“No. But that’s not the point! The point is, these guys are dumping me and marrying someone else.”
“How long ago were you dating this guy?”
“We split last summer.”
“So he didn’t really go immediately from dating you to marrying her.”
“Stop trying to be reasonable, it’s not helping!” She started pulling the foils from her hair saying, “Forget it! Shave my head, I’m gonna become a nun!”
“Probably a good idea, what with the red hair and all,” Andre said, dryly.
He led her to the washbasin, since she’d spoiled everything he’d tried to do for her so far. “First we’ll wash this out, then I’ll get the clippers. Will that be a number one shave you’ll be wanting, madam? I hear it’s all the rage at the nunnery this year.”
“You are such a bitch,” she scolded him lightly.
Andre held up his hands. “Hey, you started it!”
“You are my hair–stylist. You are supposed to love and support me unconditionally.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“No. Why?”
“I could shoot him. That would be one less ex for you to worry about. ’Course, that doesn’t mean there mightn’t be more out there dating women they find eminently more attractive and easier to get along with than you!” Andre pulled out the rest of her foils, squirted on shampoo and started massaging Paige’s head more vigorously than necessary.
She decided to ignore it. If he really hurt her, she’d stomp her size–nine stilettos down on his sandaled foot. That’d teach him!
“There could be dozens of them,” he muttered under his breath.
“I heard that!”
“You’re not exactly known for longevity in your relationships,” he reminded her.
“Now you’re making me out to be a skank. I’ll never have any chance of getting into the nunnery if that gets out!”
“I can see you’re really taking this hard.”
“You’re so incredibly perceptive,” she said, enjoying being sarcastic. It was helping her feel much better. “I knew there was a reason you were my friend.”
“I could well be your only male friend, given the rate you’re chewing up boyfriends and sending them to the altar—with someone else.”
“Ouch!”
“Ow, wow, wow! What the hell did you just stomp on my foot for?”
“You’re massaging my head too hard. You’re pulling out all my hair.”
“Since you won’t have any hair by the time those clippers and I are through with you, it’s a moot point, wouldn’t you agree?”
Still, she did notice Andre backed off with the vigorous massaging. He rinsed her hair, then applied conditioner. Paige settled back to enjoy the head massage—it never felt as bad with conditioner in—and wondered if she’d ever need to wash her hair again if she got her head shaved.
“Wake up!”
Paige snapped awake. She’d been in the middle of a very nice dream. One that involved her West Highland Terrier, Angus, biting the backside out of the pants of Peter Graham as he knelt at the altar with some faceless woman. A faceless woman that didn’t have red hair.
She opened her eyes to find Andre standing over her, a pair of clippers in his hand and they were buzzing urgently! All of a sudden, getting her head shaved and joining a nunnery didn’t seem like such a good idea. For starters: what would she do with Angus?
Angus was the child she’d never had—and probably never would—given the rate old boyfriends were running up the aisle and exchanging their vows. Sure, she probably did over–indulge Angus a little, but he was such a cutie, how could she help it?
Paige sighed. She probably would have had beautiful babies. Pity they’d probably have red hair, since hers went back more generations than she could count. None of her four sisters had red hair. It just wasn’t fair!
The sound of the clippers approaching her hair woke her from her musings. She held up her hand. “Stop! I’ve changed my mind.”
“That’s good,” Andre said, turning the clippers off and setting them aside. “I didn’t have any blades in them anyway.”
“You know me too well,” she said.
“Yeah, I do. Maybe we should get married?” He wound a towel around her head with a flourish.
“You’re gay. Or had you forgotten that?”
“We could have the most beautiful babies,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I could do their hair for school every day, their makeup when they go to junior high, take them to ballet lessons, redecorate our apartment, help you shop for shoes—”
“Stop!”
“You say that a lot you know, sweetie. Maybe that’s your problem? You told too many of these men to stop, so they went and found women who didn’t want them to stop.”
“Very funny.” Paige got out of the chair at the basin and went to sit at the mirror again. She pulled off the towel, then pulled a face at her hair and wondered about going completely berserk with color. Purple might be interesting.
“And since you’re G.A.Y., how do you propose we actually produce these beautiful children?”
“Target has a nice line in turkey basters.”
“I’m not getting impregnated with a turkey baster from Target!” Paige exploded. Every head in the salon turned in her direction. Magazines were forgotten, text messages went unanswered.
“Oh, just go back to your own lives!” she snapped at them and turned back to the mirror.
“Sweetie, I think you need a little vacation,” Andre suggested gently. “You’re really tense.”
“You think?”
“Look, I know you’re facing the big three–oh next month and your precious little eggs are dying as we speak, so maybe a change of scenery will take that desperation out of your voice.”
“I’m not desperate about producing kids. You are!” she reminded him.
“Tick, tick, tick…”
With thinned lips, Paige picked up a magazine and flipped through it. It was a travel edition full of stunning beach locations. And men. She curled her lip. She’d been on enough beach vacations to know men that looked like that were just models brought in for the shoot and to act as bait for desperate women looking for a husband. Since she knew Andre had probably dated at least half of those men, and would love to date the other half, she wasn’t going to be fooled into a Caribbean holiday.
“Oooh,” Andre said as he glanced over her shoulder.
She snapped the magazine shut.
“What you need is to go somewhere far from here and all your exes,” Andre advised as he combed out her hair and tsk–tsked at her split ends as he held them in his hand. “Somewhere where the men are men…and the sheep are worried.”
“I’ve heard that about New Zealand,” she said, not missing a beat.
“I’d heard it about Colorado!”
“Oh, please. You’re only saying that because I came from there. Plus, they mostly run beef in the Centennial state.”
“Even better!”
“Shut up! You are disgusting. I have no idea why we’re even friends.”
