Love Under Two Outfitters by Cara Covington (the false prince series .txt) 📗

Alice spent the rest of the day, after parting from Ian and Ken Kendall at Lusty Appetites and making a quick detour into the bookstore, carrying on her with her plan to spend the afternoon with Bailey.

“Well?” Bailey stopped walking and turned to her. “You didn’t say yes, and you didn’t say no.”

Alice grinned at her sister-in-law. It was a short walk from the restaurant to the Lusty Glow Day Spa, and they had a bit of time yet before their appointments.

“I’ve decided to let the suggestion those Kendalls made simmer on the back burner of my brain. They seemed to understand and very happily gave me their cell phone numbers. And I, of course, gave them mine. That’s progress.”

Bailey just shook her head. “You call that progress. Girlfriend, I sure know what I’d say in your place.”

“So do I, because you already did. You said yes to my brothers.” Alice grinned.

“You have a point. I promise I won’t bug you about your decision again, then.”

“I’ve been here long enough to say that I understand that, and you. And I am not fooled, Mrs. Benedict. I am not fooled one little bit.”

Bailey laughed, linked their arms, and continued on with her to their destination.

Alice had met Chloe Jessop, owner of the Spa, when she’d attended the engagement party for Rachel, Brandon, and Chase. So she already knew that Chloe was on maternity leave and that Tasha Dorchester, her manager, ran the day-to-day business at the spa.

Alice hadn’t met the rest of the staff, however, before that very day—Carol Jessop, married to the paramedics who were cousins to Chloe’s firefighter husbands, Ari Benedict, married to former NFLers Cord and Jackson Benedict and were descendants of Emmerson Benedict and therefore cousins, and new hire Ginger Peterson, a thirty-something young woman from Houston. Apparently, Ari and Ginger had worked together briefly at a day spa in Houston several years before. Tasha and Chloe, Alice had learned, were looking for one more esthetician, since Ari would be on maternity leave very soon, too.

They had a registered massage therapist who came in part time. Sandra O’Brien split her time between Chloe’s spa and two others in Waco.

Today marked Alice’s first visit to the spa, but already she knew it sure wouldn’t be her last. After a very soothing five minutes in the serenity room, with a cup of herbal tea and a hot pack across her shoulders, she was led by Tasha to her manicure station. Beside her, Bailey sat and spread her hands out before Carol.

“I want to try a French manicure,” Alice said. “A friend of mine gets that sometimes, and I just love the clean look of it.”

“I do, too,” Tasha said. “French it is, then. And this one, I guarantee you, will last at least two weeks.”

Alice grinned. “Perfect, because I tend to be clumsy with my hands. I start out being careful of my nails but end up forgetting and banging my hand on a table edge or something, and that’s the end of at least one pretty, well-manicured fingernail.”

“You’ll be safe from that,” Tasha said. “As long as you don’t try to use your fingernails as tools.”

Alice whipped her hand away from Tasha and laid it over her heart. “Never! My fingernails, from this moment on, will be sacred.”

Tasha laughed and held out her own hand, waiting for Alice’s. Alice grinned and gave it to her and let herself enjoy every moment of the experience.

Everything was going so well she’d relaxed and let the sounds, the scents, and the…the femininity of the spa soak into her. The sound of trickling water—so relaxing—came compliments of an amazing piece of artwork that was against one wall and the focal point of the main treatment room. The three pretty copper bowls in various sizes, arranged from smallest down to the largest making a waterfall, definitely added as much to the aesthetics of the spa as the music and the actual pampering did.

“So, now that I have you all here,” Bailey said aloud, “we have a matter of the utmost urgency to discuss.”

Then she turned her head and looked right at Alice. “At lunch a few minutes ago, Alice was handed a proposition by those two newly arrived Kendalls, and she hasn’t made up her mind what to do about it. So I thought, what better place, and from what better people, for her to receive advice than right here and from all y’all.”

What the hell had happened to her quiet, demure sister-in-law? Maybe the aliens really did pull a switch!

“Boy howdy, Bailey Benedict! That ‘all y’all’ sounded real Texan. This is a proud moment for us all.” Ginny Kendall’s laughter-filled sentence put a smile on everyone’s face.

“Are we talking about Ian and Ken, the cousins Kendall who’re from Wyoming, via Colorado?” Carol asked.

“We are.” Bailey confirmed that with a nod.

“I sure do hope it was an indecent proposition,” Carol Jessop said. Then she grinned. Ari, who was going off on maternity leave at the end of the week, chuckled.

“I, for one, would love to hear about any and all indecent propositions, since that’s all I’ll be doing for a few more weeks yet. Hearing about them.”

“You did more than hear about them, girlfriend, and look what happened to you!” Ginger—a woman with hair the same color as her name—pointed her perfectly manicured finger at Ari’s big belly.

“You fit right in here, Ginger,” Maggie Morrison said. She was having a pedi given to her by Ginger, and Alice had known earlier by the sound of the moans and groans that Maggie had really enjoyed the foot massage part of the program.

“I love this place,” Ginger said. “I have a wonderful big apartment in one of the quads, and everyone here is so friendly.”

“Well, you’re right that I did more than just listen to indecent propositions,” Ari agreed. Then she broke into the biggest grin Alice had ever seen. “But you won’t hear me make a single complaint when my guys want