Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(40)
“Yeah, whenever a sheriff hopeful is spotted around town, making connections and securing votes, people snap a photo and post it here.” Adam held up the phone and scrolled slowly, showing Jonah a continuous stream of photos—all of Warren in his uniform, while he was on duty, shooting the shit with citizens all over town.
Jesus, no wonder why response times had gone up. The prick was using county time to patrol for votes.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Couple days,” Adam said, putting the phone away. “So if you want this job, then you need to loosen up a little. Maybe call that hot girlfriend of yours. It’s too late to get in on the calendar, but maybe she could put you on her blog.”
“First off, I am running for sheriff, not for most popular in the class yearbook.”
“Aren’t they the same in this town?”
“And second, Shay isn’t my girlfriend.” Sure, they kissed, and if the cat hadn’t sounded his alarm they would have done more. But that was a far cry from being his girlfriend.
“Thank God,” Adam said, his eyeballs on Jonah. “Because I’ve been thinking of asking her out, and it would be weird to sleep with some hot chick that my brother is secretly picturing naked.”
“Fuck off,” Jonah shot back, but Adam just laughed. “And we’re just friends. She asked me to cat sit Kitty Fantastic.”
“Kitty Fantastic?” Adam’s lip twitched. “Is that some kind of new slang, because last time I checked, when a chick stuck her tongue down my throat like that, friend wasn’t the F word she was looking for.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Well, then let me uncomplicate it. You’ve been walking around all summer with your dick on your sleeve. And people are talking.”
That got Jonah’s attention. “About me and Shay?”
Adam snorted and grabbed a beer—Jonah’s beer. “The only person in town who doesn’t know there is something going on between you and Shay is you. So do us a favor and invite the girl over for a pillow fight. In your bedroom.”
Shay cursed her sandals as she ran up Main Street toward the old barbershop, wheezing as if she was about to go into cardiac arrest. She was only nine minutes late, but Ida had a gun—and who knew if it actually held water or bullets—so nine minutes could be the difference between life and death . . . for Mr. Russell.
And for Shay getting that storefront.
Shay burst through the front door of the shop, the bell jingling wildly in her wake. Bending over to catch her breath, she noticed there was no Mr. Russell in sight. However, there was a gun on the counter of the first station—water, thank God—and a set of red leather cuffs dangling from the barber’s chair.
Shay had either missed her chance—or the grannies were hiding the body. Either way, she wouldn’t get the shop, which was more upsetting than she’d anticipated because even though it smelled vaguely of mothballs and hair tonic, the place was perfect. The deep bay windows lining the front of the shop would lend themselves to the vintage pet-shop feel Shay was going for. It was easy to picture her kittens wrestling in newspaper strips while families stood on Main Street and looked inside.
The crown molding and abundance of natural light filtering in through the beveled windows made it feel more like a home than a shop, and the two stations and barber chairs were visible from anywhere in the store. Shay could groom her animals before sending them home to their families—a little glamour station of sorts where they would don their kitty couture and doggie allure . . . all of which she would make available to customers for purchase. And if she tore out the shelves on other side of the room, it would make it wide enough to have animal-friendly cages spread around the store so her babies wouldn’t be stacked on top of each other and people could interact with each animal individually.
“Ida?” Shay called out, her voice bouncing off the walls. “Mr. Russell?”
“Back here,” Ida returned.
Shay followed the sound into the back room, which would make the perfect meet-and-greet area, and down a narrow hallway that led to—
“No way,” she whispered, taking in the beautiful arched cast-iron fence that bordered the entire perimeter of the space. “It’s beautiful.”
She couldn’t believe it. Unlike the Paws and Claws Day Spa, and many of the other shops on Main Street, this shop had a yard. Not large by any standard, but cozy and peaceful, completely draped in pink and orange bougainvillea and what appeared to be a million twinkle lights. It was as though she was walking into the pages of Pride and Prejudice.
“I don’t want to touch it!”
At Mr. Russell’s bark, Shay walked farther onto the patio, shocked to find a table covered in enough silk and lace to pass for the biggest panty raid in Napa County, and four guests already gathered around. Well, three guests digging through neon-rainbow G-strings, a duck with a bone in its beak, and one reluctant host sitting at the head of the table.
“Mr. Russell,” Shay said, going over to check his wrists for restraints, only to find a box of battery-operated equipment in his lap. “Are you okay?”
“Of course he’s okay,” Ida said, picking up the teensiest pair of panties Shay had ever seen and rolling them into a ball. A quick flick of the wrist later and it looked like a rose.