Solution: Marriage. Barbara Benedict

to remember how it had once been. It would be just like Lucky to stroll in here, as casual as you please, expecting her to fall all over herself in gratitude. Let him grin once, with that wicked gleam in his eyes, and she’d let him have it with both barrels. Contrary to past performances, Callie Magruder wasn’t anybody’s doormat, and now was as good a time as any to prove it.

      Getting herself primed and ready was one thing. Watching him stride past the shop was quite another.

      Stunned, she just stood there, staring out the window for a full minute as Lucky continued on down the street. And wasn’t that typical? she thought as a wave of embarrassment swept through her. One way or another the Parkers always managed to get the last laugh. There he went without a care in the world, and here she stood, all angered up with nowhere to release it. Darn her sixth sense for lying to her.

      Mrs. Pendergast whimpered a protest, forcing Callie to realize how roughly she must have been brushing the poor woman’s hair. Styling the springy gray curls, she fired off a swift round of hair spray and sent her customer off before she could inflict further damage. As she pocketed her tip, she found herself agreeing with Mrs. Pendergast’s frowning assessment. If she couldn’t keep her mind on the job, Callie Magruder had no business cutting anyone’s hair for a living.

      Not that it had been her first choice, mind you. At one time she’d had far grander plans for her future. Bright, lively, ambitious Callianne Magruder had been at the top of her class at Latour Central, a student destined to go somewhere, be somebody.

      All, of course, pre-Lucky Parker.

      Reaching for the broom, she told herself she should be grateful he didn’t approach her. She had enough on her plate; she didn’t need any more tests of resolve, thank you all the same. Paying off their debts and keeping a roof over her son’s head was her foremost concern; not some youthful, torrid love affair that ended all too quickly.

      All too painfully.

      Marshaling the remaining gray wisps of hair into a dustpan, she reminded herself of the infinite reasons she had to hate the Parker name. Grief, that’s all they’d ever caused her, both father and son. If she never had to hear of either man again, she could die a happy woman. The past had long since passed; she had to let it go. She had problems enough with the present, not to mention the future, to expend one more ounce of energy on something she could never change.

      Let him keep on walking by. Let him stay out of her life forever. She refused to waste one more thought on a ghost from her past.

      Luke Parker paused, turning back to stare at Mamie’s salon. Who did he think he was fooling by heading toward the Fare-Thee-Well Tavern? He could call it what he wanted but deep down he knew he was merely stalling, running away from what he had no stomach to face. The story of his life, up to now.

      Staring at the shabby storefronts of the town he’d grown up in, he agreed wholeheartedly with the adage that you should never go home again. Some might find comfort in familiar names and landmarks, but all Luke saw was a slew of unpleasant memories. Given the choice, he’d have gone anywhere else but Latour, yet here he nonetheless was, and there was no going back.

      Frowning, he turned and marched to Mamie’s, not liking himself much for what he was about to do. Make no mistake, he was a veteran of selfish acts, but none of his prior misdeeds could hold a flaming Roman candle to this.

      Couldn’t be helped. He had to go through with it. The end justifying the means and all that. In a clear case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, you just had to pick the side with the least “damn-age.”

      He didn’t like it, though. Using people was something his father excelled at, and lying always made Luke uneasy. Most folks thought him an amoral playboy, but he had his own code of ethics, however jaded, that he tried his best to live by. And what he was aiming to do now went against just about everything he’d ever put on his list.

      Yet the old man was right in one thing. Time came in every man’s life when you hit a crossroads and you had to choose one path or the other. After thirty-two self-absorbed years of playing it solo, after an adulthood wasted on boozing, gaming and womanizing, Luke had one last chance to redeem himself. He could seize it or waste the rest of his life with more of the same.

      For once he could do something right, make a difference.

      Unbidden, the image of Callie Magruder flitted across his mind, looking every bit as young and innocent as the last time he’d seen her—shoulders back and chin up, doing her best to fight the tears misting her eyes as she watched him drive out of town.

      Banishing the vision with another determined frown, he yanked open the door to the salon. Over the years Ben Parker had offered little of value when it came to parental guidance, but he had managed to impart one useful piece of advice to his son: if there’s an unpleasant task to be done, it’s best to get instantly to it.

      Luke stepped inside the shop. Seven chairs sat between the long mirror and large window fronting Main Street, six of them swiveling as heads snapped in his direction. Ignoring them, his gaze went instantly to Callie at the far end of the line. Some girls were like that, he’d discovered over the years. They had a presence, an aura, that grabbed hold of you right off and kept your attention. Funny, but he’d never before realized that Callie could be one of them.

      She was busy sweeping, her spine stiff, straight and aimed right at him. The way she attacked the floor with the broom, you’d think she was beating back an army of invading insects. He could feel the anger coming off her in waves. In such a mood, Luke knew from experience, she would be a force to reckon with. On the flip side, he also knew a softened, smiling Callie could be any man’s dream.

      Swallowing his distaste, wishing he had any other way to do this, he went over to Mamie Saunders to cajole her into giving Callie a short break. Luke had never much liked Mamie, with her shrill voice and sharper tongue, but she, like most females in this town, tended to melt like butter in August when he flashed the patented Parker grin. It wasn’t his looks or charm that caused the phenomenon, he knew, but rather his single status, backed up by the obscene heap of cash Ben Parker kept in Tyler Fitzhugh’s First Fidelity Bank.

      Though clearly surprised by his request, Mamie proved no obstacle, gesturing grandly to the back of her shop. Luke could hear the whispers behind him as he made his way to Callie, but he’d learned long since to ignore what the ladies of this town had to say about Ben Parker’s sole surviving son. His focus was on the mission before him.

      On the woman before him.

      He felt like a kid approaching a girl to ask for his first date, knowing he had no guarantee of the outcome. Callie wouldn’t refuse him, he’d taken care to make certain of that, but a good deal of both their futures could hinge upon what was said in the next fifteen minutes. Callie Magruder, he thought with an odd tightening in his throat. The girl he’d left behind.

      She’d filled out some in the past ten years, the promise of youth blossoming into all the right curves and softness. Nothing to write home about maybe, not after the movie stars and models he’d dated in New York, yet there was an air about her, a blend of common sense and genuine caring that made a man linger. You could talk to Callie. What was more important, she listened.

      “Callie?” he said quietly, trying not to startle her.

      No such luck. She went still—no, more like rigid—her knuckles turning white where she gripped the broom. Slowly she turned to face him, her features as pale as if she’d just seen a ghost. He noticed that she still wore her brown hair long and straight. The jeans hugging her slim hips, as threadbare as her sleeveless denim shirt, looked like they might have survived some other era. So much about her was exactly the same, yet something he couldn’t quite put a finger on made Callie seem suddenly a stranger.

      An angry stranger.

      He told himself that it was no real surprise that she wasn’t overjoyed to see him, but for some reason, her scowl really bugged him. Maybe she felt she had issues with him, but then, don’t forget, he had some of his own with her. He was here on a mission, he told himself sternly, and he had to get to it.