Sage had never walked through Eclectic Finds horny before. It made every piece from silk and lace to breast salt and pepper shakers and one of a kind blown wine decanters more decadent than she’d ever imagined. Suddenly, she could feel the cool, slippery fabric sliding across her skin and the hot press of too tight leather holding her just in the right place—all without trying on one single garment.

“Come on slow pokes, what the hell were you three doing over there, having an orgy?”

Sage choked. “Maxine!” Though it wasn’t a bad idea—just her and Parker, of course, and not in a public place. Nothing inspired the hot and heavy like Blayne’s new collection. She fanned her face. Maybe she’d give him a personal tour as soon as they were finished helping Maxine with whatever she had going on this time.

Maxine put her hands on her hips, making her well-tailored jacket open in the front, revealing another bustier. She may have added a new staple to her wardrobe. The woman always dressed to impress.

And it was one of the things Sage admired about the woman who knew this town so well.

She was her own woman, living to please herself. She did what she wanted, said what she wanted, and really lived life in the way that spoke to her. And she never let anyone put limitations on how she did it.

Sage had never told her, but she thought it was one of the most romantic things she’d ever witnessed. Maxine had a love affair with herself that every woman should have. And she kept the relationship strong even now that she’d married Judge Theodore Carter.

Not that was a wedding to remember. Sage had captured wonderful photos that she hoped to work into a comic for her new project.

Their story was known from the north cove to the south and was not spoken of outside their happy nuptials if those involved ever wanted another sip of her amazing moonshine.

“How can we help you, Ms. Van Buren?” Parker asked.

Maxine brightened. “Now, that is what I like to hear. Come on, boy.” She guided the trio down the hall to the storage room, filling Sage with a whole slew of ideas, as she stared at Parker’s backside in front of her.

“Where’s Blayne and Claire?” Sage asked Alora.

“Blayne is with Larkin working on some project, and Claire had to meet Mitch.”

Claire and Mitch. Sage held back her sigh. It was nice to see the two of them together. Claire’d had a hard road when her fiancé had been killed in the same car accident a few years ago that had taken Larkin’s first husband. Soon after, Claire had also lost her unborn child. Too much sorrow for one heart.

But she’d found another great love in an unlikely heart with Mitch Brennan, the town’s once upon a time most eligible bachelor turned dedicated city attorney.

That’s what Sage loved about this town. The impossible was reality in Cape Van Buren.

“By the by, Evette’s got her eye on your grandpa. Any chance you can put in a good word for her?” Maxine asked with a hopeful expression as if it were the most normal conversation to have with a young man she hardly knew.

Parker’s eyes almost crossed. “My grandfather? Banon Edwards?” He scratched the side of his head. “I thought that whole scene at the wine pairing was a joke.”

“My dear boy, you have a lot to learn about the women of Cape Van Buren,” Maxine said, as she led them to a row of stacked boxes. “Evette Kingsley is single and ready to mingle. It’s about time the North Cove Mavens get back out there.”

She pulled out a box cutter and slit the throat of the first cardboard victim. “And what she wants is to mingle with your grandpa’s dingle.”

“Ohmygosh, Maxine! I swear you get more shocking every day. On purpose,” Alora laughed.

“You cannot say those kinds of things to Mr. Edwards. He’s trying to save Grandpa Horace’s paper.” The heat in Sage’s face had gone from mortified to kill me now, and Claire didn’t help one bit, all but busting her gut from laughing so hard.

“Better you than me,” Alora said with a shake of her head.

Parker wasn’t sure where to look and visibly appeared as if he might throw up.

She grabbed a trash can. “Here, need this? I often do when I talk to Maxine.”

The laugh he gave her was weak with a cry for help echoing within it.

“Help me with this, boy,” Maxine demanded. “They’ll be some moonshine in it for you later.”

Parker jumped to it. Sage assumed from abject fear since he didn’t know that Maxine’s moonshine was worth just about any mortification known to man.

It was that good.

Alora elbowed Sage in the side and whispered, “That was quite a show.”

“Shut up. I bet you and Adam have christened every inch of this place by now.”

“Maybe, but you two are so hot for each other boogers, fart jokes, and the threat of being caught didn’t even cool you off.”

Sage rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore her cousin.

In a more serious tone, Alora asked, “How are things going? Besides the tonsil inspection, I mean.” She grinned.

Sage glanced over to see Parker heaving boxes under Maxine’s instructions. If she didn’t know better, it almost looked as though the woman was having him move the boxes more than he had too. “Is she…”

“Oh yeah, she’s watching, making him put on a show. I don’t know what is in the water in this place, but the North Cove Mavens have stepped up their I’ll-do-what-I-want since Maxine’s wedding.” Alora said.

Sage resisted groaning out of sheer desperation. “If he doesn’t get scared away first, I think he’s really starting to see our town, Alora. He’s been playing with the children and making friends with the older generation. He sees how we all pull together to make one family instead of a town of families. Ya know?”

“You don’t have to convince me. I came home before you, remember?”

“I know.” Sage nodded. “I remember when you told me you were moving back. I thought you were crazy even though I’d yet to have one genuine friendship, much less a sincere relationship, in the city.” She looked around the back room of Eclectic Finds. “This is home.”

She put her hand up. “I mean, this isn’t home. It’s—”

“Poor Parker’s personal Hell?”

Sage followed the direction of Alora’s gaze. Maxine had Parker backed into a corner and was feeling his biceps.

“Crap.”

