After half a second’s pause, I returned her brief embrace. “Thought I’d stop in and see what you’ve got today. I’ve always loved the things you find.”
“Thank you,” Marilyn said with a little wave of her hand. “But you’re the interior designer. I just round up things I would want in my own house.”
“Well, you’ve got great taste.”
She glanced around the store. “Sometimes, it takes all my willpower not to buy one of everything just for myself. I have to be satisfied to enjoy them in here, and resist the urge to bring them all home.”
Two women appeared at the counter, and Marilyn excused herself to ring up their purchases. I made a slow circuit of the store, taking in the wide assortment of home decor. Marilyn had reasonable prices, too, nothing like the markup some Austin stores charged for similar items of lesser quality. Yet another little benefit of small-town life.
Once the women had left the store with their bags, Marilyn made her way back to me. “Would you like to sit down with me for a little while? I have some sweet tea in the back fridge.”
I had meant to say hello as I’d promised and wander the aisles a few minutes, but I hadn’t expected to turn this into a social call. A stray memory of my mother flitted through my mind, leaving guilt in its wake, but I shushed it out again. “I’d like that.”
We took over a back corner of the store in two overstuffed chairs with a table covered in floral teacups between us. Marilyn set out a tray with glasses of tea and a few chocolate cookies. It reminded me of my Grandma Evans’s sitting room, if Grandma Evans had been a hoarder with terrific taste.
We eased back into the plush chairs, and I took a long sip from the iced tea. Not quite how my mom had made it, but it tasted good.
“Thank you for hosting Marnie’s Girl Scout troop,” she said. “Those girls were just over the moon afterwards. I’ve had two excited calls already. Marnie’s told me so much about it, I feel like I earned my own horse badge.”
“I loved doing it.” Once my bout of nerves wore off, anyway. “I’m glad the girls had a good time.”
“You’ll pass my thanks along to Ty, won’t you?”
“I’ll do that.”
“Ty seemed less sure of the whole plan. He didn’t mind too much, did he?”
“I don’t think so. He got used to the idea.”
He didn’t get used to the idea until the whole thing was over, but he didn’t lecture me about it afterwards, either. He’d had other lectures for me, about safety on solo horse rides. My cheeks warmed as I thought about his worry for me, and the delectable kisses that worry had brought out.
“He seems like a man set in his ways.”
I snorted into my tea. “You could say that.”
“He comes by it naturally. Victor Hardy was just about the most immovable man the town’s ever seen.” Marilyn laughed lightly. “But of course, he had Abigail to soften him. Sometimes, a man needs a woman to soften out his rough edges.”
Ty certainly had some rough edges, but he seemed pretty content to stay that way. “What do you do when they don’t realize they need it?”
“You help him figure it out.”
If only it were that easy.
I had told Ty my regrets about dating Bret, and how different my feelings for him were. And Ty had…well, he’d said nothing I didn’t know.“Bret’s a fool.”He had seemed pleased with my confession, but he hadn’t said anything in return. Even a simple,“I feel it, too,”would have been something, but he hadn’t offered a similar confidence. Eventually, I’d gone home, feeling at once closer to and just as distant from Ty as I ever had been.
As much as our conversation pressed on my thoughts, opening up the can of crazy that was my situation with Ty didn’t really fall in thesocial call with Marilyncategory.
“So do you have one supplier, or do you pick and choose?” I asked.
The abrupt change of topic didn’t seem to bother her. “I have several. Some catalogs, some individual vendors, some local craftsmen. I’ve collected a little bit of everything over the years. I don’t like seeing the same thing when I go into every store in the area. I like to offer my customers a little something different.”
“It shows. The eclectic mix in here could keep even my pickiest clients happy.”
“I’ve been all over your website. Is that a strange thing to admit? I feel a bit like an internet stalker.” She laughed again, but she seemed nervous about something other than light internet stalking. Her fingers toyed with the puffball edging on a tea towel hung over the arm of her chair. “I like the style of the work in your gallery—home, but better.”
“That’s my goal. I don’t want to change people’s houses so much that they can’t see themselves in them anymore. I want to create the best versions of their homes, not some magazine spread of a celebrity’s house that nobody feels comfortable in.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’ve always tried to help my customers achieve, too. Some of these houses are so overdone, it’s a wonder people can call ithome.” Marilyn took a drink of tea, watching me with avid eyes. “Are you happy where you’re at, work-wise?”
