“Sarge, I’m not fooling around. Move over.”
Alice crept further into the barn. The warmth from the animals hit her first, quickly followed by the smell of said animals. That mingled with straw and the scent of the dry food put her in mind of her childhood visits to her grandparents’ farm, where she’d been terrorized by a donkey who’d been over-eager to make friends.
“Aw, man. Pippa, get your foot out of the water pan.” Mark bent over in a pen, while he tugged at a leg of a white llama with black spots. “You two are not earning brownie points with me today, and you’re making me late for work.”
She didn’t mean to giggle, but seeing him struggle with the two llamas was so funny she had to. “Mark?”
He whirled around on his knees. A pleased expression lit his face. “Alice. Hi.”
“Hey.” What now? Alice approached the pen. “I like your llamas.” Great. Lame much?
“They’re my brother’s.” He stood, dusting bits of straw and dust from his jeans as he went. “If I had my choice, these two would be sold to a collector because they’re more trouble than they’re worth.” He shot a glare at a black llama. “Sarge, here, is sneaky.”
The llama snorted and stomped a hoof.
Alice grinned. She propped an arm on the top rail of the pen. “What’s the other one’s name?”
“That’s Pippa. She’s Sarge’s wife, or mate I guess. They’ve been together for five years or so.” Mark exited the pen then swung the gate closed and locked it. “Why did you come out this morning? Problem with the worms?”
“No.” She faced him head on now that he was out of the pen. “Wow, you’re tall.” Stupid, Alice. Probably seven or eight inches than her five-foot-three frame, she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.
“Yeah, I take after my grandma and dad. A string bean.” When he smiled, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“Unfortunately, I take after everyone in my family. Short and prone to pudginess in all the right and wrong places.” She leaned back against the rail. One of the llamas sidled closer and looked her over with a curious eye.
“I’d say curvy instead.” Mark swept his gaze up and down her body. “Or as my grandpa used to say, hourglass.” He made the gesture with his hands, but then his face turned red, and he let his hands drop to his sides. “Sorry. That was rude.” He glanced briefly over his shoulder. “Good thing Grandma didn’t see that. She’d lay into me for manners.”
His easy style of speaking plus his genuine down-to-earth confusion made her insides heat. She ignored the movement of the llamas. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” When he ducked his head and awkward silence descended once more, Alice did the one thing she knew to fill it. She began to babble about daffodils. “Did you know the daffodil is really called narcissus and is part of the amaryllis family?”
Mark stared out her, his jaw slightly slack, his eyes wide.
She nodded and felt a pull on her ponytail but kept going. “They’re originally from North Africa, West Asia, and parts of Europe, most likely brought to this country by immigrants who wanted a piece of home to remember.” The tugging grew harder. She shrugged, not paying much attention as she warmed to her subject. “Also, some species of the flower contain an alkaloid poison called lycorine, mostly in the bulbs.” She narrowed her eyes. “What?”
Mark’s expression morphed from dazed to disgusted. He closed the distance between them, put a hand on her ponytail and pulled.
“Ow!” Pain tingled along her scalp as he moved her away from the llama pen. “What gives?”
“Seriously, woman, did you not feel the llama chewing on your ponytail?” He peered down at her, his hazel eyes beneath the brim of his baseball cap incredulous.
“I… I felt something but didn’t think it could have been that.” As much as she wanted to touch her now limp ponytail, she refrained. The bird poop was enough.
“You’ve got llama spit in your hair. It looks like a rat’s nest.” Mark moved to the railing. “Really, Sarge? This is how you get back at me?” He turned back to her and put a hand on her arm. Even through her turtleneck sleeve, the heat of his fingers seeped into her skin. “Look, I’m sorry, I—”
“Mark!” A woman’s yell shattered the moment. “You’re late opening the shop!”
His sigh mingled with hers. “That’s my grandma. I really need to go.”
