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Adam was a leg man, and while my legs are short and are not my best feature, I’d packed an inordinate number of short skirts and dresses for his viewing pleasure. I pulled on a hot pink V-neck and a flouncy white skirt and started out toward Marietta early, hoping to beat the heat. Walking at a fairly good clip, I made sure I stayed on the pavement and watched for rattlers.
    The scenery looked like something out of a fairy tale with sky-high mountains in the distance. The sky itself looked bigger and bluer than anything I’d ever seen, and being born and raised in Carolina, that was saying something. Even the forest seemed deeper, richer, inviting. But as pretty as the roadside scenery was, it wasn’t as beautiful as Beck’s view of the world.
    I arrived on the outskirts of Marietta a little over two hours later, passing the high-dollar B&Bs and shops along the way. I went into the Big Sky Diner and ate a good breakfast. Folks there were used to having tourists come through. They were friendly, but didn’t ask a lot of questions. The big talk in town according to a half-dozen old women at the table next to me was Missy Wilson’s wedding. Apparently, it was going to be a big deal. Some of the women at the table were invited and some of them weren’t, and the ones that weren’t were miffed.
    “More coffee?” The cute blonde waitress about my age asked.
    “Just the check, please.” I paid my tab and did the math in my head of where I stood financially. I had eighteen hundred dollars in the bank before I left Columbia, after a lot of bad food, paying for gas, and really cheap hotels, I was down to fifteen hundred and change. I prayed Dillon would have pity on me, fix my car for a good price, and still leave me enough gas money to make it to Missoula.
    How would that look to Adam, me rolling into town penniless, especially after he all but told me not to come? It would look bad, really bad. And with my being out of work, it might look like I’d driven two thousand miles just so I could leech off of him. But I’d never felt that way about Adam when he was between teams and stayed with me. I was so happy to have him, and Buster was too. It felt like we were a family, and then he’d get picked up by some farm team and leave. Hopefully, Adam would remember that part of our history the way I did . But either way, the last thing I wanted to do was show up in Missoula broke.
    I knew I could probably charm Dillon into giving me the friends and family discount, but even with that, the look on his face yesterday had screamed expensive.
    I sucked it up anyway and headed over to the shop.
    “Hey, Rainey.” He blushed and wiped his greasy hands on his jumpsuit. “I haven’t gotten to your car yet.”
    “It’s okay, I’ve got nothing else to do, Dillon. I’ll wait.”
    “I told you I couldn’t get you an estimate until after lunch, and that’s still true. Wanna poke around town a bit and come back later?”
    Not really, I wanted to find out where I stood with the car. With Adam. “Sure.”
    I window-shopped down a street full of stores with expensive tourist trinkets and checked out a pretty turquoise ring I couldn’t afford. The sales lady oohed and ahhed over it.
    “It’s expensive,” I said.
    She shrugged, “But it looks fabulous on you. Just imagine how much better it would look with a good manicure. It would be stunning.” Red-faced, I slipped the ring off, thanked her, and got out of there fast.
    Back home, I never bothered much with manicures… my nails were always soft from having them in a shampoo bowl all the time. But I did need a pedicure and thought it might be a good idea to get one before Dillon gave me the magic number. From the look on his face, I might never be able to afford one again.
    Stepping into Nell’s Cut ‘n Curl was like stepping back in time. The row of dryers along the wall looked like they were from the fifties and prices on a piece of poster board tacked to the wall looked like