goals wasn’t what had his attention at the moment, however. It was the detail in the drawing. It hadn’t been generated using a computer program. The floor plan had been drawn with pencil on graph paper. While the layout was admittedly simple, the measurements and identity of the elements were all perfectly drawn and precisely printed. It had the touch of a professional.
“Oh,” she murmured, apparently understanding. “I took a drafting class a few years ago. We’d thought about building our own home and I wanted to understand what the architect was talking about.” She gave a shrug, the motion nowhere near as casual as he suspected she intended it to be. “We never got to the blueprint stage, though. We bought instead.”
We.
The freshness of her soap or shampoo or whatever it was clinging to her skin already had him conscious of her in ways he was doing his best to ignore. He’d caught the light herbal scent of her windblown hair when she’d pointed out the walls on the drawing. He caught it again now. Whatever it was she wore seemed too subtle to define. But the elements managed to hit his gut with the impact of a charging bull.
Telling himself he didn’t need to know anything about her that didn’t apply directly to his reason for being there, he deliberately overlooked her reference to the man she’d married—along with the subtle havoc she wreaked on certain nerves—and indicated a rectangle she’d drawn by the front door.
“So what’s this?”
“That’s the armoire over there. It just needs to be moved back against that wall and down a few feet and it’ll be perfect. A couple of neighbors stopped by to welcome me yesterday. Actually, I think they came to check me out,” she admitted, because their curiosity about the “single woman who’d bought the store” had been so obvious. “But one of them mentioned that she makes organic soaps and creams. She has a friend up the road who makes candles for craft shows. I thought I’d see what else is made locally and put a gift display in it.”
He eyed her evenly. “This isn’t a boutique.”
“Are you saying it’s a bad idea?”
He wasn’t going to commit to anything yet. He was still back on her having taken a drafting class just because she’d wanted to understand her architect.
“When did you do this?”
Realizing he hadn’t shot her down, a hint of relief entered her eyes. “After Tyler went to sleep in the evening. And between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m.”
Sleepless nights, he thought. He’d once been there himself. Having one’s world turned upside down did tend to promote a certain degree of restlessness. He figured it didn’t help matters that she was trying to sleep in an unfamiliar house, in a bed she apparently wasn’t accustomed to, either. She’d said the one she was now using had been in a guest room.
The thought of her in bed, tossing, turning or otherwise, had him reaching for his old briefcase.
“Let’s get to the inventory. Once you know what you have to work with here, you’ll know what you need to order and how much shelving space you can actually use.”
“So you think this floor plan might work?”
The layout of the shelves his grandfather had built had served its purpose effectively for years. Changing anything about it hadn’t even occurred to Erik. The old-fashioned footprint of the place was simply part of the store’s personality. It always had been.
He’d thought it always would be.
He gave a mental snort, blocking his reaction to the change as irrelevant. No one knew better than he did how transient “always” could be. The store was hers now, he reminded himself yet again. She was free to do anything she wanted as long as she could turn a profit.
“It might. Probably,” he conceded, because her plan would certainly better define the grocery section from the sporting goods. Using the big armoire to promote local artisans wasn’t a bad idea, either.
Still, there was no denying the reluctance in his agreement. He could practically hear it himself. He also couldn’t help but notice the small smile Rory immediately stifled.
It pleased her to know that her first instincts and efforts toward her new business were good ones. It didn’t feel good to him, though, to know he’d deprived her of sharing that pleasure with the only person available. He was her mentor. He was supposed to be encouraging her. Showing a little enthusiasm.
Before he could tell her just how good her instincts probably were, she’d crossed her arms over the glittery designer logo on her hoodie and moved on.
“Before we start the inventory,” she prefaced, “would you tell me about the customs your grandparents had here? One of the ladies I met said she hoped I’d have a farmers’ market on the porch like the Sullivans did every summer. The other one said that the Harbor Market lighted walking kayak was missed in the Chimes and Lights parade last week.”
She hadn’t realized such an object even existed until Edie Shumway, the fortysomething community volunteer and, Rory suspected, neighborhood busybody, had explained what it was. Apparently Erik’s grandfather and one of his cronies from the local lodge provided propulsion for the Christmas-light-covered kayak—which explained the two holes she’d finally noticed in the bottom of the one hanging from the ceiling in the back of the store.
“I’m going to call the lodge and see if I can get a couple of volunteers to walk it in the parade next year. I’ll provide candy for them to throw to the kids, and get elf hats like Edie said they wore. But I need to know what else your grandparents did that I should do, too.”
Erik hesitated.
“I’m not totally sure what you’re after.”
“Anything they did for holidays, or for community events. Or things they did every year that people looked forward to.”
“Like the kayak and the elf hats,” he concluded.
“Exactly. I want to belong here,” she explained, as if that need meant as much to her as financial success. “I want us to fit in. The other day, your friend implied that this place was sort of an institution around here. If there are customs your grandparents had that their neighbors and customers looked forward to, then I’ll keep them up the best I can.”
“You want to maintain my grandparents’ traditions?”
“If you’ll tell me what they were.”
Erik was not a man who impressed easily. Nor was it often that a woman caught him so off guard. Even as the businessman in him commended her approach to public relations, a certain self-protectiveness slipped into place.
Resting one hip on the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest, conscious of her honest interest as she waited for whatever he might be willing to share.
“They always gave suckers to the little kids.” A few innocent memories would cost him nothing. And possibly help her bottom line. “And ice cream bars. Locals always got a free one on their birthday.” His grandma had kept a calendar under the cash register with the regular customers’ birthdays written on it. Anniversaries were there, too.
He told her all that, ignoring an unwanted tug of nostalgia as he began to remember traditions he’d taken for granted,
