Fireworks with the Farrier (Hope Hollow Summer Nights #3)

Chapter 1

The sign on the door read CLOSED.

Wyatt Haynes stood on the sidewalk outside The Cutting Room and tried to decide how desperate a man had to be before he knocked on the door of a closed salon.

Apparently, this desperate.

The lights were still on inside. Through the glass front, he could see the two styling chairs, the counter lined with bottles and sprays, and the narrow window between the stations where a calico cat was curled in the last patch of afternoon sun.

Wyatt caught his reflection in the glass. Nope. He could not go to Richard Tillery’s meeting looking like this.

The mare had gotten him just above his left ear. Four years old, green as grass, and already having a bad afternoon before he’d even pulled the rasp from his kit. He’d crouched to pick up her rear hoof, and she’d swung her head sideways, caught a mouthful of his hair, and yanked.

Hard.

The sound had been worse than the pain.

He’d finished the hoof. Finished the job.

That was what you did. Then he’d sat in his truck, angled the rearview mirror, and assessed the damage.

A ragged patch above his left ear, maybe three inches wide, torn short and uneven.

The rest of his hair fell past his collar, overdue for a cut by at least two weeks, which made the missing section impossible to hide.

He looked like someone had taken hedge trimmers to him and gotten bored halfway through.

Richard Tillery’s parade planning meeting was at seven o’clock at the library.

Mayor Tillery had cornered him at the diner last Tuesday and talked for forty minutes about the mounted unit for the Fourth of July parade.

The sheriff’s mounted patrol, a historical reenactment group, a horse-drawn carriage for the grand marshal.

All of those horses needed shoes. Wyatt was the only farrier within fifty miles. Richard treated that as a binding contract.

Wyatt had agreed to shoe the horses. He had not agreed to attend meetings. But Richard had called twice and left a message that made it sound like the entire parade would collapse without Wyatt’s input, and Wyatt’s grandfather had taught him to pick his battles. This wasn’t worth fighting.

Walking into a room full of people with half his hair missing, though, was a different kind of battle.

He checked the time on his phone. Ten past five. He stepped closer to the glass.

Meghan Asher was near the back, sweeping around the far station. Alone. Brynn’s station was dark, her chair pushed against the counter, her cape folded over the armrest.

Brynn wasn’t here.

Wyatt had been getting his hair cut at The Cutting Room for six years. Every time, he booked with Brynn. Every time, he sat in Brynn’s chair, talked to Brynn about the weather and fishing and whatever project Richard was orchestrating that month, and kept his eyes on the mirror in front of him.

Not on the woman ten feet to his left.

He’d had a thing for Meghan Asher since the first time he’d walked into this salon. That was ridiculous, and he knew it. A grown man ought to be able to walk into a place of business, get his hair cut, and leave without losing his common sense over a woman’s voice. But there it was.

She’d been working on a client’s color that day, her back to the door, talking about something that made the client laugh. She hadn’t even turned around. But her voice—warm and easy and unrehearsed—had stopped him two steps inside the door.

He’d never quite recovered.

So he’d sat in Brynn’s chair. Because having Meghan’s hands in his hair and her face close enough to see in the mirror while she trimmed around his ears was not something he was equipped to handle without making a fool of himself.

Brynn was safe. Brynn was a good stylist, an easy conversationalist, and she had never once called him out for losing his train of thought every time Meghan walked past them.

He suspected she knew.

But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was that half his hair was gone, he had a meeting in less than two hours, and the only person who could fix it was on the other side of a locked door.

He knocked. Meghan looked up. Her broom stopped mid-sweep. She tilted her head, and even from the sidewalk he could read the question on her face.

Who knocks at a closed salon at five in the afternoon?

Wyatt lifted one hand in a small, apologetic gesture. She set the broom against the counter, walked to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open about a foot.

“We’re closed,” she said.

“I know.” He turned his head slightly to give her the full view of the damage.

Her eyes tracked to the ragged patch. Her lips pressed together. The corners of her mouth twitched, barely, just once, before she got control of it.

“What happened to you?”

“A horse happened to me.”

She looked at the patch again. Then at him. Her gaze was direct and steady, and Wyatt had the strange feeling she was taking in more than the missing hair.

