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Chapter Six
All the Sundays she’d spent as a child watching old cowboy movies rushed her memory. He was nothing like what she saw on TV, he was better.
Way better.
Tall, broad across the shoulders like Atlas ready to carry the world, and she not too lean around the waist.
From his spot outside her window, he nodded and spoke to someone now just out of view from where she stood. She bet his accent dropped panties.
A silly question flitted across her mind. Did all cowboys wear spurs like in the movies? She had to wonder. She could not see his feet, but she bet the last dollar he at least had on boots.
The cowboy, dressed in all black, stood on the sidewalk outside her door, a stark contrast to the bright sunshine that poured over him. He looked as out of place as a snowman in the desert.
From behind him a woman stepped out of the car and linked arms with her cowboy, all smiles and red silky hair that spilled down the back of a perfectly flowy sundress draped over a gorgeous body made for Hollywood.
Shit.
And just like that, all the stars in Juniper’s eyes faded to dull little clusters of dashed dreams. Of course he had a fiancée, silly. After all, why else would they be here? The cosmos got it all twisted up. She wanted love and got the perfect man but who was already taken.
Careful what you wish for, Juniper.
Oh, well. She could at least dream.
As the car that dropped them off pulled away, she caught sight of a poof of blonde hair and then there she was. Stacey Banners with a handful of brochures and crossing the street on pencil-thin stilettos.
Juniper narrowed her eyes into tiny slits. What the hell? She gasped. She wouldn’t. Would she?
Let her step in a manhole and fall to the center of the earth.
Juniper scowled and bent a little for a better view out the front windows.
For real? Had the woman no shame?
Her side of the street meant her client.
Perched at the top of the stairs Juniper held her breath as she looked on in horror.
He took the brochure.
“Please don’t go. Please don’t go.” Juniper squeezed her eyes closed and chanted.
Action. She needed to take action. But what? Just because they looked like a newly engaged couple didn’t mean they were. How would it look if she dashed outside and tried to steal them back to her side? She could already see the headlines:
WEDDING PLANNERS DUKE IT OUT OVER THE DUKE
Her stomach tied in knots and her breath froze in her chest.
He turned her way.
Did her silver lining just regain its shine? Things were looking up.
Juniper straightened and waited for what felt like a century before the tips of his boots came into view through the window from where she stood.
Clutching the railing, she willed him to put one foot in front of the other. “That’s right, come this way, Mr. Perfect. You want to walk through my door, baby,” Juniper whispered a little breathlessly.
Her heart went from flat-lining to OMG territory. Her little wish this morning worked! She wouldn’t have to let her workers go or close shop after all. Maybe she didn’t want to stare at that particular silver lining too closely for risk of losing it all together.
She danced in a circle, fist-pumping the air. “Oh yeah! Take that, Ms. Stacey Banners.”
