Chapter One
It’s not every day you have the opportunity to see the best-looking men of your acquaintance naked. Almost never, in fact. And after tonight, I doubted I ever would again.
The shoot for the Men of Millbury calendar had been going on all week in the carriage house of a local estate. It was a fund-raiser for the Millbury Historical Society and we were desperately trying to save an old farmstead once inhabited by one of the founders of our nineteenth-century village. However we were up against a builder who was intent on knocking the house down and putting up a slew of cookie-cutter condos on the accompanying thirty acres unless we could stop him.
We’d done the bake sale route. Now we needed some serious cash.
“Having fun, Daisy?” Mr. February, who also happened to be my very handsome husband, Joe Daly, came over and wrapped his arm around me.
I grinned and leaned into his embrace.
Not only did we want to save the character of our quaint neighborhood situated in bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but if we prevailed, the rambling farmhouse would be turned into a community center, providing badly needed recreation space for the local children.
Somehow my best friend, Martha, secretary of the society and a fiery redhead, had convinced these twelve brave souls to take it all off for the sake of historical preservation. Perhaps the fact that it would benefit the children had been the motivating factor, and not so much Martha’s salesmanship or, should I say, relentless arm-twisting.
“It’s crazy out there tonight,” Joe said to me. “Think you might need a couple of bouncers for the next guy.”
There was high excitement in the air. Tonight we would see the crème de la crème.
Dark and dangerous Detective Serrano, in the flesh.
Literally.
Although these guys weren’t completely baring it all. Depending on the way they made a living, the photographer had used a discreetly placed object to cover the family jewels, like a fire helmet, a barbershop chair, or a farming implement.
We were working in the garage of the carriage house, a beautiful space with heavy wooden timbers overhead and whitewashed walls. It was even heated, which was a definite plus on a wintry night. It would certainly have been easier to produce this calendar in the summer, when we could have used outdoor locations, but seeing as it was early November, the clock was ticking to get it printed and into stores in time for Christmas.
By the way, I’m Daisy Buchanan, the fiftysomething-year-old proprietress of Millbury’s antiques and sewing notions store called Sometimes a Great Notion. Actually I’m fifty-eight, but fifty-something sounds better. I’d kept my maiden name of Buchanan when we married. Joe was secure enough in his masculinity that he didn’t have a problem with that, or with sitting bare-bottomed on his lovingly restored vintage bicycle.
All in all, this project had been a lot of fun. Our models had been pretty good-natured about the whole thing. Privately, I think they’d quite enjoyed the fuss.
Tonight Joe had helped us by hauling in bales of hay and stacks of gourds into the garage, because first up under the lights was Mr. October, a former mailman whose hobby was growing giant pumpkins. He was in his early sixties now, but still in good shape thanks to years of extreme gardening. The plan called for him to hold a pumpkin in front of the essential bits, and there’d been lots of cheerful ribbing going on.
“Hey, that’s a mini pumpkin!” he’d yelled, still fully clothed, when Martha handed him his prop. “I’m gonna need a bigger one than that!” Martha had finally given Mr. October a large enough pumpkin to satisfy his manly ego, and she swept over to us, carrying a clipboard and trailing Cyril Mackey in her wake. I wasn’t sure what the clipboard was for, seeing as we only had two models to keep track of, but I didn’t dare ask.