Bliss (19 page)

Sera's face warmed. Oh, she'd like to explore some of Asher's favorite spots, that was for sure. And maybe she could introduce him to a few of her own…

Focus, fool,
she told herself sternly.
You're here to start your life over, not blow it all to hell again over a guy who'd be way out of your league even if you
didn't
have that pesky no-O problem.

Sera slung her messenger bag more securely across her body and hoisted Big Mama onto her hip. She turned away from the men, heading for the door.

“I'm gonna need some wheels,” was what she said.

T
here are times in life, Pauline, when a woman just needs a man.”

Hortencia had been arguing as much to her lover for the last twenty minutes. It wasn't going over well. If they hadn't had an audience, as a matter of fact, Sera feared it might have come to blows. Fortunately, they were at Hortencia's place of business, and even Pauline had enough decorum to keep her outrage at a simmer within the hushed confines of the yarn shop.

As Hortencia and Pauline bickered, Sera busied herself examining a ball of something that looked remarkably like one of the Tribbles from
Star Trek
. Orange, fluffy, and incredibly soft, the mohair puffball perched on the top of Hortencia's counter among dozens of its friends in a rainbow array of colors. She wondered if it would start cooing if she petted it, as she was tempted to do. All around her, similar poofs in all shapes and sizes crowded bins and shelves, threatening to tumble forth in an avalanche of crafty softness.

Hortencia was one of three employees at Knit-Fit, all comfortable-looking women in the fifty-plus age bracket who took their art with deadly seriousness. Today, Hortencia was sporting one of her own creations: a cable-knit Aran sweater of astonishingly intricate design in a soft salmon shade Sera wouldn't personally have chosen. She also had a little crocheted flower brooch in a slightly rosier hue pinned to her bosom, and her homemade socks, peeking out of her sage green Merrell mules, were an alpaca blend in complementary tea rose ripples. She looked utterly at home in the shop.

She also looked pretty pissed off.

“We
need
a man,” she was insisting to Pauline. “I've been buying my family's cars for decades, and I'm telling you, you get a better deal if you go with a
caballero.
”

“I am physically
nauseated
that you would suggest such a thing, Hortencia Alvarez.” Pauline made a gagging sound, grabbing up a ball of yarn and squeezing the fiber until it bulged out between her fingers. “What did our sisters march for, what did we sacrifice and fight for all these years if, here and now in the twenty-first century, we're still depending on men to do our haggling?”

“Which do you think
Sera
cares more about? Her principles or her bank balance?” Hortencia shot back.

Both women turned their attention to Serafina, who was suddenly very busy examining the wool-to-alpaca ratio on the label of a ball of worsted weight.

“Well? What do you say, kiddo? Do you want that knuckle-dragging Malcolm McLeod along to infantilize and disempower you, or can you stand on your own two feet and make your own bargains?”

Sera smothered a grin. “Oh, I don't know, Aunt Paulie. I think I could use all the help I can get.” She gave Pauline's shoulder a squeeze to mitigate the sting of her betrayal, taking a moment to appreciate her aunt's T-shirt du jour, which was silk-screened with a faded image of Helen Reddy in her heyday. Underneath, someone—undoubtedly Pauline—had scrawled a caption in Sharpie marker: “I am Woman. Hear me r-O-ar!”

“See?” Hortencia indulged in a moment of genteel gloating. “Sera sees the sense in what I'm saying. We need a man for this mission, and Mr. McLeod was available—
and
suitably threatening-looking. So quit your bitching, drop that stitching, and let's get on the road already.”

“You just like the way he flirts with you,” Pauline grumbled to Hortencia, arms crossed beneath her braless breasts, innocent yarn skein squashed in the grip of her white-knuckled fist.

Sera smothered a grin. It was true, Malcolm
had
looked a whole lot more amenable to the suggestion of playing token Y-chromosome for their car-shopping expedition once he'd caught his first gander at Hortencia. In fact, when she'd introduced them the other day, it was the first time she'd ever seen her pie Nazi completely bereft of his customary bluster.

