Nikki Rivers - Random Acts Of Fashion

A bribe.

She snatched the basket up, shut the door and locked it behind her.

The smart thing would be to leave the basket downstairs in the workroom. Or better yet, out in the shop. Less temptation that way.

On the other hand, it was an old building. It wouldn’t do to encourage any rodents that might have designs on the place—make them think they were going to be able to stop in for a midnight snack.

She decided that she better take the basket upstairs with her, after all. That didn’t mean she was accepting the bribe, though, she told herself, climbing the stairs. She was a big girl. She could certainly resist a couple of cinnamon buns.

When she put the basket on the small drop-leaf table in the kitchen, she noticed the note tucked inside. With two fingers she carefully pulled it out, trying not to disturb the napkin and have to actually look the bribe in the eye. Or in this case, in the frosting.

I thought you might feel funny about coming into Sweet Buns so sweet buns are coming to you. Sorry again for the mud pies. Molly.

“Mud pies. Huh—yeah, right,” Gillian muttered. The basket was an obvious attempt to sweeten her up and make her drop the suit. She wondered how many cinnamon buns Molly thought it would take to buy her.

Well, she could just keep wondering because there was no way she was lifting that napkin and looking underneath.

Stoically, she marched into the bedroom. There were several outfits laid out on the canopy bed Aunt Clemintine had gotten for her the summer she’d turned six. Gillian was still trying to decide what to wear to court the next day.

“Something feminine, yet strong,” she murmured.

That left out the pink polka-dot suit with the ruffled hems.

“Something strong, yet sympathetic.”

That left out the black shantung tuxedo with the sheer tailored shirt and her witty take on a men’s club tie (diagonal rows of pink poodles against an aqua background).

“Something—” Well, above all something that would go with her sling. Which, she supposed, would be the black sleeveless sheath with the little turquoise capelet. The only problem was that it was very, very formfitting. But she had just lost five pounds.

When she tried it on, it fit beautifully. She didn’t even have to hold her tummy in—much. And it barely hurt her arm to put it on.

“Perfect,” she pronounced as she looked in the mirror. Whoever invented those diet shakes should get the Nobel or something. She had missed chewing, though. The sensual feel of food actually in her mouth. Hmm. And that reminded her. She hadn’t had any dinner yet. She’d picked up a salad at the supermarket and it was waiting in the fridge. She peeled out of the dress, hung it up and headed for the kitchen.

Was it her imagination or had the basket from Sweet Buns gotten bigger? Gillian ignored it and went to the fridge. She grabbed the salad, wrestled off the plastic cover and dug in.

“Oh, yum,” she muttered with her mouth full. “Iceberg lettuce and hothouse tomatoes.”

She kept forking into the salad but her stomach kept right on growling. Or was it the siren song of the cinnamon buns she kept hearing over the crunch of a woody radish?

Gillian eyed the basket. It would be such a shame to waste those buns. And didn’t carbohydrates help induce sleep? She started to reach for the basket, then drew her hand back. But, if the buns really were a bribe, did that mean that if she ate one she’d be accepting the bribe?

She picked up the note and read it again.

There really was no mention of Lukas, or the court case, at all. And she was, after all, owed some sort of payment for the pants that adorable Chloe ruined. Just a little carbohydrate to soothe the nerves. It’d be the healthy thing to do, wouldn’t it?

She pulled back the napkin. Six large buns, slathered with thick frosting, were nestled oh-so-beautifully in another gingham napkin. It was more than Gillian could stand.

Just one, she thought. One wouldn’t hurt.

IT WAS NEARLY TIME to leave for court and Gillian was still struggling with the side zipper on the black sheath. It turned out that the cinnamon buns hadn’t been a bribe at all. Sabotage. That’s what they were. Sabotage to make her gain back those five pounds.

Of course, no one had made her eat all six of them.

“But Molly should have known I couldn’t resist!” she wailed at her bloated reflection. Following a half-dozen sweet buns from Sweet Buns, the dress had ceased being a sheath and had turned, overnight, into a sausage.

Gillian gave up on the zipper and started to rip the dress off.

“Ow!”

Drat her sprained arm. It made dressing, something Gillian ordinarily loved to do, nearly impossible and painful as the dentist.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t as bad as a root canal. But it was so frustrating to have to do everything not only one-handed but gingerly, as well. She couldn’t wait to face Lukas McCoy in court. If the judge didn’t throw the book at him, Gillian just might have to throw something at him herself.

One-handed, of course.

She yanked a sleeveless red shirtwaist with a retro full skirt out of the closet and struggled into it, managing to howl in pain only twice. It had a wide belt that was, thankfully, adjustable, and even though it was a little snug in the bodice the full skirt definitely hid any evidence of her carbo pig-out session the night before. She took a white cardigan sweater that she’d picked up in a vintage clothing shop in the Village out of Aunt Clemintine’s bureau. It had a darling little Peter Pan collar that was edged with tiny seed pearls. Perfect for throwing over her shoulders. She slipped red pumps on her bare feet—panty hose had proven impossible to maneuver with only one hand—transferred the necessary junk to a vintage red clutch purse, then checked herself in the mirror.

