Hot Rocks

to her. She’d find it in the file, of course, but that would be cheating. Identifying pieces in the shop was very like identifying character types in the bar. If you spent enough time at it, it got so you knew who was who and what was what.
    “Miss?”
    “Angie.” She turned, grinned.
    “If we took both, what sort of a price could you give us?”
    “Well . . .” Delighted with the prospect of greeting Jenny with news of a double, she set the ceramic dog down and went over to bargain with the customers.
    In the excitement of closing the deal, arranging for delivery, ringing up the sale, she didn’t give the little dog another thought.

CHAPTER 5
    Max learned quite a bit about Laine over the next few hours. She was organized, practical and precise. More linear-minded than what he’d expected from someone of her background. She looked at a task, saw it from beginning to end, then followed it through the steps to completion. No detours, no distractions.
    And she was a nester. His mother had the same bent, just loved feathering that nest with pretty little—what did his father call them?—gimcracks. And like his mother, Laine knew exactly where she preferred every one of them.
    But unlike his mother, Laine didn’t appear to have a sentimental, almost intimate attachment to her things. He’d once seen his mother weep buckets over a broken vase, and he himself had felt the mighty heat of her wrath when he’d shattered an old decorative bowl.
    Laine swept up shards of this, pieces of that, dumped broken bits into a trash can with barely a wince. Her focus was on returning order to her space. He had to respect that.
    Though it was a puzzlement to him how the daughter of a drifter and a grifter executed a one-eighty to become a small-town homebody, the fact that puzzles were his business made it, and her, only more interesting.
    He liked being in her nest, being in her company. It was a given that the sizzle between them was going to complicate things along the way, but it was tough not to enjoy it.
    He liked her voice, the fact that it managed to be both throaty and smooth. He liked that she looked sexy in a sweatshirt. He liked her freckles.
    He admired her resilience in the face of what would have devastated most people. And he admired and appreciated her flat-out honesty about her reaction to him and what was brewing between them.
    The fact was, under other circumstances, he could see himself diving headfirst into a relationship with her, burning his bridges, casting caution to the wind or any number of clichés. Even given the circumstances, he was poised to make that dive. He couldn’t quite figure out if that was a plus or a minus.
    But side benefit or obstacle to the goal, it was time to get back in the game.
    “You lost a lot of stuff,” he commented.
    “I can always get more stuff.” But she felt a little tug of sorrow at the wide chip in the Derby jug she’d kept on the dining room server. “I got into the business because I like to collect all manner of things. Then I realized I didn’t need to own them so much as be around them, see them, touch.”
    She ran her finger down the damaged jug. “And it’s just as rewarding, more in some ways, to buy and sell, and see interesting pieces go to interesting people.”
    “Don’t dull people ever buy interesting pieces?”
    She laughed at that. “Yes, they do. Which is why it’s important not to become too attached to what you plan to sell. And I love to sell. Kaching.”
    “How do you know what to buy in the first place?”
    “Some’s instinct, some’s experience. Some is just a gamble.”
    “You like to gamble?”
    She slid a glance over and up. “As a matter of fact.”
    Oh yeah, he thought, he was poised and rolling up to his toes on the edge of the cliff. “Want to blow this joint and fly to Vegas?”
    She arched her eyebrows. “And if I said sure, why not?”
    “I’d book the flight.”
    “You know,” she said after a moment’s study, “I believe you would. I think I like that.” The O’Hara in her was already on her way to the airport. “But unfortunately, I can’t take you up on it.” And that was the Tavish. “How about a rain check?”
    “You got it. Open-ended.” He watched her place a few pieces that had survived the break-in. Candlesticks, an enormous pottery bowl, a long flat dish. He had a feeling she’d put them precisely where they’d been before. There would be comfort in that. And defiance.
    “You