After Hours Bundle (20 page)

“What was I supposed to think, when After Hours was open until midnight and you were serving alcohol? I found it highly suspicious.”

“You are
unbelievable!
”

“If it's any consolation, you forced me to consider paid sex for the first time in my life.”

“Oh!”
She tried to head-butt him again. “Put me down, you bastard, so I can kill you.”

He shook his head. “So, you see, I deserved your revenge the other night more than you knew.”

She hissed at him.

“I thought that might make you feel better.”

“Oh, trust me. It does.”

“Okay. Is it safe to put you down now? You really shouldn't try to harm the guy who's bought your entire powder-puff team pink athletic gear. Expensive gear, I might add.”

She turned her head to look at it.

“Doesn't that count for something?”

Grudgingly, she nodded.

“Okay.” He set her on her feet.

“Why did you do that? Get the gear?”

“Well, it's along the same lines of why I can't strangle you. I'm awfully afraid that I've developed feelings for you.”

“You have?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What kind of feelings?” she asked cautiously.

“Mushy ones. The kind that warp my normally clear logic and bring me to strange conclusions. Like being charmed when a woman puts Crisco in her hair and sprays her T-shirt with Raid in the hopes of not being my girlfriend.”

“Really? You thought that was charming?”

“No. I said I was charmed by it. The behavior itself borders on psychotic, but let's not discuss that right now, okay?”

She took a step closer and peered up at him. “What would you rather discuss?”

He cocked his head and smiled down at her, touching her hair. “Breaking and entering.”

Now she was really confused. “That's illegal.”

“Not in this case,” he said, cupping her chin. “You promise not to break my heart, and I promise not to break your lease. We enter into an agreement.”

She smiled, but he stole it with his lips. They were warm and insistent, parting hers and taking possession of her mouth. He kissed her for long moments before finally lifting his head. “So what do you say?”

“I say we have a deal—on two conditions.”

“What's that?” He nuzzled her neck.

“First of all, you can't break
my
heart, either. Second, you agree to a match between my powder-puff team and your boys. We're gonna whip your butts, pink helmets and all!”

“Done,” he said promptly. “Name the time and place. We'll wipe the field with you. Now, are you my girlfriend again?”

She chewed a fingernail and thought about it. “Do we have to use that word?”

“Well, you got all upset when I offered alternatives,” Troy said, throwing up his hands. “There's no pleasing you.”

“Okay, okay.” Peggy took a deep breath. “I think I'm in love with you. So it sucks…but I am your girlfriend.”

T
ROY SWELLED
with satisfaction, opening and closing his fists inside his light-blue Windbreaker. Blue for boys. As opposed to all those pink jerseys running around out there on the playing field over pink cleats.

Thank God his team wasn't getting humiliated by Peggy's girls: it was the one thing he couldn't handle. She stood on the sidelines opposite him, her little freckled face grim with determination. The score was twenty to fifteen, in the boys' favor. With difficulty, Troy refrained from inserting his thumbs into his ears and waggling his fingers at her, humming, “Nah, nah-nah-nah nah!” He strove for maturity; he was superior simply by being male and didn't need to rub it in.

Twenty-three seconds left on the clock, and his boys had the ball on their own seventeen-yard line. He told Derek to deliver the message when they huddled: “It's the second down, kids. The other team has no time-outs left, remember? So all you have to do is snap the ball and take a knee. Go get 'em!” He fairly danced in anticipation, grinning like a monkey. Peggy would never live this down, after all her taunts about the girls wiping the field with them. Nah, nah-nah-nah nah! His girlfriend owed him dinner and a bl—

“No!”
he yelled in disbelief. The little peckerheads had muffed the snap! There was a bad exchange between the center and the quarterback; the quarterback fumbled the ball and it
hit the ground, with one of the pink jerseys diving on top of it.
No! Damn it, that was a turnover.

Peggy took a turn grinning like a monkey, now. She jumped up and down and screamed, her red ponytail flying through the air. “
Yes!
Girl Power!”

Girl Power, my hairy ass.
But the damn pinkos had the ball on the fifteen-yard line now.
Keep it away from Danni,
Troy prayed.
She's the menace.
“Defense!” he roared.

