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“A June bride,” Molly parroted brightly. “That is just so romantic,” she said and set about cutting and shaping Lena’s thick auburn hair.
Lena said, “I’ll have Lori Lee up from San Antonio to be my matron of honor. She hasn’t been home in I don’t know how long. But for this, for my wedding, you can bet she’ll be here.” Lori Lee was Lena’s identical twin, though no one ever had any trouble telling them apart. Lena was the popular one, a real sparkler. Lori Lee was quieter, less flashy, more serious—or at least, she had been ten years ago when she graduated from high school and left town suddenly, rarely to return.
Molly nodded. “That all just sounds perfect…” Lena talked, and Molly finished up her cut and blew her dry.
The salon was packed today. Molly had three other stylists working, as well as a receptionist, a shampoo girl and a nail technician. Everyone was booked through closing—and still they had walk-ins filling the reception area, thumbing through the magazines, waiting their turn, everyone laughing and chatting away.
Some of them wouldn’t get their hair done today. But the women didn’t mind. Molly had all the current fashion and hairstyle magazines, comfortable chairs for them to sit in, and the coffee and cold tea were free. They talked town politics and shared the latest gossip. The Cut was the place every woman in town went when she wanted a few laughs, some serious girl talk and all the freshest, juiciest dirt on who was doing what with whom.
“Heard your mom is marrying Ray,” said Donetta Brewer. She sat in one of the soft red reception chairs, thumbing through a Lucky magazine, waiting her turn in Molly’s styling chair. Donetta always seemed to know things no one else had heard yet. “Fourth of July,” she added, “out in Emigration Park.”
The date and the location were news to Molly. But she didn’t let Donetta know it. “Yep. Looks like it.”
“Ray is a sweet man,” declared Emmie Lusk, ensconced in Molly’s chair by then, getting her hair rolled for a perm. Like Donetta, Emmie kept an ear to the ground when it came to town tittle-tattle. “Good at heart, he truly is.” Which meant that, while he didn’t have a job, at least he didn’t knock Dixie around the way most of her other boyfriends had. “I’m sure they’ll both be very happy.” Emmie met Molly’s eyes in the mirror, and Emmie’s large, thin-lipped mouth stretched into the widest, most saccharine of smiles.
Molly, accustomed to talk about Dixie and her boyfriends, smiled calmly in return and went on rolling Emmie’s expertly tinted sable-brown hair. “Make an appointment for some color, Emmie, before you leave today. These roots are starting to show.”
After Dixie and Ray’s upcoming nuptials, the talk moved on to Lena and Dirk. “A whole year till the wedding. What is that about?” Emmie wondered aloud.
Donetta said, “A big wedding takes time. You know that. But did you hear her? A sit-down prime rib dinner for two hundred. Good old Heck had better sell a lot of cars.”
“And didn’t she say Lori Lee will have to come?” asked another customer.
“Hah,” said Donetta. “Can’t wait to see that—and that little boy of hers, too. Nine years old. And she was married for six. Just widowed, did you hear? Met her husband in San Antonio three years after that kid was born. I heard that when she found out she was pregnant, she wouldn’t tell who the father was. Heck yelled and threatened and snapped his belt around, but Lori Lee refused to say. The minute she finished her senior year, Heck packed her up and sent her to San Antonio. I’ll sure be intrigued to see who that little boy resembles.”
“She hardly dated,” said Emmie. “Always the quiet one. I’d guess the father is no one we know. More than likely some stranger who blew into town and then blew right back out again. We all know that does happen.” Emmie sent Molly an arch kind of look. After all, that was just what had happened to Dixie, now wasn’t it—with Molly the result?
Molly gave Emmie her very blandest smile and then tuned out the avid speculation as to the missing daddy of Lori Lee’s love child. She also tried not to think about the things Donetta and Emmie would be saying as soon as the word got out that Molly was having Tate Bravo’s baby.
It was not going to be pretty. But she figured she had at least a month or two—maybe even longer if she watched what she ate—before she started to show and the tongues started wagging. Molly was determined to fully enjoy the time left before scandal engulfed her.
Molly rolled up Emmie’s hair quickly and had just donned her plastic gloves to sponge on the solution when the bell over the door tinkled and Donetta, who’d been talking nonstop for fifteen minutes, suddenly shut up. As a matter of fact, the whole shop went pin-drop quiet. Molly glanced toward the door.
Tate.
Oh, please, God, she thought, not here. Not now…
“May I help you?” asked Molly’s receptionist Darlene, hopefully.
Tate barreled right on past Darlene and went straight to where Molly stood. He made a sick face at the smell of the solution and then announced, “Molly. I’d like a word with you. Now.”
Behind her Lucky magazine, Donetta gasped. In the mirror, Emmie’s eyes were wide and bulging, like a Pekinese just prior to a barking fit.
Calm, Molly silently commanded herself. Stay calm. Don’t let him get to you. “Well, as you can see, I am busy right now.”
“Get unbusy.”
She tried a little noble outrage. “I cannot believe you have the gall to march right into my place of business and start giving me orders, Tate Bravo.”
