Delaney knew within moments of sitting down that the latter was the case. There was something wrong with the perfect picture. The conversation during dinner was pleasant on the surface, but a current of tension hid just beneath. Max didn’t seem to notice, but Delaney felt it at the base of her skull. She felt it during the first course and while she ate her mother’s lamb with mint. She smiled and laughed and entertained Max with stories of all the places she’d lived. She knew how to keep up a good front, but by the time she helped carry the dinner plates to the kitchen, her headache had moved to her eyebrows. Maybe with Max there, she could make a quick escape before her head exploded. “Well,” she said as she set the plates next to the sink, “I hate to eat and run, but-”
“Max,” Gwen interrupted, “could you leave us girls alone for a few moments?”
Damn.
“Sure, I’ll go examine those contracts you wanted me to take a look at.”
“Thank you. I won’t be long.”
Gwen waited until she heard the doors of Henry’s office slide closed before she said, “I need to talk to you about your scandalous behavior.”
“What scandalous behavior?”
“Trudie Duran called me this afternoon to inform me that you and Tommy Markham were getting drunk together while his wife was out of town. According to Trudie, everyone at the Shop-n-Kart was talking about it.”
“Who’s Trudie Duran?” Delaney asked, her skull tightening.
“That doesn’t matter! Is it true?”
She folded her arms across her breasts and frowned. “No. I ran into Tommy at Hennesey’s the other night, and we talked for a little bit. Lisa was there most of the time.”
“Well, I’m relieved.” Gwen grabbed a roll of tinfoil and ripped off a long piece. “And then, if that weren’t bad enough, she told me her daughter Gina saw you kissing Nick Allegrezza out on the dance floor.” She calmly set the roll of foil on the counter. “I told her she must be mistaken, because I’m sure you would never do anything so stupid. Tell me she was mistaken.”
“Okay, she was mistaken.”
“Is that the truth?”
Delaney thought about her answer but knew sooner or later the lie would catch up to her. Besides, she wasn’t a little girl who had to fear punishment, and she wasn’t going to allow her mother to treat her like a kid. “No.”
“What where you thinking? My God, that boy and his whole entire family have meant nothing but trouble for us since the moment we arrived in this town. They are rude and jealous. Especially toward you, although Benita has certainly shown me her ugly side on more than one occasion. Have you forgotten what happened ten years ago? Have you forgotten what Nick did? What pain and humiliation he caused all of us?”
“It wasn’t all of us. It was me, and no, I haven’t forgotten. But you’re making a big deal out of absolutely nothing,” she assured her mother, but it hadn’t felt like nothing. “Nothing happened. It was so nothing, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it either.”
“Well, you better think about it. You know how the people of this town love to gossip, especially about us.”
Delaney silently agreed that most everyone in Truly loved to gossip-including Gwen-but she didn’t think the Shaws were singled out any more than others. Juicy gossip got attention, but as always, her mother overestimated her importance in the food chain. “Okay, I’ll think about it.” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her brows.
“I hope you do, and for goodness sake, stay away from Nick Allegrezza.”
Three million dollars, she told herself. I can do this for three million.
“What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”
“It’s just a headache.” She took a deep breath and dropped her hands. “I have to go.”
“Are you sure? Can’t you just stay for tort? I bought it at the Bakery Basket over on Sixth.”
Delaney declined and started down the hall to Henry’s office. She bid Max good night, then grabbed her coat and shoved her arms into the sleeves.
Her mother pushed Delaney’s hands out of the way and buttoned it for her as if she were five again. “I love you, and I worry about you in that little apartment downtown.” Delaney opened her mouth to argue, but Gwen put a restraining finger to her lips. “I know you don’t want to move back here now, but I just want you to know that if you change your mind, I’d love to have you.”
Just when Delaney was convinced her mother was Mommy Dearest, the woman changed. It had always been that way. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Delaney said, hurrying out the door before things changed back again.
Gwen stared at the closed door and sighed. She didn’t understand Delaney. Not at all.
