Читать книгу Heard It Through The Grapevine - Pamela Browning, Pamela Browning - Страница 12

“No,” Gina said firmly. She was standing on a ladder, tacking up bunches of dried flowers over the cash register. Josh sneezed.

“You really should take an allergy pill whenever you decide you’re going to stop by and be a nuisance,” she said as she climbed down from the ladder. She had discarded this morning’s smock and put on a short, sleeveless ribbed top. It fit so snugly that he could see her nipples through her bra.

“You’re right,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away. When he did, they aimed themselves downward and focused on the strip of skin between the top and her jeans. Her belly button showed, a sweet little dimple that put him in mind of intimacies that the two of them had never shared.

She folded the ladder and shoved it behind a tall screen covered in burlap. Sprigs of various dried herbs were pinned to the screen, all tied up in bright scraps of ribbon. Gina had an artistic bent; he could tell from the way she’d decorated her store. She had draped lace fabric across shelves and scrunched it up to make display places for packages of herbs, and here and there he saw several other original touches.

A customer walked up to the counter and set several small paper and plastic bags of herbs that she’d selected from bins set into old wine casks arrayed along the side wall. “Hello, Gina. I’m on my monthly run over from St. Helena to stock up on my favorites.”

“Did your mother try brewing the chamomile tea you took home last month?” Gina asked.

“Yes, and she’s sleeping much better, thanks.”

“Wow, Tori, that’s great. Tell her I said hello.”

“I will.”

Gina rang the transaction up on the cash register and put all the bags into a larger one with a handle for carrying. During the few minutes it took, Tori looked him over with more than a little curiosity. Josh was sure she recognized him from the TV show—who didn’t? He tried to downplay his presence by wandering off to study a row of cookbooks.

“I’ll see you next month, Tori,” Gina said as she handed her customer the bag.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss my visit to Good Thymes for the world,” Tori said. With a last lingering look at Josh’s back, she left.

“People don’t want to let the Mr. Moneybags show die,” Josh observed to Gina as her customer’s big SUV jolted out of the parking lot.

“I certainly do,” Gina said as she began to tick numbers off on a list.

“Was the experience so bad?” he asked. A shaft of sunlight penetrated the filmy curtain on the nearby window, sparking silvery highlights in Gina’s hair. She wore it combed to one side, and she had braided a small strand and tucked the braid up with the help of a small daisy. The effect was enchanting.

“I don’t see any need to rehash what happened.” Her head remained bowed over her list.

“That’s fine. We should pick up where we left off and forget about the past.”

“Mmm,” Gina said, clearly not paying attention.

That Gina could ignore his heartfelt friendship and his wish to let bygones be bygones irked him. At the same time he realized that this could be the opportunity he’d been waiting for. “And I’ve heard that polar bears have eaten all the reindeer, so Santa won’t be here for the little boys and girls this Christmas.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Gina replied.

“And as far as stocks are concerned, they’ve gone through the roof, so how about if we have lunch together today.” He was talking nonsense, of course, but it might have the desired effect. He held his breath.

“Mmm…what?” Gina tossed aside the pad of paper and frowned.

“Lunch. You almost agreed to it.”

She stood up. “That’s it, Josh Corbett! You’re not going to trick me into something I don’t want to do. Out!”

She pointed a finger at the door, through which two elderly customers happened to be walking.

“Us?” quavered the one in front, a violet-haired woman using a cane.

“Sister and me?” asked the other, wrinkling her powdery brow.

Gina rushed forward to greet them. “Oh, no, of course not, Miss Tess and Miss Dora. Please come in. What can I get for you today? More goldenseal, or perhaps a bit of catnip for dear little Felix?” Over their heads, she glared at Josh.

“We don’t need goldenseal, do we, Dora? Catnip would be good. Felix is feeling his age, and it perks him right up.” The one with the cane started down the aisle toward the catnip.

“I’d like one of those nice cookbooks, you know, the one that benefits the teen center. We’re going to send it to our cousin in Seattle.”

“Right over here, Miss Tess.” Gina guided her toward the rustic cabinet where the cookbooks were displayed and helped her to pull one down from the shelf.

Josh realized that he was standing beside a wicker basket piled high with lavender sachets. In addition to buying some for his landlady, he supposed he could send packets to his mother and sister. Their scent made his nose itch, though. Lavender always did.

Gina rang up the ladies’ order, which took a while because they’d bought a number of items. When she had finished, she turned to Josh. “You’ll help Miss Tess and Miss Dora carry these things out to their car, won’t you, Josh?”

He stacked the lavender sachets on the counter beside the cash register. “I’d be glad to,” he said easily, scooping up their bag.

Neither one of the ladies moved particularly fast, so he was treated to a long and drawn-out account of Felix’s last hairball episode, whereupon the two of them became involved in an argument about the best remedies for feline hair-balls. By the time he had installed the women in their elderly compact sedan, Josh was eager to get back inside. Then the sedan backed up, heading straight for him. He jumped out of the way barely before being hit.

Miss Tess leaned out the window. “Young man, you look a lot like that Mr. Moneybags fellow. Are you?”

Josh nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“You listen to me, sir. Our Gina is a nice girl. Don’t you dare hurt her again!”

“I—” Josh began. He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, since Miss Dora, who was driving, scratched off and left him standing in a cloud of dust.

