LITMIR.BIZ

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claims her inheritance and the first thing she does is plaster neon all over Sheridan Road—and brings in outsiders to do it, besides!”

      “They’re from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Lukas, not Pluto,” Danny said as he went around to the back of the truck and let down the gate. “It’s sixty miles away.”

      “Still, what’s wrong with hiring somebody local? She’s gotta mar the landscape and insult the citizens all in one day? And how come you aren’t upset, Danny? You’re so all-fired excited about preserving stuff. Clemintine’s Frocks is nearly as much a fixture on Sheridan Road as the hotel is. We don’t need some spoiled city girl coming into town and changing everything around.”

      “Women have a way of doing that, pal. And it’s usually for the better.”

      Lukas watched the neon being fitted into place and shook his head. “Nothing good is going to come from Gillian Caine coming back to Timber Bay.”

      GILLIAN SUCKED IN HER TUMMY and eased the side zipper up on her latest creation—a pair of ultraslim cosmic gray satin pants. She sighed with satisfaction. Living on liquid diet shakes for the past week had paid off. She’d lost five of the ten break-up and go broke pounds she’d gained back in New York. She lifted the filmy ruffled shirt laid out on the bed and slithered into it. Looking in the full-length mirror in the tiny bedroom of her tiny apartment above Clemintine’s Frocks, she was almost satisfied with what she saw.

      Of course, it wasn’t Clemintine’s Frocks any longer, Gillian reminded herself. Along with the five pounds, she’d also shed the wooden sign that had hung over the door for the forty years her Aunt Clemintine had been sole proprietor of the dress shop on Sheridan Road. Glad Rags. That’s what Gillian’s shop was going to be called. In bright, bold pink neon. There were two workmen out front right at that very moment hanging the sign. Which was why Gillian just had to look her very best today. Her most chic. She intended to be as bright an advertisement for Glad Rags as the neon was.

      She’d purposely kept a low profile since she’d arrived in Timber Bay less than two weeks ago. Behind the yellowing newspapers that covered the display window, she’d toiled day and night, wallpapering, painting and staining until even the rubber gloves she wore couldn’t protect her neglected fingernails. She looked at her hands in disgust.

      “Hold on, babies,” she cooed to her chipped and ragged nails. “Once we’ve made our debut, we will find the best manicurist in town and make you all shiny and new again.” Nothing wrong that a good nail wrap couldn’t cure. But at least the rest of her was looking good.

      When she’d arrived in Timber Bay she had still been a mess from the crisis in New York. A girl’s world tumbling to pieces around her tended to make for dull hair and muddy-looking skin. So while she’d subsisted on diet shakes, she’d moisturized, exfoliated, mud-packed and conditioned. She leaned in closer to the mirror, scanning her complexion with a critical eye. “Progress,” she pronounced with a smile. There were still five pounds to lose but she was looking a whole lot better than when she’d slunk out of NYC on a one-way ticket on Amtrak.

      Gillian slipped an ankle-length duster that matched the pants off its hanger and put it on, drawing the deeply ruffled cuffs of the pink georgette shirt out to flounce over her hands. She struggled into the pink crocodile boots filched from what was until only recently her very own—okay, her co-owned—boutique in lower Manhattan. They were expensive enough to give Ryan, ex-partner, ex-boyfriend, and ex-decent human being, acid reflux when he realized they were missing. But Gillian had no qualms. In fact, she hoped he’d just downed a double espresso when he discovered the boots were gone and that there wasn’t an ant-acid to be had in all of Manhattan. After what that pseudo-designer and society wannabe had done to her, he was lucky she hadn’t taken him to court.

      “Enough about him,” she said, turning to check out her completed look in the mirror. She smiled hugely at what she saw. There wasn’t a woman in Timber Bay under thirty-five who wouldn’t be drooling to get inside Glad Rags by the time the grand opening rolled around.

      Suddenly her smile faltered, then fell into an outright frown. She had been wrong about Timber Bay in the past. What if—?

      Gillian determinedly shook off the thought and the frown. Frowns turned into wrinkles. Besides, she wasn’t going to be wrong this time. This time the town was going to want what she had to offer.

      They had to. Didn’t they? she silently asked her reflection. She’d win them over this time. Wouldn’t she?

      “Oh, why are you starting with this old insecurity stuff now?” she impatiently asked her reflection. “It is time to exude confidence, Gillian! You are no longer a little girl needing acceptance but a businesswoman who will be fulfilling a need in the community.” And boy, if they were anything like they used to be, the women of Timber Bay had a really big need for what she had to offer. How could she miss?

      Her reflection seemed to be listening to her self-inflicted pep talk. Her shoulders straightened, her chin lifted, and her mouth curved into a smile. “That’s more like it.” She tucked the large silver clutch bag she’d designed to go with the outfit under her arm and headed down the stairs and out the door.

      LUKAS AND DANNY WERE getting ready to unload stacks of lumber for the hotel from the back of the pickup when Danny paused. “Well, look at that,” he said under his breath. “A princess from outer space. And I thought Halloween was almost a month away, yet.”

      Lukas’s gaze followed Danny’s across the street.

      The woman who had just come out the door of the dress shop was wearing something silver. As sleek and shiny as a brand-new saw blade. And she was walking on pink boots with heels as thin and long as a railroad spike. It was some walk she had, too. Lukas knew for sure that there wasn’t a woman in town who walked quite that way. She wasn’t tall, maybe five foot four, but she had a confident stride for such a shrimp of a girl. And she moved from her hips, causing the fabric of the coat she was wearing to swish back and forth when she walked. Watching her stride over to the workmen was like a compulsion. She said something to them and one of them laughed. For some reason, the sound made Lukas’s scowl deepen.

      “She still looks like a spoiled big city-princess to me,” he muttered.

      Danny shrugged. “I guess that must be how they dress in New York City.”

      “Yeah, but this isn’t New York City,” Lukas muttered. “No one around here is going to buy that kind of stuff. Now let’s get this truck unloaded.”

      ACROSS THE STREET, Gillian tipped the workmen generously, trying not to calculate how much closer she was going to be to broke because of it. One of the lessons she’d learned from Ryan—besides the need to watch her back—was that you had to look successful to be successful. Money attracted money like lint to black cashmere. Nobody liked to associate with failure. Ryan had always said that looking needy was worse than looking nerdy.

      She waved as the workmen drove off, feeling suddenly and absurdly alone. As the truck turned the corner at the Town Square and disappeared down Ludington Avenue, it felt like her last contact with the outside world had been broken. In a way, she supposed, she was like the pioneer women who helped settle the west. Instead of trails forged over mountains or through deserts, she was going to be forging a trail through the closets of Timber Bay, bringing style instead of civilization.

      Yes! That was it! A pioneer woman of fashion. She suddenly felt a whole lot better. She also felt hungry—for some real food for a change.

      “Time for this pioneer woman to go on a little scouting trip,” she murmured to herself as she scanned the street for a sign of someplace to eat. Maybe a nice juicy—

      “Mmm, yum,” she said under her breath when she looked across the street. Two very juicy guys with a truck. Not exactly what she had in mind, but—

      “Oh, swell,” she groaned when she got a better look at them.

      She hadn’t seen either one since they were boys, but she recognized them all the same. Maybe because they were together, just like they’d always

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