LITMIR.BIZ

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if it was only one week in the future—seemed to be jumping the gun. Of course, Tom had no reason not to be confident with his life. But Lacey herself had not been long divorced. She’d entered into his world of relative stability at a point when literally every bit of hers had become unmoored—from her job, to her home, to her country, and even her relationship status! She’d gone from babysitting her nephew, Frankie, while her sister, Naomi, went on yet another disastrous date, to shooing sheep off her front lawn; from being barked at by her boss, Saskia, in a New York City interior design firm, to antique-scouting trips in London’s Mayfair with her peculiar cardigan-clad neighbor and two sheep dogs in tow. It was a lot of change all in one go, and she wasn’t entirely sure where her head was at.

      “I’ll have to see how busy I am with the store,” she replied noncommittally. “The auction is taking more work than I anticipated.”

      “Sure,” Tom said, sounding in no way like he’d read between the lines. Picking up on subtleties and subtext was not one of Tom’s fortes, which was another thing she liked about him. He took everything she said on face value. Unlike her mom and sister, who’d needle and prod her and dissect every word she said, there was no guessing or second-guessing with Tom. What you saw was what you got.

      Just then, the bell above the patisserie door tinkled, and Tom’s gaze flicked over Lacey’s shoulder. She watched his expression turn to a grimace before he returned his gaze to meet hers again.

      “Great,” he muttered under his breath. “I’d been wondering when my turn would come for Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum to pay a visit. You’ll have to excuse me.”

      He stood, and went round from the back of the counter.

      Curious to see who could elicit such a visceral response from Tom—a man who was notoriously easygoing and personable—Lacey swiveled in her stool.

      The customers who’d entered the patisserie were a man and woman, and they looked like they’d just walked off the set of Dallas. The man was in a powder blue suit with a cowboy hat. The woman—much younger, Lacey noted wryly, as seemed to be the preference of most middle-aged men—was in a fuchsia pink two-piece, bright enough to give Lacey a headache, and which clashed terribly with her Dolly Parton yellow hair.

      “We’d like to try some samples,” the man barked. He was American, and his abruptness seemed so out of place in Tom’s quaint little patisserie.

      Gosh, I hope I don’t sound like that to Tom, Lacey thought a little self-consciously.

      “Of course,” Tom replied politely, the Britishness in his own tone seeming to have intensified in response. “What would you like to try? We have pastries and…”

      “Ew, Buck, no,” the woman said to her husband, yanking on his arm to which she was clinging. “You know wheat makes me bloat. Ask him for something different.”

      Lacey couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the odd pair. Was the wife incapable of asking her own questions?

      “Got any chocolate?” the man she’d referred to as Buck asked. Or, more like demanded, since his tone was so boorish.

      “I do,” Tom said, somehow keeping his cool in front of Loudmouth and his limpet of a wife.

      He showed them over to the chocolate display and gestured with a hand. Buck grabbed one in his meaty fist and shoved it straight into his mouth.

      Almost immediately, he spit it back out. The little gooey, half-chewed lump splattered onto the floor.

      Chester, who’d been very quietly sitting at Lacey’s feet, suddenly sprang up and launched for it.

      “Chester. No,” Lacey warned him in the firm, authoritative voice he knew full well he had to obey. “Poison.”

      The English Shepherd looked at her, then mournfully back at the chocolate, before finally going back to his position at her feet with the expression of a scorned child.

      “Ew, Buck, there’s a dog in here!” the blond woman wailed. “It’s so unhygienic.”

      “Hygiene is the least of his troubles,” Buck scoffed, looking back at Tom, who was now wearing a slightly mortified expression. “Your chocolate tastes like garbage!”

      “American chocolate and English chocolate are different,” Lacey said, feeling the need to jump in to Tom’s defense.

      “You don’t say,” Buck replied. “It tastes like crap! And the queen eats this junk? She needs some proper American imports if you ask me.”

      Somehow, Tom managed to remain calm, though Lacey was seething enough for the both of them.

      The brute of a man and his simpering wretch of a wife swirled out of the store and Tom fetched a tissue to wipe up the spit out chocolate mess they’d left behind.

      “They were so rude,” Lacey said incredulously, as Tom cleaned.

      “They’re staying at Carol’s B’n’B,” he explained, looking up at her from his hands and knees as he circled the rag over the tiles. “She said they’re awful. The man, Buck, sends every single meal he orders back to the kitchen. After he’s eaten half of it, mind you. The wife keeps claiming the shampoos and soaps are giving her a rash, but whenever Carol supplies her with something new, the originals have mysteriously disappeared.” He stood up, shaking his head. “They’re making everyone’s life a misery.”

      “Huh,” Lacey said, popping the last bit of croissant into her mouth. “I should count myself lucky, then. I doubt they have any interest in antiques.”

      Tom patted the counter. “Touch wood, Lacey. You don’t want to jinx yourself.”

      Lacey was about to say she didn’t believe in such a superstition, but then she thought of the elderly man and the ballerina from earlier, and decided it was better not to tempt fate. She tapped the countertop.

      “There. The jinx is officially broken. Now, I’d better go. I still have tons of stuff to value before the auction tomorrow.”

      The bell above the door tinkled and Lacey looked over to see a large group of kids come hurtling inside. They were dressed in party frocks and were wearing hats. Amongst them, a small, tubby blonde child dressed as a princess and carrying a helium balloon, yelled to no one in particular, “It’s my birthday!”

      Lacey turned back to Tom with a small smirk on her lips. “Looks like you’re about to have your hands full here.”

      He looked stunned, and more than a little apprehensive.

      Lacey hopped off the stool, pecked Tom on the lips, then left him at the mercy of a bunch of eight-year-old girls.

*

      Back in her store, Lacey got on with valuing the last of the Navy items for tomorrow’s auction.

      She was particularly thrilled with a sextant she’d sourced from the most unlikely of locations; a charity store. She’d only gone in to buy the retro games console they had displayed in the window—something she knew her computer-obsessed nephew Frankie would love—when she spotted it. An early nineteenth-century, mahogany-cased, ebony-handled, double-framed sextant! It was just sitting there on the shelf, amongst novelty mugs and some vomit-inducingly cute models of teddy bears.

      Lacey hadn’t quite believed her eyes. She was an antiques novice, after all. Such a find must’ve been wishful thinking. But when she’d rushed over to inspect it, the underside of its base had been inscribed with the words ‘Bate, Poultry, London’, which confirmed to her she was holding a genuine, rare Robert Brettell Bate!

      Lacey had called Percy straight away, knowing he was the only person in the world who’d be as excited as she was. She’d been right. The man had sounded like all his Christmases had come early.

      “What are you going to do with it?” he asked. “You’ll have to hold an auction. A rare item like that can’t just be popped on eBay. It deserves fanfare.”

      While Lacey had been surprised someone Percy’s age knew what eBay was, her mind attached to the word auction. Could she do it? Hold another one so

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