Did everyone in town dislike him for what he had done to Gina on the show? Didn’t they understand it was all a bit of make-believe, conjured up by a couple of producers who were interested in the show’s entertainment value and not much else? They hadn’t expected him to fall in love with the woman he chose. The most they had hinted should happen was that he and Tahoma might want to keep in touch and give themselves a chance for real romance to develop. He wished there were some way he could let everyone know that he realized he’d chosen the wrong woman. What was he supposed to do—emblazon a sign across his forehead? He pondered the wording of such a sign. I Should Have Picked Gina. No, that made her sound like a bunch of grapes. I Was Stupid. Now, that was more like it. It seemed to fit in with the locals’ opinions of him.

Josh walked slowly back into the cottage. Gina was arranging fresh flowers in a vase on one of the front window-sills, and he marched up to her.

“Gina, tell me one thing. Do you hate me for the way the show turned out?”

She was so startled that she dropped a handful of cut ferns, which scattered around her feet. Josh bent to help her pick them up.

“Well,” Josh demanded, “do you?”

At that moment several other customers came in, and Gina, after one last annoyed glance in his direction, went to see to their needs.

She hadn’t answered. So perhaps she did hate him. If so, was any of this pursuing doing any good? Was she so totally dead set against renewing their friendship that all his efforts were a waste of time? Would it help if he told her how much he’d matured since the Mr. Moneybags experience, now that he’d reflected on what had happened? If he mentioned that, ultimately, choosing the wrong woman had made him a wiser, better man?

He hoped that the customers wouldn’t linger over their choices, but two of them seemed inclined to study every bin and the card next to it in order to learn more about treating various symptoms with herbs, and another, who was apparently a friend of Gina’s, embarked on a long explanation of a complicated family situation that required patient listening on Gina’s part.

As if that weren’t enough, Josh stood too near some dried goldenrod, began to sneeze and couldn’t stop. He fled outside and sat down on a garden bench beneath an oak tree while he waited for the customers to leave.

The trouble was, they stayed longer than Josh expected, and fast on their heels came three more carloads of people. He peered in the window and saw Gina talking animatedly with one group while the others browsed, and she soon had a line at the cash register.

As soon as everyone left, Josh ambled back inside. Gina, who wore a pencil behind one ear and was adding up receipts, glanced up with a smile of greeting as he entered. It quickly faded when she saw him.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said pointedly.

“I was only biding my time. Could you ring up those sachets for me, please?”

“Glad to,” she said through tight lips.

“About lunch, Gina.”

She tucked his lavender and his cash register receipt into a bag and handed it to him.

“What about it?”

“Let’s run downtown and grab a sandwich.”

She let out a long sigh. “I can’t leave. My relief salesperson won’t be in today, so I’m going to make do with peanut butter and crackers.”

Disappointment washed over him. “Who’s your relief?” The thought occurred to him that he could find whoever it was and beg him or her to show up.

“My sister fills in for me when I need a break. She lives so close that it usually works out well. Today she’s at the winery, cleaning up after last night’s party. Oh, hello, Shelley. How are things at the Bootery?”

Josh grew glum as he listened to the two women talking about Shelley’s business, a shoe store downtown, and soon more customers arrived, some on a tour bus on a day trip to the valley from San Francisco, which was only an hour and a half’s drive away. Getting time alone with Gina was almost impossible.

When twelve o’clock came and went, he decided that he might as well leave, but not for good. He’d be back soon, this time with food.

GINA BREATHED AN AUDIBLE sigh of relief as she saw Josh’s car exit the parking lot. She and Shelley had business to discuss: the bachelor auction, which was Gina’s latest project. Gina had shepherded the auction project through the city council’s permit process, had assembled a crackerjack committee and was going to emcee the event. The project would benefit the teen center that was so important to Gina and her family as well as the entire community.

“I’ll see you at the next committee meeting,” Shelley said after they’d hammered out several decisions concerning the wine to be served, decorations for the stage and recruiting an auctioneer. As soon as Shelley left, Gina recalled that she had promised to phone the other committee members to let them know the time and place of the next meeting. Since this was a lull, she might as well do it now.

She was flipping through the pages of her address book when the door opened and Josh walked in. He carried a paper bag and looked cheerier than he had a right to be.

“Before you tell me to get out, you’d better hear what I have to say,” he announced before setting the bag down on the counter in front of her. From it wafted a tantalizing scent of meatballs and marinara sauce, and she recognized it right away as one of Mom’s famous sandwiches. Belatedly, she recalled that she’d never eaten lunch.

“You have to eat something,” he said.

She stared at him, taking in his determined stance, his sinfully blue eyes and the earnestness that shone from within. What was it about this man that she found so arresting? So fascinating? So all-fired absorbing?

“I suppose you propose to eat what’s in that bag,” she managed to say, even as her mouth was watering at the thought of sinking her teeth into one of Mom’s savory concoctions.

“That’s why I brought it,” Josh said. He leaned forward on the counter, resting his hands on it and invading her personal space. “What do you say?”

She studied him for a moment, assessing his immovability and his perseverance.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that once we eat these sandwiches, they will practically ensure that we won’t want to get this close to each other or anyone else until the garlic wears off. Although,” she continued distractedly, “we could nibble parsley. It cleanses the breath.” She slid down from the stool and went to a cabinet, where she located a stack of paper napkins.

“That’s not all I could nibble,” Josh said under his breath, and she almost didn’t hear him. She decided to let his comment pass, however, considering the uselessness of objecting. Besides, she was hungry.