“You’ll really help me keep this wild man on a short leash?” she asked Asher.
“I will—if you’ll promise to take his advice and go explore Santa Fe while you have the chance.” He drifted closer, until Sera could smell a hint of that special Asher scent—clean cotton, hot metal, and man, man, man. “Perhaps you’ll let me show you some of my favorite spots,” he offered. “It would be my pleasure, Bliss.”
Sera’s face warmed. Oh, she’d like to explore some of Asher’s favorite spots, that was for sure. And maybe she could introduce him to a few of her own…
Focus, fool, she told herself sternly. You’re here to start your life over, not blow it all to hell again over a guy who’d be way out of your league even if you didn’t have that pesky no-O problem.
Sera slung her messenger bag more securely across her body and hoisted Big Mama onto her hip. She turned away from the men, heading for the door.
“I’m gonna need some wheels,” was what she said.
Chapter Fifteen
There are times in life, Pauline, when a woman just needs a man.”
Hortencia had been arguing as much to her lover for the last twenty minutes. It wasn’t going over well. If they hadn’t had an audience, as a matter of fact, Sera feared it might have come to blows. Fortunately, they were at Hortencia’s place of business, and even Pauline had enough decorum to keep her outrage at a simmer within the hushed confines of the yarn shop.
As Hortencia and Pauline bickered, Sera busied herself examining a ball of something that looked remarkably like one of the Tribbles from Star Trek. Orange, fluffy, and incredibly soft, the mohair puffball perched on the top of Hortencia’s counter among dozens of its friends in a rainbow array of colors. She wondered if it would start cooing if she petted it, as she was tempted to do. All around her, similar poofs in all shapes and sizes crowded bins and shelves, threatening to tumble forth in an avalanche of crafty softness.
Hortencia was one of three employees at Knit-Fit, all comfortable-looking women in the fifty-plus age bracket who took their art with deadly seriousness. Today, Hortencia was sporting one of her own creations: a cable-knit Aran sweater of astonishingly intricate design in a soft salmon shade Sera wouldn’t personally have chosen. She also had a little crocheted flower brooch in a slightly rosier hue pinned to her bosom, and her homemade socks, peeking out of her sage green Merrell mules, were an alpaca blend in complementary tea rose ripples. She looked utterly at home in the shop.
She also looked pretty pissed off.
“We need a man,” she was insisting to Pauline. “I’ve been buying my family’s cars for decades, and I’m telling you, you get a better deal if you go with a caballero.”
“I am physically nauseated that you would suggest such a thing, Hortencia Alvarez.” Pauline made a gagging sound, grabbing up a ball of yarn and squeezing the fiber until it bulged out between her fingers. “What did our sisters march for, what did we sacrifice and fight for all these years if, here and now in the twenty-first century, we’re still depending on men to do our haggling?”
“Which do you think Sera cares more about? Her principles or her bank balance?” Hortencia shot back.
Both women turned their attention to Serafina, who was suddenly very busy examining the wool-to-alpaca ratio on the label of a ball of worsted weight.
“Well? What do you say, kiddo? Do you want that knuckle-dragging Malcolm McLeod along to infantilize and disempower you, or can you stand on your own two feet and make your own bargains?”
Sera smothered a grin. “Oh, I don’t know, Aunt Paulie. I think I could use all the help I can get.” She gave Pauline’s shoulder a squeeze to mitigate the sting of her betrayal, taking a moment to appreciate her aunt’s T-shirt du jour, which was silk-screened with a faded image of Helen Reddy in her heyday. Underneath, someone—undoubtedly Pauline—had scrawled a caption in Sharpie marker: “I am Woman. Hear me r-O-ar!”
“See?” Hortencia indulged in a moment of genteel gloating. “Sera sees the sense in what I’m saying. We need a man for this mission, and Mr. McLeod was available—and suitably threatening-looking. So quit your bitching, drop that stitching, and let’s get on the road already.”
“You just like the way he flirts with you,” Pauline grumbled to Hortencia, arms crossed beneath her braless breasts, innocent yarn skein squashed in the grip of her white-knuckled fist.
Sera smothered a grin. It was true, Malcolm had looked a whole lot more amenable to the suggestion of playing token Y-chromosome for their car-shopping expedition once he’d caught his first gander at Hortencia. In fact, when she’d introduced them the other day, it was the first time she’d ever seen her pie Nazi completely bereft of his customary bluster.
Pauline, who had already taken a deep dislike to the Scotsman when she’d met him a few days earlier, had been quick to notice his uncharacteristic pleasantness. She’d been even quicker to disparage the Scotsman’s character, appearance, and capabilities both culinary and contractorial once McLeod was out of earshot. Though she was raring to take on her new career as late-in-life counter commander at the new bakery, Pauline wasn’t at all keen on working with a “chauvinistic, unkempt caveman” who saved his only sweetness for his pies—and her life partner. Hortencia had pooh-poohed her disparagements, claiming to find McLeod a rather winning individual. That, of course, had set off a whole new round of arguments between the lovebirds, which they appeared to have resolved in the privacy of Pauline’s boudoir. Sera was just glad the house’s adobe walls were a foot thick.
In truth, Sera didn’t know whether to be amused at or envious of the two women’s closeness. What, she wondered, would it be like to have someone—Asher, for instance—jealous over her?
Don’t be ridiculous, Sera, she chided herself. Who’s his competition? The last man you dated was so fond of you he’s spent the last year trying to ruin your life and crush your career. You’re not exactly a man-magnet. You’re lucky Asher’s as kind to you as he has been, but you better forget any fantasies that he’s suddenly going to develop a mad, passionate crush on your sorry self.
Then Sera shook herself mentally. Whoa. Who hit the bummer button? It’s too damn nice a day to go feeling sorry for yourself, said the healthier part of her mind—the part she’d been working on developing since she’d stopped pickling it with booze. Think about it. Maybe you’ve had a few romantic disasters. Maybe relationships aren’t your forte, but you’ve still got a lot going for you. You’re young (well, youngish), you’re free, and you’re about to buy your very first car. Stop being a dweeb about your landlord and get with the program.