Then she stepped back and held the door open. She walked ahead of him to her station, pulling a cape off the hook and shaking it out with one practiced snap.

Six years he’d been coming to this salon.

Six years in Brynn’s chair, ten feet to the right, watching this station in the mirror when he thought no one was looking.

Now Meghan was gesturing him into it like it was nothing.

Like his nerves weren’t suddenly acting like he’d stepped onto a frozen pond and heard the first crack beneath his boot.

He sat down. The leather was darker than Brynn’s, the cushion slightly firmer. The mirror reflected a different angle of the room. From here, he could see the window where the cat was sleeping, the front door, the whole length of the salon.

Six years of sitting ten feet to the right, and he’d never seen it from here.

Meghan stepped behind him and fastened the cape around his neck. Her fingers brushed the back of his collar. It was the lightest touch. Nothing more than part of the job. She had probably fastened a thousand capes around a thousand necks without giving it a second thought.

Wyatt, unfortunately, gave it several thoughts at once. Then he focused very deliberately on the cat.

“Tell me about this horse,” she said.

She was already assessing the damage, lifting the torn section between two fingers, checking the length around it. Her touch was careful and professional and nothing that should have made his pulse quicken.

“Bay mare,” he said. “Four years old. Still figuring out her manners.”

He watched her in the mirror as she combed through the area around the patch. Her brow furrowed slightly with concentration. A loose strand of hair had slipped near her cheek, and she tucked it back without looking away from her work.

“She’s been touchy all week,” he added. “Today, she decided my hair was the problem.”

“Horses do that?” She moved to his right side, combing down from the crown. “Just grab on?”

“When they’re young and mouthy, yeah. She caught me off guard. Usually I watch my head.”

“Usually,” she repeated.

There was something in her voice. Not teasing, exactly. Just enough to make the word sound like she had found it interesting.

She pulled a section of hair straight between her fingers and measured it against the torn patch. “I’m going to have to take some length off the whole thing to blend this. Otherwise, you’ll have a bald spot with long hair around it.”

“Whatever you need to do.”

“You’re very trusting for a man whose last haircut was administered by livestock.”

He looked at her in the mirror. That did it. Her mouth curved. It was a small smile. Quick. Gone almost as soon as it appeared.

Wyatt felt the effect of it somewhere behind his ribs.

“I trust professionals,” he said.

“Good answer.”

She picked up her scissors. He heard the first cut, clean and precise, and watched a length of dark hair fall past his shoulder.

For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.

The salon had gone quiet around them, the way businesses did after closing, all the day’s noise settling into corners.

Outside, a truck passed slowly down Main Street.

Inside, the cat lifted its head, decided nothing interesting was happening, and went back to sleep.

“How long have you been doing this?” Meghan asked.

“Shoeing horses?”

“Unless you have another career involving hair emergencies.”

“Not officially.” He glanced down at the cape, then back to the mirror. “Since I was fourteen.”

“That’s young.”

“My grandfather started me. He was the farrier for this stretch of the county for forty years. I started going on calls with him in the summers.”

She worked around his left ear now, her hand steady, the scissors moving in short, certain strokes. She was close enough that he could smell something clean and faintly sweet. Not perfume. Maybe shampoo.

He shouldn’t have noticed. He noticed.

“What about you?” he asked. “How long have you been cutting hair?”

“My mom taught me. I was twelve the first time she let me practice on a real client. The woman came in wanting a trim, and Mom stood behind me the whole time, guiding my hands. The client tipped me five dollars and told my mother I was a natural.”

She moved to the back of his head.

“I thought I was going to be a neurosurgeon after that.”

He felt his mouth curve. “From haircuts to brain surgery.”

“The confidence of a twelve-year-old.” She was quiet for a moment, working. Then, “Mom still comes in on Tuesdays. Does her standing appointments. Tells me I’m doing it wrong about every third visit.”

“Sounds like my grandfather.”

The words were out before he remembered. His hands, hidden beneath the cape, tightened on the armrests.

Meghan didn’t look up from the cut, but her scissors paused for half a beat. “Does he still work?”

“He died two years ago.”

She nodded. Kept cutting.

She didn’t say she was sorry. Didn’t fill the silence with sympathy that required him to accept it gracefully. She just let the sentence sit in the room and continued working, her presence steady behind him.

