Her daughter was the center of Hailey’s life, never wanting her to feel a void because she didn’t have a dad. So Hailey had made up for it by functioning as both parents. No matter how tired, how lonely, how scared she’d been, Hailey had always stepped up and been the kind of mom Melody deserved, but she refused to discuss it with anyone, especially Dylan.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
Hailey wasn’t about to let an unwitting sperm donor shatter the perfect world she’d built for her daughter. Not after all the years Hailey had spent on her own, doing double time as a parent, and had managed to do a good job with her daughter and build a nice career so she and Mel could be independent.
The conversation had swerved into the danger zone, and Hailey needed to take the wheel. Slow down. Steer away from the cliff they were quickly approaching by talking about Mel.
She reached the front door of the mechanic shop and rested a hand on the door handle. “Look, Dylan. I appreciate what a good sport you’re being over the whole water disaster, but you were the one who brought up leaving town and building relationships and trust. Well, I don’t trust you because of the way you left things unfinished with our relationship years ago.” A simple goodbye would’ve been better than nothing, but nothing was exactly what she’d gotten. “Our two businesses share a wall. Beyond that, I don’t want to get too personal. No offense, but I’ve got my life together. I don’t need anyone messing with it.”
His jaw ticked as his gaze wandered over her face.
She looked him in the eye. Refused to show weakness. Or even regret. She hadn’t been the one to skip town without a word.
“Honesty,” he finally said. “I like that.”
All the air wrung from her lungs.
He rubbed a palm across his jaw. “It takes guts to be honest and up front.”
She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe?
“You don’t want to get too friendly or personal because you don’t completely trust me.” He angled his head to one side. “Fair enough.” He braced a hand against the door so she couldn’t open it. “Since you’re bold and brave enough to be so honest—”
Good God, if he complimented her honestly one more time, she’d have to put her head between her knees and gasp for air.
“There’s just one more thing I’d like to say.” His eyes softened. “Leaving the way I did was the worst mistake I ever made. I was a kid with visions of seeing my name up in lights. I’ve regretted it ever since. I don’t expect you to be my bestie…or whatever ladies call it…but I do want you to know that I’m sorry for not saying goodbye in person.”
Oh. Okay.
He released the door and stood back so she could pull it open.
His heartfelt apology should’ve settled her nerves. Untied the knot in her stomach.
Instead, it made her question if she’d been right all along to keep the truth from him about Melody.
* * *
Dylan walked into the mechanic shop with Hailey on his heels and followed the hallway to the left, where he knew it would empty out into four bays, with Ross likely working on a vehicle. He was the best mechanic around, and worked on Dylan’s old muscle car when he couldn’t figure out how to fix it himself. Which was most of the time.
To fill the awkward silence after Hailey just put him in his place, he started whistling the new tune again.
Call him curious, but the her touchy reaction when he’d asked simple questions about her kid’s name and age had him wondering if there was another reason she was back in town, besides partnering with her cousin at Shear Elegance. Seemed strange to move a kid away from her father.
Unless the guy was a douche. Unless she didn’t want the kid around said douche. Or unless said douche didn’t want to be around his kid, which would make him a double douche.
Maybe that’s why she hadn’t married him.
But just as she’d done with all of her morning clients who asked similar questions, she’d shut Dylan down and changed the subject when he’d asked about her daughter.
As they made their way down the hall, he said, “Just so you know, I wasn’t prying so I can gossip. That’s not what I’m about. I was just interested, that’s all. But I can understand wanting privacy.” Same reason he never spoke of what’d happened in L.A. Explaining usually stirred up more questions. More scrutiny. More gossip.
He couldn’t deny that Hailey saying she didn’t trust him and didn’t want to get too friendly had stung, but at least she was honest. There were few things he couldn’t tolerate in a person, and dishonesty was one of them. Especially after what he’d gone through in the early days of his music career. It might’ve sucked to hear Hailey tell him she wanted nothing to do with him on a personal level, but he respected her candor. Honesty revealed a lot about a person’s character, the same as did deceit, and he steered clear of people who saw nothing wrong with lying.
