by Ellen Dye
“Oh, God, I’ve killed her.” I closed my eyes and whispered, as an image of tomorrow’s Buckston Bee headline flashed behind my lids:
Local Beauty School Student Sentenced to
Life in Prison for Death of Elderly Socialite.
****
The lurid headline was still lurking behind my closed lids a few hours later. I’d mentally added the subtitle Death by Hair Color.
Of course, what remained of the rational side of my mind knew Mrs. Habersham hadn’t actually died. But that rational side wasn’t in control at the moment.
I groaned loudly into the warm, dark night and shrugged out of my heavy cardigan, which I stuffed under my backside as a makeshift cushion. Lord, but these boards had gotten rough in the years since Sam had originally built this tree house.
I took a long tug off the amber bottle and held it up, spying the level of remaining liquid. The moonlight did a nice job illuminating my night’s progress. I’d managed to work my way through half the bottle of dandelion wine I’d pilfered from Nettie’s reserves after being hustled from school by Val in all possible haste.
California vintage Chardonnay it was not. But I found if I held my nose and swallowed real fast, it wasn’t half bad. Really.
And I did have to admit it was doing the job.
The minimally starlit night had a nice fuzzy tinge to it, something like an old Hollywood movie shot through a filter. I closed my eyes once again and was immediately assaulted by the second of my recurring visions. Traveling high above, and rising, was my cosmetologist’s license, which had sprouted green leathery wings and carried a handy cargo net beneath, holding the sum total of my life savings.
Shit.
I held my nose and took an extra long chug.
What the hell was I going to do now?
I’d sunk every last penny we’d had to our names into this venture with Be Headed. Literally all proceeds from the sale of my remaining E and E from Ts and most of my wardrobe were tied up in our future salon. If I didn’t finish school and get my license, Be Headed would be lost. Or at least it would be lost to me, along with our life savings.
Double Shit.
I took another slug.
“Hey, Wanda Jo.” Sam’s familiarly pleasant face and shoulders, somewhat fuzzy around the edges, appeared above the ladder resting against the platform on which I was seated. “You’ve been up here a long time. Hiding out?” He glanced around.
I tried to focus on his eyes. Odd, he seemed to have three instead of the usual two. “Nope,” I slurred, surprising myself. I was definitely farther gone than I’d thought. Good woman, Nettie. I cleared my throat. “Not at all.” I said each word very carefully.
Sam gingerly climbed onto the platform. I scooted away, making room.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, he finally arranged himself, although I doubted he was comfortable.
“Grown since you last did this, huh?”
“More than I’d realized.” He slid one leg off the platform.
“Built to last, though.” I gave the upright post near my right shoulder a hearty slap.
Then we both watched as a large portion of it sailed to the ground below.
Sam raised one brow. “Apparently not.”
I passed him the bottle. He declined.
I took his chug instead.
“Nettie’s?”
I nodded, and he reached for the bottle, held it toward the pale moonlight, and noted its depleted contents. He winced but returned it.
“Best go easy now, or you won’t be able to get out of this tree house,” he observed.
I gave a little wave. “Not a problem. I’m never coming down. I’ve decided.”
“Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. Besides, you have to come down eventually.”
“Nope.”
“What about Olivia?”
I shook my head and promptly became dizzy. “She’s spending the weekend at Val’s. With Kate.”
“That’s only two days.”
“Honestly,” I grumped. “Two days. Eternity. Do we have to split hairs?”
Sam winced at my logic and then massaged both temples.
I heard a soul-deep groan as the board beneath my rear shifted slightly and then suddenly, and to my complete amazement, I found myself sitting on Sam’s lap.
Oh, my.
This was infinitely preferable to the hard, splintered wood, I thought. I gave a slight wriggle of my rear and prepared to snuggle down. Warm, comfy… and…Hello.
“Shit,” Sam said.
Not what I’d been hoping to hear, I thought as I heard a loud thunk. I peered over to where I’d been sitting only to see it was no longer there.
