Chapter Thirteen

I can’t believe you talked me into this. What are we doing?”

“We’re making sure no one will recognize us.” Stan wiggled his fake mustache. “How do I look? Dashing? Like James Bond?”

“No. No James Bond I ever saw had a mustache.” Although she had to admit, if she could push the thought of how ridiculous they were acting out of her mind, Stan didn’t look half bad with a mustache, even if it didn’t quite match his hair. Which was probably because he’d sprayed some kind of washout color on it, making his usually monotone dark brown hair an uneven blend of blond and brown because he hadn’t sprayed it on evenly. If he’d gone to the salon, he would have spent a fortune on that look, and she doubted he’d used the whole can. He’d also brushed it back off his forehead, keeping it in place with hair gel, something else he never used.

“Since you wouldn’t let me take you out for lunch, I figured we had a bunch of extra time, so this is a good idea.”

Stan was the most innovative person she knew. He always had a wealth of great ideas. However, this wasn’t one of them.

She adjusted the fake glasses and tucked a few stray strands of her hair back up under the blonde wig. “I feel like Boris and Natasha.”

He stopped wiggling his mustache. “Who?”

“Ask your mother. Never mind. Natasha’s hair was black.” She reached up to pull off the wig, but Stan’s fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“Don’t. We have to arrive looking like this. No one around there can see us putting this stuff on, so we have to be already wearing it when we get into the neighborhood.”

Amber’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Heat from Stan’s grip seared her wrist. Not that he held her too tight—his grip was gentle, yet firm. But standing close enough to hold her wrist meant he was comfortably close. Except she didn’t feel very comfortable.

They were still dressed in their church clothes. Today Stan had worn a suit. She didn’t know why he’d dressed up a little better than usual, he just had. He’d even worn the tie that she’d given him for the last garden club banquet. The difference between Stan wearing his coveralls at work to the fitted suit was like comparing Fred Flintstone to Brad Pitt. Except Stan was better looking than Brad. Stan was distinguished and dashing, and very handsome and put together in his suit.

Amber knew she also looked better than usual. She’d selected a nice dress and shoes with heels that were a little too high for comfort, but they were a perfect match to her dress. Because she wore one of her best dresses, she’d taken extra care with her makeup as well. While she wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, with the right highlights and colors, she was by no means plain. Since she wore the good dress and shoes, and she’d even selected a matching purse, she’d wanted to stay put together, especially beside Stan in all his handsomeness.

For lunch they’d gone to the usual burger place and eaten in the car. After the carhop took the tray and empty wrappers away, it had dawned on her that her lipstick had wiped off. As Stan drove back to his house, she’d touched up her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Strangely, even though she’d fixed her lipstick many times in front of Stan, this time felt different, and he’d watched her so closely that he’d seemed distracted enough that she kept telling him to quit watching her and keep his eyes on the traffic.

Now here they were, all dressed up, adding the enhancements of disguises, like playing spy games when they were kids, except the dress-up clothes they had on now actually fit.

With the nuances of a spy mission bouncing around in her head, being so close and being held by a tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious stranger felt exciting. Energizing. Intriguing. Invigorating.

Romantic.

If they were characters in a movie, he’d use his other hand to tip her chin up, then his eyes would flutter shut as he leaned down to kiss her.

With that thought, she couldn’t help herself. Her gaze flittered to Stan’s mouth. She’d never really looked at it before, except for the time he’d fallen out of Aunt Edna’s apple tree and split his lower lip in his final scramble to grab a branch as he crashed down through the branches. She’d had to clean him up and help him wipe up all the blood before his mother or Aunt Edna found out what they’d been doing.

He still had a scar that she could see if she looked close enough. A little scar, that made her want to stand on her tiptoes and kiss it to make it better.

Amber blinked, and her eyes lost focus. This was just Stan. What they were doing wasn’t much different than playing Spy vs Spy, except they were bigger. Or rather, too big for games.

“What? Is my mustache crooked?” He reached up and touched it, pressing it down with his fingers.

Amber straightened her wig. “You’re fine. I was just thinking that this is like playing out the characters from that spy thing we used to watch on television when we were younger.” An exciting spy thing. With a suave and charming hero. Visions of a young Antonio Banderas flashed back and forth with images of Stan. She didn’t know which one she liked better.

“Please don’t tell me I look like Inspector Gadget. I was trying hard to make us look real.”

“Inspector Gadget didn’t have a mustache.” Neither did Antonio Banderas, but that didn’t matter.

He sighed and grasped one corner of the mustache, like he might pull it off.

She raised one hand to stop him, then whipped it back behind her before she actually touched him. “No. Keep the mustache. I like it.” Too much. She fiddled with the wig once more and slipped on the fake glasses that Stan had bought for her. “Let’s go.”

Fortunately no one from Stan’s neighborhood saw them, and by the time they arrived at her competition’s store, most of the tension had eased and she felt almost normal, except that she couldn’t see properly.

They walked into the store together and immediately started checking the place out.

“I can’t focus with these fake glasses. Where did you get them?”

He leaned closer to whisper his answer, even though no one stood within hearing range if he spoke normally. “From the drugstore. They’re reading glasses. I got the weakest ones I could find.”

