The Hollow Page 0,90

by pulling her to the door, outside, then locking up himself.

"What's gotten into you?"

"Sex and baseball. The young man's fancies of spring."

The ends of her hair danced in the breeze as she narrowed her eyes at him. "We're not having sex and/or playing baseball at noon on a Wednesday."

"Then I guess I have to settle for a walk. We'll be able to do some real gardening in a couple more weeks."

"You garden?"

"You can take the boy off the farm. I do some containers for the front of the office. I'd plant and Mrs. H would kibitz."

"I'm sure I can kibitz."

"Counting on it. You girls could put in a nice little vegetable and herb patch in back of your house, some flower beds street side."

"Could we?"

He took her hand, swung it lightly as they walked. "Don't like to get your hands dirty?"

"I might. I don't have any real gardening experience. My mother puttered around a little, and I had a couple of houseplants in my apartment."

"You'd be good at it. Color, shapes, tones, textures. You like doing what you're good at." He turned off the sidewalk toward the building that had housed the gift shop. Its display window was empty now. Depressingly so.

"It looks forlorn," Layla decided.

"Yeah, it does. But it doesn't have to stay that way."

Her eyes widened when he pulled out keys and unlocked the front door. "What are you doing?"

"Showing you possibilities." He stepped in, flipped on the lights.

Like many of the businesses on Main, it had been a home first. The entrance was wide, the old wood floors clean and bare. On the side, a stairway curved up with its sturdy banister smooth from the slide of generations of hands. Straight back an open doorway led to three more rooms, stacked side by side. The middle one held the back entrance, and its tidy covered porch that opened to its narrow strip of yard where a lilac waited to bloom.

"You would hardly know it was ever here." Layla brushed her fingertips over the stair rail. "The gift shop. Nothing left of it but some shelves, some marks on the wall where things were hung."

"I like empty buildings, for their potential. This one has plenty. Solid foundation, good plumbing-both that and the electric are up to code-location, light, conscientious landlord. Roomy, too. The gift shop used the second floor for storage and office space. Probably a good plan. If you have customers going up and down steps, you're just asking one to trip and sue you."

"So speaks the lawyer."

"It needs the nail holes plugged, fresh paint. The wood-work's nice." He skimmed a hand over some trim. "Original. Somebody made this a couple hundred years ago. Adds character, respects the history. What do you think of it?"

"The woodwork? It's gorgeous."

"The whole place."

"Well." She wandered, walking slowly as people did in empty buildings. "It's bright, spacious, well kept, with just enough creaky in the floors to add to that character you spoke of."

"You could do a lot with this place."

She swung back to him. "I could?"

"The rent's reasonable. The location's prime. Plenty of space. Enough to curtain off an area in the back for a couple of dressing rooms. You'd need shelves, displays, racks, I guess, to hang clothes." As he looked around, he hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. "I happen to know a couple of guys very handy with tools."

"You're suggesting I open a shop here?"

"Doing what you're good at. There's nothing like that in town. Nothing like it for miles. You could make something here, Layla."

"Fox, that's just... out of the question."

"Why?"

"Because I..." Let me count the ways, she thought. "I could never afford it, even if-"

"That's why they have business loans."

"I haven't given any serious thought to opening my own place in, well, in years, really. I don't know where I'd begin even if I was sure I wanted to open my own place. For God's sake, Fox, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow much less a month from now. Six months from now."

"But what do you want today?" He moved toward her. "I know what I want. I want you. I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy here, with me. Jim Hawkins will rent it to you, and you won't have any trouble getting a start-up loan. I talked to Joe at the bank-"

"You talked to them, about this? About me?"

"Not specifics. Just general information. Ballparking what you'd need to start up, what you'd need to qualify,