by Marina Adair
Oh God. Harper’s stomach constricted—Adam had seen the post. Not wanting to get into it in front of Clay, Harper used her best teacher tone and said, “Cut the bologna. This is about the jacket, isn’t it?” Without giving Adam the chance to respond, she turned to Clay. “Can you give us a minute to straighten this out? I promise this is not what it seems.”
Clay looked at his watch. “Actually, I have to go. I just wanted to say thanks for babysitting. Enjoy the gift.” He handed her the bag. “Nice to see you, man.”
“He kind of walks like a girl,” Adam said as Clay headed down Main Street toward his car.
“He does not. And what was that? Payback for me interrupting you and Baby?”
He laughed. “No. That was nothing like me and Baby. What happened with me and Baby was a gigantic cock block. That”—Adam wiggled his fingers in an animated wave as Clay drove by—“was just me interrupting some friendly chitchat.”
“That was not friendly chitchat! You totally co—” She looked in the shop’s window at the kids, who were looking back, ears peeled. “Well, you know what you did.”
He grinned. “Maybe you should explain it to me.”
She grabbed a pencil out of her apron and resecured her hair into a messy bun at the back of her head, ignoring the flyaway curls. “Clay was about to ask me out and your kiss was to chase him off.”
“He wasn’t about to ask you out, sunshine,” Adam said in a gentle way that made Harper question herself. She hated questioning herself, even though she did it often when it came to the opposite sex.
“You don’t know that.” But somehow she got the really sick feeling that he did. That she was the one misreading the situation—again. Which was impossible. She was sending the right messages this time, and receiving them.
She opened the bag and wished she had the ability to make herself disappear.
Inside wasn’t a set of pastries and napkins for an impromptu sweets break. Inside was a gift card and a pencil drawing of a big stick figure with a paintbrush, holding hands with a smaller stick figure. They were both smiling, only the bigger one had a halo of curls that took up most of the page. At the bottom, in hard-won scribbles was a big #1 followed by the word SITTER.
“Maybe he’s just not ready to start dating,” she said quietly, reminding herself that his divorce had been finalized just last year, and twelve months wasn’t all that long to mourn the loss of a dream. So she’d be patient. Not that Clay would forget her and Adam locking lips on Main Street.
“Maybe,” Adam said, but he didn’t sound all that convinced.
“What do you mean maybe?”
“I know guys, and he’s not the guy for you.”
Humiliating moment complete, Harper closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to get the burning red embarrassment to recede from her cheeks. It didn’t help.
“I bet this will make it better.” He held up his bag with two fingers and shook it. Harper could hear a pastry tumble around. The grease stain on the side of the bag told her whatever was in there was frosted. The size of the bag said there was more than one.
Maybe cupcakes? Or a dozen cookies? She was an equal opportunity consumer when it came to baked goods, but cookies were her favorite. Especially ones with enough butter to stain a bag. But this bag made her uneasy, because this bag felt like a bribe.
“What’s going on, Adam?” Her gaze fell to his chest when she asked, “And why did you kiss me?”
“You looked like you needed to be kissed, and dumbass wasn’t perceptive enough to see that,” he said in a tone that had Harper looking up and, holy smokes, Adam was looking back.
It wasn’t the look she expected—it was protective and hungry, if not a tad bit confused.
Welcome to it, Harper thought. Two minutes ago, she was so focused on Clay’s chaste kiss she had convinced herself he was going to ask her out. Now she couldn’t seem to remember why she wanted to go out with him.
“He needed to know that it wasn’t you missing out on something amazing. It was him who was missing out.”
“Oh,” she whispered, her stomach clenching a little. “I thought you kissed me as payback for, you know . . .” She waved her hand at his fly and groaned. God, she was so awkward. “So you kissed me to save me from embarrassment?”
He chuckled lightly. “You really need to work on reading signals, sunshine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Exactly,” was all he said. Then his posture shifted, and so did that easygoing smile. “Now that we got that taken care of, want to explain to me why you keep blowing my game?”