“You couldn’t have gotten the wig from the same place, then.”

“I got it from the consignment store. Tessa had a couple of Halloween costumes in the back. It was with one of them.”

Suddenly she didn’t feel so elegant anymore, but she couldn’t take it off. “I shouldn’t have asked. Is that where you got the fake mustache?”

“Yup.”

She didn’t want to ask what kind of costume the mustache came with right now, but one day she would.

Instead, she turned her attention to what they were there for and browsed through the store’s gardening accessories. When she glanced over the price tags, she actually could read them quite well. Maybe it was time she got a vision test. “All this stuff is run-of-the-mill that can be bought at any store, including the lumber store.”

“Then you’re fine. The garden club likes the unique factor, that what you sell can’t be found anywhere else.”

“But the garden club also needs to watch their money. What if they want to buy something from this new person, now that she’s a member?” She didn’t want to tell Stan that the sales to the garden club were the final factor in whether or not she could make it or close the store. If he knew, she wouldn’t put it past him to buy everything the garden club would have bought, and she wouldn’t allow him to do that.

For now, the garden club still bought from her, and she would do anything to keep it that way.

A darling little white-haired lady with chubby cheeks and wearing a festive apron approached them, smiling. “Welcome. Is there something I can help you with?”

Even Amber had to look down at the sweet woman. Her heart sank at the thought that the owner hired such adorable and helpful sales staff.

As the woman smiled at her, Amber fought to keep her hands at her sides and not fiddle with the wig. “We’re just browsing. Thanks for asking,” she said, trying to manufacture a fake accent. She didn’t know what kind of accent, and it didn’t matter. As long as she didn’t sound like herself.

“If there’s anything you want, I can order it in for you. I haven’t been open long, and I want to let everyone know that I’ll do special orders.”

Amber felt her heart turn to ice. This sweet little old lady was the owner. She didn’t have a chance.

The lady, whose name tag read Florence, smiled even more sweetly. “I’ve just joined the Bloomfield Garden Club, so I’ve ordered a lot more garden accessories. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, I hope you’ll come back next week when my new stock should be in.”

She could see her status of being the sole supplier for the garden club’s accessories evaporating in a puff of smoke.

She rested her hand on Stan’s arm. “Thank you, but I think we’ve seen enough. Come on, Ssss . . .” She barely cut herself off in time not to say Stan’s name. If she said his name in front of the woman, especially since she was a garden club member, she would recognize him at their next meeting, even without the mustache and altered hair. “. . . Sssweetheart. We should go.”

Without waiting for his reply, she gave him a not-too-gentle tug, hoping he would take the hint.

His eyebrows quirked. “Sure. Sweetiepoo. We should go,” he said in a voice about an octave deeper than his natural voice. He turned to the woman. “It was nice meeting you.”

The car door had barely closed before she turned and glared at him. “Sweetiepoo? Whoever calls their girlfriend Sweetiepoo? Couldn’t you get any more original than that?”

Not looking at her, he inserted the key into the ignition switch and turned it. “My mind kind of went blank when you called me Sweetheart.”

“What? Why?”

He twisted to watch as he backed out of the spot, then faced directly forward to drive away. “In addition to the really bad fake accent, you almost blew our cover.”

“There wasn’t anyone else in the store. Nothing could have blown our cover.” Except them saying each other’s real names. Or if his mustache fell off.

“Never mind. We should go over what we’ve learned. She’s selling stuff anyone can buy anywhere.”

Now that they were far enough away, Amber took off the glasses so she could see Stan properly, even though he wouldn’t look at her. “That’s true, but when people buy stuff for their gardens, unique isn’t always the deciding factor. Sometimes the cheaper thing that everyone else can buy simply matches better. Since this lady is now a member of the garden club, a lot of members are going to want to support her too. The average garden can only have a certain number of ornaments before it starts to look like an overpriced tourist trap. So her new store means lost business for me.”

“No. You’re a long-standing member, and you do a lot for the club. You’ve got their loyalty.”

Which didn’t always extend to the pocketbook, something that Amber had learned the hard way when her uncle doubled the interest on her loan payments. Even though she had her favorite brands at the grocery store, she’d started buying the cheaper store-brand products. Yet, she did still go to the stores where members of the garden club worked. They did have her loyalty, just not as much of it.

“I hope so,” she muttered, part of her wanting to tell Stan why she needed their loyalty so much, but at the same time knowing she couldn’t.

Stan turned in the direction of Sylvia’s house. “Let’s pay Sylvia a visit and see if there are any new notes with Gnorman, and then I’m taking you out for supper. To the restaurant of my choice.” He quickly glanced at her before he returned his attention to the road. “But first we have to go to my place. I’ve got to get this glop out of my hair. It probably looks pretty stupid.”

Amber shook her head. “No, it looks good on you. It kind of goes with the mustache. I like it. We also have to go to my place so I can fix my hair after being mashed up under this wig for hours.” She reached up to pull the wig off, but as her fingers twined through the strands, she stilled. “Unless you want me to leave this on. And you can leave the mustache on and don’t take the color out of your hair. We can keep our disguises on and go somewhere we’ve never been before and see what happens, then go to Sylvia’s later. This might be fun.”