Holding the Dream Page 0,13

most of the afternoon. Even the secretaries were barred. Nobody has a clue, but the rumor is somebody's about to be canned or promoted." Kate shrugged and closed the cash register. "I've never seen them powwow like that. They had to make their own coffee."

"Stop the presses."

"Look, my little world has just as much intrigue and drama as anyone else's." She stepped back as Margo advanced on her. "What?"

"Just hold still." Grabbing Kate's lapel, Margo pinned on a crescent-shaped brooch dangling with drops of amber. "Advertise the merchandise."

"It's got dead bugs in it."

Margo didn't bother to sigh. "Put some lipstick on, for God's sake. We open in ten minutes."

"I don't have any with me. And I'll tell you right now, I'm not going to work with you all day if you're going to be picking on me. I can sell, ring up, and box just fine without painting my face."

"Fine." Before Kate could evade her, Margo picked up an atomizer and spritzed her with perfume. "Advertise the merchandise," she repeated. "If anyone asks what you're wearing, it's Bella Donna's Savage."

Kate had just worked up a snarl when Laura burst in. "I thought I was going to be late. Ali had a hair emergency. I was afraid one of us would kill the other before it was over."

"She's getting more like Margo every day." Wishing it were coffee, Kate strolled over to pour herself tea and used it to wash down a palm full of pills she didn't want either of her friends to see. "I meant that in the worst possible way," she added.

"A young girl becoming interested in appearance and grooming is natural," Margo shot back. "You were the changeling in the family. Still are, as you constantly prove, by going around like a scarecrow dressed in navy blue serge."

Unoffended, Kate sipped at her tea. "Navy serge is classic because it's serviceable. There is only a very small percentage of the population who feel honor bound to fart through silk."

"Jesus, you're crude," Margo managed over a laugh. "I don't even want to argue with you."

"That's a relief." Hoping to keep it that way, Laura hurried over to turn the Open sign around. "I'm still cross-eyed from arguing with Allison. If Annie hadn't intervened, it would have been hairbrushes at ten paces."

"Mum always could defuse a good fight," Margo commented. "Okay, ladies, remember, we're pushing Mother's Day. And in case it slipped both of your minds, expectant mothers also warrant gifts."

Kate braced for the onslaught and struggled to ignore the viselike clamp on her temples that was usually the sign of a migraine on the boil.

Within an hour Pretenses was busy enough to keep all three of them occupied. Kate boxed up a Hermes bag of dark-green leather, wondering what anyone needed with a green leather purse. But the slick slide of the credit card machine kept her cheerful. She was, by her calculations, neck and neck with Margo on sales.

It was a fine feeling, she thought as she wrapped the gold and silver box in elegant floral paper, watching the business progress. And the combo of competition and medication had eased the headache that had been threatening.

She had to give Margo full credit for it. Pretenses had been a dream rising like smoke from the ashes of Margo's life.

Just over a year ago, Margo's career as a popular model in Europe, her exposure and financial rewards as the Bella Donna Woman, had been rudely cut off. Not that Margo was blameless, Kate thought, smiling as she handed the purchase to her customer. She'd been reckless, foolish, headstrong. But she hadn't deserved to lose everything.

She'd come back from Milan broken and nearly bankrupt, but in a matter of months, through her own grit, she had turned her life around.

Opening a shop and selling her possessions in it had been Josh Templeton's idea originally. His idea, Kate mused, to keep Margo from sinking, since he was blindly in love with her. But Margo had expanded the idea, nurtured it, polished it.

Then Laura, reeling from her husband's deceit, betrayal, and greed, had taken the bulk of what he'd left of her money and helped Margo buy the building for Pretenses.

When Kate had insisted on acquiring a one-third interest, thus making herself a partner, it had been because she believed in the investment, because she believed in Margo. And because she didn't want to be left out of the fun.

Of all of them, she understood the risks best. Nearly forty percent of new