скачать книгу бесплатно
At least not yet. She was only twenty-five. Too young to be thinking about anything permanent…not that she thought Tanner McConnell would want something permanent with her. Since he and Emmalee split up all those years ago, he hadn’t dated anybody for more than a month. And those he had dated didn’t come from West Virginia. They were New York socialites. He didn’t even date models and actresses. His taste ran to daughters of influential men. Or executive directors of charities who donated back their salaries because they didn’t need them. Or patrons of the ballet and symphony. Bailey was just about certain that Tanner wouldn’t consider the town beautician to be a member of that category. In the end she wouldn’t be good enough, just like Emmalee hadn’t been good enough to move with him when he left Wilmore to start his new life.
At least that was the rumor.
Besides, she didn’t care about Emma and Tanner and their ugly divorce. She had work to do. With her business degree languishing away while she focused on creating great hairdos to build the customer base of her beauty shop, she needed a way to keep sharp the skills she’d learned in college. And fate had given her the perfect opportunity. When she and the members of the flood recovery committee had realized how many things their town lacked and how easy it would be to get them if a few people dedicated time to going after the money, she knew this was the way to make sure she didn’t get rusty. And she also knew she had more than enough to keep her occupied. There was no room for a man in her life.
As she joined the group inside, she caught Tanner staring at her. When she caught Tanner staring at her all through dinner, she decided she had confused him by not falling at his feet…which was understandable since everybody else did. When he tried to mingle in her direction before the band started, she adroitly sidestepped all his attempts. But when he cornered her just as the band played its first romantic song, a lovely lilting waltz, Bailey knew there was no dodging the inevitable.
“Dance?” he asked, extending his hand to her and giving her the perfect, glorious smile that melted most women.
Right on cue, Bailey felt her knees weaken. His green eyes sparkled with sincerity. His tanned skin brought out the best in his sandy-brown hair, which was streaked with blond from the sun. He had a straight nose and even straighter teeth. It almost seemed that when he was created, the universe set out to combine the best of everything, and it had definitely succeeded.
When she didn’t answer him, he stepped a little closer, opened his hand a little wider. “It’s only a dance,” he coaxed, but Bailey didn’t think so. When she looked into the depths of his eyes, instincts she didn’t know she possessed surged to the forefront. She could fall madly in love with him. Quickly. Easily. Any woman could. And he would hurt her. She wasn’t any more sophisticated than Emmalee had been, so undoubtedly he would drop her after a date or two. Since she wasn’t the kind for a casual fling or temporary relationship, she was just a tad too naive for the likes of Tanner McConnell.
Still staring into his eyes, she swallowed, then said, “I don’t think so. I should go into the kitchen to make sure the cleanup committee isn’t having any trouble.”
She turned to go, but Tanner caught her hand and spun her around again. “It’s not a good idea to micromanage.”
“What?”
“It’s never a good idea to micromanage,” he said, easily manipulating her onto the dance floor by preoccupying her with the explanation of what he had said. “Because you’re the committee head,” he added, his arm casually, smoothly sliding across the small of her back, “you’re everybody’s boss. If you keep going back to check on them, people will think you don’t trust them.”
“They won’t think I care about them and I’m trying to keep up my end of the work?” she asked, while inside her heart tripped out a frantic rhythm, and awareness of him hummed through her. Tall and masculine, picture-perfect gorgeous, with a smile that forced her to smile in response, Tanner McConnell incited feelings and sensations in her that were probably illegal in conservative states.
Tanner laughed, effortlessly guiding her around the dance floor in a waltz. “No. They’ll think you’re robbing them of an opportunity to please you, to impress you.”
She tilted her head in question. He was such a handsome man that people forgot he was also ultrasuccessful. Someday Bailey wanted to be ultrasuccessful, too. If fate was giving her nudges in his direction, maybe it wasn’t for romance, but to get his guidance. “Is that how you ran your business?”
