Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)

by Marina Adair

  “My lipstick is not the problem. This is the third color I tried this month, and the saleslady at the drugstore guaranteed it is the perfect shade.”

  “The first problem with your statement was drugstore, since we both know that the saleslady in question is Mrs. Peters, who hasn’t changed lip color since Carter left office.” He undid her hair, which was secured by a chopstick. Not a decorative one, but a wooden one from the takeout joint down the street.

  “I wouldn’t do that. My curls are out of control,” she said, her hands moving up in a defensive action that had him laughing.

  He intercepted them, mid helmet pose, and set them back at her sides, squeezing her wrists so she knew to leave them there. And miracle of miracles, she actually listened.

  “You have slept-in bed waves, not curls,” he corrected. One pull and all of those soft brown waves came tumbling down to her midback. Like walking sex, he thought. “Back to the lipstick. Are you really wearing pink with glossy shine and glitter?”

  She shifted on her feet. “So?”

  “So, it’s a problem.” He handed her a tissue and waited while she wiped it off. Then he put his fingers in her hair and gave it a little shake, stepping back to study his work. “Better. But still missing something.”

  “Wow, you sure know how to sweet-talk a woman,” she mumbled, and that’s when he realized what it was. Sunshine was looking self-conscious, which he’d never seen before. She usually marched to her own beat and flashed those pearly whites at anyone who looked at her strangely—the good-girl version of flipping the bird. But right then, standing there looking bed rumpled and sexy as hell, she was uncomfortable.

  So Adam did the only thing he knew would work. What he wanted to do wouldn’t be appropriate, so instead, he slid his fingers deeper into her hair, and then he kissed her.

  And holy shit, Harper Owens with her warm smile and rainbow dreams might have looked like the kind of girl one would bring home to Sunday dinner at the parents’, but she kissed like she’d rock your world on the car ride over.

  And back.

  She made a soft little mewling sound that drove him crazy, because it was half surprised and wholly aroused. Without warning, she pulled his lower lip with her teeth, sucked on it for a good minute, and he manned up in the most embarrassing way. But then her hands were on him, threading through his hair, playing with the ends at the back of his neck, and he forgot what the problem was.

  Forgot why crazy cuties were a bad idea.

  Forgot every hard-learned lesson that had gotten him through fifteen years as a smokejumper for Cal Fire. Such as: the key to not getting burned was you had to get in, scratch some line, hook it, call it good, and cut out before catching too much heat. It was a technique that had saved his ass a dozen times over in wildfires—and with women. Only he was too busy enjoying the flame to notice it had gotten out of control. Until he heard his name being called.

  “Adam?” she purred, and he started walking them backward into the dressing room when he realized Harper wasn’t moving with him. She also wasn’t kissing him anymore. In fact, she looked all prickly.

  “Adam?” a sultry voice teased again. From the other room. “Where are you?”

  Harper cleared her throat and took a step back. A big step back. “He’s out here, Baby.”

  Four things hit Adam simultaneously. First, he’d come here tonight with the stacked blonde he’d met at the bar for a private lingerie show and a fun game of spin the spinner. Second, he’d almost had sex with a girl named Baby. Third, he’d just made out with the weird art teacher. And fourth, he’d liked it.

  Hell, based on the tent in his pants and the way he was gasping for breath, he’d more than liked it. His lips still tasted like some kind of fruity umbrella drink, and he wanted another sip.

  Which brought him to the biggest revelation of the night: Harper Owens was a closeted hottie. And if she’d disliked him before, which he could only assume since she’d never looked twice at him until tonight, then she’d hate him now.

  Her hair was magically back up in its messy twist, her dress was zipped to the neck, and she was shooting glares frosty enough to cryogenically freeze his nuts for decades to come.

  “Oh, hey, Harper,” Baby said, stopping at the entry to the dressing room. She was in stripper heels, fishnets, and three leather straps that strategically crisscrossed her body. Her hair was ratted, her lips ruby red, and she should have had him revving to go. Only Adam was too busy watching Harper. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” Harper said.

  Fired?”