Wyatt was grateful for that. More than she’d know.

“My grandmother died when I was in cosmetology school,” she said after a moment.

His gaze lifted to hers in the mirror. She was looking at his hair, not at his face, but her voice had changed. Softened, maybe. Or opened a door and left it that way without asking him to walk through.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Thank you.” Her scissors moved again. “It was a long time ago. And somehow also not.”

He understood that.

The quiet between them stopped feeling awkward and started feeling like something they were both holding carefully.

Meghan worked with the same calm precision, blending, tapering, and making something decent out of the mess the mare had left behind.

Wyatt watched her in the mirror because this time, he had permission to look.

Her hands moved with confidence, her expression focused, her gaze occasionally flicking up to meet his before returning to the cut.

Every time their eyes met, he felt it. Not a jolt. Not exactly. More like that moment before a horse trusted you enough to step closer. Quiet, careful. Significant because it hadn’t been forced.

“You always book with Brynn,” Meghan said.

Wyatt’s breath caught. It wasn’t a question. He looked at her in the mirror, but she was still focused on his hair. Too focused, maybe.

“Brynn does a good job,” he said.

“She does.”

Another snip. Another lock of hair fell to the cape.

“She’s not here today,” Meghan said.

“I noticed.”

“Lucky for you, I was.”

He could have left it there. A smarter man would have left it there. Wyatt had never claimed to be a smarter man.

“Lucky for me,” he said.

This time, when her eyes met his in the mirror, she held his gaze for one second longer than she needed to. Then she looked away first.

Wyatt was going to have to thank that mare at some point.

She spent another few minutes on the cut. Blending, tapering, cleaning up the edges. By the time she stepped back, Wyatt had almost forgotten to be embarrassed about the reason he was there. Almost.

She spun him toward the mirror and held a hand mirror behind his head so he could see the back.

It was good. Better than good. The torn patch was gone, blended seamlessly into a cut that was shorter than he was used to but looked right.

Clean. She’d shaped it in a way that followed the natural line of his hair instead of fighting it.

It was, if he was being honest, the best haircut he’d ever gotten.

“That work?” she asked.

“That works.”

He caught her reflection again, and something about her expression made him think she knew he meant more than the haircut.

She unfastened the cape. Her fingers brushed the back of his neck this time, and he had to remind himself that grown men didn’t react to incidental contact like colts startled by a feed bucket.

She shook the hair off the cape. He stood and ran a hand over the back of his neck, feeling the clean edge she’d left there.

“What do I owe you?” he asked.

She waved a hand. “You were an emergency. No charge.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“You can, and you will.” She reached for the broom. “Consider it a public service. You can’t go to Richard’s meeting looking like a horse tried to eat you.”

He stared at her. “How did you know about the meeting?”

“Richard told me this morning. He told everyone this morning. I think he told the pharmacist’s dog.”

Wyatt huffed out a laugh.

She looked up from the broom. “Seven o’clock. Library community room. I’ll be there too.”

He stood there a moment longer than he should have. The broom paused in her hands.

For one strange, suspended second, neither of them moved. The salon smelled faintly of shampoo and clean towels. The last of the sun touched the front window. The cat, fully awake now, watched them like it had been waiting for the interesting part all along.

“Thank you, Meghan,” he said.

Her name felt different now that he’d said it in her station, with her standing close and his hair still scattered around her feet.

“You’re welcome, Wyatt.”

He pushed through the door and stepped onto the sidewalk.

The evening air was warm, still carrying the heat of the day. He walked to his truck, his grandfather’s truck, HAYNES FARRIERY still painted on the door in letters he hadn’t repainted, and opened the driver’s side.

Before he climbed in, he looked back.

Through the glass front of The Cutting Room, he could see Meghan standing near her chair, broom in one hand, looking at the seat where he had sat. The cat was in the window between the two stations, awake now, watching her.

She stood there for a long moment. Then she went back to sweeping.

Wyatt got in the truck and pulled the door shut. He sat with his hands on the wheel and looked at himself in the rearview mirror. The cut was clean. The damage was gone. He looked like someone who had his life together, which was generous.

He started the engine and pulled away from the curb. Seven o’clock. Library community room. She’d be there too.

For the first time all day, Wyatt was grateful Richard Tillery never took no for an answer.