by Marina Adair
Face pressed against the glass display window, she considered her options carefully. A friendly lemon scratch cookie was calling her name, and nothing said breakfast like fruit, but somehow she knew her day needed a buttered-rum blondie.
After her talk with Emerson last night at the game, Harper realized she was being selfish. Counting on Adam as the quick fix to her problems, when it could land him in trouble with his boss, wasn’t a friendly thing to do. And Harper was, above all else, a good friend.
Who always did the right thing.
So why did her stomach hurt? It wasn’t just thinking about the dress or the evening that was causing it, but thinking about Adam. Before she could really process that, an instant smile appeared on her face as if on automatic.
As if a small part of her thrilled at the thought of doing the wrong thing—with the Five-Alarm Casanova. He’d opened up to her, showed her a part of the real Adam, a guy who wanted to become more than people’s perceptions, and she couldn’t look past that.
“You’re early today,” Lexi DeLuca said, coming out of the kitchen. Lexi balanced a tray of éclairs in one hand, a rolling pin in the other, and had matching toddlers with blonde pigtails and freckles hanging on to each of her legs like monkeys. Both baker and daughters were speckled with chocolate.
As owner and mastermind behind the most popular French bakery on the West Coast, Lexi was the local sugar supplier. She had three daughters, one of the hottest husbands in town, and a way with buttercream frosting that could only come from divine intervention.
“I actually counted to ten after you flipped the sign to OPEN before I came in. I didn’t want to look desperate.”
Lexi laughed and grabbed a paper bag. “Inventory time at the shop?”
“Among other things,” Harper said, nibbling her fingers because choosing was impossible.
“Sounds like a half-dozen kind of day.” Lexi traded in the bag for a pink box, then reached for a confetti cake batter cookie. “The usual?”
Harper shook her head. “I’m trying to live outside the lines and try new things.”
“So I’ve heard,” Lexi said with a mischievous grin, and Harper blew out a breath.
“You heard wrong,” Harper said. Lexi smothered a laugh behind her hand.
“If you say so, but new things is a good look on you.” Lexi took inventory of Harper’s zigzag lime-green backpack with little lemons on it and smiled. “In fact, I have a key lime kringle that would match your backpack.”
Although that sounded delicious, Harper wanted something decadent. Something flirty and bold. Something that told her she was more than the town’s #1 Sitter—she was a sexually attuned woman who could handle her world on her own.
Just look at her hair, she thought, leaning forward and letting it slide over her shoulder. Thanks to some nuclear-grade straightening gel and a YouTube tutorial, it was now straight, sophisticated, and so full of allure she couldn’t help but run her fingers through it. Or swish it back and forth as she walked.
“I’ll try a black velvet whoopie pie with cherry-cream frosting.” Then she looked at the bright orange frosted cookies on the next tray. “And since I would hate for that bad boy to get lonely, throw in two of those sangria sunrise minis.”
After all, it was morning, and she did love sunrises. And the last two were minis, which everyone knew meant calorie-free. Plus, a little liquid courage couldn’t hurt.
“You got it.” Lexi loaded up the order in a box that could hold another three goodies at least. “How about a few firecracker fudge bars to match that glow?”
“I’m not glowing,” Harper said.
“It’s a firehouse favorite,” Lexi said, all singsongy.
Not even a bite of cookie and already the inquisition had begun. “Contrary to the current gossip, Adam and I are just friends.”
“Friends,” Lexi said, her face taking on an expression that was impossible to translate. With a smile, she filled the last three spots with firecracker fudge. “Then I guess Adam’s the one trying new things. Interesting. And telling.”
Before Harper could ask what was so interesting about Adam making friends with the town’s friendliest person, a bony finger jabbed her in the shoulder blade.
“Excuse me, dear.”
She turned around to find Peggy Lovett, owner of the Paws and Claws Day Spa, clutching her phone. She wore jeweled high-tops, a yellow pantsuit, an orange cardigan, and enough dog hair to cause acute asthma.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?” Peggy asked and thrust her cell, which was set to record, in Harper’s face.
