The Antique Love (5 page)

“Yeah, I guess you could call her kinda pretty,” he said simply. “And she helped me pick out a great present for you.” He held a padded envelope to the webcam. “It’s a surprise.”

“Aww, Kurt, she sounds adorable.” Ann looked hopefully at him from the screen.

Kurt pictured the wife he had envisaged: cool, sensible and pragmatic, with both high-heeled feet planted firmly in reality. Not one with iris blue eyes that were dangerously soft and wistful and full of dreams.

He looked into Ann’s expectant features. “No,” he said emphatically. “This one’s definitely not marriage material.”

The rain was bouncing down in fat, dirty drops on the pavement when Penny left the shop. She put her ancient leather briefcase over her head and made a quick splash over the road to the pub opposite. A welcome blast of warmth and the delicious waft of home-cooked food met her as she pushed open the door. From the outside, the Edwardian building appeared rather drab to passers-by, but the interior was a stunning surprise. Penny had long since grown accustomed to its magnificence.

She gave a rapid glance round the gilt mirrors and the splendid cream and red tiles, looking for her denim-clad cowboy-slash-accountant. When a tall, broad-shouldered man stood up from a table in the window, looking darkly handsome in a suit and tie, she didn’t immediately recognise him. Then she twigged. Of course, it was a working day, and Kurt wasn’t a cowboy. He actually worked in finance. That’s why he’s wearing a suit, she told herself, trying to damp down the rush of butterflies that fluttered into life at the sight of him.

Penny was well known, and many of the pub regulars greeted her warmly as she threaded her way across the room. She was obliged to stop several times to field enquiries regarding her health and that of her grandfather, so that by the time she reached Kurt, she had ample time to regain her usual composure. But when he pulled out a chair for her with a wide, handsome smile, she felt the butterflies flying dangerously back into life.

“Sorry I’m late,” she babbled. “Sudden rush of customers.”

“Yes, I know. I saw,” he said. His eyes were smiling.

Penny glanced out of the window. The rain was easing, and a few lukewarm rays of sun fell across the street, picking out the gold lettering on her shop front. She had forgotten her actions would be visible to anyone sitting across the road in the pub. It had been a full morning, most of which she’d spent engrossed with customers, explaining the background to her antiques—or
telling her stories
as David used to call it. Now she glanced at Kurt, feeling slightly awkward to have been on display.

“You look very impressive in action,” he said simply.

Penny flushed with pleasure. She was struggling to think up a reply when he moved on, lifting the battered cardboard menu from the table.

“What would you like to eat?”

The change of subject was gratefully received, and soon they immersed themselves companionably in a discussion of the pub’s traditional English fare. Penny attempted to persuade Kurt to let her pay—insisting he was her customer, after all—and found herself politely, but firmly, overruled.

As she watched him make his way toward the bar, cutting a path with easy grace through the lunchtime crowd, she couldn’t help but contrast his evident warmth and openness with his coldly logical approach to his love life. The two facets of his character didn’t seem to mesh together. Penny’s time behind the shop counter had provided invaluable experience in dealing with people. She was also intuitive and could generally sum strangers up pretty accurately, but she had to admit that Kurt was a more complex character than the usual customers she met.

She watched him give their order to a giggling barmaid and noted how he took the girl’s simpering attention in his stride. He was probably used to girls falling over themselves, she thought wryly. After all, the barmaid wasn’t the only woman in the pub whose wide eyes were following him. Quite a few female heads were turning and one group in particular, a table of office-workers in the far corner, had their mouths wide open and were positively drooling over him.

Penny shifted her gaze from Kurt’s strong back to stare out of the window. It certainly didn’t seem as though the guy would have to look far to find a wife. If this random group of women were anything to go by, most of them would be falling over themselves to fit the role, no matter how cold and calculated his reasons appeared to Penny. For some reason, the thought that there would be plenty of women rushing to accept Kurt on his own logical terms made her quite cross. She reminded herself quite forcefully that Kurt’s marriage plans were nothing to do with her. Her job was simply to fit out his house in the best possible style so he could bring home a lovely wife to match the furniture.

