LITMIR.BIZ

      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.

      “Not me, either,” Doris seconded. “Nobody sets anything up for a woman like Bailey. Besides, look around you. There are plenty of fish in this proverbial sea. Just go ask somebody to dance.”

      “I’m out of the mood,” Tanner said, rising from his seat. “I think I’ll go home, too.”

      Doris smiled. “You can’t go home. You drove us, remember?”

      He sighed. Now he knew for sure his parents hadn’t set him up with Bailey. If they had, they wouldn’t have ridden with him in his car. They would have given him access to drive Bailey home. Or to follow her when she ran, since his mother probably knew Bailey would leave early because of work. He hadn’t been set up. His parents didn’t want him married to Bailey Stephenson. They simply wanted him married.

      Tanner’s mother waved her hand in the direction of the crowd. “Go ask somebody to dance. Your good mood will come back.”

      Tanner didn’t bother to argue that he hadn’t been in a good mood about this dinner dance until he met Bailey. He didn’t want to mention it to his parents, because then he would have to explain it to himself. And if he started explaining it to himself he would have to use words like intrigued, fascinated, maybe even smitten. Which was ridiculous. He’d hardly said two words to the woman. He couldn’t be interested in someone he didn’t know beyond eye color and occupation. Besides, she obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He couldn’t be smitten with someone who didn’t even like him. It wasn’t normal.

      It was for that very reason that Tanner rousted himself from his seat and did ask a few of the eligible women to dance. But though lovely, intelligent and fun, none of them seemed to intrigue him the way Bailey had. He didn’t know what it was about her that drew him, but something did. And it was something more than the fact that she was a challenge. She fit in his arms. She smelled wonderful. And he saw those darned violet eyes of hers the minute he closed his eyes that night in bed.

      In church the next morning, Tanner decided he was just tired, and overwhelmed from selling his business on the spur of the moment and drastically changing his life. There would be plenty of women in Florida, maybe even a woman who knew more about operating a charter boat business than he did. He didn’t need Bailey Stephenson. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he wanted Bailey Stephenson. Half of what he thought he felt might have been his imagination. He was a happy guy with a great life and a future most people would fight for. He had everything he wanted and needed.

      Unfortunately, just as he got himself comfortable with that thought, Mayor Thorpe and his wife Emmalee marched down the center aisle with their three perfectly behaved, well-dressed children. Tanner’s heart sank. The family, the life Emmalee had now was exactly what they’d envisioned having together. Except if she had stayed married to Tanner, Emma would have had a bigger house and more security. Yet, she’d dumped him. Tanner wasn’t such a simpleton that he thought money meant more than love, but she had loved him. He had loved her. They’d been crazy about each other. But here she was, walking down the center aisle of the church with another man’s children.

      Even after ten years it still hurt. Not that he wasn’t over her. He was. He knew that the man he’d become couldn’t live the life she had here in Wilmore. He needed more. He needed different things. And he usually got them, because, when the need arose, he could be ruthless.

      Single-minded, self-centered and ruthless.

      Emmalee was, in fact, the person who had told him that. She had told him to move on because his big dreams had changed him and he didn’t fit in this town anymore. She was tired of pretending that he was great and wonderful to grace them with his presence a few times a month, faking that he belonged here when he didn’t. He belonged anywhere but quiet, mellow Wilmore. She was even the one who suggested that he try living somewhere like New York where aggressiveness was an art, not a transgression.

      So he did move and he discovered she was right. He did fit better in a bigger city. But just because she had hit the nail on the head, that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt like hell to lose his wife and his hometown all in one quick swoop.

      Which was exactly why he knew he had to stay away from Bailey Stephenson and every other woman in this town. He didn’t belong here. Even a woman who had adored him had known it and sent him packing. He was only here now to supervise the repair of the flood damage to his parents’ property, and to say goodbye to some old friends before he moved a thousand miles away, because when the month was out, he was off to Florida. And he wasn’t coming back. Not even for sporadic visits. The plan was that his parents would visit him, not vice versa. He would never return to West Virginia. So there was no sense making any more ties.

      He felt comfortable with that assessment and even took a minute to objectively appreciate how adorable Emmalee’s kids were and to recognize that Artie Thorpe was definitely more suited to being Emma’s husband than Tanner had been. And he happily realized he could probably hold a pleasant conversation with them after the service.

      And then Bailey walked in.

      Unlike the other women who still sported sagging upsweeps from the night before, Bailey’s blond hair hung

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