matter was that he was finally running his own practice in a place where he wouldn’t be shown up by other guys, where he wasn’t the last man on the totem pole. It sure as hell hadn’t been that way at Vantage Dental, a group practice in Dallas where every other dentist there was a high flyer who seemed to attract more patients than he ever could. But now he was building a life in Rainbow Valley where there wasn’t all that competition. His practice was thriving. People looked up to him there.
And he was finally dating a woman who would do him justice.
Shannon thought the first time he saw her was at the shelter when he came to adopt a cat, but he’d noticed her long before that. Fortunately for him, he had his dental practice, so the cat he adopted could be a shop cat and not a house cat. If Shannon had liked hot cars, he’d have gotten one of those instead. He looked at the cat sometimes and thought, Barf up one more hairball, and I’m replacing you with a convertible.
Why Shannon had come back there after her successful job in Houston as a CPA, he’d never know. But at least in this town, being director of the shelter was respected in a way other jobs weren’t. And she was from a good family, with a father who was a retired lawyer who clearly pulled down some serious bucks, and a mother who was the town social director, philanthropist, and fashion plate for the over-fifty crowd.
Yes, Shannon was definitely his future. And he had all the patience in the world to wait for her to decide he was her future. They weren’t dating exclusively yet, but that would happen soon enough. In this little town, did she really have another choice?
Russell thought about Jessie, the fluffy orange tabby he’d adopted, who’d taken to lounging on the sofa in his office most of the day. For some reason she’d decided she liked it there, even though she’d shown no signs of actually liking him. She shed all over his furniture. She meowed for no reason. She got underfoot at least a dozen times a day. But she was part of the big picture, so he had to be patient about that, too.
Then he reached for his phone to make a call, and that was when he felt it. Right there under his foot.
And the last of his patience disappeared.
Shannon left Lola’s Pet Emporium and hurried along the sidewalk that bordered the town square, the noontime sun beating down on her shoulders. Tourists were everywhere today, having lunch at Rosie’s, picnicking in the gazebo, or just moving in and out of the shops along the square.
She passed Sweet Dreams bakery, Lone Star Gallery, and the Cordero Vineyards wine shop. When she reached Tasha’s Hair Boutique, she looked through the floor-to-ceiling windows and saw Tasha hard at work. She was tall and thin as a Popsicle stick, and she wore her hair dyed inky black and spiked it with handfuls of gel. Her wardrobe consisted of a bizarre mash-up of whatever she’d seen in Elle or Glamour that month. She was a graduate of Trendsetter Beauty School in Waco, and now she and her two stylists cut just about every head of hair in Rainbow Valley. She lived in the apartment above Shannon, but her funky fashion sense made her look totally out of place in the sedate 1950s fourplex.
Tasha looked over just in time to see Shannon walk by. She stopped what she was doing and pointed at her, then to her own hair. Emphatically. You need a haircut ASAP! Shannon shook her head and pointed to her watch. No time these days. I’ll call you!
Shannon rounded the corner and headed for Russell’s dental office, hoping the product in the plastic sack she held would do the trick. Cynthia said Russell was starting to get a little miffed about his newly acquired cat, and there wasn’t much Shannon wouldn’t do to make sure an adoption stuck.
When Shannon entered the waiting room, music wafted through the sound system, filling the waiting room with soft jazz. Issues of Architectural Digest, Southern Living, and Golf Illustrated lay fanned out on the coffee table. On Cynthia’s desk was a lamp with a beaded fringe shade, and her dark, pixie-cut hair shone in the warm light. Shannon doubted that particular lamp had been Russell’s choice. In fact, nothing on Cynthia’s desk could possibly