Which is why it stung so badly. She was the type of person he wanted in his life. The type of woman he’d like to spend time with and get to know better.
Unfortunately, he’d screwed up his chance with her six years ago, and that crucial mistake was still haunting him.
With Hailey’s shoes clicking against the industrial cement floor, they took a sharp right turn where the hall ended, then stepped into the shop. Two of the bays were filled with trucks, and Ross’s head was buried under the hood of a ’67 Mustang.
Dylan let out a long, low whistle and slowly circled the classic muscle car.
Ross’s long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his ball cap was turned around backwards. His mechanic coveralls made him look bigger and broader than usual. That was saying something because the guy was built like a Mack truck. “Hey, man.” He reached for a rag to wipe the grease from his hands.
“Dude,” Dylan said. “This is some car.”
Ross nodded. “Isn’t it? The owner lives in Arizona. Delivered it to me on a trailer truck so I can work on it for him.”
Dylan looked at Hailey for the first time since she’d told him off in such a polite way. “Best mechanic in the business right here.” He pointed to Ross.
“Must be if you’ve got customers sending cars to you from different states.” She held out a hand to Ross, and he shook it. “Hailey Hicks.” She shot a glance at Dylan, and fire flashed in her eyes. “I’m new in town.”
“New?” Ross frowned. “I’ve worked on your mom’s vehicles for years. I remember you.”
Hailey folded both arms across her chest and slowly turned a satisfied smile on Dylan. “Apparently, some people in Red River think because I moved away to go to school and to work, that disqualifies me from being counted as a local.”
Okay, okay, point taken. “So, Ross, we have an unusual problem—”
“We need to borrow your old fire truck,” Hailey blurted.
Ross looked at her, then back to Dylan, then at Hailey again. “Uh huh.”
Dylan explained the entire situation, with Hailey interjecting every other sentence.
Poor Ross’s head swiveled back and forth between them until they finally finished. “Let me get this straight. You want to park my antique engine behind Joe’s and run the hose into the kitchen to use as your water source?”
Now that he put it that way, it did sound a little nutty. But Dylan still had to give Hailey points for trying because she was working just as hard as he was to get Joe’s open and running.
She nibbled at her bottom lip and gave a shaky nod.
First time Dylan had seen her confidence waver all day. It was adorable.
He raked a hand over his face because, hell. There he went again, using words that weren’t meant for dudes. But with her, they seemed to fit.
“Yep, that about sums it up,” Dylan said. He wasn’t trying to take the credit for Hailey’s idea, but he couldn’t stand her look of uncertainty. It didn’t suit her usual badass, in-charge attitude, so he’d take the blame if Ross thought it was stupid.
Ros
s nodded. “Awesome idea.”
She was pretty awesome.
Dylan’s throat closed.
Keep it together, dude. She’d already made it clear how she felt about him. How she wanted to keep her distance.
Probably for the best. He had a lot on his plate with hosting the festival. Working with temperamental musicians wasn’t always a joyride, especially if his establishment didn’t have running water. Until he proved to Joe that he had the goods to pull off the event and take charge of the bar without running it into the ground, he shouldn’t cause anymore ripples in his personal life that might distract him from his goal.
He hooked a thumb in Hailey’s direction. “The idea was all hers.”
Ross gave her an approving look. “You’ll do fine running a business here if you’re that inventive.” He went to a wall rack that had several keys dangling from hooks. It took him a few minutes, but he finally picked a set of keys off the rack. “I keep it full just in case the fire department needs it as a backup.” Ross glanced at Hailey. “I’m a volunteer firefighter. Hence, the reason I have an antique fire truck out back with a tank full of water.”
