Abby, Get Your Groom!

by Victoria Pade

  “No, I didn’t bump Betty. I put Mr. Beautiful on hold because I was going to come and see if you wanted to stay late. But just then Betty called to say she couldn’t make it today—I guess Janette is a basket case from calling off the wedding and Betty doesn’t want to leave her. Anyway, I got back on the phone with this guy, told him if he could make it here in twenty minutes he could have the appointment and there he is.”

  “He really did want in today. But I’m not seeing any reason for it to be an emergency,” Abby observed, still studying him from the distance.

  “His name is Dylan Camden—one of those Camdens, do you think?”

  Abby shrugged. “I don’t know. But if he is, why would Mr. Richie Rich be here? Or asking for me?”

  “Word of mouth, Ab! You’re good, and it’s even getting around in elevated circles. So go show him your stuff!” China finished, her tone loaded with innuendo as she nudged Abby with her shoulder.

  “You show him your stuff,” Abby countered jokingly.

  “He does not need makeup. But if I was the one he was so bent on seeing today, I’d show him plenty—look at him!”

  Abby just shook her head at her friend.

  “Are you going right out or should I keep him company?” China asked then.

  “I’m going out. Just let me wash lunch off my hands.”

  “I’ll ask him if he wants coffee or something...” China suggested, heading back the way she’d come as Abby got up from the table, threw away the paper plate she’d used and went into the employee’s bathroom.

  As she washed her hands she glanced in the mirror above the sink to make sure she looked okay.

  But not because of the hot guy waiting for her.

  Appearance was her line of work so she always wanted to look her best. It just seemed like a smart business practice.

  Her own hair was dark, dark brown, too. And thick and curly. The long hair fell in spiraling curls that she parted slightly off-center and let fall to just below her shoulders. It made for a pretty full mass that she worked to keep from ever looking fried or frazzled or brittle.

  Wearing it that long and full was something she hadn’t been allowed to do growing up. When she was a little girl, the foster homes she’d been in had said it was too much trouble and shorn her like a sheep. But even when she’d gotten old enough to comb it herself the length and mass had still been an issue—one home had said it clogged the drain, another that it used up too much shampoo and conditioner. One set of foster parents had seen it as some kind of sign of wildness and degeneracy. But all of them had come to the same conclusion—keep it short.

  She’d hated that. So now that she was an adult and on her own, she wore it exactly how she wanted it—long.

  The good thing about it was that it was so thick it didn’t go limp, even on Fridays like today, when she was booked solid. A few scrunches after her hands were dry and it had new life.

  She just thought it accentuated her features better than when it was short. It provided a frame to her not-very-large face with its high cheekbones and fair skin.

  To China’s sorrow as a makeup consultant, Abby didn’t wear much of it. Every day she applied only a little blush and a light dusting of brown eye shadow to go along with some mascara so that her almost-black eyes could compete with all the hair.

  She thought her nose was a bit pointy, but at least it was straight, and she had just-full-enough lips that really only needed a little gloss.

  She freshened that gloss now, before brushing cracker crumbs off of the black smock that protected her clothes and hid the body that was curvy but compact.

  Then she popped a mint into her mouth and went back out to the salon, taking note that the oh-so-handsome guy in her chair wasn’t looking at himself in the mirror he was facing. Instead, he was glancing around at the shop.

  It told her something about the person and the level of vanity she was dealing with. Her impression of this guy was that he took those good looks in stride. She liked that.

  “Hi, I’m Abby,” she introduced herself when she reached her station.

  “I know. Abby Crane—you’re who I needed to see today,” the hunk responded. “I’m Dylan Camden.”

  Abby went to stand in front of the chair to get a full forward view of him.

  Wow, those eyes...she thought as she got close enough to see their color—vibrant, deep ultramarine blue. She’d never seen eyes a shade of blue that intense.

  “Camden...like the stores? Or is that just a coincidence?” she asked, making conversation to break the ice.

  “Not a coincidence,” he answered.

  So he was a Superstore Camden...

  Why had a bigwig like that suddenly been so eager to get in to see her in her small, north Denver salon?

  “How did you hear about us?” she asked out of curiosity.

  “You. It’s you I heard about,” he amended. “First from my sister-in-law Vonni. She runs the wedding departments in our stores and she knows your work for special occasions. She’s been finding that a lot of her brides and wedding parties are hiring you instead of using the salons in the Superstores.”

  “We like to go the extra mile for big events,” Abby said, rather than bad-mouthing his salons.

  “And you head that team.”

  “I do,” she confirmed.

  “Well, I’m here to talk to you about that, along with my own hair cut. My sister is getting married in about a week and she’s in a bind when it comes to the whole hair thing—”

  “And you’re thinking we could do it? In ‘about a week?’”

  “I know it’s ridiculously short notice and that you’re in high demand, so what I’m asking is a big deal. But I’m willing to do all I can to make it work.”

