Читать книгу From Bags to Riches - Sandra D. Bricker - Страница 12
ОглавлениеChapter 4
4
Danny had intended to shower first, but the call of coffee trumped his plan. Instead, he pulled on the jeans still crumpled at the foot of his bed and slipped into a denim shirt he’d left hanging over the top of the bathroom door. He dropped his cell phone into his front pocket, leaving the front unbuttoned and hanging open as he padded in bare feet across the cool floor, kitchen bound.
While the coffee brewed, he rinsed Frank’s empty bowl—more like a trough, really—and ran a clear stream of fresh water into it. The food dish stood vacant as well, and the instant the announcement of kibbles sounded as they tumbled out of the bag to refill it, Frank shoved his way through the king-sized dog door and raced across the floor, leaving two rugs in a heap in the process.
“Morning, buddy. Where you been?”
Frank didn’t waver before diving in to devour his breakfast. When he paused to give his body a thorough shake, the dog doused Danny with a spray of water. “Hey,” Danny exclaimed. “You hit the waves without me?”
Carrying a large mug of coffee with him, Danny headed into the sunroom and pushed open the oak louvered shutters before settling in behind the desk constructed of two colorful surfboards. He opened his laptop to power it up while he enjoyed the day’s first few gulps of hot coffee, and when his phone rang, he fished it out of his pocket to answer. He didn’t recognize the number.
“Callahan.”
“Mr. Callahan,” the very feminine caller greeted him. “Rosemary Stiles from Hollywood Daily.”
Danny sighed, suddenly tasting the bitterness of his morning brew at the back of his throat. “Miss Stiles. I think I made myself clear the last time we—”
“You did, you did,” she interrupted, and the glow of her widening grin could almost be spotted overhead as it pinged off the nearest cell tower. “And I want you to know I heard you. However, there is still so much interest among our readers about you that my editor has asked me to appeal to you one more time. Surely there’s something we can do for you in return for one simple interview?”
He leaned back and propped his feet on the desk, crossing them at the ankles. “Are you familiar with the job of private investigator, Miss Stiles?”
“Please call me Rosemary. And yes, I’ve been acquainted with one or two PIs in my job.”
“Then you’re also aware of the importance of some degree of anonymity. I could hardly go about investigating things if my subjects immediately recognized me as the guy with his mug on the front of the Hollywood Daily. Now could I?”
“I suppose not. But, how about if we—”
“You know, I’ve tried to be as polite about this as possible,” he cut in. He dropped both bare feet to the floor and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “But I don’t know how much clearer I can be. I appreciate your interest—or whatever this is—but I really do not want the publicity you’re offering. Is that coming across?”
“It is.”
“Good. Then thank you for your call, and I hope you have a really nice day. Life.”
“You, too, Danny.”
He disconnected the call and shoved the phone back into its denim hiding place. Shaking his head, he swiveled the chair and concentrated on his e-mail inbox.
A message from Steph: It was so much fun getting together with you and Jessie. Thought you’d like to have the attached.
When he clicked on it, an image of Danny and Jessie came up, leaning close and both of them beaming. He made quick work of transferring it to his desktop before moving to the next message in the box.
Delete, delete, delete to the spam e-mails offering coupons and discounts and unnecessary services before opening the next one from his mother.
Are you going to keep us in suspense? What did Jessie say about the ring?
Instead of admitting he wished he knew, Danny typed a quick reply. She’s thinking it over. Stay tuned.
A few more client e-mails to be answered, a file attachment from a contact providing information on a case, and something from Francesca Dutton. He clicked it open.
Danny, I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for following that nudge you had to connect me with Rochelle Silverstein. Our nonprofit idea has blossomed in magnificent ways, and we’d very much like to take you and Jessie to dinner so that we can update you on our plans and thank you both properly. Name the day and time, as well as your favorite restaurant.
Danny quirked an eyebrow, considering the invitation for a moment before he retrieved his phone again and dialed Jessie.
“Good morning,” she answered with an eager lilt to her pretty voice. “How are you?”
“I’m good. What about you?”
“Excited. I just had the most amazing series of phone calls already this morning. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”
“Do you have time to meet for lunch?” he asked, and she nearly cut him off to reply.
“Can you come to me? We could walk down to Nosh.”
“See you around one o’clock?”
“I can’t wait.” With a gasp, she added, “Oh! Did you call for a reason?”
“Francesca Dutton sent me an e-mail to—”
“Yeah, I saw that. She copied me. It sounds like fun, right?”
“I don’t know if I’d go as far as fun, but it might be nice to hear what they have planned.”