He nodded. “Put enough faith in people, show them you believe they can succeed, and they will do anything you ask.”
She smiled. “Really?”
“Really.”
“That is so interesting, because I just hired a new stylist who is very talented, but when it comes to the crunch hairdos, she just sort of freaks out on me.”
“Crunch hairdos?”
“The big deals,” Bailey explained, catching his gaze. “You know, wedding parties, upsweeps for the prom, the important hairdos.”
“Oh, those are your critical success factors for your business,” he said, understanding.
“Precisely. Those are the things that make or break you. Owning the beauty shop is like being the florist. If a bride likes the flowers you do for her wedding, she’ll get her mother’s day bouquets from you. If a girl likes the way you do her hair for the prom, you’re a shoo-in to do her wedding.”
Tanner nodded approvingly, like a man who was not only listening, but also comprehending, but Bailey suddenly felt incredibly stupid. She was dancing with the most attractive man in the world and though she knew talking about business was the best way to keep herself out of trouble, talking about upsweeps for the prom might be carrying things too far.
She licked her lips, trying to think of something to say, but when she caught his gaze again the words died on her tongue. As he swept her around the floor, with her feet feeling as if they were barely touching the ground, the ruffle of her dress flowing around her, and the room spinning by, she felt like a princess. Mesmerized by his beautiful green eyes, she couldn’t help but wish this dance, this moment, could go on forever. She felt his hand tighten at her waist, watched his lips as they bowed upward into a broad smile, and her stomach sank to the floor. She had never wanted anything so much in her entire life, in spite of the fact that she knew it was dead wrong and that she wasn’t going to get it.
She almost willed the band to play an extra chorus and when they did she used that unexpected gift of two more minutes to memorize his scent, the look in his eyes, the way his hand felt on the small of her back. She remembered every tingle resonating through her, every pinpoint of awareness inspired by his touch, every good and happy thought that raced through her brain. Because when the song was over and they broke apart to applaud she knew she would do what she had to do.
She faced him, smiled and politely said, “Thank you for the dance,” then ran like the wind into the kitchen.
A quick glance around the stainless steel and Formica room told her everything had been wiped down, washed or returned to its proper position. She faced Ricky Avery, ready to ask him if certain tasks had been done, but remembering the business advice Tanner had given her as he held her in his arms, she smiled and said, “Looks good in here.”
Tall, lanky, curly haired Ricky beamed and peered around with self-satisfaction. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” she said, patting his shoulder. “You did very, very well. I’m proud of you.”
Ricky straightened his shoulders and suddenly looked ten feet tall. “Thanks.”
Bailey smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, then grabbed the purse she had left with the kitchen staff for safekeeping. “I’ll see you around town,” she added, and started for the door.
Ricky gave her a puzzled frown. “You’re leaving?”
“I’ve already had enough excitement for one night. Besides, I’m working in the morning.”
“But tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“Somebody’s still got to comb out all those up-dos,” Bailey quickly countered. “If everybody wraps their hair for bed tonight like I told them, they’ll be okay for church in the morning, but after church nobody’s going to want to walk around in blue jeans and a T-shirt, looking like Athena.”
“But you planned this…and the night’s only started,” Ricky protested, obviously confused.
Bailey smiled a response, but seeing that Tanner had finally made his way to the kitchen and was about to walk through the door, she said, “I know. See you tomorrow.”
She raced out into the dark, empty night. In her haste she was very careful to make sure she didn’t lose one of her shoes because then for sure she would have felt like Cinderella leaving the ball. And she wasn’t. She was a beautician from Wilmore, West Virginia, trying to build a business, trying to help her town. She was a common, simple, ordinary woman. Not royalty. Not a princess destined to marry a prince.
She climbed into her SUV and shoved the key in the ignition just in time to see Tanner come out of the back door of the church hall. He waved. She yanked her gearshift into drive and drove off. Content with one dance. One very happy memory.
