In the end, Forever Amber hadn’t been terribly useful. Undressing hadn’t been problematic, after all; there hadn’t turned out to be any art to it, as long as clothes hit the floor as fast as possible. It had all been awkward, but even if there weren’t any waves of bliss, there had been lots of laughing, enough to ease them both past anything uncomfortable. And it hadn’t hurt horribly, which some of her girlfriends said was the case. Maybe neither books nor girlfriends should be relied on for sex advice, Jordan reflected now, squirming away from a twig poking her back through the blanket as Garrett stripped his shirt off. Girlfriends, if they knew more than you, said completely conflicting things (“Men just like it better than us” or “It’s wonderful when you’re in love!”) and books either said nothing at all (the hero and heroine disappeared into some all-encompassing ellipses) or promised automatic, vaguely worded ecstasy.
Still, this had to be the seventh or eighth time, and she and Garrett had things nicely worked out. A lot of pleasant rolling about on the blanket, sunlight dappling Garret’s hair as he lowered his head to kiss along her collarbone, then a brief fierce tangle of limbs and gasps and sweat, and they broke apart smiling.
Jordan sat up, reaching for her blouse. “Garrett,” she said, laughing as she looked over one shoulder. “Do not fall asleep.”
“I won’t,” he said, eyes closed, stretched out on the blanket.
“You are.” She planted a kiss on his ear. “Put some clothes on! I’ve got to open up the shop.”
He sat up, yawning. “Anything you say, Mrs. Byrne.”
“Don’t say that till September, it’s bad luck.” Jordan straightened the diamond sitting on her knuckle, watching it sparkle in the tree-filtered sunshine. It looked so dainty, but it was a heavy bit of rock. Who knew a half-carat ring could weigh down a hand like a boulder?
THE BELL OVER the shop door tinkled not ten minutes after Jordan flipped the sign to Open, ushering in a harried-looking woman blotting her forehead. “Welcome to McBride’s Antiques, ma’am. May I offer you some refreshment?” She poured ice water into a long-stemmed Murano goblet, proffering lemon wafers on an Edwardian calling-card salver. During winter it was peppermint wafers and hot tea in flowered Minton cups. Customers like to feel welcomed, Anneliese had said. One of her quiet notions that had made its way into the shop to good effect, or at least Jordan assumed it was to good effect considering how much more stock her dad had been buying. “There’s no reason you can’t be the most prosperous antiques dealer in Boston,” Jordan’s stepmother often said.
“We do well enough as it is,” he pointed out, but Anneliese kept quietly making suggestions, and neither Jordan nor her father could deny her instinct for the little things that turned a profit. She never took shifts behind the counter—Jordan’s father was proud that his wife didn’t have to work—but she had her own ways of helping.
The first customer walked out with a japanned tray and a Georgian table clock, and the bell tinkled again almost before the door closed behind her. Jordan’s welcoming expression became a smile as Ruth raced in, blond plait bouncing on the back of her school jumper. “Hello, cricket.”
Ruth flung her arms around Jordan in a hug—eight years old now and a little chatterbox, not the silent big-eyed scrap she’d been at four. My sister, Jordan thought with a squeeze of love, and it was true now: Ruth Weber had become Ruth McBride. “Can I look around?” The shop was Ruth’s treasure box, her favorite place in the world.
“May I look around,” Anneliese’s voice sounded. “And yes, you may.”
Jordan greeted her stepmother with a smile. The smiles between them had been awkward ones for a while—the Thanksgiving after that first horrible one had not exactly been a tension-free evening, everyone knowing exactly what everyone else was thinking as they chewed on their turkey, but thank goodness that was all in the past. Jordan hugged Anneliese now, inhaling her sweet lilac scent. “How do you always look so cool and collected?” she demanded, taking in the spotless gloves and the crisp cream linen suit that looked like it had come from the pages of Vogue and not Anneliese’s Singer. “I’m as rumpled as an old mop.”
“A young girl looks all the better for a little dishabille. Middle-aged matrons like me have to settle for being tidy and presentable.” Anneliese fished in her pocketbook, producing a fabric sample. “Look at this lovely yellow cotton. I was thinking a sundress for you—”
“Better for you, I look like a cheese in yellow.”
