Trouble (Dogwood Lane #3)(3)

“Don’t use Mia against me.”

He grins. “She already has her bags packed. I bet she’d cry herself to sleep for two weeks if—”

“Fine,” I say before I can take it back. “But you’re an asshole for using your kid. Who does that? It’s dirty, Dane. Real dirty.”

His shoulders fall in relief. “Just get it started, and I’ll take over when I’m back. And Neely said to tell you ‘thank you’ as soon as you caved.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I glance at my watch again. “You tell your fiancée this is going to cost her a pan of lasagna. And for the record, if Meredith even mentions the word ‘spa,’ I quit.”

He beams. “Thanks, pal.”

“Pal, my ass.” I start across the street. “Call me later.”

“Will ya answer?”

I look at him over my shoulder as I cross the centerline. “Probably not.” I flip him the bird for good measure.

Two years. I just got suckered into giving up a vacation I’ve earned for two freaking years. Next time, I’m the one who is leaving town.

Early.





CHAPTER TWO

AVERY

Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Harper’s voice rings through the small, sunlit room. I glance at her from atop a dilapidated ladder I found in the storage shed behind the salon. She’s looking at me over a stack of towels, a concerned curiosity etched on her face.

“I’m hanging a speaker so I can bluetooth my phone to it,” I tell her. “I like to dance while I work.”

Her laugh, easy and free, fills the room. She sets the towels down on her chair. “Just a heads-up, party girl: most of our clientele are farmers and ladies that play bridge. The only dance they know is the two-step.”

I turn back to the wall.

I didn’t know the two-step was still a thing. Come to think of it, I don’t know that much about life here in Tennessee in general. This is probably why experts tell people not to make big life decisions on a whim. Moving from Los Angeles to the smallest town I’ve ever imagined is definitely on the large side of the spectrum and probably not the wisest choice to make after two bottles of wine on a Wednesday. Even so, I feel pretty good about it.

When I told her my plan, Mom thought I’d lost my mind. Dad was sure I was on drugs. Who wouldn’t want to live in LA, the daughter of a famous actress, and take advantage of all the perks of the situation?

Me. That’s who. Mainly because the so-called “perks” make my skin crawl.

I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t wake up another day and pretend to love the life I was living. It wasn’t even my life but more like roles in everyone else’s lives. How it got to that point I don’t know, but I was done.

I was tired of being the daughter who toes the line. The only relationships my parents cared about when it came to me were the ones I had with their associates. As long as I didn’t embarrass Mom and Dad or hurt their connections—or want crazy things like family dinners—we were good.

Work was exhausting on a soul level. There are only so many times you can have a man sitting in your chair and know he just got a blow job from someone in the back room right before his wife walks in. It’s maddening. But you have to keep those secrets or get blackballed . . . even when some of those secrets involve your friends.

More than anything, I was tired of trying to be happy. Every man I met was a smooth talker, a one-upper, someone trying to position himself to use me somehow. It was all so superficial, and I felt that. Deeply.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew who would: Aunt Harper.

“You’re going to have culture shock today,” she says. “When was the last time you charged fourteen dollars for a haircut?”

“Um, never. You’re joking, right?”

“I’m afraid not.” She laughs, clearly amused at my wide-eyed response.

“How do you even live on fourteen dollars a haircut?”

“The same way you’re going to have to—cheaply.”

I mock the speaker bracket up on the wall as I think about Harper’s statement. Fourteen dollars a pop is a pittance compared with what I got in LA, but I don’t even care. I actually kind of like it in some weird way. It feels . . . honest. Good. Kind of like how driving through Dogwood Lane felt this morning.

There’s something satisfying about being in a town and having people wave. People holding doors open for you, men standing in their overalls at the gas station, saying “Good morning, miss,” and having the streets lined with mom-and-pop businesses and not chain stores with fancy signs out front.

Even though everyone I know—everyone except Harper—believes I’m nuts, I’m not. This isn’t some wackadoodle choice like they think. For the first time in my life, I’m doing what feels right for me. It’s glorious.

I hope this town will be the same landing spot it was when I ran here ten years ago. Of course, back then I was eighteen, and I ended up having sex with the sweetest, most delicious guy on the banks of Dogwood Lake. I felt so awful about it afterward, having given him a fake name and a bullshit backstory, but what was I supposed to tell him? That the woman on the cover of the rag mags at the grocery store was my mom? That she hadn’t meant to let her nipple slip on the red carpet the week before (even though she had)?