Chapter Two
But Tanner wasn’t nearly satisfied with a memory. He trudged back into the red, white and blue church hall, his lips pursed, his mind going a million miles a second.
“She dumped you,” his father said casually as Tanner pulled out a folding chair and sat beside his mother.
Tanner loosened his tie and grimaced. “She went home. Ricky Avery said she said something about having to comb out up-dos in the morning.”
“If she said she does, she does,” Tanner’s mother confirmed, then popped an olive in her mouth. “Not everybody’s retired like you are.”
“No kidding,” Tanner said.
“In fact, she just bought her beauty shop from Flora Mae Houser. Flora Mae had it for the past thirty years. You probably don’t remember her, but she was the woman who—”
Tanner scowled at his mother.
“Sorry, dear,” she said, then smiled. “I keep forgetting my two men hate it when I switch topics without warning. We can go back to talking about how Bailey doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.”
“If she hadn’t just run like her shoes were on fire, I would have sworn you set this up for me to meet her,” Tanner grumbled. There wasn’t another woman in the room who came close to Bailey. Nobody else he cared to even talk to, let alone dance with. And his parents would have known he’d like her from the first hello.
“Not me,” Jim McConnell said.
“Not me, either,” Doris seconded. “Nobody sets anything up for a woman like Bailey. Besides, look around you. There are plenty of fish in this proverbial sea. Just go ask somebody to dance.”
“I’m out of the mood,” Tanner said, rising from his seat. “I think I’ll go home, too.”
Doris smiled. “You can’t go home. You drove us, remember?”
He sighed. Now he knew for sure his parents hadn’t set him up with Bailey. If they had, they wouldn’t have ridden with him in his car. They would have given him access to drive Bailey home. Or to follow her when she ran, since his mother probably knew Bailey would leave early because of work. He hadn’t been set up. His parents didn’t want him married to Bailey Stephenson. They simply wanted him married.
Tanner’s mother waved her hand in the direction of the crowd. “Go ask somebody to dance. Your good mood will come back.”
Tanner didn’t bother to argue that he hadn’t been in a good mood about this dinner dance until he met Bailey. He didn’t want to mention it to his parents, because then he would have to explain it to himself. And if he started explaining it to himself he would have to use words like intrigued, fascinated, maybe even smitten. Which was ridiculous. He’d hardly said two words to the woman. He couldn’t be interested in someone he didn’t know beyond eye color and occupation. Besides, she obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He couldn’t be smitten with someone who didn’t even like him. It wasn’t normal.
It was for that very reason that Tanner rousted himself from his seat and did ask a few of the eligible women to dance. But though lovely, intelligent and fun, none of them seemed to intrigue him the way Bailey had. He didn’t know what it was about her that drew him, but something did. And it was something more than the fact that she was a challenge. She fit in his arms. She smelled wonderful. And he saw those darned violet eyes of hers the minute he closed his eyes that night in bed.
In church the next morning, Tanner decided he was just tired, and overwhelmed from selling his business on the spur of the moment and drastically changing his life. There would be plenty of women in Florida, maybe even a woman who knew more about operating a charter boat business than he did. He didn’t need Bailey Stephenson. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he wanted Bailey Stephenson. Half of what he thought he felt might have been his imagination. He was a happy guy with a great life and a future most people would fight for. He had everything he wanted and needed.
Unfortunately, just as he got himself comfortable with that thought, Mayor Thorpe and his wife Emmalee marched down the center aisle with their three perfectly behaved, well-dressed children. Tanner’s heart sank. The family, the life Emmalee had now was exactly what they’d envisioned having together. Except if she had stayed married to Tanner, Emma would have had a bigger house and more security. Yet, she’d dumped him. Tanner wasn’t such a simpleton that he thought money meant more than love, but she had loved him. He had loved her. They’d been crazy about each other. But here she was, walking down the center aisle of the church with another man’s children.