  He knew that she was in high demand? There was something about the way he said it that made it sound like he thought he was some kind of authority on her.

  But how could that be?

  “Did you talk to China about all this when you called?” she fished.

  “No, just about the haircut.”

  “But you know about my scheduling?”

  “I know a few things about you. Things you can’t know about yourself—”

  “Such as?” Abby challenged him, suspicious.

  “Such as, I know that when you were two years old you were left sleeping in the emergency department’s waiting room of Denver General Hospital with nothing but a blanket and a note pinned to you that said your name was Abby.”

  How—why—would he know that? It wasn’t as if she readily or easily opened up to anyone—clients, friends, dates, anyone. And she’d never met this man before. Plus he was a Camden. Why would someone from a family like that know those kinds of details about her?

  “You get off on reading twenty-eight year old newspaper articles?” she asked.

  “No, we...uh...had a different source. One closer than a newspaper article.” His eyes met hers steadily. “But that’s better talked about privately so I thought maybe we could set up a time to meet later, too—”

  “Okay, what is this?” Abby demanded firmly, switching to the tough-girl tone she’d sometimes needed to use in rough foster homes.

  He held up his hands, palms out. “Exactly what I’ve told you—I’m here for a haircut and to talk to you about my sister’s wedding.”

  “And about something that you want me to meet you for later?”

  “Because it’s better talked about in private,” he repeated, his voice quieter than hers had been.

  China appeared from nowhere just then and Abby knew her friend had been lurking close enough to hear at least a portion of what had been said. China had probably only been hanging around to ogle the guy, but now any indication of admiration was gone. In its place was I’ve-got-your-back mode. Chin
a had also been a foster child and it was a pattern the two of them had developed when they’d become friends.

  But even though Abby wasn’t sure what was going on here, she didn’t think it was anything she couldn’t handle so she told China, “It’s okay.”

  The tall, very blonde China looked from Abby to the man in her chair through narrowed hazel eyes that were always dramatically lined and shadowed.

  To the client, China said, “If there’s something fishy with you—”

  “There isn’t,” he claimed, digging his wallet out of his back pocket. “Look, I am who I say I am.” He handed Abby his driver’s license and a business card. “And I’m honestly here with only the best intentions.”

  Abby looked over the license and card, then let China see them, too. When they were both finished with them he retrieved his license but left the card with Abby.

  “Keep that. It has all my numbers on it—business and personal. I was going to leave it with you anyway so you could reach me after this.”

  Abby looked at China, who looked back at Abby, both of them confused but still suspicious.

  Then China stepped out of Abby’s station and seemed to disappear, though Abby had no doubt her friend would stay nearby.

  “So, what’s going on?” she demanded then.

  “Right now, a haircut and talk about my sister’s wedding,” he said as if he were narrowing it down for the moment.

  Abby was half tempted to refuse both and send him packing.

  But she knew that if Sheila—the owner of two shops who left the managing of this one to Abby—heard that Abby’d had the opportunity to do the wedding of anyone as prominent as a Camden and refused, there would be hell to pay. It would likely cost her her job. So she had to at least hear him out.

  “A haircut and talk about your sister’s wedding,” she reiterated.

  “For now, here. And then maybe we can set up something for later so I can tell you the rest. Somewhere neutral, where you feel completely safe and can just listen to what I have to say.”

  Abby glared at him, again adopting her tough-girl attitude.

  But once more she thought of how much she’d be risking if she didn’t accept the business he was offering, so she signaled her shampoo boy to come and lead Dylan Camden to the sinks. She stayed where she was, watching from there and wondering what was up with this guy.

  When he’d first confirmed his connection to the Camden Superstores, she’d wondered if he was there to offer her a job. She’d heard that the Camden salons were really slipping these days and it wouldn’t be the first time someone had come in to steal her away from Sheila under the guise of having her do their hair.

  But then he’d brought up the hospital. And he did seem to know things...

  It was stupid. Totally stupid, and it hadn’t happened in years and years and she hated herself for lapsing into some old childhood dream. But a stranger coming out of nowhere, knowing something about her past, saying he had more to tell her, provoked the old fantasy just the same.

  The fantasy of someone appearing in her life unexpectedly to tell her she’d been misplaced by loving parents who had finally found her and wanted to whisk her away to somewhere she belonged. To a family she belonged to.

  It was far-fetched. She knew it. And Dylan Camden was only a few years older than her own thirty so he certainly wasn’t one of her long-lost parents.

  But what if...

  What if he was coming to tell her he was her brother? They both did have dark hair.

  No, she decided. Dark hair was too common for her to draw conclusions just from that. And she certainly didn’t have the signature blue eyes the Camdens were known for—the Camden Blue Eyes, the papers called them. They were even more striking in person than she’d expected.

  But the Camdens were a big-deal family with a huge number of associates and connections. There were countless ways the Camdens could have known her parents. Could she be the daughter of a socialite friend who had had her when she was very young and ultimately given her away to avoid humiliation and embarrassment?

