The Shop of Shades and Secrets (Modern Gothic Romance 1) Read Online Free

shop—and whether there would be any hard feelings that she had usurped someone else’s bequest. The last thing I need is to be dumped into the middle of some crazy family competition.
     
    “Congratulations, Ms. Murphy.”
     
    The deep male voice caused Fiona to look up as she wrestled her bag onto her lap. “Thank you,” she smiled, holding out her hand as she stood. “You’re Barnaby Forth?”
     
    His handshake was brief but his smile lingered. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself before the proceedings started.”
     
    “I was late, so you wouldn’t have had the chance anyway.” Fiona remained polite, but she began to ease her way from the table, intending to make her way out of the room. “Now, tell me, how are you related to Mr. Valente? I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch everything that was in the will.”
     
    “I’m the old man’s grand-nephew—my mother’s brother was his grandson.” He looked as though he would have said more, but H. Gideon Nath approached them.
     
    “Let me get you both on my schedule for next week,” suggested the attorney, “so that we can get some of this paperwork taken care of.”
     
    “If you could have your secretary call mine, that would probably be the most efficient way,” responded Barnaby. “I believe you have my card?”
     
    “My schedule is perfectly clear, Mr. Nath,” Fiona said. “How about Tuesday at nine?”
     
    He looked at Claire, who had slipped up behind them and was madly tapping on an iPad. She paused to nod, then went back to tapping. “Yes, nine on Tuesday works. Two hours, then you can get to court by noon?”
     
    He nodded again, and Fiona hooked her bag over her shoulder. “Thank you, and I’ll see you then. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Forth. Good-bye.”
     
    ~*~
     
    Fiona spent the weekend in a daze. She kept having to kick herself when she thought about the fact that she was now a business owner…and the proprietor of that lovely shop.
     
    On Saturday afternoon, she dragged her girlfriend Chris for a walk along South Street to show her the shop. They paused at the dingy windows, peering into the dimness of the store. A sign on the door said “Closed Due to Death” in large block letters.
     
    “I wonder if it makes any money,” commented Chris as they stepped back from the dirty windows to proceed along the street.
     
    Fiona nodded, tucking a thick mass of windblown hair behind her ear. “I can’t decide whether to be thrilled at this opportunity or scared to death that the thing is nothing but a money pit—and something that’s going to tie me down forever. I guess I’ll find out more when I meet with H. Gideon on Monday.”
     
    “Why do you always call him that?”
     
    “Because that’s how I think of him. He’s a cardboard cutout of a person—stiffer than Al Gore—and he has that whole long pretentious name on his business cards and on his desk nameplate. H. Gideon Nath, the Third. Doesn’t that sound like a lawyer?” Fiona chuckled, adjusting the thick gold ring on her right forefinger. That H still bothered her. Hank, maybe? Herman? “He thinks I’m a real flake—I can tell. And I love messing with him.”
     
    They turned into a coffee and sandwich shop and Chris led the way, clumping across the wood floor in her heavy clogs. They settled themselves at a small table near the window. When a waitress approached, Chris ordered a double cappuccino and Fiona, wrinkling her nose in disgust with her friend’s choice, chose herbal tea.
     
    “How can you drink that stuff?” she asked as she always did. “Don’t you know that caffeine just sucks the calcium right out of your bones?”
     
    Chris rolled her pale blue eyes and shook her head. “So what are you going to do about your job? They’re going to be lost when you leave.”
     
    Fiona grinned and began to systematically pull off the jumble of rings she wore, letting them clatter onto the mosaic-tiled