“How about I set something up with them,” Jessie suggested. “Later in the week at Tuscan Son?”
“Works for me. Just tell me when to be there.”
“Okay. And I’ll see you in a little while.”
As he ended the call, Frank moseyed into the sunroom and pressed his chin on Danny’s knee. A beam of sunlight seemed to point the way straight through the window to the tip of the dog’s nose, spilling out over the bridge with enough glare to cause him to squint sweetly.
The instant the front door blew open, Frank reeled and barked before setting one paw forward in a gallop toward the sound.
“Yo, Frankenstein,” Riggs greeted him from the next room. “What’s shakin’? Where’s your pops?”
“In here,” Danny called out.
“Detour for coffee,” he returned. “Need any?”
“Nope.”
When he made his way to the office, Riggs tossed himself in a downward flop to the hunter green cushions on the rattan loveseat, holding a fresh cup over his head. “You surf today?”
“Nah. Slept in and had some work to do.”
“I stopped by with Allie last night, but you weren’t around. Hot date with Jessie?”
“We went out to the marina to meet Steph and Vince for dinner on the boat.”
“Yeah? How’d that go?” he asked, slurping his coffee. “Celebrate any engagements lately?”
“If one more person asks me about that today, I just may go postal.”
“You? Postal?” Riggs snickered. “Gimme a break.”
“Just don’t get me near a gun and a rooftop.”
“Please.”
Danny wanted to ask about things with Charlotte, what he and Allie had come by about, but his mood had soured and he didn’t feel much like making polite conversation. Sinking against the back of his chair, he simply glared down into his almost empty cup and ground his teeth together.
***
Jessie finished sorting the stack of receipts from the outside of her desk while Amber sat on the working side in front of the laptop, typing in figures at warp speed.
“Data entry is definitely one of your gifts,” she remarked. “You’re so fast.”
Amber glanced up only long enough to smirk before returning her attention to the screen in front of her. “Okay,” she finally said. “That’s it for the rentals. Hand me the stack of purchases for the week, and I’ll get those entered, too.”
Jessie handed them over. “Danny’s coming by for lunch at Nosh. Can I bring you something?”
“No, I’m packing this week,” she said without looking away from her work. “I need every spare penny if I’m going to move into a bigger apartment next month.”
“I can treat you to lunch, Amber. What would you like?”
“Seriously, I’m good. I have leftovers from dinner at Mambo last night.”
“You went to Mambo? I haven’t been there in years,” Jessie exclaimed. “I love Cuban food.”
The click-click-click of Amber’s fingers across the keyboard ceased, and the silence drew Jessie’s attention. When she looked up, Amber stared at her, grinning from one ear to the other, her cheeks stained pink.
“What?”
“Promise you won’t think less of me?” Amber prefaced.
“Of course.”
She leaned forward as she spilled, “I called that friend of Danny’s, and we went out last night.”
“What friend of—” As it sank in, Jessie grinned. “Rafe? You went out on a date with Rafe Padillo?”
She nodded, nibbling on the corner of her lip. “He’s dreamy.”
“And? How did the date go?”
Amber swooned. “That was dreamy, too.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Well, like I said,” she exclaimed as she closed the laptop, “we went to Mambo. The food was unbelievable of course, and he can salsa like you wouldn’t believe.”
Jessie giggled. She had a hard time visualizing Detective Padillo dancing.
“Then we went to my friend Manny’s play at this little theater in North Hollywood.”
“Dinner, salsa dancing, and a play. And afterward?”
“Afterward, we had coffee and went for a walk down Melrose. It was really so great, Jessie.”
The jingle of the front door sounded just then, and Jessie whimpered. “That’ll be Danny. We’ll pick this up the instant I get back. Promise?”
Amber raised three fingers in a mock vow and nodded.
Jessie checked her makeup in the mirror on the office wall before grabbing her purse from the hook on the door and hurrying out into the store. She glanced at Marcia, Amber’s friend from her church who they’d hired to temporarily fill in on the sales floor, and they exchanged a smile before Jessie greeted Danny with a peck to his stubbly cheek.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” she called back, and Marcia nodded.
“Have fun.”
Once the glass door jingled behind them and they reached the sidewalk, Jessie tucked her arm into the crook of Danny’s.
“Who’s the new clerk?” he asked as they strolled toward the end of the plaza.
“A friend of Amber’s. She needed a job, and I’m giving her a try as an Adornments Angel to see if she’s a good fit.”
“An Adornments . . .”