Within twenty minutes they had the truck just outside of Joe’s backdoor, the hose unwound all the way to the kitchen’s industrial sink, and Hailey had returned to her shop to start working on her afternoon clients.
Ross gave Dylan a quickie lesson on how to turn the water on and off.
“Got it,” Dylan said when Ross was done showing him how it worked. “Hopefully, we won’t need your truck more than a day or two, but you’re saving my ass by letting me use this thing.” Joe’s had already lost a half day of business. The sooner they got the water situation temporarily running again, the sooner they could open and capture the evening dinner-and-drinks crowd because that’s where the real money was.
“Keep it as long as you need,” said Ross.
Dylan reached for the valve that opened the flow of water and started turning it. “Thanks, man.”
“Sure thing, buddy,” Ross said.
The knob was old and rusty, and didn’t want to budge. So Dylan put more muscle behind it.
“Just don’t open the valve all the way because—"
The knob gave way and turned almost a full circle.
The hose ballooned out as it filled with water. Loud sounds of breaking glass, metal clanging against metal, and a crash that shook the entire strip of buildings had Dylan and Ross both scrambling to turn off the water again.
“That sounded expensive.” Dylan’s eyes slid shut as he sagged against the fire truck. “You were saying?”
Ross gave him a worried look. “The hose can do some real damage if the pressure is too high and the water is flowing too fast.”
“Right.” Dylan was afraid to walk inside and see what he’d destroyed. From the sounds of it, he doubted he’d like what he found.
Like a kid being sent to the principal’s office, he hung his head and made his way inside.
When he got to the kitchen, his heart dropped to his feet, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Every glass dish that had been sitting out instead of tucked into a cabinet was broken, the shards covering the brown tiled floor. Pots and pans were scattered everywhere.
Worst of all, the solid red brick wall that separated Joe’s kitchen from Shear Elegance wasn’t quite so solid anymore. The hose had knocked a gigantic hole—as close to the shape and size of an actual doorway as one could get—in the wall, the bricks laying in a heap on the floor.
And Hailey stood on the other side of the opening, her eyes rounded and her jaw hanging open.
Dylan put both hands on his head and cursed to himself.
If he didn’t end up having to cancel the songwriter’s festival and shut down Joe’s entirely, at least they’d have easy access to the working bathroom in Hailey’s salon.
Chapter Five
The next few days passed in a blaze of activity. The news of Hailey’s return to town, the gaping hole in the wall, and the hurry to fix the plumbing had kept the door at Shear Elegance opening and closing so much, they would’ve been better off installing a revolving door.
Even when the plumber and contractor left for lunch, Hailey didn’t take a real break.
“Thanks for doing this,” Brianna said.
Hailey applied hot pink color to a strip of Brianna’s jet-black hair just behind one ear. “What are cousins for?”
“They’re for dying your hair pink, apparently.” From the chair, Brianna looked in the mirror and winked at Hailey.
“I was voting for aqua, but it’s your hair.” Hailey carefully brushed on the pasty dye. “And it would’ve looked great to do the tips all the way around instead of just one strip.”
“This is Red River,” Brianna said. “Baby steps. If we get too wild too fast, it might chase customers away. I’m just happy to have you here to do my hair whenever I need it instead of having to drive all the way to Albuquerque to see you.”
“Every appointment is booked for both of us for the next two weeks.” Hailey’s protective gloves crinkled as she smushed the chunk of hair around in her fist and let the dye saturate every strand.
“That’s because you’re a rock star stylist.” Brianna smiled.
Hailey scoffed, and hitched up her chin at the hole in the wall. The plastic sheet their contractor had placed over the hole hadn’t lasted long because Dylan kept moving it aside to check on the progress. Unfortunately, they were uncovering more problems quicker than they were able to fix them, and the progress was creeping along.
“It’s because people want to see firsthand what all the drama was about the other day.” Hailey wrapped Brianna’s strip of hair in cellophane to keep the dye from spreading.
