Hidden Riches

old war posters.
    He wandered through a doorway and found the next room equally packed. Teddy bears and teapots. Cuckoo clocks and corkscrews. A junk shop, he mused. People might stick a fancy name on it, like “curio shop,” but what it was was junk.
    Idly, he picked up a small enameled box decorated with painted roses. Mary Pat would probably like this, he decided.
    “Well, Skimmerhorn, you surprise me.” Framed by the doorway, Dora smiled. She gestured toward the box he held as she walked to him. “You show excellent taste. That’s a lovely piece.”
    “You could probably put bobby pins or rings into it, right?”
    “You probably could. Originally it was used to hold patches. The well-to-do wore them in the eighteenth century, at first to cover smallpox scars, and then just for fashion. That particular one is a Staffordshire, circa 1770.”She looked up from the box, and there was a laugh in her eyes. “It goes for twenty-five hundred.”
    “This?” It didn’t fill the cup of his palm.
    “Well, it is a George the Third.”
    “Yeah, right.” He put it back on the table with the same care he would have used on an explosive device. The fact that he could afford it didn’t make it any less intimidating. “Not quite what I had in mind.”
    “That’s no problem. We have something for everyone’s mind. A hostess gift, you said?”
    He grunted and scanned the room. Now he was afraid to touch anything. He was back again, painfully back in childhood, in the front parlor of the Skimmerhorn house.
    Don’t touch, Jedidiah. You’re so clumsy. You don’t appreciate anything.
    He blocked off the memory with its accompanying sensory illusion of the mingled scents of Chanel and sherry.
    He didn’t quite block off the scowl. “Maybe I should just pick up some flowers.”
    “That’s nice, too. Of course, they don’t last.” Dora was enjoying his look of pure masculine discomfort. “A bottle of wine’s acceptable as well. Not very innovative, but acceptable. Why don’t you tell me a little about our hostess?”
    “Why?”
    Dora’s smile widened at the suspicion in his voice. “So that I can get a picture of her and help you select something. Is she the athletic, outdoors type, or a quiet homebody who bakes her own bread?”
    Maybe she wasn’t trying to make him feel stupid, Jed thought, but she was succeeding just the same. “Look, she’s my partner—ex-partner’s wife. She’s a trauma nurse. She’s got a couple of kids and likes to read books.”
    “What sort of books?”
    “I don’t know.” Why the hell hadn’t he just gone by the florist?
    “All right, then.” Taking pity on him, she patted his arm. “It sounds to me as though we have a busy, dedicatedwoman. A compassionate and a romantic one. A hostess gift,” she mused, tapping her finger to her lip. “It shouldn’t be too personal. Something for the house.” With a nod, she turned away and walked to a corner that was fashioned to resemble an old-fashioned pantry. “I think this would do nicely.” Dora took down a footed wooden jar trimmed in brass.
    Jed frowned over it. His parents hadn’t gone for novelty antiques. “What’s it—like for cookies?”
    “How clever of you.” Dora beamed at him. “It’s a biscuit jar. Victorian. This one’s oak from about 1870. A practical and ornamental gift, and at forty dollars, it won’t cost you more than a dozen long-stem roses or a good French wine.”
    “Okay. I guess she’d get a kick out of it.”
    “See? That wasn’t so painful. Can I help you with anything else? A last-minute Christmas gift?”
    “No, that’s it.” He followed her back into the main room. The place smelled—cozy, he decided. Like apples. There was music playing softly. He recognized a movement from The Nutcracker and was surprised that he suddenly felt relaxed. “Where do you get all this stuff?”
    “Oh, here and there,” she said over her shoulder. “Auctions, flea markets, estate sales.”
    “And you actually make a living out of this.”
    Amused, she took a box from behind the counter and unfolded it. “People collect, Skimmerhorn. Often they don’t even realize it. Didn’t you ever have marbles as a boy, or comic books, baseball cards?”
    “Sure.” He’d had to hide them, but he’d had them.
    She lined the box with tissue, working quickly, competently. “And didn’t you ever trade your cards?” She glanced up to find him staring down at her hands.
    “Sure I did,” he