“Maybe. But I’m thinking if I did all my shopping now, I wouldn’t have an excuse to come back and visit you every day,” he said, putting a heavy dose of flirt in his tone. Leaning one elbow on the counter, he gave her a smoldering look before he glanced at the shoppers milling around, many with wicker baskets filled with merchandise swinging on their arms.
“I really am blown away by how you’ve increased business here,” he said. “That whole aphrodisiac angle is really drawing them in, isn’t it? How’d you come up with that? Don’t tell me it’s from personal experience or I might have a heart attack.”
His flirty grin was easy, the look in his eyes friendly and fun. Pandora still inwardly cringed.
“Actually,” she corrected meticulously, her fingers defiantly combing through the soft, fluffy fur of the cat, “the recipes have been handed down from my great-grandmother. Do you remember her? She’s the one with all the experience.”
Pandora tried not to smirk when his smile dimmed a little. Nothing like offering up the image of a white-haired old lady to diffuse a guy’s sexy talk.
“How about dinner Friday night?” he said. “I’ll pick you up at seven and you can tell me all about your great-grandma and her recipes.”
What a stubborn man. But she was just as stubborn. She knew she had no reason to refuse-that she was getting a weird vibe wasn’t good enough-but still, Pandora shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but no,” she told him. Then, seeing the disappointment in his gaze, she tried to soften her words with a smile.
“I really wish you’d change your mind,” Sheriff Kendall said, reaching over Bonnie to give Pandora’s cheek a teasing sort of pinch. She gasped, her fingers clenching the cat’s fur. Whether it was in protest, or because the sheriff was just too close, Bonnie hissed and leaped from Pandora’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, stepping back so she and her cheek were out of reach. “I’m trying to focus on the store right now. I need to get us back on our feet before I start thinking about dating.”
“Okay. I understand.” He offered that friendly smile again and turned to go. Then he looked back. “Just so you know, though, I plan to keep coming back until I change your mind.”
Crap.
She waited until he stepped over Paulie, who carpeted the welcome mat like a boneless blanket of fur, and watched him slide behind the wheel of the police cruiser he’d parked to blocking the door. Then she almost wilted as the tension she hadn’t realized was tying her in knots seeped from her shoulders.
“No offense, boss, but you’re crazy,” Fifi declared, stepping next to Pandora and offering a sad shake of her head. “I’d do anything to date the sexy sheriff. I can’t believe you turned him down.”
What was she supposed to say? That her internal warning system was screaming out against the guy? That same system had hummed like a happy kitten over Sean.
So obviously, the system sucked.
She gave Fifi a tiny grimace and said, “I guess I might have been a little hasty turning him down.”
“A little? More like a lot crazy. Dude’s a serious heart-throb.”
Pandora grinned as the blonde gave her heart a thump-thumping pat.
“Okay,” she decided, squaring her shoulders against the sick feeling in her stomach. Just nerves about dipping back into the dating pond, she was sure. “I’ll tell you what. The next time he asks, I’ll say yes.”
Fifi’s cheer garnered a few stares and a lot of smiles, especially from the young man with shaggy brown hair who was watching her like an adoring puppy.
Well, there you have it, Pandora decided with a grin of her own. The town obviously approved.
Ten minutes later, Pandora was ringing up a customer and still worrying over whether Sean had ruined her for all men, when a sugary-sweet voice grated down her spine.
“My mother said there was a blown-glass piece in here she thought I’d like as a Christmas gift. She probably mixed up the store names again, though, poor dear. I don’t see anything in here I need.”
Crap. Pandora took a deep breath, gesturing with her chin for Fifi to close up the café for her. This would probably take a while. She’d gone to high school with Lilah Gomez, and eight years later the other woman still held the privilege of being Pandora’s least favorite person-which, given the events of this last year, was really saying something.
Knowing the importance of not showing weakness to her sworn enemy, she cleared her face of all expression and turned to the brunette.
“Your mother has excellent taste. Too bad she didn’t pass it, and the ability to dress appropriately, on to her only daughter,” Pandora said sweetly. She made a show of looking the other woman up and down, taking in her red pleather tunic with its low-cut, white fur-trimmed neckline that showed off her impressively expensive breasts. She raised a brow at the shimmery black leggings and a pair of do-me heeled boots that would make any dominatrix proud. “What do you call this look? Holiday hussy?”
“I’m the customer here. Why don’t you put on your cute-little-clerk hat and show me whatever overpriced joke my mother saw so I can reject it and go shop in a real store.”
“From where I’m standing, which is right next to the cash register, in the handful of times you’ve been in Moonspun Dreams you’ve never bought a single thing. So you’re not a customer. You’re a loiterer.”
Lilah responded with a haughty look. She’d never bothered with her frenemy act before. Probably because she knew that Pandora would see right through it. Instead, the brunette leaned both elbows on the counter and bent forward to say under her breath, “You’d know crime, now, wouldn’t you? What was it you were busted for? Something to do with drugs? Or was it lying?”
The only thing that persuaded Pandora to unclench her teeth was the fact that she couldn’t afford to get them fixed if one broke. Instead, she turned on the heel of her own unslutty boots and retrieved a blown-glass peacock, each feather shimmering delicately in the light.
Before she’d even set the piece on the counter, she could see the covetous spark in Lilah’s eyes. But instead of saying she liked it, the other woman turned her nose to the air and gave a sniff.
“It’s okay. Just the kind of thing I’d expect to find in this dingy little store.”
“The artist is one of my mother’s clients,” Pandora said, surreptitiously scraping the sale sticker off the price tag. She’d be damned if Lilah was getting thirty percent off. “Her work is currently in the White House and was recently featured in a George Clooney movie.”
Drool formed in the corner of Lilah’s heavily painted mouth. Her hand was halfway to her purse before she thought to ask, “How much is it?”
The desire to make a sale warred with the desire to kick the bitchy woman out of the store. But responsibility always trumped personal satisfaction for Pandora. Which was probably why women like Lilah, and Cassiopeia, Fifi and even old Mrs. Sellers, had a lot more fun that she did.
With one unvarnished fingernail, she pushed the price tag across the counter. Lilah’s eyes rounded and her lips drooped.
“Will you hold it? My mother hinted that she’d get it for me as a Christmas gift.”
“You want me to hold an overpriced joke?”
The woman’s glare was vicious, but she jerked her chin in affirmation.
Hey, that was fun. Maybe all Cassiopeia’s lectures about karma were true.
Before Pandora could decide whether to go for gracious or gloating, a loud roaring rumbled through the air.
She and Lilah both stared as a huge Harley slowed down, the helmeted rider turning his head to stare into the store. A shiver skittered between Pandora’s shoulder blades. Another out-of-towner? Usually tourism went dry in Black Oak between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s. It was probably someone visiting Custom Rides, the motorcycle shop that backed up to Moonspun.
“Company?” Fifi speculated, coming in from the café to stare, too.