She opened her leather briefcase with a snap and brought out the pile of papers within, arranging them in a neat pile on the scrubbed wooden table. Then she picked up the first page—a cutting she had taken from a recent home and style magazine—and regarded it dolefully. With most customers, she would have garnered a fair idea by now of what made them tick. Once you knew what made a person tick, it was a short step to knowing what style would work for them.

With the ambiguous Kurt, however, she’d so far been unable to connect with how he thought. His idea of what constituted a happy home seemed so far removed from Penny’s own, that once again she found herself seriously doubting her ability to complete the project. She replaced the cutting on the pile and waited for Kurt to thread his way back to their table, a hundred female eyes at his back.

After placing an orange juice brimming with ice in front of her, he gestured to her stack of papers.

“I’m impressed,” he said. “You got all this together on such short notice?”

“Just a few ideas I was going to show you for your house.” Penny looked up with a bright smile fixed to her face then quickly dropped her gaze to the table. He was taking off his jacket, for heaven’s sake. She caught a glimpse of chest muscle hardening against his shirt as he leaned forward and shuffled her leaflets together to distract herself.

“Let’s have lunch first,” he said, motioning her to put the papers away. “I saw you across the street there. You’ve had a busy morning.”

Penny reached for her orange juice and took a grateful sip, the iciness soothing the back of her throat. It was true; she had done a lot of talking that morning. Despite what David said to the contrary, her customers loved to listen to her talk about the antiques, and she enjoyed sharing her enthusiasm with them.

She put down her glass with a satisfied sigh to find Kurt’s assessing gaze on her.

“You ever get any time off?” he asked, indicating the shop front across the street.

“I used to do.” She pulled a face. “That was before my business partner left.”

Penny’s pain must have shown on her face.

Kurt leaned forward. “So what happened? He just up and left, just like that?”

Every time Penny thought of David’s violent departure, there was a terrible constriction in her throat. She took another sip of her blessedly cool juice, easing the tightness.

“We had an argument.” Her voice was calm, but her fingers were clenched a little too tightly round her glass. “It was silly, really. I don’t even know how it started. I asked David to check something in the accounts, something that didn’t stack up…”

Her voice trailed away. It was impossible and far too humiliating to continue. To tell Kurt how David, who had become increasingly volatile in the previous weeks, suddenly exploded with rage, subjecting her to a vicious diatribe in which he accused her, amongst other terrible things, of being
ridiculously romantic
and
insanely over-imaginative
.

“Guess you’d worked together a long time.” Kurt was still, watching her steadily.

She replaced her glass on the table and rubbed her tense fingers. “He worked for my grandfather at first. Then Granddad made him partner, and after I took over the business, I inherited him. He and I never really hit it off in the past, but he brought in a lot of business. There was nothing to stop us having a good working relationship, and anyway he’d been with us for ten years without a problem.”

“He worked for you all that time, and he just left?” Kurt’s eyes widened incredulously. “Left you high and dry? Guy’s a rat.”

Penny didn’t know what response she’d expected from Kurt, but she found his chivalrous leap to her defence quite touching. She’d been bottling up her feelings for weeks, trying not to worry her grandfather and trying to shelter Tehmeena from the worst of the extra workload. Now Kurt’s unexpected sympathy had an unfortunate effect, and she felt tears begin to prickle. She bit down on her lip, turning her head to one side.

Kurt placed his hand over hers. His kindness was almost the final straw, and she was horrified to feel she might actually start crying. Then he spoke, bringing her back from the brink.

“You’re better off without that ass-hole.” His grip tightened.

Penny gave a watery laugh, sliding her eyes round to meet his. He met her gaze with a grin.

“If you’ll pardon some Wyoming plain speaking.”

Penny grinned back. For a second, he gazed down at her, his fingers tightening on hers, and to her surprise, she found herself returning the pressure. Then the barmaid arrived with their meals, batting her massive eyelashes in Kurt’s direction, and the moment was broken. Kurt withdrew his hand to make room for their plates.

