Hidden Riches

beautifully expressive face. He could read every emotion perfectly. The fear, and the anger that had been building to combat it, faded away. In their stead were flickers of sorrow, understanding and, like salt to his wounds, sympathy.
    “Don’t look at me like that.” His tone was curt and, she thought, defensive. “It doesn’t change what I did, or the fact that I was capable of doing worse.”
    She lowered her eyes. “You’re right. It doesn’t. When you kissed me last night, I thought something was happening with us. Really happening.” She lifted her gaze again, and her eyes were cool. “But it can’t be, or else this wouldn’t have happened. Because you’d have trusted me. That hurts too, Jed, but that’s my mistake.”
    He knew what it was to feel helpless, but had never expected to feel it with her. “I can move out if you want,” he said stiffly. “I can leave tonight and pick up my stuff later.”
    “It isn’t necessary, but you do what you want.”
    Nodding, he stepped backward into the hallway. “Are you going to be all right?”
    For an answer, she walked to the door, closed it quietly and turned the lock.
     
    She found the flowers on her desk in the morning. Daisies, a little wilted and smelling of far-off spring, were stuffed into a Minton vase. Sternly, Dora quashed the first surge of pleasure and ignored them.
    He hadn’t moved out. That much had been clear from the monotonous thud of weights bumping the floor when she’d passed his door earlier.
    She wasn’t about to let that please her either. As far as she was concerned now, Jed Skimmerhorn was a paying tenant. Nothing more. No one was going to terrify her, threaten her and break her heart, then lure her back with a straggling bunch of daisies. She would cash his monthly check, nod to him politely if they happened to pass in the hall and get on with her own life.
    It was a matter of pride.
    Since Terri and Lea were handling the shop, she took out her accounts payable, opened the checkbook for Dora’s Parlor and prepared to work.
    A few minutes later she snuck a peek at the daisies and caught herself smiling. Then the sound of boots coming down the stairs had her firming her lips and staring at her electric bill.
    Jed hesitated at the base of the stairs, searching for something reasonable to say. He would have sworn the temperature had dropped ten degrees since he’d come into the storeroom. Not that he could blame her for giving him the chill, he decided. But it only made him feel more foolish for buying flowers on the way back from the gym.
    “If you’re going to be working in here, I can finish up those shelves later.”
    “I’ll be doing paperwork for a couple of hours,” she said. She didn’t glance up.
    “I’ve got some stuff to do downtown.” He waited for a response, got nothing. “Do you need anything while I’m out?”
    “No.”
    “Fine. Great.” He started back upstairs. “Then I’ll finish them up this afternoon. After I go out and buy myself a hair shirt.”
    Dora lifted a brow, listened to the top door slam. “Probably thought I’d throw myself in his arms because he bought me flowers. Jerk.” She looked over as Terri walked through from the shop. “Men are all jerks.”
    Normally Terri would have grinned, agreed and added her own examples. Instead she stood in the doorway, wringing her hands.
    “Dora, did you take the jade dog upstairs? The little Chinese piece? I know you like to shift things around.”
    “The Foo dog?” Lips pursed, Dora tapped her pen on the desk. “No. I haven’t circulated any inventory since before Christmas. Why?”
    Terri gave a breathless laugh, a sickly smile. “I can’t find it. I just can’t find it anywhere.”
    “It probably just got moved. Lea might have—”
    “I’ve already asked her,” Terri interrupted. Her voice sounded weak. “I showed it to a customer the other day. Now it’s gone.”
    “Don’t panic.” Dora pushed away from her desk. “Let me take a look around. I might have moved it myself.”
    But she knew she hadn’t. Dora’s Parlor might have looked like a homey, cluttered space where treasure and trash were carelessly arranged side by side. But there had always been a method to the arrangement—Dora’s method.
    She knew her stock, and its place, down to the last silk postcard.
    Lea was busy with a customer and only sent her sister a quick, concerned look, then continued to show tobacco jars.
    “It was in this cabinet,”