hungry. He felt like a man with a mission. Not that he was going to force Bailey to go out with him or even to pay attention to him. He had never had to use manipulation or coercion with a woman. And he was sure that, given an opportunity to see that he wasn’t a bad guy—he was just a sort of transient guy—Bailey wouldn’t have to be forced, either.
After rushing to her apartment to change into jeans and a T-shirt, and racing to her parents’ house to have a quick lunch with her family, Bailey hurried to her shop. But when she arrived it wasn’t to discover a line of impatient, flat-haired women awaiting her. Bailey only found Tanner McConnell on the top step leading to her salon door. He was handsome enough that even dressed in simple jeans and a plain white polo shirt, with his short sandy-brown hair ruffled by the June breeze and his green eyes clear and direct, watching her every move as she exited her SUV, the man could stop women’s hearts. But not hers. She had already had this conversation with herself.
She frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I want you to comb out my up-do.”
He said it so sincerely that Bailey giggled. “You don’t have an up-do. In fact, you could never get an up-do. Your hair is too short.”
“You want to restyle it?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “No. It’s fine the way it is…great actually.”
He smiled. “Really? You like it? I mean, that’s your professional opinion?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Whoever styled your hair knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Roberto will be relieved I’m sure.”
“Good. Go call him now to tell him, because I have work to do.”
“You’re blowing me off again.”
Fumbling with her keys, she managed the dual purpose of avoiding his eyes and unlocking her shop. “No, I’m not.”
“Good, then trim my hair. Leave the style just like Roberto has it, but take off that annoying fraction of an inch or so that keeps getting in my way.”
Leading him into the spotlessly clean shop, she said, “You’re not serious.”
“Is this a hair salon?” he asked, looking around at the four black stylists chairs, low-bowled chrome sinks and white-hooded dryers.
She nodded.
“Are you open for business?”
This time Bailey sighed. She knew she had no choice but to do what he wanted. Because if she told him she wasn’t open and one of her regulars came by to get rid of her day-old curls from the celebration, Bailey wouldn’t be able to take her in. At this point, with a huge business loan and customers not quite sure if they wanted to be loyal to the shop or try their luck somewhere else, Bailey couldn’t afford to offend anyone.
“I’m open.”
“Okay, then. I want my hair trimmed.”
She directed Tanner to sit on her salon chair, and pulled out the big black cape she used to cover the clothes of customers. She draped it over his white polo shirt and jeans. “I see you went home and changed after church, like I did.”
“Is that where you went?” he asked casually, but from the looks he had given her all through the service Bailey knew he had been planning to chat with her and undoubtedly she irritated him by speeding off.
“To change and to have lunch with my family,” she explained, occupied now with selecting scissors.
“That’s nice. You must be close to your family,” he said. He sounded truly interested, but Bailey didn’t think it was prudent to get into a personal discussion with him. No sense in encouraging him when they didn’t have a future together. He wasn’t staying in Wilmore, and even if by some miracle he fell madly in love with her, she was tied to the town by a big loan. He could not carry her off on his white horse. No one could. She was stuck here.
She brushed her fingers through the back of his already-short hair and was surprised by how silky it was. “Your hair doesn’t really need to be trimmed, you know.”
“Sure it does,” he insisted.
“Okay,” she said, combing her nails through the short, satiny locks again. She had cut enough hair in her lifetime that she thought she had felt all possible combinations of textures and naps, but there was something unsettlingly different about Tanner’s hair. It tingled against her fingertips and palm, as if it were alive.
She cleared her throat. “I’m only taking off about an eighth of an inch.”
“That’s good. That’s about how much I figure has been getting in the way when I blow dry.”
The very absurdity of that statement made her laugh again. “Stop that,” she said, but she sounded like a silly schoolgirl flirting with the star athlete.
“Why? Don’t you like to laugh?”
“I love to laugh, but if you’re smart you won’t want the person who has scissors to your head to get a case of the giggles. I could ruin your hair.”
“It would grow back.”
She drew in a resigned breath. “Do you always have an answer for everything?”
“Yes,” he said, quickly, concisely. He was so serious about it that he caught her wrist to prevent her scissors from reaching his hair, and he turned on the chair to face her. “Yes, I have an answer for everything, so if you would just tell me why you keep avoiding me I could probably resolve the issue in your mind and we could have a good time while I’m here in Wilmore.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. She wiggled her wrist from his grasp, set her scissors on the counter and untied the smock he wore to protect his clothes from the hair she would have cut, if she had cut any. “That’s what this is all about. You don’t like rejection.”
“I take rejection just fine. I not only started a new business, I ran it for eight years. I know all about rejection. And this has nothing to do with rejection. I like you.”
“We haven’t even had a twenty-minute conversation,” Bailey said, leaning against her counter and crossing her arms on her chest. “How can you say you like me? You don’t even know me.”
“And you don’t know me enough to keep blowing me off like this,” Tanner countered with a smile. “So have dinner with me tonight. We’ll get to know each other and then we can make an informed decision.”
Bailey shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Tanner asked, sounding totally confused.
She would have told him there was no future for them and, therefore, no point in their going out, but before the words clearly formed in her brain, her shop door opened.
“Hi, Bailey,” Norma Alexander greeted, then she saw Tanner. “Oops! Sorry!” she said, her eyes wide and round with surprise. “I thought you were open for business.”
“I