“Oh,” she replied with a chuckle. “Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian apparently have Dash Dolls for their store. It’s called Dash. . . . Oh, never mind. It’s just something Amber thought up.”
“Adornments Angels.” He nodded, suppressing the smirk. “I can see that. Sure.”
“Oh, hush,” she said, tapping his arm as they made their way into Nosh and headed for an open bistro table at the back.
As he held Jessie’s chair for her, Danny asked, “Salad or sandwich?”
“I think I’ll get a little crazy,” she teased. “I’ll have soup. Vegetable, if they have it.”
He chuckled. “Half a sandwich to go with it?”
“Tuna on one of those little French baguettes.”
“You really are a wild one.”
She watched him head for the counter before digging her phone out of her purse and setting it on the table. On the other side of the shiny glass window, a toddler with springy gold curls clung tightly to her mother’s hand as they slowly made their way down the sidewalk past the bistro. She couldn’t make out the words or tune, but Jessie’s heart seized at the sight and distant sound of them singing out loud, and she wondered if she’d ever have a little daughter or son to walk with or sing to, someone with her own dark hair and blue eyes . . . or with Danny’s blond—
She sliced her own thoughts cleanly in two at the realization that they’d automatically drawn her straight toward Danny as the other half of her future scenario.
“It’ll be a few minutes,” he remarked, unaware of the train of thought he’d casually derailed. “But I got you a tea.” He placed two sturdy cups on the table between them and sat across from her. “Now tell me about these exciting phone calls of yours.”
She opened one of the napkins he’d brought along and smoothed it over her lap. “Okay. Let’s start with this. I’m going to make Amber a partner in the store.”
Danny’s smile came slow and steady. “Really.”
“Her birthday is next week. I was on the phone a good part of my afternoon yesterday with Antonio’s business attorney. Remember the one who helped me get things straight when I started the store?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I’d gotten to thinking about how valuable Amber has been to me, from the very first. I mean, she’s so invested in Adornments. Anyway, it occurred to me that I owe her everything. I mean I couldn’t possibly have made a go of things without her.”
“So you decided to hand over a stake in the store?”
She nodded, then shook her head in amazement at the decision. “I know. It seems strange, but at the same time . . . it seems so right. So I’m going to give her a 30 percent share of the store for her birthday. We’ve worked it out so she’ll have the option to buy in—up to another 15 percent—over the next three years if she chooses to do it.”
“That’s . . . really generous, Jessie.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I mostly only know Amber through her dealings with you,” he admitted. “But I think the two of you work very well together. Rewarding her for everything she’s done—”
“Not just rewarding her,” she interrupted. “I just feel like she’s so much more than an employee now. You know?”
He nodded. “I get it.”
“Anyway, so I should have the papers in time to wrap them up and give them to Amber for her big day. I’m so excited about it. And now with this other opportunity—”
“Other opportunity?”
“It’s right out of the blue,” she said. “As strange an opportunity as you can imagine.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Stanton, does it?”
She curled her face into a sour frown. “Of course not, silly. I said opportunity, not affliction.”
Danny chuckled. “Go on then.”
“Do you know who Carmina Rosario is?”
“I think I dated her in high school,” he replied dryly. “Fiery temperament. Very straight teeth.”
“Well, you should have held on to her,” she said without missing a beat. “She’s this big Hollywood stylist. And she used to have a reality show where cameras followed her around and filmed her getting celebrities ready for red carpet events and coordinating their party planning, that kind of thing.”
“O-kay. Glad Rosie made a name for herself.”
“Carmina,” Jessie corrected with a chuckle.
“Oh. Right.”
“Anyway, she’s taken a step back to pop out some babies and the like, and her producers are interested in replacing her and giving Courtney a reality show instead.”
“Courtney. Really, and she wants to do it? I mean, isn’t she also doing the equivalent of popping out babies?”
“Kind of,” she said and sipped her tea. “That’s why she suggested they tie me in with the store to fill up some air time.”
Danny leaned back in his chair and stared at her, his eyebrow arched, a blend of confusion and distaste churning in his steely blue eyes.
“Really,” he finally said. “What exactly will it entail?”
“I know. You think it’s awful, right?”
“I’m the wrong guy to ask. The only reality television I watch is the surf report.”
“I think it’s pretty straightforward,” Jessie said, pausing to steal a sip from her tea. “Cameras will follow us around in the store a couple of days a week. And if we have any special events or anything, they’ll be there for that. Why?”
He didn’t seem ready to answer, and the clerk at the counter caught his eye. “Lunch is served,” he said. “Be right back.”