“Because our Westies shared a womb?”
“How is that little ankle–biter, anyway?” Paige asked.
“Biting them left, right and center. I hear Angus was expelled from the kennels for savaging one of the attendants?”
One thing was certain, a hair salon was a hot–bed of gossip. Yes, Angus had been asked to leave for biting one of the kennel attendants, meaning she’d had to cut short the Fourth of July weekend she was spending with three of her sisters in Coldwater, Colorado—aka, No–where USA—in order to come and collect him from the kennels.
Paige was convinced Angus was at least as traumatized as the kennel owner made out the attendant was and, swore from that day on, Angus would never leave her side again. Which was problematic since there weren’t many places outside the contiguous forty–eight she could take him without his being put into quarantine. Goodbye, Caribbean holiday pl
ans!
“Why don’t you escape to Colorado? You said that town you grew up in is a compete backwater. No likelihood of running into any exes there.”
“The nunnery is sounding better and better all the time.”
“Oh, stop it! How bad can this place be?”
“Have you actually ever set foot outside the LA city limits?”
“No, but—”
“You ever see that movie, High Noon?”
“With Gary Copper? He’s to die for!”
“I’m not talking about him! I’m talking about the location!”
“Can’t say I noticed it…”
“Okay, what about Bonanza?”
“Four men on horseback! This just gets better and better!”
Paige groaned. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Whatever. Now, what are we going to do about this unholy mess of yours?” Andre picked up the scissors and started snipping at her split ends, his lips pursed in disgust. “You know what, sweetie? Your hair is so damaged, I’m not going to color it anymore. You’re just going to have to live with being a redhead.”
“And there endeth our friendship.”
“Nobody probably gives a rat’s backside what color your hair is in Coldwater, Colorado.”
“And this is you being supportive again is it?”
“Yup,” Andre said, picking up the hair dryer and drying off her hair. “Tuck it up in a cowboy hat and no–one will notice it.”
“You will never make your fortune refusing to color hair. Or shave heads…”
“I’m doing okay,” he said, indicating his full salon and at least a dozen stylists, colorists and nail technicians. “You want a free French polish? Might as well get one, so this visit isn’t a complete waste of time…”
Also available by C.C. Coburn:
The Cowboy, The Cheat, His Ex-Wife and Her Vibrator
Harlequin American Romance titles:
Colorado Christmas
The Sheriff and the Baby
Colorado Cowboy
Colorado Fireman
Sweet Home Colorado
Also Coming from C.C. Coburn
Austen in Love
When Elizabeth Barnett rescues a young woman from the River Avon’s icy depths—well, all eight feet of it—she’s puzzled by her strange attire and formal speech. Lizzie’s convinced the woman must’ve suffered brain damage as a result of her immersion, since she insists her name is Miss Jane Austen and that the year is 1805!
In spite of her misgivings, Lizzie takes Jane back to her Bath flat for some dry clothes and a soothing cup of tea before phoning the local psychiatric unit to check if they’re missing any patients.
But when she discovers Jane’s dress doesn’t have a zipper—it has buttons, and the seams are hand-sewn… she wonders: where would a mad-woman claiming to be Jane Austen get such a dress? And how did she end up in the river?
As the evidence mounts, Lizzie concedes that either the woman is a brilliant fraud—or she’s who she claims to be. And if she is, then Jane Austen has crossed a time-space continuum from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.
The question is: how will Lizzie send her back?
But Jane doesn’t want to go back. She embraces living in the twenty-first century with gusto. From cars to planes, dishwashers to hairdryers, everything is at once terrifying and exciting.
But more than anything, she wants to experience what was denied her in her own century—love.
And she finds it—with Lizzie’s brother, Charles, who has Jane quivering in her petticoats.
At last Jane Austen has fallen in love. But if she doesn’t return to 1805, then the world will never read her classic novels and literature will be changed forever.
Should Jane stay and explore her blossoming relationship with Charles, perhaps marry, have children and live to a ripe old age—or return to her own time where she knows she’ll die young, alone and childless?
About the Author
C.C. Coburn’s award-winning debut novel, Colorado Christmas from Harlequin American Romance is set in a small, but quirky Rocky mountains township. It features an uptight lady judge, a naughty pig, a lovesick dog, a kid who wants a dad, an Aztec red Cadillac series 62 complete with tail fins of extra-ordinary proportions, Christmas trees, a lot of snow and a hero to die for.
Four more books in the O’Malley Men series, The Sheriff and the Baby, Colorado Cowboy, Colorado Fireman and Sweet Home Colorado have received rave reviews and award nominations. The Cowboy, The Cheat, His Ex-Wife and Her Vibrator, CC’s first venture into independent publishing is available here.
Married to the first man who asked her, CC has three adult children, who have fortunately all left home.
CC has recently relocated from the heat and relentless sunshine of Australia’s Pacific coast to experience life in an English village, together with her husband and their much adored Labrador.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the following wonderful people and dear friends for their unwavering support and assistance in creating this story and bringing it to publication:
Cathleen Ross, Kandy Shepherd, Jan Durkin, Helen Sibbritt, Malvina Yock; Webmistress Paula Roe; Editors Tessa Shapcott and Paula Eykelhof; my formatter, Meredith Bond and Tara at FantasiaFrog Designs for my lovely cover.
A special thank you to my friends Jeff and Jeannie Paffrath who allowed me to take endless photos of their beautiful ranch. It inspired me as the setting for Maggie’s story.
And as always, my husband, Keith (and sometimes my children).
Table of Contents
Unnamed
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty–One
Chapter Twenty–Two
Epilogue
Coming Soon!
Also Coming from C.C. Coburn
About the Author
Colorado Woman (The Hansen Women) Page 18