by Marin Thomas
“You’ll have to tell me what Jackson thinks when he sees your new cut.”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks.” Katelyn smiled. “I did this for me.”
Sadie held a cardboard swatch of color samples in front of Katelyn’s face. “I’d like to use warm chestnut along the sides and back and then frame your face with the bronze.”
“I have to be at the Buy & Bag in an hour.”
“Walter won’t care if you’re late when he sees the new you.”
“He’s interviewing job applicants this morning. I need to set a good example and show up on time.”
“Abby should have gone back to Dallas months ago. Vern guilted that poor girl into staying.” Sadie mixed the hair color and placed the bowls on a tray, then painted the color onto thin strips of hair and wrapped the strands in foil sheets. “I was having lunch the other day at Mama’s Kitchen and Ginny said she thinks Shirley will talk Vern into leaving Little Springs for good.”
“Would that be a bad thing if he left?” Other than Jackson having to find a new AA sponsor.
“The town will have to search for another minister. Reverend Sanders and his wife are nice enough people, but they made it clear when they filled in for Vern that they don’t want to stay here forever. They want to work with a younger parish.”
Sadie spun the chair and used the foils on Katelyn’s bangs. “If you could talk your mother-in-law into moving to Little Springs, then Vern would return to the pulpit, and everyone would be happy.”
“You’d have better luck convincing Shirley to let her hair grow long than to live in West Texas.”
“Speaking of Shirley’s hair . . . I’ve done three deep-conditioning treatments since she’s been here and I have to say she tips well.”
Usually her mother-in-law was stingy with tipping unless Katelyn prodded her to leave more money. “How much does she give you?”
“Twenty dollars.”
Wonders never cease. Little Springs wasn’t only changing Katelyn; it was working its magic on the former perm queen, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Katelyn?”
She stopped in the middle of the bread aisle when Walter came around the endcap and then put the brakes on.
“What did you do to your hair?” he asked.
Walter wasn’t her therapist, so the only explanation he’d get from her was: “I decided I needed a change.”
“Why did you cut off so much?”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?”
He backed up a step. “I like it fine.”
A squeal pierced Katelyn’s ears and she spun. “Oh, my God, I love your hair!” Layla rushed forward. “The color’s amazing. Did Sadie do this?”
“Just a few hours ago.”
Layla grasped Katelyn’s arm and walked with her to the registers. Walter disappeared inside his office and shut the door. “You look ten years younger.”
She laughed. “I do not.”
“Jackson will love it.”
“I didn’t change my hair for Jackson. I did it for myself.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Layla waved her hand. “He’ll still love it.”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.” And one she didn’t regret making.
“You and Jackson should go out to a fancy restaurant tonight,” Layla said. “Doll yourself up and put on high heels.”
“We decided that we’re staying friends for right now.”
“Why?”
“I need to focus on my art and helping my kids get through the divorce.” And Jackson didn’t trust her not to hurt him again.
“Your kids will be fine.”
Katelyn agreed. Michael and Melissa were strong, independent young adults and she was confident that with time they’d adjust to their parents’ splitting up.
“Any sane woman would jump at the opportunity to sleep with a handsome man after her husband cheated on her with a younger woman.”
“I don’t know that she’s younger.”
Layla wrinkled her nose. “They’re always younger.”
“I want to focus on me and . . .”
“And what?”
“Look, I care for Jackson, but if I’m going to be with him, then I need to be sure it’s for the right reasons.”
“I’m not following.”
“I don’t want him to be my rebound guy.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to survive.”
“Maybe, but Jackson and I are different people than we were all those years ago.” Katelyn rearranged the display of candy bars at the checkout but stopped when she saw her work buddy staring into space. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s what you said about being different people. The more I hang out with Brian, the more I feel like I’m losing the old me.” Layla shrugged. “This morning I walked right past the mirror without checking my reflection.”
“You aren’t wearing as much blush anymore.” And Layla had toned down her bright lipstick.
“Brian said I was even more beautiful without makeup.” Layla’s cheeks turned pink.
“Does this mean your feelings for him are deepening?”
“He’s the nicest boyfriend I’ve ever had.” A deep sigh escaped her.
“What is it?”
“I wish Brian wasn’t so content being an Entenmann’s deliveryman.”
The doors whooshed open, putting their confession session on hold.
“Good morning, Harriet,” Katelyn said.
“Ladies.” The older woman picked up a handbasket, then turned toward the registers, her gaze focusing on Katelyn. “You cut your hair.”
“Do you like it?” Katelyn asked.
“It’s very becoming. What does your mother think?”
“Mom hasn’t seen it yet.”
“And Jackson?” Harriet asked.
“He hasn’t seen it, either.” She steered the conversation in a new direction. “Everyone loved the Hot Tamales.”