“You do not. When am I ever wrong about clothes?” Anneliese smiled. Three and a half years ago she’d received Jordan’s flame-faced apology only to offer a teary one of her own—they’d cried a little on each other’s shoulders, and never referred to it again. These days whenever Jordan thought about that Thanksgiving, she gave a deep, sincere flinch at her own stupidity and wondered, What was I thinking?
“What brings you in?” Jordan went on. “You never come to the shop during business hours.”
“Dan wanted the auction catalog for his trip tomorrow. He marked a set of Hope chairs—”
“Maybe this will be the last buying trip for a while.” Jordan’s dad seemed to be whisking out the door every other week these days, off to New York or Connecticut in one of the crisp herringbone suits Anneliese had chosen for him. He didn’t put in many hours behind the shop counter anymore, or in the back room where the restoration work was done. Jordan now managed the counter on most days, and in the back room—
“Is Mr. Kolb working today?” Anneliese tucked the auction catalog into her pocketbook.
“Here, Frau McBride.” The door to the back room opened and a frail-looking man with puffs of gray hair above his ears popped out—he always came in early, well before Jordan opened up. “I vas expecting you.” Mr. Kolb’s English was so thickly accented, it had taken Jordan weeks to understand him. “The Hepplewhite table, she needs varnish . . .” He launched into technicalities, mixing German and English. He’d come to the shop a year or so ago, another refugee with the waves arriving from Europe after the Displaced Persons Act, badly rumpled in a cheap suit and flinching visibly whenever a stranger addressed him.
“You won’t find anyone better to help with restoration,” Anneliese had told Jordan’s father when she proposed they sponsor Kolb’s entry to the United States. “Old books, old documents; those are his specialty. He had a shop in Salzburg when I was a child. I’m so glad I had the thought of looking him up.”
“He can’t take the counter, with his English so poor. And he’s very jumpy.”
“He had a bad time during the war, Dan. One of the camps . . .” Anneliese’s voice had faded to a discreet murmur, and the little German had been ensconced in the back room ever since, always with a peppermint in his pocket for Ruth and a shy smile for Jordan.
“English, Mr. Kolb,” Anneliese reminded him as he lapsed into German. “That dealer you told me about, the one who decided to settle in Ames . . . ?”
“Yes, Frau McBride. Final payment made.”
“Excellent. Did he pass that letter along for me to Salzburg?”
“Yes, Frau McBride.”
“For a woman I used to know there,” Anneliese told Jordan. “I’m hoping she might consider coming to Boston. I was so lucky to get here, make a new life. I’d like to help others like me do the same.” Her English was perfect now, no trace of German accent—if anything, she’d begun to drop her R’s like a real Bostonian. She looked so delighted whenever anyone assumed she was born and raised here, she never corrected them. She’d even lopped the second syllable off Anneliese when she took American citizenship; Anna McBride was how she introduced herself now.
Jordan’s father came in, looking cross. “New Yorkers,” he muttered. “Clogging up the street, not knowing how to park—”
“How is it that all tourists who can’t park are automatically New Yorkers?” Jordan teased.
“I know Yankee fans when I see them.” He dropped his hat on the counter, looking dapper in the suit he’d wear to the train station this afternoon. “Anna, did you tell Jordan about—”
“I knew you’d want to.” Anneliese smiled. “Ruth, come into the back while I talk to Mr. Kolb.”
Jordan’s little sister ignored her, standing transfixed by a brooch in the display cabinet—a little wrought-silver violin to be worn on some music-loving woman’s lapel. “Can I have it?” she whispered.
“Certainly not, Ruth. It’s far too old and valuable.”
“But—”
“Don’t be greedy, it’s an unattractive quality in children.” Anneliese bore Ruth off to the back, and Jordan looked back at her father.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Just some wedding plans. Anna wanted to take you shopping for a dress.”
Jordan adjusted the diamond over her finger again. Picking a wedding dress . . . That seemed like a very large step. Very final. She blew out a breath. “I put myself entirely in her hands. We’ll even take pictures at the fitting.”
“Get a picture of her while you’re at it. You know how she’s always ducking the camera.”
“Mmm,” Jordan said. Unfortunately, the best picture she’d ever taken of Anneliese was still that first one, the shot in the kitchen with her head half turned and her eyes as sharp as razors.
“I wanted to talk to you about a wedding present.” He fished a little box out of his pocket, turning pink around the ears. “To wear on the big day—‘something old,’ you know . . .”
“Oh, Dad.” Jordan touched the earrings with a fingertip: gold-feathered art deco wings with big pearls swinging below.