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“Nat is going to get an earful from me on that guy. But, as awful as that date was, I actually met someone at the game.”
“Well, now. That’s my girl.”
Presley circled Vance, her fingertips trailing over the terrain of his back, up to his neck and into the bed-smashed curls that still managed to look endearing. The wordadorablecame to mind. “He’s very nice and I think I’ll be seeing him again really soon.”
He turned around and hauled her into his arms, tickling her throat with his beard. She just barely contained a squeal when he playfully slapped her butt.
“That’s great, Pris. Do you think you could come in for a few hours? I know you’ve been working around the clock and you deserve time off but…”
“Has it been busy?”
“The phones are nuts with incorrect orders again.” He sighed. “I’m going to have to send you to the island this week.”
“We fixed those orders. I sent two out myself last week.”
“Both were returned.”
She tapped Vance’s shoulder and he quickly put her down, his face full of concern. She cupped his cheek and brushed her thumb across the thin slash of a lower lip. Miserably, she lifted a finger. He nodded and motioned that he was going to take a shower.
Their antiquated system was going to be the death of her. She crossed his large bedroom to her hobo bag and dug out her small planner. “Well, there’s an Expo there this weekend that I was scheduled to go to anyway. I put my tanzanite collection in the show.”
“Is that this weekend?”
She bit back a sigh. Between the recurring problems at the store and his never-ending discussion about retirement, her design work had definitely fallen into last place status. If she didn’t get some of her work out there, she could kiss hermembership in the designer’s guild goodbye. Hell, she could kiss her spring collection goodbye. “I can do both.”
“There’s more.”
The hesitant tone of his voice made her slump onto the bed. “Of course there is.”
“If there was any other way to fix this I’d do it, Presley. Marta had a family emergency and two of the major cruises dock this weekend.”
Instantly ashamed, she straightened her shoulders. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, but she needs to be at home. I have no one in that store capable of dealing with that many people.”
“Of course. I understand, Pop. Truly.” The thousand dollars she’d paid for her booth in the expo hurt a little more. She fell back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. “I’ll be there within the hour.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
“You bet.” She crossed her hands over her phone on her chest with a tiny whine. Just a small one because Vance was still in the shower so no one could hear her.
Those cruises kept them in business. And since she’d sunk a chunk of her own savings into the exhibition pieces, there was no wiggle room. The store couldn’t be closed, no matter how much she wished otherwise. The St. Maarten store was truly the only reason the Warren name was still a player in the jewelry game. They had prime real estate on the island and she was proud to show her work there.
But there were fewer original pieces in the store these days. Between the cost of materials and time, it was cheaper to buy wholesale and it showed on the consumer end.
It broke her heart, but keeping the business running was the important part. She did a few pieces a year that kept her from going insane. The Caribbean Fine Jewelry Expo was supposedto be a last ditch effort to find high-end clients that would offset the overhead they were drowning in lately. And to afford a new system for inventory.
Her father didn’t see that though. He wanted things to work like they always did. Distributor to buyer—traditional all the way. She was the one that wanted to gamble with her designs to change the way they worked.
Too bad the fates kept reminding her that it just wasn’t her time yet.
Eight
The moment Vancehad entered the room he’d felt the change. Gone was the laughing and flirty Presley. Instead, she was staring at his ceiling. All joy seemed to have leaked from her in the ten minutes he’d taken a shower.
A very lonely shower.
He’d been hoping she would follow him in, actually. He’d caught on to the work emergency, but he didn’t think it would put her in this kind of mood.
