by Jane Porter
Or thought she was ready, until she saw Tyler Justice headed up the front walk to the salon’s front porch.
All cheer and goodwill disappeared as she watched him through the front window, open the door, and step inside the salon. Even in a heavy coat, navy plaid shirt, boots and chinos, he looked casually elegant, and ridiculously confident.
On someone else it’d look like a plaid shirt and chinos and work boots, but Tyler’s coat fit his broad shoulders and the plaid shirt somehow accented his muscular torso and lean waist instead of hiding it. His chinos weren’t too baggy and they wrapped his thighs, highlighting the muscle there.
And then he had that face, and he did have great hair…
She heard voices in the entry. He was here. In her space.
She didn’t have time—or energy—for this. What could he possibly want from her now? After last night she had no desire to see him ever again.
She prayed Emily was sending him away, telling him how busy Amanda’s morning was, with a first appointment—
“Good morning,” he said, entering the former living room, which was now the main styling room in the salon.
She didn’t even try to smile. She wasn’t in the mood. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m your nine am appointment.”
“You are not.”
“I am.” He reached up, touched the back of his hair. “I thought I could maybe get a little more off. It’s a bit longer than I’m used to. But I’m paying for it—”
“You don’t have to pay for me to fix a cut—”
“I did like it. It was Gram who thought it was a little long.”
“I don’t charge customers to fix a mistake—”
“It wasn’t a mistake. You gave me a great cut. I just think I’d like a different one now.”
Amanda closed her eyes, shook her head, thinking she couldn’t do this with him. “I’ll give you to a different stylist.”
“I don’t want a different stylist.”
She opened her eyes, looked up at him, gaze meeting, locking with his. “You don’t want me, either.”
“If I misjudged you—”
“You misjudged me.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sounded sincere and Amanda swallowed around the lump in her throat. She appreciated the apology, she did, but it didn’t change the fact he’d thought the worst of her. He’d believed she’d been taking advantage of Bette. It wasn’t even a question in his mind. He really thought she was that unprincipled…
It hurt. A lot.
Having grown up with very little, having been lumped in with “the poor Wright sisters” her entire life, she was sensitive to speculation and slights. One of the reasons she’d always avoided dating wealthy men was that after the whole fiasco between her sister Jenny and her former fiancé, Charles, Amanda didn’t want anyone to think she was a social climber, or trying to marry up, or marry for money. She didn’t want money. She wanted self-respect.
The entire reason she and her sisters worked so hard was to prove to the world—as well as themselves—that they weren’t welfare girls, or poor white trash. Just because they’d been raised on thrift store clothes and handouts, didn’t mean they’d remain in poverty, dependent on others.
They didn’t need to be taken care of, and they were good people, smart, loving, valuable. And yet somehow just a few careless words on Tyler’s part had wounded her, getting under her skin, making her feel less than.
It wasn’t right. Not just what he thought of her, but that she allowed his opinion to upset her so much. She should be stronger. She should have more pride, and more resolve.
Amanda folded her arms over her chest. “I need to make a few things clear, just in case there is any confusion. Your grandmother didn’t pay for this house. She doesn’t own any of the salon. She gave me a loan, a loan that has already been paid back, in full, with interest.”
“That’s good.”
“I paid her back with an interest rate better than she was getting from the bank.”
“That’s very good.”
“Yes, it is.” She hesitated. “But just to be sure you’re fully in the know, she did give me another gift, it was over the holidays. It was something she owned.”
“Tell me it wasn’t her silver,” he muttered.
Her gaze narrowed and met his, expression cool and disapproving.
“That was a joke,” he said, lifting his hands.
“Many a joke was said in jest,” she retorted, crossing to the window to push the pale pink silk drape and gesture to the back of the property where a small RV sat parked in the driveway next to her detached garage. “It’s her old motorhome. It’s going to be my mobile salon one day, so that I can go visit my clients when they can’t come to me.” Amanda dropped the curtain and turned to him. “It hasn’t been refurbished yet. I don’t have the means to redo it, but your grandmother is excited by the idea that I could provide mobile beauty services to seniors in Crawford County, particularly the seniors who are housebound. She wants to help me fix it up, but I’ve refused all offers. I don’t want her money, but renovating the RV is part of my plan for later this year, and if I can’t do it this year, then next year for sure. But women should feel beautiful no matter their income, or their age, and I appreciate your grandmother’s faith in me.” What she didn’t add, was that Bette was the first person, outside of her sisters, who’d ever truly believed in her and Bette’s faith in her had been exactly what Amanda had needed as a young woman uncertain if she could be the person she wanted to be.
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
She searched his face, looking to see if he was being straight with her, and she didn’t see anything in his expression that made her uneasy or suspicious. “So you really want a haircut?”
“I really do.”
“And you trust me not to just shave your head, or do something horrendous?”
One dark brow lifted quizzically. “I would think you’d hate to destroy your perfect review status.”
