“Tossing back a few with my buddies and effectively leading my crew are two different things.” He shook his head as if disgusted. “And having some girl post a photo in nothing but a G-string and my work jacket isn’t the best way to prove I’m ready for a promotion.”
“Especially when a few days later you are rumored to be hooking up with me.” Guilt filled Harper’s chest. “I’m so sorry, Adam. I had no idea.”
“The misconception seems to be county-wide,” he said, and a powerful surge of protectiveness sparked. “Normally this whole thing would blow over as a big joke, another locker-room story about the Five-Alarm Casanova, but . . .” He shrugged, his expression so full of embarrassment, Harper wanted to hug him.
“I will clear everything up. With Emerson and Chantel. I will call her as soon as my class ends and tell her I lied.”
A strange expression settled on his face. “Won’t you lose the account?”
Harper didn’t want to think about that. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Probably. “Chantel might look past it.”
Adam glanced down Main Street toward the firehouse. “Look, we both messed up, but I don’t want you losing the account. So as long as you tell Emerson and Megan it’s okay to work Beat the Heat, I can handle the rest.”
“What about Chantel?”
Adam shrugged. “Chantel lives in San Francisco. It’s not like she’s privy to St. Helena gossip. So what if she thinks we’re dating?”
Harper shrugged, then stared at her shoes. “Actually, I may have also implied that you’d be willing to model their new line for a campaign for Clovis’s shop, and maybe a sample page for the online catalog?”
“Like the pictures we took for Shay’s calendar?”
“Just like that,” Harper said, picturing Adam in his turnout pants holding a rescued bulldog. She felt her cheeks flush. “Only . . . you’d be wearing nothing but underwear.”
Adam drew in a startled breath, and she knew right then that it didn’t matter if they were silk or cotton, posing in underwear wasn’t lieutenant material.
Why didn’t you tell me he was going to be playing?” Harper asked, glancing out at the baseball field as she placed a stack of food tickets in the window of Emerson’s food truck.
“If by he you mean your boyfriend, it was because I wanted to see you squirm,” Emerson said, dropping several pita wraps onto the hot griddle.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Harper said in a hushed whisper. “I don’t even know if we’re friends.”
“Sounds complicated,” Shay Baudouin said from inside. She was standing next to the prep counter, eating baklava straight from the tray.
“Worse,” Harper said.
It was Thursday night and the weekly Napa County Sheriff’s Department softball game. With Dax geared up and on the field, Emerson was short on backup for her food truck. It was deputies versus firefighters, and with Harper running orders in the stands and Adam down on the field, it seemed as if the entire town had come out for the game.
The stands were heavy on the sixty-five-and-older crowd, all vying for Nora Kincaid’s fifty-dollar reward for the best candid shot of St. Helena’s Miracle Match. The fine print clarified the fifty dollars was to be paid in double-day coupons to the local pharmacy, but since Bottles and Bottles was a pharmacy and a wine shop, the coupons were a hot commodity.
And if that weren’t complicated enough, the rest of the stands were filled with twenty-somethings, and a few bold cougars, all wanting to see with their own eyes if the Five-Alarm Casanova was really off the market.
Something Harper intended to clear up when she went to talk to Megan. Which she was totally going to do—tomorrow. She’d already come clean with Emerson, who had agreed to cater Beat the Heat as long as Adam agreed to keep his hose out of trouble. Now Harper needed to admit to a woman who was everything Harper would never be that it was all a big joke. Which made her feel like a big joke.
“I told you it was all a big misunderstanding, but actually I lied and got caught.” Harper strategically avoided her friend’s glare, instead paying particular attention to arranging the mouthwatering baklava. Sweet and gooey and drizzled with enough honey she nearly forgot that it was after seven in the evening and she still had several hours of inventory waiting for her back at the Fashion Flower.
“And I believed you,” Emerson said, “but then someone told me they saw you kissing Adam on Main Street.” Emerson might be dressed in pink sparkly high-tops and an apron that said KISS THE COOK, but beneath the recently engaged glow was a ninja master, with knives and at doling out guilt.