He grunted. “Yeah, so? I’m big in the gall department and you know it, too. You damn well should have figured this would happen last night when you walked out on me.”
Donetta and Emmie gasped in unison that time.
In the mirror, Molly saw that her face had flushed the same color as the walls and the reception chairs. She could have scratched out his eyes on the spot for that, for making her blush deep red in her own place of business. She opened her mouth to order him out and then shut it before she spoke. She could see by the granite set to his square jaw that demanding he leave would be an exercise in futility. He would still be here and she would look more ineffectual that she looked already.
So what, then? Call the chief of Tate’s Junction’s two-man police department? Yeah, right. Everyone knew Police Chief Ed Polk was in Tate Bravo’s pocket—just like most of the other officials in town.
“I’m sorry,” Molly said, tone sweet as honey, teeth clenched tight. “I can’t talk right now. I have to finish this perm. And after that, I have four cut-and-blow-dries and three weaves to do.”
“Take a break.”
“I will not.”
Tate grabbed for the bowl of solution. Molly snatched it away, almost spilling it down the back of Emmie’s neck. Emmie let out a cry of distress.
“Look.” Molly set the bowl down, stepped right up to Tate and lifted her face so they were nose to nose. “You are scaring my customers. Kindly get the hell out of my shop.”
He stepped back, stood straight to his full six foot three and folded those big, hard arms across his wide chest. “Not until we have a talk.”
“We have talked,” she reminded him in a tone so low he probably wouldn’t have heard it if everyone else in the shop hadn’t been holding their breaths and sitting absolutely still, staring with wide, eager eyes.
“We sure as hell haven’t talked enough.”
“It doesn’t matter how much we talk,” she told him. “Nothing is going to change.”
“We’ll see about that.” He glanced around. “You got an office in this place where we can have a little privacy?”
A thought came to her. She would stall him. Maybe if she stalled long enough, he would give up and go away. She tugged neatly—for emphasis—on her latex gloves and then picked up her bowl of solution again. “I can’t speak to you right this minute. A perm simply can’t wait. Have a seat in the reception area—enjoy a cup of coffee or some cold tea if you’d like. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
He looked at her sideways, those fine, sculpted lips curling in obvious suspicion. “Molly.” He muttered her name, making a warning of it.
“I’m sorry, Tate. You’ll just have to wait.” She pointed at the one free chair—right next to Donetta. “Go on. Sit over there.”
It worked. He wasn’t happy about it, but he strode over to that chair and dropped into it.
Donetta kind of craned back away from him, gulped and tried weakly, “Well, hi there, Tate. How’ve you been?”
“Hello, Donetta,” he growled. He picked up a magazine, looked at the cover of it and tossed it right back down.
“How is that brother of yours?” asked Donetta. “I haven’t seen him in years. He’s been missing longer than the Bravo Baby, and that’s a fact.” She was grinning by then, as if she’d said something really clever.
Tate didn’t seem to see the humor. The Bravo Baby—no relation to Tate or his brother—had been kidnapped years and years ago. Coast to coast, everyone knew the story of how he’d vanished from his crib in his wealthy parents’ Bel Air mansion. A huge ransom had been paid, but the baby was never returned. He’d been found, a grown man, alive and well, a few years back, after going missing for three decades.
Tucker hadn’t been gone nearly that long.
Tate, however, had sense enough not to point that out. He probably knew it would only encourage Donetta. Instead he replied stiffly, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen Tucker, myself.”
Donetta tried again to get a little more information out of him. “Loves to travel, doesn’t he?” she asked brightly. “I hear he’s been all over the world.”
Tate looked at her, dead on. “That’s right,” he said. The set of his shoulders and the icy look in his eyes clearly indicated that the conversation was concluded.
Donetta took the hint. She raised her magazine and pretended to read it with all her might.
Tate gave up looking for reading material. He sat in the red chair and stared straight ahead. For a while, the Cut was way too quiet. In time, though, the women did begin talking again—but furtive and soft, the way people whisper at funerals or in church.
Molly finished putting the solution on Emmie, set the timer and moved her to another chair. She took off her plastic gloves. “Donetta, let’s have Charlee get you shampooed.”
Donetta eagerly put down her magazine and headed for the sinks where Charlee, the shampoo girl, would take good care of her.
Tate stood. The place went dead silent again.
Molly shook her head. “Sorry. No can do right yet.” She beamed him a big, fake smile.
Tate glared—but he did sit back down. Molly went over and made a show of checking on Emmie, though really there was nothing to check on as yet. Then, since it would be a few minutes until Charlee was done with Donetta, Molly headed for the back door. Out in the alley, she crouched behind the big shop Dumpster and waited for enough time to pass that she could start on Donetta.
Five minutes later, she reentered the shop. Tate was right there waiting by the door. “Where did you get off to?” he demanded.
She edged around him. “Excuse me. I’m working, here.”
Charlee had already led Donetta to the chair and put the cape on her. Molly set to work on Donetta’s hair. Tate, who had followed behind her from the back door, hovered a few feet away, looking dangerous. But after a few minutes of that, he gave up and went back to sit down.
