Plain Jayne (41 page)

“Definitely.” He wiped his palms down the front of his jeans and exhaled slowly. “What d’you got?”

“Coffee, tea—” Two steps toward the back room, she stopped, slapped her hand against the wall, and shook her head. “Sorry, all of that went home in the last load. I’ve got water, but I don’t think I even have … oooh, hang on.”

She hurried out to her car and rifled through the boxes until she found a stack of tiny
paper cups and the bottle of ten-year-old Abelour Mrs. Goodsen gave her for Christmas. God bless that old woman and her weekly appointments.

Carter’s face lit up when she came back through the door, the bottle lifted in success. “Now you’re talkin’.”

Regan poured them each a couple fingers worth, then grinned and knocked her cup gently against his. “Here’s to bruised egos and customers who know their single malts.”

“Amen.” Did he just wink at her? No, it must have just looked like it, what with the way he tossed his drink back so fast. Regan had never mastered the art of tossing back drinks, not even after Ellie spent so much time trying to teach her with shots of Red Headed Sluts, but it was interesting to watch Carter’s bracelets bounce off one another when he lifted his cup a second time. What guy wore kid bracelets, even if he was a pediatrician?

She waved her cup toward his wrist and tipped her head. “That’s some pretty nice bling you’re sportin’ there. Did you make them yourself?”

He set his cup on the shelf, chuckled quietly. “A couple of them, yeah.”

“Cute. Okay, so let’s have a look here.” With the cape secured around Carter’s neck, she pulled the comb slowly through his hair, trying to ignore the way he laughed quietly every time she sighed. “I can’t believe you paid someone to do this to your hair.”

“I didn’t. It was a freebie.”

“Well, that’s something I guess. And what’s with these cowlicks? Have you ever tried to tame them?”

“It’s easier to leave them alone.”

For the most part, his hair was long enough that he wore it brushed back out of his face, or at least she assumed he brushed it, but with the state it was in just then, it was more probable he just pushed it back with his fingers. Long, short, halfway in between—he had it all going on. The longer sections were easy enough to deal with, but those short sections … oy … and heaven help her, it was going to take a minor miracle to cover that one spot near the top that had been hacked almost to his scalp.

His grin grew bigger every time she sighed.

“Can I get you a magazine or something?” She’d already recycled all her magazines, but if it meant he’d stop staring at her, she’d run the ten blocks down to 7-Eleven and buy more.

“Why, am I making you nervous?”

“Oh, please.” She made sure her hands never slowed as she rolled her eyes at him. “You’re not that cute.”

There was that smile again; the same one she’d seen plenty of times since they first met last summer, the same one that always made her smile back. Why was that?

Focus
.

Regan studied him for a few seconds, both his hair and his reflection. No, she wasn’t checking him out, she was simply trying to figure out what to do, and everything about him would help her decide. So what if she took a few more seconds to study the strong line of his jaw, the barely noticeable scar that disappeared into his left eyebrow, or the couple day’s worth of stubble she usually hated on a guy. This was all part of the job.

Didn’t explain why she kept staring even after he licked his lips and cleared his throat, though. Ooops.

“Okay.” Regan slid her fingers though the damp length of his hair and stared straight back at him through the mirror. “You’re going to have to trust me here, Carter. We’re going to go short.”

His eyes never left hers as he lifted his shoulder under the cape. “Do what you like; it always grows back.”

She started in, lifting sections slowly, and sending clumps falling to the floor. A few times she dared a peek to see his reaction, but he wasn’t watching his hair fall, he was still watching her.

“Sorry about your place closing,” he said. “You didn’t want to re-sign the lease?”

“Oh, no, I was all set to re-sign; we’d talked it over last summer, agreed on terms and everything. We agreed to meet in October to sign the paperwork, and when he showed up, he announced he’d sold the building.”

“Just like that?”

“Yup. So if the rumors are true, you’re sitting in what will soon be a fancy little coffeehouse.”

“Another one?” His eyes widened. “But there’s gotta be five or six restaurants on this street already.”

“Eight, actually.” Boy, his hair was thick. Soft, too.

“Can you go work at one of the other hair places?”

“
Salons
. And no.” Regan shook her head and snickered softly. “There’s only one salon with a chair to rent and the owner and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on certain things.”