His boys did the best they could; he had to give them that. But the prissy little pink jerseys got the ball to his niece and blocked Derek when he tried to mow his sister down. Danni sneered at him as she threw a perfect twenty-yard spiral right into the end zone. The touchdown was complete, bringing the score to 21-20, girls' favor.

Laura added insult to injury when she kicked the final point after touchdown, upping the pink score to twenty-two.

Peggy ran onto the field, still screaming in excitement, and hugged every single little girl out there as Troy tried to restrain a deep, moody growl. Girls didn't beat boys. They just didn't. Not at football. Not when even their flippin' little toenails were painted pink. Couldn't they be burly and have budding beards, so he could comfort himself by speculating that they'd had a sex change? But they were just as feminine and cute as they could be.

He walked out on the field, too, to comfort his kiddos. “We'll get them next time, but good,” he promised.

“Yeah, get us burgers, maybe!” Peggy gloated.

“Coach Underwood,” he warned, “am I going to have to teach you a lesson on good sportsmanship when we get home?”

“I don't know, Coach Barrington. Does it still involve—” she leaned forward to whisper in his ear “—handcuffs and hot baby oil?”

“As I recall, it does indeed.”

She flashed him a wide, naughty grin and said her next words at full volume. “Well, then, boys, I think you'll be needing to fetch us some sodas with those burgers—and wash our dirty uniforms, too!”

 

Look for the continuation of the
AFTER HOURS
miniseries!
Karen Kendall delivers Marly's story in
MIDNIGHT MADNESS,
coming May 2006 from Harlequin Blaze.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

C
UTTING THE GOVERNOR'S
hair is no different from cutting any other man's—it's just that if I slip with the scissors, the result could be on national television.

Marly Fine sat awkwardly in the stretch limo, her black nylon bag balanced on her lap. Outside the windows, LeJeune was a parking lot. The heavy Miami traffic crawled alongside the long white car; people on their way to work just like she was. Heat shimmered up off the pavement, mixing with exhaust fumes and humidity and general impatience. The combination steamed the outside of almost every automobile's windows while the occupants hid in their air conditioning.

In a lime-green Beetle on the left, a college girl munched on a cereal bar and bobbed her head to the radio. To the right, a black Volvo eased forward, its driver a heavy-set Latino businessman reading the
Herald.
Behind him, a well-endowed platinum blonde in a silver Mercedes applied her brakes and half a tube of mascara at the same time.

Marly's palms sweated and she resisted the urge to wipe them on her long cotton gypsy skirt. Examining her blue toenail polish, she wondered again if she should have changed it to pink last night.

No!
She got annoyed at herself for even thinking it.
I am who I am. If the Gov doesn't like blue polish or sequined rubber flip-flops, then that's his problem. I'm only there to cut his hair.

John Hammersmith, aka The Hammer, might be Florida's JFK reincarnated, but that didn't mean she had to wear a pillbox hat, pumps and a suit to meet the man.

“Temperature comfortable, miss?” asked the chauffeur, whose name was Mike. The poor guy actually wore livery—complete with cap—in this heat.

Marly started to nod, but her teeth were almost chattering. “Actually, Mike, can we warm it up a little back here?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks.” She wore double tank tops over her gypsy skirt, but they did little to keep her warm in the blasting air conditioning.

Marly hugged her bag as if it were a teddy bear and told herself she wasn't nervous. Hadn't
Shore
magazine named her as one of the top five hairstylists in the Miami area? Wasn't she having to turn away clients now, or pass them on to Nicky, her flamboyant coworker? In fact, she could have referred The Hammer to Nicky, except that she was afraid of the consequences.

All they needed at After Hours Salon and Day Spa was a very public lawsuit against one of their employees—for groping The Hammer's…uh, hammer. And it was an all-too-likely scenario: not only did Nicky wear tight orange spandex, but he waxed eloquent on the horrors of underwear and the beauties of copping a good feel.

She and Mike exchanged chitchat as the limo purred along in the sweltering heat, bringing her ever closer to the hair follicles of Florida's forty-fourth fearless leader. A man whose politics made her cringe, and who awoke deep feelings of resentment within her. He had the same slick demeanor of old Patrick Compton, the state representative from her hometown.

