Diamonds and Dreams by Rebecca Paisley Page A

Imogene Hilly,”
Saber mused aloud. He watched Goldie’s arms fall to her sides. She
clutched handfuls of her dress. The sight of her pale, slender
fingers wrapped around the coarse brown fabric of her skirt
disturbed him. He thought about how nice they would look lying upon
folds of rich, crimson satin.
    He brought his gaze upward. The kiss of
moonlight upon her flaxen hair made those curly locks seem almost
alive. Golden twists of ribbons come to life. “Why was that the
last time you ever saw Imogene’s magnificent tea parlor,
Goldie?”
    The tenderness she perceived in his rich,
deep voice made her stomach flutter. “I like the way you say my
name.”
    His brow rose; a slight smile touched his
lips. Most women he knew liked the size of his wallet. The vast
acreage of his lands. The centuries-old honor of his title.
    Goldie liked the way he said her name.
“Goldie,” he said again for her and for himself, too, because he
wanted to give her something she liked once more.
    “Goldie,” she repeated in a whisper,
mesmerized by the intensity of his eyes. “You ever seen seaweed?
Not dried-up seaweed, but wet seaweed? The kind that washes up with
the waves and lays all spread out over the sand? It’s such a purty
green. So fresh. The seawater makes it sparkle, and it looks real
good against the warm, tanned shore. You have seaweed eyes,
Saber.”
    Seaweed eyes. Saber pondered the sound of
that. Jillian was fond of telling him his eyes reminded her of
exquisite emeralds. Emeralds and seaweed. There was a drastic
difference between the two, but how much more vivid was the image
of fresh, wet seaweed against a warm, tanned shore. He smiled,
thinking of it.
    “It was Uncle Asa,” Goldie said.
    Snatched from his pondering, Saber looked at
her blankly. “What was Uncle Asa?”
    “Well,” she began, still fingering the
material of her skirt, “he came to Imogene’s lookin’ for me. He’d
been drinkin.’ He—He always drinks,” she squeaked. “I tried to keep
him out, but Uncle Asa...well, he doesn’t listen to anyone when
he’s been drinkin’. Close your eyes, Saber, and imagine a big,
clumsy elephant tryin’ to walk through a patch of buttercups
without crushin’ ’em, and you’ll know what Uncle Asa looked like in
Imogene’s parlor.
    “He’d barely set foot in it when a lamp
crashed to the floor. It was the one with Chinese pagodas painted
all over it. A vase broke next, and the water and flowers spilled
all over Imogene’s love seat. She said she had that little sofa
special made by a French sofa-maker, and that she paid a hundred
dollars for it. I never believed her. She didn’t have a hundred
dollars to spend on a sofa. Nobody in Bug Hill had that kind of
money. ‘Cept maybe old Hiram Winkler. He had a hairbrush that was
made of pure gold.”
    Saber let out a long, slow whistle designed
to show her how very impressed he was over Hiram’s gold brush.
Inwardly, he smiled.
    “Hiram was so proud of that brush, he wore
it around his neck on a chain. He said he did that so he’d always
have his brush handy when his hair got messed up. But Saber, ‘cept
for about three hairs above each of his ears, the man was bald . He just wore the brush like that to show it off. I
always wondered what it would be like to brush my hair with a pure
gold brush. You think pure gold brushes work any better’n plain
wooden ones?”
    Saber’s inward smile reached his lips. A low
chuckle escaped. Goldie had maddened him several times today, but
he decided she was quite the most entertaining person he’d ever
met. “I really couldn’t say. I’ve never had one.”
    He did have a sterling silver brush, he
remembered, wondering if that counted.
    “I don’t even have a wooden one since
I lost the one I had,” she said wistfully. “Anyway, the harder
Uncle Asa tried to keep from messin’ things up in Imogene’s parlor,
the more he wrecked ’em. Imogene came in and clubbed him over the
head with a statue of a