“Hmm, not bad,” she murmured. Maybe even better than the outfit she was going to wear in the first place. Feminine yet strong. Original, yet not too funky. The sling, however, nearly ruined the look. Gillian rummaged through a few hat boxes of accessories and came up with a long white scarf scattered with tiny red dots. Using her teeth and her good arm, she managed to tie it. She slipped it over her shoulder then ducked her head to get it around her neck.

“Better,” Gillian said to her reflection in the mirror. She was making some minor adjustments to the scarf when out on the street a horn honked. She ran to the window and looked out. An enormous old hulk of a car, the color of lemons, waited at the curb. Gillian smiled. Yes, Philo Hernshaw would own such a car.

She ran down the stairs, went out the front door and got into her lawyer’s car.

“You’re so sweet to pick me up,” she said. “It’s such a nuisance not being able to drive.”

“My pleasure, Miss Plane.”

“Um—that’s Caine, Mr. Hernshaw.”

“What? Oh, no. I don’t use a cane. Although I think they can sometimes add a touch of distinction to a gentleman.”

“No, Mr. Hernshaw. My name is—”

There was the blare of a horn and the squeal of tires as Philo Hernshaw edged the car into traffic and Gillian decided it was best not to bother him while he was driving.

Philo Hernshaw was a sweet man, very courtly, with crisp white hair, a short little beak of a nose and pale blue eyes. He dressed impeccably in suits that could have come from the kind of vintage clothing shops Gillian loved to rummage in—though, in Philo Hernshaw’s case, Gillian was fairly certain that the suits were strictly one-owner. In all the social graces, her lawyer was quite acceptable. But Gillian was a little dubious of his mental powers. Oh, he didn’t seem senile—exactly. He was just a bit vague. Most of the time he had a secret little smile on his faded lips—like he was experiencing a pleasant memory—but every once in a while he’d sort of get this look on his face like he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten where he was at that particular moment. Very unsettling.

There was another blare of car horns as Philo made a turn onto Ludington Avenue without using his blinker. His driving wasn’t exactly instilling any more confidence. Unfortunately, he was the only lawyer within one hundred miles of Timber Bay willing to take her case. Gillian suspected his appointment book wasn’t exactly jammed.

Tires squealed as Philo changed lanes and Gillian decided to spend the rest of the trip with her eyes closed. Luckily, the courthouse was only about a mile down Ludington Avenue—right across the street from the hospital Lukas had taken her to—and they managed to arrive alive and unscathed.

Ever the gentleman, Philo came around and opened the door for her, offered his arm, and escorted her up the long walk that led to the courthouse.

“Quite a day, isn’t it, Miss Spain?”

Gillian opened her mouth to correct him, but decided to merely agree. “Yes, Mr. Hernshaw. It’s a beautiful day.”

The morning was sunny with a gentle breeze that stirred the gold-and-red leaves on the trees that dotted the grounds of the lovely little redbrick courthouse. The building was done in the federalist style, complete with an American flag flying from the top of its petite white rotunda.

It was all so bucolic. So undisturbed looking. Gillian felt a twinge in her belly that had nothing to do with those half-dozen sweet buns and everything to do with the fact that she was about to disturb this bucolic scene—big-time.

Philo held the door for her and she walked into the cool, dim marble foyer. There was a small group of people at the other end. Despite the fact that her eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the dimness, Gillian immediately recognized Lukas by height and breadth alone. He was grinning at a short middle-aged woman with a pretty face and neat dark hair who was reaching up and trying to push back those loose curls that fell over his forehead. His mother, no doubt. The man standing next to her, a graying, slightly shorter version of Lukas, had to be his father. Molly was there, too, smiling and teasing her brother about their mother’s ministrations.

Gillian felt an unexpected pang of loneliness at the sight of McCoy’s family gathered around him. They all looked so nice. They reminded her of her own family. Well, minus the four brothers she had and plus the sister she’d always wanted.

As they approached, something made Lukas look up and the smile on his face, the one that deepened his dimples enough for a girl to get lost in them, totally disappeared.

Gillian sighed. “You are now entering the no-smile zone,” she said under her breath.

“Did you say something, Miss Flame?” Philo asked.

Gillian winced. She was about to go up against one of the town’s favorite sons and she had a lawyer who couldn’t even get her name straight. Despite the fact that Gillian firmly believed she was right in what she was doing, she didn’t feel real terrific about it at the moment.

Luckily, just as Gillian’s heart was warming to the McCoys—just as she started to wonder if she should just call the whole thing off—she heard the muffled sound of fabric rending as the back seam on the fitted bodice of her dress gave. And that made her remember the sweet-bun sabotage. Which made her remember the ruined pants and the damaged boot and her sprained arm. So when Molly came forward and started to introduce her parents, Gillian held up her good arm and yelled, “Stop!”

“Stop?” Molly inquired with a puzzled frown on her face.

“Please—just don’t come any closer. Every encounter I’ve had with a McCoy since I came back to town has turned out badly. So please—just stay right where you are until I’m safely inside the courtro—”