“Oops,” I said, looking down to where the section of wood lay beneath the tree, my sweater trapped beneath.
“We’re leaving before this whole danged thing comes down.” Sam shifted me toward the ladder.
I wrapped both arms around his neck, mindful of the bottle clutched in my hand. “I can’t,” I wailed as my cheeks became inexplicably wet.
Tears? Where the hell did these come from?
And Lord, what smelled so good? I leaned closer, burying my face in Sam’s shoulder and inhaled deeply. Oh, my, yes. That was it. Sam. I wriggled my rear slightly backward as my own hormones rushed forward.
Hello was fast becoming Glad To Meet You.
Encouraging, that.
Sam’s large hand gently glided up my back and then across my upper arm, which was still wound round his neck. Clearly Glad To Meet You was now fast becoming Love To Know You Better.
“Sam,” I all but groaned, turning my face upward in high hopes of a long-awaited repeat performance of The Kiss.
Sam, ever so carefully, plucked my fingers from the bottle of dandelion wine while completely ignoring my already puckered lips.
“I think you’ve had enough of this.” He leaned toward the edge and tipped the bottle, dumping its precious—and now more necessary than ever—contents to the ground below.
Well, just hell.
Dignity was clearly called for. I quickly disentangled my arms and sat stiffly upright. I assumed a haughty facial expression, punctuated with a sniff. And then, wouldn’t you know it, the tears started up again. Full blast.
“You hang on to this.” Sam pulled a red bandanna from seemingly nowhere and stuffed it into my hand. “And I’ll hang on to you.”
I decided to settle.
Seconds later, Sam set me on the ground beneath the tree, where I busied myself retrieving my sweater and making another, somewhat less dramatic, attempt to regain my dignity.
“Now, why don’t we continue our chat on firm ground. Preferably with a roof above,” Sam suggested, placing both hands on my shoulders and turning me in the direction of the cottage.
I sighed and clamped a firm lid on my raging hormones and then devoted my full attention to putting one foot in front of the other in the pale glow of the flashlight Sam’d had the foresight to bring along.
“Okay, Wanda Jo. ’Fess up.”
I shook my head stubbornly and stood still as the one path before us wavered and became three.
“What could be that bad?”
“Nothing.” I took a cautious step following the middle path.
Sam snorted. “Had to be something pretty big to make you pilfer a bottle of Nettie’s most lethal and hightail it to the woods.”
I remained silent and mopped up the latest batch of tears with Sam’s bandanna, sure I now looked like an exceptionally unattractive wet raccoon.
“Wanda Jo…”
“I’m a complete failure,” I summed up the situation and then stumbled over a tree root as if to prove my point.
Sam quickly righted me. “Only in your evening’s choice of beverage.”
“Well, that too,” I charitably agreed, swaying slightly off course.
Sam draped an arm across my shoulders, steering me. “Home’s this way.”
“Not for long.”
&
nbsp; I didn’t miss the irony of the situation. Twenty-some years ago I couldn’t wait to get out of Buckston County. And now, when all I wanted to do was make a stable home here, I was losing the opportunity.
Where would we go? What would we do?
“Oh, God, what’s to become of us?” I wailed aloud.
“Anything you want,” Sam answered, an infuriatingly cheerful tone to his voice.
“What part of ‘I’ve completely failed’ is giving you trouble here?”
He chuckled. “You’re not a complete failure. You haven’t failed at anything, so far as I can see.”
True. Fortunately Sam hadn’t had a viewing of the Green Fiasco—or the deliriously happy, smirking face of Bitsy Breckenbridge.
“You’ve got loads of talents, Wanda Jo. How about that fundraiser for Dottie’s little girl?”
“That did go off well, didn’t it?” I burped. “’Scuse me. Actually…” I paused, concentrating on making the attempt to stand tall and walk gracefully. “That used to be my job until I found myself part of a permanent out-placement.”