“Okay, uh . . .” Harper leaned into the phone and gave a self-conscious “Hello?”
The older woman’s brow furrowed with disappointment. “Not with a question mark, but how you would normally greet a customer. So I can practice my greeting and get the inflection down.”
“Inflection?” Harper asked as Peggy moved closer, and that was when Harper noticed the grapefruit-shaped buttons on the sweater. “I have a cardigan just like that.”
And wasn’t that lovely. She and her grandma’s best friend had the same taste in clothing.
“Oh this,” Peggy said sheepishly. “I actually borrowed it from your closet.”
“She saw it at yesterday’s Panty Raid, and I told her you wouldn’t mind,” Clovis said, walking over in a black-and-royal-purple corset and matching broom skirt. A Panty Raid was the equivalent of a Tupperware party for Clovis, only instead of selling plastic storage with matching lids like other grandmothers did, Clovis threw pleasure parties for the town’s geriatric sector. “She’s trying to impress that new fella Roland down at the senior center. The one who, if he weren’t a retired dentist, I’d think had teeth that are too white to be real.”
Jabba plopped at Clovis’s feet, his sides heaving as if he’d just run the Boston Marathon, not waddled five storefronts down.
“Roland came into the shop asking about our Better Breath Biscuits for his Maltese, canine,” Peggy explained, “and we started talking about the importance of doggie dental care. When he left, he said he hoped to see me at Singles Night next week, and I figured if I walked in wearing your sweater, it was like saying I’m bringing sexy back,” Peggy said, then gave a little shimmy that sent her grapefruits swaying.
“It looks lovely on you, Peggy,” Harper said, and the older woman blushed. To her grandmother, she said, “And explain how your Panty Raid ended up in my closet?”
“We didn’t go in your closet,” Clovis said, sounding appalled. “Shame on you making it sound like I’d violate your privacy that way. We had it in your bedroom.”
Harper choked. “My bedroom?”
“Worked like a charm,” Clovis said. “It was my biggest moneymaker of the year so far. I even managed to get those starched blouses in the active living community off Vine Street to agree to start looking locally to satisfy their needs. Plus it skews our average customer age lower.”
Harper didn’t bother to mention that the development off Vine was a fifty-five-and-older community and still skewed their average way too high. “My bedroom is a mess.”
She couldn’t remember just how bad it had been since she’d fallen into bed after 2:00 a.m. and gotten up before the sun, but if memory served, her entire apartment was a mess. Between testing out Mother’s Day craft ideas and trying to singlehandedly save her grandma’s shop, Harper’s apartment looked as if a lingerie and glitter piñata had exploded.
“We tidied up a bit, because what better place to sell sin than in the private sleeping chambers of our very own Hometown Temptress?” Clovis paused as if she’d had an epiphany. “I coined a phrase.”
Peggy clapped delightedly, and before Harper knew what was happening the two fist-bumped like homies, even adding little explosions at the end.
Harper rubbed the headache growing between her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you know that orange is the new black?” Peggy said, running her hands over the sw
eater, her voice all atwitter. “And you are the new sexy?”
“In what world?” Harper asked, because the last male she’d made direct eye contact with had freckles and a milk mustache.
“The one where you landed yourself Mr. July,” Peggy said in awe, and Harper realized she had somehow landed herself a fangirl.
“Mr. July?” Oh God, this was the last thing she needed today. She was supposed to be clearing up the rumors, not encouraging them.
“So many have come before, most only getting a few nibbles, but my granddaughter reeled in the Moby Dick of men.” Clovis took a moment to let that settle, then fanned herself. “Although if you want Moby rearing out of the water you might want to consider new sheets. That’s not the kind of kitty he wants to snuggle up with, if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, she knew exactly what Clovis meant. An official Panty Raid had been thrown on her Grumpy Cat sheets.
If this was anything close to what Adam had been experiencing the past week, then she needed to put an end to it. Immediately. Then let him off the hook. She might need him for the shoot, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice his promotion to get a photo.