Brianna lifted a shoulder. “The fire truck fiasco is the biggest thing to happen since the world’s most popular erotic romance novelist’s true identity was revealed, and it turned out to be one of Red River’s very own.”
Ah, yes. The pretty redhead who had stopped to speak to Dylan on the sidewalk during Hailey’s first morning at work. She hadn’t known who the owner of all the flowing red hair was until she’d come in for an appointment yesterday. Ella Wells, aka Violet Vixen, turned out to be happily married to the only chiropractor in town, and had invited Hailey to join a group called the Mommy Mafia for their next ladies’ night out.
Hailey’s cheeks heated. Seeing a pretty woman with Dylan shouldn’t have caused a green-eyed monster the size of Godzilla to roar to life in her head. Dylan wasn’t hers to get jealous over. Their fling had come with a mutual understanding that it would end when they both moved away to pursue their dreams.
And end it did. Abruptly. So really, he never had been hers.
Never would be, either.
Even if his Spanish pirate eyes made her ovulate every time she saw him. Which was way too often in her opinion because of the damned hole in the wall.
“Before the erotic novel scandal, the big news was IRS agents raiding the old Timberland’s Steak House ten years ago and dragging the owner away in handcuffs.” Brianna shook her head. “He had to be doing some pretty shady stuff for Department of Treasury agents to show up with their guns drawn.” She chuckled. “The hubbub over that lasted a long time.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Of course, there’ve been other scandals that had the town gossip mill spinning like a tornado. Like when Angelique Barbetta broke Doc Holloway’s nose in a volleyball game before they realized they were in love and ended up married. And Miranda Cruz went to war with Talmadge Oaks when he came home for his grandmother’s funeral, but that ended happily when they fell in love and got hitched. And who can forget Lorenda Lawson marrying her late husband’s identical twin brother, even though he was the prime suspect in a string of fires…”
Oy vey.
Precisely why Hailey had kept her daughter away from Red River for so long. Hailey would have to maim anyone who gossiped about Mel. And gossip would surely fly if the source of her daughter’s DNA got out.
She’d let her own family assume Mel had been conceived by a one-night stand right after she’d moved to Albuquerque. She hadn’t lied. She simply never bothered to explain that their assumption was incorrect.
Hailey snapped off her gloves and tossed them in the trash. “For being such a small town, Red River has never been boring, that’s for sure.” She picked up the timer on the counter and set it so Brianna’s hair would process the perfect amount of time. “Can’t say I’m in love with being the local freak show my first week back home, though.” She claimed the chair at the next station and swiveled so she could face Brianna.
“How’s Mel handling the move?” Brianna asked, her voice going soft with concern.
“She’s fine. Mom is spoiling her rotten, which is nice.” Hailey crossed her legs. “She misses her daycare friends, but she’ll make new ones when kindergarten starts in the fall. I, for one, am so thankful I don’t have to leave her in daycare all day anymore.” Dropping her off every day had torn Hailey in two. But to keep her job at the most posh, high-paying salon in a city as big as Albuquerque had meant working six days a week. “Thank you,” she said to Brianna. “I’m grateful to you for bringing me in as a partner.” She blinked back tears.
Brianna’s eyes got watery, too. “Girlfriend, I’m the one who’s grateful. Running a business that has to be open almost every day was getting to me. Andy was really getting tired of feeling like I was married to the salon instead of married to him. Now, you and I can grow the business, but hopefully still be able to have a personal life by splitting the workload.” She sniffed.
Hailey got them both a tissue so they could sniffle together.
“Since I can’t have kids of my own, I’m looking forward to spoiling Mel, too,” Brianna said.
“I guess we’ll all be spoiling her because she’ll always be the center of my world. I don’t plan to get married.” Hailey tossed her tissue into the trash.
“You never know.” Brianna threw away her tissue, too. “Lots of us have found love right here in Red River. You might, too.”
It’s In His Song: Book 6 Page 5