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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.”
