In order to pull off the resurrection of Ballantyne, Miranda would need at least one ally; someone to help run interference; someone she could trust to be on her side. The idea of sharing the truth was so appealing it made her head spin. She opened her mouth, already anticipating the relief she’d feel when the burden was no longer hers alone, and realized she couldn’t take the risk.
If word got out before she knew what direction to take the company in or how to get it there, there could be a panic from which Ballantyne might never recover.
Miranda licked her lips and swallowed back her confession. Then she looked down at her watch in a gesture of dismissal no one could misinterpret. “I’m just trying to take care of some things Tom’s been too preoccupied to deal with,” Miranda said, being very careful not to mention that it was dressing up in lingerie and stealing money that had distracted her husband from his job. “And I’ve invited members of the Ladies’ Guild to my home Friday night to serve as a, um, a kind of focus group. I’d like you to be there to take notes.”
“Sure.” Carly stood and turned to leave. As she whirled around, her things got tangled up in her purse strap and flew out of her arms. A sketch pad bounced off the top of the desk and landed on the floor, its pages exposed. They both bent to pick it up at the same time.
Carly flushed as they each grabbed a corner and pulled. The top pages came free and scattered across the floor.
Miranda looked at the drawings that covered the sheets of paper. Surprised, she looked up at the other woman. “Where did you get these?”
The assistant swallowed. “I drew them.”
“What are they?”
“Bras.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Miranda responded dryly. “But why are you drawing pictures of them?”
“Because I want to be a designer.” Carly raised her chin a notch as if expecting laughter, but Miranda could barely take her eyes off the drawings.
“I’ve been studying in my free time with Myrna. And I’m also learning CAD—you know, computer-aided design. But I do better sketching by hand like Myrna does.”
“And these are?” Miranda asked.
Carly stepped closer. “Drawings of a bra I designed for myself.” She blushed again. “I’m petite but busty. Off-the-rack stuff doesn’t work that well for me.”
Miranda took the pad and flipped through the rest of the sketches. “What about this?”
“Well, Anna in marketing saw what I’d designed for myself and asked if I could design something for her. She wanted a different kind of cup and she likes the padded satin strap instead of the normal elastic strap.”
“Have you had any of this costed out?” Miranda asked.
“No, but Myrna said it shouldn’t be too expensive. I mean we already have all the pieces, you know? I’m just combining them in different ways.”
Miranda handed the drawings back to Carly. She and the women in her family had always had custom bras. It was one of the perks of being in the business. But she’d never really stopped and thought about how other women got the right style and fit.
Miranda picked up her purse and a stack of folders from the desk and walked out of the office with Carly while the seed of an idea took root in her brain.
On her way home, Miranda stopped at Ling Pow’s to pick up her takeout order. The restaurant was mobbed, and after squeezing through the front door, she began to maneuver her way toward the cash register. There she waited next to the fish tank, her gaze drawn to one unhealthy-looking fellow who seemed to be floating on his side, until Ling Pow himself beckoned her forward.
“Ah, Missy Smith. So sorry. I don’t see your ticket here.”
Miranda’s stomach gave a growl of protest. She was tired and hungry and in no mood for crowds. “How long will it take if you start it now?”
“Want please, such good customer, but kitchen way behind. I go check.”
Miranda stepped out of line and back into the empty spot near the fish tank. Her friend had rolled over onto his back and seemed to be staring up at the ceiling. Every once in a while his tail fin moved, but the other fish were giving him a pretty wide berth.
Unable to stand the look in the fish’s eye, Miranda glanced up over the tank into the main dining room, where all twenty tables were occupied. Her gaze skidded to a stop when it collided with Blake Summers’s.
She would have turned and run if she’d had any hope of getting out of there without looking like she was turning and running. She’d already backed up against the fish tank as tightly as she could without joining her walleyed friend.
Before she could think, she heard Ling Pow’s voice beside her. “I put in usual order,” he said. “Let me find place to sit. You eat now.”
“No, I want to—”
“She can join us.”
Miranda whipped her head around at the sound of Blake Summers’s voice.
