View Park. Angela Winters

Avery would’ve considered ten minutes not much to worry about, but this past week things had changed. Ever since her encounter with Carter she had been on edge. She found herself both anticipating and dreading the next time she would see him. When she arrived at the shop Thursday to find a bouquet of lilies from him, she was a mess for the rest of the day. What game was Carter playing?

      What game was Craig playing? He hadn’t been in the shop for two days and wouldn’t return any of her phone calls. Avery wasn’t suspicious by nature but she believed in her own intuition and Craig was up to something at the worst possible time. Avery was under siege and she needed the people on her side clearly on her side. The message she left for him last night turned out to be more of a warning than she intended, but she had been nice too long.

      “No,” was all Avery could say as, instead of Alex, Carter slid into her booth. “It’s too early in the morning for you.”

      “You like the flowers?” Carter asked.

      “Why are you following me?”

      “I don’t follow people. I have them followed. Actually, I’m surprised to see you here.” There was something about her appearance this morning that was softer and more vulnerable than the other day, but Carter was too far in the game to let that distract him.

      “I sincerely doubt you’re surprised by much of anything.” The way he appeared so comfortable and absolutely blameless annoyed her.

      “You’re turning down an opportunity that you can’t even see you need desperately.”

      “Desperately?” She laughed. “You know something I don’t?”

      “I know a lot of things you don’t know, but that’s for another discussion.” He broke into a leisurely smile as her full lips pressed together. “I know that you want to take my offer, but you won’t just to spite me.”

      “Reverse psychology.” Avery stared at him. “How original. You know what amazes me?”

      Carter leaned back. “Those tedious everyday things in your painfully average life?”

      “That sounds like something out of your brother’s book.” She wrinkled her small nose. “A little beneath you.”

      Carter knew he had Craig in his pocket and whatever last chance he was going to give her just flew out the window.

      “You never even asked me why I won’t sell,” she said.

      “You’re attached and that’s understandable. Something like a hair salon would mean a lot to someone like you.”

      Avery’s hands formed into fists under the table as she felt her stomach tightening. It wasn’t what he said that got to her, rudeness wasn’t impressive. It was the way he looked when he said it; so harmless as if the words hadn’t come from him.

      “Yes, I am attached to my shops, but I’m not stupid. I know a good opportunity when I see one. I walk away with a fat check, on to my next business venture, but what about everyone else?”

      “Who else is there?”

      “Not everyone has a Chase trust fund. There are a lot of regular people, just like me, who can’t afford a hundred dollars for a wash and set.”

      “Is that what they’re going for these days?” he asked, laughing.

      “Don’t mock me.”

      He straightened up. “Avery, everything with the Chase name on it is going to be high end. Women will pay whatever it costs to get their hair done if it’s done right. Business is business, not charity.”

      “Finally, he’s come,” the waiter said as he reached them. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

      “No,” Avery announced. “This is not the man I’m waiting for.”

      “Her fiancé is a smaller man,” Carter said. “He doesn’t look nearly as good, nor dress as well as I do.”

      Avery was fuming now. “You know nothing about my—”

      “Alex Conner?” Her naiveté made her attractive, but it was also how he was going to demolish her.

      Carter reached for a menu, but Avery snatched it from him, turning to the waiter. “We aren’t ordering. He’s leaving.”

      “Where is our fair-skinned sales boy?” Carter asked, knowing it was killing her that he knew the details of her personal life. “He likes to make you wait, doesn’t he? It’s how he wields his power over you.”

      Avery shifted in her seat, knowing she had already lost the second round. She was going to have to prepare better.

      “Or even worse,” Carter added. “He doesn’t care whether you wait or not. If you were my woman…”

      Avery was ready to light into Carter for going there, but realized she no longer had his attention. Her eyes followed him as he slid out of the booth and headed for the entrance to the restaurant; for a man who’d just entered. Avery was trying to put the man’s familiar face to a name when Carter’s fist connected hard with his right cheek, with enough force to throw him to the ground. Everyone in the restaurant sat stunned.

      Carter looked down at Congressman Flay. “Because of you someone tried to kill my baby sister three days ago. If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you.”

      Everyone’s eyes followed Carter as he left the restaurant with strong, meaningful strides. Avery, still shocked by what she had seen, couldn’t prevent the little smile that formed at the edges of her lips.

      As Leigh climbed the walkway to the tattered one-story building she’d bought, she tried to look as optimistic as her friend, Alicia Spender, who was standing in front of it. “Sorry I’m late Alicia.”

      “Do you have the keys?” she asked. “I can’t stand out here in this sun. I’m sure after Africa this is nothing for you, but to us pale Irish girls with freckles and red hair, it’s torture.”

      Leigh waved the keys at her. She had just been to the lawyer’s office and finalized the purchase of the building they were going to make their clinic. Alicia had been doing the legwork for the last month, and without her parents’ help, Leigh had to accept the best their pooled resources could get. It was a one-story, two-thousand-square-foot former veterinary clinic that had been abandoned for two years.

      “We’re sure this place isn’t condemned?” Leigh asked.

      “It’s not.” Alicia grabbed the keys. “I went through with two separate inspectors, whom we have to pay, by the way. It’s actually very sturdy. It just needs some cosmetic work. We have the money for that.”

      “My yearly trust fund allowance isn’t that big,” Leigh said.

      “Maybe if I talk to them,” Alicia suggested. “This is my dream, too. I shouldn’t make you do all the begging.”

      “They’ve never met you and my parents don’t listen to people they don’t know.” Leigh looked around the neighborhood, knowing what this clinic could mean. “It’s hard to explain to people like them, but I’ll try again.”

      “Without your mother,” Alicia said, “I don’t see how we can do this.”

      “I wouldn’t give you a dime if it were me.”

      Leigh looked over Alicia’s shoulder as a rugged-looking, caramel-skinned man in jeans and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt came from the side of the building. This was not the neighborhood to be popping out from behind buildings. “Who are you?”

      Alicia grabbed Richard by the arm, pulling him towards Leigh. “Meet Richard Powell. He’s a doctor at L.A. General. He just moved here five months ago from Chicago. He wants in on the clinic.”

      Richard held his hand out to Leigh, who hesitated before accepting it. “I was listening in on your conversation.”

      “Obviously,”