But Calla pushed hangers around and sighed. Nothing was catching her eye. Nothing that made her think “the one”.
Kirby leaned against the doorframe, her eyes following Calla. “Have I ever told you how grateful I am to you? For…for not judging me? For letting me work at the senior center?”
Calla nodded and smiled. “You have, and really, there’s no need to thank me. We’ve all made mistakes. You’re a very valuable employee and an awesome guinea pig. Who else would try my bacon-and-vanilla-flavored cupcakes without batting an eye but you?”
But Kirby’s eyes became even more intense when she grabbed Calla’s hand and held it tight. “Are we friends?”
She cocked her head, confused. Where was this coming from? “I’d like to think we are, Kirby. Is something bothering you? Do you want to talk?”
Kirby was a quiet soul who’d had a troubled past. Winnie was big on disclosure, and while she didn’t break confidentiality about her parolee’s crimes, she did give you some emotional background information on them on the off chance you needed to deal with a situation.
But according to Winnie, Kirby was as nonviolent as a newborn kitten, and after she’d been imprisoned back in Salem, a model inmate.
But then Kirby smiled, sweet and full of sunshine. “Nah. I’m fine. Just feeling maudlin and missing home, I guess.” And then her attention turned to the far corner of Winnie’s closet. “Ohh! What about that one?”
Calla’s eyes swung toward the direction of Kirby’s finger. “Pink?”
“Well, it is your favorite color, isn’t it? You did paint an entire physical therapy room pink. Seems like a good choice to me.”
“True that,” she said, reaching for the hanger and slipping the dress from it. She wandered out into the bedroom where Winnie had a full-length mirror and held it up. It was a wraparound with a tie-belt, simple and without any fancy adornments. Definitely not the slinkiest dress her friend owned, but something about the way the fabric swished at her knees made her consider it as a candidate.
“Try it on,” Kirby encouraged, pointing to the interior of the closet.
“Did you find one, Calla?” Icabod asked.
She closed the closet door, kicked off her sandals, and then shrugged out of her jeans. “We’ll see.”
As she pulled off her tank top, she let it drop to the floor and closed her eyes. Breathe, Calla. Just breathe.
She readjusted her bra, pulling the dress over her head, loving the slink of the material down along her hips. She gave one last glance to the neckline and kept her fingers crossed. Sexy, but not desperate and not too revealing.
Popping the closet door open, she headed for the mirror again, stopping a couple of feet away from it.
Both Kirby and Icabod let out appreciative whistles. “Nice,” Kirby murmured.
“Yeah, definitely your color, Calla. You look amazing,” Icabod said.
“You’ll have all the boys in the yard wantin’ that milkshake,” Twyla Faye said with approval.
“Ya think?” She smoothed her hands over her waist, pivoting on her toes. The dress fell to just below her knee, accentuating her long calves. The belt, tied at the side, made her waist appear much smaller than it really was, despite her two-mile jogs every morning. It hugged her breasts without exposing them as a suggestion rather than a blatant statement.
She felt…sexy. Provocative. Confident. All things she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“I think this is it,” she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else.
Kirby came up behind her and squeezed her shoulders, giving her the warmest smile Calla had seen to date. “You look beautiful, Calla. Really beautiful.”
Calla patted her hand. She’d needed to hear that. Sucking in a deep breath, she grinned, not nearly as nervous as she’d been. There was an ember of anticipation in the pit of her stomach and the longer she looked at her image in the mirror, the hotter that ember began to glow.
“You think Nash will like it?”
Kirby scoffed and planted her hands on her hips. “He’d be a damn fool not to.”
“Then this is the one,” she said, her excitement growing, her belly battling a band of butterflies.
Nash Ryder better prepare to have his socks rocked right off his feet.
Chapter 4
Ezra wolf-whistled from his place on his favorite recliner as she strolled out into the living room of the apartment she shared with him. “Ain’t you somethin’?”
Twyla Faye sat contentedly in his lap, her eyes closed as she lifted her face toward the end table, where a heat lamp sat that Ezra had bought.
Calla grinned. She definitely felt like somethin’. Sexy and flirty and…so alive. She gave a gentle tug to Ezra’s beard. “Oh, stop. You have to say that because you’re related to me. It’s in the rules.”