Penny pulled back, glad of the distraction the food offered. Once again Kurt’s actions had thrown her. She sensed that underneath his easy-going charm, he was probably a man you could thoroughly rely on. She glanced over at him, sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves. Broad-shouldered in real life, as well as metaphorically. The sort of man any woman would be glad to have as a husband—if it weren’t for the fact that he’d probably use a spreadsheet before proposing just to make sure he’d weighed up all the advantages and disadvantages. His outlook went against every romantic fibre of Penny’s being. She had the sudden notion that accountancy was a profession which must suit him right down to the ground, offering an environment of reason, logic, and order. How different his personality was from the romantic aura he carried around him.

All of a sudden, she chuckled to herself. Kurt looked up from the plate in front of him. “I was just thinking how different the life of an accountant is from the life of a cowboy.” She giggled again. “And how ridiculous you must have thought me when you came to my shop.”

Kurt didn’t smile back. He gave her comment serious consideration before offering a slow reply. “No, I didn’t think you were ridiculous. I think you’re intuitive, and you have imagination—something people say I lack. That’s why I wanted your help with furnishing my house.”

Penny bent her head to her meal, feeling a little overcome. She appreciated Kurt’s compliment, but she didn’t believe that he lacked imagination deep down. Why else was he drawn to that Coalport vase? He must have had some sort of imaginative impulse to see the beauty behind the ostentation. And then she’d known as soon as Kurt picked up her love token that he’d recognised the magic in it just as strongly as she did. But he kept his imagination under tight rein. There was something permanently controlled in the way he carried himself, and she found it a little intimidating.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re an accountant and not a cowboy,” she said suddenly, looking up. “Handling a herd of cattle is all right, I suppose, but we need someone who’s good with figures. David left the books in a terrible mess.”

“No problem,” Kurt said, returning to his steak pie. “I’m sure it won’t take me long to get to the bottom of it.”

Penny watched him begin to make unconcerned inroads on his meal and, for the first time in weeks, felt a small lift of her spirits. Kurt was such a solid and dependable presence, she wondered if maybe he was right, and she did have intuition. She’d imagined Kurt in the role of a hero when he first stepped into the shop, and if he turned out not to be a cowboy sort of hero, what did it matter? Her guess was right. He’d ridden into town to help her with her accounts, and that was hero enough for her. The thought brought an inward smile.

She turned her attention to the lamb stew in front of her, blowing absent-mindedly at the steam. “So,” she said, “I should get to know you a bit better, maybe. If I’m going to furnish your house, I mean?”

“Ask away.” Kurt waved an airy knife.

The invitation to ask anything threw Penny off guard for a moment. There was so much she was dying to know. Where to start?

“Okay,” she said. “Can I ask…” She put down her knife and thought for a couple of seconds. “You said you were getting married?” Kurt nodded without looking up. “Then maybe I should know what sort of wife you’re looking for. How do you see your future in your house in Richmond? And why do you want to get married, anyway, if you don’t believe in love?”

Her words came out in such an eager rush that Kurt laughed.

“That’s a lot of questions,” he said, putting down his fork and giving her his attention. “Well, to start, I’ve always wanted a proper family. I’ve made a success out of my career, and now I need someone to share my life with. I guess a family is what I’m waiting for to make the rest of my life complete.”

“So you think something’s missing in your life?” Her question silenced him for a moment.

“Missing something,” he said after a while. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but that’s a good question. Maybe I am missing my family, here in England. Maybe starting a family of my own is just the logical answer.”

There it was. Logic again. Penny frowned. There was no arguing with a logical approach, but in her mind where relationships were concerned, it was nowhere near enough. She felt like physically prodding Kurt until she could get him to see what she saw.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked in desperation.

That was the question. She was startled to see all trace of amiability leave Kurt’s expression. It was as though a black cloud descended on him. He leaned back, a stony expression on his face.