Jessie watched him saunter to the front and grab two white lattice trays, thank the clerk, and drop a couple more napkins on them before heading back to the table.
Once he returned to his chair, she told him, “Anyway, it’s not all set in stone or anything yet. But it looks pretty good. It could bring a lot of attention to the store.”
“Mm,” he muttered with a nod.
“Oh, and I set up dinner with Francesca and Rochelle at the restaurant tomorrow night. Will that work for you?”
“Sure.”
She tasted a spoonful of her soup, then watched him take a bite out of a large sandwich on thick multi-grain bread.
“Danny, is something wrong?”
He looked into her eyes for a moment before responding. “No. It’s all good.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. Unconvincingly.
Chewing, soft slurping, and the routine noises of lunch were all that broke up several minutes of silence between them. Just about the time Jessie considered wadding up a napkin and hurling it at him, she caught Danny’s eye for a moment.
“You talked to your grandfather at all?” he asked, darting his attention back to his sandwich.
“This morning. Miss Maizie was making him some oatmeal, and he wasn’t at all happy about it.”
Danny chuckled, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “He wanted to go for eggs and grits, no doubt.”
“Of course,” she replied with a nod. “But Miss Maizie is making him have oatmeal at least two times a week. He’s maintaining his power by insisting she put some maple syrup over it, no two ways about it.”
“How’s he feeling?”
“Tired. I can hear it in his voice.”
“What do you think about paying him a visit?” he suggested. “Maybe for just a couple of days?”
Jessie hesitated. She wanted to see Grampy again in the worst way—as many times as possible, in fact, before the inevitable happened—but breaking away just as the store started getting its feet back on the ground made it a difficult proposition.
“Let me talk to Amber and see if she can help me work it out.”
He tipped his head slightly as if changing gears. “Or how about I go down on my own for a couple of days, and then we can maneuver something a little longer next month after you have some time to plan for it?”
Jessie left the spoon to rest inside the soup bowl and angled back against the chair. “Really? You’d do that?”
“I’d love the chance to spend some time with him,” he told her. “Maybe I can get some more information from his doctor as well. That would be helpful, right? It’s not like we’re getting any details directly from your granddad, are we?”
She chuckled. “No. We’re not.”
“I’ll call and have a chat with him this afternoon. See if he’s up for a visit.”
Jessie wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin before springing to her feet and rounding the table. She slid her arms around Danny’s neck and clutched him, kissing the top of his head several times.
“You are a dream,” she whispered.
As the revelation hit her, she released him and returned to her chair. “And speaking of dreamy . . . did you know Rafe and Amber went out last night?”
“Went out? Why? What happened?”
“Nothing bad,” she exclaimed. “They went out together. On a date.”
Danny’s eyes narrowed, and he bore a hole straight into her. “A date.”
She nodded. “Yes.” She took a bite from her sandwich before confirming, “On a date.”
“Are you joking?”
“No. The day Jack came to the store, Amber said she thought Rafe was dreamy. He seemed to think the same thing, I think.”
“Yeah, he asked me about her.”
“He did? What did he say?”
“So you can repeat it to Amber?”
“Of course,” she cried.
“Tell you what, I’ll write it down and slip you a note after study hall,” he joked. “Then you can pass it to Amber at the beach after the last bell rings.”
“Oh, hush. So he likes her, too?”
“He does.”
“That is so cool, isn’t it?”
“Totes cool,” he cracked with his best Surfer Dude inflection, and Jessie giggled. He shrugged and admitted, “Allie speak.”
Aaron Riggs’s daughter. It sounded like her, actually. “How’s Allie doing?”
“She’s an erupting volcano of unstoppable youth. Anyway . . . you want some more tea?”
“No. I have to get back. We’re finishing last week’s receipts and then Courtney’s bringing the baby over, and we’re going to talk about this reality show idea.”
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night for dinner,” he said. “What time should I pick you up?”
“Seven. At the apartment.”
“That works.”
***
Comin’ up on nine decades o’ life makes a man purdy smart ’bout some things. Like when a boy calls and says he feels like a visit, experience tells it’s gonna be one of two things: Girl trouble or messenger boy.
“You lookin’ to take news back to Jessie ’bout her old Grampy?” I says to Danny when he calls to ask if he might come South fer a spell.
“Yes, sir,” he says back. An honest boy. I like ’at.
“Thought maybe you was lookin’ fer some insight on a mutual friend we got in common.”
“Yes, sir,” he says. “That, too.”
“Well, come on down,” I tells him. “We’ll sit a spell and work it all out.”