“What are you even talking about?” she asked, although she had a bad feeling she already knew, and silently debated whether to just fess up. She knew it was the right thing to do, even had a pretty good idea he was already in the loop, but wishful thinking held her back.
For all she knew, she was misreading signals again. And he was just there to confront her about Emerson playing hardball with her catering skills.
“Because of you, there will be a huge sex deficit,” he said, sounding genuinely concerned.
“If this is your idea of how to charm me into forgiving you so Emerson will cater Beat the Heat, then I gotta tell you, your game-sucking has zero to do with me.”
“That came out wrong,” Adam said and ran a hand down his face, and at least two days’ worth of stubble, which made him appear sexier and somehow vulnerable. Two things that had her pausing.
Adam didn’t do vulnerable. But the longer she looked at him, the more she wondered what was wrong. The life’s-a-beach ladies’ man was gone and in his place was a worn soul.
“I came here to apologize about the other night.”
“It all worked out,” she said. “And thank you for apologizing. It really means a lot.”
Adam nodded, a single jerk that was male for welcome. But when Harper thought he’d walk off, he continued to stare. At her. Not saying a word, until the silence grew and Harper felt more tingling. This time it was from unease, twisting around in her stomach.
“Now, you want to tell me why everyone seems to think we’re dating?” he said, and that twisting went Category 5.
“Not really. I’m good.”
He laughed softly, then moved forward until she felt enveloped. And for one ridiculously stupid, amazing moment she thought he was going to kiss her again. Not the hard smack to the lips he’d given her a moment ago, but a gentle, languid kiss that would have her knees melting.
It had been so long since she’d had a good public knee-melting that she found herself swaying closer. Their bodies brushed and she realized she’d stopped breathing.
“Even if I said I brought you a present?” He opened the bag and held it beneath her nose.
Harper closed her eyes and breathed in mouthwatering vanilla and rich cinnamon. Knowing it was a bribe, and refusing to give in, she shook her head. “Even then.”
He pulled one of the cookies out of the bag—a confetti cake batter cookie, her favorite—and took a bite, moaning, the big jerk. “You sure? There’s plenty.”
Cursing her weakness, she reached into the bag, telling herself that sometimes a cookie was just a cookie. Only then she realized that the bag was full, busting at the seams with enough cookies to feed a small army—or her entire class—and she knew the gesture was so much more.
She looked up and Adam gave a shrug which came off as more boyish than dismissive. “My mom used to bring cookies to my Mighty Mites meetings when I was a kid. So when I saw the sunshine-painted sugar cookies, I grabbed extras.”
Harper’s heart rolled over and showed its soft underbelly. “Thank you. That was very sweet.”
“Sweet enough to tell me why Nora Kincaid posed the question on Facebook about why my status still says single?”
Harper hesitated.
“I guess I can always just go see Nora.”
“No, wait.” Nora Kincaid ran the gossip rag in town. It was hosted on Facebook, all of t
he photos were amateur, but her word was golden. The last thing Harper needed was Nora catching wind that there was more to the story.
“Remember the meeting you interrupted with the sales rep?”
“You mean the lingerie lady?” He gestured to his chest as a way of identifying that yes, he remembered everything about Chantel. “She had great merchandise.”
Harper ignored this. “Well, because of how we were acting, she thought we were dating.”
“You mean, me asking to see your panties and you shooting me death glares indicates that we’re a couple?” He shook his head. “This is why I don’t date.”
Harper guessed there were a lot more reasons why he didn’t date, deeper reasons that explained a lot of the crazy, and often dangerous, decisions he made, but she left it alone. “I didn’t exactly say we were dating, but I didn’t correct her either.” Harper felt her face redden further. “And I guess someone overheard. I never meant for it to go this far.”
“My guess? It was Nora, since she posted a picture of us talking on the sidewalk, which looked very cozy by the way. Then she shipped us as the summer couple to watch.”
