Turned out the business end was harder than she thought, but she wanted to learn, and she was. That didn’t stop people from whispering, implying, and outright saying Allie wasn’t cut out for it.
Allie and Jo may be identical from the tops of their red heads to the bottoms of their feet, but Jo is a numbers girl and Allie is the artist.They’d heard this from more than one of the town’s aunts—any woman over fifty. Did busybody-ness flip on like a switch at fifty or what? Those same women also had plenty to say about her sister’s wedding to Cash and came in more often than not to help her plan.
Yeah, both sisters were getting fed up with other’s judgments of them. Also, they had strawberry-ginger hair—not red!
Jo handled the criticism better. She handled everything better. She was the calmer and more put together of the two, the more reasonable one, and Allie knew it. The sensible Jo would never have dated a guy like Tony, would never have been caught up in his pretty words and shallow actions, would never have been blinded to his schemes.
Allie was determined to do better, be better—to be more like her sister.
With that thought in mind, Allie squared her shoulders and reminded herself to stay calm. “Anything you need to say, you can say to me. Jo and I are equal partners.”
Millie pushed a perfect spiral, bleach-blond curl behind her ear. “Of course you are.” She couldn’t have sounded more condescending if she were selling God on TV for the price of a luxury RV.You’re saved!“I came to see you. I was hoping to catch you alone.”
Allie kept her expression blank as she headed to the front door and flipped their closed sign, though her stomach churned. Her sixth sense warned her something bad was about to go down. She’d felt the same way before the sharks, Jason and Greg, had kidnapped her. And now that she thought of it, she hadn’t talked to them or their boss, Henry, in a while. She’d need to remember to call them tomorrow to catch up.
“Well, you caught me,” she said. “What do you want?”
Millie set her large purse on the glass counter. Allie went around behind it and pulled the till out of the old-fashioned bronze register for the night. Finding what she was looking for, Millie let out a little “aha” and pulled a paper from her bag. Allie set the till next to the register and raised a brow.
“When you sold me the furniture from your house, quite a few pieces of your jewelry came through as well,” Millie said, clutching what Allie could now see was a photograph to her ample bosom. “As I went through and priced the pieces, I was reminded of a string of pearls. Needless to say, the piece was not among the jewelry.”
Allie frowned. Most of the jewelry they’d sold had been little more than costume jewelry; if they’d had a pearl necklace, she doubted they would’ve parted with it. “What’s it to you?”
Millie grinned, her paper-white teeth gleaming in the overhead lights, and put the photograph on the counter for Allie to see. “I’d like them back.”
Allie eyed her suspiciously before leaning over and examining the photo. In it, a young woman who looked very much like Farrah Fawcett during herCharlie’s Angelsyears, in high-waisted bell-bottoms with a cute white blouse, leaned against a motorcycle—a string of dark pearls hung around her neck, and she held one delicate bead between her teeth as she gave a saucy grin to the cameraman.
Allie arched her brows. Dang, Millie had once been hot—and not just hot, but stunningly beautiful.
A man stood at her side, a possessive arm around her waist, holding her tight against him, with a gleam in his eyes as he stared at her like the million bucks she looked like. He didn’t look like Mr. Douglas. This man was taller, had broader shoulders and sandy-blond hair. Mr. Douglas was short, squat, and balding. Though, to be fair, he probably looked much better when he was this age. Probably not like this guy, but better than he did now.
The guy in this photo was James Dean in a wifebeater and leather jacket, Paul Newman in tight jeans with piercing blue eyes, and Robert Redford in unshaved and brooding attractiveness. He actually looked familiar, really familiar . . . . She leaned in closer. It was in his eyes. His sapphire-blue eyes. Eyes that looked just like hers and her twin sister’s. He kind of looked like . . . he looked like . . . . She sucked in a gasp. “Dad?” Well, that was unsettling.
“I bet you didn’t know your father had it in him,” Millie said, leaning a hip in her fashionable white pencil skirt against Allie’s counter. “He was always so boring with your mother.” She stared at her cuticles.
Allie’s stomach clenched up as she slowly pulled her gaze from the photo and stared at Millie.
Millie’s smile was the biggest Allie had ever seen it.
“When was this photo taken?” Allie asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Eighty-six,” Millie said.
Eight-six? That was the year her parents had married. Allie’s stomach gave a nervous jolt.
“Putting the pieces together, are we?” Millie tapped a long nail to the photo and pointed to the pearls. “Focus, dear. The pearls. Your mother has them, and I want them back.”
Allie swallowed the thick lump in her throat. “My father cheated on my mother?” No, it couldn’t be. Her dad was the most honest, upright, loyal guy she knew . . . had known.
Millie slammed her hand on the glass, and Allie jumped back. “No! He cheated on me with your slut of a mother.” Millie’s eyes went wild, her teeth bared. Allie had always known Millie was crazy, but as the fire burned down in her eyes and she rushed to compose herself, Allie finally understood just how crazy she actually was. Millie rubbed a hand over her hair on the side as if to relax any flyaways that might have escaped in her outburst. She cleared her throat. “Look at the pearls.”
Allie’s mind whirled. That was probably why she did exactly what Millie ordered and looked at them. She recognized them immediately. An eighteen-inch necklace, with dark pearls that she’d later learned were black even though to her they’d looked dark blue. When she and Jo were teens, they would sneak into their mother’s jewelry box and try things on. She’d seen these pearls and had immediately fallen in love with them. She remembered them distinctly because her mother had caught her wearing them one day and demanded she hand them over. They’d disappeared after that, never to be seen again—that is, until they’d moved out of their house in October.
She’d seen her mother holding them the last night she’d spent in her room before the movers had come. If they hadn’t gone to the auction house, then her mother must still have them.
“I want them back,” Millie said. “It’s the only reason I agreed to sell your furniture at Bateman and Stalls.”
That was a lie. Allie might feel like her whole world was turning upside down—her dad had dated Millie and then cheated on the harpy with her mom?—but she knew this woman had taken pleasure in taking their furniture and harassing them in the process. Millie had never been a particularly nice woman to anyone, but she’d always aimed the worst of her maliciousness at Allie and Jo and their mom. Now Allie knew why.