Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

I wanted. I mean, I could get stuff that matched and…”
    “Way ahead of you,” said Tim, who had already read everything onscreen as it printed out and he handed the pages to Jane. “Look, I know you don’t buy retail, but sheets and towels? We could go to Crate and Barrel and pretend we’re getting married, you know,… go to one of the bridal registry parties they have on Sunday mornings and pick out all the stuff you’ll need.”
    Tim was glowing as he described the joy of traipsing through the store before it opened to the public. “And there’s a brunch, too,” said Tim. “We get to walk through the entire store with our coffee and use our own handheld scanner! For what we want our friends to buy us!” Jane allowed herself to bask in the glow for a moment before she reminded Tim that she couldn’t very well pick out furnishings for a new home, if she didn’t have the home first.
    “Okay, no rush, though. You can live with me or your folks while you decide.”
    Jane took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure she could last more than a day or two in her old room at Don and Nellie’s. And the back room of the tavern would be a dimly lit, grim alternative. Tim had a big four-bedroom on the river. She could camp out there for a few weeks, that was true. It might be fun actually. And there was no better partner for dreaming up one’s home-selecting and decorating future than Tim Lowry.
    “Well, our stuff is living side by side in the storage lockers, so I guess there’s no reason we couldn’t give actual living together a try. Besides, as much as I’ve loved all my stuff around me, the idea of starting with nothing and building … rebuilding … has always been appealing. And you know, the whole metaphor of this—Charlie gone from my life, Nick otherwise occupied, just me and now…” Jane stopped when she saw the horrified look on Tim’s face.
    What had he just seen on the computer screen? Had he lost an eBay bid on the Art Deco daybed he had his eye on? Did the Kalo bowl he had been visiting online for weeks get sold? Did his favorite Project Runway finalist have to clear off his workspace and go home?
    “Oh, Jane, I am so sorry. I am so, so, so sorry.”
    “What?” asked Jane. What could be so terrible? “Oh Tim, if you can’t put me up for a while, it’s okay. Did you forget about other company, did you…?”
    Jane looked at her friend’s handsome face. His wide-eyed terror had given way to a kind of frantic eye-darting pinball panic. He had turned to the computer screen and was furiously typing. As the soft tap-tap-tap of the computer keyboard grew more and more staccato, Jane looked around the shop. All those flowers in the cooler! She knew what had happened. The meticulous bouquets, neatly trimmed and decorated, meant that he had gotten this order, this favor for a friend had been called in. Tim said he had been finishing up everything that morning, tying up bouquets and attaching tiny little lucky charms. In the flurry of activity in the shop, Tim had forgotten his promise to Jane.
    Instead of meeting the moving truck at the storage locker, directing the two burly workers to gently stack her boxes, her treasure chests filled with vintage photographs, crates filled with tin lithoed recipe boxes, her old suitcases packed with vintage tablecloths and kitchenalia, her red Formica-topped kitchen table, Arts and Crafts tiles, art pottery vases and flowerpots, file boxes filled with vintage maps, postcards, paper calendars from the twenties and thirties, metal boxes filled with hundred of keys, baskets filled with vintage padlocks, a collection of over one hundred advertising yardsticks, and carton after carton of vintage, collectible books, Tim had been here, making floral arrangements.
    Jane had taped bubble wrap around knitting needles and sewing gadgets, advertising tape measures and paper-wrapped sewing needles from England. She had boxed boxes—carved wooden jewelry caskets and tea