LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      “Must have heard about the yippee-skippy you’re offering up,” Mrs. Sellers predicted, heading out the door hand in hand with her tottering hunk of afternoon delight.

      As one, Pandora sighed and Lilah sneered.

      “That’s disgusting,” Lilah muttered.

      “What is? The idea of two people enjoying each other’s company?”

      “You know they’re sneaking off to have sex,” the woman said, hissing the last word as if it were pure evil. The overblown brunette averted her eyes from the elderly couple as though she was worried that they wouldn’t hold out until they toddled all the way to their love nest, instead giving in and doing the nasty right there in the doorway.

      “And sex is bad … Why?” Pandora put on her most obnoxious, innocently sweet smile. “From what I heard, you were having it a couple nights ago. Wasn’t it in the backseat of an old Nova parked behind Lander’s Market?”

      Fifi giggled, forcing Lilah to split her glare between the two women.

      Before she could spill her ire, though, the chimes over the door sang. And in walked Pandora’s worst nightmare. The sexiest man she’d ever seen, wearing black leather and a dangerous attitude. The kind of guy who could make her forget her own name, right along with her convictions, her vow of chastity and where she’d left her underpants.

      Black hair swept back from a face worthy of a GQ cover. Sharp cheekbones, a chiseled, hair-roughened chin and vivid gold eyes topped broad shoulders and long, denim-clad legs that seemed to go on forever.

      Pandora’s hormones sighed in appreciation as desire flared, smoking hot, in her belly. She wanted to leap over the counter and slide that leather jacket off those wide shoulders and see up close and personal if his chest and arms lived up to the promise of the rest of his body.

      “Oh, my,” Fifi breathed.

      “Hubba hubba,” Lilah moaned.

      “Go away,” Pandora muttered.

      The guy paused just inside the door, then knelt down to give Paulie’s head a quick rub before straightening and looking around. His narrowed gaze seemed to take in everything in one quick glance. Then his eyes locked on Pandora’s. Nerves battled with lust as she felt something deep inside click. A recognition. And that soul-deep terror that this was a man who spelled trouble in every way possible.

      “LADIES,” CALEB GREETED, barely aware of the two women on his side of the counter. His eyes were glued on the sweet little dish on the other side.

      Her hair, a dark auburn so deep it looked like mahogany, tumbled over her shoulders in a silken slide, the tips waving over the sweet curve of her breasts. She wore a simple white shirt that draped gently over her curves instead of hugging them, and tiny silver earrings that made her look like a sweet-faced innocent. From the fresh-faced look, she didn’t have any makeup on, either. Or maybe it just seemed that way because she was standing next to a gal who troweled it on like spackle.

      “Well, hello there,” Spackle Gal said. The brunette, dressed as if she moonlighted on the stroll, minced her way across the floor to lay a red-taloned hand on his arm. “It’s a pleasure to have you here in Black Oak. I’m the welcome wagon, and I’d be happy to show you a good time while you’re visiting our little town.”

      His brow arched, Caleb glanced at her hand, then back at her face. It only took her a second to get a clue and move her fingers back where they belonged.

      “I know the town just fine, thanks,” he dismissed. His gaze went back to the sweetie behind the counter. “Apparently I don’t know everyone in town as well as I’d like, though.”

      The brunette gave a little hiss. Caleb ignored her. Despite her clear message of a free-and-easy good time, he wasn’t interested.

      He’d only come in to check the place out. Not because he was interested in … He looked around, wondering what the hell they sold here. This store shared the alley with what was apparently his father’s motorcycle shop. His dad had still been on the take when Caleb had lived in Black Oak, so his shop was new, and Caleb’s familiarity with this

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