Kara Lennox - Reluctant Partners

Port Clara had one mall, if you could call it that, a collection of about twenty stores, mostly tourist-related. But the mall was anchored by a small department store and a couple of high-end boutiques.

Sara immediately zeroed in on the most expensive-looking of the stores. “This one,” she said. “I love the clothes in here.” She grabbed Allie by the arm and dragged her in, ignoring Cooper completely. Well, perhaps shopping just wasn’t something men really understood. He didn’t select his own clothes, after all. He had a personal shopper who knew his tastes and took care of all that for him.

But he did know what looked good on a woman. Sara veered to a rack of summery dresses first.

“No dresses!” Allie declared. “I don’t do dresses. Besides, I’m supposed to be the captain of a fishing boat. It wouldn’t be seemly. If I have to dress up, a pair of trousers and some kind of shirt will be fine.”

Sara looked disappointed, but she peered around the store until she saw what she wanted, then made a beeline for it. “This would look fabulous on you,” she said, grabbing a pair of white pants with a short jacket that matched. “And let’s see, how about a striped tee to wear underneath? That would be nautical.”

It also wouldn’t be sexy. Cooper looked around the store himself, trying to find something that matched his idea of what Allie should wear at the trade show. A couple of minutes later he found it: a blue-and-white halter dress with a plunging neckline. It had little anchors embroidered on the straps and around the bottom.

If he could get her to try it on, maybe to humor him, she would see how good it looked.

“What size do you wear?” Sara was asking.

“I don’t know,” Allie answered.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Allie shrugged. “I never go shopping. I don’t think I’ve bought any new clothes this century other than the uniform shirts I put the logo on, and I got those mail order. I think they’re a medium.”

Sara looked Allie up and down. “About a six, I’d say. We’ll just have to try.”

A sales clerk showed them to a dressing room. Cooper handed the halter dress to the clerk when she came back out. “Could you take this in to the redhead? I think she might like it.”

The clerk looked skeptical. “Didn’t she say no dresses?”

“She might change her mind,” Cooper said hopefully.

The clerk took the dress and disappeared again into the fitting rooms. He didn’t hear any screams of outrage, so he kept his fingers crossed. Having Allie in their booth at the trade show was a stroke of genius. Even if she wore a potato sack, with that gorgeous red hair and green eyes, she would pull people in-at least the men.

He wasn’t sure about advertising she was the captain. He still felt that people would be more comfortable with a man in charge. Sexist of him, he knew, but that was the way of the world. But he could work on that part of their plan later. One step at a time.

A few minutes later, Sara dragged Allie out of the dressing room. He had insisted he must see her in the clothes before making any decisions.

He hadn’t expected to like the white outfit, but now that he saw it on her, he realized Sara knew her stuff. The T-shirt’s scoop neck gave him an intriguing glimpse of the shadow between Allie’s full breasts, and the way those pants hugged her hips made his mouth go dry.

“Doesn’t she look fabulous, Cooper?” Sara said.

Allie was looking anywhere and everywhere but at him. She was actually trying to pull away from Sara, trying to escape back into the dressing room like a gopher seeking the safety of its burrow.

“She does, in fact, look fabulous.” His voice was low, laced with innuendo, though he hadn’t meant for it to come out like that.

Allie blushed in the way only a redhead can. “All right, fine, let’s buy it already.” She slipped Sara’s clutches and darted to safety.

“What about the dress?” Cooper asked.

“Haven’t gotten her into it yet,” Sara whispered, “but I’m working on it.”

ALLIE GAZED AT HER REFLECTION in the mirror and wasn’t quite sure what to think. She hadn’t seen herself in anything but denim and T-shirts since she’d graduated from baby clothes. She was a tomboy through and through. Her mother had practically had to tie her down to get her into proper school clothes.

Even for Johnny’s funeral, she’d borrowed a pair of black jeans and a sober shirt from Sara, and she certainly hadn’t bothered to look at herself in a mirror. Matter of fact, she hadn’t seen herself in a full-length mirror in…she didn’t know how long.

“You look great!” Sara tucked in the tag at the back of the halter dress. “Cooper’s right, you could be a model.”

“Oh, Sara, get real.”

“No, really, you’re a knockout. Little makeup, some earrings…I’d give anything to have your boobs. Well, you know what I mean.”

“It shows too much chest,” Allie argued, though she had to admit she kind of liked how she looked. She’d never thought of herself as sexy, or even very pretty. Growing up she’d always been “that redheaded Bateman girl,” with no figure to speak of and too many freckles.

But she actually did have a figure now.

“I really would be a booth bunny if I wore this to the trade show.” The dress fit as if it had been tailor-made for her. The soft knit clung to her every curve and moved when she did; the daring neckline showed more of her chest than even her bathing suit did.

“Cooper picked this out?”

“That’s what the salesgirl said. Oh, Allie, you have to buy it. If not for the trade show, then wear it to a party or something.”

“Cooper isn’t going to buy me clothes to wear to any party-as if I ever go to parties.”

“But you look so pretty.”

“No. Let’s find another top to wear with the white pants.”

It wasn’t difficult to find a blouse that coordinated with the white pants, and soon Cooper was at the register paying for their purchases while Sara looked over the purses.

“What about shoes?” she asked.

“I can wear my white deck shoes.”

“No! You’ll ruin the whole outfit. You need a pair of white strappy sandals.” With that declaration, Sara dragged Allie down the mall to a shoe store, and before she knew what was happening, Allie was trying on shoes. Anything with a high heel was out; she absolutely could not walk in them and couldn’t risk breaking an ankle.

They finally settled on some sandals that would probably rub blisters. But they were cute. Cooper didn’t even blink at the ridiculous price. Allie hadn’t paid that much for all of the shoes in her closet combined.

Cooper seemed to enjoy their shopping outing, which surprised her. Her father had refused to go near a shopping mall, and he’d claimed all men felt the same.

“Sara, do you mind if we make a stop before going back to the B and B?” Cooper asked as they headed back to his car.

“I’m in no hurry.”

“How come you didn’t ask if I minded?” Allie asked.

“’Cause you’re on the payroll.”

“I guess that makes you the boss of me,” Allie said dryly, but he was paying her, so she left it at that. She climbed into the back seat with all the shopping bags-she wasn’t up to polite conversation.

“I want to stop by a rental house,” Cooper explained. “I can’t stay in the B and B indefinitely. The owner said she’d be there all afternoon working on the yard.”

Allie was curious what sort of house Cooper would want to live in. Something with a lot of glass and cold stone, probably. So she was surprised when he pulled up in front of a white, two-story frame house with red shutters.

“I know this house,” Sara said. “The Mulvaneys live here. You know the Mulvaneys, Allie. Sam runs the Buick dealership. I used to baby-sit their kids.”