Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena) by Marina Adair Read Free Book Online

questions than answers. Then, since sexy was in the accessories, or so she’d heard, she’d slipped on the naughtiest pair of panties in the shop, mile-high heels, and applied just enough makeup to appear flushed.
    With one last look in the mirror, she fluffed her hair and hoped it looked more like bed-rumpled waves than corkscrew curls, then strutted out of the dressing room and into the shop. Where she nearly tripped over her feet.
    The Boulder Holder, where she’d spent countless hours after work giving it a fresh, new, youthful look—a transformation, really—was packed full of customers. Women of all shapes and sizes—curvy, petite, willowy, and buxom—had turned out in a show of support. The problem was, they were all retired.
    There wasn’t an arthritis-free or girdle-less gal among the group. Except for one—the runway-ready thirty-something with shiny black hair and perfect allure who stood at the entryway of the shop, a red journal in hand, frantically taking notes as someone asked where the banana-hammock display had been moved.
    “Grandma,” Harper whispered, dashing over to the register, her head pounding each time she watched a customer rifle through the racks like it was the yearly bloomers blowout and not the most important day for the shop. “Why are all these people here? We have the Lulu Allure meeting today.”
    “That’s why I called in backup. I figured if the rep saw how packed the store was she’d change her mind. All it took was me mentioning a free banana-hammock with every purchase of twenty dollars or more before noon, and the knitting club cleared out and the girls started lining up.” Clovis took in the crowded store and smiled, big and proud.
    Harper took in Clovis with her blue eye shadow, coral lips, and emerald lace bustier she was wearing as a top and groaned.
    “We wanted to prove we have a youthful edge. Flirty summer romance, boudoir sexy—that was the plan, remember?” It was a good plan. One that ten minutes ago Harper had been certain would sway the rep’s opinion of the shop.
    “Oh, I remember all right. That’s why I told the girls no dentures or orthopedic shoes allowed.” Which explained why Mrs. Sharp was moving her lips like she was a ventriloquist.
    “These aren’t girls, they’re grandmas,” Harper pointed out. “And call me crazy, but when I think of Summer of Seduction, saggy breasts and Bengay don’t really come to mind.”
    “We might be up there in age, but we are all widow’s peak women,” Clovis chided, clearly offended.
    “Widow’s peak women?” Harper asked.
    “Women in their seventies who are embracing their sexuality. In fact, WPWs are enjoying the best sex of their lives, and enjoying it three times more often than you and your youngster crowd. Just ask Giles.”
    Harper gagged a little. “I’ll take your word for it.”
    Giles Rousseau was weathered, pushing eighty, and Clovis’s gentleman friend. They had both stubbornly circled each other for two decades, then last year Giles finally made his move, taking them from foes to frisky in a single night, and now they cohabitated in a quaint cottage off Main Street and co-parented their dog, Jabba.
    “Good sex or not—”
    “ Great sex, dear. There’s a difference.”
    It had been so long, Harper wouldn’t know.
    “The point is, how am I supposed to present our ideas to the rep when your widow’s peak women are rifling through the merchandise and picking apart the store we worked all last night finishing up?”
    Clovis took in the store once again, the swarm of biddies, the picked-over displays, and leaned heavier on her cane, letting loose a deflating sigh. “Oh my, I really blew it, didn’t I?”
    Clovis didn’t understand the concept of moderation. Everything she did, she did with gusto—including love. Which was why Harper pulled the older woman into her arms and whispered the same comforting phrase her grandmother had told her a hundred times as a kid: “Anything