By the time morning finally rolled around, Shanks had not only figured out his plan of action concerning how to go about wooing his wife, but he had only a few hours earlier beat the ever loving hell out of the men that had accosted her and all but destroyed the bar in the process.

Currently he was sitting at what was left of the main counter where the still freaked out barkeep was setting his warm milk lightly flavored with honey and cinnamon while he had himself a smoke and counted out what he hoped was enough gold coins that he had pilfered from the crewmates that he'd punished- so that the establishment could have it's walls, windows, tables, chairs, and booths fixed or even renovated to something nicer.

After all, his crew and he might be a bit on the rowdy side, but they usually didn't go around damaging bars and such. It was simply bad for business if they did.

It earned them even more of a terrible reputation and if it didn't stop then every bar and tavern that they came across would practically refuse to serve them.

And that never ended well for anyone.

So it was best to pay for the damages he'd created and hope that it was enough for the barkeep to continue allowing them to come in and drink.

"Here lad," He said as he finally finished counting out several thousand gold coins and placed them in a medium sized leather drawstring pouch and then held it out to the man. "This should pay for all of the damages and then some. Could I ask a favor," The man reached out and took the pouch and then looked at him questioningly as he waited for him to say what he wanted to say. "I need to know if there are any local shops in town where I can find myself a few nice and expensive courting gifts. Can you tell me which shops carry what I may be looking for?"

The man's expression visibly brightened and he looked ever so slightly less shaky and nervous as he quickly mentioned the only shop that he knew of, Artistic Expression. It was a locally owned and run shop that had a little bit of everything from handmade perfumes, sweet scented soaps and lotions and other cosmetics, to handmade clothing for both men and women complete with accessories- and some of the nicest high quality jewelry that the man had ever seen before.

He even went on to tell him that the young woman that owned the shop was always running specials and such where even kids could come in with pennies and get something nice as gifts. He also mentioned that she made enough money from the place and all of it's twenty seven branch stores and galleries that she even helped the local school buy new books and the local clinic get more medicines and highly trained doctors.

Frankly by the time that the man was finished selling Shanks on the idea of popping in for a visit, the man felt rather impressed and jokingly mentioned that he'd love to meet the little Miss before polishing off the rest of his drink and then putting out his cigarette and then getting up and leaving the bar to do just that.

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Mya smiled as she finished gift wrapping the peony and peach scented soap and lotion set and placing them in the bag along with several gift wrapped packages of fine jewelry and then handed them to her customer. After yesterday's run in with the red haired pirate- she hadn't been able to sleep a wink.

So today when she had left home to go to work, she had gotten there to find a line of at least fifty people waiting for her to open shop, and then once she had- it was like a stampede had gone running through her shop.

It was really a wonder that nothing had been broken just yet.

So far her sales were up in the triple digits. And though she wasn't really paying attention any, she'd probably in all actuality made much more than several hundred thousand dollars all within an hour in a half.

"Here you go Mr. Winzor. Tell Becca that I hope that she enjoys her gifts." She said in a friendly tone as the man took his purchase and nodded his head to her with a grin.

"She will. You know how she loves your stuff." He said as he turned and walked off, leaving her to take care of the six old ladies there with their arms full of expensive silk and satin designer shirts, dresses, and skirts for their granddaughters. The 'sinister six'.

Otherwise known as the town's biggest sluts thanks entirely to their grandmother's having far too much time on their hands and opening a brothel where the six girls were the main attractions. But then from the scandalous looking clothing and stuff that their grandmother's were buying for them- one could only assume that these women were worse than the worst of enemies to anyone young and beautiful.

Why ever since she had returned to the island the six woman and their granddaughters had been doing their damnedest to con her into working for them since she was the only woman on the island that they knew of that was young, single, pretty and had no interest in relationships with a male.

Couple those things with her long vividly red hair, and the women believed that they would have a best seller.

And technically they weren't wrong.

After all, blonds and brunettes could only do so much to live up to the fantasies of their paying customers. Whereas a red head would provide many with red haired fantasies, something to actually work with.

God were the lot of them still talking? She just wanted to wave a magic wand and make them disappear.

"You should come and work for us deary. I bet that you would really enjoy the pretty clothing and the nice trinkets and baubles you would earn for a decent night's work."

Did they not see her working in her own shop? The very shop where she made a majority of the goods that were sold and raked in so much money that she practically had to give some of it away monthly? Mya wondered as she continued to try and ignore them.

Try was of course the operative word.

"Yes deary, come and work for us. We would never make you do anything that you didn't want to do-"

That was a flat out lie. She'd heard of one or two other young women being approached by this lot of women and handed a contract that seemed perfectly legit at first, but once signed the person that signed it had to get tattoos and body piercings and even was branded as property of the brothel.

Said girls were then stripped of their clothing, gang raped by some sailors who either knew what was going on or were simply too randy to care- afterwards if they didn't preform on command or tried to escape any of their customers they were beaten and locked in some room with bars on the window and were starved.

So far- both of said girls had managed to escape the only way that they knew how. They had been found dead from hanging.

It was sad really.

But Mya wasn't the least bit interested in becoming the next victim to their manipulations. She wasn't as stupid and ill informed as these women seemed to believe. They all lived in a small town after all, and people tended to talk. And talk often.

And even if the stories were even a little bit false, it still didn't change the fact that two of their former workers had wound up dead under mysterious circumstances.

She was so distracted by the flow of conversation and the fact that the women were starting to get on her nerves that she completely missed the tinkling of the bell hung over her shop's door and the entrance of he-shall-not-be-named until he quietly approached the counter and in the blink of an eye, had leaped over it startling her when he landed next to her with a weird sort of feline grace and greeted her wide eyed stare with a wide grin on his sensual lips as he said.

"Hello my love," And then leaned down and kissed her quickly on the cheek, eliciting a nice pink blush of mortification from her, before he then straightened to his full height and cast a glare at the elderly women that had been hounding her and then said, "Take your things, pay the lady and scram."

The elders all sputtered, teetering somewhere between outrage and something else as he turned his back on them thus dismissing the lot of them while he took Mya's small hands in his own and more or less dragged her away from the register with him.