The Pattywhacker, they'd called him. He'd won office on promises of honor and sincerity and devotion. Funny how all those had gone out the window when he'd hooked up with the big boys in the House.

Didn't people ever learn? Now the good citizens of Florida had fallen for this young turk with the conservative agenda and soulful blue power ties that matched his wide-set eyes. The guy had charm in spades, plenty of hair and the big white teeth necessary for the perfect photo op. He'd promised to restore order, morality and conscience to Florida—as if the last two could be legislated.

Marly's mouth twisted and she leaned her head back, resting it against the fat braid of dark hair that hung to midspine. The plush leather seat hugged her body, and she wished suddenly that her dad was here beside her, taking a ride in a fancy limo. She'd have to tell him all about it when she visited.

The temperature inside the car had just warmed when they pulled up under the curved portico of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, where the chauffeur got out and opened her door. Marly slid over on the seat, gave him her hand and stuck first one foot and then the other out the door and onto the pavement. Her silver toe ring flashed in the sun, as did all the sequins sewn onto her rubber flip-flops.

Mike murmured something to a bellman, who produced a cell phone and led her inside while he hit a number on speed dial. He nodded at her. “Miss Turlington, the governor's assistant, will be down for you momentarily.”

Marly nodded, slung her bag over her left shoulder and put a hand up to her braid, just to make sure her hair wasn't working its way out of its confines. She licked her suddenly dry lips and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

She moved her attention to a massive floral arrangement in the center of a table in the lobby, discovering upon close inspection that the flowers were rubber and plastic. She'd begun wondering how, exactly, a factory created these things and how many cancer-causing fumes the workers inhaled during the process, when a no-nonsense older woman in a gray suit approached her from the elevators.

Maria Turlington introduced herself with a gaze as cool and dry as the hand she proffered, and fixated for half a second longer than was polite on Marly's blue toenails. “If you'll follow me, Miss Fine, the governor will see you now.”

Ms. Turlington reminded Marly strongly of someone, and as she got into the elevator behind her she tried to think of who it was. Her hair was short and graying, and she had a figure like a broomstick. The gray suit was relieved only by single pearls in her ears and an old-fashioned circle pin on her lapel. She looked as if she lived on tea and cucumber sandwiches or something as equally bland and proper. And the woman's shoes were positively hideous. Though they were good quality leather, they were squat penny loafers elevated only about an inch by a chunky square heel, and Ms. Turlington wore them with suntan-colored panty hose.

Marly decided that anyone who still wore suntan-colored panty hose could
suck
on her blue toenails.

The elevator stopped at the top of the building and the two of them exited, passing a couple of plain clothed bodyguards. One of them took a look into Marly's bag before letting them into the governor's suite.

She shrugged as he pulled out three pairs of long, wicked-looking scissors and an electric shaver. “Tools of the trade.” She couldn't very well cut The Hammer's hair without them, could she?

But maybe she should write in to
Alias
and suggest an episode where Sydney Bristow assassinated a bad guy by pretending to be a hairstylist. Who knew? Maybe they'd already done one.

The bodyguard frowned at the scissors and her, and exchanged a glance with Ms. Turlington, as if to ask whether she'd vetted Marly's background. Ms. T. nodded, and he let them go.
Great, the FBI has a file on my finesse with long layers. They know about the woman whose hair I turned purple back in beauty school, and they've looked into the dangers of me giving Hammersmith a mullet with neon-green hair extensions….

They knocked and then entered an elegant suite dotted with arrangements of flowers that had once actually grown somewhere. At one end of the room, near a window overlooking the ocean, was a desk and a rolling leather chair, turned away from them. Resting against the back of the chair was a head covered by unruly, dark curly hair.

“I need you to modify that paragraph in the Orlando speech,” Hammersmith said into a cell phone. “I am not saying that. Yeah. Thanks, Ricky. Gotta go.” The governor spun around in the chair and stood, his eyes riveting on Marly's face.

The last thing she'd expected was for the man to be half naked! His chest was broad, exceptionally well-defined and lightly furred in the morning sunlight.

She felt her pleasant expression freeze in surprise and her tongue instantly absorb all the saliva in her mouth.
That
was what those white button-downs and blue silk ties covered? She'd imagined a doughy, career politician's torso, well-padded with complacency and pork—not this ripped expanse of hard muscle and tanned, very masculine flesh.