  Clovis Owens rested all her weight against the Fanny Wrappers display and patted her brow with the chartreuse cheeky boy-shorts she was folding. “Oh dear, that’s not good. Not good at all.”

  “I know,” Harper said, handing her grandma her cane, wondering just how betrayed the older woman felt. Clovis was the kind of person who gave her trust so freely, who wanted to see the good in everyone, and Harper hated to think of her being hurt by Baby’s actions. “But she didn’t take anything, no one got hurt, so it all worked out.”

  “I don’t care if she took anything,” Clovis said, her face going a little pale. She hobbled over to the counter, her cane clicking against the wood floor.

  On cue, Jabba, the resident go-fetch king, came shuffling out from under the stool, a candy wrapper stuck to his muzzle. Shaped like an overstuffed sausage with kitten legs, Jabba was too short to sniff any higher than shin level, so he put a few wet doggie marks on Harper’s ankle, then plopped down next to his master, eyes zeroing in on her cane, willing it to fall and roll across the room.

  Clovis flipped through her phone book, a big round rolodex that was older than dirt and could rival Vera Wang’s. “Do you think if I call her back, she’d give me a second chance?”

  “Call her back?” Harper pulled up a stool and helped Clovis sit, then gave her a glass of water. She was more upset by the situation than Harper had guessed.

  “The girl needs this job. I gave it to her as a favor,” Clovis said, wringing the life out of the boy-shorts. “What am I going to tell her mom?”

  “That she picks up strangers at bars and brings them back to her place of work.” Clovis narrowed her gaze in warning. “Too soon? Okay, well she just graduated from college with a double degree,” Harper said in a soothing voice, realizing Clovis was concerned over the girl’s well-being. “She’ll be fine.”

  Something Harper knew for a fact. She’d seen to it personally. Letting Baby go had been a no-brainer, and although Harper made a point to listen to her brain, she answered with her heart. And her heart had said Baby wasn’t a bad person, just young and flighty. And after a lifetime of dealing with flighty women, Harper had formed a soft spot for them.

  “Her degree is in microbrewing and dance”—Clovis reached for the phone—“and since she moved to wine country and the only gentlemen’s club we have around here involves whacking weathered wooden balls and wearing regulation croquet knickers, she’ll be homeless by the end of the week.”

  “Which is why,” Harper said, putting the phone back on the hook, “I hooked her up with a job at the Barre and Tap. She’ll be helping out with the evening dance classes since Sara is pregnant.”

  Sara DeLuca had moved to town a few years back with her son and opened the Barre and Tap, a kids’ dance studio that also offered senior classes in the evening—including senior pole dancing. She’s also fallen in love with one of her students, Trey DeLuca.

  Sara and her reformed playboy were married within months and now expecting a child. It was incredibly romantic and gave Harper hope that love was everywhere—even in a town of six thousand.

  She just had to keep her eyes open.

  When Clovis still didn’t look convinced, Harper took her hand. “You’re not the bad guy here, Grandma. She was using the shop after hours to entertain her male friend. While wearing store merchandise.”

  Baby didn’t end up ent
ertaining Adam—at least not that Harper knew, since Baby and Fireman Frisky left separately—and Baby had paid for the merchandise before turning in her key. She’d also taken a handful of the Come Again Condoms Clovis passed out for swag.

  “Have you seen that man’s chest?” Clovis asked, placing a hand to her ample bosom, and Harper considered doing the same since her pulse was picking up pace at an alarming rate. Harper’s eyes went to the Cuties with Booties calendar on the wall that was still opened to July—of last year. “I’d do the dressing-room dance with him, too,” Clovis continued. “The month his photo came up in Shay’s calendar, with him in only his helmet, suspenders, and turnout pants, my Fireman Saves the Day dildo sales went up three hundred percent. Can’t say I blame the girl.”

  Unfortunately, neither could Harper, now that she knew firsthand just how incredible his abs were. And his lips? Confident, controlled, and so lethal under pressure she could still feel the effects two days later. She almost felt like a hypocrite when she said, “This time we were lucky. Baby was sweet-talked by the local playboy. Next time it could be by a playboy who wouldn’t think twice about taking off her fishnets, then taking off with your cash.”

