“I’ll bet people would still pay money for a handful of spells,” Kathy muttered.
“They’d pay money for colored water and talcum powder, too.” Pandora shrugged. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“Maybe you can offer matchmaking or something,” Kathy said, studying the beautifully detailed book. “People would flock to the store for that kind of thing.”
For one brief second, the idea of people believing in her enough to flock anywhere filled Pandora with a warm glow. She wanted so badly to offer what the other women in her family had. Comfort, advice, guidance. And a little magic.
Then her shoulders drooped. Because she had no magic to share. Even the one little thing her mother had tried to claim for her had been a failure.
“I’d let people down,” she said with a shake of her head. “Hell, when it comes to love stuff, I even let myself down.”
“You can’t let that asshole ruin your confidence,” Kathy growled, lowering the book long enough to glare. “It wasn’t your fault your boyfriend was a using, lying criminal.”
“Well, it was my fault I let him dupe me, wasn’t it? If I was so good at reading people, I’d have seen what was going on. I wouldn’t have let the glow of great sex cloud my vision.”
Just thinking about it made her stomach hurt.
She’d thought she was in love. She’d fallen for Sean Rafferty hard and fast. The bakery owner’s son was everything she’d wanted. Gorgeous. Funny. Sensitive. Her dream guy. She’d thought the fall was mutual, too. Great sex with an up-and-coming pharmacist who seemed crazy about her. He didn’t care that she didn’t have any special gift. And she hadn’t cared that she couldn’t seem to get a solid read on his body language. He’d said plenty. Words of love, of admiration.
Then Sean had been busted in an internet prescription scam. And, as if her shock of misreading him that much hadn’t been enough, they’d informed her that she was under arrest for collusion. Apparently, her own true love had run his scam using her computer IP address, and then told the police it was all her idea. It’d taken a month, a pile of lawyers’ fees and the word of one of Sean’s colleagues shooting for a plea deal to convince the cops that she’d been innocent. Clueless, gullible and stupid, but innocent.
His mother firing her had been the final straw. Whether she fit in or not didn’t matter, Pandora had needed to come home.
“What’s that book?” Kathy asked, clearly trying to distract her from a confidence-busting trip down memory lane.
Pandora gave an absent glance at the book in her lap. Faded ink covered pages that were brittle with age. Some of the writing she recognized as Grammy’s. Some she’d never seen before. Then, a tiny flame of excitement kindling in the back of her mind, she flipped the pages. “It’s a recipe book.”
“Oh.”
“Make that Oh!” Pandora angled the book to show her friend the handwritten notes above the ingredient list. “These are recipes for aphrodisiacs. Better than love spells, these don’t rely on a gift. They just require a talent for cooking.”
“Oh, I like that. Maybe you can whip up a tasty aphrodisiac or two for me?” Kathy said with a wicked smile. “I’d be willing to pay a pretty penny for guaranteed good sex.”
“Hot and fresh orgasms, delivered to your door in thirty minutes or less?” Pandora joked.
“Sure, why not? Maybe your éclairs aren’t quite as amazing as Mrs. Rae’s, but you’re still a damn good cook. So why not use that? Use those recipes? Put the word out, see what happens. If nothing else, it’ll stir up a little curiosity, right?”
It was a crazy idea. Aphrodisiacs? What the hell did Pandora know about sex, let alone sexual aids? The last time she’d seen Sean, he’d been behind bars and, probably for the first time in their relationship, honest when he’d told her that she’d been easy to use because she was naive about sex.
So unless it was a how-to-survive-and-thrive-alone, a do-it-yourself guide to pleasure on a budget, Pandora had very little to offer.
But could she afford to turn away from such a perfect idea?
Her mother would say she’d found this box, this idea, for a reason. Could she take the chance and ignore fate?
Pandora puffed out a breath and looked around the store. This was her heritage. Maybe she didn’t have a gift like the rest of the women in her family, but couldn’t this be her gift? To save the store?
While her brain was frantically spinning around for an answer, she paced the length of the counter and back. On her third round, Paulie lifted his black head off the carpet to give her the look of patience that only cats have.
“I guess we should do some research,” she finally said.
“Don’t you have all the recipes you need in that book?”
“I’m sure I do. But I need to find out what kind of food is going to lure in the most customers. Then I can use the recipes to add a special dash of aphrodisiac delight.”
As she reached under the counter to get a notepad and pen so she and Kathy could brainstorm, she had to shake her head.
Wasn’t it ironic? It was because of sex that she’d had to run home and now sex was going to be the thing that saved that home.
Two months later
“I NEED A FAVOR … A sexual favor, you might say.”
The words were so low, they almost faded into the dull cacophony of the bar’s noise. Pool cues smacking balls and the occasional fist smacking a face were typical in this low-end dive. Sexual favors were plentiful, too, but usually they involved the back room and cash in advance.
Caleb Black arched a brow and took a slow sip of his beer before saying, “That’s not the way I roll, but Christmas is coming. Want me to slap a bow on the ass of one of those fancy blow-up dolls and call it your present?”
Hunter’s dead-eyed look didn’t intimidate, but it did make Caleb hide his smirk in his beer. Caleb was known far and wide as a hard-ass dude with a bad attitude. But when he was around Hunter, he came off as sweetness and light on a sugar high.
The man was a highly trained FBI special agent swiftly rising in the ranks thanks to his brilliant mind, killer instincts and vicious right hook.
He was also Caleb’s college roommate and oldest, most trusted friend. Which meant poking at that steely resolve was mandatory.
“Okay, crossing blow-up doll off my shopping list,” Caleb decided. “But you should know that my sexual favors don’t come cheap.”
“From what I’ve heard, dirt cheap is more like it.”
Caleb’s smirk didn’t change. When a man was as good as he was with women, he didn’t need to defend his record. Knowing Hunter would get to the point in his own good time, Caleb leaned back, the chair creaking as he crossed his ankle over his knee and waited.
Always quick on the uptake, Hunter pushed his barely touched beer aside and leaned forward, his hands loose on the scarred table between them. Even in the dim bar light, his eyes shone with an intensity that told Caleb the guy was gonna try to sucker him in.
But Caleb had learned suckering at his daddy’s knee.
“You’re coming off a big case, right?” Hunter confirmed.
Not quite the tact he’d expected. But it wasn’t his game, so Caleb just nodded. And waited.
“Word