“Like what?”

“Like quality of cuts versus quantity of cuts, like how sales reps should be treated, like how it’s no one else’s business if I want to cut Mrs. G’s hair for free.” She grinned, shrugged. “Little things like that.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“Ideally, I’d like to buy a place of my own.”

“But …”

“But for some strange reason”—she chuckled quietly—“the bank wants more than just a smile and my good word before they’ll give me a mortgage. Go figure.”

“Need a down payment?”

“Look down.” She pressed her fingers against the back of his head and pushed slightly. “That, and they seem to have a problem with the fact that, unless I can score that check-out job at the CozyMart, I’m about to become unemployed. Go figure.”

“CozyMart?” he choked. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

“Don’t knock it.” She waved the buzzing razor near his ear in warning. “Retail’s the most thankless job out there.”

“And the most underpaid,” he grunted. “So why the hell would you want to do it?”

“I don’t
want
to do it,” she said. “But there aren’t many options here in town, and if that’s what it takes to make the bank happy, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep styling, too, but I’ll have to take my show on the road for now and go to clients’ homes.”

Carter’s expression summed up exactly how she felt about going mobile.

“Is that it?” he asked. “Those are your only options?”

“It won’t be so bad.” She ran the razor along the back of his neck in short slow strokes, then pressed her fingers against the back of his ear to protect it from the blade.

Carter jerked slightly, making her pull the razor back.

“Did I nick you?”

“No,” he muttered. “It’s fine.”

There was little she could do with the double cowlick at the back of his head or the mini tornado he had going on at the front, but the rest was coming together rather nicely, if she did say
so herself. She cut it close around his ears, but left it a little longer and heavier on top. As thick as his hair was, with it cut this way, and with the help of some strategically placed product, she could almost hide the near-bald spot.

She slid her fingers over the top of his head, lifting the hair and studying his reflection in the mirror to make sure the cut was even all over. “Are these other doctor friends of yours—are they more the Marcus Welby types?”

“Uh, no.” He laughed softly, a warm rumble that settled against Regan’s skin. “Not even close.”

“And could either of them out-hot any of those TV doctors?” She shot him a quick wink, then set the hair dryer to low and used her fingers to section his hair as she dried it.

“Jules isn’t hard to look at, but Rossick … well, guys aren’t my thing, so I can’t really answer that, but he was in one of those fund-raising calendars last year if that means anything to you.”

“Not unless he looks like Mr. October from the firefighters’ new calendar.” She opened her eyes wide and exhaled slowly. “He was enough to turn a girl into a serial arsonist. Just sayin’.”

A few longish strays needed to be snipped, and the edges evened out along his neck and around his ears. When she was satisfied, she rubbed a tiny bit of product over her fingertips and ran them through his hair, teasing parts of it up, taming bits of it down, and mussing up the rest.
Oh yes
.

Standing behind him, she fingered the ends of his hair near the front where the tornadotype cowlick twisted almost straight up.

“That’s better,” she said, more to herself than anything. “Much better.”

“If you say so.” His grin held, but his voice sounded skeptical. “So long as you don’t expect me to use that goop all the time.”

“Goop?” Regan fingered the tips of his hair again. She didn’t have to; she just wanted to. “It’s your hair, Carter, what you choose to do with it once you leave my chair is entirely up to you.”

His dark eyes narrowed, mocking her long before he opened his mouth. “Drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

“What? No.”

“Liar.” He tipped his head a little, his brow raised suspiciously. “You spend all this time fixing me up and then I walk out the door and let it go to hell again. That doesn’t tick you off?”

She pulled the cape from around his shoulders and gave it a quick shake before folding it up and tucking it back in the box. “Only when that laziness gets mistaken for a bad cut.”

“So how ’bout I buy you a drink to make up for letting all your hard work go to hell?”

“Close your eyes.” Regan gave him a thorough sweep with the duster, then bobbed her head toward her ridiculous little paper cup. “I’ve already had a drink.”

“But it’s New Year’s Eve.” He pushed out of the chair, rubbed his ear lobe in a slow circle and shrugged noncommittally. “One drink.”