“Look,” Harper said in her best inside voice, then remembered that Clovis only had one volume. And it was “Can I get a witness?” She took the ladies by the arm and led them to a quieter part of the store. “Adam and I aren’t dating.”
“Labels are so passé,” Clovis said. “I told Giles that we didn’t need to DTR in order to get DND.”
“DTR?”
“Define the relationship,” Peggy said. “And DND means to get down and—”
“Got it.” Harper held up a hand and tried not to picture her grandma and Giles getting DND.
“Harper, order up,” Lexi said from the counter where she was dangling Harper’s box of courage.
“We aren’t DNDing or LH6ing or sexting or any of the other terms you might come up with.” Although they had been KISSing. “Adam and I are just friends. F R N D S.”
“Say what you want,” her grandmother said, “but I know women, and I know lingerie. No woman wears Luscious lace cheekinis for a friend. Especially when that friend ranks a solid fifteen on the man-candy meter.”
Harper didn’t bother to ask how her grandmother knew her lingerie of choice—the woman had a God-given gift. But she also had a mouth the size of the Grand Canyon, so Harper needed to make herself clear. “We. Are. Not. Dating.”
“But Facebook—”
“I lied. Okay?”
Clovis tsked. It was a sound that always managed to make Harper’s throat fill with guilt, even if she hadn’t just confessed to lying.
“Oh, honey, you’re a horrible liar. You always look like you’re going to cry when you fib.” Clovis patted her on the arm, and if she weren’t Harper’s grandmother, Harper would say it was condescending in nature. “Kind of like now. But a word to the wise, even if Facebook is saying you had him at hello”—Clovis looked at Harper for so long she felt her ears heat—“if you want to have him screaming Oh, you might want to be more forthcoming with your cookies.”
There wasn’t much Adam couldn’t handle. From jumping out of planes to charging headfirst into some gnarly situations, he tackled problems balls-out and head-on. The bigger the risk, the bigger the rush, and the greater the thrill.
So then why did he feel as if he was about to pass out just looking at a book of party themes?
“How about this one?” Seth said, pointing to the page with black tablecloths, poker table paraphernalia, and fuzzy dice table decor.
“It’s a family-friendly picnic, not a bachelor party,” Adam said, wondering how, out of everyone he knew, he’d managed to get stuck with the FNG as his party planner.
Right, because the universe was bitch-slapping him for his past indiscretions. So when Seth mentioned he’d planned all the poker nights for his fraternity, Adam drafted him as the decorations committee. A decision he should have made before they’d ordered their second round of beer.
“If this is a picnic, then can’t we just buy some hotdogs, paper plates, and chips? I mean, everyone likes hotdogs and chips.”
“The handbook says we have to have games and craft tables and an overall theme. I don’t think tailgate eats counts as a theme.” Adam flipped to the next page, which had everything one would need to throw a clambake engagement party. And slammed it shut. “I’m screwed.”
He had less than an hour before his meeting with Lowen, was thirty minutes from town, and outside of securing a caterer, who wasn’t talking to him, he had accomplished jack shit on his massive to-do list.
“Maybe we should just go back to St. Helena and ask the cute girl at the party store to help us plan it,” Seth suggested, and Adam was tempted to give in.
Megan had approached him this morning, explained how Harper had cleared everything up, and said that she would be happy to help with Beat the Heat. Only, Adam had politely declined, then lied, telling her he had it all under control. Because (a) she wasn’t all that forthcoming on what everything meant, (b) Megan looked exactly like what Jonah had said—a bad decision—and (c) Adam was tired of making bad decisions.
If he wanted to prove worthy of the badge, then he needed to start acting like it. And that did not include spending the next two weeks flirting with a pretty party planner on company time. So he’d driven right past Parties to Go-Go, and all the way into Napa to the party store there, where he asked a lovely saleslady in her sixties for help. She’d directed him to the party themes book, and that’s when the panic had started.