“Yeah, I probably do too.” She pulled away and headed toward the door. The thought of having llama spit in her hair creeped her out. I need a shower. “Well, you’ve got a lot going on.” Dejection sat heavy on her chest. She still didn’t know anything about him. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.” At this point, growing a relationship with Mark didn’t seem like a possibility.
Chapter Three
Alice arrived at His-n-Hers Hair the same moment as a flood of newly “done” ladies left. Leftover bells from Christmas tinkled when she opened the door.
“Good morning!” The cheerful call from Doris Ledbetter rang through the hair salon. She wore a fifties-style, blue salon uniform, complete with a white lace-trimmed apron.
“Hi.” Alice glanced around the interior of the shop. Half the salon had a masculine theme on cool blue paint: pictures of fishing boats, jazz musicians, popular athletes in a variety of sports and expensive luxury cars. The other half had been decorated with book jackets from romance novels, scrapbook pages, laminated recipes, and pictures of exotic vacation spots, all set off on petal-pink walls. The line of demarcation was a black-and-white checkered strip of tape on the walls and floor. The whole room gave off a 1950’s vibe.
As Alice moved to the front counter, the scents of the shop wafted to her nose. The sharp, stinky odor of perm solution brought back memories of her pre-teen years, when she’d desired a spiral perm above all things. A jar of potpourri on the counter sent an apples-and-cinnamon scent to tickle her nose, but the strongest odor of all was the crisp, masculine cologne coming from the direction of Roger Ledbetter, Doris’s husband and co-owner of the salon. He kept up a steady stream of conversation with two clients sitting in barber chairs. Like his wife, he too was dressed in fifties fashion, only he’d gone for slacks and a tweed vest over a white dress shirt.
“What are you here for?” Doris bustled over. She clacked away on a computer keyboard then gazed at Alice with expectation in her expression. Face powder had settled into the wrinkles framing her mouth. “A cut, shampoo, color?”
“Um, I suppose a cut. I just washed my hair because a llama chewed on it.” She ran a hand through her mangled tresses that were now varying lengths. Apparently, llamas had sharp teeth. “I’d like something trendy, but not too trendy I’ll have to spend an hour on it every morning.”
“A llama?” Doris chuckled. “You must have been out at the Kincaide farm. Those boys are the only ones who keep llamas hereabouts.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard, moving even faster as she asked Alice pertinent questions like name, address, phone number, and a brief hair history. Finally, she beckoned Alice over to a salon chair. “Why were you out there?”
“Yesterday, I’d bought some garden worms from Mark.” Alice sat down and settled in while Doris covered her with a pink smock. “This morning I wanted to ask him a few questions.”
Doris clucked. “Personal questions?”
Heat seeped into Alice’s cheeks. “Sort of.” She watched the activity on the other side of the salon through the mirror. Roger had just finished a shave on one of the men and now prepared to cut the other man’s hair. Doris sprayed her hair with water. As always, once the tresses were wet, the curls disappeared.
“That Mark isn’t really good marriage material. If I was your mom, I’d warn you away from him.” Doris wielded a pair of scissors then began snipping at Alice’s mass of hair. “I’ll bet your dad would tell you the same thing.”
Alice frowned. Her mom had died several years before from breast cancer, but though her dad was overly protective in his own way, he’d never meddled in he
r romantic life. Doris’s assumption that he would sent little stabs of annoyance through Alice’s chest. “Dad’s a good egg when it comes to my dating life. He never did care for Frank, but he told me if Frank made me happy, he was okay with him.” She narrowed her eyes. “And, just FYI, I’m not looking for love right now. I’m doing fine by myself.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Doris continued to cut at Alice’s golden strands. “Every girl dreams of love and someone to share her life with.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet Doris is wishing she hadn’t dreamed of me,” Roger butted in from across the room, much to the amusement of his two customers.
Doris snorted. “I’ve been stuck with you for twenty-five years. I don’t guess it turned out all that bad.” She tapped Alice on the shoulder with a comb. “Don’t listen to him. He’s still irritated I won’t let him have donuts and bacon for breakfast every day.” Her grin revealed a smudge of coral lipstick on her front teeth. “Marriage to the right person is wonderful. It’s like being with your best friend all the time, except with benefits, if you know what I mean.”