  “You’re right,” Clovis said, looking more concerned than comforted. “But now I’m short an assistant, and with National Underwear Day right around the corner, time is running out to order fall inventory.”

  “I can help you after I get off work until we hire someone new. Someone who is qualified to manage a retail store,” she clarified.

  Clovis shook her head, her gray bob bouncing. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t hire Baby for her managerial skills—the girl can’t even count change. She’s my hired sex.”

  “Hired what?” Harper asked because surely she’d misunderstood. There was no way her grandma was a madam.

  “I hired her for the sex.”

  Well, look at that. Harper suddenly felt light-headed. As if she needed a stool to hold up her weight. Because if Baby’s credentials were that of sex for hire, then it meant—

  “Adam was a, uh, customer?”

  “He’s one of my best customers,” Clovis said and, yup, Harper was going to be sick. All over the Come Again Condoms basket. “But Baby was supposed to be my front person for when we meet with the rep next week. Be the sexy on my team.”

  Harper laughed—it was part hysterical and part relief, but it was a laugh—which was so much better than throwing up. “Since when do you need a team to meet with reps?”

  Clovis had been handling buyers and reps since before Harper was born. In fact, she’d been in the sex business so long she predated Hugh Hefner. There wasn’t a lingerie company or distributor Clovis hadn’t worked with, or one she couldn’t call.

  “Since I lost my sexy,” Clovis cried. “I went and got myself a man and suddenly I’ve become Ms. Missionary. Not in the bedroom, mind you, but in the boardroom and around town. One of my suppliers has pulled their terms for fall, leaving me with a pending order.”

  Harper ignored the bedroom part, because picturing the woman who practically raised her doing the dirty with Giles Rousseau gave her the shivers. “Small shops get pending orders all the time because of the quantities, you know that.”

  “Not my shop,” Clovis said, and her eyes went misty. “Never my shop. A pending order with no expected ship date? That means I don’t know what I’m going to be selling in the fall. I can’t prep for the new season, can’t update my website, or get my fall catalog ready.”

  “Didn’t they give you an estimate?”

  “They were too busy sending in a secret shopper who reported back that the Boulder Holder has”—she took a shuddery breath—“‘lost its sexual edge, catering to the senior demographic,’ which we all know means granny panties. I am not a granny panty pusher!”

  “That’s one manufacturer,” Harper said, putting her arms around Clovis’s meaty shoulders.

  “But it’s the only one that counts,” she whispered, and Harper’s chest pinched at the defeat and humiliation she heard in her grandma’s voice. “And if they pull my shop from their list of retailers, I don’t know what will happen.”

  “Oh, Grandma.” Harper knew that the businesses on this side of town had been struggling financially, but she’d thought sales had picked up. Thought her grandma had put herself in the right position. “How bad is it?”

  Clovis looked around her shop, disappointment welling up in her eyes. “It’s Lulu Allure.”

  “Lulu Allure?” That same panic that had overtaken Clovis at the mention of firing Baby filled Harper’s chest. “You’ve been with them since they started.”

  Clovis sniffed and Jabba scooted closer, rolling his sausage of a body onto Clovis’s foot, offering support. “I was their flagship store on the West Coast.” She was also their exclusive retailer in wine country, which was why their merchandise was prominently displayed throughout the shop.

  Over the years, Clovis had taken chances on smaller lines, start-ups that no one else would sacrifice shelf space for. She had an eye for design and a heart for underdogs, which was how the Boulder Holder had managed to break out some of the biggest up-and-comers in the industry and give them their starts.

  Just like she’d given Harper a fresh start at having a real home years ago. “I thought you were one of their biggest sellers,” Harper said.

  “I am. I’m also losing my edge.” Clovis rubbed the crystal handle of her cane, something she did to calm her nerves. Jabba, on the other hand, gently gnawed on the foot of it.

  “You’re not losing your edge,” Harper assured her. “You don’t even know why they’re coming out.”