“Shipped us?”
“Ha-dam,” he said, not bothering to elaborate more. “As for lying by omission.” He grimaced. “It’s a slippery slope, sunshine. But you already know that, so why?”
Harper took in a deep, calming breath, but it didn’t work. Admitting this to anyone would be humiliating. Admitting it to Adam was going to be unbearable. But he deserved the truth.
“My grandma’s shop is in trouble, and the only way to save it is to get one of our manufacturers, who is trying to phase us out, to reconsider and re-up our contract.”
“The lingerie lady?”
Harper nodded. “I spent all weekend giving the shop a complete makeover, making it perfect for the meeting. I even researched what’s sexy and bought a new dress. No matter what I did, though, it wasn’t enough to convince her we were hip, edgy, and alluring enough. Until”—Harper looked Adam square in the eyes—“she saw I had landed a guy like you. She thought that if I was sleeping with someone as”—she paused to throw up some air quotes—“beefy and hot as you, then there must be more to me than she was seeing. So she gave me a second chance, contingent upon me convincing her boss that I have what it takes, even though I don’t appear to.”
“You mean that the store has what it takes?”
“Same thing.”
“Not really,” he said softly, and so full of concern that Harper had to close her eyes.
This wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. It was so much worse. Because Adam saw more than she’d wanted him to, picking up on things most people would look right past.
Harper wasn’t only determined to get her grandma the contract and save the shop—she secretly wanted to be seen as someone who brought a special uniqueness to the project. And Adam wasn’t saying a thing, not even a smart-mouthed jab, taking this moment from awful into the vortex of the worst day ever.
Harper Owens was too pathetic for the hometown tease to tease.
When the silence grew too thick to breathe, she opened an eye, just one, enough to see his expression. Only he didn’t look as if he was pitying her. His face was gentle, understanding. No, it was deeper than understanding. There was empathy. As if it came from a place of personal experience. Which was ridiculous since Adam was the most seen man she’d ever met.
He walked into a room and all eyes went to him like white on rice. But in that moment, with the way he was looking at her, she wondered if the person people saw and the person Adam was deep down were in direct conflict.
“I really didn’t think it would get out,” she admitted.
“This is St. Helena—everything gets out.” Adam let out a breath as though someone thinking they were dating was the worst thing in the world.
Letting that sting settle, she asked, “Is it really that bad? People thinking you dated me?”
“What? No!” And even though her head was telling her he was just being nice, she really wanted to believe him. “The truth is, I’ve had my eye on lieutenant for a while. I’ve put in the time and the training, and now I need to prove to my superiors that I’m focused and dependable, the kind of guy who brings honor to the badge.”
The statement threw Harper. Sure, Adam played it fast and loose in his personal life, but when it came to his job, it was clear he took it seriously. “You’re a great firefighter and the other guys admire you.”
“Tossing back a few with my buddies and effectively leading my crew are two different things.” He shook his head as if disgusted. “And having some girl post a photo in nothing but a G-string and my work jacket isn’t the best way to prove I’m ready for a promotion.”
“Especially when a few days later you are rumored to be hooking up with me.” Guilt filled Harper’s chest. “I’m so sorry, Adam. I had no idea.”
“The misconception seems to be county-wide,” he said, and a powerful surge of protectiveness sparked. “Normally this whole thing would blow over as a big joke, another locker-room story about the Five-Alarm Casanova, but . . .” He shrugged, his expression so full of embarrassment, Harper wanted to hug him.
“I will clear everything up. With Emerson and Chantel. I will call her as soon as my class ends and tell her I lied.”
A strange expression settled on his face. “Won’t you lose the account?”
Harper didn’t want to think about that. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Probably. “Chantel might look past it.”
Adam glanced down Main Street toward the firehouse. “Look, we both messed up, but I don’t want you losing the account. So as long as you tell Emerson and Megan it’s okay to work Beat the Heat, I can handle the rest.”
“What about Chantel?”
