Yesterday's Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

Unfortunately romantics never listened to their heads. Lancelot, who had finished his breakfast and retreated to the windowsill for his morning sunbath, meowed softly as though in complete agreement with her analysis of the absurdity of her behavior.
    â€œOh, shut up, cat! Don’t you start on me,” she grumbled irritably, slamming down her teacup and grabbing the morning paper. She turned the pages with a vengeance that caused more than one of them to tear. When the phone shrilled a moment later, she jumped nervously and stared at it, almost afraid to pick it up.
    â€œHello,” she said at last, her voice soft, low and unintentionally sexy.
    â€œVictoria? Is that you? You sound like you have a cold.”
    â€œOh. Hi, Mom,” she said, unconsciously trading sexiness for disappointed grumpiness.
    â€œMy goodness, that’s certainly a cheerful greeting. What’s wrong with you?”
    â€œNothing,” she denied, trying to inject a little spirit into her voice before her mother rushed over with chicken soup and parental advice. “I’m fine. What’s up?”
    â€œI was just wondering if you’d like a little company at the shop today. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
    â€œThree days.”
    â€œWell, it seems like longer.”
    Victoria chuckled. She knew how her mother loved to help out at the shop. She enjoyed meeting the people, and she absolutely loved haggling with them over a price. She said it made up for the frustration of having to pay outrageous prices without question in the local stores.
    â€œCome on over, Mom. I should be there about ten.”
    â€œWhy don’t I stop by and pick you up? There’s no point in driving two cars.”
    â€œI gather you’re planning to spend the day?” Victoria teased.
    Katherine Marshall refused to rise to the bait. “I thought I might as well. Your father had to go up to Columbus on business, and you did say you wanted to do some refinishing work in the back on that new washstand you bought last week.”
    â€œWhy don’t you say it, Mom?”
    â€œSay what?”
    â€œThat you think you’re better at the business side of running the shop than I am.”
    â€œDear, surely even you must agree that you are a bit casual about making the best possible deal. I swear, sometimes I think you’d give something away just because someone admired it.”
    â€œI like my pieces to go to people who’ll treasure them,” she said defensively. “Not just to the highest bidder.”
    â€œHasn’t it ever occurred to you that the highest bidder must like something very much to pay so dearly for it?”
    â€œI suppose. But it seems so…”
    â€œBusinesslike?”
    â€œOkay, okay. You’ve made your point,” Victoria said, wishing her mother didn’t sound quite so much like Tate McAndrews. She had a feeling if the two of them ever joined forces, her life would become a boring, organized regimen of computerized bookkeeping. The very thought made her shudder. “If you promise to drop the lecture, you can come on over and pick me up.”
    â€œI’ll be there in a few minutes,” her mother replied tartly. “But I won’t promise to keep my mouth shut.”
    She hung up before Victoria could respond.
    As Victoria dressed in a pair of oversized, paint-splattered coveralls appropriate for the refinishing work she needed to do, she thought about her shop. Located just outside of town in the front of a large, converted barn, it had been open less than a year. She’d started the venture at her parents’ enthusiastic urging. She’d accumulated so many interesting odds and ends at garage and farm sales that she’d run out of space to store them. In fact, her parents’ garage had become so cluttered that for three months in the dead of a very snowy winter they’d been unable to get their car inside. At first they