She didn’t understand why her daughter insisted on living in that horrid little apartment when she didn’t have to. She didn’t understand why someone who’d been given so much opportunity had rejected it all for the life of a wandering beautician. And she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed in her, too.
Henry had wanted to give Delaney everything, and she’d thrown it away. All she’d had to do was let him guide her, but Delaney had wanted her freedom. As far as Gwen was concerned, freedom was overrated. It didn’t feed you or your child, and it didn’t take away the fear that gripped your stomach in the middle of the night. Some women could take care of themselves just fine, but Gwen wasn’t one of those women. She needed and wanted a man to take care of her.
The first night she’d met Henry Shaw, she’d known he was just the man for her. Forceful and rich. She’d been shampooing wigs and styling hair on the heads of Las Vegas showgirls, and she’d hated it. After one of the shows, Henry had come to the dressing room of his latest girlfriend and he’d left with Gwen. He’d looked so handsome and so classy. A week later, she married him.
She’d loved Henry Shaw, but more than she’d ever loved him, she’d been grateful. With his help, she lived the life she’d always dreamed. With Henry, the hardest decision she ever had to make was what to serve for dinner and which club to join. Gwen turned and headed down the hall toward Henry’s office. Of course there’d been a tradeoff for all the privileges. Henry had wanted a legitimate child, and when she didn’t conceive, he blamed her. After years of trying, she’d finally convinced him to see a fertility specialist, and just as Gwen had suspected, Henry was virtually infertile. He had a very low sperm count, and of the few he did have, most of those were deformed and sluggish. The diagnosis had insulted and enraged Henry, and he’d wanted to make love all the time just to prove the doctors all wrong. He’d been so bullheaded and so sure he could conceive a child. Of course the doctors hadn’t been wrong. They’d had sex all the time, even when she hadn’t felt like it. But it had never been real bad, and the payback had been worth it. People looked up to her in the community, and she had a life filled with beautiful things.
And then a few years ago, he gave up on the idea of having a child with her. Nick had moved back to town and Henry turned his attention to the child he already had. Gwen didn’t like Nick. She didn’t like that whole family, but she had been grateful when Henry had finally turned his obsession toward his son.
When Gwen entered the room, she found Max standing behind Henry’s desk looking at a few documents sitting on the desk. He looked up and a smile creased the corners of his blue eyes. Silver was just beginning to turn the hair at his temples, and not for the first time lately, she wondered what it would be like to be touched by a man who was closer to her own age. A man as handsome as Max.
“Is Delaney gone?” he asked as he walked around the desk toward her.
“She just left. I worry about her. She’s so aimless, so irresponsible. I don’t think she’ll ever grow up.”
“Don’t worry. She’s a bright girl.”
“Yes, but she’s almost thirty. She’ll-”
Max brushed his index finger across her lips and cheek and silenced her words. “I don’t want to talk about Delaney. She’s a grown woman.
You’ve done your job, now you need to step back and think about something else.”
Gwen’s gaze narrowed. Max didn’t know what he was talking about. Delaney needed her mother’s guidance. She’d lived like a gypsy much too long. “How can you say that? She’s my daughter. How can I possibly not think about her?”
“Think about me instead,” he said as he dipped his head and softly kissed her mouth.
At first, the lips pressed to hers felt foreign. She couldn’t even remember a time when a man other than Henry had kissed her. Max opened his mouth over hers, and she felt the first tentative stroke of his tongue. Pleasure swept across her flesh, and her heart seemed to triple its beat. She’d wanted to know what it felt like to be touched by Max, and now she knew. It felt better than she’d imagined.
On the way home from her mother’s, Delaney stopped at the Value Rite Drug for a bottle of Tylenol, a four-pack of toilet paper, and a packet of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. She threw in two boxes of tampons because they were on sale, then she stopped at the magazine rack. She picked up a slick publication that reeked of perfume and promised to reveal “The Secrets of Men.” She flipped through the pages and tossed it in the cart, planning to read it in the bathtub when she got home. In aisle four she threw in a scented candle, and when she headed down aisle five toward the checkout, she practically ran over Helen Markham.