As Sage moved to save him, Alora grabbed a box of crotchless panties to unload and inventory. “Adam’s going to love this.”

“So, tell me your plans for The Van Buren Tribune,” Maxine asked, as she removed tall gold dipped shot glasses of every color from a box.

“He’s still figuring things out, collecting data,” Sage said.

Parker took the opportunity to slide out from between Maxine and the wall. Moving a few more boxes aside with his leg, he used the box cutter and opened the rest, one after another.

“Now, this boy knows how to work. Okay, kids. Rack and stack, then we’ll get everything out on the floor.”

“Happy to help,” Parker said. “And to answer your question, Ms. Van Buren—”

“Maxine. It’ll make all my friends jealous if they think you see me as a woman.”

He winked. “There’s no mistaking that…Maxine.”

She smiled at Sage. “I like this one.”

“Anyway…” Sage laughed.

“With everything I’ve seen this week…” He glanced at the array of goods surrounding them, then grinned. “And it’s been a lot. I think the answer, now more than ever, is to take the Tribune online. Most of the folks I’ve been talking to are already regular users of Facebook and Snapchat—which was a huge surprise for me, to be honest. It wouldn’t be anything to create an app that’s specific for Cape Van Buren.”

“What?”

“Love it!”

Sage and Maxine spoke together.

A death grip tightened around Sage’s chest, making it difficult to breathe. All her effort to make sure Parker really saw the true Cape Van Buren suddenly seemed for naught. She showed him it was personal interactions and real intimacies that made her town’s heart beat, not a smart phone or laptop.

And he still wanted to cheapen it with gigabytes and URLs?

“Sage, you’re crushing the velvet.”

She winced. “Sorry.” She released her chokehold on the deep purple, place mats. Counting how many had been delivered, she marked the number on the inventory wand that computerized the whole store.

Grabbing another box to empty, she strategized the best way to handle this. If she went off—all boobs, and hair, and fingernails—he’d never listen, but if she hid behind her fear, he wouldn’t hear her, either.

She opened another box to find it filled with Come Again condoms.

Inspiration struck.

That was it.

“Parker, let me explain it in terms you’d understand. The Van Buren Tribune is like using condoms during sex, where online is more like an unprotected one-night stand.”

“Less sensational? I don’t really think that’s what any paper’s going for,” he answered, with a that doesn’t sound great at all look on his face.

A look she really wanted to smack off. Maybe, at this point, she’d just smother him with Grandie’s bosom.

She picked up a handful of condoms, then threw them at him.

Lifting his hands, to shield his face, he batted them away, laughing. “You asked.”

“I’m with Parker on this one,” Maxine added.

Oh, for the love of all that was holy. Sage tried again. “Nooooo,” she ground out. “Condoms with sex are a sign of respect, of true caring. They’re putting the other person’s health and well-being as well as your own in a position of priority and importance. A one-night stand is quick and over and hopefully forgotten. That’s what you’ll get if you put the Sentinel online. Sex without any connection. Without the making of a family. After the novelty wears off, it’ll be forgotten, untouched, and unwanted.”

“Damn,” Alora breathed. “I’ve never wanted to read the paper so much in my life.”

Sage scowled and threated with another handful of condoms.

Parker broke down the empty boxes as the women finished hanging the lingerie collection on rolling racks. “Sorry, Sage. You’re wrong. Taking the paper online is the answer to keeping overhead low and profits high. To keeping your job. I’ve done this before, and I’ve run all the numbers. There’s no question.”

A loud buzzing filled her head. “What do you mean, my job?”

He straightened slowly with a wary expression, and his lips pressed into a thin line. “Didn’t they explain that to you? The paper can’t afford to stay in print, the only way there’s any hope of retaining your job is for the whole system to go online, including your comics—but that isn’t guaranteed, either.” He put a hand out. “Look, drawing’s a hobby, right? Something to do to keep your creative juices flowing. Starving artist and all that? You have other options, don’t you? Because there’s a chance you’ll be drawing for yourself instead of Cape Van Buren.”

A hobby? Other options? Where the hell did this arrogant jackass come up with this stuff? He was living in New York, for God’s sake, the land of artists and broken dreams.

Broken dreams.

Her heart squeezed so hard at the thought of losing the Tribune that it was everything she could do to keep from crying. But she wouldn’t. Not in front of Parker. Not in front of the guy who couldn’t seem to take what she did for a living seriously.

Then, she thought of her submission to Andrews McMeel Publishing, and all the uncertainty turned her stomach sour and left her head pounding.

“A comic isn’t a comic if it’s read on a computer screen,” she gritted out, her voice tight, and her lids burning. Comic art couldn’t be appreciated on a computer screen, she didn’t care what the resolution was. Part of the art of a newspaper comic was the newspaper—holding it in her hand, the ink stains on her fingertips, the hot-off-the-press aroma leaving a halo of memories around her head.

Her grandfather’s warm smile as he approved her drawings from early on teased in the recesses of her mind. “You’re going to make a fine cartoonist someday, Hershey Kiss.”

She pulled her shoulders back. All thoughts of wanting to give Parker a personal tour after hours vanished, and in their place were thoughts on the best places to bury his body.

Alora laid a comforting hand on her arm.

“Again. I don’t agree,” Parker said in his all too annoying I-know-better voice.

Well, you’re stupid.

That’s what she wanted to say, anyway, but until the bottom line was signed and there was nothing left for her to do. She had to preserve the communication between them and hope she could change his mind.

Now, it wasn’t just the paper on the line but her job, too.

She had less than five days to train a gorilla.