  Pie in the sky, she told herself.

  Pipe dreams.

  Dumb.

  But what if Dylan Camden really did know something—anything—about her background?

  It wouldn’t take much to know something she didn’t. And just in case...

  It was insanely far-fetched.

  But even so, the longer she thought about it, the more she knew that she was going to agree to meet with him.

  In order to find out if he really did have even a morsel of information about who she was.

  Chapter Two

  Dylan paid the bill for his haircut at Beauty By Design’s reception desk then leaned around the partition behind it to call back to Abby Crane. “The park on Thirty-Second and Bryant, tonight at six-thirty, at the picnic tables—I’ll find you,” he said, repeating the time and location of the meeting she’d agreed to.

  From her station she nodded that so-full head of shiny hair. He’d noted that it was the color of the Belgian bittersweet chocolate that he’d gorged on for the past three months.

  “You’d better be on the up-and-up,” muttered the receptionist.

  “I am, don’t worry,” he assured her before leaving the salon.

  It was only a little after four and Dylan knew he should go back to his office for a while. But as he got into his black Jaguar the thought of that just didn’t sit well.

  He wasn’t far away—he was on the very outskirts of the city, and it wouldn’t take him more than fifteen minutes to be sitting behind his desk again.

  But since returning from three months of working on the security in the European stores—which he’d done to escape Lara and let the situation here cool off—everything seemed to require so much extra effort. It was taking its toll on him.

  Sure, it was effort he was willing to put in. Effort he knew that he owed his entire family. And he definitely wanted to make things right again because he couldn’t even put into words how much he hated the way things were between himself and the family now.

  But it wasn’t easy keeping up that eager-to-please attitude nonstop, day in and day out. It wasn’t easy doing things like today’s mea-culpa lunch with Cade and Nati—one of many he’d done during the three weeks since he’d been back. And sometimes he just needed to crawl to the back of his cave like a bear and take a few minutes before he could do more of it.

  Like right now.

  So rather than heading for the offices of Camden Incorporated where he would be around any number of siblings and cousins who were never particularly happy with him these days, he drove to his lower downtown penthouse loft instead.

  There, he parked in his spot in the underground garage, rode the private elevator to the top floor and sighed in relief as he passed through the elevator’s doors when they opened directly into his loft.

  His cave wasn’t very cave-like, admittedly.

  The living room, dining room and kitchen were all one expansive open space decorated in glass, leather and chrome with mere hints of serene sky blue accents. The lines were smooth and there was no clutter. It was quiet, clean, and everything was in its place.

  Lara had hated it.

  And maybe that, and the fact that her own condo was decorated in what he’d considered “clutter chic,” should have been an indicator that she thrived on chaos.

  But like all the rest of the clues, he’d missed that one, too.

  As nice as it was to be home, and as tempting as it was to just chill out until he needed to leave again to meet Abby, he realized that he still had to let his sister and grandmother know what was going on. It was part of being on his best behavior, after all.

  He took his phone out of his pocket and walked to the wall of windows that allowed him
a view of most of Denver. Lindie was first on the list, to tell her that he’d arranged for her and her bridesmaids to have the hair and makeup trial by the special occasions team of Beauty By Design.

  Abby had said that she ordinarily took Wednesdays off, but after some persuasion—and a conference with China who was apparently the head of the makeup-artist portion of it all, and the manicurist in charge of the nail division—they’d all agreed to do the trial next Wednesday.

  And, yes, due to a cancellation of a wedding on the same Saturday that Lindie’s was scheduled, Abby Crane and the Beauty By Design group would be available for the race to the altar that Lindie had opted for, if Lindie and her bridesmaids were happy with the results of the test run.

  Dylan concluded by relaying Abby’s email address so his sister could send pictures and information about what she had in mind.

  Then Dylan called his grandmother to tell her the same things, as well as that he was meeting with Abby tonight to open the door on her past.

  Both Lindie and GiGi appreciated what he’d accomplished but there was still an edge of reserve, a chilliness, from both of them—the same thing he met from the rest of the family at the office every day. So he was glad when the calls were complete and he could do what he’d come home to do—relax and let down his guard.

  But the way things were still weighed on him.

  Everybody had been pretty ticked off by the time he’d ended things with Lara, when he’d left for Europe. And even now, after admitting he’d been wrong and apologizing until he was blue in the face, feelings were still hurt, tempers were still tweaked and things were still stilted.

  He just had to keep chipping away at it and eventually maybe the whole thing would get to be history.

  The way he and Lara were.

  “Crazy-ass woman,” he grumbled, reminding himself of his appointment on Monday to take the Jag into the shop to have the dents she’d made in it repaired.

  If his siblings and cousins hadn’t been so mad at him when he’d left for Europe one of them probably would have had it done while he was gone. But as it was, his car had been left sitting in the parking garage for three months, the way he’d left it, and now he had to get it taken care of.