Meant to Be Mine by Lisa Marie Perry

Author:Lisa Marie Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2016-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Paget hollered into the boutique, where both Sofia and Joss were carting ladders and paint supplies through the labyrinth the furniture created in the front room, “but we’re screwed.”

Please, no more awful surprises. Yesterday morning the air system had gone on the fritz, leaving them all cranky and sweaty. Kotts & Sons had put off their service call until seven p.m., then charged Sofia the after-hours rate.

“How screwed?” Joss replied, lugging a ladder carefully around the tarp-draped armoire as Sofia followed with two five-gallon containers of paint—Communion White and Tears of Midas Gold—and stir sticks from the paint store. “Soft bed or hard floor?”

“Hard floor”—Paget paused, and cutting through the street noise was the grumble of an engine idling and then the foreboding whoosh of air brakes—“with no lubrication.”

The oh, shit alarm clanging inside Sofia depleted her energy and she let gravity claim the paint containers. They hit the paper-covered floor with identical thuds and she wormed her way to the door.

Square in front of the shop and dominating the street was a shipping truck. One man approached with a clipboard in tow; his partner raised the rear door of the twenty-something-foot roadblock. He pointed the clipboard at Sofia. “You Joss Vail?”

“I am,” Joss called from inside. She propped the ladder and it proceeded to slide and clatter to the floor, yet another obstruction, but she didn’t stop to clear the path. Climbing over Sofia’s dresser and bouncing across to where Paget leaned against the open door, she grabbed the clipboard. “I want to check the fragiles before I sign this,” she said. “And I want to inspect the sofas and chairs and the mattress for rips.”

“Ma’am, we’re on a tight schedule and it’s hotter than the devil’s armpits out here,” the man griped, but Paget’s snicker seemed to diminish his bluster. “Check the glass for shatters, but anything else you’ll need to look over later and file a report with the company. Everything’s here—hold the door open and we’ll bring it in.”

“And put it where?” Sofia cried. Blush was beyond capacity with product shipments and what she and Joss had already carried over from New York—and not even all of that fit in the boutique. Caro Jayne and her assistant had stored some of the overflow in the back rooms of Au Naturel, but generosity, and pity, had their limits. Sofia beckoned her friend back into the store. “Joss, I thought you were selling off this stuff.”

“The consignment places want over fifty percent of the sale, so that wasn’t going to happen. Flea market shoppers mind-game too much and care more about winning than bargain-hunting. I’d rather hoard all of this than accept pennies for it.” She’d worked hard for years to afford her necessities and luxuries alike. “The piano sold. Cool two hundred.” Her smile was anything but joyful.

“I’m sorry.” Neither of them played the instrument—it’d belonged to Joss’s grandmother, and was worth much more to Joss than even its multithousand-dollar appraised value.

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