Pauline, who had already taken a deep dislike to the Scotsman when
she'd
met him a few days earlier, had been quick to notice his uncharacteristic pleasantness. She'd been even quicker to disparage the Scotsman's character, appearance, and capabilities both culinary and contractorial once McLeod was out of earshot. Though she was raring to take on her new career as late-in-life counter commander at the new bakery, Pauline wasn't at all keen on working with a “chauvinistic, unkempt caveman” who saved his only sweetness for his pies—and her life partner. Hortencia had pooh-poohed her disparagements, claiming to find McLeod a rather winning individual. That, of course, had set off a whole new round of arguments between the lovebirds, which they appeared to have resolved in the privacy of Pauline's boudoir. Sera was just glad the house's adobe walls were a foot thick.

In truth, Sera didn't know whether to be amused at or envious of the two women's closeness. What, she wondered, would it be like to have someone—Asher, for instance—jealous over her?

Don't be ridiculous, Sera,
she chided herself.
Who's his competition? The last man you dated was so fond of you he's spent the last year trying to ruin your life and crush your career. You're not exactly a man-magnet. You're lucky Asher's as kind to you as he has been, but you better forget any fantasies that he's suddenly going to develop a mad, passionate crush on your sorry self.

Then Sera shook herself mentally.
Whoa. Who hit the bummer button? It's too damn nice a day to go feeling sorry for yourself,
said the healthier part of her mind—the part she'd been working on developing since she'd stopped pickling it with booze.
Think about it. Maybe you've
had a few romantic disasters. Maybe relationships aren't your forte, but you've still got a lot going for you.
You're young (well, youngish), you're free, and you're about to buy your very first car. Stop being a dweeb about your landlord and get with the program.

For a wonder, her brain actually behaved. Sera refocused on the day ahead of her and the women she was with.
Gratitude,
she heard Maggie's voice remind her.
Think about where you've been, and feel blessed at how much better things are
now. She brought herself back to the present—the brisk, sunny day, the woolly-smelling, colorful yarn shop, and her family. Nutty as they were, she wouldn't change them for the world.

“For the
last
time, you ludicrous woman,” Hortencia was saying as she gathered up her windbreaker and tugged it on over her sweater, “we are not having this argument again.” She slung her handbag over her shoulder. “I swear to God, you'd think I was Miss America if you listen to that one,” she said to Sera, winking. “Just this morning she was ready to belt the bag boy at Trader Joe's for offering to double bag my groceries.”

“I'm
sure
there was a
double entrendre
in there,” Pauline muttered, lobbing the well-squeezed skein into a bin of matching yarn. “You should have seen the outrageous wink he gave her, Bliss,” Pauline insisted. “Like I wasn't standing
right there!
”

“He had an eyelash in his eye, fool,” Hortencia snickered, chivvying them out the door and waving good-bye to her coworkers, who were sipping Earl Grey and poring over a pattern book at the back of the store. The door closed behind them with a jingle as light as Sera was determined to keep her mood.

The three women walked the block and a half from Knit-Fit to
Placita de Suerte y Sueños,
and Sera was pleased to hear the sound of hammering and saws from within her half-baked store by the time they passed beneath the portico and caught sight of the earth mother fountain. Things had been going well with the renovations as far as she could tell. She was no expert on demolition, but Malcolm seemed to have done the deconstruction in record time—probably eager to get his fixtures out of storage in the moving truck and installed in their new home. Aruni, she imagined, was probably a bit less pleased, as the commotion was sure to be harshing the mellow of her students' yoga classes at Tantrastic. The yogini had assured her everything was fine, however. “Every time I hear the hammering,” she'd chirped, “I just think, “we're that much closer to homemade croissants and cupcakes!” Sera had been keeping Aruni's students in yoga-suitable treats as a special thank-you for their patience with the construction. Though multigrain energy bars sweetened with brown rice syrup were personally not Sera's bag, she was more than happy to whip up a batch now and again for a good cause.

“Why we couldn't just ask Asher is beyond me,” Pauline was saying as they passed Lyric Jewelry. “If you're so fired up to lug along a Y-chromosome on this mission, you could have at least gone with someone easier on the eye. I'm sure he'd be happy to help us…”

“We're not asking Asher,” Sera said quellingly, keeping her voice low as they brushed past the extravagant foliage that shaded his shop. It wasn't the first time she'd vetoed the idea. “The man's done enough for us as it is, and I'm not taking advantage of his good nature for every little thing,” she insisted. What she'd
like
to take advantage of was hardly his good nature, but Sera wasn't about to cop to that. She kept her eyes studiously averted from his shop windows. Though things had been cordial between them since the kiss incident, Sera hadn't wanted to push her luck, and she still wasn't sure what the deal was with her and Asher. Was he interested? Was she?

