Page 7 of Stunner (Whiskey Dolls 3)

Pulling in a cleansing breath, I turned from the dress, shoving that warmth in my chest to the back of my mind, and faced the mirror, letting out a squeak of terror at my reflection in the glass.

To say I looked a mess would have been offensive to messes everywhere. I looked like roadkill that had been plowed over abillion times, left to bake in the hot summer sun, then came back to life.

The artful chignon I’d paid a hairdresser a small fortune for yesterday now looked like something rats had made their home in. The fake lashes I’d worn for the big day to give my eyes more drama, were now stuck to my forehead and cheek. The makeup that had been caked on so my skin would look flawless and dewy, my eyes big and shiny, had smudged and shifted and melted, now resembling some sort of failed experiment where fire had been used to melt a whole box of crayons into a puddle. I looked like the thing you put out on the front porch every Halloween to scare the little kids coming up to ask for candy.

And Owen Shields had seen me just... like... this. The man all my friends referred to as criminally sexy. The man who was so good-looking, I’d witnessed the smartest women go plain stupid in his presence. I might not have liked the man, but I wasn’t blind, damn it. I couldn’t say I didn’t see the appeal. And he’d officially seen me at my worst.

Just freaking perfect.

I did the best I could with what I could find, given that Owen Shields obviously wasn’t as big into skincare products as I was. A bit of soap would do in a pinch, but I’d have to give my poor face a deep treatment mask when I got home.

That thought gave me pause.Home.

As I scrubbed my face, I thanked my lucky stars that the condo I’d put on the market after moving in with Jackson only a couple weeks before the wedding hadn’t sold yet. Sure, my realtor would be pissed when I told her I was backing out, but she’d just have to get over it.

I raked my fingers through my hair, snagging on a few of the bobby pins I hadn’t managed to find the first go-round, then squirted a bit of toothpaste on my finger and scoured my teeth as I made out a list in my head of what I had to do toput my life back to rights. It struck me then that I wasn’t even thinking about Jackson walking out on me or the wedding that didn’t happen. I wasn’t grieving the end of a relationship like most people would have been, curled up in a ball and crying my eyes out over a lost love. I was planning my next move, most specifically how I was going to get all my stuff from his house without having to see his stupid face.

I spit and rinsed, washing my hands before giving myself a good, hard look in the mirror. “As if you didn’t know you were making a mistake the moment you said yes,” I said to my reflection. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still pissed. I absolutely was, and I had every intention of holding to that anger for a good long while. Just because I wasn’t upset that the marriage didn’t happen didn’t mean that asshole didn’t owe me the respect of ending our relationship civilly.

Just thinking about that jackass and his perfectly threaded eyebrows and capped teeth made the pounding in my head that much worse, so I decided that was enough for the time being, at least until I’d had my coffee.

4

ASHER

It was ridiculous, considering it was my job to perform on a stage in front of hundreds of people four nights a week in tiny little costumes, but as I pulled the bathroom door open and started out, I felt more exposed than ever, dressed only in Owen’s T-shirt. However, I didn’t have a lot of options. It was either this or the soggy wedding gown that looked like it had been through a bloodied wood chipper. I could have barricaded myself in the bathroom, I guess, but the call for caffeine was too great to stay locked up behind closed doors.

I took in the rest of Owen’s apartment as I followed that glorious scent of freshly brewing coffee toward the kitchen. The space was open and airy, longer than it was wide, running the whole length of the clinic below from the looks of it.

The master bedroom was at one end of the apartment. Next was the living room with a brown leather couch that looked butter-soft and faced a huge flatscreen TV mounted on the wall above a stone fireplace. Past that was a round kitchen table with four chairs in a small dining nook. A small yet functional kitchen was separated from the living and eating areas by a long, wide concrete countertop—a bold, masculine choice that worked surprisingly well, especially since, in place of upper cabinets,wooden shelves held simple yet classic white dishes, and lower cabinets matched the wood around the rest of his apartment.

Windows stretched across the north-facing wall, letting in sunlight and breathtaking views of the forest and mountains beyond our town’s picturesque downtown. Beyond that was a guest bathroom and, from what I could see as I strained to peek without being obvious, another room—bedroom most likely—that had been converted into a home office. The whole place had the same feel as the master bedroom, warm and inviting, the kind of place you wanted to stay a while.

The wooden floorboard creaked beneath my foot as I took a step, alerting Owen and his dog to my approach.

“Perfect timing,” Owen announced as Gus came trotting out of the kitchen to meet me, bumping his snout against my hand in a demand to be petted. “Take a seat and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” He pointed the spatula in his hand to one of the two barstools at the counter instead of the table. “How do you take it?”

“By IV if that’s an option.”

He chuckled and the warmth I’d felt earlier came back, throwing me off balance.

“Sorry. Can’t make that happen, but I have a fresh pot brewed.” He turned to face me, pouring a mug and placing it, along with a canister of sugar and carton of milk, in front of me. “Hey, noticeable improvement,” he said, circling his finger in front of my face.

I smacked his hand away with a glare. “Yeah, you could have told me I looked like something that had been coughed up by a wild animal then run over by a garbage truck.” Reaching up, I patted at my hair to make sure I’d smoothed out the tangles as best I could with my fingers.

He blinked. “Wow. That’s some picture you drew there.” He pointed at my coffee. “Drink that while I finish our breakfast.”

I hefted myself onto the stool, staring on in silent bewilderment while doctoring my coffee with two scoops of sugar and a healthy splash of milk as Owen pulled four pieces of perfectly golden toast out of the toaster and began to spread butter on them. He dropped two of them onto the plate beside two sunny side up eggs before sliding the plate across the counter in front of me. “Eat. The eggs and toast will help beat back that hangover. Trust me.”

I forced my eyes up from the plate, back to him. “You cooked? For me?”

He looked at me, his eyes the kind of green that reminded me of new leaves in the springtime. Vibrant. I’d always thought he had the most beautiful eyes. “Well, for me too. A person has to eat,” he noted before biting off the corner of his toast. “Just don’t expect culinary perfection, or you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. Eight times out of ten, I couldn’t crack eggs into a frying pan without breaking the yolks and turning them into a scrambled mess, but his looked perfect, and I bet he nailed it on the first try. However, that wasn’t what had me stunned just then.

“No, I know. It’s just . . .” I was at a loss for words, something that didn’t happen all that often. Usually I had no problem talking, but this guy had thrown me for a serious loop this morning. More than once. He’d taken care of me, scrubbed my wedding dress, made me breakfast, all, apparently, after I’d hurled on him. My recollection was still grainy, like an overly pixilated photograph, but I could have sworn I remembered him saying he’d volunteered to track me down after I’d gone AWOL, that he’d been, well, sweet. It didn’t line up with the picture I’d always had of him. The one he’d given me by the way he acted whenever I was around.

“Is this pity?” I blurted, surprising both of us with my unexpected question.

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