“Bet you were good at it.” Sam steered me from the dirt path onto the short gravel one leading directly to the front door. “You sounded great on the radio when you advertised Susie’s benefit.”
“Thank you.”
“See, there. That’s a talent. You have a beautiful voice, and you’re well spoken.”
There. That was something I could take pride in, failure that I was. I might be down. I might also be out. But by God, I didn’t twang any longer. Not much, true. Yet I’d take what I could get.
I heard the crash of galvanized metal against stone the instant my foot touched down on the bottom-most step. At once, fuzzy as my perspective was, I was roused to battle. I grabbed the broom propped by the door and took off toward the rear of the cottage, determined to foil the little masked tornado of destruction that had dug up all my freshly planted mums a few days ago.
Sam followed, stunned.
I swung the broom, bristles forward, for all I was worth the second the fuzzy bandit’s head popped up, peeking over the trashcan’s rim, a half apple stuffed in his mouth.
“You destructive little fur-faced marauder,” I hollered, taking another swing as the raccoon scrambled his back legs to the rim. “Yeah, you’d best hang on to that apple. You are going to be a luau main course damn soon.”
Exasperated, I swung a third time. “Git-on-out-a-here!” I ran the words together, twanging louder than I ever had in my life.
I dropped the broom and clapped both hands over my mouth to prevent any more sound from escaping. Oh, God, I twanged! The single thought shot through my mind like rapid machine-gun fire as I watched the masked bandit make for the tree line, a pair of over-ripe bananas under one arm and the apple half still wedged in his mouth.
“Oh, God.” I plopped down on my rear next to the broom. “It’s really over.”
Sam knelt and patted my shoulder.
“Did you hear that?”
“Darlin’, I think the greater area of Buckston County heard that.”
“I twanged.” I hiccupped and followed up with tears.
“There, there,” Sam said gently as he effortlessly scooped me up. “It’s not as bad as all that. I’ve got you.” He opened the door, and I shifted against his solid chest. “Don’t think on it any more. I’ll take care of everything.”
I relaxed in his arms, closing my eyes and wishing it could really be true.
Chapter Sixteen
It will be all right; I’ll take care of everything…
Sam’s words floated through my alcohol-hazed thoughts as I drifted most unwillingly toward full consciousness. I turned slowly, my arms closing around the pillow Sam had vacated some unknown time ago and pulling it close. Woodsy, exciting, sexy, and safe—I inhaled deeply.
Sam.
I remembered the feel of his large, solid arms as he held me, whispering calming platitudes, until I’d finally slept. He’d sounded so sure, so confident, and felt so strong, like he was someone I could lean on. Depend on. And he’d been so warm. Solid. When was the last time I’d actually drifted off to sleep feeling secure in a man’s arms?
I jerked my face away from the pillow with a force that sent tiny, laser-sharp pricks of pain through my head as I realized the answer.
Never.
I hadn’t been particularly experienced when I met Reed. And as I discovered shortly into our marriage, Reed simply wasn’t the most physical of men. In, out, and all over. To the point, that was Reed. And over the years he’d gradually decreased until I honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a point. Literally.
Of course this night had rather differed from the usual scenario in that the falling asleep in Sam’s arms had been the main event.
Dammit.
I was down a solid two humiliating failures for the day, I thought, slowly raising myself to a sitting position, grateful it was still the dark of night.
“Well, Wanda Jo, when you screw up, you don’t believe in half measures,” I whispered to the empty room, and my head nearly exploded from the sound.
Pain reliever. Must find.
The single, determined thought propelled me, albeit it very slowly, to the bathroom, where I swallowed two extra-strength acetaminophen—dry—before sinking gratefully down to the hopefully non-moving floor below.
How had it all come to this?
Damned if I knew. So I opted for the next best thing—a warm shower and a long mouthwash gargle to hopefully remove the aftertaste of whatever it was that had died in my mouth.
