their work from galleries that refuse to pay a more equitable price for the weavings.”

  “Has anyone given any thought to what will happen to all these artists if they can’t display their work?” He
gave her a measured stare. “Your paintings, for example, Ms. Callahan. They’ve only been selling well for what—two, three years?”

  “There are other methods of displaying our work,” she returned calmly. “And other ways of earning a living.” But he’d struck at her secret terror. What if, after all this was over, she could no longer sell her own work? It was a dream that had been long and hard in coming, and she’d hate to see it die.

  “What about all those little old ladies out there weaving on the reservation?” Wilkes asked, leaning back in his chair. “Anybody ask them how they feel about giving up the tidy little sum they’re already getting for a rug? I understand it goes quite a ways out there.”

  “In the first place,” Luke said in a deadly quiet voice, “they aren’t little old ladies. They are young women and old women and in-between. Many of them are the primary breadwinners in their families—as they should be with such talents. In the second place, you stand to make a profit of eight to ten thousand dollars on every one of those big rugs. And all you do is put it on your wall.”

  Jessie knew she should be concentrating, but Luke’s dark honey voice flowed seductively around her. In the four years they’d spent together, she’d never once heard him raise his voice, except to call a dog. Grimacing in wry amusement, she remembered, too, how alarming that had been to her at first. Her own family had been unable to discuss the weather without a boisterous, loud argument.

  She sobered as Luke continued. “Even at the new rates, you’ll make almost obscene profits.”

  Wilkes dropped forward, arms on the desk. “I’ll tell you something. There’s no way I’ll pay a dime over twenty percent of my gross on those rugs. And from what I’ve been hearing through the grapevine, I’m not alone.” He gave Jessie a cool glance. “No artist on that list of yours will cause me any real loss of revenue, so you can take all your toys and go play somewhere else.”

  Jessie shot Luke a glance. A thin smile curved his lips. “I forgot to mention something else,” Luke said, shifting the weavings on his shoulder. “We’ve taken an option on a shop around the corner here. You’ve got six months, and then we open—just in time for tourist season. When your customers find out they can get the same rug for half of what you charge, I bet I know where they’ll shop.” He stood up and tossed a card from his shirt pocket onto the desk. “You know where to find us.”