The Parent Trap(24)

Years ago she had publicly grieved the loss of her husband, even though he’d all but become a stranger, but even before that she had privately mourned the loss of a marriage that had never lived up to its promise. “To love, honor and cherish” hadn’t lasted much longer than the honeymoon. Then it was only the “till death do we part” part that made any real sense. And she had known then that marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It might work for other people, but it didn’t work for her. What she’d had while she was married wasn’t a life. What she had now, what she and Casey had, the security, the serenity, those were the things that mattered. No way would she jeopardize them, not for anything.

Sure, Jonathan Marshall was easy on the eyes. It had been hard not to fixate on those abs until she’d seen him leaving for school that morning, dressed in casual khaki pants, a navy short-sleeved polo shirt and dark blue cross-trainers. His height gave him an air of authority and his shoulders looked athletic, and she knew, based on what she’d seen earlier that morning, that he was even fitter than he looked. But she didn’t do casual, and if she was any judge of character, he wasn’t in a place to do commitment. What he did do was struggle with parenting, and he had a ton of baggage when it came to his ex-wife, both of which excluded him as relationship material.

She shouldn’t be thinking along those lines anyway. She certainly didn’t want to be. He would be a good neighbor, possibly a good friend once they became better acquainted, and she hoped he’d be a good teacher. For now, for herself and for Casey, those things were important. Letting herself fall into the trap of believing a committed relationship was the way to go? No way. As she’d just said to Juliet, been there, done that.

Being busy was the only way she knew to dispel these unwelcome ponderings, and if she hoped to get through today’s list on her own, she needed to get started. She dragged the vacuum cleaner out of the storage room, plugged it in and spent ten minutes working her way from one side of the store to the other. Once that was done, she unlocked the front door and hauled the folding sign onto the sidewalk so passersby would know she was open for business.

For the next hour she sorted through a week’s worth of accumulated clutter in the drawers of the sales counter, refolded and stacked cashmere sweaters on a table near the entrance, and straightened and untangled a rack of belts. With the store neat and tidy, she turned her attention to the two window displays. She usually redid them every other Tuesday, and today she had planned to swap out the back-to-school displays for some activewear in new fall colors. Should she tackle this while she was here on her own or wait till Juliet was back to help with customers?

Probably best to wait. Then again, she hated having her weekly work plan thrown off schedule.

Do the displays. If she couldn’t finish by the time she closed up shop, she would call Casey and ask her to come to the store after school. No, make that after soccer practice, she corrected herself, because Jonathan wanted to get the team together this afternoon for their first practice. To his credit, the man didn’t waste time. Casey could work on homework, if she had any, and they could go for burgers after Sarah finished the windows.

By eleven o’clock she had the mannequins stripped down and the back-to-school clothing put away, and had just started to select items for the new display when the back-door buzzer sounded. A delivery?

“What could it be?” She did a mental inventory of recent orders and couldn’t think of anything likely to arrive this week. She unlatched the back door and swung it open.

“Hi, Tom. What do you have for me?”

“A shipment of...” He gave the waybill a quick once-over. “I have no idea.”

She spotted the logo on the large cardboard carton. “Oooh, the DKNY handbags,” she said as she signed for it. “This order was delayed and I wasn’t expecting it for a couple of weeks.”

He feigned interest with a nod and a smile, separated her copy from the rest of the paperwork, and handed it to her. “Can I bring this inside for you?”

“That would be great.” She stepped aside and held the door so he could wheel the large box on the dolly into her storage room.

“There you go.”

“Thanks, Tom. How is your dad doing?” Tom’s mother had recently passed away after battling breast cancer. Three weeks later his father suffered a minor stroke, so the elderly man had moved in with Tom and his wife, Angela.

“Better. It was a big adjustment, but he’s settling in. Eating better, too, now that he doesn’t have to cook for himself.”