“I know.” She stopped herself at the last second from rolling her eyes. While Doris continued to clip and comb, Alice let her gaze wander over the travel posters and vacation pictures of places she’d always wanted to go yet hadn’t. Would visiting those tropical locales be fun by herself, or would they be even better if she had someone to share them with?
Alice heaved a sigh. “So, tell me about Mark. I’ve seen him around town, and I’ve heard about his family, but haven’t really gotten to know him. Seems like without his brother, he’s a little lost and keeps to himself.”
“Oh, he’s lost all right.” For a few minutes, the clip of her scissors was her only reply. “He and Matt were given the farm by their dad. When Mr. Kincaide injured his back years ago, it was hard for him to keep up with the farm chores, plus his heart just wasn’t into it anymore.”
“So farming runs in the family?”
“Yup. There’s been a Kincaide on that land as far back as 1900, or at least as long as Francesville has been around.” Doris ruffled her fingers through Alice’s hair. “Matthew loves the farm life; Mark doesn’t. Hates it, from all accounts. Just ask him.”
That’s the trouble. I either babble like an idiot or get tongue-tied around him. Instead, she said, “How’d he come to run the bait shop?” From the looks of things, he did well enough. The shelves had been stocked and nothing had seemed dusty as if merchandise had sat that long.
“Necessity, I reckon. Folks always need bait and don’t want to go over to the next town to get it.” Doris shrugged. “He seems to enjoy it, but I can’t imagine he’s able to make a living at it.”
“Recently, there’s been talk Mark wants to move away from Francesville,” Roger interjected. “His grannie is adamant he do something with his life. Not a lot of opportunities around here, so maybe he’ll try his luck in Indianapolis. He does have a business degree.”
“True.” Doris relocated in front of her. “Don’t have a clue how he thinks he’ll support himself if he doesn’t. I guess bachelors don’t worry much about those things.”
Oh, sweet fancy Moses, the woman’s going to give me bangs! Mild panic fluttered in Alice’s stomach. The last time she’d had bangs was in high school and they’d been a pain. She forgot her anxiety as the word “bachelor” rang in her ears.
“He’s single?”
“Yup, and from all accounts, he hasn’t dated around seriously, just takes a woman out every now and again. Wonder why.” Doris pursed her lips.
“Yeah, I wonder.” Did he have bad luck in the dating arena like she did?
“You interested in him that way?”
Alice lowered her gaze so she wouldn’t have to see Doris’s expression even as her cheeks burned. “I don’t know.”
“Anyway, I don’t think Mark will have much of a choice except to move now that Matthew’s married.” Doris continued as she snipped. “It’d be a tad awkward to stick around once Matt and Lucy get back. A third wheel in a new marriage can be a strain.”
Roger hooted with laughter. “You should know. Remember when you invited your sister to stay with us, and we’d not been married six months?”
The beauty parlor maven rolled her eyes. “I’ll never be able to forget.”
Alice held her breath as long strands of hair fell onto the smock. “Mark did mention he might be looking for a place to rent soon. I guess it’s true.” She chewed her bottom lip as Doris continued to clip. “It’s a shame, though. It’s not like this town is a real estate hotbed. Only a few houses for rent and a handful of apartments scattered about.”
“True enough. Folks keep property in the family. Plus, you can’t expect young people to stay in one place forever.” Doris traded her scissors for a blow dryer.
Why not? I was born and raised in Francesville. I don’t want to live anywhere else. Another stab of annoyance lanced through Alice’s chest. It was no one’s business what Mark wanted to do with his life. If he was happy, nothing else mattered. At least, she hoped she believed that if faced with the same situation.
By the time Doris had shut off the blow dryer, Alice had come to a conclusion: she’d track Mark down and ask him out. Regardless of his seemingly dead-end job or paper-thin aspirations, he might be a fun person to hang out with. Then again, it didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t looking for forever.