He didn’t know a centerpiece from a sash, had not a clue as to what kind of kid-friendly activities to plan. Should they match the theme? Were water guns a bad choice?
As a kid, he’d never missed Beat the Heat, yet he couldn’t remember a single thing about it except when the firefighters pulled the engine out to the middle of Main Street and threw the ladder, then picked a lucky awestruck kid from the crowd to climb it.
One year, when Adam had just turned seven, he’d been that lucky kid. And it had rocked his little world. At the first rung he’d been hooked. Not much had changed—firefighting was his life, and his days were still spent hanging around the engine. Only instead of watching from the sidelines, he was the one who got to run the show and rock some kid’s world.
“How about a fireman theme?” he said, flipping to the back of the book to where the kid-themed parties were. “We can swear in little honorary firefighters, give them a plastic hat and sticker badge.”
“You mean like what we do with the school kids during their fieldtrips to the station?” Seth said.
“I see your point.” He was so screwed. “Okay, tailgate it is.”
Adam grabbed a cart full of red plates, cups, and matching paper napkins. If he couldn’t do fire hats, at least the color would be firefighter approved.
Seth and Adam loaded up the rig and headed back toward town. He hit Send on his Bluetooth and called his sister.
“I’m busy,” Frankie said in greeting.
“Then I’ll make it quick,” Adam said. “I’m heading up Beat the Heat and was hoping you and Nate would donate the wine this year.”
“Even if we weren’t sold out for the next decade, you couldn’t afford me.”
The stress of the day settled behind his eyes. He’d assumed as much. After his sister’s Red Steel was crowned Cork King a few years back, which was pretty much like the Oscars of wine, her label had become one of the most sought-after in wine country. Which meant he needed to contact another winery.
Not that his family didn’t own a bunch, it was just Adam had never really been a part of the family business. Hell, he didn’t even like wine—he was more of a beer kind of guy—so sniffing around for handouts always felt wrong.
“How about donating a bottle or two then for the raffle?” he asked. “And asking Grandpa to provide the wine for the event?”
Frankie was quiet for a long moment. “I’ll donate a case fo
r the raffle and ask Nate if DeLuca Vineyards is interested, but it will cost you.”
“Jesus, Frankie. If you could pull that off, I’d do anything.”
And he meant it. Owing Frankie was like owing the mob—if you didn’t pay up, she’d come after you with a bat. But walking into the meeting with the caterer and wine locked down?
Totally worth it.
“Nate and I are going away for a few days and we need you to come and stay with the alpacas.”
“I meant anything but that,” Adam said, his nuts already turning in on themselves. “You know that Mittens hates other men in his space. And the little one always goes after my boys.”
“He’s just sniffing you out. It’s all normal male behavior one would find at a sporting event or bar,” Frankie said. “And that’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Adam weighed his options, and they weren’t good. Impressing Lowen or pissing off Frankie. He blew out a breath. “Fine, just let me know when and I’ll check my work schedule.”
Adam hung up and prayed he’d find himself stuck with overtime.
Half an hour later, he pulled into the engine bay to find that either he was late or Chief Lowen was early. Adam glanced at his watch. “Shit. Lowen is early.”
“And he’s talking to that sexy sweater set chick,” Seth said.
Adam paused from grabbing the bag off the floorboard to peer through the windshield and nearly choked. Because Lowen was indeed talking to a sexy chick, but she wasn’t wearing a sweater set. At least not today.
Nope, everyone’s best friend, Harper, was holding court with his boss and crew, decked out in a flowy sundress that hugged her curves and flirted around her thighs. It was soft yellow with little white flowers and exactly zero straps, leaving her silky shoulders completely bare, and him begging the question of exactly what she had on beneath.
A question that fucking McGuire was probably also asking himself. He was using Harper’s trusting nature to peruse more than just the items in the big pink pastry box she held.
McGuire said something, Harper said something back and touched his arm, then laughed. Real and loud, throwing her head back in a way that tempted the elastic holding up her dress.