“No, I . . .” Their game of vehicular follow-the-leader was still fresh in her mind. She definitely didn’t want to have a meal under his sharp-eyed scrutiny.
“Good. Good. You go sit. I get food.” Ling Pow turned and headed back to the kitchen.
“It’s okay,” Blake assured her. “We almost never bite.”
She suspected that was exactly what they were going to tell the floater in the fish tank right before they reached in with the net. Nonetheless, she followed Blake to the table where he pulled out her chair and Gus greeted her warmly. After a polite hello Andie buried her face in her menu.
“I almost didn’t recognize you without your hair,” Gus said.
Miranda ran a hand down the bare neck she was still getting used to. “Yes, well, it’s still me.” She smiled at Andie who, if she wasn’t mistaken, was trying to become invisible. “Hair doesn’t make the woman any more than clothes make the man.”
Though apparently lingerie sometimes did.
“Why the haircut?” Blake asked.
“I’m going through a sort of . . . corporate phase.”
She kept her tone purposely flip, the carefree housewife trying on business for a lark. It wouldn’t do to sound too desperate around Blake Summers; but she hadn’t meant to sound quite so inane, either. There was something about the man that made her want to babble.
Blake shot Gus a look. Andie had turned her attention to a pamphlet of Chinese proverbs that Ling Pow left on each table. The girl was still a novice in the art of makeup application, but the mascara made her blue eyes pop, and the pale pink lipstick and blusher added a nice glow to her skin. Miranda would have liked to bring up the prep class so she could avoid the subject of her absent husband and ailing company, but Andie was acting as if they’d never met.
“Tom’s in China right now visiting small manufacturing towns,” Miranda volunteered unnecessarily. “It could take a while.”
She was saved from further babbling by Ling Pow’s arrival with their food.
“Always like see big smile on best customer,” he said before bowing his way back from their table.
“So just how often do you eat here?” Blake asked, his tone still casual.
Miranda ate her soup as she considered the question. “Oh, I don’t know, two or three times a week, I guess, if you include takeout. It depends.”
“On what?”
She finished another spoonful of soup. “On, uh, Tom’s schedule.” Strange how difficult it was becoming to think of him in the present tense.
It hit her then how seldom she and Tom had dined at home alone. At some point it had gotten hard to keep the conversation going, and they’d begun eating out with others. Or popping into the club for a bite, where they’d be sure to run into someone they knew.
Then there were the nights Tom had worked unexpectedly through dinner. She looked up to find Blake studying her.
“Have you spoken to Tom lately?” he asked quietly.
Ling Pow arrived with her main dish, and Miranda busied herself passing back her empty soup bowl and taking a sip of freshly poured tea. When she finished, Blake was still waiting for her answer, his blue-eyed gaze fixed on her face.
“Actually, I speak to him regularly,” she lied baldly. “When he’s in some of the less-developed areas communication is more difficult.”
“I see.” Blake took a sip of his tea but kept his gaze locked with hers.
Miranda slipped her chopsticks out of their paper holder and imagined Blake Summers’s reaction if she were to tell him her husband had left her and wasn’t coming back. Maybe she’d reveal that part now and save the fraud and impending bankruptcy part for dessert.
Then she could ask him whether he preferred briefs or boxers, on the grounds that she didn’t want to be attracted to another man who might own prettier underwear than she did.
Attracted?
He took a bite of what looked like chicken with cashew nuts, and Miranda watched the food slip between his lips. In between her own bites she watched him ply his chopsticks with ease, watched the food travel up and into his mouth. Watched him . . . hokay . . . she tore her gaze from his lips and searched her brain for a topic that wouldn’t lead to her abandonment, the state of Ballantyne, or what he might look like without any underwear on at all.
“I’m so glad Andrea decided to take my Rhododendron Prep class.”
Both men’s heads popped up and Andie froze in mid-chew.
“What did you say?” Blake asked.
“I said, I’m glad Andie’s in my Rhododendron Prep class.” She looked at the three shocked faces and her speech slowed. “I, uh, definitely think it will be a great experience for her.”
