Just yesterday, Lily had cut Winnie Stokes’s hair and heard that Sadie had left the Founder’s Day celebration last Saturday with Luraleen Jink’s nephew, Vince Haven. According to Winnie, Vince was the new owner of the Gas and Go and a former Navy SEAL. Supposedly, he was hotter than a pepper patch and his truck had been spotted at the Hollowell ranch house well into the wee hours of the morning. Evidently, Sadie didn’t care if people gossiped about her or she would have made Vince hide his truck in the barn. Lily envied Sadie that screw-you-all attitude. Maybe if she ever moved away like Sadie, she’d have it too.

A bell above the door chimed, and through the mirror a huge bouquet of red roses entered the salon, so big it hid the delivery man. “Oh, no.” He set the flowers on the front counter and one of the girls signed for them.

“Are those for you?” Sadie asked.

“I’m afraid so.” Yesterday Tucker had sent stargazer lilies. His way of letting her know that he would not sneak around. He wasn’t hiding.

“That’s sweet.”

“No, it’s not. He’s too young for me,” she said and felt a blush creep up her neck. Everyone in the salon knew about Tucker. After he’d showed up at the spa party, and locked the door to her office, there was little doubt what Lily Darlington was doing with the young Deputy Matthews. Adding to the intrigue and gossip was the fact that she arrived late sometimes to the salon. Before Tucker, she’d always been one of the first to arrive.

She painted strands of hair, then wrapped the foil. Salons filled with female employees were just a natural hotbed of gossip, and Lily’s salon was buzzing more than usual. She had to do something. Something to make it stop before it reached Lovett. But other than kicking Tucker out of her life, she didn’t know what to do about it. Telling everyone to shut the hell up would only confirm it.

“How old is he?”

She sectioned off another slice of hair. “Thirty.”

“That’s only eight years, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be a cougar.” God, she hated even the thought of that word. So far the gossip had been contained to the salon here in Amarillo, but it was only a matter of time before it spread to Lovett. She shouldn’t have had sex with Tucker in her office. For a woman who cared about gossip, that had clearly been a mistake. One she should regret perhaps more than she did.

“You don’t look like a cougar.”

She didn’t feel like one either. “Thanks.” She slid a foil against Sadie’s scalp. “He looks about twenty-five.”

“I think he has to be young enough to be your son before it’s considered a cougar-cub relationship.”

“Well, I don’t want to date a man eight years younger.” She swiped color out of one of the bowls and continued painting Sadie’s hair. No, she didn’t want to date someone eight years younger, but she didn’t want to stop seeing Tucker either. Just the thought of him gave her that funny, scary feeling in her stomach and made her heart hurt in her chest. Her feelings for him scared her. Scared her in a way she hadn’t been scared in a long time. “But Lordy, he’s hot.” And smart and funny and nice. He’d built Pinky a cat condo, for goodness sakes.

“Just use him for his body.”

“I tried that.” She sighed, thinking about the flowers and his suggestion yesterday that they take Pippen to Showtime Pizza or bowling. He wanted more from her but that wasn’t a surprise. He’d told her what he wanted from beginning. All of you, he’d said, but she wasn’t real clear what that meant. All of her for now? Until she turned forty? “I have a ten-year-old son, and I’m trying to run my own business. I just want a peaceful, calm life and Tucker is complicated.” But was Tucker complicated? Maybe, but more accurately, their relationship was complicated. A better word to describe Tucker was relentless.

“How?”

“He was in the Army and he saw a lot. He says he used to be closed off but isn’t anymore.” There were things he was keeping to himself. She hadn’t a clue what those things were. Things that might have to do with his military experience or childhood or God knew what. “But for a man who says he isn’t closed off anymore, he doesn’t share a lot about himself.” But neither did she.

For another hour, she wove color through Sadie’s hair. They chatted about growing up in Lovett and Sadie’s daddy, who’d been kicked by a horse and was currently a patient at the rehab hospital a few blocks from Lily’s salon.

After she finished putting the color on Sadie’s hair, she sat her under the salon dryer for twenty minutes and went to her office. She moved behind her desk and reached for the phone. “Thanks for the flowers,” she said when Tucker’s voicemail picked up. “They’re gorgeous, but you really have to stop spending money on me.”