“Governor Hammersmith, may I present Miss Fine?” said his assistant. “And,” she added with asperity, “may I get you your undershirt, sir?” She said the word
sir
as if she meant “small, naughty boy.”

Marly bit back a smile. Suddenly she knew who Ms. Turlington reminded her of: Miss Hathaway from the old “Beverly Hillbillies” show.

“Miss Fine,” said The Hammer, striding forward and taking her hand, “this is a definite pleasure.” He looked deep into her eyes and blinded her with a potent smile.

God help me,
thought Marly.
He's twenty times more magnetic in person than he is on television.
She had to avert her gaze or start babbling incoherently. So she dropped her gaze to his chest again.

“Thank you for coming all the way over here just to cut my hair.”

Nipples. I'm staring at the governor's nipples. There's something deeply wrong with this scenario.
“Um, you're welcome. Thank you for asking me.”

Hammersmith seemed just as taken with her chest as she was with his, truth be told. She could almost feel his eyes searching for the bra straps that weren't there under her double tank tops. She could almost feel his gaze spanning her waist, too, and evaluating the length of her legs under the gypsy skirt. She resisted the urge to wiggle her toes as he looked at those.

“I've never seen blue toenail polish,” he said.

He had to be kidding. What century did he live in?

“It's the same color as your eyes.”

She forced a smile to her lips. “I think that's a compliment….”

He nodded. “What do you call that color of blue? Royal? Cerulean?”

“Rebel,” she said with a self-conscious shrug. “That's what the manufacturer calls it, anyway.”

“Rebel,” he repeated, his eyes scanning every curve of her again. “I like it.”

Ms. Hathaway—uh, Turlington—bustled back in with a plain white T-shirt and handed it to Hammersmith with a meaningful glance. He nodded his thanks at her and dropped it on the desk. Then he sat next to it and gestured Marly toward the rolling chair.

Ms. Turlington's lips thinned in disapproval and she resembled nothing so much as a skinny, bad-tempered owl in pearl earrings.

“Was there something you needed, Maria?” the governor asked innocently.

“Your shoes and socks are near the sofa,
sir.
”

“Why, so they are! Thank you for calling my attention to them. Now, maybe we could all have some coffee from room service?” He turned toward Marly. “You like coffee?”

She shook her head. “Chai or green tea, actually. Thanks.”

“Will you order all of that, then, Maria?”

“Right away, Governor. Have you had breakfast?”

He shook his head and suddenly his blue eyes gleamed. “You know what sounds good? Strawberry waffles with syrup and whipped cream. You like waffles, Miss Fine?”

“Yes, but no, thanks.”

“Whole grain toast, fruit and a boiled egg is what your nutritionist has on the menu for you,
sir.
”

The Hammer waved a dismissive hand at his assistant. “That guy is a puritan and a sadist. Get me the waffles, please. And an extra-large orange juice.”

“But the carbohydrates—”

“—are delicious. Thanks, Maria. Be sure to order yourself something. I'll let you know if we need anything else.” And the governor slung an arm around her stiff, thin shoulders and walked her to the door. “What would I do without you, hmm?”

“I'm sure I don't know, sir.” And Ms. Turlington, the poor dear, exited with as near to a flounce as she was capable of.

“She thinks she's my nanny,” The Hammer said.

“Mmm.” Marly was noncommittal. “So…what would you like to do with your hair?”

“Well, I was thinking along the lines of Billy Idol or Dennis Rodman.”

She choked. Governor Hammersmith wasn't at all what she'd expected.

“I figured that look would go over well next time I had to speak to a Rotary Club or cut the ribbon at the grand opening of a new senior citizens home.”

“So you'd like me to pierce your ears, too—and custom order a spiked dog collar? Rip the sleeves out of your Brooks Brothers' button-downs? And how about a few tattoos?”

“Exactly.” He nodded. They exchanged a look of amused understanding. Then he ruined it. “You're even prettier than the picture in
Shore
magazine.”

She felt her cheeks warming as she opened her nylon bag and pulled out a salon cape. Not only should she cover that chest for her peace of mind, but also to protect him from the little hairs that would fly everywhere during his haircut.