Blake did a double take worthy of a Looney Tunes episode. “Are you talking about
my
Andie?”
Andie winced and swallowed as he pointed toward her.
“
This
Andie?”
“That would be the one.”
“You’re telling me that
my
daughter, who leads the NCAA in free throws, and who is going either to Duke or Chapel Hill on a full athletic scholarship, is preparing to be in a . . . beauty pageant?”
He said “beauty pageant” in exactly the same way one might say “lap dancing” or “drug smuggling.” Miranda bristled.
“She’s not actually required to enter the pageant, but my class will prepare her for it if she should choose to, yes.”
“We’re not talking Future Serial Killers of America here.” Miranda laid a hand on the girl’s arm. “Andie’s a lovely young woman. There’s no reason in the world why she shouldn’t learn how to present herself as one.”
“It’s no big deal, Dad.” Andie’s face was flushed with embarrassment. “I just wanted to learn some, you know, girl kind of stuff.”
They were spared from hearing how he felt about girl stuff by the arrival of Ling Pow, who took the remains of their dinners and left the bill. Miranda and Blake both reached for it.
Blake’s hand was warm against hers, and Miranda almost jumped at the unexpected contact. Blake reacted too, and they both said, “I’ll take care of it.”
Gus guffawed. “I got it.” He plucked the slip of paper out of their frozen fingers. “But you two need to simmer down. Nobody’s goin’ anywhere ’til they open their fortune cookie.”
He opened his first and read, “‘The road to forever is traveled one day at a time.’” Augustus nodded his head solemnly. “What’s yours say, Andie?”
Andie squinted at the thin rectangle of white paper. “‘Your game of life will be long and exciting.’” The girl rolled her eyes.
The old man motioned to Miranda, and she ripped the cellophane off her cookie and broke it open. Heat stole up her neck and across her cheeks as she read, “‘One must throw out the old in order to embrace the new.’” Gee, maybe Tom had gotten this one and taken it to heart.
Without prompting, Blake pulled out his sliver of paper. With a slow smile he recited the words allegedly baked into his fortune cookie. “‘Things are seldom what they seem,’” he said, nailing Miranda with those outrageous blue eyes. “‘But given time and patience . . . you will divine the truth.’”
chapter
10
T
he bills were spread across the dining-room table. Miranda had hoped that stacking them by category would make the piles appear smaller, but the opposite was true. There were the household expenses, which she’d never looked at all at once before and never wanted to again. Plus the club and both cars; she was still making the payment on Tom’s Mercedes for fear they might come to collect a car she wouldn’t be able to produce. Not to mention the loan on Tom’s fishing boat and the ongoing balances on their credit cards.
Tom’s paycheck, which was automatically deposited into their household checking account, was just enough to meet their regular monthly expenses. But with everything else wiped out, there was no room for error, no shopping for anything other than necessities, and no way to pay for a divorce attorney or a private investigator.
Was it just a month ago that her biggest worry was finding a stamp to pay a bill on
time
?
As she rearranged the stacks of bills, she noticed that the massive mahogany table, like everything else in the house, bore a fine layer of dust. Afraid to let the efficient but gossipy Maria in the house to spread word of Tom’s empty closet and dresser, Miranda had held the woman off, paying her not to come while the mess and dust grew thicker.
The matching china cabinet was equally dusty, its glass front so cloudy she could hardly see the collection of Limoges inside.
The Elizabethan dining suite had been carted to the new world by long-dead Smith ancestors. They were important family heirlooms, but she doubted Tom had given them so much as a passing thought on his way out of their life. He’d written them off just as he had her.
Stung, she went into the kitchen, came back with a dishrag, and began to wipe away the coating of dust. Then she found the Windex and cleaned the glass so she could see the china inside.
It was then that she remembered Grady Harris of Asheville’s Très More Galleries salivating after this very dining suite. Why, he’d been begging her to sell it since the first time he’d seen it.
Quickly Miranda toted up the dining suite’s worth in her mind. Then she moved into Tom’s study, where she eyed the old oak desk and the antique rifle cabinet with its carefully collected contents. There was a complete Victorian bedroom suite in the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs.