Lily gave me the first of her gentle smiles and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Hope.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said lamely, shaking Lily’s hand. Her brown eyes were friendly as they flicked between Alice and me. “Not that I mind, but why are we shopping?”
“Because Griffen gave us his credit card and told us to buy Hope clothes. And no sane person turns down a fully-paid shopping trip. Especially someone with a huge closet to fill,” Alice answered.
“Mmmm. Tell me more about this huge closet,” Lily said. “Is the house really a castle?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hope
At breakfast, I stuffed myself with French toast and drank way too much coffee. I filled Lily and Alice in on the details of Heartstone Manor, keeping the personal stuff to myself. I didn’t know how much Griffen had told them about Sawyers Bend, but I had a feeling it wasn’t much.
Stomachs full, we piled back in Alice’s car and she drove us to a sleek salon tucked into a shopping center between two boutiques. We’d barely entered when a statuesque blonde pulled Alice into a hug and led us to the back, away from the other customers and into a private treatment room.
The din of a busy salon faded away behind the closed door. Propping her hands on her hips much like Alice had, the blonde gave me the same head to toe scan before saying, “Layers, definitely. And I’m thinking a deep, side-swept bang. Something you could tuck back if you needed to.”
I could work with that. “But you’ll keep it long?”
“I love the length. How would you feel about highlights? I don’t want to change the color—you’ve got a nice, rich brown with good natural variation, but you could use some pop around your face.”
Giddy from too much caffeine and maple syrup, I just said, “Whatever you want sounds great.”
Smart move on my part. I chatted with Alice and Lily and Danielle about everything and nothing as Danielle worked. I learned that Cooper and Alice had recently taken custody of Cooper’s toddler sister and that Lily watched her during the day along with her own son—the kids they’d left with the guys while we embarked on Project Save Hope’s Wardrobe.
Danielle and her fiancé were planning on starting their family as soon as possible, and the three of them talked all things kids while I listened, torn between longing and worry. I’d never really thought about having kids. Only in a vague one day, maybe kind of way.
Now, there was Griffen, and the will, and the understanding that a lot of things would be simpler if I just got pregnant.
I didn’t want to get pregnant.
Not a concern yet. I still remembered sex-ed. I had to have sex first. Or something a lot closer to sex than what we’d done so far.
We hadn’t discussed birth control. I wasn’t using any because I hadn’t needed it. Maybe Griffen wouldn’t want me to.
“Hope, what do you think?”
I snapped out of my musings on sex and birth control to look in the mirror. What I saw drove all thoughts of sex from my mind.
Was that me? It couldn’t be. The woman in the mirror looked beautiful. Confident. Her hair wasn’t brown. It was cinnamon and honey and caramel with blond streaks around her face.
I hadn’t quite been paying attention to what Danielle had done with the makeup, but my eyes looked deeper. More dramatic. She’d left my lips natural, but all of a sudden, I had cheekbones. Where had those come from? Was it the haircut or the makeup?
I blinked, taking in the changes. I was me but not me. I looked… I looked pretty. Really, truly pretty. I looked like a woman who deserved to wear more than boxy, ill-fitting suits and dull colors.
I looked like the woman who had bought that red dress. Maybe I looked like the me I’d always wanted to be.
“I love it. I love the hair and the makeup. Everything. But you have to show me how to do this at home. I should have been paying more attention but—”
Danielle patted me on the shoulder. “I’ve got you, honey. Alice is going to take notes, and I’m going to walk you through it. It’s a lot of impact, but not a lot of work. I promise.”
She was as good as her word. We left a half-hour later with a bag of makeup and hair products as well as video, pictures, and notes on how I could do it all by myself.
As Alice and Lily led me through the mall, I couldn’t stop staring at my reflection in every mirror we passed. It was a good thing I was dazed by the makeover. Otherwise, I might have argued more about the clothes, the expense.
Griffen had been right. Alice was an excellent shopper. She knew where to look for the right styles and the best deals, and she quickly grasped exactly what suited me and what I liked.