HAPPY PANTS CAFE (THE HAPPY PANTS SERIES) by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“So, what’s he got you in here for?”
    The little boy looked down at his feet, but the smaller of the two girls grinned at her. “We were playing cowboys and aliens.”
    “Oh. Well, that sounds kind of fun.” She had to wonder why they were locked up for that. “Are you not allowed to play in the living room?”
    “We turned the couch into a spaceship,” she said sweetly.
    “Uh-oh. Did you get Grandma’s couch dirty?” Harper asked.
    “We lit it on fire.”
    Christ! “Why in the world did you do that?”
    The girl shrugged. “The aliens lost.”
    “Do you play that game often?”
    “Once a week,” the girl replied proudly.
    “I have a niece and nephew I think you’d like. I’ll introduce you sometime.”
    “Do they light stuff on fire, too?” the girl asked excitedly.
    “Only when it rains and Enrique Iglesias is playing.” Harper smiled, but they didn’t seem to get the joke. “Never mind. I’ll be over there shoveling pig poop if you need help breaking out of jail.”
    She hoped that Don Crazy-Eye recognized that a time-out pen wasn’t going to do the trick; these children needed pyro-therapy.
    Harper grabbed a shovel and found a wheelbarrow sitting just outside the barn. She returned and studied the three large pink, spotted pigs. They looked tame enough, so surely there was nothing to worry about.
    She opened the little wooden gate and stepped inside, cautiously eyeing the animals and careful not to get too much pig goo on her sandals, berating herself for not having packed better shoes. Of course, never in a million years would she have imagined that she should be prepared to meet her childhood crush, lie to him, hear a story of “magic” cupid cookies, get drunk, almost do “the deed” with the childhood-crush guy, fight with him, assault an officer with a cup of coffee, get arrested, assault an elderly woman, and be sentenced to a week of hard labor to avoid being arrested for the second time in one day, while the clock precariously ticked away on her last chance at keeping a job that she loved more than life itself.
    And…if you had known, what shoes would you have packed? Because your shoes don’t come equipped with that kind of support. Nope. No tiny therapists hiding under any of her arch supports.
    Harper began shoveling out the foul-smelling piles of poop, depositing the sludge in the wheelbarrow. Her mind immediately drifted away to a more pleasant place: her conversation with Austin at the jail. She still felt the lingering effects of the warm fuzzies he’d produced after confessing his real reasons for kissing Becky all those years ago. Saying that he had wanted to give Harper the perfect, slobber-free first kiss was quite possibly the most romantic thing a guy had ever told her. And to think, all this time, she’d thought that Austin had ditched her for another girl, while he’d believed she’d left without a word because she was too afraid or didn’t really care.
    Harper smiled to herself. What a couple of dorks.
    Well, we were just children, and children do silly things. Which is why for a moment, back at that jail, she’d begun to wonder if the two had been brought together for a reason. This reason: to set things straight and get another chance. But that would be silly. She didn’t believe in that sort of sappy garbage: destiny, childhood sweethearts that turn into “forevers,” one true loves.
    And Austin’s behavior—trying to ditch her as soon as they reached town—confirmed that he didn’t think much about the situation either. He was so eager to get her out of his life, in fact, that he had been about to throw in the towel on a story and just give it to her.
    But that didn’t feel right. If he didn’t want her that way, she was a big enough girl to accept it. It’s not like she was in love with the guy.
    That’s right. Because “love” is for the delusional. Even her very own parents—two intelligent, educated people who ran a veterinary