LITMIR.BIZ

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LAST THING TESSA expected was to find herself in a salon chair under Nan’s ministering fingers.

      “You need a day of pampering,” Nan told her firmly.

      “I need a job,” Tessa protested as her employer gently pressed her head back into a sink.

      With determination, Nan picked up the squirter and began rinsing Tessa’s hair. “Nothing like a new do to a lift a gal’s spirits.”

      “My spirits are fine. It’s my purse that’s lighter than air. I really need a job, Nan.

      “You’ve got a job. Relax.” Nan kneaded her scalp with soothing digs. “You’re too keyed up.” She leaned down to whisper in Tessa’s ear, “And stress isn’t good for the baby.”

      Tessa gave up and closed her eyes. If she had to be a prisoner of Nan’s interference, at least it was in a beauty-salon chair.

      I wonder if Cord likes my hair so long. Her eyes snapped open at the stray thought.

      “All this blond hair is like sunshine in winter,” Nan told her. “Wasn’t that a poetic turn of phrase?”

      Tessa closed her eyes again, unwilling to reward the woman’s romantic penchant.

      “Relax,” Nan commanded her in a firm voice. She massaged the skin behind Tessa’s ears and above her neck.

      Tessa could feel herself slowly succumbing. The languor was magical and enticing. What would it hurt to enjoy this for just a moment?

      It would hurt. Because you like the idea of looking pretty for Cord—and that’s wrong.

      “Men go crazy for long blond hair,” Nan stated blithely. “Yours has natural highlights. I bet Cord will just about drop his teeth when I get finished with you. You’re going to be sexy, gal!”

      Tessa struggled not to jerk her head out of the basin and leap away from Nan’s mind reading. “It doesn’t do me much good to be sexy when the father of my child is…in another part of the world, does it?” She made her tone purposefully forbidding to force Nan onto the proper track. Away from Cord.

      Nan hummed benignly as she scrubbed. Tessa wanted to snap at her to stop, to quit being so bent on seeing her fall for Cord, but she set her teeth and refused to encourage the woman any further. Any protest she offered would no doubt become ammunition for Nan’s cause.

      “Now, then. You’re as clean as a fresh canvas. Let me help you,” Nan said, easing her up from the basin, “and get you over there, then I’ll get started. When I’m done with you, Tessa, no man will be able to resist you.”

      Great, Tessa thought. Unfortunately, the only man who should resist her was the only one who would lay eyes on Nan’s handiwork.

      “Look at these puppies!” a lady called as she came into the salon. “I wish you’d look at the puppies my Bertha is about done nursing!”

      Several women peered into the basket. “Oh, they’re adorable,” someone said.

      Tessa read a magazine and concentrated on Tom Cruise pushing a stroller with his wife beside him. The picture of domestic harmony made her a little envious. Would Hunt want to push their baby’s stroller? She found it difficult to imagine where Hunt was concerned.

      Not so difficult to imagine it with Cord.

      “Here, Tessa.” Nan’s voice in her ear suddenly alerted Tessa to the object being placed upon her gown-protected lap. “This is what you need to cheer you up!”

      The black-and-white-spotted puppy went back to sleep in her lap as if it hadn’t been removed from its bed in the basket. “I can’t keep a dog,” Tessa said though she desperately wanted to pat the chubby animal. “Take it away, Nan.”

      “Nonsense.” Nan ignored her. “A dog will give you some of that stability you’ve been searching for. You can start building a home with such stability.”

      “With a man who isn’t mine and a dog that isn’t mine.” Tessa’s voice was wry as she relented and picked up the puppy. Its eyes were closed, but its plump body was warm and soft.

      “They could be—if you take them. Sometimes we have to reach out in life to say yes to the things we want. Nobody’s going to shove security down your throat, Tessa. You have to accept that you want it before you can have it.”

      The puppy sleepily opened its eyes, staring into Tessa’s gaze with absolute trust. With absolute patience.

      “I wish you’d look at what a fine pup my Bertha had. You won’t find patience and calm in just any old dog. Bertha took such good care of her entire litter that they are all like that!” the owner boasted.

      “I don’t think I’m up for housebreaking,” Tessa said, her tone uncertain as she tried to think of rational excuses to say no to this shaggy dog that appeared to have all the signs of becoming one big Border collie. “You’ll probably want to go out at night. I bet your owner is overly touting your serene disposition. Are you an every-hour-on-the-hour needy hound that’s going to keep me up all night?”

      “Give you practice. We’ll take him,” Nan said, taking the woman by her elbow and leading her to the front of the beauty shop.

      Tessa saw Nan give the woman some money. Unhappily, she looked back into the puppy’s troubled eyes. “You just cost me money I don’t have.”

      The puppy yawned, its tongue pink and tiny.

      “Oh, dear. You are cute.” Reluctantly, she gave herself up to the dog’s charm and held his warmth under her chin. Breathing deeply, she smelled the warm puppy fragrance. What if it was all that easy? What if the dreams of a secure future for her child were so near her grasp that all she had to do was reach out—then hold on to them the way she was holding on to this bundle of fur? She settled the puppy on her lap, and it curled itself up next to the roundness of her stomach. A baby and a puppy.

      Parts of a family. But not the whole picture she had in her dreams.

      SALVADOR PEERED INTO the bedroom window where the woman obviously slept. Her robe and gown were neatly laid on the bed in the sparsely furnished room.

      “What if she does not stay here again?” Rossi asked.

      Salvador shook his head, memorizing the location of the furniture in the room and the placement of the window. “She will. He will not let her go. He is suspicious, I think.”

      Salvador enjoyed knowing he was getting to the man in the black cowboy hat. He was like one of the villains he’d seen in many American movies. The bad guys always wore black hats. Salvador was not the bad guy. The cowboy was, because his brother had gotten Salvador’s brother killed. It was a matter of honor to avenge his brother’s death.

      “That could mean trouble if he is suspicious of us.”

      “No,” Salvador said softly. “That’s good. It means he will keep her here where we can keep an eye on her just like he does.”

      Chapter Four

      Cord felt as if the rug had been jerked out from under him for the second time that day when he walked inside his house and saw Tessa.

      She was beautiful. Like a model, only better, because she was real and standing in his den.

      Location was a problem. He wanted to carry her to his bedroom and pull her jeans off so fast the zipper would split. Her sunshiny hair was pulled up into an elegant fall of curls that curtained her shoulders in gold. It was a stunning hairdo, but it made him think about removing whatever was holding her hair so he could run his fingers through it to his heart’s content. That was not a possibility.

      The squirming black-and-white puppy in her arms was actually a surprising relief. It gave him something to focus on besides Tessa.

      “Is that a stray?”

      “No.”

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