“I’m trying to convince the band we should go on the road,” Harriet said. “Except for your mother, they’re all too lazy.”
Katelyn smiled. “Do you need help finding anything?”
“No, dear, I’m fine.” Harriet walked off, veering toward the produce section.
“Back to you and Brian,” Katelyn said.
Layla took a deep breath. “I don’t want to give Brian the impression that anything lasting will come of our relationship.”
“What if you fall in love with him?”
“It won’t happen.” Layla’s chin jutted. “My life has been nothing but hard work, hard times and a whole lot of regrets. I’m not going down that road again.”
“Gavin’s not a regret.”
“I know. I’m thinking about what’s best for me and my son.”
“I thought Gavin liked Brian.”
“He does. And Brian treats him well, but I don’t want my son to grow up and become stranded in this town like me.” She sniffed. “I need to find a man who can give me and Gavin a better future.”
“So you’re choosing money over love?”
Layla frowned. “You did.”
“Take it from me—what we think is best for us doesn’t make it true.”
“Even though your marriage wasn’t perfect, you and your kids had everything you wanted and needed.”
But Katelyn’s abundant life had come at a high cost—her happiness.
“Are you doing anything after our shift this afternoon?” Layla asked.
“I’m taking my sketch pad down to the railroad tracks. Why?”
“You want to draw at the lake with me, Brian and Gavin?”
“Why would you want me to tag along?”
“I need a second chaperone. Last time I sent Gavin h
ome early and went back to Brian’s place with him.”
Katelyn laughed.
“Please?” Layla’s puppy-dog expression swayed Katelyn.
“Fine. But I’ll need a ride to the lake.”
“I have an errand to run when I leave work. I’ll ask Brian to pick you up after his last delivery.”
“What time will that be?” Katelyn asked.
“Probably around five thirty?”
“Sounds good.”
The rest of the day passed quickly and when Katelyn returned to her mother’s, she changed clothes, grabbed a snack and went out to the front porch to work on the painting she’d begun last night. As was her habit lately when she focused on her work, she lost track of time.
“Hey, Katelyn.” Brian Montgomery came around the side of the house and stopped in front of the porch. “Birdie said you were out here.”
“I’m working on a painting to enter in the Pecos Art Festival.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
“If you promise to act surprised in front of Layla at the art show.”
He climbed the steps and peeked over her shoulder, then sucked in a quick breath. “She’s beautiful.”
“I wanted to paint her without the false lashes, lipstick and glitter eye shadow.”
Brian looked mesmerized. “Who’s she staring at?”
Katelyn hadn’t finished the sketch, but the scene she’d committed to memory was the afternoon Gavin and Brian had come into the store and announced they were going to the lake, and Layla had pretended to be sick so she could go with them. “She’s looking at you.”
Startled, Brian gaped at Katelyn. “I want to buy the painting.”
“As long as I can display it at the festival. A Sold ribbon might drum up interest in my other pieces.” She put away her paints and moved the easel inside, then grabbed her sketch pad and pencil. “I’m ready.”
They walked to Brian’s pickup in the driveway and got in.
“I realize you only started working with Layla this summer.” Brian glanced across the seat before pulling away from the house. “I thought maybe she might have confided in you.”
“About what?”
“Me.” His neck turned red. “I feel like Layla’s holding back on me.” He merged onto the highway. “She said it was over between her and Gavin’s father, but I’m worried that she still loves him.”
“There’s isn’t anyone else, Brian.” Except a phantom white knight. “Layla’s moved on.”
The frown line between his eyebrows vanished. “Then I wish she’d tell me what was bothering her.”
Money. But it wasn’t Katelyn’s place to say.
Ten minutes later he pulled into the mobile home park where Layla rented a single-wide, and asked, “Will you keep our conversation between us?”
“My lips are sealed.”
• • •
“Isn’t it beautiful out here?” Layla sat next to Katelyn on the rocky shore of Catfish Bay.
“I’m glad I came. Seeing the lake again reminds me of how much my dad loved his job.”
A late-afternoon breeze blew the pungent smell of algae and decaying oak in Katelyn’s face and brought back fond memories of her father—a man who had lived and breathed nature and never needed an alarm clock to wake up before dawn to go to work. Unlike Katelyn’s mother, who hit the snooze button more than once before she crawled out of bed to get ready for her shift at the grocery store.
“Were you close to your dad?” Layla asked.
“When I was little, I’d tag along with him to the lake and play in the sand or collect twigs.”
Layla’s attention remained on Brian and Gavin, where they stood knee-deep in the water, casting their fishing lines.
“What about you and your father?” Katelyn asked.
