“I would love it!”
She handed over one of her many lists. “Write down your contact information for me and I’ll let that project coordinator know. Here’s my card, too. If you don’t hear from someone by next week, call me back and I’ll put you in touch with them.”
“Thank you!” With her new dangly earrings catching the late-morning sunbeams, Janie looked somehow lighter as she left than she had when she came in. This was why Claire loved owning a bead shop. People came here for pretty little luxuries they might not otherwise allow themselves. Creating the pieces themselves added an extra layer of enjoyment and they invariably left happier than when they’d walked through the doors.
One bead at a time, she was trying to make the world a little brighter.
When she left, Sarah set down her magazine again. “I didn’t want to say this when you had another customer, but I think what you’re doing for this town is marvelous. I’ve been thinking about it and I would like to donate a painting to your auction. Just last week I finished an oil on canvas of the resident elk herd browsing in that meadow above Dutchman’s Pass. It’s quite lovely, one of my favorites in quite a while.”
“Are you sure?” Claire asked, awed at the offer. Sarah’s exquisite paintings hung in galleries across the West.
“Well, I can’t guarantee anyone will buy it, but Walter will at least bid on it so I don’t humiliate myself.”
No one buy it? Sarah’s work was sought after by collectors across the country. She’d heard somewhere her paintings were selling well into five figures. Goose bumps popped out on her arms. “Sarah, my word. Thank you. It’s too much.”
“It’s too much only if I say it’s too much. I want to do this. My heart has been broken for Maura since I heard about the accident. She has always been kind to us when we go for coffee at her bookstore. This is just a small thing, but if it helps ease her pain a little, I want to do it.”
Maura had a way of drawing people to her. Dog-Eared Books & Brew was as much a town institution as the Center of Hope Café. Earlier in the week, Claire and Alex had stopped at Maura’s house and she had been dismayed at the changes in her friend. Everyone who knew and loved her was keeping collective fingers crossed this benefit would help her find a little hope herself.
“I’ll warn you,” Sarah went on, “you won’t catch me out raking leaves or building playground equipment or painting up some rickety old shed or whatever. A painting is all you’re getting out of me. But at least it’s something.”
Claire smiled and on impulse hugged Sarah’s whippet-thin shoulders. After a surprised moment, Sarah returned the hug briefly, then stepped away.
“I’d better go. I told Walter I would pick up some of that gooey macaroni and cheese he loves from the café for his lunch. If I don’t hurry he’ll be grousing around like a hungry grizzly, tearing open kitchen cabinets and knocking shelves out of the refrigerator.”
“We can’t have that.”
“I’ll take this magazine. I think I’m going to make that charm bracelet for my granddaughter’s birthday. Do you have all the supplies I’ll need?”
Claire quickly perused the list and nodded. “We should. I’ve got another copy of this. I’ll have all the findings ready for you when you come back and you’ll only need to pick out the beads you want to use.”
“That is why I put off all my bead projects until we come back to Hope’s Crossing for the summer, my dear. That and, of course, Chester.”
At his name, her lazy hound thumped his tail on the rug. Claire smiled at both of them and rang up the magazine for Sarah.
When the other woman left, she let her dog out into the back garden. She had just returned inside and headed for the worktable when her cell phone gave a soft little wind-chime ringtone. It took her a moment to remember she had changed her mother’s ringtone to something a little more benign than the nuclear meltdown warning. She supposed that was progress.
“Hi, Mom. How are you?”
“Okay. Are you busy?”
Claire thought of all the phone calls she still had to make today for the benefit, the Venetian glass bead order she had been trying to place for a week and her pitifully slow progress on the necklace she was thinking of naming the Heart of Hope.
“Not bad. What’s up?”
“Any chance you can close the store for half an hour and come down to the bookshop? I was going to come over there after the lunch rush, but I’ve got a handful of customers who think I have all day to hang around.”
Claire chewed the inside of her cheek, grateful her mother couldn’t see her fighting a smile. Somehow Ruth hadn’t quite caught on that running a business had more to do with meeting your customers’ needs than vice versa.