Lingerie Wars (The Invertary books) (31 page)

"Fine," she said at last. "But don't go easy on her."

"I won't." And before Kirsty could stop him, he leaned in to kiss her.

He wanted her to know that the theft hadn't changed a thing between them. The shop and whatever it was they were doing were separate issues.

"I wish my eyesight had gone years ago to save me from seeing these things," Betty said.

Kirsty gave him a bashful little smile, scowled at Betty and left.

Lake looked at his underwear mascot and sighed. He was pretty sure that when you had kids you got them as a baby, and by the time you hit the difficult teenage years you were used to them. With Betty, he'd skipped all that and gained an unruly teenager that looked like Yoda. If he'd known that buying a shop for his sister also meant he bought Betty, he would have thought long and hard about it. Lake sat in one of the over-soft sofas that were designed to swallow you whole.

"What are we going to do about this?" he said.

"Nothing. I did what I had to."

"You have to give her the underwear back."

"No. I don't."

Lake was seriously close to losing his cool. In the army they'd called him "Lake Placid", because nothing made him lose control. Twenty years of high-pressure situations paled in comparison to one morning stuck in Betty's house.

"You need to tell me where it is." He had to work at keeping his voice calm. "We need two lingerie shops in the show. That's how the publicity was planned. If she doesn't show, then we won't benefit."

Something flickered in Betty's eyes. He wasn't sure what it was exactly, but he hoped it was a sign she was cracking.

"She needs to be out of the show, son," Betty said. "If she wins the war, then our shop will shut and you'll go away."

Her lip quivered slightly and the wind went out of Lake.

"I'm going away anyway, Betty," Lake told her. "This was never a permanent thing for me. I plan to sell the shop as soon as I can. I have a business opportunity waiting for me and if I don't buy in by the new year, I lose my chance."

Her wee shoulders slumped. Suddenly, she looked all of her eighty-six years.

"You can't sell the shop," she said.

"I'm not cut out to sell lingerie," he said softly. "I'm more suited to a security business. I have the skills for that. I want to do it. I'm looking forward to doing it."

"But you like it here in Invertary, I can tell," she said.

Lake smiled at her.

"Yeah, I like it here. It's a whole lot more interesting than I thought it would be, but I also like the idea of running my own security company."

She looked straight at him, her eyes wide and her heart laid bare. Lake shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Nobody else includes me," she said. "Everybody thinks I'm old and useless."

"That's not true. People don't include you because you're mean and have a sick sense of humour."

"I have a superior sense of humour, son. It goes over their heads."

He smiled at her.

"I can't stay in Invertary, Betty. You know that."

"You could if you wanted to. You could start a security business here."

"It wouldn't be the same."

"No. It would be better."

Lake smiled at her. He didn't say anything.

"We did have fun, though, didn't we?" she said.

Lake felt his breakfast bubble in his stomach.

"Yeah, we did." For some reason he wanted to put his arm around her, but that would have humiliated both of them. "Now." He cleared his throat. "Are you going to give Kirsty back her underwear?"

"Not on your life," she said with her trademark evil grin. "You'll have to prise it from my cold, dead hands. And, much to everybody's disappointment, that won't be for a while yet."

Lake sat back in the marshmallow couch and felt something dig into his back.

"You're bloody impossible," he told her.

She grinned with pride. Lake reached behind him to pull out the thing that was prodding his back. It was Betty's teeth.

"Excellent," she said. "I've been looking for those. Be a dear and give them a wash."

Lake hung his head and sighed.

"It could be worse," Magenta said when Kirsty made it back to the shop.

Kirsty felt her eyebrows rise.

"How, exactly?" she said.

"After everything you've done the past couple of weeks you could have landed in jail. As it is, you only lost your underwear."

"I didn't lose it. It was stolen."

"Yes, but get some perspective. Jail. Missing lingerie. I know what I'd rather have happen."

She had a point.

"All the effort I put in to fighting Lake was pointless," Kirsty said. "If I can't take part in the show then Lake has won. I'm rubbish at war."

"Not everything was a disaster," Magenta said mischievously.

Kirsty eyed her curiously.

"What have you been up to?"

"Well, I didn't want all those pictures we Photoshopped to go to waste, so I've been spreading them around the web. Look." She handed her phone to Kirsty.

There was a Facebook page entitled "The real Lake Benson". Kirsty started to laugh. The photo of Lake with a huge beer belly was particularly entertaining.

"Feel better?" Magenta said.

"A little. Still, it doesn't solve the problem of a fashion show and no fashion."

She plopped into her desk chair and stared at the walls.

"I'll leave you to think about it," Magenta said.

She gave Kirsty a pitying smile before she went back into the shop.

Kirsty sighed heavily. She wasn't hopeful that Lake would find her missing underwear. She'd known Betty a lot longer than he had and knew how stubborn she could be. She needed a backup plan, and fast. As the first winter snows began to fall on Invertary, Kirsty spent her time calling all of her suppliers. The answer was the same across the board—it wasn't possible to get the lingerie she needed in the time she needed it. In frustration, Kirsty stared at the walls in her design space.

Using her own work would be beyond crazy. There wasn't enough of it for a start, and it was too fragmented to form a collection. As she scanned her drawings on the wall, her eye hit on one in particular. She unpinned it. An idea began to form, which was closely followed by a bubble of excitement. Before she could talk herself out of it, she snatched up her coat, called to Magenta that she was going out and went to see her mother.