Adam shrugged. “Chantel lives in San Francisco. It’s not like she’s privy to St. Helena gossip. So what if she thinks we’re dating?”
Harper shrugged, then stared at her shoes. “Actually, I may have also implied that you’d be willing to model their new line for a campaign for Clovis’s shop, and maybe a sample page for the online catalog?”
“Like the pictures we took for Shay’s calendar?”
“Just like that,” Harper said, picturing Adam in his turnout pants holding a rescued bulldog. She felt her cheeks flush. “Only . . . you’d be wearing nothing but underwear.”
Adam drew in a startled breath, and she knew right then that it didn’t matter if they were silk or cotton, posing in underwear wasn’t lieutenant material.
Why didn’t you tell me he was going to be playing?” Harper asked, glancing out at the baseball field as she placed a stack of food tickets in the window of Emerson’s food truck.
“If by he you mean your boyfriend, it was because I wanted to see you squirm,” Emerson said, dropping several pita wraps onto the hot griddle.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Harper said in a hushed whisper. “I don’t even know if we’re friends.”
“Sounds complicated,” Shay Baudouin said from inside. She was standing next to the prep counter, eating baklava straight from the tray.
“Worse,” Harper said.
It was Thursday night and the weekly Napa County Sheriff’s Department softball game. With Dax geared up and on the field, Emerson was short on backup for her food truck. It was deputies versus firefighters, and with Harper running orders in the stands and Adam down on the field, it seemed as if the entire town had come out for the game.
The stands were heavy on the sixty-five-and-older crowd, all vying for Nora Kincaid’s fifty-dollar reward for the best candid shot of St. Helena’s Miracle Match. The fine print clarified the fifty dollars was to be paid in double-day coupons to the local pharmacy, but since Bottles and Bottles was a pharmacy and a wine shop, the coupons were a hot commodity.
And if that weren’t complicated enough, the rest of the stands were filled with twenty-somethings, and a few bold cougars, all wanting to see with their own eyes if the
Five-Alarm Casanova was really off the market.
Something Harper intended to clear up when she went to talk to Megan. Which she was totally going to do—tomorrow. She’d already come clean with Emerson, who had agreed to cater Beat the Heat as long as Adam agreed to keep his hose out of trouble. Now Harper needed to admit to a woman who was everything Harper would never be that it was all a big joke. Which made her feel like a big joke.
“I told you it was all a big misunderstanding, but actually I lied and got caught.” Harper strategically avoided her friend’s glare, instead paying particular attention to arranging the mouthwatering baklava. Sweet and gooey and drizzled with enough honey she nearly forgot that it was after seven in the evening and she still had several hours of inventory waiting for her back at the Fashion Flower.
“And I believed you,” Emerson said, “but then someone told me they saw you kissing Adam on Main Street.” Emerson might be dressed in pink sparkly high-tops and an apron that said KISS THE COOK, but beneath the recently engaged glow was a ninja master, with knives and at doling out guilt.
“How do you know that someone wasn’t lying?” Harper asked, confident she could honestly say she hadn’t kissed Adam. He’d kissed her. Big difference.
“Well, since that someone was me,” Shay said, “I feel pretty confident stating that you were locking lips with Adam Baudouin on Main Street.” Shay eyed Harper, and Harper resisted the urge to run. Barely.
Emerson and Shay were watching her, waiting for her to spill, so Harper zipped her lips and stared back.
Long, tense moments passed. Harper felt sweat bead between her shoulder blades and drip down her back, but she held strong. Until Emerson crossed her arms and dug in for the long haul.
Her bestie wasn’t big on gossip—in fact, she wasn’t all that talkative—but if she felt like someone was hiding something from her, she was a master at ferreting out the truth.
Being under that intense scrutiny made Harper’s stomach go wonky and she found swallowing difficult. Like Emerson, she hated secrets—hated keeping them almost as much as she hated uncovering them. Which was why she never kept any. She knew just how harmful they could be.