“Where did you come from?” Lisa asked him.
“I was making a few calls from the office. Has Sophie come by yet?”
“Not yet.”
Four boys dressed as bloody hockey players wheeled past on Roller Blades and were followed closely by Tommy Markham pulling his wife in a rickshaw. Helen was dressed as Lady Godiva, and on the back of the rickshaw hung a sign that read Helen’s Hair Hut. Quality cuts for ten dollars. Helen waved and threw kisses to the crowd, and on her head sat a rhinestone crown Delaney recognized all too well.
Delaney dropped her shoulders and uncovered the lower half of her face. “That’s pathetic! She’s still wearing her homecoming crown.”
“She wears it every year like she’s the queen of England or something.”
“Remember how she campaigned for homecoming queen, and I didn’t because campaigning was against the rules? Then after she won the school wouldn’t disqualify her? That crown should have been mine.”
“Are you still mad about that?”
Delaney folded her arms over her chest. “No.” But she was. She was annoyed with herself for giving Helen the power to irritate her after so many years. Delaney was cold, possibly neurotic, and very aware of the man standing behind her. Too aware. She didn’t have too see him to know how close he stood. She could feel him like a big human wall.
Except for the time Nick had ridden his bike in the parade like some crazed stunt rider and ended up with stitches in the top of his head, he’d always been a pirate-always. And every year she’d taken one look at his eye patch and fake sword, and her hands would get all clammy. A weird reaction considering that he usually told her she looked stupid.
She turned her head and glanced up at him again with his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and small gold hoop in his ear. He still looked like a pirate, and she was getting a warm little tingle in her stomach.
“I didn’t see your car in back,” he said, his eyes staring into hers.
“Um, no. Steve has it.”
A frown creased his brow. “Steve?”
“Steve Ames. He works for you.”
“Real young guy with dyed blond hair?”
“He’s not that young.”
“Uh-huh.” Nick shifted his weight to one foot and tilted his head slightly to the side. “Sure he’s not.”
“Well, he’s nice.”
“He’s a nancy boy.”
Delaney turned and scowled at her friend. “Do you think Steve’s a nancy boy?”
Lisa looked from Nick to Delaney. “You know I love you, but geez, the guy plays air guitar.”
Delaney shoved her hands into her pockets and turned to watch Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and a Hershey’s Kiss walk by. It was true. She’d gone out with him twice and the guy played air guitar to everything. Nirvana. Metal Head. Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Steve played it all, and it was so embarrassing. But he was the closest thing she had to a boyfriend, although she wouldn’t even call him that. He was the only available man who’d paid attention to her since she’d arrived in Truly.
Except Nick. But he wasn’t available. Not to her anyway. Delaney leaned forward to look down the street and saw her Miata turn the corner. Steve steered the sports car with one hand, his hair dyed and cut short in a spiky crewcut. Two teenage girls sat like beauty queens directly behind him while one more girl waved from the passenger seat. Their hair was cut and styled to make them look as if they’d just stepped out of a teen magazine. Smooth and free-flowing and trendy. Delaney had scoured the high school, purposely searching for girls who weren’t cheerleaders or pep club officers. She’d wanted average girls she could make over to look fantastic.
She’d found them last week. After receiving their mothers’ approval, she’d gone to work on each of them earlier that morning. All three looked wonderful and were living, breathing advertisements for her salon. And if the girls weren’t enough, Delaney had taped a sign on the sides of her car that read: The Cutting Edge fixes ten-dollar haircuts.
“That’s going to drive Helen nuts,” Lisa muttered.
“I hope so.”
A collection of grim reapers, werewolves, and corpses passed, then a fifty-seven Chevy turned the corner with Louie at the wheel. Delaney took one look at his dark hair greased into a jelly roll and burst out laughing. He wore a tight white T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve. In the seat next to him sat Sophie with her hair in a high pony tail, bright red lipstick, and cat’s-eye sunglasses. She smacked bubble gum and snuggled inside Nick’s big leather jacket.
“Uncle Nick,” she called out and threw him a kiss.
Delaney heard his deep chuckle just before Louie revved the big engine for the crowd. The antique car shook and rumbled, then for a grand finale, backfired.
Startled, Delaney jumped back and collided with the immovable wall of Nick’s chest. His big hands grabbed her upper arms, and when she looked up at him, her hair brushed his throat. “Sorry,” she muttered.
His grasp on her tightened, and through her coat she felt his long fingers curl into the wool sleeve. His gaze swept across her cheeks, then lowered to her mouth. “Don’t be,” he said, and she felt the brush of his thumbs on the backs of her arms.
His gaze lifted to hers once again, and there was something hot and intense in the way he looked at her. Like he wanted to give her one of those kisses that devoured her resistance. Like they were lovers and the most natural thing in the world would be for her to put one hand on the back of his head and lower his face to hers. But they weren’t lovers. They weren’t even friends. And in the end he stepped back and dropped his hands to his sides.
She turned around and sucked air deep into her lungs. She could feel his gaze on the back of her head, feel the air between them charged with tension. The pull was so strong she was sure everyone around them could feel it, too. But when she glanced at Lisa, her friend was waving like a mad woman to Louie. Lisa hadn’t noticed.
Nick said something to Lisa and Delaney felt rather than heard him leave. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She glanced over her shoulder one last time and watched him disappear into the building behind them.
“Isn’t he cute?”
Delaney looked at her friend and shook her head. By no stretch of the imagination was Nick Allegrezza cute. He was hot. One hundred percent, testosterone-pumping, drool-inspiring hot.
“I helped him do his hair this morning.”
“Nick?”
“Louie.”
The light dawned. “Oh.”
“Why would I do Nick’s hair?”
“Forget it. Are you going to party at the Grange tonight?”
“Probably.”
Delaney checked her watch. She only had a few minutes before her one o’clock appointment. She bid Lisa good-bye and spent the rest of the afternoon on a three-color weave and two walk-ins.
When she was finished for the day, she quickly swept up hair from the last girl, then grabbed her coat and climbed up the back stairs to her apartment. She had plans to meet Steve at the costume party being held out in the old Grange hall. Steve had found a police uniform somewhere, and since he planned to impersonate a law enforcement officer, it seemed a given that she should impersonate a hooker. She already had the skirt and fishnet stockings, and she’d found a fluffy pink boa with matching handcuffs in the gag gift aisle at Howdy’s Trading Post.
Delaney stuck her key into the lock and noticed a white envelope on the step next to the toe of her black boot. She had a bad feeling she knew what it was even before she bent to pick it up. She opened it and pulled out a white piece of paper with four typewritten words: GET OUT OF TOWN, it said this time. She crushed the paper in her fist and glanced over her shoulder. The parking lot was empty of course. Whoever had left the envelope had done it while Delaney had been busy cutting hair. It would have been so easy.