Even after ten years it still hurt. Not that he wasn’t over her. He was. He knew that the man he’d become couldn’t live the life she had here in Wilmore. He needed more. He needed different things. And he usually got them, because, when the need arose, he could be ruthless.
Single-minded, self-centered and ruthless.
Emmalee was, in fact, the person who had told him that. She had told him to move on because his big dreams had changed him and he didn’t fit in this town anymore. She was tired of pretending that he was great and wonderful to grace them with his presence a few times a month, faking that he belonged here when he didn’t. He belonged anywhere but quiet, mellow Wilmore. She was even the one who suggested that he try living somewhere like New York where aggressiveness was an art, not a transgression.
So he did move and he discovered she was right. He did fit better in a bigger city. But just because she had hit the nail on the head, that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt like hell to lose his wife and his hometown all in one quick swoop.
Which was exactly why he knew he had to stay away from Bailey Stephenson and every other woman in this town. He didn’t belong here. Even a woman who had adored him had known it and sent him packing. He was only here now to supervise the repair of the flood damage to his parents’ property, and to say goodbye to some old friends before he moved a thousand miles away, because when the month was out, he was off to Florida. And he wasn’t coming back. Not even for sporadic visits. The plan was that his parents would visit him, not vice versa. He would never return to West Virginia. So there was no sense making any more ties.
He felt comfortable with that assessment and even took a minute to objectively appreciate how adorable Emmalee’s kids were and to recognize that Artie Thorpe was definitely more suited to being Emma’s husband than Tanner had been. And he happily realized he could probably hold a pleasant conversation with them after the service.
And then Bailey walked in.
Unlike the other women who still sported sagging upsweeps from the night before, Bailey’s blond hair hung straight and silky to the middle of her back. Wearing a simple floral sheath that accented her curves and showed off her long, shapely legs, Bailey Stephenson was everything he remembered from the night before, and every feeling, every sensation he had while dancing with her came flooding back.
Tanner completely forgot about Artie and Emma Thorpe. He forgot he didn’t belong in this town. He forgot that half the congregation was undoubtedly watching him. All he could do was stare at Bailey and remember the fluttering in his stomach when he looked at her, when he danced with her.
She turned to walk into the pew she had chosen and caught sight of Tanner and his parents. Tanner’s mother gave Bailey the subtle, fingers-only wave women used for a greeting when they were trying to be discreet, and Bailey returned the smile and the wave, her gaze straying to Tanner.
He almost sighed with relief, because from the look in her eyes it was obvious she found him attractive, too. But when it appeared hard for her to pull her gaze away from his, the fluttering in his stomach flared again. By the time she sat down and the service started, Tanner not only forgot all about the pain of the past, he had shifted back into his normal way of looking at things. His rule of thumb was to make the best of the life he had, not pine for the one he’d lost. And right now he had a sixth sense that fate was handing him the chance to spend some time with an absolutely stunning, unpretentious woman. He almost grinned. Life was incredibly good to him.
He actually found himself timing the sermon with growing irritation. Reverend Daniels seemed to be in a particularly talkative mood. With every five-minute segment that ticked off on Tanner’s watch, his squirming grew more evident. But because Bailey’s squirming grew more evident, too, he was absolutely positive they would literally run into each other’s arms at the end of the service. However, when the good pastor finally let them go, Bailey exploded from the church and scrambled to her car…not to him.
Standing on the church steps, too far away to even hope to catch her, Tanner had to forcefully stop himself from cursing out loud.
“Hey, Tanner.”
Tanner turned to see Artie and Emma and three little blond munchkins huddled around them, looking as if they were velcroed to their parents’ knees. With thoughts of Bailey still clouding his brain, he automatically smiled his public-relations smile and extended his hand to Artie. “Hi, Artie,” he said, shaking his hand. “Emma,” he added, nodding to his ex-wife. “Who are these guys?”
