Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) Page 23

  Rather than put the lamp down, I used my elbow to knock on the door of Aggie’s Gifts and Antiques. I waited only moments until Carrie pulled the door open.

  “Is that it?” she asked. “Is that the lamp? Get in here. Get in.”

  “Sure, easy for you to say,” I said, backing into the shop. “You have no idea how heavy this thing is.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, making sure I had room to turn around without knocking down some display of very old, very fragile things.

  “Just put it right on the counter,” Carrie said. “I can’t wait to see this.”

  She rushed ahead of me to the sales wrap counter. Smile splitting her face, she clapped her hands a bit when I set the lamp down.

  “Sheesh.” I huffed. “You could have helped me carry it.”

  “Sorry. Sorry. Can I open it? I want to see.”

  I gave her the go-ahead and assisted in the removal of the wrappings and bits of cardboard I had used to secure the lamp for transport.

  Though the light from the front window didn’t reach as far back as the counter, the glass in the lampshade glittered and sparkled with color. Carrie let out an appreciative sigh.

  “You did it,” she said reverently. “This is . . . amazing.”

  She moved this way and that, watching the light play on the glass. Coming out from behind the counter to see the other side, she swore she could no longer tell where the damage had been. I could find it with embarrassing accuracy, but Carrie declared the new work flawless. She gushed and complimented and I blushed and pushed her praise aside until finally she stopped and rested her hands on the counter. “Georgia . . .”

  Something in her tone, in the solemn look in her eye, made me take a step back and put a hand to my head. “Is it my hair?” I asked. “Again?”

  She ignored my paranoia. “How many stained glass pieces do you have?”

  Lowering my hand, I pictured the workspace at Grandy’s—the few pieces I’d used to brighten the room, the boxes with works still packed. “I dunno.” I hadn’t left any behind for fear my idiot ex-fiancé would try to sell them at the flea market. “A bunch, I guess.”

  “What would you think about letting me sell some of them?”

  “Sell?” I repeated. Did I look as dumbstruck as I felt?

  Carrie waved toward the window. “We’re in full-on summer here and the tourist traffic has started. I bet your work would get snapped right up. Antiques hunters come through here all the time and you know there’s my online shop, too.”

  Sell my work. Part of me thought Carrie was crazy. Who would spend money on my little therapy projects? But the other part of me, the confident part that had risen to the challenge of repairing a Tiffany-style lamp, knew it was possible.

  “This way,” Carrie continued, “you could be making a little money while you look for work here.”

  I blinked away my momentary fog and gaped at her. “Look for work here?”

  “Well, not here, here. But somewhere in Pace County. Nothing’s really that far away. I mean, that is the plan, isn’t it?”

  Stay in Wenwood. Find work. Make (more) friends. Put down roots?

  I turned to the side and leaned back a tad, enough to see out the shop window. Cobbled road, faded awnings, trees so heavy with summer leaves their branches ought to have brushed the sidewalk. Wenwood was nothing like the city I had left behind, the city that I loved, the city that had spat me out. I’d thought Wenwood was just the place I was raised to return to when life went sour, but maybe that had been a rationalization. Maybe there was a shy piece of my heart that had loved this place all along—this place that never spat me out, and always welcomed me home.

  I took a deep breath and faced Carrie. “How many pieces do you want?”