Helen looked tired, and by the hate glaring from her eyes, she’d obviously heard the latest.
Delaney almost felt sorry for her. Helen’s life couldn’t be easy, and Delaney figured she had two choices: make her old enemy squirm, or let her off the hook. “I hope you don’t believe the gossip about me and Tommy,” she said. “It’s not true.”
“Stay away from my husband. He doesn’t want you coming on to him anymore.”
So much for trying to be nice. “I never came on to Tommy.”
“You’ve always been jealous of me. Always, and now you think you can take my husband, but it won’t work.”
“I don’t want your husband,” she said, excruciatingly aware of the two boxes of tampons in her cart, like one wouldn’t be enough.
“You’ve wanted him since we were in high school. You never could stand that he chose me.”
Delaney’s gaze swept the contents of Helen’s cart. A bottle of Robitusson, tweezers, a jumbo pack of Stay-free, and a box of Correctol. Delaney smiled, feeling a slight advantage. Feminine hygiene and laxative. “He only chose you because I wouldn’t sleep with him, and you know it. Everyone knew it then, and everyone knows it now. If you hadn’t acted like a Sealy Posturepedic, he wouldn’t have gone to bed with you.”
“You’re pathetic, Delaney Shaw. You always have been. Now you think you can come back, take away my husband and my business.”
“I told you I don’t want Tommy.” She pointed her finger at Helen and leaned forward. “But watch out because I am going to take your business.” Her smile conveyed a smugness she didn’t feel as she pushed her cart past Helen toward the front of the store. So much for ending the hair war. She was going to kick Helen’s butt.
Delaney’s hands shook as she set her purchases on the checkout counter. They were still shaking as she drove home and when she placed her key in the lock to her apartment door. She turned on the ten o’clock news for noise and dumped out her shopping bag on the counter in her kitchen. The day had started out okay, but had gone to hell in a hurry. First her mother, then Helen. Gossip about her was burning up the phone lines of Truly, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Her head pounded like it was going to explode, and she downed four Tylenols. This was Tommy’s fault-and Nick’s. She’d been minding her own business when both men had approached her. If they’d left her alone, tonight wouldn’t have happened. She wouldn’t have had to defend herself to her mother, and she’d wouldn’t have had it out with Helen in the Value Rite.
Delaney grabbed her magazine, then headed for the bathroom and filled the tub. As soon as she’d peeled to her skin, she sank into the warm water. A shudder worked its way up her spine, and she sighed. She tried to read, but her mind raced with ways to steal Helen’s business. She wondered if Tommy, the dog, had really told his wife that Delaney had “come on” to him, but she guessed it really didn’t matter.
The thoughts spinning in her head turned to Nick and the rumors. It was starting again. Ten years ago, the two of them had been a hot topic, apparently even after she’d left town. She didn’t want to be linked with Nick. She didn’t want to be viewed as one of his women. And she probably wouldn’t be if he hadn’t dragged her out on the dance floor and kissed her until she felt it clear to the soles of her feet. With very little effort, he’d made her heart race and her body tingle. She didn’t know why Nick of all men could turn her inside out with just a kiss, but she obviously wasn’t alone. There were Gail and Lonna Howell, and those were just two that she knew about.
She turned to an article in her magazine on pheromones and the powerful effect they had on the opposite sex. If what she read was true, Nick had more than his share. He was the pied piper of pheromones, and Delaney was just another susceptible rat.
She stayed in the tub until the water turned cold before she got out and dressed for bed in a flannel nightshirt and thick socks that reached her knees. She set her alarm for eight-thirty, then slid beneath her new thick duvet. She tried to clear her head of Nick and Tommy, Gwen and Helen, but after three hours of watching the digital clock tick off the minutes, she went to her medicine cabinet and looked for anything to help her sleep. All she had was a bottle of Nyquil she’d moved with her from Phoenix. She took a couple of slugs and finally drifted to sleep.
