Page 5 of Red Hot Harmony

I arched a brow.

“Camouflage.”

Anxiety filled my chest. “I cannot believe you would do such a thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous. Because it means legal trouble if you’re caught.”

“She’s mine and I love her and he doesn’t,” Harper said. There was definite finality in his words. “So are you going to help me or what?”

“Ah, you’re asking me to break the law.” I shook my head, war waging inside me. “Okay, I’ll do my best.” My voice dropped to a low whisper. “But if something goes wrong, we leave. We don’t put ourselves in more danger.”

“Awesome.” Harper’s face lit up. “He grabbed a piece of paper from the nearest register and quickly sketched the property, pointing out some of the areas to potentially be of easier access.

I examined the drawing while he laid out the plan in great detail.

Once we were done discussing Tallulah’s kidnapping, he asked, “So is Ally just imagining things or did you and the guitarist finally kiss?”

“She told you about that?”

“Yep, she also told me that last night, you two behaved like nothing happened when he came over for a lesson.” Harper cleared his throat and scanned my face. “I think she’s concerned about you missing an opportunity.”

“I’m not going to jump his bones with my daughter around.” I huffed.

“Is that the mystery man I heard about from Eloise?” Renn questioned.

I turned to the sound of her voice. She stood on the opposite side of the rack, pretending to fix the dresses. In truth, they didn’t need any fixing. Harper had already done that.

“I don’t know what my mother told you.” I forced myself to smile. “But it’s really nothing that serious. I’m still trying to figure out if I like him.”

Oh, the lie slipped out so easily, so smoothly. I almost patted myself on the back for that. Wielding untruths had never been my forte, but gossip-loving, not-minding-her-own-business Renn infuriated me sometimes. She didn’t need to know that I had the hots for Dante Martinez.

No one needed to know.

Not even Harper. I’d revealed only the barest of the details to him. Because revealing more seemed almost like giving what we had to the world and I wasn’t ready for that. I wanted to keep it a secret just a little bit longer. To keep my name out of the press. To keep Ally safe.

The door in the front swished open, letting the hum of the street sneak inside for a brief moment.

I heard Amun greeting a customer and Renn joining them too.

“She’s a handful,” I whispered to Harper, watching her weave an elegant path toward the reception desk. “I don’t know how she and my mother worked together and didn’t kill each other.”

“Beats me.”

I got home late—after dinner—and found a note from Ally on the fridge.

Went to Pauline’s. Band practice. Be back by 9.

Her handwriting had deteriorated with age. She used to put effort into her calligraphy, but not anymore. The letters were slanted, all wrong angles and unfinished lines, as if she was in a hurry to leave and these few lackadaisically scribbled words were the only thing that separated her from having fun freely as opposed to having fun and then being grounded for her silence.

I showered and changed, then settled outside on the terrace and ate my Chinese takeout I’d picked up on the way home.

Alone.

The sweltering heat that crept around my body, warming my skin and bones, was unusual for this time of fall. Mostly, October nights in Southern California proved to be cool and pleasant, but we hadn’t had a single drop of rain in months, since spring, and the year felt like the hottest one in decades.

The buzzing of my phone interrupted my thoughts and I saw a message from Dante. A reply to mine that I’d sent him earlier, agreeing to the time and day.

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