“I’m Sam,” the first child said, then he sniffed.
“Oh, darn,” Emma said, sounding exasperated. “We forgot his allergy medicine this morning.”
Sam sniffed more loudly. “That’s okay.”
“No, it’s not, Samuel Eugene Thorpe,” Emma said. A tall beauty, with red hair and porcelain skin, Emma made a pretty picture as a mother. “You might not like to take those pills, but you need them!” She faced Tanner again. “I’m sorry, Tanner, but we’ve got to go.”
“Hey, never let it be said that I stood in the way of proper child care.”
“How long are you in town?” she asked, studying him cautiously.
Tanner’s gaze strolled in the direction Bailey’s SUV had taken and then he pulled it back to his ex-wife. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Emma said carefully, glancing at her husband who was talking to Dave Banister, one of the town’s two councilmen. “I think you and I need to talk. There’s some stuff—”
“After ten years,” Tanner interrupted. “I doubt it, Emma.”
He hadn’t intended to be so cool or so cruel, but those darned memories crept up on him when he didn’t want them to. Ten years ago she had her say and she had succinctly told him what a terrible husband he was. And he agreed. As a husband, he was a washout. But right now he didn’t need to be reminded that the prettiest girl from his high school class had dumped him. Especially not when the pretty beautician who currently intrigued him—the woman he instinctively knew was the one he was supposed to be spending time with—wouldn’t give him that time, probably because she’d heard the rumors about his divorce. Again this confirmed what Emma had said the day she asked him to leave: in New York, he could do absolutely anything he wanted. In West Virginia his past haunted him. After he got to Florida, he would send Emma flowers with an apology to make up for his rudeness, but right now he just wanted to go home.
Luckily, his parents were starving and had done a lot of socializing last night so they’d all headed back to the house. Feeling spurned by Bailey without a real chance to explain himself or his intentions, Tanner wasn’t surprised that he devised a plan to see her while his mother was putting the finishing touches on lunch. And it also didn’t surprise him when he left the house with a mumbled apology before the food was served. Because he really wasn’t hungry. He felt like a man with a mission. Not that he was going to force Bailey to go out with him or even to pay attention to him. He had never had to use manipulation or coercion with a woman. And he was sure that, given an opportunity to see that he wasn’t a bad guy—he was just a sort of transient guy—Bailey wouldn’t have to be forced, either.
After rushing to her apartment to change into jeans and a T-shirt, and racing to her parents’ house to have a quick lunch with her family, Bailey hurried to her shop. But when she arrived it wasn’t to discover a line of impatient, flat-haired women awaiting her. Bailey only found Tanner McConnell on the top step leading to her salon door. He was handsome enough that even dressed in simple jeans and a plain white polo shirt, with his short sandy-brown hair ruffled by the June breeze and his green eyes clear and direct, watching her every move as she exited her SUV, the man could stop women’s hearts. But not hers. She had already had this conversation with herself.
She frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I want you to comb out my up-do.”
He said it so sincerely that Bailey giggled. “You don’t have an up-do. In fact, you could never get an up-do. Your hair is too short.”
“You want to restyle it?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “No. It’s fine the way it is…great actually.”
He smiled. “Really? You like it? I mean, that’s your professional opinion?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Whoever styled your hair knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Roberto will be relieved I’m sure.”
“Good. Go call him now to tell him, because I have work to do.”
“You’re blowing me off again.”
Fumbling with her keys, she managed the dual purpose of avoiding his eyes and unlocking her shop. “No, I’m not.”
“Good, then trim my hair. Leave the style just like Roberto has it, but take off that annoying fraction of an inch or so that keeps getting in my way.”
Leading him into the spotlessly clean shop, she said, “You’re not serious.”
“Is this a hair salon?” he asked, looking around at the four black stylists chairs, low-bowled chrome sinks and white-hooded dryers.