But she found no rest in her sleep. She dreamed of being stuck in Truly for life. Time stood still. The days refused to progress. The calendar was forever stuck on May thirty-first. There was no way out.
When Delaney woke, it was to a pounding in her head and the buzzing of her alarm clock. She felt relieved to be wakened from her nightmare. She hit the off button on her clock and closed her eyes. The pounding continued and she realized that it wasn’t in her head, but on her front door. Groggy from lack of sleep and the big slugs of Nyquil, she stumbled into the living room. With her socks around her ankles, she yanked open the door. Immediately she threw her arm up like a vampire, protecting her eyes from the morning sun burning her corneas. Through her squint and the haze clogging her vision, she watched a slow grin tilt Nick Allegrezza’s mouth. Cold air hit her face and nearly took her breath away. “What do you want?” she wheezed.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
He did that laughing at her thing again and she slammed the door. Nick was the very last person she wanted to see right now.
His laughter continued as he hollered out, “I need the key to the back door of your salon.”
“Why?”
“I thought you wanted the locks changed.”
Chapter Nine
Delaney stared at the closed door for several heartbeats. No way was she going to open it again. She’d vowed to stay away from Nick. He was nothing but trouble, and she was pretty sure she had a bad case of bed head. But she did want new locks. “I’ll leave the keys in your office later,” she yelled.
“I’m busy later. It’s now or next week, wild thing.”
She yanked the door open again and glared at the disgustingly handsome man standing there with his hair pulled back and hands in the pockets of his biker’s jacket. “I told you not to call me that!”
“That’s right, you did,” he said, walking past her into the apartment as if he owned the place, bringing the smell of autumn and leather.
Cold air swirled about Delaney’s shins and up her nightshirt, reminding her that she wasn’t dressed for company, but she wasn’t exactly showing anything, either. She shivered and shut the door. “Hey, I didn’t invite you in.”
“But you wanted to,” he said as he unzipped the big silver teeth of his jacket.
Her brows drew together
and she shook her head. “No, I didn’t.” Suddenly her apartment seemed so small. He filled it with his size, the scent of his skin, and his massive machismo.
“And now you want to make coffee, too.” He wore a gray and blue plaid flannel. Flannel shirts were obviously a big staple in his wardrobe. And Levi’s. Soft Levi’s, worn at interesting places.
“Are you always this cranky in the morning?” he asked, his gaze scanning the apartment, taking in everything. Her boots lying on the worn beige carpet. The old appliances in the kitchen. The two boxes of tampons on the counter.
“No,” she snapped. “I’m usually very pleasant.”
His gaze returned to her, and he cocked his head to one side. “Bad hair day?”
Delaney put a hand to the side of her head and stifled a groan. “I’ll get the key,” she said as she walked into the kitchen and grabbed her purse. She pulled out her “Names to Take, Butts to Kick” key ring. When she turned around, Nick was so close she jumped back and her behind hit the cabinets. She stared at his hand, thrust toward her. His long blunt fingers, the lines and calluses in his palm. A silver zipper closed his black leather sleeve from elbow to wrist. The aluminum tab lay across the heel his hand.
“Where are the closest outlets to your doors?”
“What?”
“The electrical outlets in your salon.”
She dropped the keys into his palm then squeezed past him. “By the cash register in front, and behind the microwave in the storeroom.” And because he looked liked a breathing fantasy, and she was sure she looked horrible, she snapped, “Don’t touch anything.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” he called out to her as she practically ran down the hall. “Give myself a perm?”
“I never know what you’re going to do,” she said and shut the bedroom door behind her. She looked in the mirror above her dresser and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she cried. She had bed head all right. The back was flat; the front fuzzy. She had a pillowcase crease on her right cheek, and a black smudge beneath her eye. She’d answered the door looking like one of those blurry eyed people who’d survived a natural disaster. Worse, she’d answered the door looking like crap with Nick standing on the other side.
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