by Sharon Sala
Lily frowned. Pulling her hair away from her face like that only emphasized her double chin.
“I don’t know. I guess,” she muttered.
“Good,” Ruby said. “A little change never hurt anyone.”
With an eye still on the clock, she quickly finished Lily’s new look.
“There you go. Look how pretty you look like this, and just in time to get back to work before Mr. Phillips can complain.”
Lily frowned again. She felt naked—like she’d revealed too much of herself. She didn’t much like it, but it was too late to change it. She slipped into her jacket and grabbed her purse before scuttling toward the front like a crab going sideways across a beach. Her head was down and her shoulders slumped, operating on the theory that if she couldn’t see the hunk, then he couldn’t see her.
“Same time next week,” she said, as she handed Ruby her money and bolted out the door like the place had just caught on fire.
But what had caught fire was LilyAnn’s lust. She hadn’t felt stirrings in her belly like that since the last time she saw Randy Joe naked. Only then she’d been just as naked and proud of her body, not like now.
Not once in the last eleven years had she given her changing shape much thought. It had never been an issue to her existence until today. The stranger was hot like Randy Joe and drove a fine fancy truck, just like Randy Joe. And once upon a time he would have looked at LilyAnn and wanted her… just like Randy Joe. But that man sitting in Vera’s styling chair would never give her a second look.
So the question was… what, if anything, was she going to do about this?
She sailed past the fitness center without looking at her reflection and hurried into the pharmacy, anxious to get something else on her mind besides wondering what T. J. Lachlan looked like naked. She’d heard some men looked good in their clothes but not so much without them, and knew it had to do with the size of their stuff. While she wasn’t one to judge a person on looks, she was seriously giving some thought to “what if?”
Her boss, Mr. Phillips, saw her coming in and waved her over.
“Hey, Lily, we just got in a new shipment. As soon as you can, come back to the pharmacy. You can check them against the invoice for me.”
“Sure thing,” she said, and stowed her purse and jacket, then got to work.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, she was exhausted in mind and body. She hadn’t given her life this much thought since the day after Randy Joe’s funeral.
“I’m leaving now,” she said.
“Have a good evening, LilyAnn,” Mitchell said, and waved good-bye.
Lily waved. “You, too, Mitchell.”
The air was even colder now than it had been at noon. She pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck, ducked her head into the wind, and started home. Even though it was only ten blocks from here, she was wishing she’d driven.
She was almost at the corner when someone honked, then shouted out her name.
“Hey, LilyAnn!”
She paused. It was Mike, her next-door neighbor, who’d braked out on the street.
“Want a ride, honey?”
She nodded and ran out into the street, circled the back end of his car, and got in.
“Thanks. It sure got cold today, didn’t it?”
Mike Dalton nodded, but he was eyeing her new hairstyle.
“I like your hair pulled back like that.”
She blinked. “Oh, thanks. I’d forgotten all about it. It was Sister Dye’s idea.”
“Well, it was a good one,” Mike said. “Were you busy today?”
“Yes, were you?”
He nodded. “Yeah, when it gets closer to the holidays, people always come in more often. I guess they want to lose a little extra because of the holiday food and parties.”
“Right,” Lily muttered, and pulled her jacket a little closer around her stomach.
Mike sighed as he accelerated. He wanted to grab LilyAnn and shake her. She talked to him, but she never looked at him. How could one woman be so oblivious? He’d loved her since the tenth grade and every day of his life since, but she’d never seen him like that.
When Randy Joe Bentonfield finally got to first base with her in high school, every boy knew it just from the smirk he wore the next day. And when Randy Joe finally hit a home run, Mike seriously considered beating the hell out of him just to wipe that smile off his face. As it turned out, he didn’t have to. An IED in a foreign land wiped Randy Joe straight off the earth. Back then, Mike was sorry as he could be that Randy Joe was dead, but he wasn’t going to lie and say he wasn’t sorry she was free again.
Only it had done him no good. He’d spent the last eleven years living next door to the woman of his heart, hoping one day she would really look at him and knowing if she did, he wouldn’t have to say a thing. It would be impossible for her to miss the love on his face.
