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“Mmm hmm.” The blonde nodded numbly.
“Well, then, I’ll just…head to the coffee shop,” Sawyer said, circling around the woman, having had his fill of awkward encounters for one morning. “Have a good one.”
He turned and walked away with a rotten feeling in his stomach. He might have to revise his expectations of how enjoyable his stay in Southwest Texas was going to be. So far, the women of Lonesome Point seemed disinterested in him to the point of catatonia.
If something didn’t change, it looked like his bed was going to be as lonely as the ghost town he’d been sent to restore.
CHAPTERTHREE
Before Mia’spulse had the chance to return to normal after having themost stunning man she had ever seenwalk into her lingerie shop and ask her out on a date, Tulsi slammed through Lavender and Lace’s front door, looking like she’d seen her grandmother’s ghost.
“Holy crap.” Tulsi leaned back against the door, pulling her daughter, Clementine, in for a hug. “I think we just saw a movie star. I don’t know what movie he was in, because I don’t watch movies, but he had to be a movie star.”
Mia’s nose wrinkled. “Tall, brown Stetson, unusually manly forearms?”
Tulsi nodded. “Yes! Did you see him?”
“I saw him,” Mia confirmed, gathering the bras she’d been sorting through back into their shipping box. “He asked me out on a date.”
Tulsi squealed—a girly sound so unlike feet-planted-firmly-in-the-sawdust Tulsi that her six-year-old turned to shoot her mother a surprised look.
“Sorry, Clem,” Tulsi said, laughing as she smoothed her daughter’s white blond hair from her face. “I’m just so excited for Mia! She’s going out with a movie star!”
“He’s not a movie star,” Mia said in a stern voice. “And I’m not going out with him.”
“What?” Tulsi’s excited expression crumpled. “Why not? He seemed nice. I mean, we didn’t really have a conversation, but—”
“Mama grunted at him,” Clementine said in her signature dry tone, the one that always sounded adorably out of place coming from a six year old. “I thought she was turning into a cavewoman.”
Mia laughed. “Be nice, turd.”
“It’s okay, she’s telling the truth. I did grunt.” Tulsi shrugged. “I couldn’t think of what to say. That’s whyInever date. I’m too shy to talk to people I haven’t known forever, but you should! You’re sweet and funny and gorgeous and you should go out with that man.”
“Not happening.” Mia hustled behind the counter, stacking the box of bras back in the pile with the other stock she hadn’t gotten around to unpacking yet. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Can I go play in my fort?” Clementine asked, already hedging toward the back room, where Mia had set up a permanent blanket fort filled with toys and books for when her favorite six-year-old came to hang out at the shop.
“Sure, baby. Give me a goodbye kiss first.” Tulsi leaned down to give Clem a hug and a kiss. “Be extra good for Mia, okay?”
“I will. I’m always good in the summertime,” Clem said, skipping toward the back room.
“Yeah, well, good during the school year would be nice, too,” Tulsi called after her daughter. “You’ve got Mrs. Grier for first grade, and she eats troublemakers for breakfast.”
Clementine laughed the laugh of a child who has absolutely no fear of adults, teachers, large hairy spiders, or anything else, and disappeared through the curtain into the back room.
“Mrs. Grier.” Mia winced. “Remember that time she made me sit on the carpet for a week because I wouldn’t keep my front chair legs on the floor?”
“I know.” Tulsi shook her head with a sigh. “Clem’s going to have to take the sass down a few notches, or she’s in for a rude awakening.”
Mia chuckled. “Probably, but I have to admit I like her sass. She’s got personality.”
“That’s for sure.” Tulsi gazed toward the back room with a fond smile before turning back to Mia, and adding in a more serious tone. “Speaking of people with personality, why are you so determined to hide your light under a bushel? Enough is enough, Mia. It’s been a year. You have to get back on the horse sooner or later.”
“I’ve given up horses,” Mia said, fighting the urge to grin when Tulsi—a hardcore horsewoman, who would spend every moment of every day in the saddle if she could—gasped in dismay.
“That’s a horrible thing to say.” Tulsi swatted Mia’s bottom as she walked by. “Somewhere a horse fairy just lost its wings.”
Mia started up the stairs to her apartment. “I don’t believe in horse fairies.”
