“What I mean to say is, yes, I might open my own business here if the conditions are right.” There, that sounded dignified, didn’t it?

“Indeed?” Asher smiled politely. “I should enjoy hearing more about this venture sometime, Bliss.”

Her heart fluttered. Wow, he sounded legitimately interested in her plans! Despite her determination not to let this ludicrously sexy man distract her, she couldn’t help feeling flattered. Then she mentally smacked herself upside the head. Duh, Sera. He probably just wanted to scope out whether she was going to be competition or good for his business, given that his own shop was located right next door. “Um, right, ah… thanks, yeah, I’ll be sure to let you know what I decide,” Sera muttered, going crimson for no particular reason she’d care to admit.

“Now, where did I put those darn keys?” Pauline was muttering, fully engrossed in rummaging through her voluminous tapestry bag. Sera half expected her to pull a Mary Poppins and drag forth a lamppost or a midsized potted plant from that monstrous sack. “Dang it! I was so sure I swapped them from my big bag the other day. But maybe they’re still in Hortencia’s purse? Of all the stupid…”

Pauline’s voice wobbled and her eyes threatened to well again.

She’s going to have to talk about it sometime, Sera thought. But right now didn’t seem like the moment. Pauline would share her grief when she was ready. “That’s okay, Auntie,” she soothed. “We can come back tomorrow.”

“Not necessary,” Asher said smoothly. “I have a set of keys.”

Oh, right, he’d mentioned he had put their delivery inside the store, hadn’t he? So he must have his own way in. But why would this man have keys to Pauline’s business? Maybe people were just more neighborly around here than she was used to back in Manhattan?

Asher dragged forth the heavy silver chain from his pocket, revealing a massive array of jangling keys at the end of it. Sera noticed that, similar to the one he wore about his neck, the chain was wrought from large, intricately scrolled silver links, handsome and masculine in design, yet with an almost musical flow. Before she could inquire into why he had the means to enter, he bounded up onto the porch ahead of them and wrestled with the locks, swinging open the door to Pauline’s House of Passion and gesturing with a flourish for them to precede him inside. Sera suppressed a little shudder of purely feminine awareness as she passed in front of him to enter the store, close enough to appreciate the scent of strong, healthy male—pheromones mixed with the sharper aromas of metal, oil, and wood. Tools of his trade, perhaps?

“I’ll stay until you’re finished looking around so I can lock up for you after,” he offered, and Pauline nodded. Sera smiled her thanks, feeling as tongue-tied and awkward as a high school girl.

Asher flipped on the lights for them, though it barely made a difference. There was precious little illumination to be had.

Sera forgot pheromones momentarily as she gazed around at her aunt’s establishment. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. Inside, the shop resembled nothing so much as a cozy Victorian tea parlor. Well, cozy verging on gloomy. Shawl-like draperies swaddled every window, and tasseled shades encased the low-wattage lamps scattered about the room. Dusty mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, half-filled with little figurines and knickknacks. Sera could barely make out the massive rafters and spacious expanse of smooth-planed pine floors that formed the framework of the shop. She could tell that the walls were whitewashed adobe, but the Southwestern flavor of the structure had been effectively smothered in kitsch and weighted down with heavy pieces of vintage-looking drawing room furniture. What was odd, however, wasn’t so much the décor as the fact that she saw little evidence of the “items” her aunt had so enthusiastically promoted over the years. Where were the Kama Sutra posters and Day-Glo sex toys? Where were the strawberry-flavored edible undies and belly-dancing costumes?

“Huh,” she grunted, nonplussed. “Not at all what I expected. Pauline, what exactly were you selling here?”

Pauline smiled wryly. “Well, not much, really.” She ticked off items on her fingers. “Some self-help books—my own and others’—and some videos. I stocked incense and massage oils, too—you know, the sort of aromatherapy stuff women like to pamper themselves with. We also carried some scarves and local trinkets for the tourists—you really can’t have a business in Santa Fe without ’em. Most months we didn’t even make enough to cover the rent, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of closing the shop. You see, my vision was of a collective or community center where women could come to be themselves, read about issues that pertained to them, have tea, and gossip. I mean, of course, there’s the back room”—Pauline waved dismissively—“but really, Pauline’s House of Passion was always about empowering women and bringing them closer together. Over the years, my store’s been more like a neighborhood clubhouse than anything—a lot of the ladies coming by after hours on their way home from work to chat and catch up, bitch about their menfolk, that kind of thing. No offense, Ash.”

“None taken,” said their nonchalant next-door neighbor, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. “As I understand it, bitching is the sacred right of women.”

Sera chose to ignore that comment and the appealingly playful tone in which it was delivered. She was remembering all the causes her aunt had fought for so passionately over the years. When Sera was a teenager, Pauline’s painfully explicit discussions of women’s most intimate concerns had made her squirm and long to flee. Her high school friends, so over the feminist movement, had teased her and made fun of Pauline’s values. As she’d grown up, however, she’d learned to appreciate what her aunt was about, even if her own sexuality was—to quote Pauline—positively Puritanical.

Pauline Wilde had always believed that women’s strength came from their solidarity. Her work with feminine sexuality had encouraged women to be frank and open about their needs, to explore them with each other as well as with men—and always with a spirit of adventure. She could easily see Pauline making her shop a place of warmth and intimacy for her visitors.

Too bad she couldn’t see the actual shop as easily.