  “When I called to see what the holdup was, they told me they were sending someone to discuss the ‘exclusive territory rights’ in my contract. When they did that to Gertie down in La Jolla, they gave her territory to some sexed-up honey who doesn’t know the difference between a chemise and a camisole.” Clovis shook her head, her silver halo moving with every heartbreaking motion. “If I lose Lulu Allure’s business, I lose a third of my fall merchandise. Maybe even my shop.”

  Harper handed Clovis a tissue. The older woman bowed her head to dab her eyes.

  “Your grandfather and I worked so hard to open this shop. If I lost it now . . .” Clovis broke off and looked up, and the expression she wore was like an arrow straight through Harper’s chest. It was the same broken look her grandmother had worn when her husband passed, and when she’d had to tell Harper that her mom wasn’t coming for her weekend visit.

  Something Harper had come to accept throughout her lifetime, since Gloria Owens was a slave to the stage, and a resident of nowhere in particular. In fact, last Harper had heard, she was headlining at the Sunnyhills Senior Community Theater in Plano, Texas.

  “We won’t lose the shop, Grandma. I promise.”

  Clovis offered up a watery smile. “When you talk like that, so confident about the good in the world, you sound just like your grandpa.”

  Chester Owens saw potential and possibility where others only saw problems. He was small in stature but big at heart, making everyone around him feel welcomed and treasured. Especially when it came to the love of his life.

  Even two decades after his passing, the dreamy look that he inspired in her grandmother whenever she talked about him made Harper’s heart ache with longing. What would it be like to have a love affair like that? To be cherished so thoroughly that even in death she couldn’t be forgotten?

  Harper looked around the shop, with its Victorian charm and sensual landscape, and realized that it wasn’t just losing the shop for Clovis—it would be losing her identity.

  “I promised him I’d look after you. And this shop is as much a part of you as your heart.” For Harper, it represented a safe escape from her fractured childhood. It was an important piece of her past that inspired warm memories and had helped her to become the woman she was today.

  “You’re my heart.” Clovis reached up to cup Harper’s cheek, th
e feel of her plump hand as comforting as it had been when Harper was a scared little girl. “And my favorite grandchild.”

  “I’m your only grandchild.”

  “Why mess with perfection?” Clovis said, and Harper felt a burst of determination. Not just to save the shop, but to be the kind of granddaughter she’d promised Chester she could be. The kind who took a problem and made it into a possibility.

  Clovis was bold, yet loved frills. She was soft where it counted but firm in her support of others. She had a beautiful way of helping women find their inner seductress, claim their femininity, and take pride in the power of being a woman.

  Harper was bold and supportive, but unlike the other Owens women who had come before her, she’d missed out on the feminine seductress gene.

  Or had she, she wondered, remembering that kiss. She knew Adam was trying to prove a point, but when he pressed his lips to hers, ran his hands over her body as though he liked what he found, she had felt that power simmer from deep within. And it was intoxicating.

  Then she remembered he’d been on a secret tryst with another woman and happened to stumble and fall into Harper’s mouth.

  “You don’t need Baby to impress that rep,” Harper said, just like she didn’t need to change to impress some guy. She straightened to her full five feet eleven inches and squared her shoulders. “You’re Clovis Owens, respected panty pusher and living lingerie legend. And I’m Harper Owens, summa cum laude graduate from San Francisco School of the Arts. Between your boardroom skills and my design and merchandizing genius, we’ll have Lulu Allure begging you to carry their fall line.”

  Clovis chuckled, but Harper held her ground, because what was there to laugh about?

  The shop had a wonderful history, a loyal customer base, and great bones. Some of the customers may have been born in the wrong century, and some of the bones were in the wrong spot, but so what? It wasn’t about changing the heart of the Boulder Holder—it was about how it was staged. By moving some of the sexier things forward and downplaying the less appealing items by placing them in the back, such as body-shapers, girdles, and banana-hammocks, they could make this shop that exclusive, sensual, high-end environment that manufacturers like Lulu Allure were dying to place their products in.