If things didn't pick up within the next thirty days, she would have to dip into her dwindling capital just to stay open.

She wasn't panicked, just uneasy. She'd told Josh they could wait it out, and she believed it. The loyalty of Candy's country club pals could be measured in their demitasse cups with room to spare.

But that didn't mean her business didn't need a jolt of adrenaline. She didn't want the shop merely to struggle along, she wanted it to thrive. Perhaps, she realized, she wanted it to be as she had once been. In the spotlight, admired, successful.

As she arranged and rearranged displays, she wracked her brains to come up with a workable concept to turn Pretenses from an intriguing little secondhand shop into a star.

When the door opened, she had a bright—and, she was afraid, desperate—smile waiting. "Mum. What are you doing here?"

"It's my day off, isn't it?" Ann pursed her lips as she scanned the showroom. "And I haven't come by here since the first week you opened. It's awful quiet."

"I'm being punished for my sins. You always said I would be."

"I heard of it." She clucked her tongue. "Grown women behaving like hoydens. Though I never liked that woman, not even when she was a girl. Always with her nose in the air."

"This time I put it out of joint. She's managed to slice a chunk out of sales. Though Kate says it's also part of the natural correction of a new business after its initial opening weeks." Margo scowled at an amber globe. "You know how she talks when she's wearing her accountant hat."

"I do, yes. More often than not I listen to her when she's going on about my investments, and just nod soberly without a clue as to what the devil she's talking about."

For the first time all day, Margo indulged in a long laugh. "I'm glad you came in. There haven't been many friendly faces in here today."

"Well, you'll have to do something about that." Out of habit, Ann checked for dust on a table, nodded in approval when she found the surface smooth and glossy. "Have a sale, give away prizes, hire a marching band."

"A marching band—good one, Mum."

"Well, what do I know about shopkeeping? It's getting people in that's the trick, isn't it?"

Absently, Ann picked up a pretty glass bottle. Not to put things in, she mused, perplexed as always with fripperies. Just to sit about the house.

"Your uncle Johnny Ryan back in Cork had himself a pub," she continued. "He would hire musicians now and then—the Yanks liked it especially and would come in to hear the music and buy pints while they did."

"I don't think an Irish jug band is the answer to traffic flow in here."