“Good to hear. With you two, that’s never a given.” Tulsi started out the door, but stopped at the last minute to stick her head back inside the shop. “That reminds me! Lulu iscrazyworked up about the panties on her gnomes. You should have heard her at church yesterday. She kept trying to get me to admit that I knew who’d done it, but I didn’t say a word.”
Mia gave her two thumbs up. “You’re a true friend.”
Tulsi grinned. “I am. But you should give Lulu a break for a few months. Her face was so red I thought she was going to give herself a stroke.”
“Sorry I missed that,” Mia says. “I don’t suppose she suspects I’m the Panty Bandit.”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Tulsi winked, making Mia laugh as she waved goodbye and Tulsi stepped through the door.
But Mia’s laughter faded quickly, and her heart felt strangely heavy as she flipped the “Closed” sign to “Open.” Opening the shop was usually one of the highlights of her day. She loved her work—chatting with customers, and finding the right fit for someone who’d wrestled with the wrong bra for a decade or more. She enjoyed the bustle of the streets outside when the town was filled with tourists, and the excellent people-watching available out her front window. But for some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Tulsi had said…about Paul winning.
Mia had been raised by Miss Southwest Texas 1982, and a man who’d built a successful hunting ranch on property everyone swore would never be worth a dime. Her mother and father were winners. They’d taught their children how to lose gracefully, but no one in the Sherman family enjoyed admitting defeat. Mia’s big brother, Pike, was the best baseball player Lonesome Point had ever seen, and Mia had earned straight A’s from the moment she’d entered grade school until the day she graduated with her master’s degree in business. Even when she was going through hell with her ex, she’d never let her studies suffer.
Mia didn’t like to lose. She disliked it so much, that for a moment she considered grabbing Clementine from the back room, hanging her “Be Back in Ten Minutes” sign on the door, and marching down the street to Brew You to tell Sawyer she’d take him up on that offer to do dinner, after all.
But in the end, she made a cup of tea, asked Clementine what kind of music she wanted to listen to today—the They Might Be Giants channel on Pandora, as usual—and settled in to crunch numbers before business picked up closer to lunch. She wasn’t ready to dive into the deep end of the dating pool with a man like Sawyer. A man with magnetic hazel eyes and the body of a gladiator, who smelled like a little piece of heaven, kissed like a sexy beast, and was sweet enough to say he was up for being friends and actually sound like he meant it. Sawyer was the kind of man who could get under your skin in a hurry, and Mia wasn’t ready for that, not by a long shot.
But maybe she could be open to the possibility of dating again, on a low-key basis. She wasn’t going to go hunting for Mr. Right Now, but she promised herself she would be open to any male surprises fate might have in store. She told herself she was pleased with her decision, but as the day wore on, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from drifting to a certain pair of cello-shaped lips, or a pair of unreasonably manly forearms.
Logic was all well and good, but sometimes a woman’s libido has a mind of its own.
CHAPTERFOUR
Mia’s dayimproved until approximately three fifteen in the afternoon, when everything went downhill fast, proving that if a day starts off badly, you should just go back to bed and stay there. But, unfortunately, when Mia’s grandmother called as Mia was checking out an older woman who had bought a scandalous number of lace panties, as well as three stuffed ghost town dolls for the grandkids back at the hotel, Mia had no idea Gram’s chirpy ringtone signaled certain doom.
“What’s up, sugar britches?” Mia asked as she answered the phone, grinning when her gram made an offended, huffing noise.
“Really, Mia. If I didn’t know your mother had tried her best, I would think you’d been raised in a whorehouse.”
“Aw, Gram. You’re sweet.”
“With a nickname like sugar britches, I oughta be,” she said, making Mia laugh.
“Damn straight.” Mia waved as Tulsi stepped back through the front door, covered in dust from the barn. “Clementine, your mom’s here!”
“Coming!” Clem cried, at the same time Mia’s grandmother said—
“Oh, say hi to Tulsi for me. That poor, sweet girl.”
Mia rolled her eyes, but obliged. “Gram says hi, Tulsi.”
Gram had had a soft spot for Tulsi ever since Tulsi returned home the autumn after her senior year of high school with a bun in the oven, and no baby daddy on the scene. Tulsi never said much about Kyle, the summer fling who had ended things when Tulsi found out she was pregnant, but Gram loathed the boy in Tulsi’s honor, and had nothing but sympathy for her honorary grandchild. While the other older women in town were clucking their tongues disapprovingly at unmarried Tulsi’s belly, Gram had paid Tulsi’s medical bills, and thrown her the most lavish baby shower Lonesome Point had seen in years.
Mia loved her Gram for her generous spirit and good heart, but Tulsi was hardly a “poor girl” anymore. She was a woman with a beautiful daughter, and a thriving equine therapy business. But no matter how forward thinking Gram was for her age, she was still from a time when women believed being a single mother was a scandal a person could never quite live down.
“Tell Emily we love her,” Tulsi said, blowing a kiss as she and Clementine headed out the door, obviously in a hurry to get back to the barn and have their mother-daughter fun ride of the day.
“They love you, sugar britches,” Mia said. “Now what can I do for you, Gram?”
“You can spare your old grandmother a heat stroke. I’m in a bind. Davy Pyle had a heart attack this morning.”
“Oh, no,” Mia said, brow knitting. Davy was one of her gram’s best friends and a champion for the town historical society. Back in the seventies, he’d been the one who helped Gram raise the funds to renovate the first section of Old Town. He’d helped bring tourism to Lonesome Point, and life back to their fading community. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s fine and resting comfortably,” Emily said. “But his wife wants him to take it easy for at least a week, and I need someone to step in and play tour guide in his absence. He was supposed to meet the contractor who’s giving us our first quote for the restoration of the south side at four o’clock today.”
Mia squinched her nose at the busy street outside. “I don’t close until five, Gram, and business has been hopping today. Can you call the contractor and ask him if we can put it off until six? I can definitely meet him then.”
“I tried to call and cancel, but my call keeps going straight to voice mail. I’m afraid he’s already out at the site and not getting service.” Emily sighed a tragic sigh. “I’d hate to think the poor man will be standing out in the sun for hours waiting for someone who’s never going to show up, especially since he was nice enough to come here all the way from Wyoming.”