He was standing far too close, so she stepped back and reached for the broom, which she immediately jabbed toward his scuffed boots to get him out of the way. He wrapped his hand around the broom handle, but didn’t try to pull it out of her hands; just stopped her from ignoring him.

Carter inched a little closer, trying to crowd her, but Regan wasn’t having it. He might be cute, and he might smell amazing—some crazy mixture of shampoo and leather—but that didn’t mean he got to invade her space.

She held his gaze, her fingers curled around the broom handle above his. It was tempting, no question. And the more she thought about turning her beloved salon into a mobile unit or, worse, going to work a thankless minimum wage job, the more she wanted another good stiff drink. Or six.

But the sooner she got to Jayne’s, the sooner she could leave.

After a long moment, Regan finally blinked and sighed softly. “How ’bout you ‘buy’ me a drink up at Jayne’s? If we don’t get up there soon, she’s going to send out the hounds.”

It took a few seconds before he finally nodded. “Yeah, she would, too.”

He released the broom and stepped around her to grab his jacket off the sink. With slow deliberate motions, he shrugged into it and zipped it up. “What do I owe you?”

“On the house.” She couldn’t help grinning at the job she’d done. As good-looking as he was before, he was freakin’ hot now.

“No, come on …” He pulled a couple twenties out of his pocket and held them out, but she shook her head.

“Keep it.” She refused to take the money, even when he pushed it at her again. “Take me
for a spin on your bike one day and we’ll call it even.”

The half grin was back, cockier than ever. “You got it.”

What the hell was she thinking? She’d never been on a motorcycle before—and up until the very second the words spilled out of her mouth, she’d never even considered getting on one.

“It was good to see you.” He backed up as he spoke and bumped into the door before he managed to unlock it and push it open, grinning all the while. “See you up there?”

“Yeah. I’m just going to, um …” She thumbed over her shoulder. “Clean up.”

They stared at each other for a long second, his smile kind of goofy as his fingers tapped against the door handle.

“Right. Okay. Thanks for the cut.”

“My pleasure.” She cleared her throat and leaned against the broom handle, staring out into the darkness long after he climbed onto his bike and rode away. When she finally shook the fog out of her brain, she locked the door and set to work cleaning up after Carter’s cut. Everything else was done, she just couldn’t seem to let herself be finished.

Eleven years she’d been styling hair, almost eight of those in this location, and now she had … what? A couple boxes of leftover product, three dozen white towels, and a couple hundred business cards. The guy was coming tomorrow for the sinks and the chairs, she’d give her keys back to the landlord, and that would be it.

Nothing left to do but find a new job. So what if unemployment was at a decade-long high and the CozyMart hadn’t even acknowledged her application yet? It could be worse, right? And right on cue, her phone rang.

“Hello? Tina? Is everything okay? Is Mom—?” Regan gripped the back of the chair, her eyes clenched, her heart thundering in her chest. “You’re sure? Okay, good.”

She released the breath she’d been holding and forced herself to swallow the lingering panic. Tina Works, chief administrator at Hillcrest Psychiatric Home, took a personal interest in every patient, so it wasn’t unusual for her to phone Regan to discuss her mother’s progress, not even on New Year’s Eve. Or in this case,
especially
on New Year’s Eve.

“No, nothing yet, but tomorrow’s a whole new year, right?” Her tone was light, but she wasn’t fooling either of them. With costs always increasing at Hillcrest, her mom’s disability pension wasn’t enough to cover everything, which meant Regan’s savings had slowly withered, but moving her somewhere else would only be a desperate last resort.

“Funding? What kind of funding? What would it cover?”

After all the other forms and applications they’d filled out over the years, it was too much to hope this would be any different, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. And while she should know better than to get her hopes up again, she couldn’t help it.

“Absolutely, whatever you need. Can I email copies or do they need originals? Yes, I know, but a long shot is still better than no shot, right? … Great … yup, I’ll get it all back to you right away.… Okay, and once they have the application, how long until they make a decision? Yeah, okay, good. Thanks … Me? I’m fine. You’re sure Mom’s okay tonight? Is she watching the movie? … That’s good, she loves Gregory Peck … Any chance she’s up for a call or a visit soon? … No, that’s fine, I understand.… Is it okay if I call back later, just to check? Okay, thanks. Happy New Year, Tina.”