I finished up by donning my most comfortable, over-sized and well-loved, pale blue, cotton nightgown with thin shoulder straps so loose shucking the gown was a possibility if I shrugged one shoulder. Not that this would be a problem—shrugging or not—because even if the gown were to end up a puddle of cotton on the floor, there certainly wouldn’t be anyone around to see it.
An advantage, or disadvantage, depending on viewpoint, of living in the woods.
I felt much better exiting the bathroom than I had entering it. At least physically, that is. Mentally and emotionally I was still a wreck.
What had gone wrong with Mrs. Habersham’s hair color? I asked the question silently for at least the millionth time since it happened.
Naturally I knew how it could have happened—any first time beauty school student, halfway through, knew the theory of basic hair color.
A simple color wheel. I could close my eyes and see the drawing with perfect clarity. Warm tones, such as oranges and reds off to the right, while the cool colors such as blue and green were to the left. Each bottle of hair color was formulated from one or a combination of these base colors.
When mixed, these simple base colors accounted for the wide range of hair color possible in a salon.
Ash colors such as Mrs. Habersham’s were always a cool base—blue mostly, but occasionally green as well. Hers was and had always been blue, just as I’d used today. Both common sense and the law of color were perfectly clear on the matter. Namely, without adding a yellow base, there simply couldn’t be a green result.
Except there had been.
I rubbed my aching temples and sighed, no closer to solving the problem than I had been when Mrs. Habersham slid into her neat green ball beneath my station.
Val and Mitzi, bless them both, had come running before Mrs. Habersham’s operatic brilliance had finished ringing through the clinic. Quick-thinking Val had grabbed my purse and keys, thrusting both into my arms before giving me a quick shove toward the back door with the succinct advice, “Run like hell.”
Simultaneously Mitzi was ringing through to emergency services as she deftly checked, and fortunately found, Mrs. Habersham’s pulse.
My last sight, as I made good with Val’s advice, had been Bitsy Breckenbridge in full-smirking glory, her green eyes glittering with a brilliance only slightly less blinding than Mrs. Habersham’s hair.
As bad as Mrs. H
abersham’s hair had been, I realized this was nothing compared to the real problem at hand. Simply put, if I couldn’t handle a simple retouch, how in the hell was I going to handle the responsibility of salon ownership?
And worse, how was I going to even support Olivia and myself, let alone send her to college in a few short years?
“Shit,” I groaned, lying back across the bed as I mentally re-lived the complete mortification I’d felt that afternoon. The only other singular incident in my life that had come close had been the Reed Trews Insanity Episode of Talk! And that, I discovered as I lay very still with my eyes closed, was small potatoes compared to this big, whopping, green casserole.
I grabbed a pillow, tugging it over my face. I inhaled. Big mistake—or rather I was yet again mistaken. The tree house incident, throwing myself at Sam as I had, definitely outranked all other humiliating life situations I’d so far endured. Combined.
I tossed the pillow aside with equal measures of embarrassment and regret. It took me long enough to truly catch on, but now I had. Sam was absolutely not interested.
Time for a plan. Although nothing came to mind, I did manage to sit up.
Take those victories where you can get them.
A few minutes later, inspiration still hadn’t arrived, so I began to think short term. Very short. Coffee, I found, was the best I could come up with.
“Okay. Sure. Will do. Yep, tomorrow around noon-ish. I’ll tell her.” Sam’s voice carried through the cottage as I approached the kitchen.
Briefly I glanced down at my gown and did a half-turn back toward my room for a robe, then stopped. What did it matter? He clearly wasn’t interested, so I might as well be comfortable. With a tug on my wayward strap, I continued on.
“You bet, hon.”
I held in check the tingle his deep voice brought, remembering the deftness with which he’d pushed aside my unwanted invitation. I concentrated, as I had been most of the evening, on making my feet follow in the direction of the heavenly-smelling, freshly brewed coffee aroma.
As I rounded the corner to the kitchen, Sam switched off his cell phone. “Ah, back to the land of the living?” he asked, not sparing a glance for my attire, or lack thereof.