“I do like my five-star reviews.”
“Then I don’t think you’d honestly shave my head, or nick it, or anything else diabolical you might be imagining.”
She pointed to her chair. “Have a seat.”
“Aren’t we going to go to the shampoo area?”
“Yes. After I put your cape on.”
“I do like a good cape.”
It was all she could do to keep from smiling. Perhaps her lips did twitch a little. But she didn’t want to be amused, or entertained. He was awful as men went. Arrogant and egotistical, as well as dictatorial. Again she flashed to her old Harlequins and beloved Barbara Cartlands. “You’re used to getting your way,” she said, stepping behind her dark pink chair.
“In my world, things generally go my way,” he admitted, sitting down.
She gave the folded cape a hard flick of her wrist, making the material crackle before she settled it around his big shoulders. As she fastened the snap closed, her fingers brushed the back of his neck and she felt a sharp frisson of sensation crackle through her. Amanda exhaled hard, suddenly breathless, suddenly feeling far too aware of him, not as a client, but as a man. She really didn’t want to spend the next twenty to thirty minutes touching him. “I’ll have one of the girls shampoo you,” she said huskily, “and then bring you back to my chair.”
His eyes met hers in the mirror. “If you don’t think I need my hair washed—”
“It’s easier to give a good cut when it’s clean. I have one of my interns here today, and I need to use her, and I thought you’d probably appreciate her shampooing you instead of doing the cut?”
The expression in his eyes seemed to doubt every word she was saying. “Good call,” he answered, and then as his gaze met hers in the mirror, and held for what was far too long, she felt her pulse do a crazy, dramatic spike, and thump away.
He was so not what she needed, or wan
ted—well, needed.
For some reason she seemed to want him, but she didn’t want to think about that now, not with him back in her chair for the next twenty to thirty minutes.
She turned away, tucking a long blonde tendril behind her ear, something she did when nervous, and then plucked it back out because it didn’t belong behind her ear, but down, framing her face, matching the piece on the other side. “Shelley,” she called, waving her nineteen-year-old intern forward. “Give him a good shampoo and then bring Mr. Justice back. Also, find out if he’d like a coffee, tea, or water—”
“Water would be great,” he answered her, rising from the chair. “Thank you, Amanda.”
The husky note in his deep voice contradicted the gleam in his eye and her face grew hot. “I’ll have your water here for you when you return, Tyler.” Then she stalked to the kitchen, grateful for five minutes to herself, needing the time to pull herself together.
He was just a customer.
She was going to give him a cut.
That was all.
There was no need for nerves or drama. Nothing was happening. No need to feel so terribly unsettled.
She filled a glass of water for him from their water dispenser and returned to her station, placed the glass on the counter for him before laying out her scissors and combs on the pale pink towel on her silver rolling tray.
“You like pink,” he said, when he appeared a minute later and sat back down in the dark pink chair.
“I do. As you can see it’s my signature color for the salon.”
“And yet you only wear red lipstick.”
He’d noticed? She didn’t know why that made her feel all fluttery on the inside. “I don’t wear pink. I don’t think I own anything pink.”
“So why make it your salon’s signature color?”
“It’s fresh and pretty. Feminine.”
“I’d think it’d discourage your male clientele.”
“It hasn’t so far. And honestly, if I they’re not comfortable with my salon they can go somewhere else. There are plenty of other salons and barbershops in Marietta. The last thing I want a man feeling is insecure with his masculinity.”
“I’m not insecure,” he said. “I’m just curious why you’d risk fifty percent of your potential customer base? It doesn’t sound like good business.”
“My established client base would come to me even if my salon was painted bright pink—”
“Come on.”
“It’s true. They’re coming to see me, and they’re secure enough in themselves to not mind a feminine environment. Now hold still, because I have very sharp scissors and you have a very exposed neck.”
He was silent for the next twenty minutes, something she was grateful for so she could concentrate on taking off more length without making him look like a shorn sheep. It wasn’t hard, actually, because he had great bone structure and with his broad brow and strong jaw, he could wear his hair virtually anyway and be appealing—
“Why not try to market to men?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She put the scissors down, ran her fingers through the sides of his hair, and then the top, checking to be sure it was all even. “Because the world already caters to men. Everything is about making men secure and comfortable. Just look at Main Street here in Marietta, for example. All those solid brick buildings, all those wooden storefronts…they’re not feminine. This town isn’t feminine. It’s a solid, practical town and I wanted to create something pretty and inviting for women, so I did.”
“I’m just saying you could have put green chairs in here instead of pink and then men would have felt equally welcome.”
She paused, gaze locking with his in the mirror. “You’re saying you don’t feel welcome because my chairs are pink?”
“The towels are pink. The front door is pink. Your apron is pink.”
“And your cape is black. I could have made that pink as well, I suppose.”
