He moved carefully, as if he might be afraid to knock over the pretty daffodil-themed knickknacks occupying every shelf.
“Is Jessica upstairs?” he asked without preamble.
Well, that was predictable.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you knock on the door and find out?” she asked.
He turned and took a step toward the door before she took pity on him. “No, she’s not up there. She left around lunchtime and hasn’t been back yet.”
“Oh,” he said, turning and jamming his hands into his pockets. He seemed more awkward than disappointed. What was up with that?
“You can wait here for her, if you like. Can I get you a cup of coffee? A Coke?”
He nodded. “A Coke would be great.”
She hurried to the workroom and snagged a canned Coke from the small fridge. She stopped at the mirror and gave her hair a once-over. She looked okay. And she was a fool and an idiot for checking.
“Caleb Tate came by to see her a little while ago,” Kerri said as she returned to the sales floor.
“What?” Colton seemed agitated by this news.
“He didn’t stay long. Maybe five minutes. And she left right after. Maybe ten minutes ago.”
He pulled out his phone and punched in a number, and then put it to his ear. A moment later he disconnected the call.
“She didn’t answer?” Kerri asked.
He shook his head as he picked up one of the daffodil-print coffee mugs and studied it. What was going on in his head?
And then, out of the blue, he said, “You know, Rose Howland didn’t plant those daffodils by herself.” He was referring to the daffodils that had given Jonquil Island its name. The story was that Rose Howland, mourning for the drowned pirate Captain Teal, had planted the flowers in his memory.
“No?” she asked. She might have batted her eyes at him a little shamelessly.
Colton put down the cup and turned toward Kerri, his Spanish moss–colored eyes sharp. “There’s an old family story about how Henri St. Pierre did most of the work.”
“Really? Who was he?”
He strolled to the counter, where he leaned forward, invading her space. Her heart rate climbed.
“You don’t know your history. I find that amusing since you’ve got a shop that trades on the whole daffodil thing.”
“I bought this shop from Mildred Sawyer when she retired. I wasn’t thinking about history. I was examining her profit-and-loss statements. I have an MBA from Georgia Tech.”
He gave her a wide smile. The man was beautiful. Even his teeth. “You like looking at numbers?”
I like looking at you. But instead of telling him her innermost thoughts, she said, “I do. Numbers never lie.”
He blinked for a moment. “Why do I get the feeling that’s a commentary on the human race?”
She shook her head. “Not on the human race, just some people in particular.” Like her lying SOB of an ex-husband, whom she’d divorced seven years ago. But who was counting?
“I’m terrible at numbers.”
“Really? That surprises me. You’ve got such a successful business.”
“I do. But my books are a mess, and I don’t have a degree in anything. I’m strictly seat-of-the-pants.”
“So,” she said, stifling the urge to lean forward and offer to do his bookkeeping, “tell me about this family history I know nothing about.”
He straightened and shrugged his shoulders. “Henri St. Pierre was the only survivor of Captain Teal’s pirate ship.”
“Oh, you mean the one that sank in the hurricane all those years ago.”
“Yep. He swam ashore, and Rose Howland found him, saved his life, and gave him a place to stay.”
“But only if he did the hard labor of planting all the daffodils?” Kerri asked.
“Yup.”
“What happened to him?”
Colton shrugged. “He lived out his years here. He’s buried up on my family’s land. At least, that’s the legend. There isn’t any headstone or anything. And there’s an alternate story that he ended up being enslaved at one of the plantations upriver.”
“Are you giving me crap for selling daffodil-themed items because Rose Howland was a white woman?” Kerri may not have known about Henri St. Pierre, but she’d always known that the daffodil story was a staple of the white folks’ history of the island. But she wasn’t selling history; she was using the island’s name for her merchandise assortment.
He cocked his head, and his eyes got a little softer. “I’m sorry. That was kind of rude, wasn’t it? Giving you crap for selling stuff with daffodils.”
“No. It was a fair criticism. But we’re living on Jonquil Island.”
He nodded. “I know. But it bothers me that Henri St. Pierre’s role in our history has been forgotten. Maybe you could give him a little shelf space in your store.”
“I’m not sure I want to sell pirate knickknacks.”
“OK, but you could add some sweet grass baskets or maybe some other Gullah crafts that help folks remember that black people were brought here to grow rice. Our ancestors farmed this island way before the white folks built their summer homes out here.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about selling those baskets.”
He smiled. “I’ve got kin who still make sweet grass baskets.”
“You do? I’d like to meet them.”
He nodded. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind selling you a few for your store.” He paused a moment. “Um, look, I’m kind of at loose ends this afternoon. You busy for lunch? We could, you know, share some ideas.” His gray eyes sparked with something more than a shared interest in business.
But she chose to ignore that little light in his eyes. She could chalk this lunch up to market research.
Or something.
Hell, Jess had given her the green light, so she didn’t need to feel guilty. “I’d love to have lunch with you,” she said, her whole body turning to mush when he smiled.
* * *
Last night, when Karen and Sandra descended upon Topher with their worries and their pity and insisted that he stop swimming, he totally lost his temper.
After all the years these two old ladies had looked after him, he had never used language like that in their presence. But he’d shown them, all right. He’d chased them away.
And then he’d picked up a few of the knickknacks that Ashley had used to decorate the cottage and sent them hurtling toward the fireplace surround. And when Ashley had had the temerity to call him on the phone, he’d sent that flying across the room too.
It had exploded into shards of plastic and glass, one of which had left a small nick in his forehead.
He’d howled at that misfortune too, then stumped into the bathroom futilely searching for a Band-Aid. He’d had to sit on the commode pressing a washcloth to his forehead for a solid ten minutes.
By then he’d recovered a little of his sanity. He took a pain pill and went to bed.
In the morning, he’d cleaned up the mess, picking up the pieces of his broken phone.
Now he’d have to go out in public and endure people’s stares. But he couldn’t live without a phone. And maybe he needed to get some Band-Aids, since he seemed to have developed a knack for wounding himself.