Page 17 of Guilty as Sin
The woman, still holding the curtain across her body and looking like she wished she could leave, looked dubiously at the crimson garments Paige held out and said, “Red?”
“It’s a simple… uh, design, though,” Paige said. “Not like you’re a hooker.” The woman looked shocked, and Paige hurried on, “I mean, there’s red and red. Some women think it has to be short to be sexy,” she added in a burst of inspiration. “Can’t it be long and slinky, like… like…” She tried to think of an actress. A movie. She blanked. The last movie she’d seen had had Captain America in it.
“Katherine Hepburn,” the woman suggested, Paige said, “Exactly!” like she had more than a vague idea who that was, shut the curtain, started putting clothes back on the racks, and thought,Breathe.
A couple minutes later, the woman came out, beaming, handed back four nightgowns while still clutching one of the red ones, and said, “You were right. It’s our anniversary this week—well, tomorrow, actually—and we’re on our way to Glacier.” Glacier National Park wasn’t any code word forimpossibly romanticto Paige, but she put on an encouraging face as the woman went on. “I’ve put off buying anything because I didn’t want to feel… well, stupid. But I think my husband might think this is sexy, even on me. You think?”
“I’ll bet he will,” Paige said. “The color’s wonderful with your skin tone,” she added, like somebody who’d know that.
“You know…” the woman said as Paige folded the garment as carefully as she could manage, wrapped some white tissue paper around it, fastened it with a gold sticker, set it into a carrier bag, and thought,OK. You did it. You sold a nightgown. Tagged and bagged,and only then remembered that she had to scan it first. She took it out in a nonchalant fashion, scanned it, and resumed the whole folding-and-bagging thing again. The woman watched her in a bemused fashion, but didn’t comment. “You know,” she said again, “I wasn’t even sure about coming in here at first. And I’ll admit that I feel better when the sales clerk looks more normal, especially in a store like this. But you were actually very helpful.”
Paige stopped in the middle of pushing buttons.I don’t look normal?she wanted to ask, but didn’t. “This dress a little over the top?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” the woman said, and Paige thought,Oh, yes.“Of course you’re beautiful,” the woman added, “but it’s easier to ask for another size from somebody who’s still carrying some of her baby weight, isn’t it?” She laughed. “You don’t know how lucky you are. I tell my daughters, appreciate that you’re young and free. The stretch marks will come soon enough.”
For the first time today, Paige was glad Lily wasn’t here. Lily didn’t need to hear about how lucky she was not to have kids. The stretch marks weren’t coming anytime soon for either of the twins. Paige had decided she was going to be fine with that, and Lily never mentioned it. She didn’t have to. Paige knew.
Jace parked the ute outside the hardware store, told Tobias, “Stay,” and got a pained look, as if the dog were saying,What do you take me for?
“You’re right,” Jace said. “You’re more disciplined than I am, mate.” Tobias wasn’t the one who’d come home that morning, taken a too-long shower, and then spent half an hour trimming his beard and shaving around the edges until his face stopped saying “possible Unabomber” and approached “fashionable scruff.” Not to mention the rest of the trimming he’d done, for which there was absolutely no reason except that you wanted a woman’s hands on your body. Or that you wanted yours on her. Or both.
Afterwards, he’d swept the black hair back from his face, grimaced in the mirror at the lines carved by too much sun and too much time, and muttered aloud, “You’re old, mate. And if you get into anything more exciting than handbags at dawn, this hair’s going to blind you.” Which was why he’d stopped at the Mane Event, after lunch at the usual café served by the usual waitress, and booked an appointment for Tuesday.
Changing it up would be good. Readiness was a state of mind, and so was too much routine. Thewrongstate of mind.
That was also why he drove toward the gym afterward but didn’t make it all the way there. Not because the spot he pulled into was a couple shopfronts up from Sinful Desires. He parked there because of that too-much-routine issue. He needed to start walking through town, taking note of his surroundings, who he saw and how they looked at him, in the way that kept you alive.
It wasn’t the total population that mattered. It was the percentage of it that wanted to kill you. Some woman was writing down her fantasies about attacking him, and worse, she was sending them to him from Montana. Time to face that and check to see if she were actually much closer than Missoula. He was going to have to read the signals, because he doubted she’d be holding a sign.
There may have been something else to his parking spot, though, because when he passed the shop with the white-painted, gilt-edged sign swinging on its chains beneath a pink awning, he glanced casually inside, and not because he was interested in black stockings and filmy underthings. Although, as it happened, they did manage to hold his interest, especially when he put his imagination to work.
But as for the primary purpose of the exercise? He saw a few middle-aged ladies inside, but not a single goatherd.
Lily. She didn’t look like a Lily. Or she did, but she didn’t act like one. Or she did, but only sometimes. When she smiled, she was a Lily. When she was swearing at goats or talking about touching his tattoo, she looked like somebody more interesting. He’d clearly judged her too quickly before, or not been observant enough. In any case, he wanted to see more of that somebody. He might stop by the shop later to check on her hand.
But first, the gym. You always went into the skirmish prepared, even if that just meant with your muscles pumped, and possibly dressed in jeans instead of workout shorts that had seen better days. He made it to The Sinful Body without spotting any potential assassins, headed to the desk, and handed his card to Charlotte.
“Hi,” he said, and smiled at her.
“Hi yourself,” she said, which was unusually perky of her. She handed him a towel and said, “You trimmed your beard.”
“I did.” He ran his hand over his jaw. “What do you think? Better?”
“Hmm. I can’t decide.” She put her head on one side and said, “The mountain man look was nice, too.”
“Seems to be trending,” he agreed. “Not sure if that’s a good thing.”
She laughed. “Means you can’t lose. One way or another, you’re covered.”
She’d blushed, as usual, but she seemed to have gained some confidence, which was always a positive. Or maybe he seemed more focused. Less distant. He grinned at her and said, “Yeah? Good to know,” headed to the locker room to drop his bag, wondered why Lily’s hot-and-cold approach was sexier than pure interest, and decided not to think about what that said about him. He knew already. The need to pursue. He was an unevolved bastard.
He stepped out of the locker room and stopped.
There she was. Lily. How had he missed her before? She was facing away from him, but still. But definitely. Her hair was pulled back into two short braids, and she was wearing black stretch capris that were cut below her navel and a pink crop top that was cutaboveher navel. Which left heaps for him to look at.
She wasn’t one bit brunette, she wasn’t overly tall, and she definitely wasn’t willowy. And he couldn’t look away.
He’d never seen her in here, and she wasn’t doing any of the things you’d expect. Spinning class. Zumba, whatever Zumba was. Any of those things with music. She was holding a pair of dumbbells—an unmatched pair, the right one noticeably smaller than the left—and doing lunges. When he walked closer and got a better look, her face had a twist to it that said those lunges were a major effort. She switched so her right leg was in back, and the twist became a grimace. And she still didn’t notice him.