He stopped for a red light.
“Are you doing anything special tonight?”
She glanced at Mike. “No, are you?”
“It’s all-you-can-eat shrimp night at Granny’s Country Kitchen. I don’t have any leftovers. Wanna go eat with me?”
She shrugged. “I guess. But I need to shower and change clothes first.”
“Me, too,” Mike said. He would have loved a little more enthusiasm, but he’d take what he could get. “Wear something warm, for sure.”
“Yeah, for sure,” she muttered, and then saw Willa Dean waving at them as she locked up the travel agency for the night. She smiled and waved back.
“Ever want to travel?” Mike asked.
“Hmm? What? Oh, I don’t know. Once I thought I would like to see Jamaica, but I never thought much about it since.”
“Your mom is in Florida. Why don’t you ever go see her?”
LilyAnn shrugged. “I don’t much like her husband, and he doesn’t much like me.”
Mike frowned. “How do you know he doesn’t like you?”
“Last time they came to visit, he made the comment that I was nothing like my mother. It felt like a dig.”
Mike’s face flushed a dark, angry red. “You never said anything before.”
“So? What could you do about it?”
“I could have punched his damn face,” Mike muttered.
Lily gasped. “Well, of course you could not. That’s Mama’s husband.”
“Yes, and you’re her daughter, and he owes you some respect.”
She sighed. “I know, but don’t ever say anything to her, okay? She’s happy. I don’t want to spoil that.”
The light turned green.
Mike drove through the intersection, still fuming. By the time they got home, it had started to rain.
“Yucky weather,” Mike said. “Are you still okay with going out?”
“Sure. I won’t melt.”
He laughed. “You’re the best. You’ve got an hour to make yourself gorgeous, and then I’ll be knocking on your door, okay?”
She rolled her eyes as she opened the car door. “It would take longer than an hour to make that happen.”
Mike grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her exit. “Don’t talk like that, okay?”
She frowned. “Like what?”
“Like putting yourself down. You’re beautiful, LilyAnn.”
“Not anymore,” she said. “I’ll be ready when you are.”
She got out and ran toward the house. As soon as she unlocked the door, she waved and went inside.
Mike just sat there. What the hell kind of a spell had Randy Joe put on her that she’d willingly died with him? What was it going to take to dig her out of that grave?
He backed up, pulled into his own driveway, and got out. The cold rain was a slap-in-the-face wake-up call to run, but he didn’t. He was so pissed at her and at himself for being such a hopeless romantic. He needed to cool off, and this was as good a way as any.
He thought about putting up a sign in his front yard to get her attention but was afraid it wou
ld be ill-received. There wasn’t anything wrong with a gentle nudge, but he was afraid that an “I love LilyAnn” sign would be more like a slap in the face, and he wouldn’t risk rejection.
Whatever.
He stomped into his house, shedding clothes as he went. By the time he got to the bathroom, he was carrying an armload of wet clothes and was naked as the day he’d been born. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and stopped for a judgmental scan, ticking off the pros and cons.
Good six-pack, check.
Lean muscle mass, firm body, check. Brown hair, but in need of a haircut, check.
Green eyes, still in pissed-off mode, check.
And then there was his face.
In need of a shave, but otherwise okay. His features were even. His nose wasn’t too big or too small. Except for the bump on the bridge from being broken twice, it was fine. He had what his mama had called a stubborn chin, which probably explained why he hadn’t quit on LilyAnn. He was just stubborn enough to believe that if he waited long enough, she would finally love him.
He dumped the wet clothes on the bathroom tile, grabbed the razor and shaving cream, and got down to business.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Sala, who has also written under the name Dinah McCall, has more than eighty-five books in print, published in four different genres—romance, young adult, Western, and women’s fiction—and her young adult books have been optioned for film. She has been named a RITA finalist eight times by Romance Writers of America and in 2011 was the recipient of RWA’s Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Her books are New York Times and USA Today bestsellers and published in many different languages. She lives in Oklahoma, the state where she was born.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
A Sneak Peek of The Curl Up & Dye
About the Author