Molly cut and blew Donetta dry. By then, Emmie was ready for the setting solution and the rinse. Molly put her gloves back on and took care of it. Then Emmie had to be dried and combed out.
By the time she whipped the cape off of Emmie—about an hour and a quarter after Tate had first entered the shop—he was getting pretty edgy. Molly kept sending him careful sideways glances.
Uh-uh. Not good. He wasn’t giving up and going away as she’d secretly hoped he might—and he wasn’t sitting still for this waiting game much longer.
Just as she’d expected, two or three minutes later, he stood. “Molly, I’ve had it. Either you talk to me in private—now—or we will have our little conversation right here with all these lovely, interested ladies listening in.”
Molly looked in his eyes and knew she couldn’t stall him another minute longer. So all right, she thought. She would take him into her office and tell him all over again what she’d told him last night.
How many times was she going to have to tell him? Judging by his mulish expression, too many.
Or maybe he actually had something new to say. It could happen. After all, anything was possible.
“Emmie, you can settle up with Darlene and she’ll get you scheduled for that color—next week?”
Emmie nodded and moved to the reception desk. The place had gone deathly quiet again. And though Donetta had already had her cut, she hadn’t left. Oh, no. She’d plunked herself right back down in that red chair and picked up the same magazine she’d already read at least twice.
A feeling of equal parts bottomless dread and glum resignation dragged on Molly. Those two scandal-free months she’d been anticipating were starting to look more and more unlikely.
She turned to Leslie Swankstad, her next customer. “Sorry, Leslie. I’ll be a few minutes.”
“Oh, no problem,” Leslie said, sounding breathless. “No problem at all.”
“This way,” Molly told Tate and turned for the hall at the back of the shop.
She led him through the last door on the right before the exit door at the end. Inside she had her desk and computer, a couple of four-drawer file cabinets, some display shelves with various hair-care products on them and two red plastic guest chairs. She signaled Tate toward the guest chairs and shut the door, closing them into the small space together, instantly feeling that there wasn’t enough room.
In an effort to get as far away from him as possible, she went around behind the desk and dropped into her swivel chair. “All right. What?”
“You know what. Marry me.”
Oh, wonderful. Of course. More of the same. “Tate. We’ve been through this.”
“Marry me.”
Just great, she thought. He had one tune on this subject and by golly, he was going to play it until he drove her out of her mind. “Listen. Please.” She really was trying to be gentle, to be reasonable. “Be realistic.”
“I am. You’re having my baby. The way I see it, that means you and me are getting married.”
“No, Tate. We’re not.”
“Oh, yeah, we are.”
Calm, she thought. Stay calm. Be reasonable. “I want you to just think this over a little. Think about how poorly suited we are to each other, how marriage could never work for us. Tate, I’m an independent woman from the wrong side of town and you’re a domineering rich man raised to think you own the world.”
He looked at her from under the heavy ridge of his brow, his lip curled in a sneer. “So now you’re insulting me…”
Molly sighed deeply and shook her head. She leaned back in her chair. “No. I promise you. I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just trying to make you see.”
“What’s there to see? You’re pregnant and it’s my kid and we need to get married immediately.”
“Tate. We’re a match made by the devil himself. You used to know that.”
“Everything’s different now. There’s a baby on the way.”
“No. No, really, nothing is different. Nothing has changed. You’re still you and I’m still me and for us to get married would be a disaster. The baby would only suffer for it if we did.”
Tate stood. He didn’t look encouraging. He looked…about to start shouting. “I know what’s right, and damn it, right is what I intend to do.”
Molly stared up at him in despair. So much for my month or two, scandal-free, she thought. “Oh, Tate…”
“Molly,” he said way too loudly, “you are going to marry me.”
“No, I am not,” she replied, her voice soft and low and steady as a rock. She stood. They confronted each other across her desk. “And I want you to leave now.”
“You’re not keeping this a secret,” he said. “Don’t think that you will. This isn’t going to be like it was when we started in together, something only you and me will know about. And you can’t end this the way you did when you dumped me, moaning about how you’re tired of sneaking around and lying to the people who trust you. You are having my baby and by God, I’ll shout it to the rooftops.”
It was a challenge. What could she do but accept it? She felt a deep sadness then—for him. For herself. For the innocent baby who would have them for parents. Were there ever two people in the world so poorly suited to the state of matrimony? She didn’t think so. And why couldn’t he see that? Why did he have to be the kind of man who got something in his head and wouldn’t let go of it?
“No way I can hide it in the end, Tate,” she told him flatly. “So you go ahead. You shout it as loud as you want to. It won’t change a thing. I’m not marrying you.”
“Oh, but you will.”
“Oh, no, I won’t.”
Calmly, he went over and opened the door. Out in the shop, it was quiet—very, very quiet. Molly could just picture them all out there—Donetta and Emmie and the rest of them—straining their ears in hopes of hearing just a few words of what was going on in Molly’s office.
