Marrying Money

At least not yet. She was only twenty-five. Too young to be thinking about anything permanent…not that she thought Tanner McConnell would want something permanent with her. Since he and Emmalee split up all those years ago, he hadn’t dated anybody for more than a month. And those he had dated didn’t come from West Virginia. They were New York socialites. He didn’t even date models and actresses. His taste ran to daughters of influential men. Or executive directors of charities who donated back their salaries because they didn’t need them. Or patrons of the ballet and symphony. Bailey was just about certain that Tanner wouldn’t consider the town beautician to be a member of that category. In the end she wouldn’t be good enough, just like Emmalee hadn’t been good enough to move with him when he left Wilmore to start his new life.

At least that was the rumor.

Besides, she didn’t care about Emma and Tanner and their ugly divorce. She had work to do. With her business degree languishing away while she focused on creating great hairdos to build the customer base of her beauty shop, she needed a way to keep sharp the skills she’d learned in college. And fate had given her the perfect opportunity. When she and the members of the flood recovery committee had realized how many things their town lacked and how easy it would be to get them if a few people dedicated time to going after the money, she knew this was the way to make sure she didn’t get rusty. And she also knew she had more than enough to keep her occupied. There was no room for a man in her life.

As she joined the group inside, she caught Tanner staring at her. When she caught Tanner staring at her all through dinner, she decided she had confused him by not falling at his feet…which was understandable since everybody else did. When he tried to mingle in her direction before the band started, she adroitly sidestepped all his attempts. But when he cornered her just as the band played its first romantic song, a lovely lilting waltz, Bailey knew there was no dodging the inevitable.

“Dance?” he asked, extending his hand to her and giving her the perfect, glorious smile that melted most women.

Right on cue, Bailey felt her knees weaken. His green eyes sparkled with sincerity. His tanned skin brought out the best in his sandy-brown hair, which was streaked with blond from the sun. He had a straight nose and even straighter teeth. It almost seemed that when he was created, the universe set out to combine the best of everything, and it had definitely succeeded.

When she didn’t answer him, he stepped a little closer, opened his hand a little wider. “It’s only a dance,” he coaxed, but Bailey didn’t think so. When she looked into the depths of his eyes, instincts she didn’t know she possessed surged to the forefront. She could fall madly in love with him. Quickly. Easily. Any woman could. And he would hurt her. She wasn’t any more sophisticated than Emmalee had been, so undoubtedly he would drop her after a date or two. Since she wasn’t the kind for a casual fling or temporary relationship, she was just a tad too naive for the likes of Tanner McConnell.

Still staring into his eyes, she swallowed, then said, “I don’t think so. I should go into the kitchen to make sure the cleanup committee isn’t having any trouble.”

She turned to go, but Tanner caught her hand and spun her around again. “It’s not a good idea to micromanage.”

“What?”

“It’s never a good idea to micromanage,” he said, easily manipulating her onto the dance floor by preoccupying her with the explanation of what he had said. “Because you’re the committee head,” he added, his arm casually, smoothly sliding across the small of her back, “you’re everybody’s boss. If you keep going back to check on them, people will think you don’t trust them.”

“They won’t think I care about them and I’m trying to keep up my end of the work?” she asked, while inside her heart tripped out a frantic rhythm, and awareness of him hummed through her. Tall and masculine, picture-perfect gorgeous, with a smile that forced her to smile in response, Tanner McConnell incited feelings and sensations in her that were probably illegal in conservative states.

Tanner laughed, effortlessly guiding her around the dance floor in a waltz. “No. They’ll think you’re robbing them of an opportunity to please you, to impress you.”

She tilted her head in question. He was such a handsome man that people forgot he was also ultrasuccessful. Someday Bailey wanted to be ultrasuccessful, too. If fate was giving her nudges in his direction, maybe it wasn’t for romance, but to get his guidance. “Is that how you ran your business?”

He nodded. “Put enough faith in people, show them you believe they can succeed, and they will do anything you ask.”

She smiled. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That is so interesting, because I just hired a new stylist who is very talented, but when it comes to the crunch hairdos, she just sort of freaks out on me.”

“Crunch hairdos?”

“The big deals,” Bailey explained, catching his gaze. “You know, wedding parties, upsweeps for the prom, the important hairdos.”

“Oh, those are your critical success factors for your business,” he said, understanding.

