The Sometime Bride

apparently taking this as a dismissal. “Well, I guess that’s it, then.” She tucked her clutch under one arm and thrust forward the opposite hand. “Thanks for your time.”
    Dan sent a furtive glance at the Californians perusing shelves of New Mexican pottery and pretending not to listen. “Ms. Marsh, I’m afraid we got off on the wrong…” She tapped a strappy sandal, sporting bright painted nails and multiple toe rings. Heat rose at Dan’s nape as his gaze eased up shapely legs. “…foot.”
    She withdrew her hand and cocked her head sideways, waiting.
    “What I mean is, please sit back down, and let’s discuss this like reasonable people. I’m sure we can work something out.” Dan cringed at the sound of his own voice. Groveling? Here was a word not even in his vocabulary, yet he was being just about as placating as humanly possible. Dan wasn’t doing it for himself, he remembered. He was doing this for Nancy. Other than the day-to-day oversight of things, which really was no problem, she’d given him only two jobs to do. Surely a man as capable at cutting deals as he was wouldn’t have trouble selling a few items to some Los Angeles industry execs and buying canvases from an easy-going North Carolina native. Dan had a notion Nancy had never met Gwendolyn Marsh face-to-face when she’d made the latter assessment.
    The hardness lining her eyes eased just a little. “I suppose I could stay for a bit,” she said, her voice taking on the lilt of the mid-Atlantic South. She took her seat, splaying the lap of her flowered sundress across tightly nestled knees.
    The Californians tastefully removed themselves to the back of the gallery to study a photographic desert landscape series, and Dan sat as well. He plucked a hanky from his suit pocket and dabbed the back of his neck, thinking it had to be over a hundred degrees in here.
    Something tender welled in Dan’s throat, and he realized he wasn’t just doing this for Nancy. For some inexplicable reason, he felt driven to be nice to Ms. Marsh for her own sake. Never mind that she’d practically bulldozed right over him crashing in here. After all, he’d dealt with worse in business before. The truth was Nancy had given him some leeway. If Marsh really pushed, Dan could go up as high as three thousand a pop, mostly because Nancy had faith in Marsh’s work and thought it was good. Nancy also believed that Marsh could develop a Santa Fe following. Many of the buyers here came from the West Coast, and Marsh’s oils capturing snippets of sea life would be a ready sell. Dan had seen the slides, and they were impressive. Borrowing more from impressionism than realism, Marsh had a way of zeroing in on the smallest, seemingly inconsequential detail, like an isolated seashell, and illuminating it in a special and grandiose way.
    She opened her purse and withdrew a thin ledger. “If you’d let me show you my figures, I’m sure you’ll understand why my prices have gone up.”
    Dan scanned the haphazardly arranged numbers, deciding she was no mathematician. He pointed to one clumsily assumed total. “I can understand where material costs have climbed, but how exactly is it that your hourly rate has doubled?”
    “Hard times, Mr. Holbrook,” she said without flinching. “Don’t you read the papers?”
    “ Wall Street Journal and you?” he bantered without skipping a beat.
    “Well, I…read, of course.” With that, she awkwardly angled an elbow and sent her clutch crashing to the floor. “Oh no!”
    A small cloud of makeup powder-puffed up from beneath them as a rolling lipstick assaulted Dan’s loafer. To this day, he’d never understood the mysteries of a woman’s bag.
    “Here, let me,” he began.
    “No! I’ve got it!”
    They bent simultaneously toward the mound of sprawled purse contents, nearly knocking heads. “I’m sorry!” he said, down on hands and knees to help her.
    “My fault!”
    A scent overtook him as cunning and fine as the most succulent desert flower. Dan looked up into bewitching brown eyes less than six inches away. Whatever was happening here, he had to put a halt to it. This was no sensible way for a man pushing forty to behave. He was reeling like a raving teenager. He hadn’t been in a position this compromising with a woman in a while, and it showed. All sorts of crazy thoughts went racing through his head, like how it might feel to kiss her good and hard as she probably deserved.

    “You guys okay over