Oh, c'mon, you liar. You're interested.

But Sera had decided that, interest or not, she wasn't going to pursue her sexy landlord. Even if she
could
catch his fancy—and she wasn't at all confident of that, kiss notwithstanding—things were simply going too well in her life right now to take such a risk. She'd rather focus on what she could control, rather than her unmanageable attraction to a man who was way out of her league, and whom she could never hope to satisfy.

Speaking of things I can't control…
Sera's eyes widened as Malcolm barreled out of the store, dusted head to toe in white plaster and cursing up a storm.

“I canna go w'ye today, and that's all there is to it,” he blurted out, his brogue thicker than the dust that blanketed his coveralls. “Damn plaster won't set right and these idjits”—he waved back toward the shop, where his crew of day laborers were doing their best to ignore him—“wouldn't know spackle from shite if I dunked their fool heads in a bucket of it. So dinna give me no grief, woman. 'Tis impossible.” He stopped short when he saw the two older women. His florid face was all set to fall into a scowl at the sight of Pauline when his gaze was arrested by the shorter, grandmotherly Hortencia. Malcolm rocked back on his heels, one hand self-consciously moving to dust off his long ponytail and smooth stray strands back from his whiskery cheeks. “Och, sorry, Miss Alvarez. I dinna see ye there.”

“Hello, Mr. McLeod. Do I take it from your disheveled appearance that you need to reschedule?” Hortencia was cordial, no more, but Sera could see even that much warmth was too much for Pauline. Sera's aunt moved closer, slinging an arm ostentatiously around her lover's shoulders. Hortencia shot her a disbelieving look and shrugged out of Pauline's clutches.

Malcolm's eyes traveled back and forth between the two older women, assessing. “Afraid so,” he allowed. “I hope ye'll not hold it against me.”

Sera was more worried about flaky plaster than flaky contractors. She took a step forward to see what was going on inside the store, but Pauline grabbed a handful of the back of her jean jacket. “Certainly not,” Pauline said crisply. “I'm quite sure we can manage without your”—she looked the dusty Scot up and down—“assistance.”

Sera had never heard Pauline sound quite so schoolmarmish. She gave her aunt a smooch on the cheek for being so cute—and for keeping her from obsessing over what was going on inside her half-demolished place of business. “I'm sure we'll be fine on our own,” she said. “C'mon, ladies, let's get a move on.”

“Did you need help with something, Bliss?”

Asher's voice brought Sera up short. But then, she always felt she came up just a little bit short when her landlord made an appearance.

It was Pauline who answered Asher. “Hey there, hot stuff. As a matter of fact, we
could
use a little help here, if you've got an hour or so to spare.”

“Oh, no, Pauline, really,” Sera protested. She turned reluctantly to face Asher. Sometimes just the sight of his handsome face socked her in the gut with a feeling she could only describe as “sucker punch.” Today was one of those days. Asher stood leaning on his porch rail, sporting a white linen shirt, untucked, collar open to reveal the heavy silver chain around his neck. If there was ever a man born to wear white linen, Sera thought, it was Asher Wolf. Khakis and scuffed motorcycle boots completed the look, and his hair was an artless tussle of gold-bronze spikes. Tucked under one arm was Silver, tongue lolling. The puppy barked a greeting.

“Ash, Sera needs a man. Today.”

Even Hortencia winced at Pauline's pronouncement, shooting Sera a sympathetic look.

Her landlord straightened up. Was it her imagination, or did he look alarmed?

“Aunt Pauline!” Sera cried. “I do not!” She turned to Ash. “Seriously! I'm all good. No man required. Happily man-less here!” Her voice was a squeak, her face redder than a chile ristra.

One corner of his generous mouth quirked up. He hefted the pup higher, and Silver, snugly ensconced in his master's grip, gave him a snuffly puppy lick on his ear.

Sera understood the impulse.

“Nonsense,” Pauline snorted, slapping Sera on the back rather harder than necessary. She shot her niece a look Sera wasn't the least tempted to try to interpret. “Weren't we all just saying how important it was to have a swinging dick around on a mission like today's?”