“Precisely. Those are the things that make or break you. Owning the beauty shop is like being the florist. If a bride likes the flowers you do for her wedding, she’ll get her mother’s day bouquets from you. If a girl likes the way you do her hair for the prom, you’re a shoo-in to do her wedding.”

Tanner nodded approvingly, like a man who was not only listening, but also comprehending, but Bailey suddenly felt incredibly stupid. She was dancing with the most attractive man in the world and though she knew talking about business was the best way to keep herself out of trouble, talking about upsweeps for the prom might be carrying things too far.

She licked her lips, trying to think of something to say, but when she caught his gaze again the words died on her tongue. As he swept her around the floor, with her feet feeling as if they were barely touching the ground, the ruffle of her dress flowing around her, and the room spinning by, she felt like a princess. Mesmerized by his beautiful green eyes, she couldn’t help but wish this dance, this moment, could go on forever. She felt his hand tighten at her waist, watched his lips as they bowed upward into a broad smile, and her stomach sank to the floor. She had never wanted anything so much in her entire life, in spite of the fact that she knew it was dead wrong and that she wasn’t going to get it.

She almost willed the band to play an extra chorus and when they did she used that unexpected gift of two more minutes to memorize his scent, the look in his eyes, the way his hand felt on the small of her back. She remembered every tingle resonating through her, every pinpoint of awareness inspired by his touch, every good and happy thought that raced through her brain. Because when the song was over and they broke apart to applaud she knew she would do what she had to do.

She faced him, smiled and politely said, “Thank you for the dance,” then ran like the wind into the kitchen.

A quick glance around the stainless steel and Formica room told her everything had been wiped down, washed or returned to its proper position. She faced Ricky Avery, ready to ask him if certain tasks had been done, but remembering the business advice Tanner had given her as he held her in his arms, she smiled and said, “Looks good in here.”

Tall, lanky, curly haired Ricky beamed and peered around with self-satisfaction. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” she said, patting his shoulder. “You did very, very well. I’m proud of you.”

Ricky straightened his shoulders and suddenly looked ten feet tall. “Thanks.”

Bailey smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, then grabbed the purse she had left with the kitchen staff for safekeeping. “I’ll see you around town,” she added, and started for the door.

Ricky gave her a puzzled frown. “You’re leaving?”

“I’ve already had enough excitement for one night. Besides, I’m working in the morning.”

“But tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Somebody’s still got to comb out all those up-dos,” Bailey quickly countered. “If everybody wraps their hair for bed tonight like I told them, they’ll be okay for church in the morning, but after church nobody’s going to want to walk around in blue jeans and a T-shirt, looking like Athena.”

“But you planned this…and the night’s only started,” Ricky protested, obviously confused.

Bailey smiled a response, but seeing that Tanner had finally made his way to the kitchen and was about to walk through the door, she said, “I know. See you tomorrow.”

She raced out into the dark, empty night. In her haste she was very careful to make sure she didn’t lose one of her shoes because then for sure she would have felt like Cinderella leaving the ball. And she wasn’t. She was a beautician from Wilmore, West Virginia, trying to build a business, trying to help her town. She was a common, simple, ordinary woman. Not royalty. Not a princess destined to marry a prince.

She climbed into her SUV and shoved the key in the ignition just in time to see Tanner come out of the back door of the church hall. He waved. She yanked her gearshift into drive and drove off. Content with one dance. One very happy memory.

Chapter Two

But Tanner wasn’t nearly satisfied with a memory. He trudged back into the red, white and blue church hall, his lips pursed, his mind going a million miles a second.

“She dumped you,” his father said casually as Tanner pulled out a folding chair and sat beside his mother.

Tanner loosened his tie and grimaced. “She went home. Ricky Avery said she said something about having to comb out up-dos in the morning.”

“If she said she does, she does,” Tanner’s mother confirmed, then popped an olive in her mouth. “Not everybody’s retired like you are.”

“No kidding,” Tanner said.

“In fact, she just bought her beauty shop from Flora Mae Houser. Flora Mae had it for the past thirty years. You probably don’t remember her, but she was the woman who—”

Tanner scowled at his mother.

“Sorry, dear,” she said, then smiled. “I keep forgetting my two men hate it when I switch topics without warning. We can go back to talking about how Bailey doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.”

“If she hadn’t just run like her shoes were on fire, I would have sworn you set this up for me to meet her,” Tanner grumbled. There wasn’t another woman in the room who came close to Bailey. Nobody else he cared to even talk to, let alone dance with. And his parents would have known he’d like her from the first hello.

“Not me,” Jim McConnell said.