“Or green. Green is a great neutral color, gender friendly—”
“Gender friendly, that’s interesting.” Amanda reached for the jar of hair pomade on her shelf and rubbed some of the crème between her hands, warming it, thinning it, before dragging her fingers through his hair, giving the front a lift, spiking a little for height, and then smoothing the shorter sides. “I was going to give the salon a fresh coat of paint this spring. Maybe I should do it pink. Pink siding with white trim.”
He rolled his eyes. “Your front door is already pink.”
“So I’ll paint the door white. Or maybe a soft aqua blue.”
“You wouldn’t really paint your salon pink.”
“Why not?”
“It’d kill your business—”
“It wouldn’t.”
“It’d be a huge waste of money.”
“Not if I did it myself.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She felt her lips curve, the corners tilting up, hiding her pride and determination because Amanda Wright never backed down from a challenge. “You clearly don’t know me.”
You clearly don’t know me.
Amanda’s words stayed with him all morning, nagging at his conscience. On one hand, she was right—he didn’t really know her, but he wondered about the financial difficulties she’d had, and her damaged credit.
Unfortunately he couldn’t stay in Marietta as planned. TexTron was in discussion with another tech giant, and if there was going to be a merger or acquisition, he wanted to be there at the office in Austin.
He picked up sandwiches and salads from Java Café and had lunch with his grandmother at her kitchen table.
“This is fun,” she said happily, as they plated their meal on her pretty floral china.
“It’s a picnic at home.”
He smiled at her enthusiasm. She was so incredibly good-natured. He’d never met anyone so determined to live life to the fullest and she was so happy he was here in Marietta now. It wasn’t easy to disappoint her, and she would be disappointed when he broke the news that he needed to return to Texas early.
“I’ve heard some rumors about work that are making me uneasy, Gram,” he said as they finished their meal and he cleared their lunch dishes. “I need to get back to Austin and I should return sooner than later.”
“What is happening?”
“I’m not totally sure. That’s the issue.”
“Then of course you would want to be there.” Gram folded her hands in her lap. “When will you return?”
He put the plates in the sink, and ran the water for a moment. “Today.” He turned off the water and faced her. “I’m on a six o’clock to Denver.”
“Today?”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“From you, that could mean months.”
“No, I promise. Soon. A couple weeks at the most.”
Her expression crumpled. “I was just getting used to having you here.”
He returned to the table and sat down close to her chair. “Gram, why don’t you come with me? Your house is ready—”
“You mean, fly with you tonight?”
“Yes. There are available seats on the flight. I already checked. Pack a bag and come with me. Make it a trial run, see what you think. I have a feeling you’ll love it.”
“And what about Marietta? And my bridge group? We’re playing on Friday. And then there’s a birthday luncheon for Barbara on Saturday. Do I just be a no-show for that?”
“Don’t you want to have an adventure? See something new?”
“Every day is an adventure here. You never know if it’s going to rain or sleet or snow.”
“I hate leaving you, Gram.”
“You mean, you hate leaving me to all my fun?” She patted his hand. “Don’t fret. I’ll pace myself.”
“I’m serious.”
“And so am I. All you do is work. While I get to see friends and contribute to the well-being of my younger friends.”
“Amanda.”
“Yes, Aman
da. I love seeing what she’s doing… building her business, expanding into a mobile salon as well as her ideas of a new senior center. Have I told you about that? It’s truly marvelous—”
“Gram, I need you to be honest. Has she asked you for financial support?”
“Never. Not once.”
“Do you ever feel guilty that she’s struggling—”
“No, and she’s not struggling anymore. She did for a bit, and I think it’s because the other salon she managed wasn’t pleased she was leaving to open her place, and made it difficult for her to take her clients, but ultimately, it all sorted out.”
She kept on talking, telling him things he already knew, how the pink station chair was always open and available for her at the Wright Salon, and how at any time she wanted an appointment, her chair was waiting and Amanda would make herself available. But at the same time, she never took advantage of the open chair policy, although she did like to drop in and sit down and watch Amanda work, or chat when Mandy had a moment.
“We’ve formed a lasting bond,” she added, “and it’s not a recent thing. We’ve become good friends over the years.”
“What do you talk about?” he asked, torn between exasperation and curiosity.
“Everything. Marietta happenings, like the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Ball at the Graff, to the grandstand construction just starting at the Rodeo Fairgrounds, to new romances blossoming in town.” She blushed. “I’m a bit of a matchmaker here in town. Two relationships and counting.”
“You do know that real friends don’t have to give each other expensive gifts.”
“Gifts? What gifts?”
“The RV. I saw it parked in her driveway behind her salon. It was yours, wasn’t it?”
“It’s hers now.”
“Why?”
“She needs it, I don’t.”
“You can’t just give away everything you have.”
Bette’s chin rose, temper sparked. “Did you want the old RV? Is that the issue?”
“No.”
“Then what is your problem?”
“The loan… the RV… I just… worry.”