The women of Knit Or Die were in their usual spot at the back of her mother's shop and they didn't seem too happy to see her.

"If you've come here with more plans for illegal activity you can leave right now," said Shona.

"I nearly died of a heart attack during that break-in," Jean complained. "Not to mention it's a miracle I'm still in one piece. I can't pass a shop window without breaking out in a rash."

"Don't worry," Heather told her. "It could have happened to anyone. I would have run through the window too if Betty was chasing me."

Jean didn't look so sure.

"I'm not cut out for a life of crime," Jean complained, and no one disagreed with her.

"I don't have any more illegal plans in mind," Kirsty told them. "But I do need your help."

They waited while her mother got her a cup of tea. The sound of the knitting needles clacking away soothed the nerves of everyone in the room. Once the mugs of tea had arrived it was time to talk.

"I have a bit of a problem with the lingerie for the runway show," Kirsty told them. "Betty stole it."

There were gasps all around and the knitting stopped. Instead everyone reached for the plate of chocolate biscuits that had appeared in the middle of the table.

"Are you thinking about a hitman?" Shona asked.

"No!" Kirsty stared at her.

"What?" Shona shrugged. "It seemed the logical next step to me."

"Where would we even find a hitman?" Kirsty's mother said.

"I hear you can get them on the internet," Shona said. "Or in one of those dodgy pubs in Glasgow."

"I don't need a hitman," Kirsty said. "I need help with sewing." She took a deep breath. "I've decided to put together a show based on my own work, and I can't sew it all in the time I have left. The fashion show is in ten days. The town is already filling up with tourists. If I don't get help to sew, I'll need to pull out and Lake will win."

There were cries of outrage.

"We can't have that." Her mother leaned over the table to pat her hand. "Of course we can help sew—can't we, girls?"

"Absolutely," they agreed.

Kirsty felt the tension go out of her shoulders as she smiled back at them.

"We can call ourselves Sew Or Die," Jean said.

Heather nodded. "Sew Or Die—Organised For Fashion," she amended.

"You realise the acronym is 'SOD OFF'?" Shona told her.

Heather grinned widely.

"I know," she said.

"Okay," Kirsty said loudly to get their attention yet again. "I have another problem. I don't have any material and I don't have time to go to Glasgow to get any." She turned to her mother. "Do you still have that tartan stuff you bought years ago?"

Her mother thought hard.

"I think so."

She disappeared into the back of the shop, and after a while she came out with a roll of red tartan cotton, which came straight from the punk era.

"Perfect," Kirsty said, and gave her mum a hug. "I'm going to need other things too. Bra clasps, lace, that sort of thing."

Her mother motioned to the shop.

"You can use whatever you find," she said. "And what I don't have I'm sure Shona has. She's been stocking up on craft supplies for thirty years."

"One garage and an attic full of it. I bet I have everything you need."

Kirsty grinned widely at the women.

"Fantastic," she said. "When can we start?"

"We'll go get our sewing machines," Heather said. "You get the sketches sorted and cut out the pieces you need. Jean is a dab hand at pattern making if that helps."

Jean nodded as the women collected their coats and disappeared.

"This is going to be great," her mother said once they were gone.

"My only hope is that we can pull it off."

Kirsty reached up to rub the tension out of her neck and stilled. She was wearing her open-necked dress—only she'd forgotten to put on a scarf. For the first time since the accident, she was walking around with the scars on her neck showing. For a second she wasn't sure what she thought about that, and then, with a slow smile, she decided it was okay. No one had commented. No one had even noticed. Spontaneously, she pulled her mother into a big hug.

"What's this for?" her mother said. "Not that I mind!"

"Just love you," Kirsty said as she grinned over the top of her head.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lake was punching the living daylights out of a heavy bag in the back room of his shop when his phone rang. After a day searching Betty's house for lingerie, he needed to hit something. He slipped off his gloves, unwrapped his hand and looked to see who was calling. He frowned slightly at the sight of his old army mate's number. He'd been expecting John to get back to him weeks earlier.

"You took your time," Lake said by way of hello.

"I'm a busy man," John told him. "What? Did you think I would drop everything and do your bidding?"

Lake grunted.

"How's it going with raising the cash?" John said.

"Fine," Lake said as he reached for a bottle of water. "I'm on schedule."

"Your enthusiasm underwhelms me," John said.

Lake said nothing. Truth be told, he would miss Invertary more than he liked to acknowledge.

"Don't worry about the money," he told John.

"Good, because there are other guys queuing to get in on this."

"Yeah, but none of them would be as good as me."

John's laughter barked in his ear.

"That's true. But seriously, Lake, you need to get a move on. I've got some heavyweight clients lined up for the new year. This business is going to take off fast. We'll be number one in international private security within the year. Mark my words."

"I always do," Lake said. "I marked them well that time you told us that the enemy was miles away and then we practically walked right over them."

"One little mistake," John grumbled. "You'll forget all about that once we're Prentice and Benson—security specialists."

Lake grinned.

"Benson and Prentice," he said. "My name has to come first. I'm the skill in this operation. It won't take long for all those high-flying clients of yours to figure out that you couldn't find your own backside with a map and a flashlight."

"Funny. But right now the business is just Prentice Security. The name doesn't change until I have cash in my hand."