“I’ve only seen photos of him. He left a few months after I was born.” Layla picked up a stick and drew in the sand. “I hate that history repeated itself with Gavin’s father.” She studied the heart she’d made. “I thought a lot about what you said earlier today. That we don’t always know what’s best for us.”
“Take my advice with a grain of salt. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life.” Art was like oxygen and for years she’d been cutting off the air supply to her brain—was it any wonder she second-guessed herself?
“I want to give Brian a real chance, but . . .”
“You’re afraid of getting your heart broken?”
“Not me. I’m a big girl. I worry about Gavin. He’d never forgive me if I hurt Brian.”
“Even when your intentions are honest and sincere, there’s still a chance you could end up with regrets.” And lose yourself in the process.
Each time she opened her sketch pad, Katelyn was uncovering bits and pieces of her old self. But after she’d ignored her creative side for years, the process was like unearthing fossils—brushing away one grain of sand at a time.
“Gavin’s got a fish on his hook!” Brian’s shout carried across the water.
Layla scrambled to her feet. “Thank you, Katelyn.”
“For what?”
“For making me see that my priorities are screwed up.” She smiled. “I’m done waiting for some rich guy to make my life easier. I don’t know if Brian’s the one, but I’m ready to find out.” Layla ran toward the water, her laughter floating in the wind.
Katelyn flipped the page in her sketch pad, eager to capture the trio. Her pencil raced across the paper as she drew Gavin’s grin after he held up the fish. Brian’s proud expression as he placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Layla’s soft smile when she walked through the water to join the pair.
Katelyn committed their images to memory—later she’d fill in the finer details of the scene. For now she watched the story unfold before her. Gavin spoke; then Brian’s head fell back, his deep laughter rumbling through the air. Layla slipped her hand into Brian’s. Gavin dropped the pole with the fish still on the line and all three dove forward to retrieve it, their legs tangling as they tumbled into the water. The pole forgotten, the trio laughed and splashed one another. Gavin returned to dry ground, but Brian caught Layla’s hand and held her back. He stared into her eyes, and Katelyn’s heart pounded when she recalled the heated look Jackson had given her as he’d led her into his bedroom on the night of July Fourth.
It was time to pay the mechanic a visit.
• • •
Monday morning Jackson lay on a creeper beneath Doris’s classic 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, searching for a leak. The older woman didn’t drive the car anymore, but she’d found a wet stain on the garage floor and wanted Jackson to check the engine. If he had the money, he’d offer to buy the car from her, but he had his hands full paying the monthly mortgage on the garage. He checked the fuel pump, and sure enough, that was the source of the leak. Easy fix.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned his head toward the street. At barely eight a.m., Katelyn parked a lawn chair beneath the oak tree in front of Mama’s Kitchen. She opened her sketch pad, then stared at the garage for a long moment before the pencil in her hand moved across the paper.
They hadn’t spoken since he’d run into her and Don at the Hot Tamales concert, and then he’d regretted insisting they remain friends—it had been a knee-jerk reaction in an attempt to protect himself from her leaving him behind again when she returned to St. Louis.
He’d thought about calling her but had come up with a hundred excuses. Twice he’d walked to the Buy & Bag only to chicken out and return to the garage. Now it was the end of July and Katelyn would be leaving in a few weeks and who knew if she’d be coming back? He had no idea what the future looked like for them or even if they had a future together, but he didn’t want to make the same mistake he’d made in high school and let her go without telling her what she meant to him.
A smile flirted at the corner of her mouth and a sharp pain spread through his chest. God, he’d missed her. “Why?” He’d liked her hair. Liked how soft it had felt sliding through his fingers. The long strands had reminded him of the young girl who’d been the only bright spot in his otherwise sucky adolescent life.
“I needed a change.”
What did that mean? She’d cut her hair after they’d slept together. After her ex had shown up in town.
She set the pencil on the pad. “If I’d known chopping my hair off would get you to notice me, I’d have done it sooner.” Her expression softened. “I’ve missed you.”
He backpedaled until he could no longer smell her perfume. “I didn’t know if you and Don had decided to get back together.”
“I never would have slept with you if I had hoped to reconcile with him.”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “Would you like to come with me when I visit my mother on Saturday?”
Katelyn’s eyes widened. “How come you didn’t tell me that your mother is back in your life?”
“It happened a little while ago,” he said.
“I’d love to meet her.”
He couldn’t stop staring.
She tilted her head. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He spun and made a beeline for the garage. He knew why he didn’t like her shorter hair even though it looked great on her. The new style meant she’d finally let go of her past.
And he was a part of her past.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“I’m glad you finally came to your senses and cut your hair, but all those layers look messy. You should have gone with a sleek bob.” Shirley climbed the front porch steps Wednesday evening and sat in the rocking chair Birdie had purchased with some of her birthday money.
