“Would you like to sit down?” she invited, motioning toward one of the two armchairs arranged in front of the tiny fireplace that had not yet been used. “I’ll make coffee.”
“No coffee for me,” he said. “I can’t stay.”
“Then sit for a minute, and we’ll talk,” she said, moving toward one of the chairs and settling into it invitingly. “We’re family now,” she added. “We should get to know each other, don’t you think?”
Bran perched gingerly on the edge of the other chair, looking prepared to leave at any moment. Bailey wondered why the man was so skittish.’
“Tell me about yourself,” she prompted. “Where do you live? Are you married?”
That last question had just occurred to her. For some reason, she didn’t like it.
It was the only one he answered. “No, I’m not married.”
She tried again. “I suppose you grew up in London, like Anna? Yet I’ve noticed that neither of you has much of a British accent.”
He shrugged. “We’ve moved around.”
“Anna doesn’t talk much about her past.”
“The present is all that matters to us,” he replied.
“Was your childhood an unhappy one?” Bailey asked sympathetically.
“Not particularly.”
Bailey was growing more frustrated by the moment, and she could tell that he knew it, darn him.
“What do you do for a living?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I’m unemployed at the moment.”
She sighed. “That makes two of us,” she muttered.
His eyebrow rose. “You, too?”
She nodded glumly. “I was fired from my job with a large antique store in Chicago. I haven’t even told my family yet, it’s just too humiliating.”
“Why were you fired?”
“I spoke my mind once too often.”
His mouth crooked into a one-sided smile. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
She made a face. “I can’t imagine. But, really, Quentin—my ex-boss—is a jerk. He’s running what could have been a great business into the ground with his stupid, impractical ideas. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is to watch someone destroy a thriving business through sheer incompetence.”
“Oh, I think I can imagine how you must have felt,” Bran murmured, and something in his eyes told Bailey that he understood completely.
“You’ve had a similar experience?” she asked carefully.
He nodded, but didn’t elaborate. “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know. 1 don’t think I’ll move back to Chicago. I like it there, but my family is here now. I’d like to find something that will allow me to live closer to them. There are quite a few antiques stores in Hot Springs and Little Rock. I don’t know if I have the nerve, and I certainly lack the financing, to go into competition with them on my own, but maybe I could go to work for one of the larger stores as a buyer.”
“Is that what you want to do? Work for someone else again? Buy and sell old furniture?”
“I love old furniture. The craftsmanship, thestyles, the history. As for working for someone else—well, most people have to, don’t they? Surely all bosses can’t be like Quentin.”
And then she realized they were talking about her, which wasn’t what she wanted at all. “When was the last time you saw your sister?” she asked abruptly.