“Do you mind…” she asked, gesturing toward the draped-over windows.

“Go for it, kiddo. I want you to think of this place as your own now. I’ve had my go at it, and I’m ready to pass on the torch. Frankly, it’s getting too much for me. Feel free to pillage as you like!”

Sera strode to the nearest window and stripped away what appeared to be a Spanish lace mantilla dyed in a particularly purple hue. Light flooded into a quadrant of the store, and she took a relieved breath. She’d always needed lots of light and space to feel comfortable—a condition that hadn’t made living with Pauline’s congenial clutter and preference for what she called “Blanche DuBois style” lighting easy while she was growing up. Sera had often teased her that her lifestyle was more Blanche Devereaux than DuBois, but Pauline had just smiled and kept the lights low.

Well, Pauline had given her the go-ahead, so go ahead she would. She gently freed the rest of the windows from their shrouds until the full space was revealed. Her breath hitched.

Wonderful.

You simply didn’t get this kind of real estate back in New York. Not unless you were Jacques Torres. Sera’s heart lifted as she surveyed the airy, elegantly proportioned interior. Little popcorn kernels of ideas began exploding left and right in her mind, sending corresponding zings of excitement whizzing through her system. There, where the long, low mahogany counter stood, she could install a bank of glass-fronted refrigerated display cases for her hot-ticket items. There, on the far wall, nestled built-in shelves currently holding what looked to be statues of fertility goddesses from various cultures throughout history. In her mind, the shelves began stocking themselves with brass-appointed whole-bean coffee dispensers and high-end espresso machines. Custom-printed cardboard goody boxes with gaily colored rolls of ribbon to wrap around them would lie in readiness for customers’ take-out orders.

Best of all, she’d have counter space. The shop had a ridiculous amount of square footage. She could even divide off a third of the place for her ovens and fridges, and still not feel cramped. Her customers could stretch out and stay awhile—provided they purchased something, of course. Serafina envisioned her place becoming a hangout where people came for their morning coffee and a flaky pastry, then returned to buy a cupcake or two during the siesta hour. Tourists would line up with their cranky kids for a swift sugar infusion before trotting off to visit local museums or lay down their hard-earned cash in one of the gorgeous, one-of-a-kind boutiques that Sera herself had window-shopped this morning. Perhaps she’d even accept custom cake commissions again, eventually.

Next to the horsehair-stuffed armchairs lolling in exhausted postures around the edges of the space, she pictured vintage marble-topped side tables for customers to lay their cupcakes and confections on while they relaxed and sipped a latte. She’d have a stand for newspapers and periodicals. Maybe even offer Wi-Fi, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to go that route. (The laptop-toting student/starving writer crowd didn’t tend to lay down a lot of cash.) She wanted everything elegant, appealing, and absolutely delectable. Fresh flowers in bud vases would add notes of color, while the aromas of chocolate, coffee, and piping hot cake would surround her customers in a sensual web.

But hold on. Speaking of scents, something didn’t smell quite right around here. Serafina was used to identifying ingredients and judging flavorings by their odors, and this one was… odd, to say the least. Vinegary. Following her nose, her attention was drawn to a large glass jar sitting on a dusty shelf. Was that… She drifted closer, afraid of what she might find. Plucking up her courage, Sera reached out with thumb and forefinger and gingerly drew aside the cheesecloth covering the top of the jar.

“Yeeeoowza! What is that?”

Pauline drifted forward to peer over her shoulder. “Oh, that? It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just Big Mama. Hello, Big Mama!” She leaned in to whisper confidingly in Sera’s ear, as though to keep the contents of the jar from hearing. “Don’t mind the smell, dear. She’s just hungry. I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting her shockingly since the… well, since Hortencia…”

“Big… Mama?” Sera breathed, staring at the enormous brown glob floating in the jar of sickly-looking liquid. “You don’t mean—”

“Yup,” Pauline confirmed. “Kombucha. It’s my own special culture. Go ahead and taste some if you like, but it’ll be better if we feed her first.”

Ugh, no thanks, Sera thought. She knew about kombucha, of course. Chefs heard about all the crazy ingestible trends out there in the world. She’d read somewhere that the mushroom-like culture that floated at the top—mostly comprised of a form of yeast—was known as a “mother,” and that these mamas sometimes spawned “daughters” that brewers used to spin off their signature blends for family and friends. In theory, it sounded okay, if a bit unsanitary. But until today, she’d never actually seen the fermented home brew in person. And now that she had, she didn’t think she cared to see it again. It smelled like hippie feet, and it looked like a monstrous, wet, flabby mushroom. Or a dead stingray. Gross.

“It was very popular with our ladies,” Pauline offered. “A lot of them thought it had special properties, if you know what I mean.” Sera blushed as the meaning became clear, but her aunt must not have noticed, because she continued in a stage whisper, “Sexual properties, dear.”

A snort sounded from behind them. Asher was staring studiously into the middle distance, but he couldn’t hide the little grin that lifted his generous lips.

“What, you want some?” Sera flashed, teasing the outrageously sexy Mr. Wolf before she could think better of it.

“My sexual properties are in no need of enhancement at the moment, thank you,” he shot back with elaborate politeness, and the blush on Sera’s cheeks bloomed into a full-body affair.

“Um, right. Moving on!” Sera wasn’t about to discuss aphrodisiac beverages while a hot guy stood around making quips about his sexual prowess. Even if it was secretly kind of fun.