She had an enormous pile of paperwork in front of her, invoices and business accounts to be paid. The sink in the aesthetician’s room needed attention, and she called a plumber and scheduled an appointment. She finished Sadie Hollowell by trimming her straight hair and blowing it dry, giving it some texture and Texas sass.

After Sadie, her next appointment wanted a long, layered cut, preferred by most Texas women and Lily herself. The long, layered cut could be pulled back into a ponytail, loosely curled, or teased and stacked to Jesus. It was three o’clock when she finished, and she decided to grab all her paperwork and head home. It wasn’t often that she could pick Pippen up after school, and she told her assistant manager she was leaving before she walked out the back door. It was almost sixty degrees and she shoved all her work into the backseat of her Jeep. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she called her mother.

“I’m off early enough to pick Pippen up from school,” she said as she headed toward the highway.

“Okay. He’ll like that.” There was a pause and then her mother said, “He’s been spending a lot of time playing basketball with that Deputy Matthews.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea,” Louella said.

“He’s a nice man.” With her eyes on the road, she fished around in her console for her sunglasses.

“We don’t know that. We don’t know him at all.”

If her mother only knew how well Lily did know the deputy. Knew he was good with his hands and liked to be ridden like Buster, the coin-operated horse outside Petterson’s Drug. “He plays ball with Pippen in full view of everyone in the neighborhood, Ma. Pippen likes him, and let’s face it, Pip spends way too much time with women. Spending time with a man is good for him.”

“Huh.” There was another pause on the line and Lily expected a rambling story about so and so’s son who’d been molested by the Tastee Freeze man and had grown up to be a serial killer of biblical proportions. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay?” No story? No rambling tale of disaster?

“Okay. If he’s good to my grandson, then that’s good enough for me.”

Lily shoved her glasses on her face. Well, the world must have just officially ended. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement from her mother, but at least she wasn’t accusing him of crimes against nature.

“Yesterday, my mom told me it’s okay if you play with Pippen.”

Tucker’s brows pulled together and he handed Lily a plate he’d just rinsed. “You told her about us?”

Lily took the plate and set it in the dishwasher. “Not exactly, but she knows that sometimes you play ball with Pip when he gets home from school.”

He reached for a kitchen towel and dried his hands. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

Lily shut the door to the dishwasher. “It means I’ll tell her. Just not now.”

“Why?”

“Because she’ll want to know everything about you,” which was just one reason, but not the biggest one. “And you keep things to yourself. It makes me wonder what you’re not telling me.” There were things she had to figure out, like her feelings for him, and if she could trust the feelings he said he had for her. And if it all went south, could she handle it? “What deep dark secrets are you keeping from me? Did something happen in the military?”

He shook his head. “Being in the military saved my life.”

“Tucker!” She pushed his shoulder but he didn’t budge. “You were shot five times.”

“I was shot at more than that.” He smiled like it was no big deal. “That was just the last time. If not for the Army, I’d be dead or doing time in prison.”

Prison? She took the towel from him and slowly dried her own hands. She looked closer at his smile, and a felt a somber blanketing of her heart. “Why do you say that?”

He turned away and reached into the refrigerator. “Before I enlisted, I was going nowhere and had nothing. I’d already done several years locked up in juvenile detention and was living in a youth home.” He pulled out a half gallon of milk and moved toward the back door. “They kick you out at eighteen, but I was ready to leave anyway.”

He knelt and poured milk into the empty cat dish. He wouldn’t look at her so she moved to him and knelt beside him. “Where was your mother?”

“Dead,” he said without emotion, but he wouldn’t look at her. “Died of a drug overdose when I was a baby.”

“Tucker.” She put her hand on his shoulder, but he stood and moved to the refrigerator.

“Your daddy?” She rose and followed him.

“Never knew who he was. She probably didn’t know either. I’m sure he was some crackhead like her.”

“Who took care of you?”

“My grandmother, but she died when I was five.” He put the milk inside and shut the door. “Then various aunts, but mostly the state of Michigan.”

She thought of Pippen and her heart caved in her chest. “Tucker.” She grabbed hold of his arm and made him look at her. “Every baby should be born into a living family. I’m sorry you weren’t. That’s horrible.”