A Bride For The Holidays. Renee Roszel

      “Oh—right.” Trisha was so flustered and miserable she wasn’t thinking clearly. Take a breath, she berated inwardly. Calm down or you’ll make things worse—if that’s even possible!

      “Amber Grace?”

      Trisha was surprised to hear the stranger speak directly to Ed’s niece, and peered at them over her shoulder as she retrieved another cup.

      “Yes, sir?” Amber Grace asked, an unusually dopey smile on her freckled face.

      He handed her the roll of paper towels. “Why don’t you wipe up the countertop?”

      “Okay.” The teenager’s smile remained dopey and her gaze stayed on the stranger as she slowly unwound some of the towels and began to dab them on the wet counter.

      Trisha turned away to fill the coffee cup, frustrated beyond words. There was no debating the fact that they would never see this customer again. Between her unprofessional rant about the loan, and Amber Grace’s ineptitude, his impression of Ed’s employees had to be pretty awful. And that wasn’t taking into account the fact that she’d flung coffee all over him! She refused to even think about the—the stomach thing. Since he was kind enough to forget it, she would, too.

      Someday, in the far, far distant future.

      The stranger’s languid-lidded eyes seemed to have a unique effect on females. Both she and Amber Grace were doing a first-class job of making idiots out of themselves. She wondered if this man sent all women into tizzies, or if she could possibly blame her bizarre behavior on a leak of laughing gas from the dentist’s office next door? No. That was too much to hope for. They’d all be affected, and so far, the man with the great lips and bedroom eyes had only half smiled when he’d first come in. Since the spill, he hadn’t smiled at all.

      From the sappy look she’d seen on Amber Grace’s face, the teenager was clearly gaga about the handsome stranger. Having made a complete fool of herself, Trisha couldn’t very well blame Amber Grace for her infatuation. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do Amber Grace’s industriousness any good, if her inattentive dabbing at the countertop was any indication.

      Trisha filled the cup, returned to the counter and held it out to him, sternly telling herself to be all-business, and guard every single syllable that came out of her mouth. “Compliments of Ed’s, sir,” she said, not caring if she did have to pay for it herself. There was no way she would ask the man for three dollars and ninety-nine cents now. “You’ve been very gracious.” She decided she must make her coat-cleaning offer once more. “I really would be happy to pay for having that beautiful coat dry-cleaned.”

      “It wasn’t your fault.” He accepted the cup, which was far less dangerous this time, since Amber Grace had suspended her wiping duties to rest her elbows on the damp countertop. Her chin plunked on her fists, she grinned dreamily at the man.

      He took a sip of coffee, then seemed to savor it. “Not bad,” he said. “I think it does have coffee in it.”

      Trisha was amazed that she was once again smiling. After all that had happened, she could only call it a miracle—or an act of a person who’d gone completely insane with disgrace and defeat. Looking at his chiseled features, those seductive, silvery eyes, and most especially that lopsided, casual quirk of his lips, she decided she had to go with “miracle.” She’d never met a man before, who could shift his lips slightly, the way this stranger did, and sire an actual smile. Especially on her lips, that only moments ago she’d thought incapable of waywardness.

      “Now, tell me about that business,” he said.

      She was startled by the suggestion. She’d assumed he’d asked to be polite. She couldn’t imagine he truly cared. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bore you,” she said.

      He took another sip of coffee. “If you really want something, you should never pass up a chance to go after it.”

      He had a point. So what if she caused a stranger a little boredom compared to a shot at getting her life’s dream?

      “Go on, tell him,” Amber Grace urged, her voice the rapt singsong of the hypnotized.

      They both glanced at the loafing teenager, an outrageous riot of quarreling colors. Amber Grace was a sight to behold in a lemon yellow polo shirt, aqua trousers, topped by a ridiculous aqua cap, reminiscent of something a nineteen-fifties nurse might have worn. Her short, shaggy catsup-red hair was the consistency of straw, and her two golden nose rings gleamed under the glare of the lights. Amber Grace was the poster child for parental suffering, not to mention a Day Manager’s nightmare.

      The horrible uniform colors weren’t Amber Grace’s fault, though. They were Ed’s. The ultra-frugal coffee shop owner had bought them on the Internet. Trisha suspected it had been during a “we can’t get rid of these terrible uniforms” sale. But Ed was not only frugal, he was shrewd. He got his money back, probably made money, since he required his employees to buy their uniforms from him.

      Except for the catsup-colored hair and the nose rings, Trisha knew she looked every bit as bad as Amber Grace. Who on earth looked good in yellow and aqua under stark fluorescent lights?

      The ugliness of the uniforms hadn’t really hit home until—well, until just this minute, when she realized how tacky she must look to this obviously discerning stranger, whose attire was so classic and tastefully elegant. And coffee stained, a nagging imp in her brain insisted on needling.

      Trying not to dwell on things that couldn’t be helped, Trisha plucked up the abandoned roll of paper towels and tore off a bunch. The man wanted to hear about her business, so she would be wise to get focused where she might do herself some good. “Well…” As she began to sop up spilled coffee, she chanced a peek at him to gauge his expression. His eyes were not glazed over, which was more than she could say for Amber Grace’s.

      “What I have in mind is a doggie boutique,” she began, “where people can come to self-groom their pets—use my equipment, tubs, clippers et cetera, to bathe and spruce them up, for a highly reduced price from what a professional groomer would charge. And they’d leave the clipped hair, dirty bath water, splashed floor, in other words—the mess—behind.”

      Trisha had made her spiel a million times in the past five months, so she could tell it without thinking, which was lucky, since there was something about this man that made her thinking processes go fuzzy. “I’ve seen similar places. One in Wichita and one in Olathe. Both were doing business hand-over-fist. The customers love it. I know my shop would be a success here in Kansas City. I’ve found a vacant store in a strip center that’s for rent. With a twenty-five thousand dollar loan and a lot of elbow grease I can fix it up really nice. I even have a great name for it— ‘Dog Days of August.’

      “Interesting name,” he said, drawing her gaze in time to see a quizzical lift of his brow.

      “It’s really a great play on words because that’s my name,” she explained, returning her focus to her scrubbing. His eyes were hard to look into and think about anything but how sexy they were. She cleared her throat. “August. Trisha August.” She sighed long and low, expelling some of the frustration that had built up over months of rejections. “The only trouble is, I can’t get financing. I’ve worked lots of jobs over the years, at several grooming places, too, so I know all about them. The last one I worked at closed when the owner retired, so I had to take this job.”

      She tossed the wet clump of towels in the trash and faced him, her expression as serious as her determination. “I’ve saved every cent I can, and I don’t mind working long, hard hours to make my dream come true,” she said. “But all the banks and loan companies give me the same speech—tired platitudes about how small businesses are very chancy, with so many failing in the first year. How banks can’t operate without strict rules. About the importance of collateral and how I’m young, have no assets, little previous business experience and on and on and on,” she cried. “Banks don’t care how hard I’d work. They only care that I’m young and poor!” Her anger surged. “I’m not that young! I’m twenty-eight. I’ve