“All right, honey. I’m just going to put some product in your hair and you’ll be good to go.” Doris squeezed a dollop of something into her palm, rubbed her hands together, then passed them through Alice’s cut tresses. The hair now fell to her shoulder in enticing ringlets, plus the wispy bangs highlighted a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“Oh, wow. It looks nice.” Alice leaned forward. She combed her fingers through the strands. “I might have to put on make-up to go with the hair.”
Doris snorted. “Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts.” She lightly sprayed Alice’s head with hairspray. “I think you have too much fun being in the dirt. Getting dolled up probably isn’t in your nature, and it certainly won’t mesh with the plants.”
How did a person respond to such criticism? Having no answers, Alice merely sat still with her jaw slightly open.
“Okay.” Doris whipped off the smock. Hair clippings fell to the floor. “You’re done.”
Alice scooted off the chair and had her debit card out of her pocket before Doris wandered over to her computer. “Thanks. At least it’s not ratty anymore.” She’d have to think long and hard before coming back to His-n-Hers again. Criticism had its place, but she didn’t need it in every topic of conversation she discussed.
Her cellphone chirped. Alice pulled it out while Doris rang up the haircut. The text message was from her dad, asking if she’d bring home a roll of heavy duty silver tape and batteries. His flashlight was on the fritz. She sighed. Of course she would.
I really need my own life.
****
Mark spied Alice popping into Everything You Need, the tiny grocery store that claimed to have enough on hand that anyone could make a quick dinner. Their slogan was “if we don’t have it, you didn’t need it.” Except, she seemed different from the morning. After abruptly swinging the pick-up into a public parking lot, he shut off the engine and hopped out, determined to talk to Alice this time around and ask her out.
The grocery store boasted four hundred square feet, and by the time the shelves of dry goods and sundries were added plus a small, cold meat and dairy case as well as the front checkout counter, there was enough room for two aisles. Mark grinned. There was nowhere for her to hide. He came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Alice.”
She whirled around, clutching a roll of heavy duty silver tape to her heart. “Sweet fancy Moses.” A blush crept over her cheeks, but she smiled. “You scared the living tar out of me.”
“Sorry.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker.
“What are you doin
g here? I figured you’d be running the bait shop at this time of day.”
“I was. Grandma sent me into town to pick up a package for her at the post office.” He readjusted his ball cap on his head. “Besides, I forgot to ask you something while you were at the farm this morning, so when I saw you come in here…”
“Oh?” Her blue eyes were wide with expectation. “What’s that?”
He couldn’t figure out what was different about her. Something about her hair maybe? It wasn’t in a ponytail, but she seemed to glow. Was that possible? Had she always had that hair swooping down over one eye? A feeling of floundering swamped him. Why did talking to a pretty woman always have to be so hard? “Uh, I was wondering if you’d like to go out… sometime?”
“Sure.” She nodded which set her hair bouncing. The curls just begged him to touch them, but he conquered the urge. “I hoped you’d ask.”
“You did?” When an older gentleman came down the aisle, Mark shuffled closer to Alice and caught a whiff of her floral scent. If he wanted to, he could tuck her against him, and she’d fit perfectly with her head against his chest. He kept his hands firmly in his pockets. It wouldn’t do to be that guy, the one who rushed to be touchy-feely with a girl so soon. “Why?”
Her smile widened. “Because I wanted to ask you out.”
“How come you didn’t?” How cool. He’d never had a woman want to ask him out before. His stomach clenched. Was that a good or bad thing?
Alice shrugged. She retreated down the aisle and snagged a four-pack of DD batteries. “My dad wouldn’t be happy about that.” When she rolled her eyes, Mark felt her exasperation. “Dad’s old-fashioned. He thinks it’s the man’s responsibility to ask a woman out, pay for dinner, and generally treat her like a queen. He doesn’t understand that times have changed, and we’re fully capable of taking care of ourselves.”
Coming Up Daffy Page 3